“I don’t have long,” he said.
“Oh, I wish—” But wishes were no use.
“Your father has heard Faunus speak,” he said, with a ghost of laughter in his ghost of voice.
“Then—”
“You will not marry Turnus. No fear of that.”
I stood up, facing him. Though he spoke so gently I was still frightened.
“What will happen?”
“War. The bees swarmed to the great tree. The king’s daugh ter ran through the house with blazing hair, scattering sparks and smoke. And war and glory followed her.”
“Why must there be war?”
“Oh, Lavinia, what a woman’s question that is! Because men are men.”
“Then Aeneas is coming to attack us?”
“Not at all. He comes in peace, to offer alliance to your father, and marry you, and settle down to bring up his family. He brings the gods of his household here. But he brings his sword too. And there will be war. Battles, sieges, slaughter, slave taking, town burning, rape. And men who rant and boast, and then kill sleeping men. And men who kill young boys. And the growing crops laid waste. All the wrong that men can do is done. Justice, mercy, does Mars care for them?”
His voice had grown stronger, not loud but curiously strident, so that I glanced at my father to see if he had heard; he slept on, unmoving. “I can tell you the war, Lavinia. Shall I?” He did not wait for my answer. “It begins with a boy killing a deer in the woods. There’s a good cause for war, as good as any other. First to die is young Almo—you know him. An arrow in his throat chokes off his speech and breath with blood. Next old Galaesus, who’s rich and used to being in control, tries to keep them from fighting, comes between them, and has his face smashed in for his pains. And then Turnus sees his chance, and war begins in earnest. No man will spare another man in this battle, though he beg for his life. Ilioneus kills Lucetius, Liger kills Emathion, Asilas kills Corynaeus, Caeneus kills Ortygius. Turnus kills Caeneus, and Itys, and Clonius, and Dioxippus, and Promolus, and Sagaris, and Idas. The blood foams from the pierced lung. The man killed while sleeping vomits blood and wine as he writhes dying. Ascanius shoots his steel-pointed arrow through Remulus’ head, and Turnus’ javelin pierces Antiphates’ throat and lodges in the lung till the steel grows warm, and his sword cleaves Pandarus’ skull between the temples so that the man falls to the ground in his brain-spattered armor, his head dangling in two halves from his neck. And when Aeneas joins the battle, his spear crashes through Maeon’s shield and breastplate, on through his body, to sever Alcanor’s arm from his shoulder. And Pallas drives his sword into Hisbo’s swollen chest, and sweeps Thymber’s head from his neck, and severs Larides’ hand that twitches and clutches with dying fingers at the sword. And Halaesus kills Ladon, and Pheres, and Demodocus, and lops off Strymonius’ hand raised against him, and strikes Thoas in the face with a stone, scattering fragments of skull mixed with blood and brains. And Turnus hurls his steel-tipped lance of oak through Pallas’ shield and breast, and the boy falls forward eating dirt with his bloody mouth. And Turnus puts his foot on the corpse and tears away Pallas’ golden sword belt, boasting of the plunder that will be his death. Then hearing of this, Aeneas rushes out again in blind rage against the enemy, and though Magus begs him for mercy, Aeneas bends the man’s head back and cuts his throat, and he kills Anxur, he kills Antaeus, he kills Lucas, he kills Numa, he kills tawny Camers, he kills Niphaeus, he kills Liger and Lucagus, and Turnus is saved from him only by the goddess who loves him and draws him away from the battle. But Mezentius the tyrant of Caere kills Habrus, he kills Latagus, striking him full in the mouth and face with a huge rock, he hamstrings Palmus and leaves him slowly writhing, he kills Evanthes and Mimas. Acron, dying from Mezentius’ spear cast, hammers the dark earth with his heels. Caedicus kills Alcathous, and Sacrator kills Hydaspes, and Rapo kills Parthenius and Orses, Messapus kills Clonius as he lies fallen from his horse, and Agis is killed by Valerus, Thronius is killed by Salius, and Salius by Aealces. They kill together and are killed together. Then pious Aeneas obeying the will of fate and the gods pierces Mezentius’ groin with his spear, and kills Mezentius’ son Lausus as he tries to protect his father, driving his sword through the young man’s body to the hilt: the point pierces the shield and the tunic his mother wove for him, blood fills his lungs and his life leaving his body flees sorrowing to the shadows. And Aeneas is sorry for the boy. But when Mezentius challenges him, he goes to meet him with a shout of joy, and though Mezentius rains darts on him, Aeneas kills his horse, then taunts the fallen man, and cuts his throat. And the next day he sends Pallas’ body to his father, King Evander, with four prisoners to be sacrificed alive on the grave. How do you like my poem now, Lavinia?”
After a long time I managed to answer him, “That might depend on how it ends.”
“With the triumph of the glorious hero over his enemy, of course. He will kill Turnus, lying wounded and helpless, just as he killed Mezentius.”
“Who is the hero?”
“You know who the hero is.”
“He kills like a butcher. Why is he a hero?”
“Because he does what he has to do.”
“Why does he have to kill a helpless man?”
“Because that is how empires are founded. Or so I hope Augustus will understand it. But I do not think he will.”
He turned away from me and neither of us spoke. I had begun to cry while he sang his hideous chant of slaughter, and my face was still wet. When the poet spoke again, his voice had softened. “But that’s not where it ends for you, Lavinia.”
I took a step towards him, for I could no longer see his face. “Tell me, then.”
“Not with the end of his reign, after only three summers and three winters. You may think all is over at the bloody ford of the Numicus, but it is not there it ends, nor at Lavinium, nor Alba Longa. Not with your death, or your son’s. Not with the Kings, not with the Consuls, the fall of Carthage, the conquest of Gaul. Not even with the murder of Julius, or Augustus’ godhead. The great age returns… maybe… I thought so once. But be of good heart, my daughter, my young grandmother! The gods of Troy are coming to a good house, your house of Latium. And you will marry the son of Spring, the son of the evening star.”
I had hated him while he told that tale of slaughter, but I was losing him, now, already, moment by moment, and I loved him, yearning to him. “Wait—Only tell me—your poem, my poem, did you finish it?”
He seemed to nod, but I could hardly see him, a tall shadow in shadows.
“Don’t go yet—”
“I must go, my glory. I am gone. I join the crowd, return to darkness.”
I cried out his name, went forward, reaching out my arms to hold him, to keep him from death, but it was like holding a breath of the night wind. Nothing was there.
I sat on the fleece, my arms around my knees, the toga with the burnt corner wrapped around me for warmth, till the sky was light above the altar place. I went then to my father and said, “Do you wake, king? Waken!” He sat up. We had brought a little drinking water, for there is none near there; I gave him the flask, and he drank a swallow and rubbed a handful of water on his face.
“You heard the grandfather speak,” I said.
Looking up at me as if still not fully awake, he said, “The voice among the trees.”
I waited.
He looked off into the dark trees and said in the low, level voice of prayer, but clearly: “‘Do not let the daughter of Latium marry a man of Latium. Let her marry the stranger that comes, that even now is coming. And the kingdom of her sons will be far greater than the kingdom of Latium.’”