CHAPTER 29
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.”
Erinna kept silent at the idea of anything rising from these dry scrub pines and ancient oaks but she did not laugh since they were the days of flux when everything was not as it was and would be. She was at a loss as to how to free Nêto once they reached the fort of Kuniskos. Poets like herself, she thought, are no saner than this wild Nikôn. Who knows what twenty myriads might do if organized and inspired by her Epaminondas? “We both see things as we hope rather than as they are. I call out to the Muses, you to the dead helots of the past. But enough. Hurry, Nikôn, if Nêto still has her own head, hurry.”
It was not far to the compound of Kuniskos below, and Erinna led Nikôn and his four helots, running down the gentle slope. Soon they were at the low-lying saddle and reached the edge of the scrub pine. The fort was in clear view, and they stopped their talk. Yet there was no way to storm the double wall and get to Nêto, unless Erinna might be let in alone. But she had no ransom money, only the power of her voice. So Nikôn and his guards trailed off into the brush as Erinna approached the path toward the Spartan guardhouses. The helots had no chance against a hundred Spartan hoplites and waited in a gully above the camp and would stay there until they heard the sound from the wooden whistle around Erinna’s neck. She first went into a small clump of bushes by the timber gate. There, despite the winter morning cold, the poetess pulled off her leather jerkin, leaving the soft linen that barely covered her arms and thighs. She left behind her quiver and pack. But Erinna pulled over a long wool cloak with a hood, rough and full of burrs and stickers, as if she had been on the road for days. Then she approached the guard up on the rampart.
“Hoa. You. Red-cape. Come here. Leônidas or Lykos may be your name? Or are you Lysander back from the dead? At least you have the look of a Spartan warrior man. I’m an Athenian bard, a rhapsôdos. You see that, hear that. Yes? An Athenian. I’m a traveling rhapsode and music girl who can read out loud block letters. I entertain to the lyre. Let me in and out of the cold. I want a talk with your Antikrates or at least his henchman Kuniskos. I want help.” Now she shouted even louder to the man on the rampart, “Did you hear? Who’s in charge? I’m cold and numb and lost. I fear these mad helots and their damn cries of freedom.” Then Erinna threw off her outer hood and put her hands on her hips, and louder still cried, “And I can sing in the high strain for you and more still.”
The gate opened. Two Spartans approached. One was a young toothless sort, Klôpis, who had hacked down three Thebans at Leuktra and reminded Kuniskos nightly of his tally. Now this Klôpis grabbed Erinna and took her through the gateway and inside the double walls of the stockade and then all the way to the stone courtyard of Antikrates’s house.
The camp was an elaborate maze. Two parallel walls, both topped with sharp stakes, made a square. It ran about half a stade in each direction, with towers and a gate on each side. In the middle inside was another square, four wooden halls joined together, separated by an arch entry into the courtyard. These were the barracks of the young kryptes, at least of the few who were alive and served Kuniskos or who had not fled back over Taygetos. A fire pit was in the middle and hoplites came out of the stoas on all sides to cook their dinner and warm themselves from the icy blasts. There were guards at the gates of the outside walls and more still at the entry to the courtyard—everything built from massive spruce logs hauled down from the mountains above. Erinna quickly saw that the stockade was far too big for the garrison and that it would not last a day should the army of Epaminondas storm down from Tagyetos.
Kuniskos himself sat beside a brazier, with spits of lamb on the grill. His chair stood near the fire and a nearby table on the largest porch. Six spearmen, shivering in the cold, sat on cots and straw mattresses. He’d lost half his guard to helot killers and carried a spiked club wherever he walked. Klôpis pushed Erinna forward. “Hey, Master, there’s a woman here. No helot. I brought her in, a stitcher of tales who walked over the mountain, or so she claims. No worry—she’s no Messenian from her speech. You can see that well enough. I think she’s a softie from Athens, and beneath that wool cloak of hers I smell rose petals and linen. She will sing and more for us—if we feed her and keep her safe from the murderers of the brigands under Nikôn.”
