Thessalonica

“Good to see you back, George,” Paul said. You always pay your scot, you drink enough so you don’t just fill up a stool, and you don’t get rowdy and tear the place apart. And you don’t soak your tongue in vinegar before you come in, either.” He gave John a hard look.

The tavern comic, who had seen a lifetime of them, did not seem unduly damaged. “Behold perfection,” he said with a mocking bow to George.

“Well, I like the wine,” Sabbatius said. That, however, was a recommendation not even Paul could view with pride. Sabbatius liked the wine because it was wine, not because it was good wine. As if to prove as much, he held out his cup. “Fill me up again. I don’t care with what.”

“Sawdust might be good,” John said musingly. “Or maybe rocks.”

Sabbatius folded his right hand into a fist. “Here’s one rock.” He closed his left hand, too. “And here’s another one. How would you like to meet up with the two of them?”

“Any time,” John jeered. “Any time you’re awake, anyhow.”

Sabbatius started to surge up off his stool. Rufus grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him down. Too early to start brawling--didn’t you hear Paul?” Sabbatius was bigger and stronger than the veteran, and less than half as old. He obeyed him without question anyhow. That was what made Rufus a man to lead men.

“Don’t start on your friends,” George advised John, “or after a while you’ll go around wondering why you haven’t got any.”

“I don’t wonder,” John said. “I know.” He held out his cup to Paul for a refill, too. When the taverner gave it to him, he gulped it down.

Dactylius said, “If you know your jokes annoy people, why do you keep making them?” The little jeweler plainly did not aim to be annoying; as usual, he sounded serious and sincere.

John’s eye glinted. With one more cup of wine in him, he would have wondered aloud why Dactylius stayed with Claudia if he knew she was a harridan. George could see that. He shifted so he could kick John in the ankle if he began to ask the question. Rather to his surprise, John kept quiet. Maybe he’d listened to George. George wasn’t used to having people listen to him, but understood why: he spent most of his time talking to his children.

The tavern filled up fast. Since the Slavs and Avars broke off the siege, the people of Thessalonica had been in a mood to have a good time. Sooner than he might otherwise have done, Paul called, “And now, to make you laugh, to take your troubles away, and maybe to give you new ones, here’s John.”

“Ha!” John said as he got to his feet and hurried to the platform with a sort of boneless lope. “He knows me too well.” He paused and looked out over the crowd, then shook his head. “You’re a bloody poor lot if you’ve come here for a good time. You should all be home with your wives.” He paused again, as if contemplating what he’d just said. “Well, that explains that.”

“What does he mean?” asked Sabbatius, who was not only unwed but already drunk. Without waiting for an answer, he laughed anyhow, a loud, empty bray.

“Here we are, all safe and sound” John said thoughtfully. “There were times when I wouldn’t have believed it, not during the siege I wouldn’t.” He pointed to the table from which he’d come. “There are the valiant militiamen who defended the wall near here. Would you think they could keep out a pack of howling barbarians?”

“Thank you, John,” George and Dactylius called out together, one in Latin, the other in Greek. They grinned at each other.

“Hey, I’m a militiaman, too,” John said. “Would you think I could keep out a pack of howling barbarians?”

“If they understood what you were calling ‘em, yes,” somebody said loudly.

John didn’t annihilate him, as he did most critics. The remark fit too well with the way his routine was heading. “Maybe,” he said. “It all worked out, thanks be to God. You even see rich people over on this side of town, and you didn’t hardly do that during the siege, did you? No. Most of them stayed over on the east side, where they could duck into the citadel in a hurry if they needed to.”

George listened with wary attention. After the putatively angelic visit, Menas had left him alone. If John started poking fun at him--for he was one of the rich men who had been on the western wall of Thessalonica--George knew he was liable to get blamed for whatever the comic said. That might mean the immunity he’d won would unravel.

But John chose a different tack, saying, “During the siege, those rich people hardly even knew they were living in the same city with us. Somebody told one of them that there was an assault going on, and he said, “Well, no need to panic. It’s only the Litaean Gate the Slavs and Avars are attacking.”

“Why is that funny?” Sabbatius demanded. He hadn’t fallen asleep yet, as he usually did sooner than this.

Patiently, George explained: “Because the rich fool thinks that what happens over at the Litaean Gate couldn’t matter to his part of the city.”

“Oh.” After a bit, Sabbatius let out that braying laugh again.