"She'd have been wed by now," her mother said wistfully, "but that awful Diomedes hewed her betrothed asunder."
While the assembly maintained silence, Chalmers took the girl by the hand and led her to one of the carcasses, which still sizzled on its spit, a horrid sight and a worse smell. Shea stood by with the oil and wine. Chalmers raised his face to the skies and intoned:
"Oh, divine Hygeia, also known as Salus, daughter of the splendid Aesculapius and goddess of health, by these tokens of purity, I call upon you to restore this unnaturally corrupted flesh to wholesomeness, for which favor we will raise a shrine in your honor upon this spot, and our prince, the noble Aeneas, will establish your worship in far, barbaric Italy."
He nodded to Shea. Ceremoniously, Shea poured some of the oil onto the carcass, then some of the wine. Chalmers held the girl's hand out toward the carcass.
"Now, my dear, you must touch it."
The girl wrinkled her nose. "Oooohhh! It's nasty!"
"Nevertheless, it is necessary."
With great reluctance, the girl extended her hand, then brushed her fingertips against the flesh for an instant, snatching her hand back as quickly as she could. Little brown fingerprints appeared where her fingers had touched, and the brown swiftly spread over the carcass, eliminating the decayed flesh in less than a minute. Even the rips and gouges made by the harpies had disappeared.
"Aaaaahhhhhh!" went the crowd.
They went from one carcass to another, repeating the ritual. The girl had lost all her reluctance and delighted in all the attention she was getting. Her mother looked fit to burst with pride. Within minutes, all had been restored and the stench of decay had vanished as if it had never been.
There was great rejoicing and congratulation, Chalmers and Shea being on the receiving end of a large amount of back-slapping. This was a perilous thing when the back-slappers were heroes. The interrupted banquet resumed.
With a pleasantly full stomach, Harold took a walk along the beach. The night was graced with a full moon. A few Nereids splashed in the shallows, playing strange music on conch shells. He paused when he saw a bulky figure seated on a rock, chin in hand. Then he recognised Aeneas. The hero seemed uncharacteristically melancholy.
"Is everything all right, m'lord?" Shea asked.
Aeneas noticed him for the first time. "Ah, friend Shea. I cannot thank you enough for salvaging this night's feast. And perhaps my leadership as well."
"Surely the confidence of your followers in your leadership is unshaken, my lord!"
"Would that it were so." Aeneas sighed deeply. "But heroes are a fractious lot at the best of times. One can keep their esteem while the favor of the gods holds out, but let the immortals indicate disfavor, and the doubt sets in. Even now, they grumble in discontent, and each thinks himself a worthier leader than I. Why have the gods forsaken me, Harold Shea? Why do they lead me this weary chase instead of speaking forth plainly?"
It was unsettling to see the leader and foremost hero subject to self-doubt. It was positively un-Homeric. He sought words to comfort a hero. What would such a man find bracing and reassuring in a time of trial? Then he hit upon the perfect formula. He put a hand on the leader's armored shoulder.
"Lord Aeneas," Shea said, "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."
Slowly, Aeneas turned his head and looked Shea in the eyes. Even sitting he had to look down slightly.
"A man's gotta ... say, I like that. Priam himself never said anything wiser." He rose from his rock. "You have done me another great favor, Harold Shea. I shall not forget it." He walked back toward the campsite, whispering to himself. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. A man's gotta ..."
The Storm blew for days. At first Shea and Chalmers were terrified that their fragile ship would sink, them they were too seasick to care. The voyage seemed to be lasting forever, and they were no nearer to finding Florimel than when they landed in the Aeneid.
From the island of the harpies they had sailed past a whole archipelago of Achaean islands where they dared not put in. Sailing past Ithaca, home of the detested Ulysses, they had jeered and thumbed their noses, but had kept their distance. In one land they visited with some fellow Trojan refugees. Considering the scale of the destruction, it seemed that an inordinate number of survivors had escaped. Chalmers explained that this was clue to the- Hellenistic fad for tracing every city-state's origins to a Homeric hero. Greece and the eastern Mediterranean were home to the Achaean heroes, so the west had to be settled by fleeing Trojans.
On Sicily they had sighted a whole tribe of cyclopes, including the now-blind Polyphemus himself. In Drepahum they had cremated and buried Anchises, amid much extravagant mourning and sacrifice. It seemed that the old boy was not fated to see his son's new city after all.
In the end, the storm abated and they were down to seven ships. One had been seen foundering but the others, it was hoped, might just be scattered. At last, they made landfall. They were not sure of their location, but it seemed to be somewhere in Libya.
They staggered ashore and hauled up the ships, stern-first, on the sand. Everything they had was drenched, so they emptied the holds and spread their belongings out to dry. Then they flopped wearily onto the beach.
"Achates," Aeneas called out, "start us a fire, will you? Then we must see about a sacrifice."
"You and you," Achates said, pointing in turn to Chalmers and Shea, "go fetch me some kindling." As they gathered twigs and dry grass, they heard him muttering to himself. "Give us a fire, Achates. Must be all I'm good for. Could've told any slave to do this, but no, we must have good old Achates to fix us up a fire, mustn't we? Just because his mother's a goddess ..." and so on. The fact was, Achates had an uncanny knack with flint and steel (another advantage, Chalmers pointed out, of being in a Virgilian, rather than an Homeric, epic. You couldn't get a fire started with flint and bronze.) With the kindling gathered. Achates had a flame going quicker than the Americans could have accomplished with a Zippo.
"Achates," Aeneas called.
Achates muttered, "Now what the bloody hell does he want?" but aloud he said, "Yes, my lord?"
"Fetch my bow and arrows. We must find some food before these people starve. And send someone out to get us some sacrificial beasts. We need a white goat and a black one."
"At once, my lord." Achates smiled. "That's more like it. A bit of hunting, just dear Prince Aeneas and his beloved companion Achates. You noticed he didn't ask any of the Others to go with him, didn't you, dear?"
"I noticed, love," Harmonia said, already at work on her damp embroidery.
"You two," Achates once again pointed to Shea and Chalmers, "have been lying about too long. Go find us a white goat and a black one."
"Goats?" Shea said, instantly regretting it.
"Oh, yes, goats. You know what goats are, don't you? Wooly things? Bad smell? Go 'bleat'? Two of them, eh? One white, one black? Is that difficult? I mean, IS THAT SO BLOODY DIFFICULT?" Achates' raging shriek caused pebbles to fall from a nearby bluff.
"Got you, boss," Shea said hastily.
"Now where are we going to find a white goat and a black one?" Shea asked when the two were gone.
"I suppose we could go searching in the hills," Chalmers said despondently. "Wild goats seem to thrive everywhere. I might be able to come up with a magical lure.
"Oh, sit down, you two," Harmonia said. "Just relax for a while. Look around you. This is inhabited country. You can see fields and vineyards from here. Sooner or later a goatherd will come along and we'll just buy a pair from him. Half a jar of wine will buy as fine a pair as you could ask for in the colors of your choice, with a couple of pounds of goat cheese thrown in."