The Children of Jocasta
: Chapter 21

On the day of Polyn’s coronation, I had thought the only thing I wanted was to feel safe again in the palace. In my home. But I was mistaken. We had never been safer, my sister and I. No one could now enter the palace without prior consent from my uncle. None of the aristoi – Polyn and Eteo’s friends – had been allowed in since the day my brothers died. They had been replaced by their fathers: Creon preferred older men for his advisers and colleagues. But we were now prisoners in what used to be our home. Every door and gate had been locked. I hadn’t seen anyone but my sister and the servants for days.

I finally persuaded my uncle over dinner the night after they died that I should be allowed to see Sophon. I told him my lyre had fallen out of tune, and I had broken one of the strings retuning it. He told me I should be weaving, behaving as though he had always been king, as though nothing terrible had occurred only a day earlier. Ani produced a sample of the cloth I had made: a rich, red wool, woven into a lumpy, scratchy, ill-shaped piece of fabric, and he decided it would be foolish to waste such expensive materials on me. I could keep trying to spin my own threads, but what I produced would not sell on the cheapest market stall. It was – Creon sighed – an embarrassment to the royal household to have produced women so unskilled in fine work. But he didn’t say what anyone else would have: who will want to marry you with such a lack of the wifely skills? He had no need.

‘I need my lyre or I cannot sing at the wake,’ I told him. Thebans understand that paying our duty to the dead is more important than anything which happens while someone is alive. The announcement of deaths in the royal household meant that the city was in mourning, and would remain so for five days, until the burial was held. There would be fires and feasting, sacrifices and music played that night, as a sign that we had paid the dead their dues and were then allowed to re-enter the world of the living. Until the burial, Ani and I were in a liminal state: tainted by the dead, unable to fit in to normal life.

My uncle nodded his head in weary assent, and told me he would send Sophon into the family courtyard the next morning. ‘You must use your time to compose a song for your brother,’ he said. I thought I must have misheard the final word.

‘I will,’ I told him. ‘I am already trying to think of the best way to twine their two stories together.’ We were sitting around a small table, and Haem was reaching out to take a piece of flatbread, still warm with griddle-marks stamped across it, like a brand. Creon was holding a bowl of chickpeas in one hand, and scooping them onto his plate with a spoon.

‘The song will be only for Polynices,’ Creon said, and Haem froze just for a moment. Creon turned his head slightly to look at his son – who was sitting opposite Ani, rather than next to her, as usual – and Haem flickered back into life, picking up the bread he had been reaching towards.

‘I could write a song for each of them,’ I said, as though I were agreeing with Creon’s suggestion. Sitting next to Ani, who had dropped her head, allowing her hair to hide her face, I could hear her shallow breathing.

‘Just for Polynices,’ he repeated. ‘Eteocles will not receive a wake. He was an enemy of the city.’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ Ani said, looking up at last. She had forgotten that arguing with Creon is never the best way to change his mind. You have to persuade him to do things differently, over time. Contradicting him only drives him to occupy his previous position more immovably. I saw Haem’s eyes flash a warning, but too late. Creon turned his gaze from me to my sister.

‘You will apologize for speaking in such a way to the king,’ he said. ‘You are no doubt distressed by the loss of your brother.’ Ani has never been able to resist provocation.

‘Two brothers,’ she said. ‘We have lost two brothers.’

‘And you will mourn one,’ he told her. ‘Polynices was the king of this city, and Eteocles tried to overthrow him. It was treason. Thebes does not don her mourning garb for traitors.’ The last word was almost spat onto the table, as he slammed the earthenware bowl down. I jumped, even though I was watching him do it.

‘We can have a private, family funeral for Eteo,’ I said quickly. ‘I will compose a song for Polyn’s wake. Ani and I will bury Eteo together, away from the rest of the city, if it pleases you.’ My sister looked at me as though I were an imbecile.

‘We must bury both of them together. In death as in life,’ she said. ‘You know that.’

‘They were not close,’ I reminded her. ‘The burial is what matters. Everything else is just . . .’ I ran out of words. I did not wish to be disrespectful of Theban traditions, or insult my uncle. But Ani should have known what I was saying was true. If Eteo didn’t receive a fine white linen shroud woven by the best craftswomen in the city, it didn’t matter. We were both shrouded in grief. That would suffice. He just needed to be buried, to be safe beneath the earth, so his shade could pass into Hades, and rest easy.

‘You can’t mean what you’re saying,’ she said. ‘They must both be interred in the family grave. Eteo was not some peasant farmer, to be buried in the earth by his sisters. He was king of the city. He must be paid all due respect, not just for his death but for his life.’

