The End of Sparta (47 page)

A roar followed the general’s finish. Even the dour Pelopidas and Ainias were struck by thousands of these folk who stood on the walls and towers shouting in their trust of Epaminondas—this tiny man who in a few days after all would be put on trial for his life when he arrived back at Thebes. The great war for Messenia was at an end. The great war to live in safety as free people had begun. All that was left was the cleanup, and the muster of the Boiotians as they broke camp. For one hundred and twenty days the men of Epaminondas had worked without a break, despite the furor of Epitêles and the whines of the Sacred Band. Vineyards and orchards were to be planted inside the walls, and two thousand
plethra
of barley and wheat. Five thousand head of stock roamed in open pastures beneath the walls. The grape land was black heavy land, watered by ten great springs on the slopes of the mountain—all taken from the Spartan clan of the royal Agiads whose helots had sent its harvests for four hundred years back to the royal family of Sparta.

In thanks for the health of the
dêmos
, the Messenians had laid out a temple to Asklepios, the healing god. In front was a marble statue of Nikê, the goddess of Victory, which they had erected to honor their Nikôn, now
stratêgos
of the Messenians, with his deputy Doreios, the first archon of the people. Inside the half-built temple was a model of clay that Ainias had made from the maps of Proxenos. At last the city and this model were one. There were thirty stadia of walls, ten feet thick, fifteen high, all faced with gray limestone and filled with rubble in between. The courses ran up and nearly encircled the crest of tall Ithômê. Thirty towers—two square for every round—rose thirty feet. They had put two stories in them with embrasures below their sloped roofs and, thanks to Ainias, the new belly bows aimed out the windows. Four gates, the tallest, the Arkadian in the north, shut the city tight. They left standing in the agora the hated log house of Kuniskos, a reminder to their children not born of their past bondage and the cost to free Ithômê from the likes of Antikrates and his Gorgos. His timber stakes were red with blood and gore and Nikôn had ordered the horrid poles stay up—until the head of Kuniskos could become their last trophy and they could be burned.

CHAPTER 33

The Reckoning

When Epaminondas finished his speech, he headed to his muster yard outside the city, between the walls and the hamlet of Andania, in the stony ground between the great olive groves of the city. Yet even before the crowd broke up, Nikôn at last appeared as promised. He had missed the words of Epaminondas and just come down his accustomed path from the summit on Taygetos. But this time the helot headed for the generals in a frenzy.

Nikôn pushed in among them and announced loud enough for the entire Sacred Band at their sides to hear, waving a walking crutch. “Kuniskos lives! The killer of our Erinna is alive. He’s not dead. Not yet. I saw Nêto as a
daimôn
in a dream two nights past as I slept in Artemis’s shrine and breathed her vapors. Her ghost told me of Kuniskos, just where on the vast mountain he was. Then last night up at the house of Zeus Ithomatas, I saw the hut in dreams. Just now, just this very morning on my return, one Scorpas, a half-breed uplander, came over the mountain and in through the east gate following a patrol. He said the same thing as what I had seen from the goddess. And then he handed me this crutch, Nêto’s walking stick, he says. She once lived in the jail of Kuniskos on Taygetos, crippled and leaning on a stick, or so he swears.”

Nikôn went on and retold his conversation with half-helot Scorpas. “His words, those of this trader and go-between Scorpas, went like this as I remember it: ‘Your lost helot traitor—he is up there in the high mountain glen. A mad bear hunts him or something worse. The monster can’t find Kuniskos—at least not yet. For he’s safe enough in the high house in the deep woods. Up there I saw him. He was holed up in a hut. On the crest of Taygetos, the dark mountain of death. Fifty stadia and more he was from the high road. An upland trader I know saw him two nights ago. He brings him food for gold coins. Brought back this crutch, a woman’s cane. Or so Kuniskos said it is and wanted those in Messenia to have it. Still, Kuniskos will not get far. Up high near the pass, he is cut off by the fear of the man-bear or the helot rangers amid the highest trees on Taygetos. Your Gorgos cannot get home to Sparta. Yes, I know his real name. He cannot go back to his eastern side of the mountain. He is holed up. Waiting for the bear-god to attack—or maybe to be rescued by Lichas. Or maybe in fright waiting to die.’ ”

So Nikôn finished relating the speech of Scorpas. “This time your Nikôn does not see ghosts, but has a live witness.”

Mêlon scowled. “I knew he was alive. I know the helot speaks truly, for I have had visions of a hut well before Leuktra, though where it was I did not guess. And just as my dreams of the good city of Messenê trumped those of a polis in ruins, so too I know the ghosts tell the truth of our meeting with Gorgos in a hut on high Taygetos. Chiôn told me that he has also dreamt of a mountain house in flames, with Gorgos its master.” Then he looked to Epaminondas. “I would have wished news that Chiôn and Nêto live, rather than that Gorgos is soon to die. I suppose some will follow me to find this man. I take care of my own—my way. I leave for Taygetos before dusk. Follow who wish. But none need to.”

