Dido Page 9

  It had taken only one night of storytelling from the Trojan and the spell was cast. Iopas knew because one of the first things she did on the morning after the feast was arrange for the ceremonial bed in her chamber to be moved to the guest room. There had been objections. Anna, for one, was against it. She said: ‘Why can’t he sleep in the bed that’s in there? The servants have enough to do, what with feeding and looking after these people, without beds being moved all over the place. There’s nothing wrong with the bed in that room.’

  ‘But my bed is the most beautiful thing in this whole palace, and I want Aeneas to have nothing but the best. The bedhead is carved from a single piece of wood by the most skilled woodworkers in the city. The mattress is as soft as a cloud. I want it moved into Aeneas’ room. We’ll put the guest bed into my bedchamber. Just while he’s staying with us here.’

  ‘Let us hope that his visit isn’t too long then,’ said Anna – and that made Dido furious, Iopas remembered. She’d stood in the corridor outside the guest room, almost spitting with fury.

  ‘How can you say that? This is the first time I’ve had a chance to— Oh, never mind. But Aeneas is an honoured guest for as long as he cares to stay with us. Haven’t you got work to do in the sewing room? I want the best linens for that room too. Will you see to that? Or do you object to him having decent bedclothes?’

  Anna had muttered something under her breath and moved away. Iopas, knowing that his best chance of getting more information was talking to Anna, followed her into the sewing room. It was also possible that Elissa would be there, stitching or mending, and any glimpse of her made his day better. Because she was the queen’s sister, Anna could hardly sit with the other young women who were constantly engaged in maintaining and refurbishing the hangings and fabrics that were the pride of the palace, but she’d made it her business to oversee what went on there, and to direct the work that the others were engaged in. She settled at a small table from which the other tables could be supervised and patted the chair beside her to indicate to Iopas that he could sit beside her.

  The biggest table of all, which ran almost the whole length of the room, had an enormous length of purple-dyed cloth spread out on it. As well as the public hangings and linens, there was also the matter of the queen’s garments. These had to be kept in perfect condition and new ones made at her request. Anna often said that her girls, as she called them, were the busiest workers in Carthage. They were young women with dainty fingers who had come from the surrounding villages to find work in the palace and now felt privileged to be working for their adored queen. The most gifted workers did the embroidery: the delicate flowers in silver and gold thread that edged Dido’s clothes needed more care than routine mending and it was considered an honour to be given such work. Anna sometimes undertook this embroidery herself, and now she bent to unpick some stitches on a scarlet butterfly which had not turned out to her satisfaction. She said, ‘That’s one of the reasons I like this work.’

  Iopas reflected that he hadn’t mentioned embroidery. Anna continued, ‘If something isn’t right, you aren’t forced to put up with it. You can change things. Make everything perfect. In real life, matters frequently run out of your control. That’s what’s happening now. With my sister.’

  ‘In what way?’ said Iopas, turning to face Anna and smiling his most winning smile. ‘I know that all these arrangements have meant a lot of extra work for you. I saw how harassed you looked last night at the feast. I felt for you, truly.’

  ‘You’re a great comfort, Iopas. A great comfort. You appreciate what I do. I know that. And I didn’t realize you were looking at me last night.’

  Iopas decided to move the conversation on to something else before Anna was sidetracked into discussing his attention to how she looked. He said, ‘You do so much. So many things that not everyone notices.’

  Anna nodded vigorously. ‘Exactly. Scarcely anyone does notice. But this latest thing – I don’t know how that will turn out.’

  ‘Latest thing?’ The trick was to appear just interested enough to keep the confidences flowing and yet not so eager that the speaker was put on their guard. If Anna realized that she was giving him access to her private thoughts, she might quite suddenly stop talking. But he needn’t have worried.

  ‘She’s falling in love with him. I can see it. She’s been a stranger to love for so long that she’s just plunged headlong into it, as if Love were a fountain and she dying of thirst. I could see it last night. She didn’t take her eyes off him while he was talking. Did you see that?’

  ‘Well, his stories enthralled us all, didn’t they?’

  ‘You had time to look elsewhere. You looked at me. You said so yourself.’

  Back to that, Iopas thought. He said, ‘But Queen Dido was sitting right beside him. It would have been impolite to look even a little bored. And no one could have been bored, hearing about the war in Troy. I could easily have listened for twice as long.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, after you left, something happened. I saw . . . I’m not quite sure what I saw, but my sister was struck by Eros’ arrow. That I’m completely sure of. For the first time since we arrived in Carthage she came to my room and sat on the end of my bed and went on and on about Aeneas and how handsome he was and how strong, and how much she longed to speak to him again, till I fell asleep while she was still in full flight. She woke me up a couple of times, but in the end she left me to sleep, and when I woke up this morning, what do I find but her moving the furniture from place to place to please him.’

  ‘I’m sure Aeneas is most grateful for any hospitality. I think he would be perfectly satisfied with the bed in the guest bedroom.’

