Thessalonica

“Bishop Eusebius won’t let that happen. He won’t let the merchants make beggars of us all,” Irene said confidently. She had more faith in the bishop than George did. He didn’t want to do complicated thinking right now, but after a moment decided she might well be right. Eusebius was too good a Christian and too good a politician both to let a handful of men aggrandize themselves at the expense of the rest.

Theodore’s thoughts, meanwhile, had gone off on another tack. “Everything you said about how strong the Slavs’ powers are must be true, Father,” he said, a sentence to warm the cockles of the heart of any father of an adolescent male. “For that water-demon to show up in the middle of this city--”

“It’s a worry,” George agreed. He tried to imagine a satyr strolling into the marketplace of Thessalonica. He couldn’t. Such a thing might have happened when Galerius was Emperor, but three hundred years had gone by since then, and those powers overpowered by a greater power.

“This is the first time they’ve tried anything so horrid,” Irene said. “What will they do next?”

The question hung in the air. George looked out the door. All he could see was the shop across the narrow street. He couldn’t see the wall, let alone what lay beyond it, not with his fleshly eyes. His mind’s eye reached further. Somewhere out there, the chieftains of the Avars would be deciding what to do next. If they and the Slavs they led succeeded with it, whatever it was, the city would fall. That was very simple. For once, George wished things might be more complex.

IV

Axes rang in the woods around Thessalonica. George watched an oak tremble, sway, fall. A crew of Slavs began lopping off branches and cutting the trunk into lengths they found useful. Not far away, a mounted Avar watched his subjects.

“He’s working hard, isn’t he?” John said, pointing out from the wall to the horseman, who, but for occasionally pointing, wasn’t doing anything much.

“Not so you’d notice,” George answered, “but the Slavs are working harder because he’s there.”

“The noble comes round to see how his building is going up, you’d best believe the carpenters work harder,” John said. “Me, I’m funnier when I know the fellow behind the bar at the tavern is listening to me. If he doesn’t like what he’s hearing, I have to try to find someplace else to work the next night.”

“Carpenters build buildings,” George said. “What do Slavs build? They can’t be making a village out there, can they?”

“I know what they’re making,” John said: “they’re making trouble.”

“They’ve already done that.” George looked along the wall instead of out from it. No sooner had he done so than he stood more erect and gripped his bow more firmly. Out of the side of his mouth, he said, “Here comes Rufus. Think of him as the fellow behind the bar.”

John obviously did think of Rufus that way, for, like George, he did his best to project an air of martial ferocity. Like George’s, his best left something to be desired. Rufus surveyed diem with his brown eye, with his blue eye, and with both eyes together. He looked dissatisfied all three ways. “God must be watching over Thessalonica,” he said, “if it hasn’t fallen with the likes of you two holding off the Slavs and Avars.”

George didn’t argue with the veteran; on the whole, he agreed with him. And John surprised Rufus by putting an arm around him and kissing him on the bristly cheek. “Thank you, great captain,” he said in a voice gooey with counterfeit emotion. “You’ve made us what we are today.”

Rufus wiped his cheek with the back of one hand. “The good news about that is that it’s true,” he said. “And the bad news about it… is that it’s true.”

Another tree went over with a crash. The Slavs started trimming it as they had the oak they’d felled a few minutes before. “What are they doing out there?” George asked Rufus.

The veteran clapped to his forehead the hand he’d just used to wipe his cheek. “God help all of us if you’re as I made you,” he said. “Anyone with enough sense to rub his fingers on his tunic after he blows his nose can see that they’re cutting the timber they need for siege engines.”

“Siege engines?” George and John spoke together. John went on, “They’re barbarians. They don’t have any cities. What are they doing with siege engines?”

“They don’t have cities, no,” Rufus said. “That’s not the point. The point is, we have cities. If they want to take them away from us, they have to get inside. The way to get inside a walled town is with siege engines. They know that; they may be barbarians, but they aren’t stupid.”

By the way he said it, his opinion was that the two militiamen were stupid. George’s ears got hot. Righty or wrongly, he prided himself on his wits. Having Rufus scorn them was bitter as wormwood to him. He said, “All right, they know what they need to do to break into our cities. But how do they know? Siege engines can’t be easy to make.”