Melon stopped for a moment, and thought he heard traces of the old Gorgos in the talk of Lord Kuniskos. Indeed the helot was slumped even further in his chair, and seemed wrinkled as he always had been. Yes, he was almost the helot of Helikon once more-tired, old, flabby even. He had a tear in his right eye and slobber at the side of his mouth. Maybe he had tried to save Lophis after all?
The myth floated away in a blink with a shout of “Liar!” Neto shrieked again, “Liar!” She may not have looked any more like the helot maiden of Helikon, but her voice was the same and she dragged her foot and closed on Kuniskos. “Liar. Dogfaced liar. You killed Lophis as if with your own hand. I know your hands that snuffed the life out of Erinna in the house of Antikrates. You can tell the jurymen all that-even more when we get down the mountain, about the dead Messenians hung up on trees, and their women sent to the Kaiadas after your play. You will drink the hemlock poison or they will throw you into the pit alive, as you did to hundreds of our own-or you will hang for the buzzards. We will stone your poisoned corpse, then hang it from the new north gate before throwing it as bora to the dogs and crows.”
Kuniskos now stared her down. “Jurymen? Trial? Aren’t you talking of your own day in court to come in Thebes, you renegades who are this year outlaws, the real lawbreakers of Boiotia?” Kuniskos shouted and all the pretense of the old good Gorgos vanished now for good. “Such hypocrites you are. You slave-owning liberators of helots.” Kuniskos could not stop. The spell was broken once his tears had not swayed any of his guests. “How do your helot folk govern themselves or keep the Spartans out without hiring Epaminondas each season? When you are through with your fun under Ithome and all go home, who will clean up this mess, govern these wild tribes? Who gives you the power to free anyone, you who owned me, the better man, the helot who wants freedom from the likes of you and your kind? Do you plan to move down here to watch them, as if parents who must change the soiled clothes of their half-grown children?”
Neto cut him off. “Liar, liar you are, old man. Liar on our Helikon. Traitor of your own kind, sell-out to the killers of Agesilaos.” Then she stepped up and slapped the palm of Kuniskos, thinking how these hands had squeezed Erinna and tightened the bonds on her neck. The other four went silent as they watched instead the right arm of Kuniskos, who was now up and out of his chair. As Melon knew from the weak lamplight, the long narrow cottage was far larger than it seemed to the eye when outside. Maybe twenty or thirty paces to the rear, eyed again the second door of his dreams-now noticed in the dark shadows as well by the sharp eye of Ainias, who usually scanned all rooms on entry as if he were on a crest over the battlefield.
Suddenly three tall shapes appeared there at the back of this single room. They swung the rear door wide open. At the same time, before Melissos could yell out, a spear tip pushed him back off the front threshold as another two men and a woman came in from the front door. Melon’s band had Gorgos in front of them and Spartans on both their right and left, altogether seven to their five.
Melissos grabbed the hand of Melon. “The cave, master, the cave, they came out of the cave.” The rescuers were trapped. Both doorways were barred by tall men in armor-Spartans who were veterans of the kryptes, and raven-haired Elektra herself, who stood blocking the light without entering all the way into the hut.
“Meet, Master Melon, my Spartan friends.” Kuniskos laughed and waved with each hand to the six Spartans at the two entries. “And you, my Lakonian friends, this is my master of the long whip, lame Melon. He is the killer of our king Kleombrotos. Over there is his new lackey Ainias, another rat in our trap who smelled some sweet cheese up here on Taygetos. They claim this mercenary thought up the ruse of attacking you from the left at Leuktra. That other wild boy from the far north does not matter. Forget the skinny helot-the one they call Nikon. He will run when the blood flows, like all helots. Neto over there who barked this winter under my table for a bone, whether rabbit or mine, why she prides herself the mouthpiece of the helots-yes, that brand-face in rags that stands there across the table. I doubt this time she will find a way out of my hands as before.”
The Spartans ignored the big talk of their Kuniskos and watched instead the hands of Ainias and Melon. There was not much room to move. Melon clinched his spear. Ainias backed against the wall. All five bunched up. The two hoplites shielded Melissos and Nikon behind them, who had only their blades. Neto in the middle of the tiny phalanx picked up the walking stick of Kuniskos. Ainias also drew his cleaver, and quickly handed his spear to Melon, who had Bora in his other hand. Like the Stymphalian, Melon had dropped his shield outside on the path before the threshold-not because either one trusted Kuniskos, but thinking they would have no room in the hut for the wide swings of the willow shield that had brought so many low at Leuktra. There was a pause before the fighting. A gruff, harsh voice of a man in the shadows took over and stepped into the lamplight of the hut, speaking more like an Athenian than an ephor of Sparta. It was Lichas himself.
“Old Cholopous. So we meet again, the half-dead Melon, son of the long-dead Malgis. You are the father of the dead boy at Leuktra? All has turned out as promised. Or do you remember me? We first met on your farm when you had your first set of teeth, when you ran under your arbors before I could cut off your tiny head-and at Koroneia, and yet once more at the fight at the Nemea. On that night at Leuktra, and then on your recent visit to burn my farm at Sparta. My, my, my friend, how we’ve grown old together.”
This tall but stooped Spartan stepped even farther forward near Kuniskos while the others stayed put by the doors. Lichas was ageless like his Kuniskos, and likewise he felt no burdens of age or time. In similar fashion, Lichas felt freed by his long years and the end of Messenia and the idea he could do at last whatever he wished-which for Lichas always meant to kill without penalty whoever he wanted. Lichas continued. “I speak for a bit before you bleed. I wanted Pelopidas and Epaminondas to visit our hut and maybe Alkidamas as well, so with a clean cut today we could finish this Messenian mess once and for all and get our boys back down over there where they belong. Only the hungriest rats scampered up here, I see. Even the best trapper must put up with the rodents who clutter his nets. I brought today my son Antikrates, who killed so many of yours at Leuktra. More of our friends are here as well. You say you will take our helot back down the mountain? Oh no, no. Not this time, Master Melon. You will go down no mountain-not even a hill, not even dead. Where is your proud Epaminondas or Pelopidas-or even one of those brutes from the islands here to rescue you? We had soup here for both. Your islander, we hear, has gone feral. He flees the blood guilt on your Helikon. If he comes up here-and he won’t because he’s dead-by now he would have met our man-bear who bites the throat of all lone wanderers on Taygetos.”
Then his wife Elektra stepped to his side, proud with her long hair, some tresses braided and some dangling out the sides of her helmet. She boasted, “Too much talk, my Lichas. Kill them before that branded helot over there puts a chant or spell on us. Let me cut her tongue out before this Neto bewitches us all. Or let my boy Thibrachos have a taste of her first.”
The Spartan had drawn his sword, a shiny xiphos with both edges gleaming in the candlelight. Elektra had a black pelekus, a battle-ax given to her by the king himself, and she swung if far better than did her son Thibrachos. The outnumbered band crouched and made ready for the rush, Melon and Ainias still covering the flanks, Nikon and Melissos between them three steps back with drawn long knives-and Neto in reserve with an oak staff. She put both hands on the shaft and looked for an opening. The five had backed flush against the wall, as the Spartans by the two doors covered the escapes. They could at least take down Gorgos, and maybe even Elektra before their deaths. These were armored men, Sparta’s best; and Melon’s side was without bronze-and with boy and a lame woman.