“A singer, is it, woman—or maybe one of these rebels with a false sound to her speech?” Then Kuniskos stood up, leaned on his club, and laughed. “I am the leader, the harmost. Antikrates is over the mountain dealing with Epaminondas and his Theban pigs. Before I throw this saucy Athenian in the cage with the other one, let me hear her out.”
Erinna was already walking up to the porch of Kuniskos, then paused, hands waving about and head tilted back. “What do you want, my lord? Is it to be war songs from your Tyrtaios? Or do you want me to play some Alkman maiden sounds? Or then again, maybe a chorus of Euripides in more of your harsh Doric? Maybe Medea with her snakes up in her sun chariot? Oh, yes. I can give you all that to music, even the slow beat of Aeschylus and his Klytemnestra with her gory hands.”
She stepped closer to Kuniskos. “I can do all three and more—even a girl song about the loom. But let me near that fire. Those damn helots came down the mountain and almost got me. I hid in the glen behind an icy rock till they passed. They killed all three of my perioikoi guards, paid in advance for six days of passage from Sparta, where I have sung Alkman and even some Tyrtaios as they ready to battle the incoming Boiotians. Yes, I sang for crippled Agesilaos himself. But, Master, I need this wool off to dry out. Let me inside your halls, my dear Spartan.”
“Oh yes, yes, come here, strange woman. Certainly you will go in. But first, sit near Kuniskos, near my little fire on the porch. No need for my spearmen. I’m well equipped as it is, even though this poetess I see has muscles enough. No danger. She’ll have to play for me and whatever else earns her a dry bed and a rabbit leg or two for dinner. But, woman, tell me, where is our Mêlon, our Chiôn in all this?” He laughed when Erinna blushed at that. “Where,” Kuniskos pressed on, “is that faker we hear about, this Alkidamas? Surely you know all three, my pretty poetess? They all have a bad, bad way of letting friends like you dangle. They flee when they find no more use for them—and the tab for the sacrifices of others comes due. As you learn. Or did you not say your guard ran away at the first sign of a fight?”
Erinna said nothing back as if he spoke Persian or was a Scythian whose grunts gave no meaning. So Kuniskos jumped up, grabbed Erinna, and pulled her inside. As she was forced into the chambers of Kuniskos, she blurted out some Tyrtaios in rough hexameters, while the guards outside on the signal of their master retreated to the outer stockade. “Sit down, woman, and sing louder and have some broth before we dine and drink. Dance as well, yes? I have no flute girls so you’ll have to be both guest and entertainer. We’ll have the barley pulp they serve here, but some special bowls with a bit of hare’s leg and a dried leek or two. Then more wine for us both. A kratêr or two just to keep us dry and warm and feisty. But keep singing. No one here now. Just us. Your name, woman? Did you give me your name? I hear there are lots of poets in these parts and on the hill up there as well. But perhaps I know it already?”
“Oh, I go by Attis. Yes, I claim to be Attis, daughter of the trader Athenaios from the Piraeus. My family owned ten long ships and we brought in grain and timber from Ionia. I speak a pure Attic, as you can hear, but know Ionic and Aeolic as well, as my father reminded all, and they say the same at the symposia among the longhairs with the gold grasshopper clasps.” Erinna did not sit, but walked slowly around Kuniskos and took in his anteroom. He let her explore his chambers but watched as she neared an interior door with an iron lock.
“I sing by the Ilissos at Athens. Yes, I am at home with men or women or so they also say of those who have seen Lesbos. But no one is here? The helots say the lord of the helots has a stable of women in his house, another poet, a rival that I can battle in verse. Let me wager with you that I have the best song, and you’ll send me along my way with an escort. But I bet you’re young where it counts, my Kuniskios.” With that Erinna finally took off her cloak and stretched. They went from the back further into the mess room. The front door was open and Erinna moved to the central hearth. She then edged slowly toward the kettle that was hanging over the flame. She had already caught a chill with her wool off. Kuniskos stared and grunted out some noises.
