Thessalonica

“We’d find a way,” Theodore said with the innocent confidence of youth.

“That’s not the only problem, you know,” George said. “Most of the slaves in the market these days are Gepids or Slavs. They don’t speak Latin, they don’t speak Greek, and God only knows if they understand anything about work. If they run away, you’re out everything you paid for them, with no chance of getting a copper back from the dealer.”

“Some people must manage in spite of all those troubles,” Sophia said, “or nobody would have slaves.” “Some people,” George said pointedly, “must raise up children who don’t talk back to them. Come to think of it, though, I’ve never heard of any. When you can afford a slave, Theodore, or when your husband can, Sophia, then we’ll see what you do. Meanwhile--”

“Meanwhile,” Irene broke in, “we still have a lot of work to do, and not much light left to do it in, mostly because a couple of people I could name have been grumbling instead of doing what they’re supposed to.” She picked up a sandal and made as if to clout Theodore in the ear with it. He got to work, but he didn’t stop grumbling. That satisfied George, who remembered doing a deal of grumbling in his own younger days.

Rufus lined up his charges and gave them their orders: “Walk your stretch of the wall. Try not to fall off and break your fool neck. The challenge is ‘St. Demetrius.’ The answer is ‘St. Nicholas.’ If somebody can’t give you the right answer, he’s got no business up on the wall at night.”

“What do we do then?” Dactylius asked nervously.

“It depends,” the militia officer answered. “If you can tell it’s just some cursed fool from inside the city, just send him down. If it’s anybody sneaking up onto the wall from outside, try and kill the bastard and yell for help like the devil’s about to drag your soul to hell. Anything else? No? All right, first shift, up onto the wall. Second shift will relieve you about the start of the fifth hour of the night.”

George had first-shift duty tonight, along with Dactylius. The two of them climbed to the battlements near the Litaean Gate. George peered west. In the deepening evening twilight, the Via Egnatia was a gray stone ribbon heading west toward the sea, some days’ journey away. Beyond the sea lay Italy. Past that, George’s knowledge of geography faded fast.

The moon, full or near enough, rose in the southeast, in Capricorn, with the bright silver lamp of Jupiter not far away. Even after night fell, there was enough fight to see where to put your feet, and to see shapes moving out beyond the wall. There was, in fact, enough light to see shapes moving out beyond the wall whether they were really there or not.

“I wish we could carry torches,” Dactylius said.

“That would be fine,” George said. “If there are any Slavs out there sneaking up on us, they’d know where to aim when they started shooting.”

“Urk,” Dactylius said: a sound that made no word in either Latin or Greek, but one full of meaning nonetheless. “I hadn’t thought so far. If to see I am more easily seen, I’ll do without the torch, and gladly.”

“Good fellow.” George liked Dactylius, though he wondered what had prompted the jeweler to join the militia: a less warlike man would have been hard to imagine.

Mosquitoes buzzed as the two militiamen patrolled their stretch of wall. One of the bugs bit George behind his left knee. He said something pungent he’d learned from Rufus. Dactylius laughed. Then a mosquito bit him, and he said something even more sulfurous. He laughed again, this time self-consciously. “You wouldn’t let Claudia know I talk like that among my fellow warriors, would you?”

“Perish the thought,” George said. Maybe Dactylius was a militiaman because Rufus left him feeling less henpecked than Claudia did.

Something moved, out beyond the ditch. George saw it. So did Dactylius. “What is it?” he hissed.

“It’s a man,” George said. That was better than naming it a demon or a pagan god, but not much. His hand closed over the hilt of his sword. The leather grip comforted him, even if it wasn’t shoe leather. Besidehim, Dactylius started to say something but stopped, perhaps because his tongue was cleaving to the roof of his mouth. George didn’t say anything. He knew better than to try. If he opened his mouth with his heart pounding the way it was, all of Thessalonica would hear the noise.

He went to the edge of the wall and peered down into the night. Sure enough, that was a man. What was he doing down there, away from the monastery to the west of the city? Spying out the land, was the first answer that leaped into the shoemaker’s agile mind.

Then the man came out from the shadows of some bushes into moonlight. That moonlight gleamed off his tonsure. He looked up toward the wall with complete uninterest and began to sing, loudly and off-key, in Greek.

“Christ have mercy!” George exclaimed, his voice an explosive whisper. “It’s a drunk monk, that’s all.”