‘Niece,’ said Creon, ‘I can only imagine you are sick with grief. You will do me the courtesy of silence, or I will lock you in your room for a month until you are cured. Then you will miss Polynices’ funeral, which I know cannot be what you want.’

‘Why don’t you say something?’ Ani cried at Haem, who had been examining his plate during this whole conversation, his reddened ears the only hint he could hear them.

There was a pause. Haem did not look up, but only said, ‘My father is right. Traitors and heroes are not the same. They cannot be treated as though they were.’

I wondered if these were his own thoughts, or those of his father. Ani could not have been more appalled if he had reached across the table and slapped her.

‘So no one will stand up for Eteo,’ she said, pushing back her chair.

‘Ani,’ I said. I wanted to take her to her room and tell her to stop this, before she pushed Creon into doing or saying something more dreadful. If he confined us both to our rooms, neither of us would be there to mourn our brothers at their funerals, a disgrace too terrible to contemplate. We needed to be patient, and work on my uncle over the next few days. Haem had agreed with his father, that was a valuable beginning to our bargaining: our views did not even taint our cousin, so surely we could be left to bury our brother. I was exasperated with Ani. On top of our grief she had added further difficulty.

‘Sit down,’ Creon said, without looking at her. She stood, uncertain whether she would make her point better by continuing to argue or by storming off to her room. A moment later, she decided on the latter. The slam of oak on oak as the door smacked into its frame echoed around the courtyard.

My uncle stood up. ‘Very well,’ he said to me. ‘Your sister is incapable of civility or common sense. She would see the city celebrate a man bent on its destruction, it seems.’ I bit my cheek, knowing I could not reply without worsening matters. But it was too late for that. ‘So I shall make my point quite clear,’ Creon said. ‘Polynices will be buried as our traditions and family duty requires. He was – as Haem says – a hero. Eteocles will not receive a state funeral, as I have explained. As your sister seems unable to comprehend why, I shall explain things to her in a language she understands. The traitor will not receive a burial of any kind.’

With those words, he stalked out of the courtyard. Haem leapt up and followed him, casting a guilty glance at me as he went. And the next morning, you could have heard my sister’s scream all the way up in the mountains, among the black pine trees.

*

She was shaking when I burst into her room. There were old curtains on the windows of the sleeping quarters on this side of the palace, because it faced east and without them it would have grown too hot in the mornings. I rarely used mine: I liked to see the sun at the start of each day, as it crested the mountains outside, and I have never minded the warmth. But Ani was a light sleeper and always drew hers at night. So when she had woken, she pulled back the curtain as usual, and looking out onto the hillside behind the palace, she had seen what no one should ever have to see. I gasped when I saw it myself, horror pushing all the air out of me. I put my hands on her shoulder and turned her around. I held her face against my chest and closed my own eyes, so I couldn’t see either. When the slave girls ran in shortly after me, they screamed and drew the curtains closed again, and left without speaking, one clutching at the hand of the other.

I took Ani into the courtyard, and beckoned one of the servants over to us.

‘Prepare a room on the west side of the courtyard for my sister,’ I said. ‘She’ll sleep there tonight. And send someone with some wine for her now.’

The maid returned moments later with wine, water, honey and herbs from the kitchens. I used the honey to counter the bitter taste of the herbs, and gave the drink to Ani, holding it for her between sips. She drank it slowly, and gradually the shaking stopped. I took her to the newly prepared room – which was plain and dull but comfortable enough – and watched over her until the wine and herbs soothed her to sleep. Then I walked across to her room on my own, and pulled the curtain back. Terrible as it was, I could not do my poor brother the disrespect of refusing to see him.

At first glance, it looked almost like he was sitting against the rock, his head lolling as though he were dozing in the warm morning sunshine. But of course he was not. He had been propped up, his head rested against the rock for support, its second mouth gaping, black. One of his legs was turned at an impossible angle, and his sandal was only half on his foot. It must have been loosened when he was dragged outside. I tried to tell myself that he was just asleep, but he looked further from sleep than anyone I had ever seen.

I felt the sobs shudder through my body, now I was alone. Ani’s grief had been so loud, I couldn’t hear my own. So I let it consume me for a while, sitting on the floor of her room, looking out at the ruins of the person I loved most in all the world. I cried myself past thinking, past words. But after I had shed every tear, I knew what I needed to do. I had to bury him, of course.

I could not leave him to rot outside the palace, pecked at by birds and mauled by stray dogs. That my uncle could even consider allowing such a thing was horrifying. He knew his duty to the dead, as did we all. But there was nothing to be gained from speaking to him: Ani’s outburst last night had seen to that. Creon would bear any disapproval from his subjects rather than change his mind. The one thing he had never been able to tolerate was any hint of weakness in himself. So having forbidden a burial for Eteo, he would not reconsider. But I had to replace a way to put my brother beneath the ground. I could not leave him, casting about on the banks of the River Lethe, watching as his brother crossed into Hades, and he was left behind. The dread king and queen of the Underworld would never forgive such a slight.

