Dido Read online

  Maron patted the ground next to where he was sitting and Cubby sat down gratefully. His head was still spinning with pictures of what he’d just witnessed, but as he drank the wine they faded a bit.

  ‘Everyone!’ Dido was there suddenly, at the entrance to the tent. ‘Listen to me, please. I have something to announce.’

  What if she says something about what happened in the cave? Cubby asked himself. He listened with the others as Dido went on: ‘This is a great day. An auspicious day.’ (What does that mean? Cubby wondered, but he couldn’t ask, not while the queen was speaking.) ‘Lord Aeneas, who was sent to Carthage by the favour of the Gods, has just become my husband. The Goddess Aphrodite had prepared a marriage for us blessed by Olympus and today is our wedding day. This hunt is no longer just a hunt but a celebration of our marriage, and there will be a feast in the palace tonight. But till then I’d like you all to raise a goblet in our honour and in honour of Aphrodite, who brought us together in our love.’

  Cubby watched as everyone cheered and drank. A feast . . . Well, he knew that, because he’d already helped Cook with the preparations before he left. Still, what with the feast being one to celebrate a marriage, they’d probably be asking for extra cakes or something. Extra work, that was certain.

  ‘Aeneas married to Queen Dido, eh?’ Maron was suddenly beside him. ‘A bit surprising, I’d have thought. My master is supposed to be leaving Carthage. That’s what he tells me, anyway, but I suppose Dido could come with us. Wherever it is we’re going . . .’

  Cubby shook his head. He didn’t know much, but he did know that the queen loved Carthage. Surely she would never leave a place she’d had made for her specially? It was hers. He couldn’t think about this because Maron was now talking to Iopas, who’d crept up on them in that quiet way he had. He must have been drinking a bit too, because he was chattier than usual.

  ‘I’ll be asked to compose a wedding ode,’ he laughed. ‘But what kind of wedding could it have been, with no one from the temple to perform it? What did our beloved queen mean by the Goddess Aphrodite blessing them? I don’t see her anywhere.’

  Then (later on, Cubby couldn’t work out what made him speak) Cubby opened his mouth and said: ‘I saw her.’ That was enough. He wished he could swallow the words back into his stomach but that was impossible. What had he done? How could he go back and change matters? He couldn’t. He blushed and hoped that Maron and Iopas might not have heard, but they had. Iopas was on him, quick as a snake on a mouse.

  ‘Whatever do you mean? Where did you see her? And what did you see? How did you know it was a goddess?’

  ‘In the cave. I saw her in the cave.’

  ‘You were in the cave? With the queen and Aeneas?’ Iopas’ eyes were enormous. Cubby could tell he didn’t really believe him. He nodded.

  Then Maron chipped in and said, ‘Tell us what you saw in the cave, Cubby.’

  He spoke so gently that Cubby thought perhaps he wouldn’t be in trouble if he did speak. He said, ‘I didn’t see . . . or rather, I can’t remember very well. But there was a smell. A lovely smell, and a lady who said she was called Aphra-something.’

  ‘Aphrodite,’ Iopas cut in, impatient, and Maron waved his hand at him to make him shut up, for which Cubby was grateful.

  ‘Yes. Her. She made them both lie down. That’s it.’

  ‘Lie down? Where?’ Iopas again.

  ‘Shut up, Iopas. Can’t you see he’s embarrassed? What, do you need drawings to tell you what went on? Use your head . . . They obviously got carried away, the two of them in that dark cave, and Dido thinks that it means they’re married. That’s it. That’s all. Let’s change the subject. Cubby’s face looks as pink as a pomegranate . . . Don’t worry, Cubby. You couldn’t help being there. Have another bunch of grapes. Go on.’

  Cubby took the fruit and ate it, glad that the interrogation was over. Iopas – he’d have gone on asking questions, you could see that, but thanks to Maron he’d got off without having to go into too much detail. As he ate, as he listened to the laughter and the merriment around him, with everyone in a good mood now that the sun was shining again and especially because of the marriage, what he’d seen in the cave began to blur in his head until it was no more than a dim memory. He tried to summon up what had happened, what he’d seen, but when he did, he came across a kind of wall in his head that prevented him from going back to that time. The Goddess had said he would forget, and it was true. Never mind, Cubby told himself. It was something interesting while it lasted.

