Rufus picked up another stone, braved looking out over the wall in that storm of arrows to see where it would do the most good, and threw it down. The crash that came back was particularly loud and satisfying. “That one went where it was supposed to,” John said.
“You’d best believe it did,” Rufus said, flexing his elderly biceps and twisting into a pose that put George in mind of the statue of an athlete from pagan times: or rather, of something the pagan sculptors had never made, the statue of a former athlete as a grandfather.
It put John in mind of something else, “You go prancing around like that anywhere near the baths, they’ll drag you off to gaol for unnatural vice,” he said.
“The most unnatural vice I’ve ever tried is putting up with you,” Rufus said. That prompted John to pull out an arrow and shoot it at the Slavs. Rufus smiled, probably because he’d hoped to accomplish something on that order.
George threw another rock down on the Slavs himself. The pile of stones on the walkway was much smaller than it had been. Men were still bringing more up to the top of the wall, but not nearly so fast as they were being used. That pile and the others like it had been accumulated over days; they couldn’t be maintained when they were used up in hours. If the defenders ran out before the Slavs had had all they could stand .. .
“If we can’t drive them off like this, will we have to sortie?” he asked Rufus.
“Maybe so,” the veteran said unhappily. “I don’t want to do it, you understand, but I don’t want the wall crumbling under me, either.”
Methodically, almost mechanically, the defenders kept dropping stones and boding water onto the Slavs. They knew they were hurting the foe; the screams and shrieks from the ground said as much. But war, as George had discovered, was not merely a business of hurting the enemy. It meant hurting him more than he could endure. Were the Romans doing that? The Slavs had already shown they could endure a good deal.
Grunting, George lifted and flung another stone. The pile was small indeed now, hardly higher than his knees. Once it was gone, what then? Rushing out and fighting the Slavs seemed a better choice than helplessly staying up here and waiting for the wall to fall down, but neither alternative struck the shoemaker as highly desirable.
“Shall we sortie?” he asked, as he’d done before.
“If we have to, we have to.” Rufus’ face twisted. “Damn me to hell if I like the idea, but damn me to hell if I like the idea of letting the cursed Slavs do whatever they please, either.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” George said. “When the other choice is worse, a bad choice can turn good.”
The militia captain made no reply for a moment. His lips moved as he worked that through. “You’re right,” he said at last. He cocked his head to one side. “You managed to put enough twist on that to make a priest happy.” Not sure whether he was being complimented or mocked, George maintained a discreet silence.
And then John, who left no doubt when he was insulting someone--as he often was--let out a howl of pure joy. “They’re running away!” he shouted a moment later.
George and Rufus shouted, too. George slapped the veteran on the back. Rufus not only endured the familiarity, he grinned wide enough to show off the worn and snaggled teeth still in his mouth. The world soon interfered with that little stretch of unexpected delight, as the world has a way of doing. Rufus, remembering he was a captain, shouted, “Let’s give the bastards a going-away present. Grab your bows, lads!”
Along with the rest of the men on the walls, George shot at the Slavs till they fled out of range. As the warriors from the tortoises withdrew, the archers who had supported them also moved away from the wall. That let the Romans peer down at the ground without the risk of taking an arrow in the face.
“We dented them,” George said, which would do for an understatement till a bigger one appeared. It was, in some instances, only literal truth; many of the big, reinforced shields the Slavs had brought up against the walls of Thessalonica were broken, while others had their iron facings badly battered.
A good many dented men lay under the wall, too, men whose shields had proved unable to protect them from the stones and arrows the Romans had showered down on them. A couple of them were almost as badly smashed as poor Father Gregory had been after the Slavic water-demigod hurled him to the cobblestones by the cistern. This too was war. George wished Theodore had come up on the wall beside him, to see the reality of what he thought so great and glorious.
Not all the Slavs who lay below the wall were dead. Groans and shrieks still rose from those whose crushed limbs or bums kept them from retreating with their comrades, and from a couple who dragged themselves along with their hands because they were dead from the waist down.
“Let’s finish them,” Rufus said. Some militiamen had already begun shooting at the helpless Slavs, and precisely aiming stones at those right under the wall. That was a hard, unpleasant business. One by one, the screams and their makers died till none was left.
Into the grim silence following that last death, Rufus said, “I think most of us can come down off the wall now. They aren’t going to be able to nerve themselves for another attack any time real soon.”
“What do we do if you’re wrong?” John asked.
Rufus shrugged. “If you’re still up on the wall, you fight ‘em. If you’re down in the city, you come running back and you fight ‘em. If they’re already down into the city before you get back here, it’s the end, but you fight ‘em anyway, and you keep fighting ‘em till they kill you. Any other questions?”
“What good would other questions do me?” John returned. “You’ve only got one answer.”
Only when he turned to head down the stairs into Thessalonica did the comic’s shoulders sag and his stride lose its jaunty spring. “Mother of God, I’m so tired,” he said over his shoulder to George, who was a couple of steps above him. “If those bastards keep coming after us like this, sooner or later they’re going to break in.”
“If they
“Maybe you’re right,” John said. “Maybe Master One Blue and One Brown is right, too. But maybe not. You think the Avars care how many Slavs the ravens peck the eyes out of? It’s like spending other people’s money. If Paul tells me I can drink all I want at his place and he’s paying for it, why should I stay sober?”
“People aren’t miliaresia,” George said. “After a while, the Slavs will start saying no when the Avars send ‘em out against the wall to be slaughtered.”
