Thessalonica

Wherever Bishop Eusebius was, he was nowhere close by. Peering through the curtain of rain all around Thessalonica as if through a glass, darkly, George saw more Avars come out to confer with their priest. “I don’t know why they’re wasting time talking,” he said. “They’ll never have a better chance to attack the walls than now.”

“Look!” Dactylius pointed not to the cloud creatures in the sky, not to the Slavs and Avars beyond the rain, but to the head of the stairway leading up to the wall. “It’s Father Luke!”

That made George feel as good as seeing the bishop might have done. Father Luke was of lower rank, but George and Dactylius had already seen what his holiness could do. George said, “You beat the one water demon, Father. Can you beat these new ones as well?” He pointed at the thunderers and rumblers up in the sky.

“I don’t know,” the priest replied, putting a hand up over his eyes so he could see the Avar powers without raindrops continually blowing in his face.

“You don’t know?” Dactylius sounded horrified. “Are we just going to stand here and drown, the way people did in the great Flood?” He looked about ready to drown. The drumming rain made his hair run down over his face like so many wet snakes and plastered his tunic to him so tightly, George could count his ribs.

In a way, Father Luke’s answer horrified George, too. In another way, it pleased him. A more arrogant priest would have claimed abilities he lacked and tried to do more than he could, as Father Gregory--the late Father Gregory--had done by the cistern. If nothing else, Father Luke had humility, a virtue in any Christian man and all the more vital in a priest.

“God provided in the Flood, telling Noah to build his Ark,” Father Luke said. “I have faith God will provide for us now, if not through me, then surely through someone else.”

Again, George did not quite know what to make of the response. Admiring the depth of Father Luke’s faith, he had trouble sharing it. He knew he had not the temperament of a man like Job, to go on unceasingly praising God regardless of the misfortunes befalling him.

Instead of criticizing the priest, though, he tried to nudge him into action: “You routed one water demigod with water of your own from the baptismal font. Can you do the same with these--?” Before he could say things, the thirteen thunder spirits let loose with another crash, one so enormous he thought it would split his head open.

Father Luke’s shrug was not encouraging. “They are there” --he pointed up into the sky-- “while I remain down here. I see no way for the sanctified water to come in contact with them, as it did with the Slavic demon in the cistern.”

“All right, you can’t do that,” George said, following the logic without liking it. “What can you do? You have to be able to do something.”

“And you’d better do it soon, too,” Dactylius added. He sounded both insistent and frightened, neither of which George wanted. The shoemaker aimed to make Father Luke figure out what he could do and then to have him do it, not to alarm and rattle him.

Father Luke, fortunately, seemed neither alarmed nor rattled. “I can pray,” he answered.

It was, after all, what a priest was good for. Even so, George would have preferred a response somewhat more aggressive. He was beginning to feel as much like a drowned rat as Dactylius looked. “Well, if that’s what you can do, you’d better get to it,” he said roughly. “The Slavs out there aren’t going to be content with shooting at us up here on the wall, not for long they won’t. Pretty soon they’ll try knocking it down again.”

“You’re right, of course.” Father Luke looked up to the heavens again. Now he paid no attention to the thunder spirits or the smaller rumblers, nor to the rain beating into his face. “I take my text from the Book of Genesis: ‘And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.’”

Knowing the priest’s piety, and knowing also how he had beaten the Slavic water demigod, George expected the Avars’ sky powers to be routed and the sun to break through. That did not happen. The rain kept falling. More thunder boomed, as if those powers were laughing at Father Luke’s effort to disperse them.

Dactylius let out a cry of dismay that showed how much confidence he had placed in Father Luke. George glanced over toward the priest. Father Luke’s long face was set in thoughtful lines. Seeing George’s eyes upon him, he nodded slightly. “It is as you have said all along,” he remarked. “The powers of the Slavs are strong, and now I see that the powers of the Avars are stronger still. Since the Avars rule the Slavs, I suppose I should have expected as much.”

“What can you do about it?” George demanded. Another shattering roar from the heavens emphasized the thunder spirits’ strength more than the priest’s words could have. Somewhere not far down the wall, a militiaman screamed when an arrow pierced him. Caught in the tightly defined circle of rain, the defenders could offer no reply.