The Children of Jocasta

Jocasta had never enjoyed being married to her husband more than at his funeral. She loved everything about it. She ordered a dress to be made in a dark reddish-purple – the most expensive dye she could have chosen – knowing that if anyone suggested it showed insufficient respect for the dead, she could simply remind them that she married Laius wearing crimson. There was no more fitting tribute than wearing a more flattering shade of the same colour at his funeral. She had her hair neatened into a simple style which made her look younger. She had ribbons plaited into it, so it appeared more ornate for the funeral. And – once the slaves had polished it to its former shine – she placed her wedding diadem on top, lest anyone forget who she was.

The prettiness of her dress and hair were only a small part of her delight, however. She radiated pleasure at having seen off her husband’s friends and their attempt to depose her. Not realizing that Oedipus had ridden ahead and told her everything, the men made no hurry in returning to Thebes. They were three full days behind Oedipus and even – this was their crucial mistake – one day behind Laius’s guards. The commander of the guard was happy to swear loyalty to Jocasta, as were his men. She bribed them all with nuggets of silver – mined in the Outlying many years ago – which she had found in one of the storerooms next to the treasury, opposite the formal reception rooms in the second courtyard. Perhaps she had known before that it was there, and had simply forgotten. She couldn’t now remember. So much from the past seventeen years had lost its separateness, as though it had been written on papyrus which had suddenly rolled itself back up so individual parts of the text were lost within the whole. But the presence of Oedipus, so determined to help her fight off the threats he had overheard in the mountains, focused her attention on matters of importance.

So – in the three days between Oedipus’s arrival and the return of her husband’s body – she hunted around in the state rooms of the royal courtyard, most of which she had never previously entered. She didn’t wait for Teresa to tell her what to do, and she didn’t wait for word to come from the Oracle. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she gave very little thought to what the Oracle advised at all. After all, it hadn’t forewarned her about Laius dying, or Oedipus arriving. Perhaps it was less powerful than she had thought.

In Laius’s bedroom, she found a small wooden box filled with keys, all in their own divided spaces. These turned out to be everything she needed to open the treasury and a host of other rooms which had been hitherto forbidden to her. Had she really lived in such a small part of the palace for so long, trotting between her bedroom and the shrine and occasionally the kitchens? It seemed ludicrous to her that the keys had been here all along – presumably Laius had always left them behind – and she had never gone looking for them. But then, what would she have done with them before the king died? Teresa would never have let her walk into Laius’s rooms while he was alive. But the announcement of the king’s death (so welcome to his wife) had devastated his housekeeper. Teresa withdrew to her quarters for two days when Phylla gave her the news. Had she known that the messenger had come from abroad, and was now staying with the queen under Hellene rules of guest-friendship, Teresa might have postponed her grieving. It was one thing to offer food and a warm bed to a stranger for a few nights, as the gods demanded, but it was another thing to allow him to stay in the family courtyard, in a room which had only ever been occupied by the queen’s brother for a few days each year. But Phylla never thought to mention what she perceived as these less important details, and by the time Teresa reappeared in the palace, her previously unassailable position was too damaged to be repaired. The stranger had wormed his way into the queen’s trust.

Jocasta smiled to herself as her husband’s corpse – tightly wrapped in white linen as was respectful – was carried out through the three courtyards of the palace, in a long, slow procession. As she walked at the head of the procession – head bowed appropriately, crown glinting in the dawn light – she remembered the insufferable smugness of his closest friends and advisers, each one arriving back in Thebes determined that he was the man to replace Laius as king. Perhaps if they had all been less ambitious, and had thrashed out a compromise before they returned, they would have been more dangerous. But much as they disliked the queen, none of them wanted to see his rivals promoted. And they didn’t have the discipline to set aside personal gain for the good of their factions.

She had welcomed them coolly when they arrived, then instructed Laius’s guards to carry his body into the palace where it would lie in state for one day, not from a lack of respect but because the delay in bringing him back to the city meant that he now needed to be buried as soon as possible. She had immediately assumed a position of religious authority: who was responsible for the delay, if not these men who had made such slow progress to the city? The gods would not forgive Thebes if the king lay unburied for days on end. He must go beneath the earth, and offerings must be poured. While they dallied along the lower reaches of the mountains, her husband’s shade was stranded on the banks of the River Lethe, unable to pay Charon to carry him across. The men shuffled awkwardly, eyes fixed anywhere but on their queen. They could make no defence against the charge of religious impropriety.

And then Jocasta told them to leave. Surrounded by the armed guard, who had appeared in full ceremonial dress to pay their respects to her late husband, the queen was not the woman that they had spoken of so scornfully over her husband’s still-warm body. She thought she might interview one or two of them in a few days, and see if they could be civil. She might need advisers herself, after all.