She had dark hair, short with a touch of lighter strands, maybe even some red; and firm large breasts that pointed up, and muscles on her arms and a pretty neck. Her lips were pink and eyes big. Already Kuniskos tired of his nightly play with tall Nêto—like having a doe that flitted around the room and, when caught, only bore her buck with fright and pain. She was not what his years of lust had imagined. Worse still, she was not even much of a helot rebel, not a worthy foe in his bed or in battle. And there was no money yet. Not even a sign of Mêlon or Chiôn, who had thought wiser of throwing good silver after dross, much less trying to burst into the fort of a Spartan lord. Yes, he was going to send her away, to trade her eastward on the next trip with Antikrates for a younger, rougher love—or pack her off with him to Taygetos if he could not find ransom from Helikon to free her. He now found her flesh hardly what he had thought it would be when he had eyed her on the farm in the past. Fool—as if a woman were a sow or heifer who had no care who mounted her.
But for Gorgos it seemed far better to have an old wide-hipped matron who knew more than he himself. Still no ransom money here for her from Helikon as Nêto promised? No reward at all? So much for the great-souled Damô, wife of Chiôn, and the big silver chest of Mêlon. No money ransom for their wasp-waist helot girl, after all, even as his men had sent word of Nêto’s capture to the helots? But now, now, this other woman was different. For all her talk of song, she had a bit of the man-woman in her as well. Kuniskos liked this hard edge. She’d put up a better struggle, maybe a claw or two on his cheek before she was through—and then she would shriek in mad erôs—so unlike the victim Nêto, who was little more than a sacrificial carcass on his altar.
“Keep singing my Tyrtaios, woman, I’ll be right back, back yes with a surprise.” With that he left through the back interior door. The guards were strolling back and forth, three hundred paces distant outside. Erinna’s whistle was around her neck. So she slowly pulled out her dagger, and put the blade in the rock cleft above the pot. Then she pulled up her chiton high on one leg and rolled up her right sleeve and with that exposed the side of her breast, appearing as big now as she had usually wished it small. He might find her inviting, but she was now girded for battle, with her limbs free and shivering.
Kuniskos came back in, pulling and whispering to a battered woman in a cloak. “My Nêtikê, look, another poet. And an Athenian at that. What sport we’ll have the three of us, a real triangle even with your fetters on. She’s man enough for you, Nêtikê, and more than woman enough for me. Hail this Attis of the two faces who blew in with the northern breeze. I wager you know this little ranger, though perhaps by a different name.”
Erinna kept still. But her face was flushed as she saw Nêto shuffle in—at least what she thought was Nêto.
“Surprised? Or all along did you know our Nêtikê? Don’t recognize your partner these days with her little bruises and tiny cuts? Ah, don’t hide your own erôs, my stringy Attis. Why should you? My Nêto here is a bit scared as I can see.”
Erinna clenched her fist and eyed the corners of the room. Nêto looked down and avoided her eye. Her once long tresses were gone, with tufts here and there on her bloody scalp from the clumsy haircuts of Kuniskos’s blade. Long slashes and scratches oozed on her arms. Her right eye was swollen shut. She had a fresh brand—a gamma—burned right into her cheek, though it oozed pus and most of her right face was black. Was this her Nêto?
Kuniskos had tied a rough sack weave around her that left both legs from her knees down bare. A thick cord was tied to her right ankle and cut into the flesh, and was stretched about twenty palms distant to the hinge on the door, where it was tied. “Now we drink to the helots and their lord Epaminondas.” Kuniskos laughed. “Somewhere at home in Thebes that Pythagorean faker snores in his halls, deep in drink and vomit. Then the fools of the Peloponnesos run around with lies that the fraud is really up here, near the Orthia and pulling into Sellasia, as if he would ever dare to come into Sparta. Believe not a word. He hasn’t even left Thebes, the drunkard. Yes, I know that, a brothel woman in Thespiai sent word to me. Our Phrynê knows more of Boiotia than the drone Epaminondas himself. Poor Antikrates in his fear of a phantom fled back to Sparta.”
