Rufus pawed through the pile of stones, casting aside with such fervor those he didn’t care for, everyone nearby had to step lively to keep toes from getting smashed. When he finally found the one he wanted, George stared in astonishment. He had no idea why, or for that matter how, people had carried it up to the top of the wall in the first place. It looked too big and heavy for any two men to lift, let alone one.
Rufus took hold of it. His lips moved silently. Prayer? Curse? George couldn’t tell. The veteran strained-- whatever power was in him, he was pushing it as far as it would go, maybe farther. No. Up came the stone, not so smoothly as the one before but up nonetheless. Staggering a little, Rufus got it to the edge of the wall, set it down so he could pant for a moment like a winded dog, and then, with what looked to be all the strength he had in him, shoved it off.
George heard a crash, but no screams. The feel of the pounding under his feet changed subtly. “I don’t think anyone in that tortoise is left alive,” he said in tones of wonder. “You just wrecked it.”
“Good,” Rufus told him. If this was a miracle, it didn’t leave him confused and dazed, as he had been when St. Demetrius spoke through him. Instead, he sounded ready to pick up another stone and heave it down onto the Slavs. That was exactly what he did, though the one he chose this time was small enough not to leave George wondering whether he’d had divine help handling it.
After casting another stone at the Slavs (and not worrying in the least whether he was without sin), George traded arrows with some of the archers down on the ground. When he was shooting--or flinching from shafts flying far too close to his face--he thought about the impossibly large stone Rufus had lifted. Impossibly? He shrugged. Maybe not. Men in battle could do strange things. He’d already seen that for himself, limited as his experience was. If he believed half the tales he’d heard--
There stood Rufus, solid and bandy-legged, about the least likely man (or so anyone with sense would think) through whom God would choose to work a miracle-- but God had already worked one through him, no matter what any man with sense would think. So maybe He had worked two.
“You, George! You fallen asleep there?” the subject of the shoemaker’s musings demanded in his rough soldier’s Latin. “You’ve got no business doing that. John hasn’t been telling his jokes up here, after all.”
“Stick out your tongue,” John told him. Rufus did, a gesture more contemptuous than obedient. A physician would have been proud of John’s wise, thoughtful nod. The words that followed, though, were less than Hippocratic: “I remember George said he was missing one of his files. Now I see where it’s turned up.”
“You go on like that, see where you turn up in a little while,” Rufus retorted. “Somebody else doesn’t do it for me, I’ll put you there.”
John picked up a heavy stone and made as if to throw it at the veteran. “Here--catch,” he said, but then hurled it down on the Slavs.
“Brothers, the lot of us,” George said. He shot at a Slav--and missed. After some halfhearted blasphemy, he went on, “How are we doing? The wall doesn’t feel so much as if termites are nibbling at it.” Were his feet feeling what he wished them to feel, or had the Slavs’ efforts to undermine the wall really slowed down?
Rufus said, “I think you’re right. Lord knows I hope you’re right. But I tell you this--right now I’m not going to stick my head out and look down to the bottom of the wall to find out if you’re right.”
“That’s sensible,” George said. “I’m not, either.”
“It is sensible,” John said, apparently to no one in particular. “How did he ever manage to come up with it?”
“When this fighting is done--” Rufus began in a voice thick with menace. But he broke off, shaking his head. “Ahh, what’s the use? I should have known better than to try making a soldier out of you. But near as I can guess, we may drive the Slavs off this time, but there’s never going to be a time when all the fighting’s done.”
“I pray you’re wrong,” George said, “but I think you’re right.”
“It’s as sure as burying your money back of your house,” Rufus said. He looked around. A couple of militiamen were lugging a great jar of water up the stairs to pour it into the cauldron to heat. More men were carrying stones in upside-down shields.
“Are we going to have enough things to throw down to make them give over before they bring down a stretch of wall?” John asked--the question on everyone’s mind.
“If God is kind, we will,” George answered. So far as he could tell--with the possible exception of Rufus’ lifting those two enormous stones--the fight here was of men against men, not of God against the powers of the Slavs and Avars. He’d meant what he said as a general wish, then, not as a prayer for divine intervention.
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.