Chion murmured, but bolder now as the free man and lord of Helikon that he had become, “Was hunting. Go on. I came here to press. But don’t you two waste our time. Not with your big cities and freedom and all that in the south. Just kill the Spartans. Then leave. Build nothing. Put away your maps. Kill the bad before they kill the good. Then go home. If southerners are worth being free, let the Peloponnesians get their
Proxenos ignored him and backed out, facing Melon. “We are leaving tonight on the big road over the pass of Kithairon and then down to Eleusis. We came to part, not to drag you off again.” Ainias interrupted Proxenos. “We have not seen Epaminondas in days. He was up in the north, where good men boast of a great march. For the better souls, the promise of this new attack is to free those from Sparta in the south. For the worse you already see them in the fields drifting in hopes of profit and plunder.”
Ainias finished with, “Melon, send one of your boys to Thebes with our message to Epaminondas. Tell him as promised we are marking a winter trail for his army with tall stakes with red paint on the tops, all the way to Isthmos-among the friendly towns that set aside food and more when the army comes.”
Melon turned to his guests. “Be careful as you hike out from Helikon, since there is some man-beast out there that took Dirke’s Thrakians, and maybe Hippias as well, the master who wanted back my Myron. Though at least this forest bear strangely kills the right men.” Then he raised his voice in further warning. “Remember as you dream in this shed of cities and battles, the king, the better of the two kings, Agesilaos, is on the acropolis of Sparta. He remembers his dead weak partner Kleombrotos. He stalks. He limps. He knows who killed his favorite Kleonymos. And cut down Deinon. And ended Sphodrias. He plots to tear the work of Proxenos down, of outsmarting the next plans of Ainias. Always the hated Epaminondas must be on his lips-our Epaminondas that he must kill if he himself is to survive. To win a war you must always imagine how your
“Farewell, hero of Leuktra. You are on the lips of Hellas-and yet sit in the wilds of Helikon, in filth at the press. But not for long, not for long.” The two left down the trail with torches that Chion had provided. They trampled out heading to the south, despite the warnings of Melon and the prophecies of Neto.
Chion looked at Melon. “I was a better hoplite than I am a husband-and a better killer than I will be a father. The fury of revenge Elekto flies above my head. She won’t let me alone-ever. I saw one of the Keres as well. The hag was perched up in the high orchard, waiting, waiting.”
Melon caught the flash in his eye. “You cannot even hold your shield chest high-and you talk of walking to the end of Hellas to kill yet more Spartans and our Gorgos? No, stay here with your son to come and the boys of Lophis to finish the harvest. But I’ll take your Xiphos if you will spare him for a few days. Tomorrow I ride to Thebes to learn news of this muster, and when these strangers will leave Thespiai and head south. I have half a mind that our crazy Epaminondas really does plan to march in the winter.” Then Melon pressed on, “In the meantime, you hike over to the farm of dead Staphis. Learn from his Theano when or even if Neto left.”
“I saw Theano this morning,” Chion sheepishly offered. “She says in two days there will be a word fight, a real
“I feared as much,” Melon said. He did not add that he had already decided to go southward to find her. “Don’t pull so hard, Chion, it is a press, not a trireme.” Melon shuddered as his friend with one hand yanked back ever farther on the lever of the windlass, in worry that either the lever or the stone itself would shatter before the strong arm of his friend gave out.
Chion stepped back. He had two long scars from Leuktra on his jaw to match the brand mark on his cheek. His forearms were all torn and creased. His good right arm was malformed from overwork, though stronger than ever from its stacking and terracing. His scars and wounds appeared more a storybook of the Boiotians’ fate, both good and bad, past-and future. And now Chion pulled harder on the lever still to remind Melon that his one arm was stronger than two of most hoplites, and that he could break man or machine as he pleased.
CHAPTER 17
The next day Melon put a stouter lever on the machine for the one shattered the evening before. He was careful to tell Myron to keep Chion from it. His three grandsons were gleaning the trees for the last remnants of the olive harvest in the upper orchard. At last he made ready to ride over to Thebes-just for a day or so-to learn of the great march to the south. Perhaps if they could get to the south and kill Lichas, then would come real peace? Not likely, since Lichas was symptom of the Spartan malady, not its cause. Melon shrugged as he reflected that the iron laws on the farm are the same that govern men. Pride and honor are deathless and deep within the hearts of all men, who always find those to convince them that the taking of what is not theirs seems easy. Those who would stop them are few and weak. Even when Epaminondas freed the Mantineians, these friendly Arkadians would turn on their liberators in new worries that Thebes was too strong, and Sparta too frail. So often do good deeds earn bad ones. So often is magnanimity seen as weakness that earns contempt, rather than appreciation and gratitude.
Once again this moment marked another of Melon’s great changes in his heart. Indeed, this desire to go to Thebes-and beyond to the south if that were to be the decision of the assembly and if he heard word of Neto-was his third turn of mind and heart since Leuktra, from the recluse to the new Thespian busybody to now something in between. He worried whether that blow by Lichas had addled his wits and made him wander off the path of wise counsels of
No, he feared most to live idly, like the horse lords of Thespiai-risking nothing, enjoying their wine, bending over their flute girls and slave boys, watching their bellies fatten and their arms shrink as they aged and passed into oblivion, mere shadows of men that were forgotten by their sons. Instead, most good demanded risk; most bad was always without it. He wanted nothing of such a soft peace that wrecks as often as war the cities of men. After having talked with Ainias and Proxenos on their way southward, Melon was once again reminded that he could stomach the Pythagoreans and their talk of helot freedom-if they at least acted, and risked their all for some great thing. Melon cared not so much for what this great thing Epaminondas planned was in the south, even if it were as wild as freedom for the helots. Although a sort of Pythagorean himself, he had no real philosophical interest in freeing the Messenians-only that it should be great and big and lasting, something on a grand scale that Malgis had once attempted with the farm on the slopes of Helikon. Of course, he would now follow Epaminondas mostly because he wanted vengeance for the death of Lophis and the maiming of Chion. And Melon was convinced that he somehow alone could bring back-or save-Neto when others would not. All that urged him to leave the farm a second time and in hopes of going southward to Sparta and to Neto in Messenia. He would go to Thebes, not to enjoy the city, but only to endure the evil as a means to his end of finding Neto and settling up with those in the south.
All this Melon mused over, as he led Xiphos down the hill to Thebes. He left at midmorning for the ride of eighty stadia. If he pressed, he would be at the hill of the Kadmeia in Thebes not long after noon. But Melon did not take the main road to the capital. Instead he went south on a detour for a while on the Thisbe way, the same wagon path he and the two slaves had taken to Leuktra. He didn’t like passing on the busy path by the sanctuary of the Kabeirioi anyway-those eerie priestesses who floated about the roadway and sometimes shook down offerings from the lone wayfarers. Shrieking women with masks they were who came out of the brush and pointed their bony fingers in the face of the traveler. He had hit two before and didn’t wish to strike a third when time was short. On the main road he used to shout as they came into the middle of the path. “Leave the road, foul harpies. Make way before I put fire to your masks and shrouds and ride you down.” They parted, feebly throwing pebbles in his wake, screaming “You will all die with Epaminondas, you who forsake the old gods.” No, he would miss the Kabeirioi and gaze instead at holy Leuktra.
