Dido Read online

  I’m a fool, she told herself, tiptoeing down the stairs that led to the main corridor. I’m carrying his child – I’m hardly likely to forget him. I don’t need a souvenir.

  Elissa walked especially quietly as she passed the room in which Dido had hidden herself. There was someone playing a lyre. Where was the music coming from? And who would dare to play in the middle of the night and risk disturbing the queen, when everyone knew she was in a terrible state? Sounds carry strangely at night and it didn’t take long for Elissa to realize that the music was coming from Dido’s room. The door was slightly open and she pushed it a little and caught sight of the queen herself, sitting on the bed with her legs crossed and a lyre resting on her knees. She had her back to the door and was plucking the strings and humming to the music.

  ‘Oh! I’m sorry, my lady. I didn’t realize . . .’ The tune was plaintive, and made Elissa feel like weeping, and when Dido turned round, she saw that the queen’s own cheeks were wet with shed tears.

  ‘What can I do?’ she asked, coming into the room and approaching the bed. ‘Should I send for your sister?’

  ‘Nothing, Elissa. Don’t do anything. Don’t fetch anyone. I want to be left alone. I’m . . .’ Dido put aside the lyre, and bringing her knees up to her chin, she clung to them, with her face half hidden, rocking backwards and forwards and sobbing, the sounds of her sorrow muffled but still loud in the dimly lit room. A small torch above the doorway was the only source of light, and Dido’s shadow loomed black on the wall behind her.

  ‘Come and sit beside me, Elissa. Tell me something cheerful.’

  How can I, Elissa thought, when my heart is aching so? She said, ‘I think it’s a sad day for all of us, lady.’

  ‘This is what happens, you see? I’ve stopped thinking about anyone else. I should’ve understood that you’d be unhappy. Little Ascanius – I know how devoted you were to that boy. You must be missing him dreadfully. Poor Elissa! Come and sit beside me and we’ll share our pain.’

  Dido patted the mattress and Elissa came and perched on the edge of the bed, nervous of being so close to the queen, though she looked nothing like a ruler now. Elissa saw a woman wearing creased garments, with her hair dishevelled, smelling a little stale, as though she’d forgotten to wash herself. It was hard sometimes to remember that even queens, however grand and beautiful they were, were made like other women, and seeing Dido in this state made Elissa feel doubly sad. She was reminded of her own mother, who frequently had no time to bathe and found something to weep about almost every day.

  ‘Do you remember,’ she began, trying to think of something amusing to tell the queen, ‘the day when Ascanius fell in the fishpond? How angry Aeneas was with him and how funny he looked, sitting in the water with a fish flapping about in his hand? He didn’t want to let it go, and he started crying when I made him put it back. I felt so terrible . . . It was my duty to see that he kept away from the water. I thought Aeneas would shout at me for my neglect of his son, but he was laughing too and said it wasn’t my fault and it would take a god with a thousand eyes to make sure Ascanius kept out of mischief.’

  Elissa glanced to her left and saw that Dido’s eyes were closed. She was leaning against the wall and seemed calmer. Perhaps she was falling asleep. Elissa made up her mind to wait and see what the queen did next. She settled herself more comfortably on the bed and allowed her thoughts to return to that day – the day Ascanius fell into the fish pond.

  Elissa realized, within a few days of starting to look after Ascanius, that she’d never played before. In the countryside, small children were workers on the land, helpers in the kitchen, and set to perform all kinds of tasks as soon as they could walk and grasp something in their hands. She tried to think back to what she and her brothers and sisters used to do in their free time and came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any to speak of. By the time the work was done; by the time her mother put out the evening meal, she and the others were exhausted, and Elissa remembered many evenings when her father would have to pick up the sleeping younger children before the food was eaten and take them to their beds.