“And a fat lot of good that will do them.” John jumped off the last step. “If they don’t come out here against the walls, the Avars will do the job on them for us, sure as God made the world in seven days.”
George thought that over. He decided the tavern comic was probably right. “I don’t think I’d care to be a Slav right now,” he observed.
“Leave the ‘right now’ out of it, if you please,” John said. “I can’t think of any time I’d want to be a Slav.” He turned off at the side street that led to the furnished room where he lived.
On reflection, George couldn’t think of any time when he would have wanted to be a Slav, either. He waved to John, who, filled with himself as he often was, didn’t see or didn’t notice--in any case, John didn’t wave back. Sighing, George headed on home himself.
Several people on the street had blankets over their tunics like sad excuses for cloaks. George didn’t blame them. Now that he wasn’t up on the wall fighting for his life, he realized how raw the day was and wished he had a cloak himself. As was the way with such things, wishing did him little good. Along with wishing, he hurried. That not only made him a little warmer than he would have been otherwise, it also got him home sooner.
George was growing resigned to gasps of relief and excited exclamations whenever he walked through the door into his shop. They helped him understand why armies, whenever they could, fought far from home. It wasn’t so much to keep their own lands from being ravaged, as he’d always thought. More likely, it was so the soldiers could get away from their families and not have them fretting every minute of the day and night.
“Are you all right, Father?” Sophia said now, hurrying toward him. “You’ve got blood on your tunic.”
“Do I?” George looked down at himself. “Why, so I do.” He pulled the hem of the tunic up a little so he could inspect his legs. “It isn’t mine. I’ve said that before and been wrong, so I wanted to make certain this time and not look foolish.”
“What was it now?” Irene asked in a voice so flat and dull from holding in worry that it might as well have been a scream. “We hear people running and people shouting, but we never really know what’s going on till you come home. We’re always afraid till then, too.”
“I’m all right.” George held up both hands so his wife could see as much. Then he stood on one leg like a stork, and then on the other. That made Sophia and Theodore laugh, and even Irene’s smile was a little warmer than dutiful. He went on, “What was it now? The Slavs tried knocking down the foundations of the wall. It didn’t work.
We killed a lot of them and made the rest run away.”
Put that way, it sounded easy, the result seeming foreordained. The few sentences said nothing of the way the wall had shuddered under George’s feet when the Slavs attacked it with picks and pry bars, nothing of the fear that it would do more than shudder, and would come tumbling down like the walls of Jericho in the Bible story. George felt not the least bit guilty at keeping such knowledge from his family. He wished he had no part of it himself.
Theodore said, “I’ll bet you butchered them.”
“We hurt them,” George agreed tonelessly. “I was thinking at the time that you should have been there.” Theodore looked proud till he went on, “Seeing what a man looks like after a rock this big” --he gestured with his hands-- “lands on his head would keep you from going on and on about what you don’t begin to understand.”
Sophia made a small, disgusted sound. Irene looked down at the leather strap she was sewing to a sandal and didn’t say anything. Theodore did think about what his father said; George gave him credit for that. But it didn’t sink in. George could see as much.
Maybe he should have talked about the men who’d had rocks fall on them but didn’t die right away, the men with crushed limbs or broken backs. Maybe he should have talked about the men who’d screamed and screamed after a cauldronful of boiling water came down on them. Maybe he should have-- He shook his head. None of it would do any good, not till Theodore saw it for himself and, more important still, understood in his belly that it could have been he as easily as any luckless barbarian.
“I’m not afraid,” Theodore said, which so decisively proved he’d paid George no attention that the shoemaker, instead of uselessly arguing with him, walked over to his bench to get to some of the work the siege had kept him from doing.
He’d just picked up his awl and noted how smoothly the wooden handle fit against his palm and fingers when Irene said, “Will you come out back with me, please, dear? I want to know whether you think the fennel is ready for picking.”
George muttered under his breath. Irene knew far more about the herbs she grew back there than he did. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d asked his opinion about them. The last time he’d offered it unasked, she’d made a point of ignoring him. And he had more work to do in less time than he’d ever known before. He started to say as much. Before he did, though, he looked over at his wife. Without a word, he set the awl down on the bench and walked out with her to have a look at the fennel.
“Seems fine to me,” he said, pointing at the wispy, light green plants that stood almost as tall as he did.
Irene gave him the stare she reserved for times when she caught him being deliberately obtuse. “Of course it’s fine,” she said with an edge to her voice. “But I can’t very well talk about Sophia right there in front of her, can I?”
“Why not?” George asked. “You talk about me when I’m right there all the time.”
Irene’s left foot began tapping the muddy ground of the herb garden, a sure danger sign. “How much do you know about Constantine, the son of Leo the potter?” she asked.
“Say, as much as I know about any of the young men who live on this street,” George answered. “He doesn’t wear baggy tunics with puffy sleeves and cut his hair short the way the young toughs do, so I suppose he’s not so bad as some. Why do you want to . . ?”
His voice traded off. Looking back, he realized it should have traded off a couple of sentences sooner. Irene’s foot was tapping harder, which showed exactly how stupid he’d been. “Yes, that’s right,” she said, as if he’d asked the right question. “Sophia has noticed him. She’s done rather more than notice him. This morning, she told me she thought he was the sweetest thing God had made since the fruit in the Garden of Eden.”
“Oh.” George suppressed a strong urge to retch. “Oh, dear.” He’d never particularly noticed young Constantine. What he had noticed was a fellow huskier than most whose beard, which he did
