he slaughtered the pride of Greece. At least a thousand warriors.”
“Ascanius, you know it was more like a hundred. Achilles nearly killed me. Diomedes too.”
“Hush, Papa, this is known as diplomatic parley. And ravished their women. More than a thousand, I think.”
“I never ravished a woman!”
The trumpet sounded a second blast.
“Well, your parley isn’t working.”
“That’s because you sound so cross.” Then to the elephant. “To be honest, sir, we need both food and material. Do you want us to starve on the beach?”
Silence. Elephantine deliberations.
“Papa,” whispered Ascanius. “Notice his ivory swords.” (Could those enormous ears overhear what he said?) “THEY ARE VERY FINE.”
“Tusks. A source of ivory for the Phoenician craftsmen.”
“You don’t mean they kill such animals for their tusks!”
“Yes, I’m afraid they do.”
“Well, they won’t kill him. He’s much too strong. And someone has polished his tusks. He couldn’t do it himself, could he? He must have some slaves.”
“Maybe he wants some more,” muttered Achates.
“He might have been breaking you in.” Ascanius grinned.
“Breaking me’s more like it.”
“Do you know, I think he wants a gift,” said Ascanius, faced with a being so immovable that he might have been stuffed for a megaron, the audience chamber of Grecian kings. “We’re always bringing gifts to the kings we visit.”
The word “King” appeared to delight the beast. A soft purring oozed from his trunk, like olive oil from a lamp. Elephantine decisions.
“You see, he does understand.”
Ascanius searched his mind—and his eyes searched the Gallant Bear to think of a suitable gift for a king among elephants. The ship was little help. Its bread, cheese, and wine had been swept to the fish in the storm; its image of Athena, the fabled Palladium, was hidden under a rower’s bench and could not be given even to a king except in the country where Aeneas settled and built his second Troy.
But Ascanius wore an armlet hammered of gold, an image of Tychon; his good luck god, embedded with malachites. A natal gift from Hecuba, queen of Troy, it was his rarest possession. “But a gift must be loved or else it is merely a bribe.” Aeneas had taught him that truth.
He slipped the armlet over his hand, leaving a circle on his brown skin, and held it in front of the elephant’s eyes. The eyes were small and visibly dim. But, sun enkindled the jewels and demonstrated, to even a dim-eyed beast, the value of such a gift. Ascanius slid the armlet down the tip of the upcurved, shorter tusk; much too small to reach the base. It lodged near the tip and seemed an appropriate gift from a prince to a king.
Ascanius tried to restrain his tears; he felt as if he had sacrificed his luck. (He loved his god and prayed to him as a friend, and told him secrets not even Aeneas must hear…of snaring a wife for a stubborn father; of talking to the ship, and yes, of getting a fuzzy reply in the form of thoughts instead of words…)
The elephant fell to his knees in a bow of thanks, awkward but touching, at least to Ascanius, who placed his hand on the leathery head and felt a warmth like the heat of a friendly hearth. Except…the animal thought to him: I am Iarbas, the king of the elephants. Your gift is royal, but I use my tusk to fight. Return the bracelet to your arm. It remains in my heart. He thought in pictures, instead of words. A Greek inscription for the name. A crown for his position. The bracelet. A battle between two elephants in which the gift appeared an impediment. The bracelet restored to Ascanius’ arm and, at the same time, retained in a huge complicated organ, like a human heart, which Ascanius had seen in a seaman rent by a Harpy’s claws. Ascanius did not have to arrange the images, which flowed into a coherent stream like the pictographs on old Egyptian scrolls.
Ascanius quickly reclaimed his god and smiled his thanks to Iarbas. He knew that he did not have to speak.
Follow me, little man, and meet the queen of your kind.
Then, Iarbas rose and ambled away from the sea along the widest path, swishing a skinny tail, more suitable to a dog.
Aeneas hugged his son against his breast. “Ascanius, you have saved the lot of us. But, you gave me quite a fright. Why, he might have caught you in his trunk.”
Such an embrace was the kind Ascanius liked: father and son, hero and hero-to-be. He returned the hug with all of his strength, and his strength was considerably more than that of his age.
“I’m the one who gets caught,” Achates sighed.
“He only meant to give you a scare,” said Ascanius, who did not like his elephant thought to be cruel. “At least he didn’t tusk you. Now let’s follow him to the queen.”
“Are you sure that’s where we’re going?” Aeneas had met his share of amorous queens. Dido was a queen whom he had to meet. He had heard, however, that she did not choose to wed.
“Oh, yes.”
“How do you know, Little Bear?”
“He told me. Also, his name’s Iarbas.” Of course! Iarbas had spoken only to him.
Ascanius looked at his father as they walked. Why, even at thirty-four, the man was Apollo and Paris in one. The yellow hair of his people had slightly silvered at the death of Creusa, but his face had remained unwrinkled and strangely young, except for his eyes, which had looked upon pillage and rape, the fall of a city, the death of a wife, a father, and loyal friends. When you have seen such woes, it seemed to Ascanius, the only cure is to see their opposite, and he hoped that Iarbas would lead them to just such a sight; namely a widowed queen who was ripe to wed.
* * * *
It was not a city like Troy (dimly remembered) or Tyre (of which he had heard); it was a simple town with a half-built wall at its foot; it climbed a low hill with white wooden houses whose doors and roofs were red and whose windows were filled with glass. Nowhere pillars of cedar and bronze; sphinxes of terra cotta; gods of gold and ivory; a palace with courtyards and fountains and coconut palms. Nowhere, display and pride; everywhere, sweet simplicity. Men and elephants, hoisting wooden stakes, toiled together to finish the palisade which was meant to enclose the town. But most of the people seemed to have gone to market, between the hill and the sea. In the shade of lemon trees, there were canvas stalls like inverted poppy blooms, white and black and red… There were curious animals—that was a camel, he knew from tales he had heard, though the creature looked like a hump-backed, oversized horse—and that was an ostrich with the snaky neck and the large feathery bottom, which seemed to be meant for carrying little boys. Perhaps he could buy a ride when he learned what ostriches liked to eat.
The people of the town were less to his fancy: white-robed merchants displaying their goods to wary buyers (for Tyrians, being traders, loved to bargain; and Dido had led the people of Carthage from Tyre). Wooden, three-legged stands held most of the wares: glass necklaces; terra cotta images of misshapen gods (like the dwarves
