Ursula Le Guin - Lavinia

The image made Achates cock his handsome grey head. “Better say you don’t want your wolf cub brought up in a barnyard,” he said. Then he clearly wished he hadn’t said anything so disrespectful to Ascanius, and frowned. “The boy’s older brother is his proper guardian,” he said stiffly. “I know it’s hard for you to part from him—”

“Do me justice, Achates! When the time comes to part from him, I’ll let him go! But the time has not come. He’s young. He needs to be with true friends and teachers—like you. His father and his grandfather left him in my charge, and I will not give that up to anyone else.”

I thought I could sway him, but I could not.

Nor would Aeneas’ other old companions, when I talked with them in the next days, approve my keeping Silvius from Ascanius’ court. I think they all thought that I was right, but could not admit it. The will of a widowed queen could not be openly allowed to overrule that of a reigning king. Ascanius had not treated them very well, he had left them to grow old away from the center of power, he ignored them except for the most formal recognition of their service; but they were Aeneas’ men and he was Aeneas’ son and his word was law. If Silvius had been older, they would have listened to him, for he was Aeneas’ son too and they loved him dearly; but as grown men they thought they should not be swayed by the will of a boy of eleven.

Meanwhile, we waited for word to come from Alba Longa. Daily I looked out from the walls dreading to see a mounted troop ride down the hill road, soldiers with orders to take Silvius back with them, or Ascanius himself coming down from the mountain to play the sky father with lightning and thunder of wrath.

However, the wedding festivities were going forward in Ardea and Alba, all those days, and I think Ascanius found it undignified to be squabbling with his stepmother while welcoming his bride. He simply ignored us. So we had all the end of March at peace there in Lavinium, and I cannot say how often I wept with both pain and joy at being there again, in my home, where I and my love had lived.

I had brought Aeneas’ armor and sword and shield in the cart—Sicana helped Silvius and me lift them down and carry them. Now they hung again in his own house, where they should hang.

And we waited to hear from the house of Ascanius.

In midmorning one day while I was at my loom starting a new piece, the girl Ursina came running in. “A troop of armed men on horseback, coming down the way from Alba, queen,” she said. “About a mile away now. One leads a riderless horse.”

For Silvius.

I had made a hundred plans for what to do when Ascanius sent for Silvius, but they fell to dust under the hooves of those horsemen. There was only one thing to do, and it was what I had done already—run. Run and hide.

“Send Silvius to me,” I told Ursina, a girl of fifteen or so, wild and tawny as a lioness, Maruna’s niece. She darted off. I went to my room and tied up a few things in an old palla, and when Silvius came panting in I told him we were going to the forest to escape from Ascanius’ men.

“I’ll get horses,” he said.

“No need, we’re not going far. And horses are hard to hide. Get your cloak and good shoes and meet me in the kitchen.”

I gathered up a cook pot and some food in another bundle, Silvius came, and we were off. Maruna met us in the doorway of the house. I said, “I hope he will not punish you!"—meaning all my women and the people of the house. “Tell the king’s men: the queen went with her son to the great oracle of the springs near Tibur to ask guidance of the oracle. That will keep them busy a little while.”

“But you…”

“You know where to look for me, Maruna. The woodcutter’s.”

She nodded. She was desperately worried for us and I was worried for her, but I could not hesitate. Silvius and I went down the street, slipped out through the postern gate of the town, and struck across the fields, across the last pagus, following the course of the Prati into the wooded foothills northwest under cover of the newleaved oaks. In time we came to the old path from Laurentum to Albunea, winding along under the hills.

Silvius wrinkled his nose. He could scent like a hound.

“Rotten eggs?” I asked. We had not spoken at all, hurrying along in fugitive silence.

He nodded.

“That’s the sulfur springs.”

“Are we going there?”

“Nearby.”

We came to the forester’s cottage where Maruna used to spend the night while the poet and I talked in the sacred grove. Trees had grown up and closed in on the high round hut, and I almost passed it without seeing it. The clearing and what had been the kitchen garden were rank with brambles and tall weeds. I called out. No one answered. I went to the door and saw the house was desolate. The woodcutter and his wife had gone elsewhere, or were dead.

Silvius was into the hut and all around it with a child’s quick curiosity. “This is a good place,” he said. He put down his bundle on the doorstep. I had noticed how unwieldy it was as he walked with it, and it went down with a thud and a clank. “What did you put in that?” I asked. He looked at me a bit askance, and opened up the bundle. He had brought his short bow, arrows, a hunting knife, and the short sword he used for battle practice.

“For wolves,” he said.

“Ah,” I said. “Well, dear son, I think maybe we are the wolves.”

He thought it over and the idea clearly pleased him. He nodded.

“Come and sit down a bit,” I said, sitting on the doorstep and pushing the weapons aside to make room. A shaft of sunlight struck through the gloom of the pines and oaks all around and made it warm there. Silvius sat down next to me. I looked at his thin brown boy legs and the shoes that were too heavy for his feet. He leaned his head against me. “They don’t want to kill us, do they, mother?” he asked, not with terror but for reassurance.

“No. They want to part us. I am certain in my heart that it’s wrong for me to let you go. But there’s no way I can keep Ascanius from taking you to Alba, except by hiding you so he can’t.”

He thought for a long time and said, “I could go live on a farm somewhere off in the country and pretend to be a farm boy.”

“You might. It would put the farmer’s family at risk, though.”

He nodded shortly, ashamed of not having seen that.

I was ashamed too of involving him in any deceit. I said, “Listen. I lied about going to the great oracle at Tibur. But I do want to consult the oracle. Ours, my father’s, my forefathers’ oracle, here, at Albunea. Maybe it will tell us what to do. I don’t know if it will speak to a woman, but it might speak to you. Grandson of Latinus, of Faunus, of Picus, of Saturn…” I stroked his hard, slight shoulder, still sweaty from our quick walk. “Son of Aeneas.” I kissed him.

He kissed me back. “I won’t leave you,” he said. “Never.”

“Oh, never and forever aren’t for mortals, love. But we won’t be parted till I know it’s right that we part.”

“That’s never, then,” he said.

A bird sang out sweet from the dark trees, a long trill brimming with the lovely ignorant happiness of spring. “Is this where we’re going to stay?”

“Tonight, at least.”

“Good. You brought fire, didn’t you?”

I showed him the little clay fire pot I had filled from Vesta of the Regia and brought in a wicker sling. “Lay a fire on the hearth and say the prayers,” I told him. I swept out the hut while he did so, and we kindled the hearth fire together.

“Your father grew up in the woods on a great mountain, Ida, did you know that?” I asked him. Of course he knew it, but he wanted to hear it again, and listened intently while I repeated to him the little that Aeneas had told me of his childhood. Then he went off with his bow and arrows to see if there were any unwary rabbits or quail about. I went on cleaning out the hut, and made us beds of young pine boughs I tore from saplings. There was no rubbish in the hut, only the tiny leavings of spiders and woodmice, and some fallen thatch. Poor people have little to leave. There was half a broken earthenware bowl on a shelf; it had been kept, it was of use. I put in it the handful of salt I had brought from home and set it on the shelf that would serve as our table.