Ursula Le Guin - Lavinia

And not long after we returned from Pallanteum, an envoy arrived from Arpi with a gift of ten fine mares and a proposal from Diomedes of an alliance between his people and the Latins “under their kings Latinus and Aeneas.”

Latinus was entirely in favor. He said, “Go on. Go on down there and seal a treaty with the man. That puts the Rutulians and Volscians between him and us. In the nutcracker.”

“There’s a saying,” Aeneas said: “Keep an eye on Greeks when they offer gifts.” He spoke wryly. “Horses, particularly.”

“I’ll keep the horses, then,” my father said. “You go make the speeches.” He was in a mellow mood, that summer; his health had improved and he had come to Lavinium several times, to do worship at the altar of his grandson, as he said.

Aeneas did not take me down to Arpi with him. It was a long way through unsafe country, and he was not sure if he could trust Diomedes. I worried about him while he was gone, but not very much. It was only the second summer. It was not time to worry, yet.

He and his well-armed troop of companions came back safe and sound after twenty days. He said he and Diomedes had a good talk and fought the whole Trojan war over. They had sealed a treaty of peace and assistance at the altar with the sacrifice of ten boars, ten oxen, and ten rams, for Diomedes was rich.

On the way home, the last night out, Aeneas spent the night at the Alban Mountain. “That’s a sacred place if I ever saw one,” he said. “It made me think of Mount Ida. But nobody lives there.”

“It is sacred. Father’s been there for the winter solstice, when a gap in the rim of the crater points to the sun. And when there’s drought, or rain out of season, or if lightning strikes somebody dead, people go to Alba to pray and worship. I don’t know why it’s empty. Maybe the land’s not good.”

“There’s a village up by the lake, they said, but there ought to be a real town there. The soil is pale, though.”

“It’s white ash,” Ascanius said. “Ash is good for vines.”

Aeneas went north early in the autumn to Caere by ship, taking with him as fine a gift as we could offer Tarchon and his people for their help in the war: three white bulls, three white rams, and a pair of stallion colts with grey coats that would whiten as they aged. The horses had splendid gear of gilt leather and gilt bronze, given by my father. It was not a mighty gift for two kings to give, but it was fitting to our present status. There was no use our pretending to equal the Etruscans in wealth, or power, or the arts of living. They knew it and we knew it. They made Aeneas welcome in Caere, and he stayed over a month in Etruria, visiting Falerii and Veii, well received everywhere. He sailed home pleased with his journey.

I did not want to spoil his pleasure, but when we were in our room away from everyone else and I could speak my mind I burst out, “Oh never go away again for so long, Aeneas! I beg you! Never go away again at all!"—and to my surprise I began to cry.

Of course he soothed me and quieted me and asked what had worried me, and of course I could not tell him that only this winter and the next summer and the next winter were left to us together.

I said, “I know you have to make these journeys. But maybe you can put them off till later—when Silvius is a year or two older?—Not this year. No more traveling this year. Or even two years? And not for so long—Not for a whole month—”

It made no sense to him. How could it? He worked at it, and finally said all he could possibly say: “I won’t travel unless I must, Lavinia.”

I nodded, trying to repress my weeping, and hot and red with shame at my weakness and my efforts to deceive our fate.

“I cannot bear to see you cry,” he said. His own eyes were full of tears.

There was another cause of my distress at his long absence, which I did not mention any more than the other: Ascanius’ behavior while he was gone. Aeneas had left him in charge of the household and all affairs at Lavinium, as was right. The eldest son and heir should be getting experience in taking responsibility. Understandably, Ascanius found it frightening to take on his father’s authority, was anxious, and overdid it. He ruled with a heavy hand. People were ready to make every excuse for his youth, but he was uncommonly tactless even for a boy his age. He was hasty, willful, pompous; he sulked at any setback, and disdained any advice, even from Achates—especially from Achates, perhaps, because Achates was so faithful a lieutenant and friend of Aeneas. Pining for combat in order to prove himself fearless, or fearing it and therefore stumbling into it, I do not know which, Ascanius sought a quarrel wherever it could be found. In the month Aeneas had been gone, he had stirred up resentment and ill-feeling in almost every person or group he had had to deal with, done damage which would take months to repair.

Try as I might, I could not forgive Ascanius for spoiling both the peace of his father’s rule and his father’s peace of mind. I so much wanted Aeneas’ brief reign to be a true reward for all his travails, a haven of happiness. I longed to see my son of the evening star shine out at last in tranquillity. While Aeneas was in Etruria I had thought I should tell Ascanius what I knew: that his father’s life had not much longer to run. Surely if he knew that, natural piety would make him wish to spare his father trouble and grief, and his competitive spirit could control itself for a year or so. But Ascanius was so suspicious and jealous of me that I could not bring myself to trust him with that knowledge. He might even scoff at it. He tended to look down on all things Latin, including our oracles and sacred places; and I had heard him say that the best thing about the Greeks was that they knew how to keep women in their place. Though I told myself it was just a boy talking, and believed Ascanius had a good heart under all his bluffing and sulking, still I could not trust him with my knowledge. I could not trust him not to use it against Aeneas, in anger, or as a show of power.

Ascanius and I kept out of each other’s way as best we could. Aware, now, that his wife and his son did not get along, Aeneas was careful not to put either of us in a false position with the other. Though people often confuse it with weakness or duplicity, tact is a great quality in a ruler, whether of a country or a household; awareness of the other allows respect, and people respond to it, returning the recognition and the respect. Aeneas governed with tact, and was beloved for it.

He had to exercise it actively that winter and spring, mending fences with landowners and tribesmen and neighboring peoples whom Ascanius had offended—including my father. Rebellious as Ascanius might be, his pride in his ancestry and father was as naive as a child’s, and he simply could not accept the doddering old chieftain of a province on the far western edge of the world as an equal, let alone as his king. During Aeneas’ absence he had dismissed a messenger from Latinus without answer and had issued orders contrary to Latinus’ orders. My father said nothing at the time, but spoke to Aeneas after his return. He suggested—Latinus had a good deal of tact, himself—that the boy be given a domain to rule, away from both Laurentum and Lavinium. (My father called Ascanius the boy, and greeted him as son of Aeneas; whereas he called his grandson Silvius, and greeted him as little king. His tact did not prevent him from being very stubborn.)

Aeneas acted promptly on the suggestion. He offered Ascanius the governorship of the region of the Alban Hills, Lake Albanus, the village of Alba Longa, and the old city of Velitrae. He told him that his job there was to keep the peace with restless neighbors, so that the religious festivals of Mount Alba, to which people came from all over south Italy, could be held in safety, and to see to the improvement of agriculture and the training of a loyal body of farmer soldiers in the service of the Latin kings. He told me he had been blunt with his son, warning him that if he stirred up trouble instead of preventing it, he would be summoned back to Lavinium and deprived of command.