The Children of Jocasta
: Chapter 17

I don’t think about my parents every day, but I miss them more than I remember them. Growing up without them has left me with an uneasy sense that I have been careless with something fragile and irreplaceable: a precious bottle of perfume, perhaps. I can’t reach into the past and take better care of them. But the one consolation I have always had is my three siblings. There are traces of my parents in all of us. Ani looks very much like our mother, and always has: the bright, birdlike eyes, the thick, dark hair. She is small, like our mother was, and delicate. Even her hands could be our mother’s: the neat, sharp nails that she digs into the soft flesh of a ripe fig. Polyn is a compact version of my father: he has the same quickness in his expression, as though he is waiting for you to catch up. But Eteo has my father’s build, and his long, ranging gait is so evocative that sometimes if he catches me unawares, I lose myself for a moment, thinking it is Papa.

But not any more.

Finally, Eteo came out of his room. He had always had these dark periods, even when he was a small boy. There was no consoling him when he was angry or upset: you had to leave him be until he was ready to talk again. I knocked on the door and called his name, quietly, in case he was asleep. I had done this every day, but he had not replied. Then one day, he opened the door and came out, blinking into the bright sunshine of the square. His eye sockets were puffed up, swollen like blisters. I reached over to embrace him, but his arms squeezed me back emptily.

‘Come to the fountain, Isy,’ he said. I saw no value in telling him that, as far as I knew, we were unlikely to be overheard anywhere, as we were the only people in the courtyard. Ani was somewhere with Haem, I guessed: I didn’t know where. The slaves had come in early this morning with toasted barley grains and sour goat curds but they were long gone now.

‘Where is everyone?’ Eteo asked, looking around.

‘It’s been like this for days,’ I told him. ‘I’ve asked our uncle when they will open the gates again, and he shrugs and says we’re safer like this.’

‘Safer?’ My brother raised a weary eyebrow. ‘We’d be safer wrestling a mountain lion than in this place. I’m sorry, Isy, I abandoned you. I had to think about things.’

‘You’re here now.’

We sat by the fountain and I reached out to dip my hand in the water. ‘What happens when you try to leave?’ he asked.

‘No one comes to open the gates.’

‘What if you shout and hammer on them?’ he asked, smiling tiredly.

‘Not even then,’ I said.

‘But the slaves have been coming in and out?’ he asked, jerking his head at the food which remained on a table under the colonnade, a fine linen cloth draped over it to keep the flies away.

‘Less frequently than before. But yes.’

‘Through the gates?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘When do they come?’

‘Before I’m awake. They come back each night to take the plates and dishes away and refill them.’

‘So we’re stuck here,’ he said. I nodded. ‘Where’s Ani?’ he asked. I shrugged.

‘With Haem, I think,’ I replied. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen her for days. They plan to announce their betrothal soon, I am sure of it.’

‘You’ve just been here on your own?’ he asked.

‘Since the coronation,’ I said. ‘Ani is here sometimes, but she’s always with him, so I can’t talk to her.’

‘You don’t trust Haem.’ Eteo nodded slowly. ‘Or Ani?’

‘I don’t know who to trust except you,’ I said.

‘Then you’re lucky I’m here,’ he smiled. ‘The slave boy has brought food into my room every morning. I couldn’t face seeing any of them: Polyn and Creon and the others. Not once you’d told me about Lynceus. It didn’t occur to me that you were out here on your own. Forgive me.’

‘Lynceus? Is that his name?’

‘Polyn’s friend? Yes.’

‘Polyn can’t face seeing you either,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t come back here at all.’

‘I don’t think he’s ashamed of what he’s done, Isy. Are you still thinking the best of him now, even when you have so much evidence against him?’

‘I don’t have any choice. The only alternative is to think the worst of him. And how does that help me?’

Eteo shook his head. ‘Be realistic.’

‘I am being realistic,’ I said. ‘What would you have me believe? That my brother agreed to have me killed, and it is just good luck and the skill of an old man that means I am alive today? Is that truly what you think?’

‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Let’s not talk about him any more.’

He stood up, and walked over to the table. He picked up two figs and threw one over to me. His aim was off and I had to lean right back to catch it. I almost fell on my back, but my balance just held and I righted myself again. Finally I saw my brother smile properly. The weight of things seemed to shift from his brow bones and his face opened up, like an unfurling leaf.