Epaminondas stepped up to face him. “Watch out, Melôn.” He then turned and grabbed the helot. “Now wait, you Nikôn. This is just the latest of your many stories and false visions. Like those before, it too is but a phantom. It is the hatred of Gorgos that haunts you and the wish of us all that Nêto still lives and that Chiôn did not fall to the man-bear, who no doubt is some demon our grandfathers warned about. Sometimes the soul makes up pictures at night of what it wants us to believe. Or we make thoughts and then claim there are gods to be honored for giving them. Your dreams are as false as the reports of this two-shoe Scorpas. That liar whittles some wood into a cane and then calls it Nêto’s—and you give him gold for his stories? Do you want Mêlon to tramp after ghosts up on the summit, to end up like Chiôn in the highlands—dead and forgotten as he goes chasing shades and half-men monsters of myth on Taygetos? The mountain is a foul place, Nikôn. Maybe not fatal for four myriads, but lethal for four or five of you. Yes, the man-bear up there may have eaten your one-armed Chiôn, as well as the
kryptes
and soon you as well. If there was ever a Kuniskos up there, they are bones and ash now, though alive enough for fakers like your Scorpas to cheat a gold owl from you.”

“Yes,” Nikôn replied, “I hate the helot Kuniskos. And I know better than you of the man-bear. I’ve seen a lesser kind of that monster before even here on Ithômê. Unlike you, I have seen his victims swinging by their capes from the spruce limbs. Still, the voice in my dreams last night was Nêto’s, as real now as in the past. Her voice lives and she whispers that Kuniskos did not die in the flight from Ithômê. Maybe this man-bear is finally dead and the mountain passes are open, and so the ghost of Nêto tells me it is at last time to come up. This Scorpas, he is a peddler, not a spy. He is dense and has no reason to lie.”

“Oh? No reason other than to do the work of Lichas and get our best killed in an ambush on a high pass? I wouldn’t be surprised to hear your trader once led Chiôn up to his death on the mountain with the same stories. Or maybe he works for this man-bear bandit who scares those at the loom with stories that he is a Sinis or Skirôn come alive. I imagine this bear scare may be a run-away Spartan lord or a pack of renegades that prey on shepherds and the lost.”

Mêlon heard little of this good-sense warning of Epaminondas. He was too eager to clear the ledger with the killers of the dead Lophis and Proxenos and Staphis, too. Who could believe that anyone or anything could put down his Chiôn? More likely this shape-changer, if he were real, was already in the belly of Chiôn rather than the other way around. That might explain why Gorgos was suddenly free to call back in Lichas, free from the terror of the man-bear—free to carve a cane and claim it was Nêto’s and get back to what he did best, lying and plotting. If Gorgos were alive, Mêlon at least would know the fate of Nêto, whether she was killed long ago in his compound or perished in the flight from Ithômê. Without a live Gorgos, no one would ever learn her fate. He turned to Melissos. “Bring a pony and our arms and plenty of rope. I want to take our Gorgos alive. I think he lives and I want to see whether he really is, as Nikôn says, the foul Kuniskos of the helots—or, before I kill him, still part of him the loyal servant who walked with me each morning on Helikon. If he has Spartans with him, the better to kill them all.”

Suddenly Ainias, who had been listening to the back and forth, stepped up and grabbed Mêlon. “Son of Malgis. Something is not right about this Scorpas. A half-helot at best, maybe even a
perioikos
who trades with Spartans in the morning and sells his wares to helots at dusk. If Gorgos lives, why has he not sneaked back to his masters? How can he be trapped by our thin patrols on the summit? This story of Scorpas makes no sense. But all the same, I will go with you to ensure that we end up killing someone, maybe even Kuniskos or Scorpas or both.”

Melissos was already packing their gear. Ainias said that he was going back up the mountain to learn the fate of Nêto. On Taygetos he would kill some of the Spartans who had killed Proxenos. Epaminondas finished with another warning. “We will see you back here in two days—with the camp cleaned up and the army mustering. If not, I will go up the mountain and follow your trail with Pelopidas and the Band.”

So they parted. Ainias and Mêlon led toward the peaks of high cloudy Taygetos. Melissos behind followed, leading a small pony. All set out armed with spears and swords. Nikôn brought up the rear. They soon met Scorpas waiting for them on the trail ahead. Mêlon kept still and limped ahead as they went up the path to the low hills. Nikôn had unleashed Kerberos, now without his mistress Nêto. He growled more than ever, since the hound had picked up a wolf scent, one that brought back some memory of the lost Sturax; and he heard too many say “Nêto.” The dog did not like the smell of this Scorpas and twice nipped the stranger’s calf. He already had the smell of the dog-kicker Gorgos in his nostrils.

None knew much about these wilds, only that most of the snow was melted and the even spring high country was now passable. Twice they saw bones tied with red cloth, hanging from pine limbs over the trail—crow and buzzard meat, maybe a month old, maybe two,
kryptes
, or what was left of them, killed by whom and left as trophies for what? Scorpas had already seen bones like these and was terrified that there would be more ahead. Now he begged them to keep off to the side of the main trail that went into the high forest. The five headed for the crest of the lower peak of Taygetos, but it was soon dark and they were glad to find the huts of the woodcutters for the night at the timber’s edge.

