The Children of Jocasta

Jocasta had assumed, from everything her mother and father had told her, that she was marrying the king because he wanted a wife. It now seemed to be the case that he did not, in fact, want a wife, or that if he did, he did not want her. It was oddly painful to be rejected by someone she didn’t know. Had he decided on the hunting trip the moment he saw her? Before he saw her? She swept her hands down her dress, as if she could brush off whatever defects she apparently possessed. Because if he didn’t want her, where was she supposed to go? She could hardly return home. She corrected herself, go to her parents’ home. They could not take her back, even if they wanted to. She would be disgraced: a married woman running away from her husband. It was unthinkable. And anyway, she remembered her mother’s claws in her arm. Even if her husband died (the only respectable way for her to cease being married to him), she would never go back to her parents. Begging on the streets would be preferable.

But she was getting ahead of herself. If she couldn’t go anywhere else, she could at least explore the palace, and examine her new surroundings. It was easier if she forgot about the idea of home for now. The palace was where she was. The boy who had stayed behind – the one who had obeyed her – would take her into the marketplace later, with a maidservant in tow, so her propriety could not be called into question. And it would give her a greater sense of belonging, she was sure, when she knew the palace neighbourhood. But she would spend this morning trying to map out what stood where in the palace, so she didn’t feel so lost.

She now knew, having walked through them in daylight, that the palace was made up of three courtyards of decreasing size from front gate to back walls. The huge public courtyard was the first square she had entered yesterday. As its name implied, it was open to any Thebans who had business in the palace. There were altars and a small temple enclosed on the west side, which – as she had seen last night – was the religious focus of the royal house. There were priests who came to the palace each day to maintain the sacred precincts and accept offerings from any citizens who brought them. The animals were kept in small pens near the back of the temple, ready to be sacrificed. On the east side were the king’s treasurers, who also arbitrated in any disputes which arose outside in the market. As she peeked out at the bustling space, Jocasta saw two bearded men – so alike they must have been brothers, their black beards mirroring one another, and their curled hair bobbing in harmony – arguing in front of one of the treasurers, so loudly that she could hear them from where she stood, in the second courtyard, looking through the gates which sealed the public out of the rest of the palace. Or did they lock her inside? She tested the one on the right and found that it opened. But she did not dare to go out alone. The king might be absent, but the queen should avoid causing a scandal on her first morning in the palace, she supposed. She couldn’t go wandering about in public without any kind of chaperone. She wasn’t entirely sure what her duties would be – there was no sign of a loom anywhere in her quarters, so no one was expecting her to sit weaving all day, at least – but she knew it was her responsibility to behave respectably.

And there was plenty more to see in the two courtyards which were open to her. The middle square was a smaller copy of the public courtyard, with white stone paths bisecting each side and criss-crossing from corner to corner. They met in the centre of the square, which was dominated by a statue of the king atop his horse. Jocasta wondered if Laius had ever looked as tall and muscular as the sculptor had rendered him. She doubted it. But the sculptor had been clever; there was just enough in the statue’s colouring to make it clear that it was intended to be the king: the brown curls of hair into the nape of the neck, the pale irises, picked out in a light blue stone. And perhaps he had been tall once, before his old man’s spine began to curve in on itself. It was possible.

But this square wasn’t filled with shrines or temples. The east and west colonnades were punctuated with closed doors. Some were obviously storerooms, but Jocasta could hear the sound of men’s voices behind others. From what she could work out, as she stood eavesdropping in the colonnades, this was where the king’s work was done in his absence. Or more politely, on his behalf, while he was off hunting. The corridor which housed the gates between the second and the main courtyards was also home to the kitchens. She could smell bread baking, and a sudden twist in her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten for more than a day. She walked towards the heat, and peered in to the dark room, her eyes taking a moment to adjust from the bright morning sun outside. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to a girl scouring dishes, when she saw she had found the main kitchen. The girl squeaked and ran out of another door in the far wall, reappearing a moment later with a pink-faced older woman. The woman was short but sturdy, and perhaps forty years old. Older than Jocasta’s mother, but not by very many years, she wore her grey-brown hair tied back in a plain, unadorned knot. Her eyes darted around her domain: Jocasta could almost hear her counting the faults as she noticed them, one after another. The kitchen girl would be in trouble later. Jocasta was sure of it.

‘Yes?’ said the woman, wiping floured hands on her apron, before she looked to see who was bothering her.

‘Could I please have something to eat?’ Jocasta asked. The woman finally turned to see who was asking for her. Her hands moved up to push loose hairs behind her ears, a gesture which looked inappropriately girlish to Jocasta’s eyes.

‘Of course,’ said the woman. ‘Forgive us, we would have brought you something earlier, but no one knew where you were.’