  ‘Precisely! How well you understand things, for one so young! Aeneas has been tossed over the oceans in a wooden crate with no comforts or conveniences and the guest bedroom will be more luxurious than anything he imagined. No, it’s Dido who will be pleased, and that means she loves him. She wants him to have the very best. I won’t be surprised if she stretches herself out on top of the covers, as an added attraction.’

  ‘Surely not!’

  ‘No, perhaps not. But she’s fallen for him. Even though she may deny it, I can tell.’

  The door opened then, and Dido came into the sewing room. Iopas jumped up from where he’d been sitting, and the queen, smiling, settled herself next to Anna and put an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sister. I’m sorry for being so obstinate and for not listening to you when you were speaking nothing but the greatest sense.’

  ‘What are you talking about? This isn’t like you, Dido. You never admit I’m right – even though I often am, you know.’

  ‘And I never admit I’m wrong, do I? Well, I am saying exactly that now. You’re right about many things, and not least the matter of the bed. I was being stupid. My beautiful bed must, naturally, stay in my chamber and the guest bed will be fitted with a new mattress and be provided with the most splendid coverlet you can find. Are you satisfied?’

  ‘Delighted,’ Anna said, and Iopas wondered whether she’d be happy to leave things where they were – but no, she was going to say something more. ‘How did you happen to change your mind?’

  ‘Aeneas himself persuaded me. Oh, Anna, he’s so thoughtful. When I told him of my plan, he said – and these are his exact, precise words, I promise you – I wouldn’t be able to sleep easily knowing that you had given up your bed for me. I assure you, the bed in the guest room provides me with more comfort than I need. More comfort than I’ve ever had, if I’m honest. And do you know what the strange thing is, Anna?’

  Anna shook her head. Dido continued: ‘The amazing thing is, he’s right. Of course it’s unsuitable for me to give up my bed for a visitor. Any visitor. It’s a matter of protocol. I am, after all, ruler in Carthage and I wouldn’t want the court to see me accepting the second-best bed. It looks . . . well, it just doesn’t look right.’

  ‘No,’ said Anna. ‘I did try and tell you that.’

>   Iopas closed his eyes, readying himself for a barbed remark from the queen. Instead she said, ‘Oh, you’re my clever little sister, aren’t you?’ and planting a kiss on Anna’s cheek, she sprang from the chair and ran out of the room like a joyful schoolgirl.

  Anna smiled at Iopas and raised her eyebrows at him. He couldn’t resist. He said, ‘You were quite right as usual, Lady Anna. The queen is in love. No one could mistake it.’

  Late in the night; the courtyard

  ‘What I mainly remember from that time,’ Iopas said, ‘is your decision to keep the bed – this bed’ – he nodded his head in the direction of the bed, which loomed up behind them – ‘and how happy you were. I’d never seen you smiling so much before.’

  Dido sighed. ‘I’ve noticed something,’ she said. ‘While someone is using a piece of furniture, while you’re sitting on your chairs or sleeping in your bed or eating off your tables, the item is beautiful. It’s always useful, sometimes elegant – it might be a piece of wood that an artist has worked on for weeks in order to make it lovely – and then, when you decide that the item is no longer wanted, you move it somewhere to be got rid of. A courtyard or a rubbish dump, it doesn’t make much difference. You’ve thrown it away for any number of reasons, and as soon as you do that it becomes no more than waste. Something you no longer want has turned in the blink of an eye from a treasure to a piece of garbage. That’ – she pointed to the bed again, now piled high with cushions, clothes, pieces of armour, ornaments, even some toys which must have come from Ascanius’ room – ‘is just a bonfire waiting to happen.’

  ‘No, surely not!’ said Iopas. ‘I hope you’re speaking metaphorically, madam.’

  ‘Go to your room now, Iopas, and thank you for your company. I am going back to my chamber. I don’t want to sit out here any longer.’

  ‘Let me walk with you then.’ He got up and stood aside, and Dido, moved by the young man’s care for her, touched him on the arm.

  ‘That’s kind of you, Iopas. I made a good decision when I chose you as my poet. And, Iopas’ – she turned to him and spoke urgently – ‘I want you to start thinking of an elegy. For – for Aeneas. He is leaving us tomorrow and I would like something to mark the day.’

  ‘Certainly, madam. I will begin tonight. As soon as I am in my room.’

  ‘No, wait till the morning. Things will be different then. Of that you may be sure.’

  ‘Every day is unlike every other,’ Iopas said, and they left the courtyard and began to walk together along the covered colonnade, where the torches were set in brackets on the walls, at such great distances one from the other that the flickering light cast many moving shadows everywhere. At the door of the small room in which Dido had chosen to hide, she left him, and Iopas watched the door closing behind her.

  On his way to his own room he glimpsed a flash of silver in one of the recesses and stopped short. Could it have been a weapon? As he peered into the dimness and wondered what to do and whether he ought to call someone, he saw a white dog trotting down the corridor. A skinny hunting dog: that was what it seemed to be – and, yes, there it was, its paws clicking on the tiled floor. Who had come into the palace in the middle of the night with an animal? How did it get past the guards at the main gate? He was on the point of raising the alarm when someone spoke quite close to him and Iopas whirled round to see who it was.