  When Dido asked her to look after Ascanius, Elissa had said yes with pleasure. He was a smiling, talkative child, and on his first night in Carthage, when she put him to bed, he was happy to lie there and listen to her singing the songs of her own childhood. These weren’t lullabies, but melodies her mother used to sing as she worked. Still, they served their purpose and Ascanius had fallen asleep at once. Elissa thought at the time: This is easy. I’m going to enjoy looking after him. I’ll be let off other work too. She was pleased about this for the most part, though she knew she’d miss the occasions when Dido called her to help with doing her hair or choosing her jewels or taking her clothes to the sewing room to be mended. But no one knew how long the Trojans would be staying in the city and she could go back to her normal duties when they left.

  She soon discovered how different looking after a small child was from any other work in the whole world. There were no tasks, either domestic or agricultural, for Ascanius to perform, and therefore it fell to Elissa to entertain the boy, which would have been pleasant for a few hours but became burdensome and irritating if you had to do it all day long. Dido had set her woodcarvers to work at once and within a few days the child had been given an army of wooden soldiers, a crocodile mounted on wooden wheels which he could pull along by a leather thong, a shield and sword, and many bricks with which to build imaginary forts. The crocodile in particular was a favourite and became any creature Ascanius wanted him to be. Often he was the wooden horse which had been taken into Troy and from which the Greek soldiers had leaped, ready to burn the city to the ground.

  ‘Who told you this story, Ascanius?’ Elissa asked when they first played the game. She had to lie stretched out on the tiled floor and push the crocodile through the gate that she’d helped the child build from wooden blocks.

  ‘Maron told me,’ said Ascanius. ‘He said my daddy fought with the horse. He killed the horse.’

  ‘I see,’ said Elissa. The boy was obviously a bit muddled about what had actually happened, but was quite happy with his version of the Trojan War, where a crocodile went mad among the bricks and brought them tumbling down on top of himself. This made Ascanius laugh and roll about on the floor, and Elissa was happy to join in with him.

  But even after playing with the bricks and with the soldiers; even taking into account giving him his food and putting him to bed, there were still long stretches of the day which had to be filled. Tentatively, Elissa suggested to Dido that they might go outside sometimes, to the garden. They could, she suggested, perhaps sit by the fishpond and admire the fish.

  ‘Of course,’ Dido said. ‘You can go wherever you like. Keep to the grounds of the palace, but yes, little boys do like to run around. I should have thought of it. I’m not used to considering the needs of children.’

  And so Elissa and Ascanius fell into the habit of going down to the garden every afternoon. Sometimes Maron came with them, and though it ought to have been easier with him to help her, he was very often taken up with chatting to Tanith, who seemed miraculously able to have free time to be with him in the garden when others were working. The two of them would disappear behind a tree, or sit on a well-shaded bench, and while giggles and cries sometimes came to Elissa on the breeze, for the most part she forgot about them and had to deal with Ascanius by herself. She didn’t begrudge her friend these happy times but often wished it could have been her and Aeneas instead, and then chided herself for her stupidity. What would Aeneas be doing with her? It was only in her imagination that the two of them could be together.

  While Elissa sat on a bench in the shade of the palm trees, the little boy ran around the flowerbeds, lined up stones in patterns and stood at the edge of the ornamental pond and admired the fish. She’d noticed that Iopas was often visible at one of the windows that looked on to the garden while she was out there, and she couldn’t help smiling to herself w
henever she saw him. Sometimes she lifted her hand and waved to him, which led quite often to him vanishing away altogether, as if he were embarrassed to be caught staring at her. She had no real interest in him, whatever his feelings were for her. Still, it was gratifying to be admired. Sometimes she pretended she hadn’t seen him and deliberately turned away from the palace and concentrated on the fish in the pond, and that meant, she knew, that Iopas would be there all the time she wasn’t looking in his direction. Ascanius had given the fish names like Hector, Paris and Troilus, and there was even one, a particularly enormous dark creature with silver markings on its back, which he called Odysseus, after the main enemy of the Trojans.

  Then one day Ascanius fell into the pond. It happened because Elissa’s mind was on other things. She’d been distracted by Tanith, who was on her way back to her work in the laundry after a pleasant time with Maron. He had already left the garden and gone into the palace.