‘I was in my room, I think,’ Jocasta said. ‘And then I came looking for someone.’

‘Oh, you were in your room?’ said the woman, as though this were unlikely. ‘Well, we’ll know to bring food to you there tomorrow. Would you like to go back to your quarters, and I’ll send something after you?’

‘Would you mind if I stayed here?’ Jocasta asked, looking across the kitchen to a large wooden table with several small stools sitting beneath it. She didn’t want to admit that she was lonely, on her own in this strange new place. But nor did she want to go back to her room and sit there eating alone. Besides, her stomach was groaning at the smell of food, and the last thing she wanted to do was leave before she had consumed anything.

‘Not at all,’ said the woman, gesturing to the girl who pulled a stool out for Jocasta. ‘I’m Teresa,’ the woman added. ‘I’m the housekeeper. And you’re Jocasta, and we haven’t even been introduced.’ Her tone made it sound like this was Jocasta’s failure of courtesy, though Jocasta couldn’t see how the woman had arrived at that conclusion. The housekeeper should have been at her door this morning, summoned by the slave girl who should have been sent to help her dress. Teresa should have introduced herself to her new mistress and offered to show her around the palace. But Jocasta did not want to start her new life arguing with the king’s servants and their lax manners.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jocasta, taking the woman’s hand, which was hard and dry, as though it belonged to a wooden statue. ‘I didn’t know where to find anyone this morning. It was all so deserted.’

The woman clicked her tongue against her teeth. ‘We’re not used to having anyone here when Laius goes away. But to forget all about you, when you only got here yesterday. You must think we’re very disorganized.’ Jocasta shook her head. She knew she had been set a test, but she couldn’t tell if she had passed or failed.

‘I suppose if I’d shown you to your room last night, I wouldn’t have forgotten,’ Teresa said. ‘Who did take you, if you don’t mind me asking?’

Another woman’s daughter would have missed the subtle change in tone, from apology to interrogation. Jocasta did not. ‘One of the king’s bodyguards showed me to my quarters,’ she said. ‘I didn’t ask his name.’ She did not mention that she had seen him this morning. She wasn’t sure if it was him she was trying to keep from getting into trouble, or herself. But she knew it would be wise to say no more than she had to.

‘Oh, that’s Oran,’ said Teresa, the tension slipping from her posture. ‘The king left him behind to keep an eye on us all, I think.’ This statement was so evidently ridiculous to her that she was smiling. Jocasta smiled too, anxious to keep on her right side, at least for now.

Blackened pots and pans were hanging from hooks above her, all around the table. Jocasta imagined her little brother leaping onto the stools so he could bang them all together to hear what sort of noise each one made. She pressed her lips together to quash the thought before missing him brought her to tears. Teresa bustled into the room she had come from and returned with two griddled flatbreads, one covered in olive paste, the other piled high with spiced chickpeas. Jocasta thanked her and began to eat. The bread was warm and fluffy inside, and the olive paste was dark and salty. ‘You’re half-starved,’ said Teresa, watching her. Jocasta must be eating too fast.

‘No,’ she said, putting the bread back on its plate, though all she wanted to do was stuff the rest of it into her mouth. ‘It’s just that it’s so good.’ She hoped Teresa was susceptible to flattery.

The housekeeper smiled. ‘I’m afraid we’ve been so busy clearing up after the wedding party, we quite lost track of you. It takes a lot of time to sort everything out when the king goes away, I’m sure you can imagine. But I promise we’ll make up for it now. You must come and eat with us tonight – unless you prefer to be alone?’ She raised an eyebrow, and Jocasta was reminded once again of her mother, who also liked to ask questions which weren’t questions at all.

‘No, I’d prefer to meet everyone and get to know you all,’ she replied.

‘That’s good,’ Teresa continued. ‘We’ll all know each other better by the time Laius gets back. He’ll be delighted.’

Jocasta agreed, and listened as Teresa told her more about the palace staff she would meet, both slave and free. In addition to Teresa and Oran, there were various maids and gardeners and cleaners and cooks. She tried to keep track of the names as Teresa rattled through them all, but she could not. So she nodded and carried on eating, and wondered why Teresa’s first action had been to lie to her. The housekeeper clearly controlled the household and it was inconceivable that she could have forgotten something as important as a new queen coming to live in the palace. So why pretend that she had?

*

It was something she wanted to ask Oran that afternoon as they set out for the marketplace. But the presence of a slave girl who accompanied them both – hovering behind her, holding a simple woven reed basket as though she had never been trusted with something so valuable before – made her wary of beginning a conversation about anything to do with Teresa. Instead she asked him about the public square, since they were walking through it.

‘You mean the Great Court?’ he asked.

‘Is that its name?’