Throughout all this, the boy Oedipus remained with her. She gave him, as she had promised, three small gold rings for his arrival three days before her husband’s men. But although Oedipus had his reward, he seemed in no hurry to leave. In fact, he appeared to relish his new surroundings. His eyes gleamed when Jocasta found the keys to her husband’s treasury, filled with serried ranks of gold and silver, bronze and jewels, tapestries and perfumed oils. Oedipus offered to help her make sense of what she owned and what she needed. He only left her to go to the market outside, from which he returned a short while later, carrying a fine leather string, which had been dyed a vivid magenta. He fed it through the treasury keys – one for the door to the main room, one for the door to the treasury itself – tied it into a knot, then stood behind her to place it carefully over her shorn head.

‘So no one can take them off you,’ he explained, his warm breath raising the hairs on her neck as he sounded the first word. Jocasta wondered when anyone had last thought about what she wanted, or worried about her safety.

Teresa had always been quick to act as an intermediary for her, with the Oracle. But now that Jocasta thought about it, the Oracle had rarely made her feel better about anything. That was not what it was for, of course. It spoke the truth and saw the future. But she couldn’t shake the sense that it had been better at seeing her future when it was unchanging – as it had been for so many years – than recently. Her mind returned to its suspicions: if the Oracle was all-knowing, it should really have predicted her dramatic change in circumstances. And of course she knew that oracles were riddlers, only to be understood by those versed in their opacity, like the priests, or Teresa. But it had said nothing about the king’s death, not even when Jocasta thought back to its recent utterances with the clarity of hindsight. She could scarcely remember why she had wanted the shrine to be built. Or had it been Teresa’s idea?

It was built soon after the death of her baby; that she could remember. Her poor dead son was still now beautiful in her imagination. She had watched him grow up in her mind: heard his first words, seen his first tumbling steps. She had taught him to count and draw, she had watched him go to his tutor in the early mornings and come home each afternoon. It had become harder to imagine his voice cracking into adulthood, as it surely would have done last year. But she had kept him alive nonetheless in this dual existence – a dead baby she had never set eyes on, a living son she saw every day.

Teresa had realized that Jocasta was spending a great deal of time alone, with her child. She had proposed the shrine as what? An alternative to a grave marker? Jocasta had asked Teresa, in the beginning, where her child was buried, but Teresa refused to give her an answer. She lost patience with the question: babies were exposed or buried all the time, living and dead. Of course, it was more usually girls than boys who were robbed of their new lives, but that hardly mattered. Other women accepted it, and so should Jocasta. It was not regal, or reasonable, to make such an extravagant fuss about something which could not be helped or changed. Eventually, Jocasta’s howls and screams had forced the truth from her: the child had never been buried. It had simply been disposed of, along with the rest of the refuse which was taken from the palace each day. There was no grave to visit. So her shrine – a miniature copy of the temple where the Oracle dwelt – was, perhaps, a peace-offering. Something Teresa proposed to give Jocasta somewhere to focus her prayers and attention.

And it had helped, at first. Designing it and building it took time, and that gave Jocasta something to think about. She could watch it grow larger, more finished with each day. Then, once it was built, she had to learn which offerings she should make, to which gods, in what order. If she could just get everything exactly right, Jocasta had thought, things might improve. Perhaps Teresa would suddenly confess to a mistake: the baby wasn’t dead at all, but was being raised with a family nearby. A kind, loving family who would nurture her son until he arrived one day in the palace to reclaim his birthright. She would only find out the truth if she did everything exactly as the gods required.

But the day never came, no matter how hard she prayed, and no matter how carefully she made her offerings. She was never good enough to receive the truth she wanted to hear. Sometimes, Teresa would tell her that the Archer god was looking on her favourably, and that this was an appropriate time to embark on a new project (Teresa was always careful not to say ‘pregnancy’). Jocasta refused even the suggestion with such screams and horror that no one tried to force her. In the months and years that followed her nightmare, she often felt close to losing her mind, but she retained enough of it to know she could not go through that whole horrifying process again. She could not.

Besides, she didn’t want some other child, she wanted her child, the one she had already given birth to. She couldn’t simply replace him with another baby. What would be the point? She would know from the start that it was an impostor. So instead of believing that the god – answering her prayers at the shrine with his cryptic messages from the Oracle – was guiding her towards something better, she felt that she was being punished and re-punished for wrongs she had never committed. Why did her child not arrive one day at the palace, having been alive all along? There were only two explanations, one of which she couldn’t countenance. Which meant that the only possible reason was that she was somehow being found wanting by the same Oracle which had persuaded her husband that a son would kill him, and therefore couldn’t be allowed to live. Was the Oracle punishing her? And if so, what for? But, of course, ignorance was no excuse. That was not how the Oracle judged things. She knew that, because (whatever its reasons) it had taken her child from her, without her ever being able to touch him.

