Arch-Conspirator(18)
“I see.” Haemon sat down in the chair next to mine, where my friend the guard had sat just a few minutes before. He folded his hands—he had long fingers, I noticed—over one of his knees. “As you said, I am too young to know all that you know. But I have been in the city, and I know how our people think. They will see this as a senseless killing—the waste of a precious resource, all for the crime of loving a brother—”
“For the crime of conspiring with rebels,” Kreon interrupted. “Do you think that explosion was a coincidence? It’s a wonder no one was killed.”
Haemon went on as if his father had not spoken: “You don’t want to allow a crack in your wall—but the crack is already there, and I fear this will widen it.”
Kreon smirked.
“I see,” he said. “You pretend to reason with me, but reason is the furthest thing from your mind. You’ve developed a hunger for this woman.”
“I assure you, my concern is for you.”
“If your concern was for me, you would be outraged at the attempt on my life by a member of my own household!” Kreon spat. “Instead you are a child, with a child’s sense of justice.”
“I’m telling you it doesn’t matter if I am a child or not, it doesn’t matter if I want her or not, it doesn’t matter if she conspired with rebels or not!” Haemon said. “If the rest of this city agrees with me, you’ll bring about the chaos you are trying to avoid.”
“I’m not going to capitulate to anyone’s tantrums, least of all yours.”
Haemon spat, “You’re a fool.”
“And you’re a simpering milksop who is mastered by a woman,” Kreon replied. “I do not tolerate murderers and traitors. I will not be persuaded to do so.”
The men glared at each other, finally falling into silence. I sat forward and cleared my throat, drawing their attention.
“High Commander,” I said. “In the presence of this witness, I’d like to formally call upon the rights of the accused. I want to request a public hearing.”
“What?” Haemon said.
Kreon frowned at me.
“It is my right,” I said. “To be judged in the presence of my peers.”
“This is ridiculous,” Haemon said. “There should be no hearing, there should be no judgment in the first place!”
But both Kreon and I ignored him, our eyes locked together like two swords crossed at the blade.
“What do you think you will gain?” he said quietly. His voice was like poison dripping down my throat. “Do you think that if there is some kind of public outcry, I will be moved to change my mind? Well I warn you, girl, I am not so easily swayed.”
I pursed my lips, as if to say we’ll see, but really, I had no doubt: Kreon was a stubborn ass, and that’s what I was counting on.
11
Kreon
The statute to which my traitorous niece referred had been proposed by her own father, years before, in response to a particular tendency of the government—then not under my command; that came later—to simply disappear dissenting voices, here one day and gone the next. I remembered the day he had advocated for it before the array of men in jackets buttoned up to their throats, his voice unfaltering, never intimidated even when he ought to have been. It was not confidence so much as a belief in his own invincibility. He never did understand survival—his own, or his children’s. He might not have cursed them with his unstable DNA if he had.
Nevertheless, it was not unfathomable that she should remember that statute, as she remembered so many of her parents’ achievements and routinely reminded me of them. What was startling, then, was not her talent for recall, but her willingness to engage in a public hearing that could only run counter to her best interests. She had been caught with an Extractor in hand, the needle end poised over her twin brother’s belly. She had been wrestled away from said body and taken back to her bedroom, where she had been contained since the crime occurred. She could not very well stand before me in the public square and deny any of it.
And besides—what would she have Extracted? There was no soul in Polyneikes’ cells. I had permitted the charade for Eteocles, but it was all utterly pointless. There could be no resurrection where there was no pattern to convey.
I had expected her to come trembling to my office, to perch at the edge of the chair and beg me for her life. Despite the ornery streak that ran through her, I knew her to be a practical person above all else. When she had first arrived in this house, I had seen quite plainly the hatred she bore me, yet she had thanked me for my mercy and given me a curtsy that any high-status lady of society would have found acceptable.
So how to account for her attitude in my office? Perhaps she was overconfident in the public’s favor and in my unwillingness to be momentarily unpopular. Perhaps her view of things was simply too narrow to account for anything other than her own particular situation. She did not understand the intricacies of leadership, and how could she have? Her life, up until this point, had been one of clinging to the branch until the fruit was ripe enough to pick. One only saw one perspective when dangling for so long.
I scheduled the public hearing for that afternoon, to be announced in the square between the house and the Trireme, according to the requirements of my brother’s statute. I doubted that anyone would heed it. I returned to my study, where a cup of coffee waited, lukewarm now thanks to the deviation in my routine. Rather than summon one of the staff to warm it, I clutched it in both hands to preserve the last of its warmth and sipped it at my desk.