  ‘I just had to tell you,’ she said. ‘They’re saying things in the laundry about Dido. She’s spending every spare minute with Aeneas apparently, and not paying attention to matters of state. All kinds of people come and wait for her to give her judgement on different matters or choose things or make decisions, and she isn’t there. She’s walking about in the city with Aeneas. She’s moony-eyed about him. Any fool can see that.’

  ‘She’s just being polite, that’s all. He’s a guest.’

  ‘You’re naïve, Elissa. We’ve had guests before. No one’s ever had this treatment. And you’ve seen her looking at him, haven’t you? Tongue hanging out.’

  Elissa said nothing about her own feelings for Aeneas. Tanith could be very uncouth sometimes. She’d also be quick to spread what she said to everyone in the palace, and more would be made of her words than she intended. ‘Well, he’s very handsome, isn’t he?’ she ventured at last. ‘And he’s nice.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘Not properly, but of course when he comes and kisses Ascanius goodnight, and some other times too. He says hello. And goodbye. Not more than that, no.’

  She didn’t add: And when he does speak to me, my stomach turns over. She hadn’t even admitted to herself that one of the reasons she was so careful to be nice to Ascanius was in the hope that his father would notice her and thank her and come to depend on her. She would have died rather than admit her most secret daydreams, in which she and Aeneas and Ascanius were a real family, with herself sitting at the head of the table and presenting delicious food to her husband and child. And her most private and hidden fantasies were kept for the night, and Elissa didn’t even like to think about those while the sun was shining. During the daylight hours, if her mind strayed to them, she would find herself blushing and try hard to think of something else.

  ‘Where’s Ascanius?’ Tanith asked. ‘He’s such a sweetie. I want a cuddle from that lovely little boy before I go back to work.’

  Elissa looked around. ‘Ascanius? Where are you? Are you hiding?’ She felt herself grow cold. She’d been talking to Tanith and not attending to the child. She stood up and began to walk towards the pond. ‘Show me where you are, you naughty boy! This isn’t a game, Ascanius. I’m serious. Show yourself!’

  Suddenly Ascanius appeared on the far side of the pond, standing on the marble rim, balancing on it and looking far from steady on his feet. Elissa started to run. She shouted out: ‘Don’t move, Ascanius. Don’t move, I’m coming to get you.’

  As she ran, it occurred to her to wonder how on earth he’d managed to get up there. The rim of the basin was quite high. Surely too high for a small child to reach? She was too late. He was in the water and crying gleefully: ‘Look at me, Elissa! Look at me! I’m going to catch a fish!’

  ‘Oh! Ascanius! I told you and told you. That’s a pond for fish. Now you’re all wet and dirty too. What’s your father going to say?’

  ‘His father will say: Naughty, silly boy!’ Aeneas and Dido had appeared suddenly. Where from? They must have been on their way down to the pond and she hadn’t noticed that either. Now there was no chance of her getting the child out of the pond and dry and dressed before his father had caught her out in such neglect. Perhaps, Elissa thought frantically, he’ll say I mustn’t look after Ascanius any more. Perhaps—

  ‘Not your fault, Elissa,’ Aeneas said, trying to reach his son, who was still enjoying himself in the water and seemed to have seized one of the inhabitants of the basin in both hands.

  ‘Look, Father!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve caught a fish! It’s Odysseus. That’s his name.’

  Aeneas, Dido and Ascanius all burst out laughing. Elissa, now that she understood she wasn’t going to be in trouble, joined in tentatively.

  ‘Come out of there now, son,’ said Aeneas. ‘We’ve had a good time laughing but it’s time to go inside now. Time to get you out. Drop that fish and come here so that I can lift you out of the water.’

  ‘Don’t want to!’ said Ascanius, frowning and looking as though he was prepared to fight to stay in the cool of the pond. ‘Want to stay here.’

  ‘I’m not discussing this,’ said Aeneas. ‘I said, enough, didn’t I? Just get yourself over to the edge here and I’ll give you a piggyback all the way to your room.’