  Daybreak approaching; the courtyard

  ‘You are wondering,’ someone said, ‘why you’ve been allowed to remember that day.’

  Cubby sprang up and stood to attention. Here was someone he’d not seen before. Where were all these visitors coming from? He was no good as a guard and that was that.

  ‘Nonsense, you’re a perfectly good guard. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop gods and goddesses from moving about. I am Hera, the queen of Olympus. Sit down again.’

  ‘Yes, madam,’ said Cubby, and peered at the person – the Goddess – who didn’t seem to mind talking to him. He’d never before spoken to so many people in one night, but this was a very odd night indeed, and some of the chats had been with gods and goddesses, which was very peculiar. This one was white-haired and tall, and her cloak had peacock feathers all over it. He didn’t know what to say to her, but she was talking again so that was all right.

  ‘I’ve been sitting near you and remembering the day of the hunt, and that is why you’ve been allowed to recall it too, for a while.’ She sighed and for a moment seemed more like a mortal woman than a goddess. She said, ‘Aphrodite and I fell out over that, you know. Marriage was never part of the plan. I knew that Aeneas had to leave and sail away from Carthage, and I suppose I let her get away with it because I saw no actual harm in it, but I was wrong. It wasn’t a real marriage. That was Aphrodite misleading Dido, giving her permission to submit to her desires. That’s all. But it’s caused a great deal of unhappiness and that day was just the beginning. Never mind, what has to be has to be. You won’t be troubled with these memories again, don’t worry. I’ll leave you now.’

  She began to drift away in the direction of the kitchens. Cubby closed his eyes. This night was also turning out to be longer than any other night he’d ever lived through.

  Iopas

  Before dawn; the palace kitchen

  THE NIGHT, WHICH had lasted far too long already in his opinion, wasn’t showing any sign of turning into morning. Iopas was sitting at a table in the kitchen which Cook used for preparing food during the day. It was clean and well-scrubbed but you could see the thousands of marks left by knives chopping vegetables or fruit or even meat over many moons. He’d been hungry, and had come down to find a piece of bread or some grapes, and besides, he was sick of the sight of his own room, which seemed to him full of nothing but half-finished poems and anxious thoughts. He’d counted on being alone, but when he came into the kitchen and found Elissa sitting on one of the benches at the kitchen table, he was happier than he’d been for a long time. Elissa! But she wasn’t alone, and within a moment of registering her presence, he saw that her friend Nezral was sitting beside her. It was all he could do not to swear out loud. What better opportunity would he ever have of getting Elissa on her own in the middle of the night? And here was her friend, spoiling things.

  ‘Iopas!’ Nezral said. Her fairish hair fell to her shoulders and her nose looked sharper than ever. She reminded Iopas of a skinny bird. ‘Welcome. Are you hungry too? We couldn’t sleep. Well, I could, but Elissa couldn’t, and I woke up just as she was leaving our room. It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?’

  ‘It has. And yes, I was hungry. And I can’t sleep either, for worrying about our queen.’

  ‘The Lady Anna has taken her some wine and water,’ said Nezral. ‘And some fruit too, I think. Which is good. They say she hasn’t touched a morsel since last night.’

  Iopas wished Elis
sa would say something. He’d been feeling a small stirring of hope that perhaps things would be different in Carthage now that Aeneas was leaving. Elissa might be upset at first but that would pass in the end and then maybe he could find a way round the problem of declaring his love. He’d already decided that if everything went well, he’d talk properly to Anna and make up some story about his imaginary betrothed in the city and how she’d fallen in love with someone else. Gods, love was complicated! But he’d work it out somehow. It would have helped a lot if he’d found Elissa by herself.

  ‘Poor Dido!’ said Nezral. ‘I feel so sad for her. They say she hasn’t even combed her hair since she woke up.’

  ‘You’d have to have a heart of stone to look at Dido now and not feel a great sorrow,’ he agreed, glancing at Elissa, who still hadn’t said a word. She was staring down at her hands and her face was greeny-white, the colour of some cheeses. Her eyes were red-rimmed from too much crying. He went on: ‘I blame Aeneas. How could he treat a great queen in such a way? As though she were any common woman?’