‘Thank you,’ she said to Oedipus, as she placed the keys beneath her clothes. ‘That’s perfect.’

‘Don’t take it off,’ he said. ‘Even at night.’

She felt the metal burn against her skin as he spoke. ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘Will you still be here when I get back from the funeral?’ The crowds were gathering before the palace, and she knew she needed to leave.

‘Of course,’ he smiled. ‘I’d come with you, if I didn’t think it would cause a scandal.’

Jocasta felt a twinge of delight. ‘You should come,’ she said. ‘The more mourners attend the dead king, the greater the respect we are showing him. No one could argue. And besides, I want you to.’

Oedipus shrugged, stood up, and offered her his arm. ‘Madam,’ he said. ‘It would be my privilege.’

*

If any of Laius’s friends thought it odd that his widow was now accompanied by a young man who none of them had ever seen before, they didn’t dare ask any questions. Laius’s guards, now Jocasta’s guards, stood behind her, armed and quiet. Jocasta saw eyebrows rise, as one man looked at another, all asking the same unspoken question and receiving the same wordless reply. No one knew who he was or where he had come from. He didn’t look quite like a Theban: his skin was paler, his build narrower, and his hair fairer than the majority of their citizens. Oedipus walked alongside her until they reached the burial mound, a short distance outside the city. He helped her over the uneven ground, where the path had been blistered by tree roots. And he stepped back, perfectly proper, when the moment of interment came. Jocasta stood for a moment with her head bowed, then scattered earth over the late king. The city seemed to let out a collective sigh: the king was properly buried. The gods would be satisfied that Thebes had conducted itself well.

And then she led the funeral procession back to the city gates. She continued to the marketplace outside the palace, which today had suspended business, in a gesture of mourning. Many Thebans had gathered there, preferring not to go outside the city walls, even for a funeral. Jocasta walked to the palace gates, then turned to face the crowd.

‘Thebans,’ she shouted. ‘My husband is dead and I am now your queen.’ A roar went up from the people. Jocasta could not quite judge if it was positive or negative: were they endorsing her position or calling it into question? ‘I want to thank you for the support you have shown me in this difficult time,’ she continued. ‘My husband’s funeral games will be held in the main courtyard in one hour. You are all invited to attend.’ There was another shout, this one louder and more certain than the first. Funeral games were a worthy mark of respect.

Jocasta turned to Oedipus, who escorted her through the gates. ‘That was well done,’ he murmured.

‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘You have to give the people something, that’s what Laius used to say whenever he held a party.’

‘He had to be right about something,’ said Oedipus.

Jocasta squeezed his arm. ‘Shh,’ she said. ‘I can’t be seen laughing. Not today.’

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Let me tell your housekeeper you’ve just invited three hundred people into the palace.’

Jocasta looked ahead of them, and shook her head. ‘It’s already done.’ She pointed to a boy who was scuttling towards the kitchens as fast as his short, dirty legs would go. ‘He’s the kitchen boy and her little spy,’ she said. ‘She’ll hate to open the wine jars again, but she won’t complain. She can’t. It’s for the late king, after all. And Teresa was,’ Jocasta paused as she searched for the right word, ‘devoted to him.’

As the evening sky gave up its last trace of red, Jocasta thought that the games had been a great success: most people were drifting away now the wine had run low, and they were leaving without any doubt that she was now the regent of this city. She had felt Oedipus’s eyes upon her as she spoke to one person after another. She had never spoken so many words in a single day. But, for the first time she could remember, she was not afraid of anything. She simply did what she needed to do: shook hands, squeezed elbows, patted shoulders, accepted condolences. Most people, it transpired, thought she had cut her hair in a moment of profound grief for her late husband. They were moved by her sacrifice, and she saw it made her queenly in their eyes.

After the games had finished, and the shadows were lengthening across the courtyard, she looked over the square to see her brother approaching – tall, with his dark hair receding slightly, though he was not yet old – accompanied by a small, pretty girl who reminded her of a fearful mouse. Her small hands clutched at a little leather purse, like a tiny creature’s paws might curl round a nut. This must be the girl he had mentioned; Jocasta searched her memory for the name – Euly? Euny? She walked towards her brother, turning a smile on the girl.

‘Creon,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming. And how nice to meet you,’ she added. The mouse-like girl must have tried to say something, but all Jocasta heard was a squeak.

‘This is Eurydice,’ said Creon, with an expression that Jocasta could not place for a moment, before realizing it was shyness.

