a swan.) “But what about Mother?”
“Ah,” said Aeneas. “She was the rare exception, and her beauty was in her heart as well as her face.” Aeneas had wanted to be a wandering bard, but princes were trained to fight and rule. Nevertheless, he sang as sweetly as Orpheus, and he won a bride who loved him for his lyre, instead of his sword. (Ascanius saw that his father had saved the lyre from the storm; he was pleased; it would cheer him until they found the queen.)
“Papa?”
“Yes, Little Bear?”
“Will we meet again in Elysium? You and mother and I?”
“I have no doubt of it.” It was not a lie which adults tell children; Aeneas never lied; it was the truth which sustained him in what he called his remembering times.
“It’s a very long wait, however. Couldn’t you ravish a maiden along the way? If you won’t take another wife—”
“My crew has been talking again, Little Bear. Such matters are not for your ears.”
“But I love their talk! It’s so—salty. I take it they do such things without a second thought, and so could you. When maidens are spoils of war, they expect as much. They rather enjoy themselves, I am told.” Ascanius paused. “Or you could make do with Achates. After all, Achilles had Patroclus. Of course he ravished the ladies, too. The point is, he never couched alone.” Ascanius thought that to couch meant to share your covers for warmth and conversation.
“It’s time to explore.” (Aeneas hid a smile; no, he attempted to hide. Ascanius knew him like an open scroll.)
It was hard to raise a father without any help or advice. He loved the man. Grandmother, how he loved the man! He would have died for him, in the storm or a Harpy’s claws. Still, Aeneas was difficult. Not that he beat his men or neglected his son. At times he ought to beat the lazier men (though never neglect his son). Aeneas, hero of Troy, needed protection from his innocence. He would rather forgive an enemy than slit his throat. Achilles had fought for glory; Agamemnon for power. Aeneas had fought for his wife and son (and a kindly if lustful king, and a queen who had been a splendor of motherhood). If a virgin offered herself, he gave her a gift and sent her home to her family. After seven years, he could not forget Creusa, the bride of his youth.
“Yes,” said Ascanius. “We shall certainly have to find the beautiful widow Dido.”
At least the coast seemed lush and hospitable (if you ignored the stark inland peaks, which might have been Harpy-haunted from their look). Wild orange trees wafted their fragrance from white, diminutive blossoms. Palm trees resembled temple maidens; long, bending bodies, green tresses outcombed like those of an Egyptian wig. Fields of alfa grasses and emma wheat softened the steppes of chalk and marl, which climbed into the uninviting peaks. Monkeys chattered among the branches or peered around the trunks (and other creatures without a name…something…a fat little dwarf it seemed, with furry ears…only Ascanius saw him. Better to keep such sightings to himself! Little boys were sometimes accused of tales.)
Strange to find monster tracks in such a beautiful land. (Monoceros tracks? He knew of no larger beast.) Bushes had clearly been jerked from the ground by their roots, their leaves strewn randomly over the ground. The paths, which led from the sea, seemed heavily trodden by many beasts. Piles of dung lay at frequent intervals, and a musky scent in the air did not come from flowers or shrubs.
They were quick to encounter a maker of the paths. An enormous creature approached them, swaying and shaking his head from side to side, a sort of walking earthquake, Ascanius thought, as he felt a tremor and heard a reverberation. Its back was slightly arched and its ears were as big as Achilles’ shield, and it had a—a—
“Papa, is that a beak?”
“It’s called a trunk,” said Aeneas, who had never seen an elephant, but heard that Egyptians used them in work and war.
“Does he use it to breathe?”
“And also like an arm.”
“I hope he won’t pick me up.” Ascanius, being a handsome boy with hair as yellow as daisy hearts and eyes which put the murex dye to shame, had endured the coddlings and, until he had recently grown too large, the liftings of well-intentioned females throughout their flight from Troy (“poor motherless lad”). He liked affection, but pounces from strangers were meant for little girls.
“Here, stand behind me, Son.”
The elephant clearly had not come to greet the men.
Bypassing father and son, he attacked the ship with his trunk and his powerful feet.
“He knows the Bear’s alive! Bear is already hurt, and the elephant’s making him worse.”
“He wants to remove our means of escape.”
“Then, he will see to us,” Achates called from the shaking deck.
“Harpies, storms, now an el—elefoot.” The other men clung to the benches or the stump of the broken mast.
“Elephant,” corrected Ascanius. “Well, I shall tell him we come in peace.”
Meanwhile, nineteen crewmen gestured and shouted, and Achates smote the elephant on the head with an oar and lost the oar to the animal’s versatile trunk and found himself encircled and raised in the air.
“Put me down, you big-nosed brute.”
“No, no,” Ascanius cried. “We didn’t say hello. He probably thinks we’re enemies,” and he ran to the foot of the beast.
“Please, Sir, Achates meant you no harm. Will you set him on the beach?”
“Ascanius,” shouted Aeneas. “He can’t understand you,” and hurried after his son and poor Achates, who was hanging by one foot.
“Maybe not, but he looks intelligent to me. Not just any old elephant.”
“Till now you never heard of an elephant. You don’t know a thing about him.”
The animal lowered Achates toward the ground and dropped him on his head. Sweat caught the sun and made the Trojan’s freckles twinkle and glow. He brushed the hair from his eyes and looked like a little boy who has lost his knucklebones. Poor Achates! He seemed to attract misfortune, as the late prince Paris had attracted his ladies of doom.
“We were cast on your shores by a storm,” explained Ascanius, “and our ship was wrecked as you see. If you shove her into the water, she will probably sink. We would like you to lead us to the queen of the land.” He spoke with care and used some simple gestures to enforce his words.
Aeneas had overtaken his son and stood behind him, but wisely he did not speak; indeed, the elephant seemed to understand the boy.
He raised his trunk and emitted a noise like the sound of a trumpet, which calls men to war. (Remarkable trunk. There seemed no end to its skills.)
“I think he said yes,” observed Ascanius.
“I think he said, ‘Get the Hades out of here’,” gasped Achates, green in the face from his sudden ride. The combination of green and freckles resembled a rotting pear.
“We