He nodded. ‘It’s the oldest part of the palace. It was here when this was just a citadel. The other courtyards were built later. That’s why we’re on the top of a hill, you know. It’s the easiest place in Thebes to defend.’

‘You don’t believe all that?’ she asked, watching with satisfaction as he reddened at her tone. ‘That the oldest part of the city was built by dragon-men, sacred to Ares? And that we live here because an ancient hero followed a cow until she lay down and decided to build his city where she had indicated was the most propitious location?’

‘Of course I believe it,’ he replied. ‘What do you believe?’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘Forgive me, your majesty,’ he added.

‘I’m not angry,’ she said. ‘You needn’t apologize. I don’t know what I think, really. It just doesn’t seem very likely that warriors rose from dragon’s teeth and built a city. It doesn’t even seem likely that a cow would wander up a steep hill of her own accord. A goat maybe. But not a cow. I’ve never seen anything like that happen. And don’t pretend you have.’

‘The plane trees were planted many years ago,’ he continued, pointing to the gnarled branches that sprang up at irregular intervals along all four walls of the courtyard.

‘By a dragon?’ she asked, smiling.

‘By a gardener, I imagine,’ he replied. They walked towards the front gate, and Jocasta could hear the hubbub of the market on a trading day: stall-holders, bargain-hunters, gossip-mongers, butchers and fish-sellers, leather-workers, dyers, shoe-makers and smiths all vied for space. Chickens squawked and beat their wings against the bars of metal cages. Rabbits – crammed together in wooden boxes – looked fearful, and dogs barked as though they knew she was a stranger.

She felt as though she had been hiding in a back room, waiting for a festival to begin. The smell of freshly fried lentil cakes enticed her one way, but the sound of a flute being played in another direction made her want to go there instead. One stall was piled high with wooden crates that held pomegranates of such an urgent pink that she could almost taste the seeds. On another stall, her eye was caught by piles of clothes in every colour: bright dresses which she longed to touch, every shade of red between orange and pink, every shade of yellow between saffron and unripe lemons. She walked into the thronging aisle and reached out to feel the deep blue fabric of a simple shift dress. It was crisp and unworn and would be the right length without alteration.

‘Nice colour on you,’ said the owner, barely looking. ‘I’ll do you a good deal.’

Jocasta smiled and nodded. ‘I’ll be back later,’ she said.

‘You do that,’ said the woman, her interest immediately switching to another potential customer. Jocasta wished she had brought something to trade, though she wasn’t sure what the value of her possessions would be. She had entered the palace with a dowry, but that was technically her husband’s gold now.

‘Do you want it?’ Oran asked.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s a pretty colour, and it would suit me.’

He jerked his head at the slave girl, who scurried up to the clothes-seller and spoke a few words. The dress was folded and handed over, and the girl placed it carefully in her basket. The clothes-seller bobbed her head to Jocasta as she walked away. ‘We’re here every day, ma’am. We make anything you want to order. Any colour, even the darkest purple. Come back whenever you want the highest quality fabrics in the city. We’re always here.’

Jocasta now felt her own cheeks darken. Foolish, to be thinking of which of her pathetic belongings she might trade for a new dress. She was married to the king. And as soon as the locals learned to recognize her, she would be able to have whatever she liked.

*

Jocasta had been in the palace for nine days, and there was still no sign of the king. Teresa never mentioned him, unless to reply to a particular question. It was peculiar, Jocasta thought. It must take more effort not to talk about the man whose palace they all dwelt in, and in whose employ everyone but Jocasta worked. He was the centre of their world, but they all pretended it wasn’t odd that he was always absent. And perhaps for them it wasn’t. Jocasta had vague memories of her father complaining that the king was shirking his duty (spoken quietly in the privacy of his home, when no slaves were around to overhear, of course). But why had that been? Jocasta tried to bring the memory to the front of her mind, but she could never quite catch it.

Oran was not as discreet as Teresa. If Jocasta asked him about the palace when no one else could overhear, she sometimes learned more. That evening, Jocasta wandered into the family courtyard – as the slaves called it, though the only person sleeping in any of the quarters was Jocasta – and thought she would sit a while in the darkening evening. She told the slave who was hurrying ahead to prepare her room that she could go on without her. The girl scurried away and moments later, Oran appeared.

‘Are you well, Basileia?’ he asked. She rolled her eyes.

‘How many times must I tell you?’

‘I’m sorry, madam,’ he said. ‘Did you need anything? Water? Wine?’

‘No, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I have everything I need.’ She drew a new stole – spun from the finest wool she had ever touched, a dark purplish-red – around her shoulders.

‘You’re cold,’ Oran said.

She shook her head. ‘I just like wearing it.’

‘It looks well on you,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ She patted the wooden bench which she had chosen. Oran walked to its far end and sat there. She turned and lifted her feet up, so her back rested on a cushion which she propped against the wooden arm, and she was facing him, curling her toes against the warm, smooth wood.

