"You have known me for many years, Lady - is that not so?"

And Tiresias had been a dark and leathery old man, even then. I saw no reason not to argue with this reasoning.

He continued. "And you might say that I have known you even longer. Since you were an infant, clinging to the shoulders of your wetnurse."

Arenthe. I remembered her face, and turned away from the kindly white eyes of this elderly man. However briefly, he must not see this moment of sadness in mine.

"And I have trusted your counsel for more years than I can remember, Lord Tiresias. I do not speak for my husband, but I believe that he has equal faith. Your arrival has always been a welcome sight in Thebes. But I still do not see why you would want to come here, if only to re-open the same old wounds which have already taken a lifetime to heal?"

"Because I have seen your future." The old man's answer was soft, but grave. "The gods have chosen to reveal it through my dreams - and dreams, Lady Jocasta, are not to be cast aside like yesterday's scraps. Or were you truly so quick to forget all that I have taught you?"

"I have forgotten nothing." Tiresias' lessons - indeed, all that I had learnt from my years with Laius - were as clear and sharp as the Sun now gleaming through the leaves above us. The expression on the face of my companion changed a little when he heard the bitterness rising into my voice. Although blind, his eyes squinted, and held me captive in their aimless gaze.

He clasped the staff he carried, and spoke - but in a softer voice than I would have expected at that moment. "Tell me. What do you know of this man whose bed you share? How much can you tell me of his story - or even of your own?"

"I know as much as I have ever needed," I protested, but even then my protests were losing conviction. "Oedipus was a traveller, slayer of the Sphinx, and a man for whom I have come to care as deeply as I have for any other. Those are the only things I have any need to know. His home may have been many miles from the throne of Thebes, but he is as welcome here as the Earth-born themselves. Particularly now as Laius had no living heir."

The old seer stepped forward, shaking his head with a sadness as profound as the deepest valleys of Poseidon's kingdom. It took him some time to lift his gaze again. "What if I were to tell you that he does?"

I laughed, a sharp, cruel sound. "If that were true, I cannot believe that it would pass me by without notice."

But Tiresias shared neither my laughter, nor the shock that had forced it from me. His voice remained unbearably sad and level. "In my dreams, Lady, there was a man come from the mountain border. A shepherd with a message for the king."

What message? But I remained silent, hearing nothing but the old man's words, and the pulse of my own heart - doubting that I would have been able to speak, even with any idea of what to say.

"I know the story he will tell your husband," continued Tiresias. "This man knows something of your family. In particular, of a child abandoned to the Fates some thirty years ago."

"My son," I gasped - before I was even aware that the thought had entered my mind. Each breath closed around me, so tight that it was painful. But whatever pain I felt from this news - for the moment, it did not matter. This was my child. The one secret I had not found the power to tell, even to Oedipus my husband. Even the unhappiness in Tiresias' eyes was not enough to dissuade me from seeking the answer. "My first son, by Laius. Tell me, Lord Tiresias…"

"I am sorry." The old man was already turning away. "I cannot reveal any more at this time."

"What do you mean?" I demanded, all protocol forgotten as I raced forward to block his path. "At least let me know if he has grown to be a man. Is he healthy? Is there even a chance that we may meet again…?"

"For now, he believes that all is well."

"For now?"

"That is all I am able to say, Lady."

"Then why say anything at all?" I shouted to him, loudly enough that two of the groundskeepers stopped and turned in the midst of their work.

Tiresias' shoulders hunched a little as he gripped his staff with two dark hands. I noticed that his knuckles were especially pronounced, hard and knobbled like beads of wood on an abacus. "Something is starting, Lady Jocasta." I heard his voice, even as he no longer faced me directly. "I can do nothing to halt its progress - only to warn you. The power to heal Thebes' wounds will come only with true knowledge, and I cannot make this journey in your stead."

"Then where is the bounty in this knowledge of yours?" I challenged the old man, but was no longer certain of what I sought from him - even had I believed there was a hope of receiving it.

"You will know before long," whispered Tiresias. "On the day when a blind man finds his sight."

I shook my head. Was that all this old man had to show me? Riddles, half clues, and still more confusion? "Do not say such things," I told him. "I am happier now than I have been in all the years of my life. If you truly care about my fortune, as you claim, then you have to appreciate that much, at least."

"The gods do not allow complacency, Lady," said Tiresias. "Their gifts to the mortal world are far too often cruel - and suffering is the cruellest gift of all."


I told him nothing of those things which had haunted my dreams. City walls coated - in places, even flooded - with the blood of its people; the wailing of women carried high upon the breeze. Their hair, coated with the ash of many hundred of funerary pyres. Their pallid, blistered faces, glistening with sweat and tears - scratched almost to bone by blood-tainted fingers. The cries of children in distress and desperation, discordantly mingled with the people's song of grief.

From horizon to horizon, billowing smoke cloaked the sky. A putrid stench rose from the soil below. And when I woke, it was the images of my children lingering grotesquely before my eyes. The illusion faded, but not the feelings it aroused. And the question. Why would the dream caster Morpheus have taken the form of my sons and daughters?