"And American soldiers complain that their officers get too many privileges!"
"Ah, yes, I suppose so. Anyway, there were smaller magics sometimes practiced in the classical world, and some of these used the principles with which we are familiar; affinity, sympathy, contagion and so forth. I may be able to accomplish something minor but impressive."
"Maybe you could whip up some soap," Shea said hopefully.
"I could do that without magic, I think. All you need is animal fat and wood ash, although I'm not truly certain of the process. My grandmother used to make soft soap on her farm. The magic would be in getting these people to use it."
"I guess so. The way they nib themselves with olive oil and scrape it off ... well, it gets the worst off, but it sure doesn't make them smell much better. It distressed Shea that even the most spectacularly beautiful noble ladies always trailed a scent of rancid oil.
At least he had that to salve his vanity. People of the heroic age could bruise the twentieth century ego. The nobles were gigantic and beautiful. The yeomen, craftsmen and other freemen were large and handsome. Even the slaves were bigger and better looking than the average modem American. Shea had never considered himself a vain man, but he had never thought of himself as both small and ugly. Activity near the shore caught his attention.
"There they go again," Shea said. "Sacrificing another bull, looking for omens." These people seemed to spend half their time on the lookout for omens. "They went over a calf's liver yesterday and the omens were fine. If that foretells a good voyage, why do it all over again?"
"That isn't how it works." Chalmers told him. "Omens, auguries, haruspices and the like don't foretell the future. That's a confusion with the sort of biblical prophecy that entered our culture after Virgil's time."
"If they aren't reading the future," Shea said, exasperated, "then what is all this rigamarole about?"
"The gods are fickle, even childish, remember?" Chalmers said, patiently. "They can change their minds. When the omens are taken regarding an enterprise, they indicate the will of the gods at that time. Things can always change. The idea is to keep testing the weather, find the prevailing trend of divine thought, and start out on the right note."
"That seems awfully uncertain."
Chalmers shrugged. "No more so than the stock market."
That evening there was a banquet. Somehow, refugees in this mythos seemed to live better than their twentieth-century counterparts. Due to the cunning of Prometheus, the gods got only the fat and bones of the sacrifice. The worshippers got everything else. Another good reason for so many sacrifices, Shea thought, his mouth watering at the smells wafting from the fire-pit. Some traveling entertainers had chanced by and were performing acrobatics and juggling for the feast-ers as they waited for the viands to cook. In the hospitable Trojan fashion, other travellers, going up or down the coastal road, had been invited to partake.
All took their seats on the beach in strict order of precedence, with Anchises and Aeneas at one end, Shea and Chalmers very near the other, just above the slaves.
"Got your magic ready?" Shea whispered.
"I believe so," Chalmers said, uncertainly. "If this were the genuine Homeric world I would be in despair, but Virgil lived after the great age of Greek logic. It was from this that our scientific method and symbolic logic were derived. Even though these people are the near-barbaric characters of Homer, this continuum should be infused with the rigor of Greek logic."
"That sounds logical. No pun intended, of course. When do we pull it?"
"After the banqueting, when everyone is jovial and well-disposed. That's when the serious drinking starts."
The slaves and children began to serve the sacrificial meat. Like the heroes of Norse myth, these people seemed to live on little else, although to Shea's relief they would set out bread, fruit and cheese for any who craved such common fare. The upper end got served first, and they tore into it without waiting for the rest.
A boy staggering under the weight of a wine jar filled Harold's wooden bowl, using a bronze ladle. He took a swig and made a face. It was thin, sour stuff, resinous from the pitch-caulked cask in which it had aged and salty from the seawater that had washed out the cask. It was also weak, since it had been cut with at least four parts of water.
"How do they ever manage to get drunk on this swill?" he asked Chalmers.
"The heroes get better wine," Chalmers said. "But even what they have is poor wine by our standards. It's drunk green, before it can go sour, at which time it's passed along to the lowborn."
"Here comes the grub!" said a shipwright who sat to Harold's left. A team of slaves walked down the line bearing a stretcherlike serving platter, from which a serving girl hooked slabs of meat with a fork. Before the Americans and the shipwright she laid a smoking rack of pork ribs. Shea's salivary glands went into overdrive at the smell. He tore a rib loose and ripped off chunks of stringy meat with his teeth. It had been sauced with something sweetly pungent. It was not quite barbecue, but it was close enough.
"Look at them nobles," groused the shipwright. "Eatin' all the best parts while we're left with the offal."
"They're getting the prime rib and sirloin, eh?" Shea looked toward the head of the "table" and saw, to his amazement, that Aeneas was carving on a smoking ox head. He sliced a gristly hunk of flesh from the jaw and ceremoniously presented it to his father. Anchises thanked him courteously, stuck the tough plug into his mouth and gnawed at it with teeth that were no longer what they had been.
"That's what they consider gourmet eating?" Shea said, incredulously.
"They have no way of knowing that spare ribs are a delicacy to us," Chalmers said. "After all, not so long ago in America, pork ribs were slave food. The masters ate the hams and chops, the slaves got the ribs and trotters. Barbecued spare ribs are one of those triumphs of culinary ingenuity, like oxtail soup."
"Let's not clue them in," Shea advised.
"Your pardon," said a man who sat across from them, "but did you gentlemen happen to witness the fall of the great city?" He was one of the invited travellers, a merchant of some sort, whose tunic and robe were of decent quality but stained with much travel.
"We saw the final night," Chalmers told him. "Have you just learned of it, sir?"
"That is so. I am Pierus, a traveller in fine cloths dyed with Tyrian purple."
"Another anachronism," Chalmers muttered to Shea. "Homer knew about Sidon, not about Tyre."
"Eh?" the merchant said.
Shea made a throat-clearing sound "Ah, you asked about the fall of Troy. As it happens, we were in the city on its very last night." He went on to give a brief description of what they had seen and what they had learned from the refugees.
"How splendid!" the merchant said. "Heroes, gods, a long war ended by a subtle stratagem." He slapped his knee. "Wait until my customers hear about this! I'll bet we get a few good songs out of this one!"
"Undoubtedly," Chalmers said. "Do you travel widely?"
"Wherever there's a demand for Tyrian purple, which is to say everyplace. Can't have royalty without purple, and the world is crawling with royalty. The temples need it, too, robes for the gods and that sort of thing. Why, I was just at the sanctuary Ismaros ..."
"Ismaros?" Shea asked.
"Yes. That's an island up near Ciconian territory, Thrace, you know. The sanctuary of Phoebus Apollo needed a full-length robe for the god, heavily embroidered with gold. Biggest sale I ever made."
"Ismaros!" Chalmers said.
"That's what I said: Ismaros."
"Does the priest there dwell in a sacred grove?" Chalmers had, Shea thought, an odd gleam in his eye.