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 can keep coming at us, I think you’re right,” George answered. “But we’ve given them a fine set of lumps every time they’ve tried. How many men did they lose today? It had to be hundreds. Rufus is right--they’ll take a while getting over that.”
“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.