Ursula Le Guin - Lavinia

Then I would lie awake and my mind would gnaw and gnaw at the puzzle I could not solve. The poet had told me that Aeneas would rule for three summers and three winters. Was the summer we married the first of the three summers? I thought that because it was half gone before he came to rule in Lavinium, the count of three summers and three winters should begin with the winter of that year, and the summer that lay before us now would be his third—his third and last. But at least he would have till the summer—through the summer—he would not die this spring!

But why must he die? Perhaps the poet had not meant that at all. The poet had not said he would die, only that his reign would be three years. Perhaps he would give up the kingship, give it to Ascanius, and live on, a long life, a happy life, the life he deserved. Why had I not thought of that before?

The idea filled my mind and dazzled me so I could sleep no more; and in the morning when he woke I could scarcely keep myself from bursting out to him, “Give your kingdom to your son, Aeneas!”

I had sense enough not to do that, but in a day or two I did ask, trying to speak lightly, if he had ever thought of laying his rule aside and living as an ordinary man.

He looked at me quickly, a flash of his dark eyes. “That choice wasn’t offered me,” he said. “Priam’s nephew, Anchises’ son.”

“But now you’re in a land where your fathers are less important than your sons, perhaps.”

“If I grant that,” he said after considering it, “what then? I was sent here to be king. Hector came from his grave, Creusa rose from her death, to tell me what I had to do. I was to take my people to the western land, and rule. And marry there, and have a son… You can’t say I don’t do my duty, Lavinia.” He had spoken somberly at first, but he ended with a half-suppressed smile.

“No one would ever say that of you! But you have done it—you carried out the prophecy—you fulfilled your destiny—hard as it was, voyaging over sea, the storms, and shipwrecks, and losing friends, and having to fight a war when you finally got here—And you have reigned, and founded your dynasty. Do you never think of saying: Now I’ve done that, now let me stand aside—let me rest a while, now I’ve come to harbor?”

He gazed at me for some time, a direct, mild, thoughtful gaze. He was thinking why I said what I had said, and finding no answer. “Silvius is still rather short to stand aside for,” he said finally.

It made me laugh. I was very tense. “Yes, he is. But Ascanius—”

“You want Ascanius to rule Lavinium?” He was surprised into sternness for a moment, then his expression changed, became tender; he thought he knew why I was asking him to step down. “Lavinia, dear wife, you mustn’t fear for me so much. It’s less dangerous to be the king than to be a common soldier. Anyway, the day of our death isn’t in our hands. There is no safe place. You know that.”

“Yes, I know that.”

He came to hold and comfort me, and I held him close.

“Truly,” he asked, “you’d give up being queen, to spare me the trouble of being king?” I had not in fact actually thought about that aspect of my plan. He went on, “Who would take your place? We’d have to get Ascanius married off.” He was teasing me, by now. He knew that the idea of handing over my people and my Penates to a strange woman would be dreadful to me. I was distressed and ashamed, feeling I had been caught in a lying trick, a stupid ruse. I could not speak, but blushed the way I do, turning red all over. He saw and felt that and kissed me, gently at first, but with arousing passion. We were in the small courtyard of our house, no one about. “Come on, come!” he said, and still red as fire I followed him into our bedroom, where the conversation took a different form.

But after that day I was never able to put the poet’s words wholly out of mind. They were always in my thoughts, underneath my thoughts, like the dark streams that run underground. There must be some way in which the words did not mean that Aeneas was to die after three summers and winters as king in Latium, but meant only that his rule would end. Maybe he would conquer a neighboring country and rule as king of the Volscians or the Hernici. Maybe he would take me and Silvius back to his own country, and rebuild the beautiful city of Ilium that Achates and Serestus told me about, with its walls and towers and high citadel, and rule there as king of Troy. Maybe he would not die, only be very ill, weakened by illness, so that Ascanius must come and take on the active role of kingship for him, and be called king—but Aeneas would live on with me in Lavinium, and have joy in his son and in his life—he would live, he would not die. So my mind ran from possibility to possibility like a hare dodging hounds, while the three old women, the Fates, spun out the measured thread of what was to be.

The winter was mild but long. January was all rain and mud. A portent occurred in Laurentum: the doors of the War Gate, which my mother had opened and I and Maruna and the men of the city had closed, three years ago, swung open of themselves. People came to Janus’ altar in the morning of the Kalends of February and found the gates hanging ajar. The bolts of the iron hasps that held in place the great locking beam had rusted through, so that the hasps gave way and let the beam drop. The hinges also were rusted and askew, so that the gates could not be closed. Latinus was gravely troubled by the omen. He did not think it right to interfere, to repair the hinges and the hasps, until the meaning of the event became clear. No one knew why they had been made of iron, the unlucky metal, never used in sacred places. He had his smiths make new hasps and bolts and hinges of bronze, but he did not mend or close the War Gate yet.

Troubling news was coming in from east and south of the Alban Hills. Farmers and villagers along the border reported ambushes, barn burning, cattle thieving, and harassment, carried on by both sides, Latin and Rutulian. And young Camers of Ardea, who had led the inept attack on our city two years before, sent to us to complain that his city was being threatened and its farms and pastures constantly raided, by men from Alba Longa.

I watched Aeneas master his bitter, disappointed anger. He was like a man mounted on a powerful horse that fights the reins and plunges, nose to feet, and kicks, twisting its body, and finally is brought to stand white with sweat, shaking, ready to obey.

My heart felt as if it was being squeezed in a fist of fear; but now that the time had come, my empty imaginings of escape all died away and left me to face what there was no escaping. When he said, “I must go down to Ardea,” I made no protest and tried to show no undue fear. He went fully armed and with a strong escort. He was not taking any unnecessary risks, only necessary ones. I kissed him good-bye and held up Silvius for his kiss, and smiled, and bade him come home soon.

“I will come home soon,” he said. “With Ascanius.”

My best friends among Aeneas’ friends, Achates and Serestus, had ridden away with him; I was left with my women. They were of great comfort to me. They helped me keep everything in the household and the city running on as it should. Serestus’ wife Illivia had just had a baby, and we could forget our worries playing with him. My father sent a man down daily to ask if we had news and if we needed advice or help. He did not come himself, for he had been troubled with a cough all winter, and the weather was foul, with hard rains and the ways deep in mud. Nor did I go to him, for I was needed in my city.

Those were nine long, dark days and nights.

At evening of the day after the Ides of February, a troop of wet men on wet horses tramped up out of the rainy dusk to the city gate. The guardsmen cried out, “The king! King Aeneas comes!” He rode in, his sword on his hip and the great shield on his shoulder. Behind him rode Ascanius, unarmed; then Aeneas’ men, all armed.