Beside her, the priest sanctifies their deal: she may buy whatever land fits within one oxhide. His men murmur, seeing the trick, and still the King counts not with his reason but with the colours of his lust. Dido curls her lips and tunes her rage.
Grieving widow wipes the blade and tucks it in the straps of her sandal, the dark leather still dripping from the water that surrounds her island refuge. Her first strip placed, the blood-painted sea whispers behind them and the party sets out. A lizard flees the path ahead and Dido turns and beckons to the King.
This girl of Tyre throws up a lattice shade of fingers above her face and winds her path upwards and away from the fresh breeze of the coast patting softly at their backs. She drops length after length of hide and skirts the hill. The king reckons his losses and cares not as she lures him higher and twists him around.
Dido casts her noose about the unborn city until she falls laughing with fury as the final strip of hide kisses the shore. She smoothes the warm sand and Iarbas sinks, grateful that the pursuit is ended. His heart and blood swell with bold plans to take back this trifling piece of land and possess the girl and her husband’s gold.
Dido, should-be queen, leans close and her breath burns hot and wondrous in his ear.
‘You’re on my land now.’
Marianne Holmes is the author of A Little Bird Told Me and All Your Little Lies and lives in London.
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