The End of Sparta: A Novel (52 page)

As the new year approached, all of Messenia was in open revolt, with helots even armored and marching about equipped as hoplites with heavy armor. Theban scouts were rumored to be in the hills around Ithômê. Kuniskos’s final batch of captives was small, not more than a few Messenian girls that had hid out near the Alpheios. They were all from the precincts of Artemis of the lowlands, all would-be diviners in training, they said. In their final late-night sweep, the handful of
kryptes
in service of Kuniskos had brought in seven temple women, to be stripped and to be asked—as they were hung by their toes from the rafters of the great hall—when and where Epaminondas would arrive, and who among them had prepared his way.

Kuniskos did what he pleased with Antikrates gone. If he were to perish in Messenia, then he would do so in a way that lived on in song—and in the terrified hearts of the Messenians. So his men whittled down his stock of prisoners. They sent most over to Taygetos to be thrown into the gorge. A few they roped to the fence post outside the stockade for the crows and buzzards that circled in wait over the house of Kuniskos.
Korakôn oikos
, they began to call the compound of Kuniskos, “House of Crows.” The ugly ones they lopped, sticking their heads on stakes and throwing their bodies in the fire pit.

Soon there were almost no captives left inside the compound and there was no way to bring any more from the outside. Among the last haul of the prisoners from the Alpheios was a woman taller than the rest, who covered her head and kept apart. Kuniskos had told his guards to bring this one in last, and claimed she spoke a half-helot tongue, as if she had learned her speech from others beside helots. His henchman Klôpis wanted her, but he drew back when Kuniskos stepped in between him and the helot. She had caught the eye of the drunken Kuniskos, who poked with his walking stick at her thick winter cloak; he wanted some sort of sport with her.

Beneath the folds and tucks of her inner chiton, the old man could see firm flesh and firmer breasts, or so he fancied in his drink. A body it seemed as perfect as he had seen and without scars of torture or the brands of slavery, much less the tears and sags of childbirth—and a priestess unspoiled for his lust. As was his custom with the women, he reminded his men that it was his right to first order anyone into his chambers before they were noosed and dangled on the trusses. There she would first talk and then endure the passion of Puppy Dog. If she gave the name of a rebel or the location of a house of resistance, she would be given back her life, but only after the fire of Kuniskos had been quenched and a hot brand had been burned into her cheek—and if her tales had proved true and had led to the killing of those she had betrayed. But now there were no more fresh captives, and this woman, as ordered, was the last to be brought to Kuniskos.

“Why have you come across the Alpheios?” Kuniskos laughed. “You seem to have the look of the huntress, with your long arms and legs. Are you a Sapphic? There are travelers, they say, from Arkadia, or is it that a few lost Boiotians came your way? Surely you can tell Grandfather Kuniskos something of their talk?” He stuck his hand into her hood and pinched lightly her covered neck. “Where is this foul Proxenos? I hear he has a plan for a new city on top of my house, right here on my mountain. Stranger, do you know a Nêto? Or this Amazon Erinna whom you must have heard is in the highlands? Or maybe you’ve mixed it up with this Doreios? Or are you the woman of Nikôn?”

The cloaked figure muttered only a word or two about “a horde from the north.”

“A horde, now? Of Boiotians maybe? You know the Messenian prophecy?”

“And some Arkadians. I know no more news.”

Kuniskos laughed again. “What does this horde want with this Kuniskos? To throw down Sparta and raise up Messenia?”

“Perhaps—though the god has not told me all that. They act only as fate wills. It’s too late. Neither you nor your Spartans can ward off the great reckoning.”

“Reckoning, is it? Come nearer, priestess, sit on your granddaddy’s lap. Either you be a talker of the gods’ minds, or some faker in the robes of a holy woman sent here to stir up our kind. But I say, come near, scoot over, cast off that hood. Do you remember who I am?”

The hooded girl spat back. “They know you as Kuniskos. The new killer of the helots, or so the travelers say Lichas mined you out of Taygetos, hammering you from stone to smash down your own kind. You kill the Messenians sometimes as the farmer, sometimes the mounted man, sometimes their friend and recruiter. They say you are alone and a drunkard and even your lord Antikrates has left you to swing on a Messenian gallows.”

