On the day of Polyn’s funeral, I awoke early. The ceremony had to be carried out before dawn. Using a torch, I hunted around for my clothes, catching a glimpse of myself in the polished obsidian mirror Ani had given me for my last birthday, which seemed to have been a thousand years ago. I only half-recognized the girl looking back at me. Without Eteo, I felt like some of me was missing; I expected to see a scar or a missing eye or ear. Something that hurt so badly should be visible. I couldn’t help thinking that the mirror might as well show nothing, if it couldn’t show the truth. So I dropped it, expecting it to smash into a thousand tiny pieces. But it split neatly in two, and I was left with two worthless mirrors, where before I had only one.
The funeral procession would begin from the main courtyard of the palace, where Polyn had lain in state for several days. We had washed his body and covered it in oil and wrapped him in a white linen shroud. With every action we performed, I thought of the terrible lack of these same rituals for Eteo, who still lay outside the palace, mourned in secret, unburied. My sister and I had performed the prothesis for Polyn: chanting at his bier, tearing our hair, rending our garments, pummelling our breasts and hollering our grief to the skies for all to hear. The ritual informed the dead – wherever they were – of how they were missed by the living. But as the hours passed, I had begun to think that the ritual was for us, the living, to give expression to every corner of our grief. I had wailed for my brothers equally, and somehow they both knew it.
Ani and I would be allowed to participate in the ekphora, accompanying our brother’s body to his final resting place: the tomb which already held our parents. Somehow, I had to think of a way to persuade my uncle that Eteo should also be laid to rest, even if he was not buried with the rest of our family. As Sophon had said, Creon was a superstitious man: I thought perhaps I could persuade him that my mother’s shade could not be at peace while her younger son was prevented from joining her in the Underworld. But Sophon would scowl if he heard me saying such things: he thought that religion was nothing more than superstition, and it was beneath those who had studied to believe in what he considered to be stories for children. Our gods are conveniently like us, he would say, and why should they be? No answer I offered to this question ever satisfied him, until I gave in and said it must be because we invented them. We create gods that resemble us because that is all we know. They are not like us, therefore, but rather of us. Sophon believed that if horses could speak to one another, they would create gods which looked like horses. And perhaps he was right. But none of that would help me to persuade my uncle that Eteo could not be left outside the palace to rot.
I dressed in a plain linen tunic which I had not previously worn. The tunic I had for the prothesis was too badly torn to wear for the funeral procession, which was the formal, public display of grief. I would rather grieve in private, like other people. But that was not permitted for members of a ruling household. Over the simple tunic, I wore a dark grey linen robe. The hem had a stark, angular pattern woven into it, up and down, like mountains and valleys. I would wear my hair loose, rather than in its usual plait. And my feet were bare, as was proper for the ekphora. When you place a body in the ground, you should be touching the ground yourself.
I crossed the courtyard to find my sister before it became any lighter outside. If Creon had noticed that she was sleeping on the other side of the square, he had said nothing. But we were both trying to be discreet about it, in the hopes that he wouldn’t find out. The slaves were surely keeping quiet to protect her. She hurried back with me to my room, and finished her preparations there. When the maid opened the door and told us our uncle awaited us, we covered our heads with dark linen shawls and followed her outside.
The main courtyard was crowded with people, even though it was still early in the morning. Thebes last buried a king and queen more than ten years ago. People would not let such a solemn a day go past without sharing in our grief. Ani and I walked with our eyes on the ground, as was appropriate, escorted by the maid until we reached the palace guards, and then by them until we reached Polyn’s bier. There was a rustling from the crowd, as they bowed their heads. A priest stepped forward, his head covered and his manner supercilious. He offered up his prayers to the gods with the certainty of one who believed that the gods were lucky to have him.
The procession would now carry Polyn from the courtyard to the cemetery. Ani should have been the chief mourner, because she was closest to Polyn, both in age and in blood. But as she moved to take her place at the front of the litter, my uncle raised a hand, and the guards moved closer together, holding her back. Creon turned to face the crowd, including us in his speech almost incidentally, because we happened to be nearby.
‘I shall accompany my nephew, hero and defender of Thebes, to his tomb,’ he said. ‘It is appropriate that one king should be attended by another.’ The word he used to describe himself was Basileus: a ruler over his people. Before today, I had always heard my uncle called Anax, lord: a respectful title and one that conveyed his superior status to virtually anyone who spoke to him. But it had not been enough for his vaunting ambition and desire for power. I wondered if other people were as shocked as I was, but all I could hear was the crowd murmuring in agreement. Creon was their king now.
Ani was so quick that I heard her voice before I felt her move to the side of the guards, who had been distracted by Creon’s speech, and place herself in front of them.
‘I wish to speak,’ she said. Her voice rang out like harsh music, and people instinctively turned to look at her, as they always had.
My uncle remained impassive, but Haem’s expression spoke for both of them. Whatever she said, Ani would be lucky to finish this speech with her life. The crowd muttered in surprise, but their approval was audible. Even my uncle would not interrupt his grieving niece before a crowd of citizens, who were shifting their positions, all trying to catch sight of her. Though she was wearing the same dreary grey as everyone else, she shone as she spoke.