  Iopas was clear-sighted enough to realize that his anger was partly a kind of envy. Ever since the Trojan came to Carthage, there wasn’t a woman to be found who didn’t start swooning every time you mentioned his name. It had become tiresome after a bit and Iopas, who at first had admired the man (and you couldn’t deny he had a sure-fire story to tell about the war in Troy – Iopas smiled at his own wit: sure-fire story . . . the war in Troy), ended up a little irritated by everything to do with him. Anyway, there Aeneas was, and suddenly no one had eyes for anyone else. Aeneas, on the other hand, had eyes only for Dido. Or at least that was what Iopas thought for a long time, and then he started noticing how much time the Trojan was spending with his child. From that observation a thought sprang up: Would he be spending so many hours in the nursery if the nursemaid wasn’t so pretty?

  The jealousy he felt became worse than ever. Iopas started to see things. Aeneas looking at Elissa. Elissa looking at Aeneas with such undisguised adoration that it was quite embarrassing sometimes. Once or twice in the last couple of months he’d seen Aeneas sliding out of deep shadows among the colonnades around the courtyard, and lo and behold, a few moments later, there Elissa would be. Had she been hiding there all along? Had they been snatching a kiss in the dimness during those hours when the sun was at its height? Dido often retired to her bedchamber for a rest after the midday meal when the heat was stifling, and Iopas had observed that during the last few moons she’d started going to her chamber alone. He found himself thinking about Elissa and Aeneas and Dido far too often, and they hadn’t been pleasant thoughts.

  Elissa stood up from the table in one swift movement and ran out of the room without saying anything. Iopas jumped up to go after her but Nezral put a hand on his arm and said, ‘Let her go. She’s on her way to the privy, I think. She goes there a lot . . . She’s feeling – well, not herself, shall we say?’

  ‘What do you mean, Nezral? Why isn’t she herself?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Iopas. She’d kill me. She made me promise not to say a single word and I can’t. I really, really can’t.’

  Nezral was a sharp-nosed girl who wasn’t exactly attractive but was clearly clever and moreover had her ear to the ground as far as gossip among the servants was concerned. What to do now? If he bullied her, she’d clam up. And what if Elissa came back and found their heads together? He decided to use flattery and gentleness and see what that might lead to. He slid along the bench a little closer to the girl.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ he said. ‘I can see Elissa is sad. She was so fond of Ascanius.’

  ‘You have to be joking!’ Nezral laughed. ‘Well, she does love the boy, of course she does, but it’s not him she’s pining for. It’s his father.’

  ‘Everyone knows that Aeneas and Dido were man and wife,’ said Iopas. ‘How does she come to pine for him? Perhaps she’s only crying for Dido’s sake. She loves the queen like a mother.’

  Nezral glanced over her shoulder towards the door, to make sure that no one was approaching. She turned her body towards Iopas and lowered her voice to a whisper.

  ‘What they say is: Aeneas and the queen are no more married than you and I, Iopas. They say that during the hunt – you remember that day – the two of them went into a cave and . . .’ She blushed and lowered her head. ‘I don’t want to say but you know what I mean . . . And then when they came out, Dido told everyone they were married. Just like that.’

  Iopas said nothing. That was exactly the thought he’d had on the day of the hunt: that this was no proper marriage but only two people who’d got a little carried away, what with the storm and the wine and, apparently, the presence of a goddess. He’d been sceptical about the goddess bit, but then later on he found that the inhabitants of Olympus did indeed make themselves known to mortals. He said: ‘But what has this to do with Elissa?’

  ‘I can’t say. She made me swear I wouldn’t utter a word. Let’s just say that she has the very best of reasons to wish him still here.’

  ‘Are you saying she loved him?’ Iopas braced himself for the answer.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Nezral said. ‘She thought she was keeping it such a big secret, but we all knew. Or guessed. I did, anyway. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Iopas murmured. ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘But there’s more,’ Nezral whispered. ‘She’d kill me if I said a word, but there’s much, much more.’

  At that moment Elissa came back into the room, her face still white but with less of a greenish tinge and the front of her dress damp. She must have been washing her face, Iopas thought.