Kuniskos liked her sauciness and even more his own playacting. In his wine-craze he was close to confessing to her his charade, but wished the drama to play out a little longer. Kuniskos tugged a bit on a thick cord that was wrapped tight around her left foot. “What a nice little bitch on a leash to visit her Kuniskos. But when Klôpis brings me virgins from the helot temples, I send them back soiled and stamped—the lucky ones that do not go over Taygetos to the pits. With the seed and the brand of Kuniskos—my own kappa burned right into their cheeks and a puppy in their belly, if I’m lucky.”

He yanked on her leg chain a bit more. “They learn to serve men’s lust on the street corners. Or maybe they play flutes at the fine houses for a few coppers. For the goddess has nothing to do with them stained and polluting her sacred ground, especially if with child, the new litters of my puppies to come.” Gorgos was pulling the chain ever harder, as he went on. “So Virgin, talk—unless you wish to feel the spike of Kuniskos inside you. Then the pictures and whispers in your head will disappear for good. An ugly gamma will mark your cheek just as your own Messenian killers smear their bloody letter
mus
on my innocent dead. You alone earn the gamma—for the sake of the ancient days on Helikon.” With that end to his drama, Kuniskos, drunk and stumbling, with haze in his eyes and dizziness in his head, threw off the young woman’s long cloak and veil. Then he tore her chiton. But then even he, lord of the Helots, froze for a moment in his delight as the wine no longer clouded his vision.

His eyes flashed, and he yelled to Klôpis, “Bar the door, bar it and for the night!” Kuniskos calmed and laughed. “You now. We are a long way from that hill above Leuktra, are we not, my Nêtikê? Nêtikê. Oh, my lovely Nêtikê at last. So lovely after all, in your nakedness, as I dreamed. So much the better for all my waiting. Now in service to the lord of the helots, of your own kind. Now you leave the virgin world of Artemis and will join that of Erôs.”

She spat at him. “Kuniskos, a new name for an old monster. You were never drunk. You knew me even in your feigned stupor, liar, dogface.”

“And no doubt, you knew that I did, at first sight when they brought you in, for all your denials of your old lust. You enjoyed our little game as much as I did. No matter. Past is past. For you alone, my Nêtikê, it is Gorgos. Only you can call me that, my old name, in your
erôs
as you groan for your Gorgikos. As I promised, I will brand you not with a kappa for Kuniskos, but you alone with a little gamma no less—a gammikon for the Gorgikos of old and for the sake of the Helikon days and on that soft unspoiled cheek.”

She let out a shriek as the toothless satyr dropped his bright robe. It was the
alalê, alalalê
of Helikon, the war cry of Nêto of the Malgidai—the paean to Alalê, daughter of Polemos. Nêto was caught in the lair of Gorgos—no longer the loyal servant of Mêlon but Kuniskos, the fading lord of the helots. He pulled hard on her roped leg and sent her sprawling to the floor, as he had wanted to for twenty summers on Helikon even under the deathless eye of Mêlon, who was now far away on the road to Mantineia.

Erinna of Messenia

For days Chiôn had been stuck in this port of the Phokians. He was drinking the worst of Nemea’s red wine and eating squid and cuttlefish by the fire with the helot rowers, pledged to protect the effort of Alkidamas to arrive in Messenia before the army. Five Korinthian triremes still battled the white caps off shore, with ten more arriving as they left. All the time he thought of Nêto in the fort of Kuniskos.

“They think we carry gold, not helots,” Gastêr swore as he clamored over the deck of the beached
Theôris
. “Why do these Korinthian pirates keep circling out there? Hey you, Alkidama. Our hull rots, and I’m sick of these shorebird Phokians, worse than thieves. We either break out or hike home and let the
Theôris
keep rotting.”

Alkidamas scoffed at the fat man. “Settle down and keep eating your oysters. The arm of Agesilaos is not so long anymore. Just be patient. A few more days, a few more coins sent over the Isthmos, and the Korinthians will smile and leave, and we’ll be back out. With these helot rowers, we’ll be there just in time to help with the building of new Messenê. These Phokians here are not such bad cooks, anyway.”

Chiôn had had enough. He left the small hut and glanced back at Alkidamas. “No more wait. Nikôn can’t wait. Nêto can’t wait. No more sea legs. You meet me wherever this Ithômê of yours is. I’ll find it. In five days I’m there before you with a live Nêto and the head of your Gorgos.” Chiôn put a long pole on his shoulder with a bag of rations on the end and set out along the sea. He had little idea of the world outside Thespiai but knew enough to follow the north shore of the gulf for a half day, always west into the setting sun, until he could see the long walls of Patrai looming across the water.

