Thessalonica

Had Rufus been giving that dressing-down, neither George nor John would have thought anything of it. As it was, John’s face gave the impression that he’d smelled some meat several days later than it should have been smelled. George’s lip also curled. “Menas,” he said.

Menas it was, and he was, to George s dismay, heading in the direction of the Litaean Gate, spreading joy and good cheer in front of him. John glanced his way and said, “What’s that thing he’s carrying? Besides his big, ugly belly, I mean.”

“His war hammer--is that what you’re talking about?” George said. “I’ve seen him lugging that around before. It’s a rich man’s toy, if you ask me--something that makes him feel like a soldier even if he’s not.”

He wasn’t a soldier himself, as any member of Thessalonica’s regular garrison would have told him in as much detail as he could stand. But he’d done real fighting since the Slavs and Avars infested the city, which was more than Menas could have said. George checked himself. No: it was more than Menas could truthfully have said.

And here came the noble, twirling the hammer around by the leather strap attached to the end of the handle. He glared at George as if at a moldy spot on a chunk of bread. “Haven’t I told you to stop insulting me?” he growled. “Haven’t I warned you I’ll get my own back if it’s the last thing I do?”

“You’ve done all those things, sir,” George answered. “What I haven’t done is insult you.”

“Liar!” Menas shouted, loud enough to make militiamen within a bowshot of him turn their heads his way. “The latest is, you say God cured me so I could go around shouting at people.”

Whoever had reported John’s joke to him had got the words right, but Menas had got the source wrong, as George had known would happen. The shoemaker wondered if John would own up to having said it, and if Menas would believe him if he did. Since John kept quiet, the latter didn’t become an issue. George said, “I did not say that about you, sir.”

“Liar!” Menas shouted again.

“I did not say that,” George repeated. “If you keep doing the things that someone said about you, though, I will start saying them myself. I’ll have to start saying them myself, because you’ll have made them true.”

Menas stared at him. Being a rich and prominent man, being a man to whom God had granted a miracle (for what reason, George could not imagine, and he’d tried-- how he’d tried!), the noble was not accustomed to having anyone speak so pointedly to him. He raised the hammer, as if to strike George down.

George sprang backwards. He had an arrow on the string and the bow down almost as soon as his feet hit the walkway again. The point of the arrow--a bronze point, perhaps made by Benjamin--was aimed at a spot a palm’s breadth above Menas’ navel.

As nothing George said had ever managed to do, that made Menas thoughtful. He lowered the silver-chased hammer. George lowered the bow so the arrow pointed toward the walkway rather than Menas’ brisket. He held it at full draw, though, ready to bring it up in a hurry if the noble was only pretending to back away from a fight.

“How you’ll pay!” Menas snarled. “You’ll wish the Slavs and Avars had got hold of you by the time I’m done.” He stamped south along the walkway. George resisted the temptation to put the arrow in his bow straight through Menas’ left kidney. It wasn’t easy. He had to make himself replace the arrow in the quiver one motion at a time.

“Getting credit for my lines, are you?” John said when Menas started bellowing at some other luckless militiaman farther down the wall. “That’s a trouble you could probably do without.”

“Now that you mention it, yes,” George answered. John was bolder with his insults when the target wasn’t standing right there in front of him. George tried to get angry at that, but found he couldn’t. Most men were made the same way.

“That’s why you’ve been after me not to tell jokes about him anymore,” John said, with the air of a man for whom a dark corner of the world has suddenly become bright.

“In a manner of speaking,” George said.

“Well, I won’t,” John promised. And then, an instant later, he backtracked: “I don’t think I will, anyhow. But if something comes to me while I’m up there in front of a bunch of people, who knows what I’ll do?”

“No one,” George said sadly. “Not a single, solitary soul. Not even you. You’d be better off if you did.”

“Maybe,” John said. “But if I knew ahead of time everything I’d do when I got up on a platform, and if I did just what I’d thought beforehand I was going to do … I wouldn’t be me. Like you say, I might be better off. But I might not be able to perform at all.”