Melissos grabbed Melon’s arm. “Don’t go in. We have room out here to fight, Master, plenty of room to spear and stab, since this vagabond will have others like him lurking in the corners and rafters. He’s lying about Neto. She’s dead, months ago he killed her. Or better yet, let me and Ainias go in first. Nikon can guard our rear.”
Melon would have praised this Makedonian boy for his growing sense, and taken his advice as well. But he had heard “Neto,” and wanted to find her or her body-and then kill all who had a hand in her torture or death. So he went in, spear ready, and all three followed. The room ahead was dark with a weak lamp light on a table. The four were not sure Gorgos was alone. The murmurs inside below the table were of a dying or sick dog, at least at first so they thought. But as they reached the long table, it leapt up. Alive? Or at least they thought this caped thing was something close to alive. Neto? The four pulled it up.
It was Neto and alive!
They could see their old Neto beneath the dingy blanket, and the scabs and scars. Melon embraced her, as Ainias kept his eye on Gorgos. Melissos helped Melon quickly cut off her binds. Nikon kept his blade in the face of Gorgos as they all stepped back to the wall. Melon grabbed some wine as he passed the table and soon had her talking and wide-eyed. She was a lot more alive than she looked, and was soon pointing to the door and crying at the same time. “No worry, Neto, no worry ever again.” Then he sat her down gently and put himself between her and Gorgos, alongside Ainias.
The Stymphalian called the old man out. “Gorgos, you speak well for a man about to be speared, for one who invited in four of his executioners.” Ainias then lowered his spear as they all backed up to the corner of the hut and prepared to charge the helot. But first Ainias grazed Gorgos with his spear tip. “I never liked you, helot. We are here to fetch or kill you for what you have done to the Messenians and to our Neto and to our Erinna. I prefer to end you here; the others down in new Messene want to hang you, no doubt. Save us all much labor and come with us back to Ithome so you can sit in the dock of the Messenians and hear their justice. They will swing you up for ten days above the Arkadian Gate until your bald head rots off.”
Melon kept quiet at that. He slowly made his way around to the corner of the dank room behind Kuniskos, with Neto up and shuffling at his rear next to the wall, her hands on his shoulders. Nikon felt for his sword. Melissos stayed near the threshold with Ainias. Both had iron ready. Kuniskos had his eye on all of them, all the time. Neto was shaky, but growing stronger from the wine and her hatred of Gorgos. She hissed over Melon’s shoulder. “He’s alone, though he wants you to think his army is outside. Kill him and we go home.” Melon nodded and was ready to spear him.
Then the helot laughed at her. “Put those points away. Of course, I am alone. Your Gorgikos is tired of the slur of Kuniskos. I am no puppy dog, but a dragon man, a Gorgon of Helikon, watcher and protector of the farm of Malgis. The gods wish me back home on Helikon. You hate me because I killed your Erinna, yes, that red-headed Medusa sent to kill me. Was I supposed to stare at her and turn to stone? Gorgikos the loyal hound is to be killed because he bit first the master’s son who wanted to kick open his head? Master, at least give thanks to me. I both kept your dear little Neto alive and yet ensured you need worry no more that she might like other men far better than she did you in your dotage and lameness-especially with the passing of that faker Proxenos of Plataia. Let us eat, since I know you know your way around this hut. I wager you had the same dream about it that I and your late Chion once did-since we met here before in our sleep, as you know from the nighttime shades that Hypnos and his son Morpheus sent to us alike.”
Melon ignored him and was wondering if he could stab this Kuniskos before Ainias the spear-tosser impaled him. The Thespian also noticed that, in fact, Gorgos was right. He thought that he had seen the table before in his night visions and even on the wagon ride to Leuktra. He also wondered whether, as in the apparitions, there were also two doors to the hut, not one, as it had seemed when they first entered. So he looked into the shadows at the back of the long dwelling, and in fact thought he saw some sort of a smaller rear door.
Then Kuniskos seemed hurt and wounded and so sat sunken back into his leather-woven chair. Then his voice lowered and he was almost once more what they remembered of the broken-down Gorgos nearing his seventh ten-years on Helikon. He pointed his fork at his friends and softly, slowly told them the way of their world to come. So there would be peace and a quiet descent with him as their prisoner back to Messenia after all. “The great game is over. My Spartans are broken, a race humbled by lesser folk by far. My helot people are free, as I suppose they should be. You have forgotten. I, whom you slur as Kuniskos, I too am a Messenian, born one, bred one, and so should be happy at their freedom. Even here I pick up things from my messenger, my dear Scorpidion. Yes, I heard that your Chion could not stop his killing on Helikon. Who else could have hung up Medios or drowned Thrattos, my friends and neighbors. So he died an outlaw now, a killer of the old and weak? Or was it all on your prompt, Master, who wishes me to face the law of bloodletting? Who is the killer and who in contrast pulls wounded boys out of battle at great risk to himself? And my, my, how everyone seems to have passed on.”
This fluent Kuniskos was for a blink confusing his old friends with his long new way of talking as Lord Kuniskos. “Are you four alone? Just four? No more? So few to come so far? Three with good legs in your new band, and two sadly now with not? I thought I spied five of you as you came down the path. Or were there shadows in the woods? Were there not five or perhaps six of you? So many to fetch-or is it to kill-your Gorgikon. No Alkidamas here? I hear he is never far from you all but always safely distant when iron is drawn. Of course, Epaminondas stays warm back in my fort, too wise to tramp up here in the spring rain. And where is my Scorpas, always the loyal messenger to the end?”
Melon kept his spear pointed at his helot. “Ready your things. We have a night of walking down the mountain still. Epaminondas wants you to face the diskasteria of the Messenians. Down the mountain I will settle up with you for Neto and Lophis, if the court of the Messenians leaves me a few scraps.”
“Calm, calm down, Master, my master. Neto no doubt will tell you soon enough that she lives due to me. I kept her safe in my fort. I tried to save Lophis, at Leuktra, though he was near dead when I picked him up from the gore of battle. How could I return to the Boiotians when your Chion swore he would kill me after the battle? I had no choice but to cross the battlefield, since for all my babble I loved your Lophis and you too in my way. I yelled in vain to my Lichas to let him live. I, no one else, dressed out his body. I, Gorgos, left my own good money on the road south for the priestess Kallista at Kreusis to keep him safe from the birds and dogs. I was the good servant, and you are angry only because I the lowly now am free. May Zeus bless Lichas who alone let me live free, the true, the only liberator among you.”