Little was said, though they noticed fresh coals in the hearth and half-eaten deer bones by the door. If they found their old Gorgos, he would not be alone. The small party was happier for that chance of revenge nonetheless, since men had been here in the past ten days. At first light they went up another small creek bed, amid stands of spruce and fir on the banks and a few upland poplars. It rained until midday. Ainias took charge on the route, and was content enough to keep the small band hidden and dry beneath the evergreens. Again they walked in gullies near the trail above to keep away from the sight of the man-bear. But Ainias thought it queer that this hillman Scorpas could discover a mountain hut, even with patches of snow on the ground hiding the trail and with a fresh scent of men, months after the flight of the Spartans. In fact, little was known of this mysterious trader Scorpas, before never named, never seen. Much less did Ainias believe that Gorgos, the flatlander, who had hated the high farm on Helikon, would hide in the up-country. Worse still, for most of the day Ainias saw few signs of goats and so turned back often to Scorpas to question the way and complain there were no longer traces of flocks or shepherds in the shadowy vale.

Most herds were down on flat land with the last of the spring grass and did not come up before Homôloios, so his story about goats and sheep and Gorgos in a shepherd’s hut made even less sense. Proxenos was dead. Nêto too. The helots were freed. So there was nothing much left for Ainias to do down here in the south. What happened to him, he confessed, mattered little anymore, though he wanted to learn the fate of Nêto or to kill Gorgos before he left or at least find the bones of Chiôn, or kill Proxenos’s killer. The list of his targets, he offered, was endless, after all, and gave him warmth in the spring air on high Taygetos.

The guide was bundled in fleece, with that rough wool hood over his head. Two gray braids hung through to his shoulders, Spartan-style. A man of sixty or so, slump-shouldered Scorpas said he packed in for the shepherds of Taygetos bronze pots and other goods each spring and led back a she-goat or an ewe for the barter. “I am your eyes back here,” Scorpas finally called out, “to make sure we see any Spartan ambushers behind. We are near the crest. Be careful since we are ever closer to the border of Lakonia.”

Ainias patted his hilt on his sword belt and gripped tighter his spear. Melissos said little, though he grunted under a pack on his back and the reins of a stubborn pony struggling with two shields that hit the brush and boughs of spruce. If there were to be spear work, he would be at the van and take a stab at Scorpas first of all. He knew that much. Melissos had started out the lackey of Mêlon but this day he would have come, slave or not, on his own accord, since the liberation disease had infected him as well—that notion that one kills for something other than money and fame, and someone far worse than oneself. Melissos had long ceased spying out the forts and landscape of the Hellenes and pondered only how the helots had revolted—and why his masters had come south to free them.

Finally in late afternoon of their second day, Scorpas came to the fore and grabbed the arm of Mêlon. The small band spread out in the trees. “There, over there, far in the distance, in the meadow by the outcropping, see the hut? And beware, behind it there is a small cave that ends up on the other side of the peak out to an opening among a stand of spruce. There my friend said your man Gorgos hides. He is afraid of the wild monster of the forest. He won’t quite yet leave his cottage until he is forced out. There, there we go. I think dogs guard the house on the ridge. Though I don’t see them as I once did.”

Ainias was quiet at this. He signaled Melissos to put down the shields and tether the horse. He hadn’t wanted to bring the Makedonian, but now he was glad that he had the boy’s extra right arm. Nikôn also had been silent for most of the day. He whispered, “Strangers are in this vale. Not all of them enemies. I don’t know whether I dreamed this or our dead Nêto told me or I only sense it now. And now I see Scorpas has already slipped off into the trees.”

“No matter.” Mêlon motioned to Ainias. “Gorgos, not that half-helot, is our business. Now if there is someone alive in that hut, and if he is really our old Gorgos, then we learn whether he is our friend with a shred of good. Or, as you say, he is really the killer Kuniskos of the helots and more still.”

Ainias knew better and laughed out loud at that nonsense. “Learn what? Oh, my Mêlon, you always knew your Gorgos in the blink you set eyes on his no-good hide on Helikon. And I would feel better if I had killed our missing Scorpas long before now. All done quietly as well. Fouler still he is now at our backsides. Let me backtrack and grab this man. He can’t be a step or two into the forest. Then at spear point he will lead us into the hut or die in his tracks. Better yet, wait till sundown. We can crawl on our bellies into that hut in the darkness and kill Gorgos or whoever is in there in his sleep or pile boughs on his walls and smoke him out.”

Scorpas had run off the trail into the forest, since Nikôn in all the talking had lost thought of him as they spied the hut. Right now Mêlon needed every spear arm to confront Gorgos, and could hardly have Ainias chasing Scorpas down the mountain, Melissos drew his own long knife as they all quickened their pace ahead on the flat ground to the hut. He quietly spoke as he walked, “No Scorpas around here to be found. I see our Scorpas has no stomach for iron. He is nowhere to be seen. Maybe my eyes don’t spot him, or he is running through the trees to collect his wage for leading us here.”