So she took the arm of her brother’s friend, and said, ‘Tell me all about yourself. Let’s go and find you some wine: I know exactly which servant has the best grapes, and you deserve something special. If my brother likes you, you must be wonderful.’

She only half-heard the girl demur and then go on to talk about how she and Creon had first met when he had admired the stole she was embroidering as she sat with friends in the afternoon sun – the stole she was wearing this very day – and asked how she could make such tiny, neat stitches. As she nodded and smiled at the girl’s prattling, Jocasta continued to bestow a charm she had forgotten she ever possessed on every courtier of her husband’s she met. Yet all the while, she found herself looking around for Oedipus, always making sure he hadn’t left.

As the palace slaves encouraged the last guests out of the gate, she felt his eyes upon her. He was leaning against the courtyard wall, almost invisible in the darkening twilight. She turned towards him and he peeled himself away from the stone, straightening up and smiling at her.

‘You did well,’ he said. ‘Wonderfully well.’

She couldn’t imagine why she was so pleased to have his approval. She had not wanted anyone’s approval but the Oracle’s in as long as she could remember. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Maybe it will all be alright now.’

‘It’ll be much better than that,’ he said. ‘It’ll be perfect. Do you think they realized you were considering them for a position?’ He jerked his head at the last few stragglers, a group of men who had worked for her husband.

‘Was I?’ she asked.

‘Of course. You’ve placated everyone for now. But you don’t want them plotting against you in the future, do you? You’ve decided you’ll have to marry one of them. He’ll owe his position to you, so he’ll be impossibly grateful and will likely shower you with all kinds of gifts.’

‘I don’t need gifts,’ she snapped. ‘I have the keys to the city treasury around my neck. Now my late husband isn’t around to spend it all on wine and horses and foolish hunting trips, I’m hardly short of resources.’

‘It would still be better to ally yourself with someone, though, don’t you think? Otherwise they will all keep vying with one another for your attention. It’s inevitable. And it’s bound to cause problems sooner or later.’

Jocasta felt her shoulders droop at his words. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but she knew he wasn’t. The men were all very loyal and sympathetic to her today, but they hadn’t intended to be. They had simply been outmanoeuvred by her. By her and by Oedipus, and his quick journey from the mountains. Once the dust had settled over her husband’s grave, they would soon begin plotting again. But she had already spent seventeen years married to a man she didn’t love, who did not love her. Surely she could spend a little while without the exhausting burden of a husband?

‘I should issue a notice that I don’t intend to remarry,’ she said. She wondered how long she could get away with. ‘For at least a year?’

‘Good idea,’ said Oedipus. ‘That will give them something to aim for.’

‘You aren’t at all sympathetic,’ she complained. ‘You can see I don’t want to marry another old man and it’s not very kind of you to laugh about it.’

‘But I can afford to laugh,’ he said. ‘Because I know you aren’t really going to marry any of them.’

‘You just said—’

‘That you should remarry. Yes.’

‘Well, there you are then.’

‘I didn’t say you should marry one of them.’

‘You said they’d fight if I didn’t. They’ll destabilize the city.’

‘They’d back off if they saw that none of them had a chance.’

‘And how do I achieve that?’

‘By marrying me,’ he replied.

‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. How old are you?’

‘Old enough. Come on, Basileia. I’m much more handsome than anyone else you know.’ He preened at her and she laughed, in spite of her annoyance.

‘What would your parents think? You came here to help your father’s business, didn’t you?’

‘What better help than becoming a king? Everyone wants to do business with the father of a king.’

She heard the unconscious echo of her father’s reasoning for marrying her off, all those years ago.

‘Your mother will be expecting you home,’ she said, trying to inject a tone of finality into her voice.

‘I’ll go back and tell her myself,’ he said. ‘The mountains are safer now, you know. A brave traveller killed a few of the Sphinx. On my way back through, I’ll cull the rest.’

‘You want to leave me?’ she asked.

‘Temporarily,’ he answered. ‘I’ll be gone for half a month. Fourteen days. That’s not long at all. And when I come back, I will have my parents’ blessing, and my name will be sung from every corner of your city, because I will be the man who made the mountains safe again.’

‘The same mountains which took their previous king from them,’ she said. She had to admit, it would be easy to persuade ordinary Theban traders that Oedipus would be the perfect king. ‘When did you start thinking about this?’

‘About what?’ he said, his face shining with false innocence.

‘When did you start dreaming up this plan?’

He reached over and kissed her on the cheek. She knew she would feel the heat of his mouth for the next fourteen days.

‘It hardly matters, does it? I’ve thought of it, and it’s so brilliant even you can’t find fault with it, and you are an extremely clever woman, though hardly anyone but me has realized it,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in half a month, Anassa.’ And with that, he sauntered off into the city, as though he had all the time in the world.