One team operated a contraption that looked like six giant crossbows yoked together. It looked ridiculous, but with a startling crash it shot six heavy javelins across the field to smash through a formation of wicker dummies. The machine rocked with the violence of its discharge, and some of the spears went through four or more of the dummies before slowing down.
On another part of the field men worked at a huge, counterweighted catapult with a long, cranelike arm terminating in a sling instead of the usual basket. Soldiers placed a ponderous stone in the sling and stood back. At a shouted signal the counterweight dropped and the long arm swept through a graceful arc. It stopped against a rope-padded horizontal bar and the sling whipped around in an ever-accelerating half-circle and its free end released, hurling the stone an unbelievable height and distance, so far that we did not hear its crashing fall.
There were more conventional-looking weapons as well, moving tortoises slung with battering rams, their heads actually cast in the shape of bronze ram heads with curling horns: giant augurs to bore through walls; small, fast-firing catapults for rocks and javelins; and many others. But the centerpiece, dwarfing all the others, was the tower.
It was at least two hundred feet high, and completely plated with iron. That was the reason for its strange ruddy gleam. At various levels balconies protruded from the main structure, equipped with catapults protected by movable shields. Once in a while a plate would swing forward and up from the forward face and a missile would arch out, after which the plate immediately dropped.
"That," I said, "to answer your earlier question, is something very like the 'city-taker' of Demetrius the Besieger. It was the biggest siege tower ever built, and I think this one may be even bigger."
Then, amid a hideous groaning and squealing, the colossal thing began to move. Slowly, painfully, it lurched forward a foot at a time as the men inside it and atop it cheered. Of course, one expects siege towers to move, else they would be of little use, but they are always pushed by oxen or elephants or at least a crowd of slaves or prisoners. But this outrageous device moved with no visible means of propulsion. Besides, there was something unnatural about anything so large moving at all. If I had not already been as low as I could get, my jaw would have dropped.
"Magic!" Hermes squealed. He tried to get up, but I grabbed his shoulder and held him fast.
"It's not magic, you young idiot! It's driven by some sort of inner mechanism, a windlass or capstan of some sort, a thing of gears and wheels and teeth. I was studying drawings of such things just last night."
Actually, I had only the vaguest idea of what it might be. Even the simplest waterwheel seemed intolerably complex to me. Still, I preferred to think that there was some mechanical explanation. I had only the most minimal belief in magic and the supernatural. Besides, if the Egyptians possessed magic so powerful, how would we manipulate them so easily?
A trumpet sounded and all the soldier-engineers dropped their tools and left their engines. The duty day was over. Perhaps twenty men filed out of the tower. Last of all came about thirty oxen from the interior. Then a gang of slaves went in with baskets and shovels to clean up after the oxen. So much for magic.
"Seen enough?" Hermes asked.
"Our boatman won't be back for us until tomorrow. I want a closer look. Let's go back to the orchard. It will be dark enough soon." We reversed our earlier progress, slithering rearwards until we were safely among the trees.
Two hours later, we passed through the grass again, walking this time, but crouched low. Slowly and with great caution, we made our way to the edge of the parade ground. Had this been a Roman encampment, we would have been challenged by sentries, but these were barbarians, lazy and incompetent, for whom soldiering was scarcely more professional than the tribal warrioring of their native lands. That they were within their own territory with no enemy for a thousand miles was no excuse. The legions fortify every camp even if they are within sight of the walls of Rome. Still, it was convenient for us.
The machines stood like dead monsters in the moonlight as we walked up to them. They were made of wood that had been painstakingly cut and shaped, then sanded smooth and in some cases painted. War engines are usually built at the site of a siege and are made of rough-hewn wood and are often abandoned when the fighting is over, after the ironmongery and the ropes have been salvaged.
Even with my inexperienced eye, I could see that these machines were held together by pins and wedges, so that they could be disassembled for transport. That, I guessed, was an innovation of Iphicrates. Egypt has little native wood save for palm, a soft and fibrous material unsuitable for such work. All of this wood had to be imported, shiploads of it.
We walked to the base of the tower, which gave off a powerful, disagreeable smell.
"What's that stink?" Hermes asked.
"It takes a lot of oil to keep this much iron from rusting," I told him. "There's enough here to make armor for three legions." I fingered a plate that had pulled a little loose from the frame. It was good metal, about the thickness of body armor. I walked up the back ramp and looked inside, but it was far too dark to see, only a little moonlight coming through the ports that had been left open. Despite the efforts of the slaves, the interior smelled strongly of oxen. This, mixed with the stench of rancid olive oil, finally drove me away.
The other machines told me little more. They were all as ingeniously designed and lovingly built. I assumed that the more commonplace machines all incorporated some improvement of Iphicrates's design, if only in their ease of transport and reassembly.
"What do we do now?" Hermes asked as I stepped off the ramp.
"We could have a look at those buildings," I said, "but they're probably just barracks and storerooms. Whatever is going on is happening in Alexandria. This is just a training facility and arsenal." I thought for a while. "It might be fun to set fire to all this."
"Let's do it!" I could hear the grin in his voice. "I could sneak a torch from one of those buildings, and there must be plenty of oil jars in the storehouses to keep all this metal greased. We could have everything alight before they know what's going on!" Arson was an unthinkable crime in Rome, so it was one he might never get a chance to commit at home.
"But then they'd sweep the area to find the culprits. They may not be much as soldiers, but they probably know how to make a search for fugitives."
"Maybe we'd better not, then."
"And I might need all this as evidence."
"Evidence of what?"
It was a good question. Rome would look with great disfavor upon this development, but would the Senate take action? I rather doubted it. And what had it all to do with the murder of Iphicrates? With these questions unanswered, we made our stealthy way back to the lakeside.