Thessalonica Read online

  Menas splashed about in the pool, as if he were bathing. That reminded George he ought to visit the city baths himself one day soon. They weren’t so busy as they had been before Thessalonica became a Christian town (or so the bath attendants said, whether to drum up business or from a genuine tradition handed down with their strigils), but they were open.

  Bishop Eusebius started to send up yet another prayer to St. Demetrius. He had hardly begun when Menas gasped. It took a good deal to silence a bishop in the middle of a prayer, but that gasp did the job. It was as if all the power immanent in that place had sprung forth in a single awe-smitten inhalation of breath.

  Menas stood up in the pool.

  For a moment, George simply accepted that. Menas’ strength and agility seemed so natural, he took them for granted. Then memory caught up with vision. Half a man had gone into the pool, but a whole man came out, water dripping in sparkling streams from the hem of his tunic. His legs, which had been thin and wasted, were now as thick and solid as his arms.

  “Thank you, St. Demetrius,” he said. “Bless you, St. Demetrius.” He turned to the men who had borne him in the litter for so many years. “Take that cursed thing back to my house and burn it. I’m never going to get into it again.” Nobles often traveled through the streets in litters, not least to show those who weren’t nobles how important they were. George, though, could understand why Menas was willing to forgo that particular kind of aggrandizement.

  “Let us thank God for the miracle He has given us this day?” Eusebius said. George gladly thanked God for letting him witness a miracle. Miracles were by their very nature rare; had they happened every day, they would hardly have been miraculous.

  “How will you celebrate this miracle?” someone called to Menas.

  The burly noble mulled that over, but not for long. “I am going to celebrate it with my wife,” he declared, a reply that made George realize Menas’ legs had not been the only parts of him that did not work. A good many other people realized that at about the same time as the shoemaker. Their ribald whoops echoed through the glade that had been full of the sounds of prayer only moments before.

  Eusebius looked furious. He raised his eyes to the heavens; perhaps hoping divine wrath would follow hard on the heels of divine mercy. If so, he was disappointed. The day remained bright and warm and clear, and no lightning bolt came smashing down on the people in the grove.

  “He is going in unto his wife,” someone behind George said, “and the Scriptures do tell us it is better to marry than to burn.”

  “Menas has been crippled a long time,” George observed, “so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s burning now.”

  With determined stride, the noble headed away from the spring. The procession back to Thessalonica was a lot less orderly and less united in purpose than the one that had led to the sacred spring. Some people still hymned God’s praise. Bishop Eusebius remained incandescently angry. The men who had carried Menas about for so many years looked worried, and George understood why: with the noble walking again, would he still have work for them?

  But most people, like the shoemaker, were chiefly concerned about getting back to the city so they could return to work. “Come on,” he said, gathering up his family. “Miracles are all very well, but you can’t eat them.”

  “No?” Sophia said. “What about the loaves and fishes?”

  “And manna from heaven?” Theodore put in.

  “All I know about them is that they didn’t happen in Thessalonica,” George returned. “And this wasn’t our miracle: it was Menas’. The only way it can do us any good is for him to want to buy shoes from our shop.”

  Irene sighed. “That would take another miracle, I fear.”

  Songs rang out in the city when word of the miracle came. Paul did a brisk business selling wine to the people returning from the monastery of St. Demetrius. Several other taverners came out to try to do the same. George hoped Paul, who had been thoughtful enough to get there ahead of everyone else, reaped the reward for his cleverness.

  After the cool freshness of the glade around the sacred spring, after the power that had manifested itself there at the spring, going back into the cramped, dark shoemaker’s shop, stinking of leather, made George sigh. Then he shook his head. “If I wanted to work outdoors all the time, I would have to be a farmer or a woodsman.” He enjoyed the woods and the fields--but not that much. “Talking with sheep or partridges is not my idea of spending time in good company.”

