As he went through the streets he saw great powers made visible, moving in the darkness, the powers that willed Troy to burn.
When he got home, he tried to get his people to leave the house, escape the city, save themselves; but his father Anchises wouldn’t go. Anchises was crippled, could hardly walk. He said he would die in his own house. But the house people wouldn’t leave him there, wouldn’t go without him. Aeneas was about to give up, rush back into the madness and get himself killed in the street fighting. His wife Creusa stopped him, and told him he had no right to do that. It was his duty and hers to try to save their people. She had their little son Ascanius with her. And as she spoke, someone said, “Look!"—and they saw that the boy’s hair had caught fire—a gold flame leaped up over his head. They put it out, but old Anchises, who could read omens, said it was a good omen. Then they saw a shooting star run across the sky and fall into the forest up on the mountain over the city, Mount Ida. Anchises said they should follow that star. So Aeneas told all the house people to scatter out and run, get out of the city any way they could, and told them where to meet: at a mound with an old altar of the Grain Mother, outside the city gate under Mount Ida. Then Anchises carried the household gods in a big clay pot, and Aeneas carried crippled Anchises on his back; he took little Ascanius’ hand, and Creusa followed him; and so they set off through the dark streets.
But Anchises saw soldiers down a side street and shouted to Aeneas to run. Aeneas obeyed, turned aside, running blindly in the dark, and lost his way. Finally he recognised a street and made his way, still carrying his father and holding the little boy’s hand, to the gate, and came out to the altar where all his people were waiting for him. Only then he realised his wife wasn’t with them. She’d been behind him when he turned and ran, and he never looked back to see if she was with him. No one had seen her.
So he went back into the city alone. He ran to their house, thinking she might have gone there. The whole house was burning, full of flame. He ran through the city shouting, “Creusa! Creusa!"—past the ruined buildings, and the fires, and the soldiers killing and looting. And then he saw her. She stood in front of him in the dark street. But she was taller than herself. And she said, “I will not go with you, nor will I be the slave of any Greek. The Earth Mother keeps me here. And you must go a long way for a long time, you must go, my sweet husband, until at last you come to the Western Land. There you will be a king and have a queen. No tears for me, but let your love guard our son!” And he tried to speak to her, and to take her in his arms—three times he tried, but it was like putting his arms around the wind, around a dream. She was gone into the shadow.
So he went back to the altar mound, where a great crowd of people had gathered now, fleeing the city, joining his house people. No Greeks had followed them out of the city, yet. He took his father up on his back again, and led them all up into the hills, where the shooting star had fallen. It was almost morning.
I remember that as the poet’s voice died away, a first bird piped up, thin and far off, though there was no light yet in the sky, and no voice answered. Here, too, it was almost morning. I looked where the shadow of the poet had been and there was nothing. I lay down in the fleeces and slept till the sun’s light, piercing and flashing through the dark trunks and thickets of the forest, woke me.
I was ravenously hungry, a wolf. I went straight to the woodcutter’s cottage, where Maruna was waiting for me. It was the old kind of house, one tall round room of stakes with a roof of boughs, all thatched with straw. The woodcutter was already gone to his work in the woods. I asked his wife for food. She had nothing but a scrape of spelt porridge and a cup of sour goat’s milk, which she was frightened to offer me because she thought such poor stuff would insult me and I’d be angry with her. I gobbled it up. Having nothing to give her, I kissed her. I thanked her for feeding the she-wolf. She laughed in bewilderment.
“I ate everything you have, what will you eat?” I asked, and she said comfortably, “Oh, he always brings a rabbit or some birds.”
“Perhaps I’ll wait,” I said, but my joke bewildered her again. No doubt she thought we always ate meat at the king’s house.
So I set off with Maruna. There was a great joy in me that morning. Maruna saw it and asked, “Was it a good night there?”
“Yes. I saw my kingdom,” I said. I did not know myself what I meant. “And I saw a great city fall, all burning. And a man came out of it with a man on his back. And he is coming here.”
She listened, believed me, asked nothing.
I could say that, I could talk that way to Maruna, my slave and sister, but not to anyone else.
All the way home I puzzled how I could win my way back to Albunea, soon, as soon as possible, and stay there more than one night. For I was quite certain that the poet would come back, but equally certain that he could not come back for long. His time with me was limited. He was on his way down to the shadow land, and it would not be a long journey for him.
I turned aside from our path and walked to the little river Prati, running shallow and bright on its stones. I was thirsty, and knelt to drink above the ford there, marked with the hooves of cattle. When I looked up from drinking, the ford made me think of the place I had stood in my dream six years before and seen the blood in the water, on the river Numicus. A dread and awe came into me. I stood, and opened my meal bag, and scattered salsamola on the stones.
I looked up at Maruna standing patiently on the riverbank, a tall girl my age, with a long, dark, soft Etruscan face. Tying up the meal bag I said, “Maruna, I need to go back to Albunea, soon. And maybe stay more than one night.”
She pondered for half a mile homeward before she said, “Not while King Turnus is here.”
“No.”
“But when he leaves… Will the king ask why you want to go?”
“Probably. And you can’t lie about sacred things.”
“You can be silent, though,” said Maruna.
“I am the king’s daughter,” I said, thinking how the poet had called me that. “I will do as I will do, and the king will nod his head.” I laughed out loud, and then I said, “Look, look, Maruna! There’s Silvia’s deer! What’s he doing so far from home?”
The big stag was walking on an open hillside just above a field where the new crops were coming up green. His white linen neckpiece was torn and dingy, but his antlers were splendid in their new velvet.
Maruna pointed a little way ahead of the stag: a slender doe was drifting along, nibbling a grass stem here and there, ignoring her follower entirely. “That’s what he’s doing so far from home.”
“Mating season or not. Just like Turnus,” I said, and laughed again. Nothing could keep my heart down that morning.
So with that courage in me I went to my father as soon as I got home, and greeted him, and said, “Father, when our guest has gone, may I go to Albunea again? Maruna will go with me, and anyone else you wish, if you think I need to be guarded. I wish to sleep there alone, more than one night.”
Latinus looked at me, a long look, affectionate, distant, judging. He was about to ask me a question, and then he did not. “I begrudge every night you are not under my roof, daughter. How much longer will I have you? But I trust you. Go to the sacred place when you will, stay as you must, return when you can.”
“I will,” I said, and thanked him, and he kissed my forehead. Then, because fathers must be stern, he said, “I expect you to be at the banquet tonight. And no sulking, no green swoons.”