‘It’s not at all like I imagined,’ she said. ‘I thought it would be busier. People everywhere, rushing about, ruling the city. Instead it’s almost deserted.’

‘The Elders are keeping everything in order,’ he said. ‘They always do. It doesn’t take much rushing about.’

‘The king is away a lot, I gather,’ she said. He nodded. ‘It doesn’t seem even a bit strange to you?’ she continued. ‘To go away the morning after his own wedding?’

‘Well, no, of course not,’ he replied.

Her eyes glinted in the half-light. ‘Why is it obvious to you, when it seems so opaque to me?’

‘Let me get you some wine,’ he said.

‘Please don’t be so rude as to ignore me when I ask you something,’ she said. ‘Or to assume I am so stupid that I will forget my questions the moment you wander back with one of those beautiful terracotta jugs, covered in – what will it be today? Horses? Kingfishers? And by the time you have asked me to admire the intricate designs, and told me about the craftsman in the dark corner of Thebes who paints them, and how he sells them to the winemaker in exchange for all the wine he can drink so his wife must work for their children’s food, and suggested we visit his shop one day, on the backstreet behind the hill up to the marketplace, our original conversation will have disappeared with the tail of Helios’ chariot.’

‘I could fetch another torch,’ he said. ‘If you are worried about the dark.’

‘I am not worried about the dark. And as you well know, if you fetch a torch, we will soon be surrounded by insects. And then you can tell me you’re worried I’ll get bitten, and suggest I go inside, out of their reach.’

‘I only asked,’ he said.

‘You avoided my question. Why is it clear to you, but not to me, that the king would leave the palace the morning after his wedding? Are you trying to humiliate me? Is it obvious he would leave because that is what kings do, and everyone here knows that except me, because I am a foolish girl from the other side of the city? Is it obvious he would abandon the palace because I am too ugly to be his wife? What, precisely, is clear to you?’

Oran looked hard at the darkening ground. ‘It is obvious, madam, because the king is not interested in girls. In women. I thought you knew.’

‘Not interested? Then I don’t understand.’

‘He prefers young men,’ Oran replied.

‘No, I understand what you are saying,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear. If the king is not attracted to women at all, I’m sure you can see that I might be perplexed as to what I am doing here. Men who don’t like women don’t want wives. At least, that has always been my understanding of it.’

‘Men want heirs,’ Oran said. ‘All men need heirs. Or who will look after them when they are old?’

‘Laius has a household of – what? – fifty slaves: cooks and maids and housekeepers and administrators and guards and grooms and the gods know who else,’ Jocasta replied. ‘I’m sure some of them will look after him when he’s old. He’s old now, and you’re all still here.’

‘But he needs a child,’ Oran said. The small night-flies were descending on them as the darkness fell. ‘Someone to guard his memory after he dies. No one can be immortal if their descendants decide otherwise. Or if they have none. He needs someone who will put up a statue commemorating him and listing his achievements as king.’

‘Well, I’m sure if someone gave you a chisel, you’d give it a try,’ she snapped.

‘I am loyal to my king,’ he agreed.

‘Then perhaps you can explain something else to me. If Laius wants an heir, enough to marry, I presume he understands that he will have to spend at least some time in the same room, in the same bed, as his wife. Don’t start blushing again. You’re not a child.’

‘That’s not necessarily true,’ Oran said. ‘He wants an heir. It doesn’t need to be his child.’

Jocasta tried not to allow her shock to show. A man would bring up another man’s child? ‘What are you saying?’ she asked. ‘That he expects me to . . .?’

‘Yes,’ said Oran. ‘He’s waiting for you to become pregnant. It would be better, for him, if that happened sooner rather than later. So he can claim that the child was conceived on your wedding night.’

‘And who exactly does he imagine I am cavorting with?’ she hissed. She wished now that she had agreed to Oran fetching a torch. At least then she would be sure that no one was listening in to their conversation. But as it was, the colonnades were in almost total blackness, and anyone could overhear her, so long as they were quiet. Oran said nothing.

‘You?’ she asked. ‘That’s why he left you behind.’

‘You asked me to stay,’ Oran replied. ‘I told him, and he was delighted. He’d rather you bore the child of someone you had shown a preference for.’

‘Would he?’ Jocasta asked.

‘Don’t be like that,’ he said. ‘Please don’t. I promised him. He’s my king. And he’s your king too.’

‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘We’ve barely even met. And what if I refuse?’

The silence was as wide and long as the night.

‘You won’t, will you?’

‘Would it matter if I did?’

‘It would matter to me.’

‘But you would still obey your orders?’

‘They are orders,’ he said. ‘I serve the king. I would have no choice.’