*

I should have guessed he was planning something. It is how Eteo has always been: whenever he is upset about something, he withdraws from the world until he has thought things through. Only then does he act. There was no reason for him to behave differently now.

He was more determined to leave the courtyard than I was, which was hardly surprising. I couldn’t go outside the palace, or even into its public areas, without an escort. If one of the slaves or one of my relatives didn’t accompany me, no one would let me out as far as the main courtyard. So even if I had made an almighty racket hammering on the gates, I could only have reached the second courtyard, and that was where Polyn’s friends, Lynceus included, would be. Eteo had no such restrictions on his movements, of course, so he had a great deal more to gain.

One of the odd things about my brother is that people forget how quick he is. They watch him each year at the races, sprinting at full pelt, and they know he is fast. But because he is tall and has a lazy, sinuous way of walking, they don’t remember that when he’s away from the racetrack. Perhaps, too, they had forgotten that he wouldn’t stay in his rooms forever, although that would obviously have been more convenient for them.

The next day, long before it was light, a slave came in carrying fresh fruit and cheese. He did not need a torch, because the moon was large and full that night, and the clouds covered it only intermittently. Besides, his arms were full with the dishes he was carrying. He had done this every night for days, he was not expecting anything unusual to happen. So he wasn’t looking in the darker recesses of the colonnade, where Eteo was hiding, waiting.

I heard nothing, which can only be what my brother intended. The slave was not found until the next evening, tied up on Eteo’s floor. He had been carrying in the new dishes, he explained (though by then no one cared), when a hand had clapped itself around his mouth and a blade bit at his throat. He did not resist, though he claimed he did not know it was the royal prince who was accosting him until he was bundled into his room. Eteo must have picked up yesterday’s used dishes and taken them with him, to keep anyone from guessing that something was amiss. The guards weren’t manning the gate very attentively, that much was clear: Eteo was a hand taller than the slave he had imprisoned, and more muscular. He left the crocks outside the kitchens and if anyone thought this was strange, they said nothing. The kitchen boy took them (no doubt complaining to himself that his fellow slave had slacked off) and washed them, as he always did. No one knew where Eteo was until after it was light. He must have hidden somewhere: my guess is that he went into one of the state rooms, which were rarely used, unless ambassadors were visiting from another city. The night-watch would not have checked those rooms more than once at the start of the evening, if they even bothered to do that: they would not have seen the point. It scarcely needs mentioning that every man on the night patrol is dead now, clubbed to death by the royal bodyguards.

Eteo was cleverer than me, so he had already worked out that Polyn was living in the old king’s rooms in the second courtyard. No one has used them for as long as we have been alive, but apparently the old king (the one before my father) slept there. Eteo could have crept in to speak to Polyn before it grew light, but he did not. Instead he waited until the king rose and washed and ate and walked through to the treasury to begin the day with his advisers. Eteo then crossed the courtyard to the state rooms on the west side of the courtyard. No one stopped him. The guards would perhaps not have known that he was supposed to be locked in the family courtyard with me. He had been so quiet for days, perhaps they had forgotten he was there. They either did not see or did not question the fact that he was carrying a sword. It was hardly an unusual thing, to see a prince with a ceremonial weapon. But just because the hilt of Eteo’s sword was studded with polished agate gems did not make the blade any less sharp.

He opened the door of the treasury, and walked inside, letting it close behind him. Polyn must have been shocked to see him, but perhaps he was not. He must have been expecting this, or something like it, sooner or later. It would have been unlike him to underestimate Eteo: the two of them have been squabbling since Eteo was born. My uncle was also in the room, as were two slaves, from whom I heard all this. I bribed them with honey-cakes so they would tell me, though they had sworn to my uncle to keep their silence.

‘Resign the kingship,’ Eteo said. He didn’t shout.

‘What can you mean, brother?’ Polyn asked. ‘Your turn is next year. You must be patient.’

‘You are responsible for what happened to Isy. It was your man who stabbed her. How could you do such an appalling thing? The gods themselves must have stolen your senses, and they will surely punish you for such an impious crime.’

Guilt settled on Polyn’s face for a moment, before flying away again like a weary bird. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he replied. ‘You were king when our sister was attacked. She was your responsibility.’

‘She still is,’ Eteo replied. ‘And she is yours, too. We both swore to protect our sisters long ago. Father would have been ashamed of you. I am ashamed of you. To set a grown man to attack a girl, and your own sister. I tried to believe anything else before I could accept that you were capable of such behaviour.’

