up here on Taygetos. They claim this mercenary thought up the ruse of attacking you from the left at Leuktra. That other wild boy from the far north does not matter. Forget the skinny helot-the one they call Nikon. He will run when the blood flows, like all helots. Neto over there who barked this winter under my table for a bone, whether rabbit or mine, why she prides herself the mouthpiece of the helots-yes, that brand-face in rags that stands there across the table. I doubt this time she will find a way out of my hands as before.”
The Spartans ignored the big talk of their Kuniskos and watched instead the hands of Ainias and Melon. There was not much room to move. Melon clinched his spear. Ainias backed against the wall. All five bunched up. The two hoplites shielded Melissos and Nikon behind them, who had only their blades. Neto in the middle of the tiny phalanx picked up the walking stick of Kuniskos. Ainias also drew his cleaver, and quickly handed his spear to Melon, who had Bora in his other hand. Like the Stymphalian, Melon had dropped his shield outside on the path before the threshold-not because either one trusted Kuniskos, but thinking they would have no room in the hut for the wide swings of the willow shield that had brought so many low at Leuktra. There was a pause before the fighting. A gruff, harsh voice of a man in the shadows took over and stepped into the lamplight of the hut, speaking more like an Athenian than an ephor of Sparta. It was Lichas himself.
“Old Cholopous. So we meet again, the half-dead Melon, son of the long-dead Malgis. You are the father of the dead boy at Leuktra? All has turned out as promised. Or do you remember me? We first met on your farm when you had your first set of teeth, when you ran under your arbors before I could cut off your tiny head-and at Koroneia, and yet once more at the fight at the Nemea. On that night at Leuktra, and then on your recent visit to burn my farm at Sparta. My, my, my friend, how we’ve grown old together.”
This tall but stooped Spartan stepped even farther forward near Kuniskos while the others stayed put by the doors. Lichas was ageless like his Kuniskos, and likewise he felt no burdens of age or time. In similar fashion, Lichas felt freed by his long years and the end of Messenia and the idea he could do at last whatever he wished-which for Lichas always meant to kill without penalty whoever he wanted. Lichas continued. “I speak for a bit before you bleed. I wanted Pelopidas and Epaminondas to visit our hut and maybe Alkidamas as well, so with a clean cut today we could finish this Messenian mess once and for all and get our boys back down over there where they belong. Only the hungriest rats scampered up here, I see. Even the best trapper must put up with the rodents who clutter his nets. I brought today my son Antikrates, who killed so many of yours at Leuktra. More of our friends are here as well. You say you will take our helot back down the mountain? Oh no, no. Not this time, Master Melon. You will go down no mountain-not even a hill, not even dead. Where is your proud Epaminondas or Pelopidas-or even one of those brutes from the islands here to rescue you? We had soup here for both. Your islander, we hear, has gone feral. He flees the blood guilt on your Helikon. If he comes up here-and he won’t because he’s dead-by now he would have met our man-bear who bites the throat of all lone wanderers on Taygetos.”
Then his wife Elektra stepped to his side, proud with her long hair, some tresses braided and some dangling out the sides of her helmet. She boasted, “Too much talk, my Lichas. Kill them before that branded helot over there puts a chant or spell on us. Let me cut her tongue out before this Neto bewitches us all. Or let my boy Thibrachos have a taste of her first.”
The Spartan had drawn his sword, a shiny
“Come over here, Melon. I want you to join your father and son, so you can all boast in Hades that Lichas sent you there.” Lichas talked more than a Spartan should, talked more than he ever had, as he shifted his weight from foot to foot to find the right moment to stab. “If you throw down your weapons, I promise a good enough burial. Antikrates over there, my best son, took out that fool of yours who built walls. What was his name, boy? Yes, yes, the soft Plataian rich man Proxenos? The grand thinker whose belly you cut open when that mob of northerners stormed our tower.”
There was to be no parley with Lichas. He meant to cut them all down and wanted them to know it before they fell. No quarter. Elektra started her ululation. Still Melon called out, “If you have an ax, swing, Spartan woman, don’t talk.”
Lichas had a final word. “You have it wrong, all of you. God has made every man a slave. Only a man, if he’s worth anything, makes himself free.” Lichas wanted to get closer, to cut with the sword and taste the blood flying in the air as it dotted his face. Kuniskos pulled from the rafters a cleaver and backed aside to let his friend charge through. The blade had been hidden above the table right near his head. He had taken the idea of hiding it from the dead Erinna. He had hoped to place it at the throat of Neto and drag her outside for some final sport-or to strangle her slowly and give her his death whisper.
At the back of the cottage, facing his father on the far side, Antikrates pointed his spear with the underhand grip. He and his two henchmen had been hiding in the cave when Melon arrived and had quietly sneaked out to block the rear door once the visitors were inside. Lichas, Elektra, and his retainer had come around through the forest path to plug the main entrance.
“That damn Scorpas and his phantom goat-man-and without a helot patrol to be found,” Nikon cried. “We are surrounded, with nowhere to go.” Then Melissos pointed toward Lichas. “Spartans fight in the sun. Let us out. Duel in the open air. Kill or die face-to-face like men should.” Melissos could have run, having no part in war against the tall Spartans. But no words of retreat or surrender came out. Instead, he decided to stand his ground, blade in hand, here with Melon, Ainias, Neto, and Nikon-and for something more than the love of gore or a Spartan scalp.
CHAPTER 34
No way out, Melissos knew. Still, if the henchmen of Lichas thought to kill a royal of Makedon, a son no less of Amyntas, then they would at least learn it was no easy thing. Melon covered Melissos to keep the youth safe until the last. The five Spartan men wore full armor. The near-naked Kuniskos was more than a match for the staff of slow-foot Neto. Elektra would have to fight him for her head, or, better yet, let her Thibrachos have first claim on her.
Lichas paused at the Makedonian boy’s plea and scoffed, “Leave, foreigner. You are nothing to me. We kill the rest as they are, and burn them up. You go down the mountain and tell all of the funeral smoke you saw.” Melissos stayed quiet and right by his master Melon, no longer the hostage but the loyal man of the Malgidai, as much a Boiotian as any in Thebes.
The long talk ended and finally Lichas raised his slashing blade of black iron, to cut down this Makedonian upstart first. “You, you …” Then came a loud crash, as if the rafters had been ripped off the house. Lichas was cut off before “
The spear throw had come from outside the threshold. Was Ares or Apollo in his armor roaming Taygetos? No mortal with mere blood in his veins could fell such a peer with a single throw, surely not tall Lichas, whom the prophets said was sacrosanct and immune from the blades of free men. There he lay in a growing pool of red, on the ground gurgling and twitching about, a spear point gone almost out through his mouth. A moment later his killer was at the threshold and leapt over the fallen Lichas. The Spartans were frozen in place, stunned as the stranger burst upon them. Then he stabbed the retainer of Lichas, tall Lakrates. That Spartan too toppled over. The sword stroke hit well above the shoulders and came out through the upper throat. Was the house under attack by
