“Well, they didn’t,” he said, and squeezed her tighter. “And I helped bum one of their battering rams and the shed it came in.”
That made Theodore look not just proud but jealous. It did little to reassure Irene, though. “You mean you went outside the wall?” she said, and shivered when he nodded. “When you didn’t come home after your regular shift on the wall was done, I knew something was wrong. No, I knew it before then, when men started running through the streets shouting about an attack. Waiting and praying and praying and waiting come very hard, let me tell you.”
“We threw them back,” George said. “They couldn’t sneak into the city--St. Demetrius stopped that. And they couldn’t batter their way into it--we stopped that ourselves.” His chest puffed out with what he hoped was pardonable pride.
Sophia came into the shop through the back door in time to hear him. In tones of reproof, she said, “The blessings of the saint on the grappling hooks couldn’t have hurt, Father.”
“Couldn’t have hurt,” George admitted, “but they didn’t help, either.” Sophia and Irene and Theodore all stared at him; he had to remind himself that they hadn’t been up on the wall. He explained: “The Slavs and Avars found a magic to cut through the power in that blessing.”
His family exclaimed in dismay. “How can we beat them if they defeat our power?” Sophia said.
“We managed, just now,” George said. His daughter looked puzzled. He went on, “Powers or no powers, we’re still men, and so are they. It was a straight-up fight on the wall today, and we won it.”
“And outside the wall, too,” Theodore said. “I wish I could have been out there instead of you.”
“Instead of, no,” George said. “Alongside me--that may happen, son. You haven’t got much practice with weapons, but you don’t need much practice to fight from the wall.”
Theodore looked about ready to explode with joy and excitement. Irene looked about ready to puncture George with an awl. She hadn’t been delighted to hear her husband had gone down and fought outside the wail. To hear her son sounding so eager to imitate his exploits left her shaking her head about the male half of the human race.
Sophia sniffed, not scornfully but in a practical sort of way. “I think supper is about ready,” she said, and went upstairs to check. Her voice floated down to the shop: “Come eat, everyone.”
Supper was a porridge of peas and beans and onions, with bread and salted olives alongside. “Good,” George said. “Good as anything we could have had before the Slavs and Avars came.” It would have been a plain supper then and was rather a fine one now, but that didn’t mean he was wrong--not quite. It tasted all right and filled his belly. In the end, what else mattered?
Daylight’s twelve hours were short as autumn drew on toward winter, while those of night stretched like clay in a potter’s hands. George hoped the Slavs and Avars wouldn’t use the long night hours for deviltry. He intended to use every last moment of them for sleeping.
With a yawn, he said, “I’m turning in. Fighting a war is harder work than making shoes.” A lot of warfare, he’d discovered up on the wall, consisted of doing nothing. The moments when he wasn’t doing nothing, though, he knew he’d have those moments printed on his memory till a priest chanted the burial service above his corpse.
No one argued with him, but what he’d said didn’t mean making shoes was easy. His wife and daughter washed the supper dishes in the last fading glow of twilight. When full darkness fell, everyone went to bed.
Lying there beside George, Irene asked, “Have we beaten them back for good, then?”
For the first time in all the years since they’d wed, he got the feeling she wanted him to lie to her. Try as he would, he couldn’t do it. “I don’t know,” he answered, but I don’t think so. They’ll try something else, or maybe he same thing over again, to see if it works better the second time.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “All right.” It wasn’t, lot by the way she said it. But he didn’t hear her. He’d heady fallen asleep.
V
Some nights, George did not want to go straight to bed. After the noble Germanus gave him a good price for a second pair of embossed boots like the ones he’d bought before the siege of Thessalonica started, the shoemaker, coins jingling in the pouch he wore on his belt, went over to Paul’s tavern to spend some of his profit as enjoyably as he could.
He was glad to duck inside. “Close the door!” someone yelled, even as he was doing so. It was chilly outside, but fire kept the tavern cozy.
He looked around for people he knew. Sabbatius sat at a table by the wall, not far from the fire. He didn’t see George. He was already slumped against the wall, half asleep. In the couple of years they’d been in the same militia company, George had never found out what he did for a living. Drink, mostly, as far as the shoemaker could see.
Paul was frying in olive oil some squid a customer had brought in. Fishing boats still sailed out onto the Gulf of Thessalonica to help keep the city fed. They didn’t go far from shore, though, not when autumn storms could blow up almost without warning. The hot, meaty aroma of the sizzling squid sent spit squirting into Georges mouth.
He made his way toward the taverner, who used wooden tongs to take one of the squid out of their bath of bubbling oil and pass it to the fellow who’d given them to him to cook. “Hot!” the man yelped, sticking burned fingers in his mouth. Paul gave him the other fried squid. He burned his fingers on that one, too, but then began to eat.
“Red wine,” George said. Paul filled his mug. He lifted it in salute. “A pestilence on the Slavs!”
Everyone who heard that toast drank to it. George poured down the wine, tossed another follis on the counter, and held out his mug for a refill. This time, he sipped instead of guzzling. He was a moderate man, sometimes even in his moderation.
Somebody waved. George pointed to himself. “No, I don’t want you,” John said. “I’m trying to talk that dipper on Paul’s wall over there to sit by me.”
Shaking his head, George plunked himself down on a stool by John. “Are you going up there tonight?” he asked, pointing to the little raised podium where entertainers performed.
“Easiest way I know to earn my wine,” John said.
“It wouldn’t be for me,” George said. “I’d sooner have the Slavs shooting arrows at me than stand up there and tell jokes in front of a big crowd of people.”
“Yes, well, when they don’t laugh, they’re meaner than the Slavs, too,” John said, a faraway expression on his lean face--he was, George thought, probably remembering times when they hadn’t laughed. After a moment, one of John’s eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. “They’re generally drunker than the Slavs, too,” he added.
“You can joke about making jokes,” George said. “What do you do when they don’t laugh?”
“Die,” John said succinctly. “It happens. If it happens too often, you have to go out and work for a living. I’ve done that, too. Telling jokes is more fun--and besides, I’m no good at anything else.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” George said. “You could work in a stable, because--”
He didn’t get away with it, not this time. “--Because I already know everything about horseshit,” John finished for him. “Ha. Ha. Stage fright isn’t the only reason you don’t go up there, pal.”
“I’m not going to argue with you,” George said. “I tell jokes the way you make shoes. I admit it.” He looked sidelong at John. “Of course, when I make shoes, I don’t run the risk of having to get out of town in a hurry because I’ve made somebody with more money than me angry.”
“What? You mean you didn’t tool germanus likes pretty boys into those fancy boots you made for him?” John said. “I’m disappointed in you. Maybe you did it in tiny letters, or in fancy ones that look like part of the design till you see them just right?”