  “And what is your idea of good company?” Theodore asked with a glint of mischief in his eye. “Half-drunk militiamen?”’

  “Better than sons who don’t show their fathers proper respect,” George shot back, which won him a giggle from Irene and, better yet, sudden silence from Theodore. That was rare enough to come close to being a miracle in and of itself.

  But George did not bask in the warm glow of victory for long. Picking up his tools was anything but delightful. All at once, no matter how skillfully he punched a pattern into leather, he had trouble believing any of it mattered. What was the point? Why did he bother?

  And then, when he was feeling at his lowest, the rich man who had ordered the boots came into the shop. “Those are splendid,” Germanus exclaimed. “Much better than I thought they’d be.” Not only did he put them on and wear them out of the shop, he paid George a couple of miliaresia more than the price on which they had agreed.

  George stared after him, the weight of the money sweet in his palm. “Do you know,” he said slowly, looking down at the coins, “in its own little way, that may be a miracle as wondrous as the one God worked for Menas through St. Demetrius.” Neither his wife nor his children argued with him.

  On the practice field near the hippodrome, John put down his spear and pointed up the street. “May I be sent to eternal damnation if that isn’t Paul!” he exclaimed in delight.

  George’s opinion was that the profane tavern performer risked eternal damnation whenever he opened his mouth. That, however, did not seem a helpful comment, the more so as John was all too likely to agree with it. The shoemaker contented himself by saying, “It does look like him, doesn’t it?”

  Dactylius, whose trade had left him a trifle shortsighted, peered in the general direction from which the taverner was coming. “Yes, that is Paul, isn’t it?” he said, a good deal later than he should have.

  Rufus set hands on hips and awaited the new arrival. “So you think you can be a soldier, do you?” he growled.

  “I don’t see why not,” the taverner answered. “If you can do the job, it can’t be too hard.”

  The veteran’s smile was fierce and predatory. “God will punish you for that--and if He doesn’t, I will.” His sword slid out of its scabbard with a sound like a snake’s hiss. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  In the practice that followed, Rufus could have killed Paul a dozen times over. Everyone saw as much. But Paul refused to let it worry him, and, after Rufus finally resheathed his sword, the taverner did well not only with the bow but also with the spear.

  Rufus rubbed his chin, considering. At last, he said, “As long as you keep them away from you, you may live. If they get close, run for your life like you’ve got Satan on your tail. How does that sound?”

  “See what kind of wine you get served the next time you stick your nose into my tavern,” Paul said, which made Rufus let out a carefully rationed grunt of laughter.

  John greeted the new volunteer with a sour expression. “You were supposed to be funnier than that,” he said.

  Paul’s face glistened with sweat. He looked down his nose at the other militiaman. “People were saying the same thing about you the last time you came and did your routine in my place.”

  “Shall we get back to drill?” Dactylius asked, eager as usual to spread oil on troubled waters. “We all need to get better. Has anyone heard anything about what the city garrison is doing?”

  “Not a word,” George said, and everyone around him nodded.
He didn’t let it worry him; he hadn’t expected news so soon. He wondered whether any word would get back to Thessalonica before the soldiers came home to tell the tale themselves. With so much disorder south of the Danube, maybe not.

  Rufus came striding over. He was an old man, yes, but a tough old man, a frightening old man. When he transfixed Dactylius with a glare, it was as if he’d shoved a spear into him. “Here’s something for you to think about,” he rumbled. “Suppose you’re a scout in the woods. You make a noise or some fool thing, and about twenty different Slavs all start running right toward where you’re at. What do you do then?”

  “Run!” Dactylius exclaimed, turning pale at the prospect.

  George snorted, then tried to pretend he hadn’t. The little jeweler had given an utterly honest answer. If it wasn’t the one Rufus was looking for, though, Dactylius was going to be in trouble. George wasn’t the only one laughing, either, and some of the others didn’t try to hide it.

