"Admirably," Chalmers assured her. Most of the vessel was open, with two small stretches of deck fore and aft. Most of it was given over to cargo space, with an open, pitlike hold that was devoted to the amphorae. The ship was ballasted with sand and the wine jars were stuck by their pointed bottoms into the sand, where they were securely held.
"It won't be as comfortable as the town house in Troy, I'm afraid, but I hope you won't be too distressed." She smiled sunnily, revealing teeth slightly more gapped than her husband's.
"The destruction of your city must have been a terrible shock for you," Chalmers said solicitously.
"Oh, I didn't live there all that long. Dear Achates acquired me when he and his friends sacked my father's citadel. It was a great bother, but that's the way heroes are, you know."
"And what a lucky man he was," Shea said gallantly.
"I've always thought so. Now, dear Mr. Chalmers, will you be making more of that divine wine for us?"
"I fear I cannot," Chalmers said. "There are, let us say, diplomatic reasons that forbid it. But what is left in the amphora I transformed should last a long time, since it can be so heavily diluted."
"Oh, splendid! It was so nice to have the boys pleasantly drunk for a change. And not a trace of hangover afterward! Well, you two make yourselves comfortable. I must go now and undo whatever it is my husband's done."
Like the others, their ship was beautiful but of alarmingly light and flimsy construction. Since the ships were usually dragged up on shore at night, they could not be too heavy.
"It's hard to believe they propose to sail these things all over the Mediterranean," Shea said. "When Aeneas talked about building a fleet, I pictured something like those massive galleys in Ben Hur."
"Such ships probably never existed," Chalmers told him, "except perhaps as harbor defense vessels, or specially built craft for storming port defenses. The galleys of antiquity had to be built as light as racing sculls. Even the Roman triremes would look flimsy to modern eyes."
"If you say so."
Trumpets announced the time to sail. The sacrifices were done, the omens taken, and there was nothing left to do but haul the ships down to the water. This was accomplished with a great deal of grunting and groaning, and then the ships were afloat. They ran out oars and assembled a quarter mile offshore and the order was given to hoist sail. Halyards strained, yards rose up the masts, and the sails bellied out with the late-morning breeze. There was a great deal of weeping at this leavetaking, for the refugees knew they would never see their native land again. Slowly, majestically, the fleet began to sail north.
"Why north?" Shea asked. He stood in the bow of the wineship with Chalmers, Achates and Harmonia.
"Why north?" Achates said in a conversational tone. "Why north? Because that's the way the bloody wind's blowing!" By the last word, his voice reached its accustomed shriek. "Perhaps you want us to sail south when the wind's coming from that direction? You want us to defy the gods by sailing against the wind, is that it? That's the way the gods let you know where they want you to go, after all. You raise your sails and they blow you where they want you to go! Oh, I suppose we could be like bloody Agamemnon and sacrifice a princess or two for the wind of our choice, but as it happens we're fresh out of princesses. Lord Aeneas has just the one boy, and he's not about to sacrifice him so that some silly little twit of a foreigner can have a wind that blows from a less southerly direction!" He seemed on the point of collapsing from apoplexy, his face turning scarlet between the cheekplates of his helmet and his horsehair crest quivering with rage.
"Remind me not to ask again," Shea said.
"Lovely day, isn't it?" Harmonia commented.
"Yes, it is, dear, quite," said Achates, perfectly calm.
Their prow divided the water cleanly, sending up twin fans of spray. As they reached the deeper water the color of the sea grew strangely dark, with violet undertones. Shea commented on this phenomenon.
"A holdover from Homer," Chalmers told him. "This is the famous 'wine-dark sea'." Dolphins frolicked alongside the ship, and occasionally they saw tritons, fishtailed and bearded with seaweed, rise to the surface. Aboard the flagship, they saw Aeneas leaning over the rail to confer with a triton. Apparently, he was asking directions.
That night they hauled their ships ashore, built fires and ate; frugally before rolling into their blankets to sleep. The next day they made landfall on a stretch of rolling coastland. Aeneas announced that he would go ashore to test the omens. It looked, he said, like a promising place to found a city.
"Oh, I hope not," Harmonia said. "This is Thrace. The people here arc such savages. She stayed aboard ship and tended to her embroidery, but Shea and Chalmers went ashore with the rest of the men.
"Thrace?" Shea said. "It didn't take very long to get here."
"This is an epic poem," Chalmers informed him. "It skips over the long, dull stretches."
Slaves manhandled a bull off one of the livestock ships and brought it, protesting, ashore. Aeneas was thumbing the edge of his knife. It was sacrifice time again. Men were piling rocks for an altar.
"You two," Aeneas said, beckoning to Shea and Chalmers. They came running. "We must have a bower for the altar. Today I sacrifice to my divine mother and other gods for their blessing upon a work begun. Go to yonder hillock," he pointed toward the intended terrain feature, "and bring me shoots of cornel and myrtle."
"Ave, ave, sir," Shea said. They tramped up the hillock and stood among the slender saplings.
"Do you know which are cornel and which are myrtle?" Shea asked.
"I doubt that anyone will notice," Chalmers said. "Let's just pull up a few of these and take them to the beach."
Shea stooped and grasped a sapling about a foot from the ground. With both feet braced, he hauled on it. There was a slight, strange give, then, shockingly, a loud groan sounded from beneath the ground.
"What the hell? Reed, what was that?" At that moment Chalmers tugged another sapling, and this brought an even louder groan.
"I think we are dealing with something very bad here," Chalmers said. "I suggest we pass this on to the authorities." They went back to the beach and found Aeneas conferring with his captains.
"My lord," Chalmers said, "we've run into difficulty getting you the wood for the bower."
"Difficulty?" Achates barked. "Is pulling up a few weeds beyond you? I mean, what's the problem? Granted you two are spindly as reeds, but you ought to be up to ..." Aeneas signaled him to silence.
"These are my wine stewards, old friend. Let them speak."
"Absolutely, m'lord. Perfectly understood."
"When we tried to pull up some saplings," Shea said, "a loud groan came from beneath the ground. It sounded human."
"This is truly an omen," Aeneas said. "Let us go and investigate it." They tramped to the knoll and Aeneas selected a sapling. He pulled one-handed and the sapling came up reluctantly. The groan was alarmingly loud this time. The root tangle came free with a repulsive ripping, popping sound. He held it up for inspection. The root mass was covered with blackish goo and half-congealed blood dripped from it.
"Oooohh, gross!" said someone at the back of the crowd.
Aeneas tried another sapling: same groan, same blood. Being a man who always did things by threes, he tried again: groan, blood, and this time a sob. Then a voice sounded from deep below.
"Is that you, Aeneas?" said the sepulchral voice.
"I know that voice," Aeneas said. "Polydorus?"
"That is who I am, or at least, was. I'm dead now. Priam sent me north with a chest of gold to bribe the king of Thrace to come to Troy's aid. He killed me and took the gold instead. His men pinned me here with spears and the shafts took root."