“Who are you, helot?” Erinna ignored Kuniskos and stared at Nêto to play out to the end their deadly charade. Now she turned back to him. “Lord Kuniskos. Please scrub down that woman. I can smell her from here and who knows what’s under those scabs. Lice too on her stubble, phtheires crawling everywhere, Master Kuniskos. She’s a tramp and dirtier than any helot. She has worms in her belly and crawlers under her arms. Look at the ooze on her face—is she a man or beast?”
“No, no—look over here, my Attis. I have a pot of warm water, and sponges from Kalymnos no less. You can scrub her down and use all the oil you want. Give yourself a rub as well. You look the road almost as much as Nêtikê does.”
“I am no Amazon, stranger,” Nêto flashed. “I am a freewoman of Helikon. Priestess of Artemis of the Messenians.”
“Perhaps once,” Kuniskos answered. “But no longer, no more the dainty little parthenos who thought she could tease her way on Helikon to an orchard or vineyard with your Gorgos as doorman to your new tower.” He had pulled on her rope. “No, no, no—soiled women. Those who serve my lusts make no priestesses and even worse wives. So drink up and soon we roll the dice for turns. All you have left are your long legs, and I mean to club one of those as well before I’m done. To slow down a bit those doe runs of yours leading lame Mêlon of the Malgidai in the high woods.”
In these final days of winter calm, for all his loud bluster about a terrified Epaminondas hiding in Thebes, Gorgos had accepted his fate, the shared fate of Sparta that would soon end in Messenia. Yet the old man was strangely without much of a care, even though there were now hardly more than a hundred left, after Antikrates had taken a thousand home to Lakonia to face Epaminondas. He had been a lord, and ridden at the head of Spartan Peers, more than any helot had done since the days of Brasidas and his wild band of freed helot marauders. Yes, he was satisfied. One day as Lord Kuniskos was well worth what would now follow.
He felt the warmth in the wine, and he drank it from the time he woke until he slept. It brought with it the creeping sense of good liberation from worry and nag—a peace of mind, the hêsuchia that comes when cares are all banished, and nothing as before matters—right before the fall. What did he care whether Epaminondas really did come and Mêlon and Chiôn as well, and overturned the world of the Spartans in Messenia? Let them come some day, but they surely would not arrive this day, his day. And they could hardly overturn all that he had wrought in Messenia. As for now—why, he was Lord Kuniskos, harmostês of Messenia, and couldn’t worry about what a day ahead might bring. He grimaced a bit, as he knew he would either be high lord here, an anax of the Messenians, or dead—but never a house slave, a mere oiketês on Helikon.
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 Nêto. 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 Nêto. Out to Nikôn, out to Nikôn. 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 Nêto’s rope. “Run Nêto. Before …” Nêto 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! Klôpi. Klôpi. 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, Nêto. Out for us both. For us both.”
But then Nêto paused and could not leave her would-be savior. She called back, “Fight him, Erinna—both of us, together.” Then Nêto 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 Nêto 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.
Nêto was alive and ready to limp back in. But she looked up and here was Klôpis 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.” Nêto squirmed on the ground, but then Klôpis 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 Nêto enough time to reach the front gate and climb over, maybe even to reach Nikôn. 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 Klôpis pack off Nêto. 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 Nêto. 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. Klôpi. 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 Klôpi, 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 Erinnikê, why she smiles—the smile won’t leave. What does she know that we don’t?”
Nikôn 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 Ithômê 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 Nêto, 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.”
Nikôn 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, Nêto was nowhere to be found.
Gorgos woke to two heads on his gate poles, but they were male and Spartan.