  Rufus turned that fearsome gaze on them. “ ‘Run’ is the right answer,” he said. “You’re outnumbered like that, what else can you do? But what should you do while you’re running?”

  “Pray to God for a miracle like the one He gave Menas,” Dactylius said.

  “Pray to God you don’t shit yourself while you’re running,” John said.

  “One case of long odds, one case of a big mouth,” Rufus remarked. He turned to George, as he often did when he wanted a question answered in a particular way. “What should you do while you’re running?”

  “If you can, you should probably lead the Slavs back toward the main body of your force, so you won’t be so outnumbered when they catch up to you.”

  “That’s the right idea,” Rufus said approvingly. “Don’t just run. Think while you’re doing it. Your wits are as good a weapon as your sword.” He glowered at John. “That’s true for most people, anyhow.” The tavern funny man blew him a kiss, as if he’d paid him a compliment. The look Rufus sent up toward God was as grim as the ones he gave the militiamen.

  Dactylius said, “But what if you don’t want the enemy to know where your main mass of troops is? What do you do then?”

  For once, Rufus’ sour features uncurdled. “That’s a good question,” he said, in tones implying a good question was the last thing he’d expected. He turned to George again. “What are some of the things you might do?”

  George thought before he spoke. The answer here was less obvious than the other for which Rufus had asked him. At last, he said, “One thing you might do is try to make the enemy think you have a lot of soldiers close by, even if you don’t.”

  “That’s right.” Rufus’ big, gray head went up and down, up and down. “A friend of mine saved himself from the Goths--or was it the Franks?--back in Italy, doing that very thing. You got to think fast when you’re fighting, on account of you don’t usually get the chance to think slow. Now let’s get back to work, so you don’t have to think about fighting at all. The more you think in hand-to-hand, the worse off you’re going to be.”

  John looked around at his fellow militiamen. His gaze finally fell oil Sabbatius. “We’re in good shape there, by the Mother of God. Some of us have trouble thinking even when we’re not in hand-to-hand.”

  Sabbatius’ pudgy face reddened. “Are you practicing your jokes on me? You’re not as funny as you think you are, I’ll tell you that.” He would have sounded more impressively angry, though, had he seemed more certain John was really insulting him. In truth, Sabbatius wasn’t so bright as he might have been.

  Despite that, George said, “Enough.” He was looking at John as he went on, “The idea is, we’re all supposed to be on the same side. If you make people hate you, they won’t help you when we really have to fight.”

  John’s eyes widened. In spite of everything, he didn’t look to have realized that the militia might have to fight. He lobbed insults as automatically as he breathed. To underscore the point, George threw back his head and did his best to imitate the fearsome howl of a Slavic wolf-demon.

  Before John could say anything, insulting or otherwise, Rufus nodded again. “George has it right,” he declared. “I remember in Italy, when one part of the army didn’t get along with the rest. You couldn’t trust them at your back, so you were more afraid of them than of the Goths. Works the same way here. If you get in trouble, you have to know your chums are going to come and pull you out of it. If you can’t be sure of that, you might as well give up and go home before you ever start.”

  George nodded. That made sense. Rufus commonly made sense, though he had such a rough tongue that you sometimes wished he’d keep quiet more often. If you could stand to listen to him, though, it usually repaid the effort.

  Sabbatius did his best to look sly. It put George in mind of a public woman trying to look chaste, but that he kept to himself. Turning to Paul, Sabbatius said, “You see? You’d better keep us in wine if you expect us to take care of you.”

  “No, that’s not what Rufus meant,” Dactylius said earnestly. “We don’t help each other from hope of reward. We help each other because that’s what we need to do when we go fight.”

  “Most of you lugs understand what I’m talking about,” Rufus said. “The ones who don’t...” His shoulders moved up and down in a shrug. “All we can hope is that God will have mercy on them when they see Him, on account of we already know they’re going to see Him pretty fornicating quick.”