  ‘Come, sit here, Elissa. I’ll fetch you some water. And something to eat. Bread . . .’ Iopas stood up and went to the shelf where bread left over from the day was kept. He picked up a long flat loaf and brought it to the table, together with some cheese and fruit and a bowl into which he poured some olive oil from a jug standing on the wide sill of the window. ‘You should eat,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Iopas,’ she said, and he stared at her as she ate, grateful that at last she was speaking to him. He scarcely noticed Nezral leaving the room.

  Elissa had been a child when she first came to the palace, but no longer. She had long dark hair that fell to her shoulders, golden olive skin (when she wasn’t feeling tired and upset) and dark eyes that were almost purple in certain lights. Eyes like plums didn’t work as poetry, which was a shame. In those days Elissa was slim and boyish, with no breasts to speak of. Her figure was very different from Dido’s, whose bosom was the envy of women and an object of lust for most of the male population of Carthage. Aeneas tiring of one body shape and wanting to try another – could matters be that simple? Well, even if that was all it had been, he was heartily glad to see the back of the Trojan. Iopas watched Elissa as she sat in front of him. Was he imagining it, or were her breasts larger than they used to be? He didn’t know very much about the size of young women’s breasts in general, but on the subject of Elissa he was something of an expert and he had looked at her more carefully than he’d ever looked at any other person. He’d always thought of her as having very small breasts, but these looked . . . they were straining against the fabric of her robe. She seemed, in fact, altogether plumper than usual. Had she been eating in secret? Not wanting to interrupt her while she ate, Iopas let his thoughts go back to the night when he realized that the love between Aeneas and the queen was doomed.

  Iopas had made it his business to chart the progress of Dido’s love affair with the Trojan and it seemed to him that if the hunting party was the proper beginning, then a year and more had already passed since that day. Now he was of the opinion that during the last three moons Aeneas’ interest in Dido had begun to wane. Iopas noticed that the Trojan was spending less and less time with the queen. And when they were together, Iopas often overheard him talking of leaving one day and not staying in Carthage, and how his destiny was to sail away, until you could see that
Dido had become heartily sick of hearing about it. She’d almost stopped begging him to stay. Sometimes she simply walked out of the room when the subject arose. You could tell he was restless.

  One night, after a feast, Iopas had been on his way back to his chamber when he noticed that the queen and Aeneas were still in the courtyard, sitting on the stone bench he often liked to sit on when the shade made it a cool spot. He could see the two of them together in the bright moonlight that fell through the leaves of the palm trees. The trees were planted in huge round pots, and now it appeared to Iopas that the flowing lines of the patterns painted on them had become real snakes and dragons writhing over their curved sides. Annoyingly, from where he was standing he couldn’t catch what the queen and the Trojan were saying to one another and he was about to move away when someone spoke in his ear. He nearly fainted from the shock. A woman, tall and well-built, with white hair piled high on her head and wearing a cloak edged with peacock feathers, was standing at his shoulder. ‘I fear that there is trouble between those two,’ said this person. ‘Listen . . .’ and she put a peacock feather into his hand.

  Iopas took it and had the presence of mind to say: ‘Thank you . . . but who are you?’

  ‘Hera, wife to Zeus and friend to Aeneas and the queen of Carthage. This love is doomed, you know.’

  Iopas found himself nodding. Hera continued, ‘You’ll know when you’ve heard them speak. Keep hold of the feather.’

  He opened his mouth to thank her again but she had gone. Perhaps I imagined it, he thought, but then where did this feather come from? He held it, and suddenly became aware that he could catch what the couple on the stone bench were saying to one another, even though they were speaking in low voices and were sitting far away on the other side of the courtyard. He held the feather a little in front of him and raised it in the air, and as if it was catching the words and bringing them to his ear, he could now hear them even more clearly. It was as though he were sitting beside them. Aeneas began to nuzzle Dido’s neck. Iopas saw the queen relaxing, and she turned and kissed her lover on the lips. ‘This is the best time, Aeneas,’ she murmured. ‘For a baby. The wise woman says so – the moon is full. We’ll have a baby . . . the next King of Carthage . . .’