‘People of Thebes, I thank you for coming here to pay tribute to my dead brothers.’ Shock rippled across the square. Was she going to defend a traitor? ‘Your presence is a great comfort to me and my sister in this darkest time in our lives. You know that we were orphaned when we were just seven and five years old. Since then, we saw our brothers as both parents and siblings: the only family we had.’ I tore my eyes away from her to look at Creon. His guards were doing the same thing, casting questioning looks at him, hoping to find out what they should do, as my sister casually disregarded our uncle, eliding him from our family as she spoke. ‘We cherished them and loved them equally. It was a day of unbearable cruelty which robbed us of the two of them. Today, Polynices lies before you as a hero. My brother Eteocles does not. His corpse has been dumped on the hillside behind the palace.’ There were shouts from the crowd, but I couldn’t make out the words or the intent. Were they angry with Ani for defending Eteo? Or were they angry with Creon for his brutal treatment of the dead? I couldn’t be sure. ‘Yes,’ she continued. ‘His body lies outside the palace on the hill, and it has done so for three nights.’ Someone near the front of the crowd yelled ‘Shame!’ and more shouts followed.
‘So I say this,’ she continued. ‘As we take Polynices – my brother, our king – to the cemetery, to the tomb of my family, I beg you to collect the body of my brother Eteocles – equally a brother, equally our king – and bring him too. I know you have been told that he was a traitor. But he was my brother, and I loved him. My sister Ismene loved him better than anyone. And so,’ she paused to be sure she had absolute silence, ‘so did Polynices. They argued – what brothers would not? – but they loved one another, all the same. Neither of them will rest easily if they are separated in burial. They were together in life and together in death. Let them be together again now, and forever. Please, Thebes, I beg you: do not let my family’s tomb be desecrated by withholding what we owe.’
There was no doubting the mood of the crowd. Whatever they had been told about Eteo, they now stood in agreement with Ani. The sins of the living should be punished in life, but not after death. The limits laid down by the gods were quite clear. My uncle acted with decisive swiftness. He barked at the guards and several of them surrounded my sister. Four of them shielded her from the view of the crowd, while one pinned her arms to her sides, and another clamped his huge hand over her nose and mouth. She struggled frantically, but with no effect. I stepped forward to help her, but my uncle had foreseen this, and as he walked past me waving his hands calmly to quell the discontented crowd, he leaned in to my ear and said, ‘Try to help her and I will kill her.’ I knew he wasn’t lying, so I stood powerless, watching my sister fight for air, then fall unconscious. When her body fell limp against the guard who was holding her arms, he bent down and swung her up into his arms.
‘As you see,’ my uncle said, his voice loud enough to command silence, though he did not shout, ‘as you see, my niece is not well. Her words are pretty enough. Aren’t they?’ He gazed out at a crowd who had suddenly become aware of the number of armed men around them. You could see men’s eyes flicker, as they remembered that they had left their sticks or knives at home to attend a funeral. They were not equipped for an uprising on a dark, bereaved day. Creon nodded, agreeing with their imagined response, and continued. ‘Who could argue with the notion that brothers should be united in death? What man could be so audacious? I tell you, Thebes, I will argue. I say that no niceties should be observed when we speak about a man who turns on his city and on his own brother. None at all. Not because I choose to disrespect the dead. Not because I believe the gods of the Underworld will be pleased, if I rob them of their prize. But because I am the king of this city, and these are the choices I must make. Eteocles was a traitor. A traitor and a murderer. If he had not been, we would still have Polynices on the throne. I would not have been required to undertake the responsibility of kingship, so late in my life. It was against my choice, but I would not – will not – see Thebes descend into civil war. I will not see her undermined from within or from without. This is a city which has suffered enough. More than enough.’
The mood of the square was palpably changing again. Men who had cheered Ani were now clinging to the words of my uncle, seemingly unconcerned that they were supporting a diametrically opposite position to the one they had held moments earlier.
‘But I, I have not suffered enough,’ Creon said. ‘You remember how I lost my wife in the Reckoning eleven years ago. And when Thebes lost her queen and king the following summer, I also lost my sister, and my brother-in-law. And now, this year, I have lost two nephews. But still I stand here before you, ready to face your anger, when I tell you that we shall not allow those who turn on their city to be treated in the same way as those who defend it. Because if I allow it for my nephew, a boy I loved,’ his voice cracked so convincingly I almost believed him myself, ‘and who I watched grow up alongside my own son, then I allow it for anyone. For everyone. And I will not see our city – my home – destabilized like this. Hear me now, and do not mistake me: anyone who betrays his city, who betrays you,’ he pointed at the crowd – first one group, then another – including them all in his promise, ‘that traitor – even if he is my own blood – will rot outside the city walls, unmourned, unwept and unburied. Thebes will stand, and the traitors will fall. Do you hear me?’
The crowd roared their approval. My uncle continued in a whisper, forcing people to quieten one another and lean in to hear him. ‘So although I wish I could bury my nephew – and I do, Thebans, wish that very much – I will not endanger our city and I will not endanger you by giving way to my baser instincts. My hot-headed niece will spend a few days in the caves beneath the palace while she considers her behaviour here today. Guards: take her away, and give her bread and water, enough for three days. She will make her formal apology to the city Elders before she leaves her cell, I promise you that.’
It was a masterclass in rhetoric. As my sister’s insensate body was carried out of the square, I turned to my uncle and begged.
‘Let me go with her. Let me reason with her.’
He smiled without showing his teeth. ‘There never has been any reasoning with your sister, Ismene. She may look like her mother, but she has always had the disposition of her father. And if she isn’t more careful – a great deal more careful – she will end up exactly like him.’
With these words, he signalled to the men who attended Polyn’s bier. I recognized none of them: the aristoi might be somewhere in the courtyard, but they were not carrying my brother to his grave, as would have been appropriate. And neither was I. ‘Come with me,’ said my cousin, who had appeared beside me as Ani was carried away. ‘Come back inside, before he turns on you as well.’
‘I should be with Polyn,’ I said.
Haem leaned so close to me that I could feel his breath on my skin. ‘This is your only chance to bury Eteo,’ he said.