  That comment left the militiamen--perhaps even including Sabbatius--thoughtful when they returned to their exercises.

  Mosquitoes buzzed in the night. Crickets chirped. Somewhere not far outside the walls of Thessalonica, an owl hooted. Since it was nighttime, George knew the pagan Greeks would have taken that for a good sign, a sign Athena was nearby. Even he, good and believing Christian though he was, got nervous on the rare times when he heard an owl calling by daylight.

  He looked out from the wall, west toward the woods and toward the monastery of St. Matrona, which was a little fortress in its own right. It was far enough from the city that it disappeared from view, or nearly so, at night or during the misty days so common by the sea.

  Beside George, Sabbatius whistled while he walked. The shoemaker glanced over at his companion in some annoyance, though Sabbatius was only another dim shape in the darkness. “Can’t you put a stopper in that?” George said. “If there are barbarians lurking in the bushes, they’ll know just where we are.”

  “So what?” Sabbatius answered cheerfully. “You can’t shoot a bow for anything during the night, and I like to whistle.”

  “I’d like it more if you did it less often, or if you did it better,” George told him, that seeming likelier to have good results than something like, If you don’t quit making noises like a starling with its tail caught in a door, I’m going to sew your lips shut.

  He might as well have said exactly what he meant, for Sabbatius grumbled, “You’re as bad as John,” and subsided into hurt silence. Since it was silence, George had no trouble putting up with the hurt that informed it. When he didn’t apologize, that only hurt Sabbatius more.

  Somewhere out in the woods, a wolf howled. Sabbatius gasped and tried to yank out his sword and nock an arrow at the same time, thereby succeeding none too well at either task.

  “I think that’s only a wolf, not one of the Slavs’ demons,” George said. “Hearing it doesn’t make your blood turn to water.”

  “No, eh?” Sabbatius was breathing hard; the howl had given him a good fright. “Well, I think it was one.”

  “All right,” George said. “I might be wrong.” He didn’t feel like arguing about it. For one thing, he had no way to prove he was right. For another, arguing with Sabbatius wasn’t usually interesting enough to be entertaining. He yawned. The two of them had the middle watch this time. Eventually, he would be able to go home and go back to bed. At the moment, eventually felt a long way away

  Sabbatius, in a touchy mood, decided to be offended because George wouldn�
�t passionately insist he was correct. “You must not think you know much,” he said loftily.

  Next time, by the Virgin, I’ll bring needle and thread and I will sew his lips shut. One thing he did know, though, was not to quarrel with a fool. “We are supposed to be on the same side,” he reminded Sabbatius.

  “Well, yes,” his comrade said, with the air of a man making a great concession, “but--” He stopped suddenly with a wordless exclamation of dismay, flailing his hands around his head. “Gah! A bat! It almost flew into my face.”

  “They eat bugs, I think.” George scratched a mosquito bite. “I’m in favor of anything that eats bugs.”

  “This one looked like it wanted to eat me,” Sabbatius returned. “Didn’t you see its glittering eyes?”

  “I didn’t see it at all.” That was true, but it had the effect of offending Sabbatius all over again, as if George had called him a liar. George had done nothing of the sort, but trying to convince Sabbatius of that would have been more trouble than it was worth. He sighed and kept quiet.

  And then, suddenly, the bat was fluttering in front of him. He’d never paid bats much attention; they skimmed through the night, when he mostly stayed indoors. He was sure, though, he’d never seen one like this. Sabbatius might not have been bright, but he knew what he’d seen: the bat’s eyes did glitter, red as blood.

  Its teeth glittered, too, as if it wanted to sink them into something larger and more flavorful than a moth or a mosquito. Of itself, George’s hand shaped the sign of the cross. The bat’s eyes no longer glittered; just for a moment, they glowed, as if torches had been kindled behind them. Then the creature flew away: or, for all George knew, it simply disappeared. At any rate, it no longer flapped its wings in front of his face.