Thessalonica

It was useless. He knew it was useless. A layman arguing theology with a theologian was like a militiaman taking on a fully armored regular soldier: a gifted amateur might prevail, but that wasn’t the way to bet. Eusebius, fortunately, kept his temper. Indeed, the look he gave George was pitying. That made the shoemaker angry, which was also useless: as well have a gnat angry at a horse.

Out beyond the wall, hampered but not stopped, the Slavic wizards went on curing their countrymen. Bishop Eusebius tried again to break their power to do so, tried again and faded again. That did anger him, as if someone had changed the rules to a game without telling him first. He stomped off in high dudgeon.

“We’re not going to win all of them, looks like,” Rufus said.

“No,” George agreed. “And now it’s their turn.”

VII

When George went into the church of St. Elias, he found Father Luke alone there, praying in front of the altar. The priest turned and greeted him with a smile. “Welcome, George,” he said. “God is always glad to see you here.”

“I didn’t come here for myself,” George answered. “I came here for you, Your Reverence. You’ve done more than anyone else to keep the Slavs and Avars out of Thessalonica, and what have you got for it? Penance, I hear. It’s not right.”

Father Luke’s smile did not shrink, nor did it seem grudging. “So my superior has ordered: so shall it be. Disobedience is not a sin I want on my conscience. I have too many others.”

Men who talked about their many sins commonly had very few: that was George’s experience, at any rate. “Nonsense,” he said roughly. “You’re the holiest man I know.”

The priest made a deprecating gesture. “You do not know me so well as you think you do, my friend. And I tell you again, what Bishop Eusebius did, what he commanded me to do, he had every right to do and to command. I speak truly: did I not believe it, I have means of recourse.”

George frowned. Within Thessalonica, Eusebius was ecclesiastically supreme along with being de facto city prefect. If Father Luke didn’t care for anything he did, the priest had no one to whom to appeal--no one in the city, at any rate. The shoemaker’s eyes widened. “You would--?”

“Of course I would,” Father Luke said. “If I believed the holy Bishop Eusebius had trampled on my rights as a priest, I would not hesitate for an instant before writing to Cyriacus in Constantinople. The patriarch has the authority to bring back under rein any cleric who outrages propriety.”

He obviously meant what he said. From that, George concluded he also meant he didn’t believe Eusebius’ infliction of penance on him was wrong. Maybe that was part of holiness, too. If it was, it was a part George didn’t fully understand. “If it hadn’t been for what you did,” he said, “you wouldn’t be arguing with the bishop; you’d be arguing with that Avar out there, the one who brought the storm down on the city.”

“That is possible,” Father Luke admitted. “And yet--” He quoted the same verse from the Book of Matthew that Bishop Eusebius had used.

“What does it profit you to die,” George returned, “when you have a weapon in your hand that might let you live?” He would have given up against Bishop Eusebius. The priest, though, took argument as a sport, not a personal affront.

“If using that weapon to save your body damns your soul to all eternity, dying might well be the better course to take,” Father Luke said.

“If I saved myself by worshiping Satan and working abominations, then you might be right,” George said. “But that’s not what you did. That’s not anything like what you did.”

“The difference is of degree, not of kind,” Father Luke said. “I follow the Son, and thought I stayed within the limits of what is permissible for Christian men. Bishop Eusebius thought otherwise. I willingly accept his judgment.”

“But--” George gave up. Had Father Luke felt resentment, the shoemaker might have fanned it with resentment of his own. Against acceptance he had no power, and he knew it. “Your Reverence, so long as you’re content--”

“I am,” the priest assured him. He smiled again. “I do thank you for your concern. You are not the first to have expressed it; I told the others what I am telling you now.” From smile, he went to outright laughter. “Some of them were harder to dissuade than you. One suggested something I could not in good conscience even hear, though I do not think he meant it seriously.”

George had a sudden vivid vision of Rufus proposing that Eusebius be flung off the top of the wall into a dungheap. He didn’t ask who; he didn’t ask what. But he would have bet his guess was near the truth.

“Can I do anything else for you today, George?” Father Luke asked.

“No,” the shoemaker said He checked himself. “No. Wait. Yes. Maybe you can. What do you know about Constantine, the son of Leo the potter? What do you think of him?”

“Constantine?” Father Luke’s eyes sparkled. “Are you thinking of a match?”

“I’m trying to find out if I should be thinking of a match,” George said.