‘How dare you?’ Polyn leapt to his feet.

‘I told you to resign,’ Eteo said. ‘I will banish you from the palace, and the city. You will leave Thebes before nightfall. You can beg Isy’s pardon before you leave. I wouldn’t give it to you, but she is soft-hearted and wants to think well of you, so she might. But you deserve nothing from her, or from anyone.’

‘Get out,’ Polyn whispered. ‘I will not tell you again. I will call the guards and have you locked up in the caves beneath the palace. You think I fear the scandal? I don’t.’

‘Polyn, Eteo, calm down,’ said my uncle. He said nothing else.

‘I don’t think you fear any scandal,’ said Eteo. ‘What kind of man could agree to an attack on his own sister? You filthy coward.’

Polyn reached for his own sword, but he wasn’t wearing it. Why would he be, when he was sitting in the treasury with my uncle and his slaves? He stepped backwards, groping behind him for an ornamental weapon: a valuable silver knife which was usually used by the priests during their sacrifices. The blade was sharp, but the metal was soft, designed for killing a helpless victim, rather than for combat. He jabbed at Eteo, and drew blood from the arm my brother raised to ward off the blow. He cannot have believed that Polyn would really attack him. It is this which I think reveals the truth: Eteo took a sword with him – I don’t deny it – but he did not intend to use it. He was trained to fight; he knew he could not defend himself against a knife with his bare arm. It was the behaviour of a brother, who believes his sibling is feinting, and will not really hurt him. He put up his arm, not his sword.

Eteo saw his own blood dripping from his slashed forearm onto the stone floor. And only then did he shake his head like a wounded boar, and raise his sword in anger. Polyn swiped at him again, and this time Eteo parried the attack with his sword. The tip of Polyn’s knife shattered with the force of Eteo’s defence. Polyn cursed as he looked at the blade: it was shorter, jagged now from the damage, but still sharp. He made one final attempt on Eteo, stepping in and stabbing at his neck. There was no mistaking his intent. Even a short blade will kill a man if it pierces him in the neck. He took such a large step that it confused Eteo, who was preparing to parry the knife again, expecting a blow to be aimed at his torso.

Eteo’s sword – so beautifully kept, as the armourer had taught him when he was still a child – cut right into Polyn’s chest. My oldest brother fell to his knees, dropping the knife as he went. Eteo must have been horrified by what he had done, because he dropped his sword too, and reached out to catch Polyn, who slumped forward into his brother’s arms.

It cannot have been Polyn who shouted for the guards, because he would not have had the strength, as he lay, his head on Eteo’s shoulder, his blood pouring out over them both. And it cannot have been Eteo, who would have called for a doctor, for Sophon, but not for the guards. So it must have been my uncle who shouted with a tone of such urgency that the guards ran from all over the courtyard – most with their heads still half-filled with sleep – and pushed the treasury door open, almost falling over one another in their haste to obey Creon’s summons. They saw my brothers tangled on their knees and looked at my uncle for instructions.

‘The king is dying,’ he said. ‘Here is his assassin.’

Thebes does not have many laws. But the guards knew what they must do. They picked Eteo up by his shoulders and dragged him outside into the courtyard. They pulled back his hair to expose his neck, and slit his throat like a bull.

Ani and Haem had run into the courtyard from wherever they had been hiding. The shout and the sudden stampede of feet had pierced even their solitude. And so it was the sound of my sister screaming which drew me to the gates to see what on earth had happened. Only when I put my weight against them did I replace they were now open, as Eteo must have left them when he slipped through, earlier in the morning. I ran into the royal courtyard, my eyes on Ani, frantic because I thought she was hurt.

I stood in confusion, because she seemed uninjured, and Haem was beside her, also safe and well. Finally I turned my head to follow her gaze, and saw the guards bringing Polyn out of the treasury on a litter they had fashioned from one of their cloaks. My brother’s clothes were blackened with blood and he lay limp and lifeless on the stretcher. I looked back at Ani, hoping she would replace a way to tell me I was mistaken. But her eyes were not on me, they were on the guard I had almost run into, who was brandishing a knife with a rusty blade in his left hand.

Only then did I realize that the blade was not rusty, and that the lake of blood pooling beneath my feet belonged to Eteo. Only then did I see that I had lost both my brothers. Everything had gone in a few beats of my heart. Everything but my sister.