Arch-Conspirator(21)

The clamor that rose among the crowd in response to this was deafening. Not just murmurs, but shouts; the soldiers who guarded the square used their staffs to press people back, holding a barrier that had been invisible and was now made manifest.

“You can’t!” Ismene emerged from the shadow of the courtyard, followed closely by Eurydice, who reached for her. Ismene tugged away from Eurydice’s hand holding her elbow, but not hard enough to break free. Together they stumbled into the square to stand between me and my traitorous niece, Eurydice at Ismene’s back.

Tears stained my other niece’s cheeks. She was taller than her sister, but softer, her voice gentler. I had wished, many times, that I had selected her to marry Haemon instead of her elder sister. She was easier to deal with.

“You can’t,” Ismene said again. “I tie my fate to hers. If she dies, so will I, and then two losses will be on your conscience instead of one.”

“Ismene!” Antigone shouted the name so that it could be heard over the tumult in the crowd, and scowled at her. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“Neither loss weighs on my conscience,” I said to Ismene, “when the deaths are the deaths of traitors.”

Eurydice spoke softly in the girl’s ear, her hands on her shoulders, soothing, pressing her back toward the courtyard. I thought the disruption had been dealt with until my wife left Ismene’s side and stepped closer to me, close enough that I could see dust gathering in the creases beneath her eyes.

“Mercy,” she said to me softly, “is as fine a quality to be known for as strength, Kreon. Do not sacrifice so valuable a treasure as a young woman’s body—not when it has not had time to contribute anything yet.”

“What could she contribute, with her origins?” I said, and I flinched as the shouts around us grew louder.

Eurydice’s eyes were insistent. “Life.”

I felt something crawling up my spine—a feeling from memory, soon followed by the images of memory themselves. A man breaking through a barrier, stabbing a soldier. Screams. Chaos. Blood spattering the street. The riot that had almost claimed my life; that had claimed the lives of my brother and his wife, and so many others.

I could not allow it to happen again.

I turned toward the crowd.

“Make no mistake, this is not about mercy. Mercy would be valuing the lives of our citizens over the lives of two women!” I gritted my teeth until they squeaked, and then continued: “Still, I am not hard-hearted. I hear you—all of you.”

The crowd quieted a little. I turned back to Antigone, standing alone even now, her sister weeping behind her, my wife turning her face away.

“I will not execute her,” I said. “But a traitor cannot be permitted to live freely among us. It is too great a threat to our society’s health. Instead, I will send her on a special mission. She will board the Trireme, and take our desperate plea into space.”

The and die there was implied, but I didn’t say it aloud.

Our eyes locked. Hers were wide and soft as a rabbit’s. She looked up and out toward the ship that glinted in the daylight not far from here, its nose pointed at the heavens.

“Thank you, Niece, for giving us this great gift,” I said. “Your last few years will be spent making amends for your treachery. You will be our messenger.”

The crowd’s quiet had been just a held breath. Their shouts filled the air again, and Nikias rushed forward to escort me back into the courtyard, to be locked safely behind the gates of my house.





12

Antigone




I had seen the true color of the day sky only a few times in my life. The city was shrouded, always, by dust and pollution. On clear days, it was gray-white. On days when the northern wind blew, it was yellow.

But right after a particularly bad storm, when the wind was right, the clouds sometimes cleared, and there it was: blue.

In a world that left no room for the frivolous, it felt almost indulgent. The heavens mocking us, perhaps. But everyone walked around on those days with their heads tilted back, until the wind blew the clouds back into place.

Never did the Trireme glint more. There had been rumors, a few years ago, that the Trireme didn’t actually work—why hadn’t they launched it yet, if it did?—but that Kreon kept it there to inspire hope for the future. I had halfway believed them, until now, when I knew the Trireme would be my tomb. Kreon wouldn’t have given me that sentence if he hadn’t known he could carry it out.

I lay on the bed, my fingers spread wide. I felt numb, and the numbness was weight in my limbs. The ceiling, cracked and stained, held no interest, but neither did the dinner they had delivered to me an hour ago. It waited on my desk, cold now. Would they poison me? I didn’t think so. Kreon wanted the big, marvelous display of launching me into the sky as much as I did. We just wanted it for different reasons. He was betting it would be a spectacular display of his authority. I was betting it would rouse people to rebellion.

Regardless of who was right, I would still die.

I sat up at the knock. I was certain they wouldn’t let Ismene visit me. And anyone Kreon sent would not bother to knock.

The door opened, and Haemon stepped into my bedroom for the second time in two days.

There was trouble in his eyes and a slump to his shoulders. I got up, standing by the foot of my bed, and I meant to say something sour and funny, the way I usually would, but my words failed me, for the first time.