Thessalonica

Benjamin showed him the couple of dozen buckles he’d made. They were, without a doubt, up to his usual standard of quality. The Jew coughed apologetically. “I am going to have to ask more for them. Otherwise, melting them down would pay me better.”

“How much more?” George asked warily. He didn’t think Benjamin was lying to him. He wished the bronzeworker were lying; that would have made the dicker easier.

“For most people, I would double the price,” the Jew said. “For you, half again as much. We’ve been doing business a long time, and you’ve always been fair with me.” He looked thoughtful. “And besides, don’t I remember that you did something brave when the city had trouble with the cisterns a while ago?”

“I did what needed doing. You don’t think about things till afterwards.” Praise made George nervous. He turned the subject, at least to some degree: “How did this part of the city come through the attack from the Slavs’ water god or whatever he was?”

“The Lord be praised, we had no trouble here,” Benjamin said. “The demon did not show itself at the cistern that serves us.”

Us Jews, he meant. George stared. “Not at all?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Benjamin said.

Again, George didn’t think he was lying. He leaned his chin on his hand and thought about what that might mean. Maybe the Slavic demigod had experience dealing with the powers of Christianity and had never run up against anything Jewish before. Maybe the Jews, a minority everywhere in the Roman Empire and an unhappy minority to boot, prayed harder than most of Thessalonica’s Christians and so averted trouble. One other possibility occurred to him, not one that made him happy but one he thought he could not ignore, either: maybe the Jews held on to a bigger piece of truth than did his own coreligionists.

“Why do you suppose that was?” he asked Benjamin, curious to hear what the Jew would say.

“Why? I don’t care about why,” Benjamin said with complete and utter sincerity. “All I care about is that it did not happen, for which I praise the Lord.”

George had trouble understanding anyone who didn’t care about why, but he hadn’t come down here to understand Benjamin; he’d come down to buy bronze buckles from him. Half again the usual price wasn’t outrageous, not with the way everything had shot up in Thessalonica. But a day without haggling was like a day without sunshine. “Maybe a third again as much--” George began tentatively.

Benjamin shook his head. “Half again keeps you even with the arrowheads. Anything less and I’m better paid to melt down the buckles.”

“Don’t do that. I’ll pay you. I’ll pass it along to my customers, so they can grumble at me, the same way I’m grumbling at you.” George laid money on the counter in front of the bronzeworker. “If we run out of other copper, we can melt down folleis.”

“No profit in it--not yet,” Benjamin answered. George had meant it for a joke, but the Jew had plainly made the calculation.

The shoemaker took the buckles and started out of the shop. He almost ran into a youth coming in. The youngster showed clearly what Benjamin had looked like at about twelve. His dark stare wasn’t aimed at George for having almost collided with him, but at everyone not a Jew for everything that had happened to all the Jews for the past two thousand years.

Benjamin said, “It’s all right, Joseph. George is a very good . . customer.”

“All right, Father,” the youth said, and bobbed his head to George. Tm sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to bump you.” He sounded as if he meant it. His eyes, though--George did not fancy facing those eyes.

“No harm done, Joseph,” George said, speaking to him as if he -were a man. Joseph nodded, polite but distant. Suddenly, George wished with all his heart that Benjamin had called him a good man, not a good customer. No help for it. The Jews didn’t have it easy, and they saw no point in making it easy for anyone else. He didn’t suppose he could blame them. Buckles jingling in his belt pouch, he left the bronzeworker’s shop.

“The Lord keep you safe,” Benjamin called after him. He waved to show he’d heard, but feared he’d gone too far for the Jew to see the gesture.

He’d intended bringing the buckles straight back to his shop and getting to work, but found himself waylaid when he walked past Dactylius’ place. The little jeweler dashed out the door toward him as fast as if he’d had a swarm of Slavs on his tail. “Come on in, George,” he said, grabbing his friend’s arm. “Your wife and daughter deserve some pretties--Claudia told me you fixed her sandal.”

“I’d almost forgotten,” George said. “Listen, Dactylius, I really ought to--”

Dactylius wasn’t listening to him--or letting go of his arm, either. “Come, come, come,” he said. It was either come or pry him loose with a stick. George came.