This was real freedom—no wife, no farm to work, no children to raise, just one man in the wild against all others. No wonder men liked war. He knew he did. He forgot Damô, even their son to come, and the three sons of Lophis, with the assurance they’d all be better off after he killed those who needed killing. Yes, he’d take a ferry across the straits to the Peloponnesos, skirt the shoulders of Erymanthos until he reached Olympia, and from there, or so he heard, he’d just hike up the Alpheios. Then take the south fork down to the land of the Messenians. Five days he reckoned and he would be at this Ithômê, and before either Epaminondas or the
Theôris
. He’d put the dragon head of Gorgos in this bag and stuff it with honey to show Mêlon when he arrived. Maybe Chiôn would pull the tongue out between the teeth so Gorgos would look like the gorgon he was. As he ran he mumbled to himself, as if Alkidamas was at his side rather than stuck back on the shore of the gulf.

“Nêto warned me about the sea, Alkidama, and so I’m leaving the waves to you to find her. I’m a hoplite, a front-rank
prostatês
. I have no worries. I’ve lived too long as it is. No death wish. Better yet, no care. Live or die, freer than any free man. You won’t see me again, only hear of my work. I go into the hills to kill those who would kill our own. Free to kill. You’ll see the good I do you all without the bridle of your law.” With that Chiôn stopped his talking to himself and went over the hill on his way to Naupaktos and the mouth of the gulf.

Chiôn went on foot west, and in a day and half saw the torchlights at the eastern gate of Naupaktos on the water. Once back on land and free from the
Theôris
, he felt better and moved even more quickly than he was accustomed, convinced he could do far better without the leaky boat and the helots of Alkidamas. Already he was at the neck of the gulf. But could he run fast enough to kill Gorgos before he cut off the head of Nêto? He would surely be across the water tonight at least, since there were helot boats aplenty down there for hire. He had a full pack of Mêlon’s coins and hadn’t left much with Alkidamas. No doubt Epaminondas was sweeping down from Sellasia into Lakonia—and here he was not yet into the Peloponnesos.

Then a blast of cold air nearly knocked Chiôn over as he turned the last switchback of the mountain trail, on the downward slope to the city gate of Naupaktos. The odd wind came in the wrong direction, hard, but blowing from the south. It howled and it brought winter ice in the air. The torches above on the walls of Naupaktos went out with sudden gusts. Where did that come from? Cold blasts on the gulf—but something colder from the south across the water. Was Epaminondas blowing into Lakonia? Or was the gust from Ithômê? Chiôn pressed on and would run for the rest of the night.

Back on Ithômê, Erinna was stacking tiles on the roof of her school. The Thespian Chiôn from Helikon had not arrived as promised. So there was no ransom money for Nêto. Only if they had the money, would they learn of the fate of Nêto, though most of Erinna’s girls assumed that she was locked inside the compound of Kuniskos, or that her head already was impaled on one of his many trophy stakes. “Nikôn—no Chiôn? No ransom. No silver, and no way inside the house of Kuniskos. And no Nêto. We can’t wait any longer.” Erinna pulled a long dagger and slid it into a cotton sheath inside her chiton that she tied close to her waist. “This Chiôn of yours has gone off with his master’s treasure. Six days after you come and no money. You said he has one arm—but maybe the slow-cart had one leg? Or did the
kryptes
catch him? Or was his boat sunk by pirates? I go to this camp of Gorgos and free her or kill him—or both.”

Erinna showed Nikôn a finely curved leg and picked up her bow—as she looked over at Nikôn and said the one would lead Gorgos to the other. Nikôn nodded and followed her down from the school, wondering how the Amazon without any silver would get close enough to Kuniskos to free Nêto and assuming his own rangers would have to storm in with her. Their small band of four helots made their way over the crest of Ithômê. Nikôn stopped and pointed to the tamarisks and limestone outcroppings. “Look, soon there will be the great theater. On that hill, there is our Arkadian Gate to come. A stadium will rise down there in the low ground. With stone seats far better than any found at Olympia or Pythia’s sanctuary at Delphi. I’ve heard what this Proxenos promises us and I have his city laid out in my head. When he comes, the new council hall of a free Messenê will sit atop the camp of the Spartans.”