New Hope

Dear Diary, 

After yesterday's events, I didn't want to be anywhere near the palace, but I had to deliver a message to one of the princes. When I was passing the kitchens, I heard one of the younger maids gossiping about an argument they heard while passing by the royal chambers. The maid said that she heard the king yelling at someone who sounded a lot like Lord Creon.

When I heard that, I assumed that King Oedipus was confronting Lord Creon about his suspicions of treason.

A part of me wants to believe that Lord  Creon actually is planning against the king, but another part of is thinking that it would be very convenient for King Oedipus to spread that rumor after hearing a seer tell him of his alleged misdeeds.  I need more of the story before I can make a solid opinion, but something tells me that if I go looking for more answers I won't like what I find.

In spite of that sense of foreboding, I shamelessly returned to the same tree I was under before, half-hoping that the window would be closed.

It was open, just as before, and I could hear them clearly. It was King Oedipus, again,  but this time I heard the voice of the queen as well. I almost left right then. I didn't want to intrude on something too private between the king and queen. Then I heard the queen inquiring about the argument between the king and Lord Creon. Since that was the only reason I was there (and the fact that I am a nosy, nosy person), I decided to stay.

King Oedipus replied to her that he fought with her brother because Creon was painting him to be Laius's murderer.

Queen Jocasta then asked if Lord Creon accused him of murder out right, to which King Oedipus replied that he used a knavish seer as a mouthpiece.

Again, I am to assume that bearing this burden of knowledge is a punishment for me sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, but I felt then, as I do now, that I had to know. The unfolding events were sucking me in, and I couldn't do a thing about it but watch them, as if it was a play.

The queen then told the king that she knew for a fact the the seer was wrong, and launched into a story that gave me a sick feeling in me gut.

She said that an oracle from the ministers of Delphi once came to the old king and  declared that he was doomed to perish at the hands of his own son, born to him by the queen herself. The queen then reassured King Oedipus that the old king was reported to have been killed by highwaymen at a spot where three roads meet.

She told King Oedipus that she did indeed have a child with Laius, but when it was three-days old the old king pierced and pinned its ankles together and cast it on a mountainside. So, she said, the prophecy that Apollo brought was not to pass.

I felt an overwhelming sense of relief at that. If that prophecy wasn't true, then that meant that this prophecy wasn't true! King Oedipus really was innocent, and he would find the murderer of the old king and save us all again.

And then, like many other times in my life, my hopes were dashed quickly and painfully.

King Oedipus sounded shocked and upset at the story, which confused me at first. Was he angry about the treatment of the child? The oracle for giving them the false prophecy?

Unfortunately, it was neither of those things. The king then asked a series of questions, like when the old king was killed, where he was, what he looked liked, and  how many people were with him.

By the end of the questioning, the queen sounded as perturbed as I did. She sounded anxious when she asked what was wrong, and soon the sick feeling in my stomach increased. The king said that he may have unwittingly laid a curse upon himself, and that the seer may prove to not be blind...He then asked who was the one who carried the message back to the kingdom. The queen's voice was shaky when she answered him, that it was a serf, who was the lone survivor of the trip. Queen Jocasta said that as soon as he returned, he asked to be sent to the mountains and pastures to get away from the events of their journey. The king asked that the serf be brought back, so the king could question him, to see if he was correct in his assumption.

As if that wasn't enough to convince me that something was amiss with the king, he then told the queen about what as bothering him so fully.

He said that his father was Polybus of Corinth, and his mother was a Dorian named Merope, and that he was held a foremost citizen. Then, he said, a drunkard at a banquet told him that he wasn't a true son of his father, Polybus. When he asked his parents about it, they were indignant on his behalf and tried to comfort him, but the slur still held fast in his mind, and made him doubt himself. So, in an effort to get some answers, he went to visit Delphi. Apollo sent him back with grievous prophecies, woes, and lamentations about how the king would defile his mother's bed, raise up children too loathsome to look at, and kill his own father.

So armed with that knowledge, he left his family home to keep the prophecy from coming to pass. On his journey, he came upon a triple-branching road where a herald and an old man drawn by colts met him. Both men threatened to throw him off the road, and the now-king Oedipus struck the herald in the front. The old man  tried to bludgeon him with a double-pointed goad. It didn't work, and King Oedipus used his staff to throw the man out of the chariot seat and kill the everyone there.

He ended his story with a statement of what was really bothering him; what if that old man he killed was Laius?

He then wondered aloud if this was the plot of some god, or the Fates, and if so, he wouldn't be able to blame them for it. He said that if the prophecy he received does come true, he wishes to be killed so that he would not be a plague on the living any longer.

But then the king said that he has hope of when the serf comes that he'll be proven wrong. The queen asked him what would he hope to learn from the serf, and the king replied that in the serf's report, the old king and his traveling party were attacked by robbers, as in more than one person. King Oedipus was alone when he slew the stranger on the road. So, if the serf sticks to the story of the 'robbers', than the king will be proven innocent. If the serf says only one person was there, than the king actually did murder Laius.

The queen sounded relieved when she told him that the serf's tale of the attack included multiple attackers. Also, she said, the oracle specifically said that Laius would die by a child's hand, and her only child with Laius died as a baby. So, she said, he has nothing to worry about.

The king sounded slightly relieved, but still perturbed, and he agreed that it's most likely not what he was thinking.

Then they left.

I stayed under the tree until evening, still processing what I had heard.

I hope that Queen Jocasta was right, and that the king didn't kill old king Laius. Besides, the oracle did say the Laius would be killed by his child, and King Oedipus's parents live in Corinth! So she  must be right!

Now, back at my father's house, I stand by that statement. The serf will surely prove the king wrong, and everything will go back to normal after the king catches the real killer.

I must leave now, my mother, is calling for me.

Sincerely,

The Royal Messenger, ------------ (name has been scratched out)