Thessalonica

As soon as he walked inside the jeweler’s shop, he sneezed. That happened about every other time he went into the shop, which smelled of hot metal and of the abrasive powders Dactylius used to shine it and to polish his precious stones.

“Here, let me give you these while I still can,” Dactylius said, presenting him with thin bracelets of bright bronze.

From the back room, Claudia asked in indignant tones, “What goes on? What are you giving away now, Dactylius? The whole shop, most likely.” But when she came out to see what was going on and found the shoemaker there, her manner changed. “Oh, it’s you, George. That’s all right, then.”

George hefted the bracelets. More ordinary ornaments he had never seen. “Why wouldn’t you be able to give me these later?” he asked.

“Why? Because they wouldn’t be here later, that’s why,” Dactylius said, as if that were self-explanatory. Seeing it wasn’t, he motioned George over to his worktable. “There. Now do you understand?”

“Oh. You’ve gone into the arrowhead business, too,” George said. “Well, yes, all right, that does make sense. Benjamin the bronzeworker is doing the same thing, for the same reason.”

Dactylius nodded. “Yes, I can see how he would be.”

Claudia, though, let out an indignant screech from the doorway to the back room. “They have my husband, my brilliant artist of a husband, doing the same thing as a no-account Jew? Darling, you have to tell the bishop you’re quitting, and right this minute. The insult!”

“I want to think about that before I do it,” Dactylius said.

What George wanted to say to Claudia was, Are you out of your mind? What he did say was, “An arrowhead doesn’t care who makes it.”

“That’s not true,” Claudia said, advancing on him so she could argue nose-to-nose with anyone presumptuous enough to disagree with her. “How is the holy Bishop Eusebius supposed to bless an arrowhead made by some nasty Jew instead of a good Christian man?”

It was a good question--a better question, in fact, than George had looked for from Claudia. After discarding two possible answers, he came up with one he hoped might satisfy her: “Since the bishop gave Benjamin the work, he doesn’t seem worried about it.”

Claudia sniffed. “That’s his foolishness.” A moment before, he’d been the holy bishop Eusebius; now he was a fool. Had she been born a man, Claudia might have had a fine career in the law courts. She went on, “I still say it’s a shame and a disgrace for Dactylius and a Jew to both be doing the same thing.”

“We’re all inside the city together, dear,” Dactylius said hesitantly.

“Maybe if we gave the Jews to the Slavs and Avars …” Claudia began.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” George said with what he thought of as commendable restraint.

“It probably wouldn’t satisfy them,” Claudia agreed mournfully. That wasn’t what George had meant, or, for that matter, anything close to what he’d meant. He supposed he should have been happy he’d got her to reconsider, whatever the reason. After thanking Dactylius again for the bracelets, he beat a hasty retreat.

Sophia smiled when he gave her the bangle, but said, “Couldn’t you have found something nicer?”

“Not the way things are now,” George answered, and explained what both Benjamin and Dactylius were busy doing. He added, “Claudia isn’t very happy that her husband has had to come down in the world so.”

“Claudia isn’t very happy,” Irene said with an air of finality. “I’m just glad you managed to get the buckles.”

“Some buckles,” George said. “Fewer than I would have liked.” He shrugged. “You do the best you can with what you have. When I’ve used all these, I’ll make boots for a while. If we haven’t got rid of the Slavs and Avars by then … well, we’re liable to be down to eating leather by then instead of turning it into shoes.”

Sophia made a face. “You’re making that up!” She looked at him. Real worry replaced playacted disgust. “No. You’re not.”

“You do the best you can with what you have,” George repeated. “If you don’t have much, you do the best you can with what little you do.”

“I hope it won’t come to that,” Irene said.

“So do I,” George said. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t. We all hoped the plague wouldn’t come to Thessalonica again--but it did.” He looked around the shop. “Well, if it comes down to eating boded leather, we’ll have a better supply than almost anyone else.”

“That’s true,” Irene said with a smile.

Sophia giggled. “I’d like to see Dactylius eat his stock in trade.”

“He couldn’t do it,” George agreed solemnly. “But do you know what? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Claudia could.”

Dactylius pointed out from the wall. “What are they doing out there?” he said. “They ought to be trying to get inside the city every moment of the day and night.” He sounded indignant, as if the Slavs and Avars were falling down on the job.