But then Erinna tapped Kuniskos and woke him from his idle wine thought. He caught sight of her breast and thigh and put down his cup and turned from Neto. Erinna eyed his club far off in the corner. “But play with her comes later, Lord Kuniskos. After we have done our own business. But first, I want you to promise me a boat ride from up the gulf to the Isthmos for our sport-anything to leave this frozen Hades and these dreadful unlettered helots. Remember I came into your fort looking for a ticket home.” With that last talk, she at last reached for the dirk on the ledge behind him, placed above the fire between the stones with the handle out. She was freed of her sash and had plenty of sway in her arms. With her hem cinched up tight, Erinna kicked the old man in the groin and then swung around and stabbed down hard on his shoulder.
“Run Neto. Out to Nikon, out to Nikon. Out to the gully. Now.”
But Erinna pulled out the dagger too early from Kuniskos-before she could plunge and twist it-so that she could turn and slash Neto’s rope. “Run Neto. Before …” Neto leapt free, and Gorgos for a moment was stunned. Then Erinna picked up the heavy kettle with the long wooden handle and threw the broth onto the back of the neck of Kuniskos.
He staggered with wound and burn and wine, bellowing at the door to his henchmen. But they were on the other side of the square, used to their captain’s noise and frolic, and far enough away to give Kuniskos his sport in private. The two doors to the house were unguarded, as the cold guards had built a fire far to the opposite side of the stockade. Kuniskos cursed the two women in his moment of blindness. “Helots, they’ve stabbed me! Klopi. Klopi. Bring Hekas. Bring Pharis and the band. Run. They’re in the house here. Fools, get them!”
Then the raging Kuniskos dove at the ankles of Erinna, who kept ordering, “Run, Neto. Out for us both. For us both.”
But then Neto paused and could not leave her would-be savior. She called back, “Fight him, Erinna-both of us, together.” Then Neto punched Kuniskos again and again as he placed his hands around the neck of Erinna. He was old, but stronger than any guardsman a third of his age, and tall and leathery with a grip as cold as winter’s ice. Kuniskos freed one hand, and then slapped and punched Neto back. She went out the window right through the open shutters and through the porch, rolling into the courtyard. Her sore leg hit sideways on the flat stones, and snapped at the ankle, as she fell back, got up, staggered and then fell again.
Neto was alive and ready to limp back in. But she looked up and here was Klopis with his rope and blade. Then a loud sound pierced the air behind her, as Erinna blew the whistle for help and then a final yell, “For Epaminondas, for Epaminondas.” Neto squirmed on the ground, but then Klopis hit her with the flat of his sword handle, and she went limp and her world turned dark.
Erinna thought she could stun Kuniskos and maybe give Neto enough time to reach the front gate and climb over, maybe even to reach Nikon. She thrashed and scratched at the burned Kuniskos. For a moment she got her nails deep into his thigh as she struggled to break his grip. His hands were calloused and both again on her neck. She bit at his cheek, spat in his face, and tried to slam her knee into his belly as he lifted her off the stone floor.
Erinna got another nail into his backside and dug it deep into the flesh, searching for a vein and the burn on his neck and cut on his backside. Gorgos was burned, and stabbed and kicked, so why didn’t he let her go? “Shhh, my poet girl. Quiet now. Your Kuniskos has only scorched his neck, and your toy blade has missed my insides. But your nails bring me joy, so go on with your scratches. Oh, but your pinprick hurts.”
He shook Erinna around and raised her higher, face-to-face, a foot maybe off the ground, her nose touching his, both hands squeezing her tighter all the while. “Shhh. Don’t fight it, my pretty little Pythagoras girl. Shhh. Quiet. Let your soul out. Let it fly quietly to Hades like the little poet you are. No pain, no pain, go limp. Take the sleep that takes all pain, little Erinna. No more worry any more, ward of your Pythagoras. Sleep in the hands of your Kuniskos. You keep your Erinna’s soul-I your body.”
As he squeezed Erinna ever so slowly, she whispered a last “Epaminondas will come, he will, my Epaminondas …”
Erinna’s eyes bulged and her once red face was white, as more guards ran into the courtyard to help Klopis pack off Neto. Erinna sputtered and then made a loud gurgle and then she too went limp. Kuniskos had forgotten his cuts and burns and kept talking as he squeezed, listening to his own voice. Still he talked on. “Ah, my pretty Attis has gone to the majority. Without even a fart or two, as most of my girls do when I send them off with that last hug.” With that Kuniskos threw what had been Erinna over his shoulder and went back into his chambers. “Bring a hot iron to close up my shoulder, and a sponge of oil for my eye and some grease for these scratches. And, oh yes, fetch her cloak to keep her warm. Carry back in that bald-haired Neto. If she’s alive, she may still bring us some silver. But if she’s dead, we’ll post the two heads out on both sides of the road. A nice twosome for us. Klopi. Get in here. No one does knife work better than you.”
He missed his wine and was soon roaring with pain from the burn and stab. But the idea of hanging them up or at least their heads, that notion got his blood even hotter. “Soon two beauties will smile on us, guarding the path of the camp of Antikrates. So Klopi, bring me a tall pole, two men’s height and more, and your cattle knife. We will have our little Attis mounted for all to see this Amazon. In this winter cold, the pretty head of Erinna-Attis will stay fresh enough up there for the season. Look at little Erinnike, why she smiles-the smile won’t leave. What does she know that we don’t?”
Nikon and his four helots were near at the first sound of Erinna’s whistle but as he looked through the brush the ramparts were thick with Spartans running along the parapets and now the shrieks of the two women ceased. There was no chance to storm the Spartan fort with a hundred kryptes inside. So he sent his men back to Ithome for help and then found a thicket of willows to sleep in until night. He whispered to the four helots as they left, “Maybe tonight at moonlight I will sneak in to fetch the bodies of Erinna or Neto, at least if there is anything left of the two. Gorgos has chopped his last head-save one. The next will be his own. Or so even to me the god spoke that. I will bring the heads back and leave Spartan ones in their place.”
Nikon went alone back to the camp of Kuniskos at dusk. He crawled on his belly alone to the stockade, and shimmied up the back walls, like his helot hunters on Taygetos who went after bear cubs in the tall firs. He did as he had promised, as he always did, and by dawn had brought back the head and body of Erinna. But for all his night crawling through the compound of Kuniskos, Neto was nowhere to be found.
Gorgos woke to two heads on his gate poles, but they were male and Spartan.
PART FOUR
Freedom
CHAPTER 30