  ‘It’s my dog,’ said this person. She was a woman, slim and dressed in a silver tunic, holding a silver bow. She was very beautiful and Iopas noticed something strange about her face. It was marked with a trail of silver, as though she’d been weeping and her tears had dried to metal on her white skin.

  ‘Who are you?’ Iopas asked, whispering.

  ‘Artemis,’ said the young woman. ‘Goddess of the Chase and Young Maidens.’

  ‘What’s your business with me?’

  ‘None. I have come to see a young woman who serves the queen. No longer a maiden, alas. That is why I am weeping. I will leave the palace very soon, but I must see her.’

  ‘Do you know her name?’

  ‘No, but I will find her. She is very unhappy – but not as unhappy as Dido.’

  ‘You know the queen?’

  ‘Everyone, from the mountains to the coast, from the world of men to the heights of Olympus, knows who Dido is. And that she is bereft.’

  ‘Can’t you help her – if you are a goddess?’

  ‘It is her fate. Even the Gods cannot change that. What is to be will be.’

  Iopas watched the Goddess as she made her way along the corridor. By the time he reached his room he was wondering whether perhaps he’d been dreaming, even though this was not the first time he’d seen a goddess. But he was, after all, very tired. He’d been awake since just after dawn.

  Elissa

  The darkest time of the night; the maidservants’ bedchamber

  ‘I WISH I could fall asleep,’ Tanith said, snuffling into a square of cloth.

  ‘I wish you would too,’ said Nezral. ‘That would allow us to get some rest.’

  ‘Don’t be so unkind!’ Tanith sat up in bed and glared in the direction of Nezral’s bed. ‘I can’t help being so unhappy. How can I sleep when I will never see Maron ever again? I’m unhappy, and if you were a proper friend, you’d sympathize with me and stop nagging me all the time.’

  ‘Tell her, Elissa.’ Nezral sighed loudly. ‘Tell her I am a proper friend but I need some rest. We’ve been running around after the queen and I’m exhausted. I want to sleep, that’s all. Keep your moaning and crying to the day time. That’s what I mean. I’ll be kinder in the morning, I promise.’

  ‘We’ll try and be a bit quieter,’ said Elissa. ‘Won’t we, Tanith?’

  Tanith said nothing, but turned to the wall. Nezral said, ‘Don’t sulk, Tanith. I’m very sorry about you and Maron, truly, but . . . Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to sleep. Goodnight to both of you.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ Elissa said, and from Tanith’s bed came a kind of grunt. Nezral would have to be satisfied with that, Elissa thought.

  She, too, was finding it hard to fall asleep. She lay with her eyes fixed on the ceiling for what seemed like a very long time. There was no sound in the palace, and at least Nezral was now asleep and snoring as she always did. Tanith was still snuffling and wiping her nose on a cloth. Elissa wondered idly how many such cloths she’d used up since Maron’s departure. Luckily she worked in the laundry and would be able to wash them and hang them out to dry tomorrow. I can’t cry, Elissa thought. I wish I could. Perhaps it would make me feel easier, happier. At the moment she felt as though her stomach were filled with hard stones, and her breasts were sore and she felt nauseous almost all the time. The baby. Their baby. Whenever her thoughts came back to the child, she found herself overwhelmed; incapable of grasping what this would mean. There are many moons before the birth, she told herself. Time enough to worry about the child later, when I’ve got over losing her father. His father . . . No, she was sure it was a girl she was carrying. She peered into the darkness, imagining what her and Aeneas’ daughter might look like, and suddenly remembered the day Dido had dressed her up in royal finery.

  Elissa had been in the palace for about a year when Anna sent her to the royal bedchamber with a newly finished dress for the queen.

  ‘Come in, come in, child!’ Dido smiled at her. She was sitting on a low stool beside an open chest. ‘You’ve brought the new dress. Put it down over there, on the bed. Spread it out so that I can see it. Thank you.’

  I did what she said as quickly as I could, Elissa thought, but I must have looked amazed at the splendour, because the queen laughed and said: ‘You’ve never been in here, have you? Well, look around and sit down there and you can advise me on something.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Elissa had whispered, terrified that Dido’s question would be impossible to answer.

  ‘Don’t be scared, Elissa. There’s no right answer. It’s a matter of opinion. At the banquet tonight I’m wearing this
robe . . .’ She pointed to a dress the colour of a living flame which she had draped over another seat.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Elissa said.

  ‘But what jewels do I wear with it? Emeralds? Coral . . . ? No, coral is quite the wrong colour. Too pale. Come, you can look through my jewel casket and help me choose.’

  Dido stood up and took a box out of the chest in the corner of the chamber. She opened it and Elissa saw a tangle of gems and ornaments: brilliant amethysts and rubies, and opals glowing with a milky fire; topazes and turquoises, and something green and veined with black which she didn’t recognize.

  ‘I think . . . this,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s lovely.’

  ‘Malachite,’ said Dido. ‘You’re quite right. It will look magnificent.’ She pulled out a string of round beads and laid them on the flame-coloured dress. ‘See? You have a good eye, Elissa. And malachite is a stone that gives the wearer courage, so they say.’