Free Dido by Adèle Geras Page B

tomorrow, Aeneas. I’m very happy to be welcoming you to Carthage.’
    As father and son left the hall, Anna noticed the stick again, lying on the table. Was it anything like a shining arrow? No, of course not. She picked it up and held it to her bosom. Perhaps it still held a certain magic within it. Aphrodite, she said silently to herself, visit me. Make Iopas love me. Help me to be beautiful in his eyes.
    She had thought she might mention what she’d seen to Dido but decided not to. Her sister in any case was far away, leaning back against her cushions, with her eyes closed and a smile on her lips as though she were dreaming of something delightful. Around her, the air seemed to glow with a radiance like starlight.
    Just after sunset; a small bedchamber
    â€˜You should go now, Anna,’ Dido said, and Anna started up from her thoughts, her memories of the night of the feast suddenly interrupted.
    â€˜I’ve been dreaming, but you’re right. I need to see that the bed is being properly guarded in the courtyard, but I think you want to get rid of me. Don’t pretend.’
    â€˜I want to be alone, that’s true enough. It’s not you, Anna. I feel – I can’t say how I feel.’
    â€˜I’ll come back,’ Anna said. ‘Don’t think you’re getting rid of me for the night. And I almost forgot. I’ve got something for you. I should have given it to you at once. It’s a sleeping draught. I had the healer prepare his special mixture. Poppies and honey and something very secret he prefers not to mention. Here, take the phial.’
    â€˜I’m not interested in sleeping. Why can’t you get that into your head? Take it away. I want nothing to do with sleeping draughts. I’ve tried the healer’s potion before and it made me feel as though I was out of my own body. As though I was walking around in a dream. Then, when I slept, I couldn’t wake up for a very long time. I don’t want it.’
    â€˜I’ll put it on the windowsill,’ Anna said. ‘Just in case.’
    Dido said nothing, either about the sleeping draught or anything else. She smiled to show that she was in a more normal state now and could therefore be left on her own for a while.

Elissa
    After the evening meal; the maidservants’ bedchamber
    â€˜ WHAT’S WRONG, ELISSA? Tell us. You’ve not stopped crying for hours.’ Nezral, who was thin and fair, with a beaky nose that gave her something of the look of a bird of prey, came to where she was sitting on the edge of her bed and put an arm around her shoulders. Elissa, overcome by this display of kindness, began to cry even more noisily, and soon her nose was running and her eyes, sore from the tears she’d shed earlier in the afternoon, stung even more than before. The lamps were still burning because the girls had been unable to fall asleep with so much going on in the corridors of the palace.
    â€˜Take a cloth for your nose,’ said Tanith, holding out a square of cotton and sitting down on the other side of Elissa. ‘You were so kind to me this morning, when I was crying about Maron. And though I’m still sad, you know that we’ll listen if you want to tell us why you’re so unhappy.’
    â€˜Take no notice of her,’ Nezral was quick to interrupt. ‘We both know exactly why you’re crying. We know you loved him.’
    â€˜Who? Who am I supposed to have loved?’
    Tanith blushed. ‘Lord Aeneas,’ she said. ‘We’ve known from the beginning that you loved him.’
    â€˜How? I said nothing. Not one word.’ Elissa was indignant.
    â€˜You didn’t need to,’ Nezral said. ‘We could hear the way your voice changed when you spoke his name. You were always blushing. And quick to come to his defence if anyone said a single word against him.’
    â€˜I was loyal to him, that’s all,’ Elissa said. ‘I was