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she’d wondered how that could be. How could a mortal be the son of a goddess? She was about to ask him when he continued: ‘It’s all been decided by the Gods, you see. There’s little we can do when they’ve made up their minds. My mother and Hera looked with favour on Dido’s love for me and allowed it to flourish but I’ve always . . .’
    â€˜Always what?’ Elissa dared to ask. Sometimes when Aeneas came into the nursery and stayed to talk to her, she found it hard to find words, even though she longed for the conversation to continue, but on this occasion her curiosity gave her courage.
    Aeneas had smiled at her. His whole face changed when he smiled and he looked more like his little son and less like a warrior. If something angered him, his eyes, the look that came into them, could make you feel cold all over. He said, ‘I’ve always known that the Gods had something prepared for me. Call it a sense of – what’s the right word? Destiny. Yes, that’s it. D’you know what that means, Elissa?’
    She’d shaken her head. Aeneas continued: ‘It’s hard to explain, only I’ve always known that I was spared during the war in Troy because there was something else I had to do before I died. And now it’s clear. I am to found a new city across the sea.’
    â€˜Does that mean you’re leaving us?’ she hadasked him. ‘Can you not be a lord here, in Carthage?’
    â€˜Oh, Elissa, it’s complicated. Queen Dido would be reluctant to share her power, I think.’
    â€˜Have you asked her?’ Even as she spoke, she realized that he might well chide her for her words. As a mere nursemaid, she knew she had no right to ask for details about the affairs of her masters.
    â€˜Whatever she says now, she would grow to hate it, as you know. And besides, it’s as I said. No one can escape the fate which the Gods have decreed.’
    Elissa used to love these talks, even though after a while she grew a little bored with discussions of destiny, but it appeared that whatever it was, this
destiny
was the cause of her sorrow: the one thing that made it impossible for Aeneas to remain in Carthage.
    She stood up and looked around. Could she duck past the soldiers; make a run for the ships? No, of course she couldn’t. The men (who weren’t really soldiers but looked and behaved and strutted around like soldiers and regarded themselves as Aeneas’ bodyguard) would catch her. Stop her. They’d send her back to the palace, and if the queen found out that she’d been down here wanting to see Aeneas . . . Elissa shivered. Perhaps Dido would banish her. Send her back home. This would certainly be the worst fate she could imagine, for however much she loved Aeneas, she loved Dido too, and to leave her service would be a kind of a death. Her father would punish her for what she’d done when she was only a girl, running away from his house. Now, more than four summerslater, Elissa thanked the Gods every day that she was here, in Carthage, serving a beautiful queen and living in a palace that was a wonder of the world.
    She started to cry as she turned away from the harbour and began to walk back to the palace, and the tears flowed from her eyes as though they would never stop. No, she told herself. I’ll keep silent. Say nothing. Aeneas will forget about me. I was nothing to him. He was everything to me. All my prayers to Aphrodite have come to nothing. How she wished that tomorrow she could wake up to find Ascanius standing over her bed almost as soon as the sun was up, saying:
Playtime, Elissa. Get up now, Elissa
, as he did every day. But the boy was leaving with his father and the two of them would never come back. He’d have Maron to take care of him now, but surely, surely he’d miss her? Maron was more like a boisterous elder brother to the boy, but she . . . she felt herself to be a kind of mother