Page 22 of Arch Conspirator
All around us was silence.
“It is unfortunate to see you this way, Niece,” I said, as softly as I could manage.
“In what way?” she said. “Grieving?”
“No,” I answered. “Warped beyond recognition. We all knew, of course, that it would happen eventually. Genetic deterioration is the lot of everyone who still lives on this planet. But most people start with a clean slate. You, however… un-souled, natural-born daughter of two broken parents…” I shook my head. “I am surprised you still trust your own assessments of what is right. Your twin brother did, and it led to him dying in disgrace.”
The mask that she had worn up until that point fell away. I had laid bare her hatred, at last.
“If I had a brother who was ‘warped,’ as you say,” she said, “it was Eteocles, who served a power-mad dictator at the expense of his own family.”
“Yes, well,” I said. “Some of us understand the necessity of duty over personal attachment. And that is why I cannot spareyou, dear niece, after hearing you admit to your crimes, as well as your obvious awareness of them, brazenly and in the public square. You cannot be given special treatment simply because of my familial attachment to you. You must suffer the same consequences as every other citizen of this city. You must be executed.”
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 sideand 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; thathadclaimed 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.”
Theand die therewas 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.
12Antigone
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.