I tried to think what I could do now. I remembered that my uncle had given me permission to speak to my tutor today, and decided I should do what I had asked to do. I stood up and drew the curtain across Ani’s window again, begging my brother’s forgiveness for leaving him, for turning away from him. I went back to my room to put on my sandals (a new pair had been placed in my room; the bloodstained ones had never been returned). I changed into a long, formal tunic and picked up a dark red shawl to cover my shoulders. I plaited my hair into a neat braid, and pinned it up behind my ears. My uncle would no longer permit us to walk around the palace dressed like children, I was sure. He used to chide me before, when Eteo was king, for not taking due care of my appearance. And since I wanted to go into the second courtyard to replace Sophon, I knew my best chance was to behave as he wanted me to. After everything he’d done to become king of my city, it would be foolish to imagine that he didn’t intend to use that power in every aspect of his rule, however petty.

It took me an age to persuade the guard that I had the king’s consent to leave the courtyard, but eventually – after checking with my uncle’s advisers that I was truly allowed to walk through to a room I used to visit every day – he unlocked the gate and allowed me out. I skirted around the south then west side of the square, trying not to look at the faint pink discoloration which still marked the stones beneath Eteo when he died. I knocked on Sophon’s door, and opened it carefully.

My tutor seemed to have aged years in the days since I last saw him. He stood slowly from his chair, supporting his weight on the sticks he had propped against his legs.

‘Jocasta,’ he said, and tears sprang from his eyes.

‘You can’t have forgotten me so quickly,’ I said. But I wasn’t sure he even noticed that he had called me by my mother’s name. He opened his arms and I ran into them and embraced him. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I told him. And he patted my hair, as I had stroked Ani’s earlier.

‘You must not antagonize your uncle further,’ he said, when he released me and sat back on his hard chair. ‘And that goes twice over for your sister. She misjudges her situation. How can she not understand?’

‘I’ll make her understand,’ I told him. ‘She doesn’t realize it was Creon who orchestrated all this: Polyn and Eteo at war with one another. She doesn’t think like that.’

‘No,’ he nodded. ‘Your sister has always been so open. She thinks everybody is the same as her.’

‘Creon has forbidden us to bury Eteo,’ I said. I let the words sink into the crags of his face. ‘Is there anything you can do to persuade him he’s mistaken?’

Sophon shook his head slowly. ‘I doubt it. Your uncle is a difficult man, Isy. I have worked with him for many years, and I would never regard him as a friend. He is closed off from other people. He loves Haemon. And you, of course.’

I thought I must be hearing things. ‘Me?’

‘Creon was devoted to your mother for many years. He never liked your father. But it took something terrible for him to give up on your mother.’

‘Do you mean Aunt Eury?’

‘I do. But even though that soured his relationship with your parents, he kept coming here every day, after the Reckoning. Partly because he always wanted to be where the power was.’ He swung a shaky arm around the room. ‘And partly because he liked to see you. He used to tell you stories when you were very little. Perhaps you don’t remember.’

I did not.

‘Your uncle longed for a girl of his own, and you were the daughter he could not have. Your father was thrilled when Ani was born: how could he not be? Everyone told him how much she looked like your mother. Your father’s great regret was that he had come into your mother’s life so late. He always wished he could have met her when she was young. So Ani was enchanting for him: he felt he could finally see what Jocasta looked like before he knew her.’

‘Ani was my father’s favourite,’ I said. People had told me so many times that it scarcely hurt any more, like pressing an old bruise.

‘No,’ Sophon said. ‘No, she wasn’t his favourite. He loved you all. If he had a favourite, it was your mother. He adored her from the day they met to the day she died. But he always wanted children. He would never have been satisfied without you. But your uncle was devoted to you.’

‘If that were true, he would let me bury my brother,’ I said, angry.

‘Go to Polyn’s funeral tomorrow. Do everything he asks. Perhaps you’ll be able to persuade him as the days wear on,’ Sophon said. I began to cry again, thinking of poor Eteo being bitten and pecked while I could do nothing to put his body out of reach of scavengers. ‘But if you’re asking me for my opinion, it is this: your uncle is unlikely to change his mind. Still, the priests will tell him that he is committing a terrible wrong, against your brother and against the gods. They cannot pretend otherwise: they would fear to be struck by lightning for their perjury. All is not yet lost.’

I knew he was right. I wiped the tears from my face with the edges of my shawl before I stepped outside Sophon’s study again. My uncle might be persuaded. I would have to pin my hopes to that.