Proxenos cut in, “I wish it were so. But we will have a hard time in the days ahead to storm Sparta-if Epaminondas decides to go south once he arrives here.” He pointed to the high passes farther to the south that cut off Lakonia from the center of the Peloponnesos. “The roads are deep in winter mud. There is nothing but cold there beneath Taygetos. Colder still in the shadows of Parnon. Their barrier to the city, the river Eurotas, is ice. I feel it even from here in my bones.”
Lykomedes bellowed out in laughter. “Spartans? They hide inside their borders. Last month they came out to test our mettle, and we hit them hard, even though our walls were not as tall as you see them now.” The three were drenched by the light rain but kept talking in their confidence of the imposing heights of Mantineia, until Lykomedes advised to go over to the city center called ptolis, to see the theater and new temple to Hera, the patron goddess that watched over the growing city. He talked as they walked. “We need only more roof-tiles for our new homes. Sparta has roof-tiles. So we will join your Epaminondas at month’s end and go down to get our tiles from the Spartans. How’s that?”
Both nodded, since the thief would be on their side to steal from the common enemy. The cold drizzle turned to a harder rain, and then promptly abated and left a wet fog. Proxenos held his nose from the overflowing sewer. In anger he reminded Lykomedes that his plans had called for the tile drains beneath the walls to dump into the downstream of the Ophis, not into these pools inside the walls. Surely if these lowly sorts would not work for clean streets, they could at least hold their bowels and empty them only outside the city walls.
“A minor problem, stone doctor,” Lykomedes laughed. “We piled the clay pipe outside the walls, but thieves made off with it all. We need more clay, as I said. Until then, these ditches will have to do. As you heard, we had a bit of looting. Some stealing, too-until my archers emptied their quivers. Things are settling down. You’ll see. Hang up a few thieves for the birds. Toss their corpses to the dogs. Just a few is all that’s needed. We’ll get the crap out and the fresh water flowing soon enough.” As they passed the cesspools, Proxenos saw that the stench came from the two half-eaten corpses hung above the sewers. “To teach the others,” Lykomedes pointed at them. “All executed fairly on the order of my assembly, the will of the demos. But first, tell me about the muster of the Boiotians. The year wanes. Rumors spread. We hear Epaminondas will not come in his tenure, that he will not be reelected Boiotarch in the year to come. Hoplites don’t march at the winter solstice, right?”
The three were descending the ramparts and made their way down a colonnaded arch to the ptolis and the central city with its wide agora and broad stoas, the stones clean and shiny from the shower. Proxenos replied that the vote at Thebes probably was being held far to the north amid the cold as they spoke. “Boiotia was full of foreigners when we left. Xenoi, some from far above Phokis and Lokris, no less. Islanders too are camped beneath the seven gates. For good or ill, all say they have come to march. At least as far as Arkadia. Thousands of them, even as the summer is gone and the autumn wanes along with the annual tenure of General Epaminondas. Yet I wager the spirit of Epaminondas and the hard reason of Alkidamas will make it difficult for the delegates of Boiotia to stop the army. But make sure your Mantineia has enough food this cold winter to feed them all. Melon, the killer of Kleombrotos, may end up here in the front rank himself. They are coming, coming in just a few days.”
“Count on that,” Ainias broke in. Lykomedes listened more to his fellow Arkadian. “The Thespian killer will tire of his olive press and his protest that he is a misanthropos who just wishes to be let alone. We saw that before we left. His man-hatred was cured by Epaminondas. Yes, he of prophecy will come, limp or not-as long as he knows that his Epaminondas can leave Thebes still as Boiotarch with a right to lead out an army, even if it be a winter one that is not even across the Isthmos when his tenure ends.”
Lykomedes spat out between his teeth. “He might, but I hear the gods are finished with your Melon, son of Malgis, and from now on he will kill no more kings. Tell him to keep far from our Skope, as they say it bodes badly for you northerners. Nonetheless, even cripples are needed. We turn none away. We have filled the city’s granaries since late summer’s good harvest. I had to stretch a few fingers of the wealthier ones, and even brand a few, to find their buried grain stashes. But they all coughed up in the end, all legal on the order of the demos. A thousand sheep and goats graze inside the walls. Another thousand are along the tall river grass outside near the walls.”
Proxenos wanted to know something else, something he had promised Melon to find out back at the press on Helikon. “Now tell us Lykomedes, have you seen Melon’s freedwoman Neto, the prophetess from Helikon? She listens to the priestess of Pasiphai for the things that will happen before they do. Well before last high summer she was down here, scurrying around to find exiles of Messenia to stir the helots on. She might have had this poetess, Erinna, they say with her? They would have stopped here on the way west to Ithome.”
“Yes, yes, Neto who babbled about, but a fine tight sort nonetheless she was. But without the eros of men in her eye, as I learned.” Lykomedes looked sideways and kept on. “The other girl, well now, the fiery one Erinna was even crazier with her talk about a new Athens on the slopes of Ithome. I know of her songs. That is one reason why she walked freely in my city. But while I have long heard her hexameters-both the laments for her lost girlfriend Baukis, and the dirge on spinning-many have gone by that name Erinna, and all claimed that they were the one poetess of myth. I had never met any of them, so I was surprised that this latest Erinna seemed like one of Queen Hippolyta’s she-men from Pontos with that wicked bow on her shoulder. But maybe she’s more a woman than she let on. Both left-and with raggedy helots, no less. Your Neto almost took my little Ariston with them. Yes, the troublemakers left Mantineia thirty days or maybe forty or more ago, and with a full pouch of coins, headed toward the great mountains of Taygetos. Both will draw men, good and bad, on the road-if they are lucky enough to avoid the man-bear or wolf-men on the high passes. Look for that dirty Nikon; he followed the two women. He’s that helot upstart that I’d rather kill than let run free in my city. All of them found too few Messenian helots here for their liking. They said they were going south. To the new city, no doubt. Neto fell under the spell of your Alkidamas. Most who do don’t end nicely.”
Lykomedes went on. “This summer Neto fired up our helot exiles here in Mantineia with visions of a free Messenia-all twenty of them. And that helot mob leader Nikon, who stinks of leather and lye? Well, he was worst of all the helot brigands, the killer who ambushed and waylaid and had no parley with the Spartans. Still, helots were no concern of ours. She gathered a few of these loiterers off our streets. If they kill Spartans, why, all the better. So she came here, poked around, and left.” Something about Neto had set the boar’s mouth flapping and he couldn’t stop spitting. “That pale poetess Erinna performed here, as I said, and breathed hard on your Neto. Neto thinks that they will lead an army of helots from the highlands of Arkadia. She plans on killing Spartans and freeing her people. I tried to talk some sense into the pair, but who can when these half-helots and crazed poets think they’re gods?”
Proxenos laughed. “You mean you tried to talk eros into Neto, goat, and got beat by a poetess no less.”
“That too,” Lykomedes chuckled, “that too, for I like a tall woman with ribs that I can see and yet with breasts that flop and the rear of a wide sort as well. But your philosopher Alkidamas already won Neto over. Why, I don’t know. He has no fun in him, only serious stuff. For all that Erinna’s short hair, I imagine she had some love of men left in her yet. If not, she’s as good as my pretty little Ariston all the same.”