  Ascanius sat tight in the middle of the pond, though his grin was now a bit uncertain. Elissa, who had been wondering how he’d managed to climb up to the edge of the basin, saw that he’d piled a few stones into a kind of little tower. Cheeky monkey! She smiled. She knew that he had no intention of getting out by himself. It was pointless arguing with small children. They didn’t understand it. She climbed up on the same stones Ascanius had used and stepped into the pond herself. The water felt cool and delicious against her legs.

  ‘Elissa! Why are you in the water too?’ Ascanius asked.

  ‘I’m going to pick you up and take you to your father.’

  ‘No!’ Ascanius started shrieking.

  ‘Shriek as loud as you like, silly boy. I’m still picking you up.’

  She reached for him and he tried to wriggle out of her grasp, but Elissa was too quick for him and too strong. She lifted him, and hoisting him over her shoulder as though he were a bundle of washing, she walked to where Aeneas and Dido were standing and handed him into his father’s arms. The boy was shouting so loudly that she only just caught Aeneas’ words: ‘What would I do without you, Elissa? Thank you, more than I can say. Will you come with me to take this naughty boy to his room? You know better than I do what must be done once we get there.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Elissa said. She had almost to run to keep up with Aeneas, whose long strides covered the distance between the garden and the palace in moments. As she reached the high, arched doorway to the central corridor, she turned to see that Dido herself was coming slowly up the path they had taken. The look in her eyes puzzled Elissa. She’d been laughing with them only moments before but now she looked worried. Was it worry? Or something else? She turned away and followed Aeneas to Ascanius’ room.

  ‘I can take him, sir,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to bother with dressing him. I’ll have to clean him up a little – the water in the pond is dirty.’

  ‘He doesn’t deserve you, Elissa,’ Aeneas said, and handed the boy to her. He went to sit on the bed and watched as she took off Ascanius’ wet clothes and led him to where a jug of clean water and a bowl stood ready.

  ‘Stand still, Ascanius,’ she said, wetting a soft cloth and beginning to wash him from head to toe.

  ‘You’re very good at that,’ Aeneas said, and even though she couldn’t see him, Elissa could tell he was smiling as he spoke.

  ‘I’ve got a lot of younger brothers and sisters,’ she answered. ‘Not here, but in the village I came from.’

  ‘How do you come to be working here?’

  ‘I ran away from home. The queen’s servants found me and . . . well, she was kind to me and took me in to work for her.’

  ‘I’m very glad she did.’

  ‘Is Ascani
us here?’ Anna had appeared at the door of the room. ‘I’ve been told about your daring pond adventure, you funny boy,’ she said, and went to embrace him. ‘But it’s time for your supper now, so come with me, little one, and we’ll find you some delicious things to eat. Ready? Come along, now . . .’ She took Ascanius by the hand, smiled at Aeneas and bowed her head as they left the room together.

  Elissa was alone with Aeneas. Should she say anything? What? She had no idea. Not only could she not speak, she seemed to have lost the power of movement as well. For the first time since she’d stepped into the pond, she became aware that her thin garments were soaking wet and clinging to her body. How could that be? The water had been shallow. When she stood in it, it reached no higher than her knees. But she’d bent down to pick up Ascanius and now . . . Was it possible that Aeneas could actually see her breasts? Her nipples? She picked up the linen towels that she’d used to dry the child and managed to hold them in such a way that they covered her. Aeneas got up from the bed and came over to where she stood.

  ‘You’re a lovely girl, Elissa. Has anyone told you that?’

  ‘No,’ she said. What was happening? Did these words mean anything, or were they just a polite remark?

  He went on, ‘They will, I promise.’ Then he put one thumb under her chin and lifted her face. ‘And whoever it is will be most fortunate.’

  Should she thank him? Before she had time to arrange her thoughts into some kind of order, while she was still trembling with the complete unexpectedness of what Aeneas had just said and done, he leaned forward a little and kissed her on the mouth. Just one swift, soft touch of his lips on hers, and then he turned and walked away, and Elissa was left standing next to the window, feeling hot and cold at the same time, part of her wondering if she’d dreamed what had just happened. She went to sit on Ascanius’ bed and didn’t move for a long time.