That was a prayer to conjure with, literally and figuratively. George shivered again. He could think of no one who could hope to come through safe based only on justice, with no mercy thrown onto the scales to temper the verdict. How much more would that be true of the
Slavs and Avars than of people at least acquainted with the Christian faith?
Someone stepped on his foot. He looked around. There stood Menas, who, by the smug expression on his fleshy face, hadn’t done it by accident. George sent up a prayer of his own, for some undoubted divine justice to come to the nobleman who had taken a dislike to him.
Bishop Eusebius looked up through the beams of the roof to the heavens beyond. “We pray, O Lord our God, that Thou savest Thy city of Thessalonica and Thy Christian people in it” --not a word about the Jews in it, George noted, despite Eusebius’ citations of the Lord’s aid to the Israelites in days gone by-- “by smiting the Slavs and Avars with loathsome plagues and diseases, showing forth Thy power in that way and making the barbarians whom Thou hast accursed withdraw in terror and disorder. Amen.”
“Amen,” the worshipers in the basilica said solemnly, Menas and George for once agreeing. George hadn’t been willing to pray for Menas’ getting an arrow in the face when Theodore suggested it. He wondered if he really ought to be praying for dysentery or the bubonic plague to visit the Slavs and Avars in their camps. How was one different from the other?
The only answer he could come up with was that, when he prayed for something dreadful to happen to Menas, he would be praying for his own personal advantage. When he prayed for the Slavs and Avars to take ill, he was praying for the well-being of all the Christians (and even the unmentioned Jews) in Thessalonica. He hoped that was enough of a difference.
A moment later, he remembered that Menas was himself not only a Christian, but one whom God had directly aided through a miracle. A prayer for some misfortune to land on him was much less likely to be acceptable than one for the discomfiture of the pagans beyond the wall.
That made George feel better, but only for a Little while. Out beyond the wall, the gods of the Slavic wizards and Avar priests would find their prayers the more acceptable. How did that leave George on the moral high ground?
He wasn’t sure it did. The powers and gods the Slavs and Avars reverenced were both true for them and powerful as he had seen. His chief hope was that God would prove more powerful. That took things out of the realm of morals altogether, and into the realm of brute force.
Brute force mattered. Anyone who had ever walloped a child for doing wrong knew as much. But… George cast a speculative eye Menas’ way. Maybe he should have asked God to let the nasty noble stop an arrow with his face. God only knew what Menas had asked Him to do to George.
The Slavs, George reminded himself. The Avars. Once they abandoned the siege, life would return to normal. Then he could worry about Menas and his ilk. Till then, the survival of the city had to rank ahead of his own.
Another reason to pray for the plague to visit the barbarians, he thought, and did so.
“The divine liturgy is over. Go in peace,” Eusebius said. As George and Theodore filed out of the church, the shoemaker reflected that that farewell offered a strange contrast to the catastrophe the bishop and the congregation had called down on the heads of the warriors besieging Thessalonica.
As soon as they were outside, Menas said, “Do you know what I was praying for, shoemaker?”
“Something unpleasant for me, I don’t doubt,” George answered, and the noble smiled unpleasantly to show he was right. Shrugging, George said, “If I were you, sir, I’d spend more time praying camels fit through the eye of needles. If they don’t, you’ll have trouble fitting through the doors to the kingdom of heaven. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to meet my wife and daughter.”
He felt Menas’ eyes boring into his back as he walked away. Theodore set a hand on his arm. “That’s telling him, Father! That’s telling the big-bellied toad he can’t mess around with you.”
“Oh, I can tell him that,” George answered. “I can tell him any number of things. Whether they’re true or not. . .” He shook his head. “That’s different.”
In a strange way, George enjoyed mounting to the stretch of wall near the Litaean Gate that had become almost as familiar to him as his workshop. Up here, at least, he knew who his enemies were and from which direction they were likely to strike.
Rufus and John stood on the wall now. “God bless you, George,” John said. “You’re as reliable as my bladder after three mugs of wine.”
“Thank you so very much.” The shoemaker made as if to examine John’s neck, then whistled as if astonished. “I see Rufus still hasn’t tried strangling you. I wonder why not.”
“I’m an old man.” Rufus got into the spirit of raillery in a hurry. “This sprout here, he’s too quick for me to catch him.”
“I love you both.” John planted a big, wet kiss on George’s cheek, which led both of them to make disgusted noises. “You’re as bristly as a boar’s back,” John exclaimed. “But, like I said, you’re here, which means I don’t have to be. See you soon, I expect.” He strode toward the head of the stairs, whistling one of Lucius and Maria’s better tunes--not that that was saying much.
“Who’s up with you, George?” Rufus asked.
“Sabbatius,” the shoemaker answered.
Rufus made a face. “I’m liable to be up here a while, then. By St. Demetrius, I’m liable to be up here his whole time on the wall, if he’s gone and got outside a whole great lot of wine the way he sometimes does.”
“I can only think of once when he didn’t come up at all,” George said, “and if you didn’t put the fear of God into him then, he’ll never have it.”
“If he were in the regular army, I wouldn’t have just screamed at him,” the veteran answered. “He’d have got himself a beating, or else someone would have taken a sword to his thick neck. You can’t do that kind of thing. I should have given him worse than he got as things are. With us under siege here, the militia are the regular army. I must be getting soft.”
George found that unlikely. He reckoned it unwise to say how unlikely he found it. In lieu of saying any such thing, he pointed out from the wall and asked, “Any sign of the Slavs’ coming down with the plague?”
Rufus shook his head. “Not so I’ve noticed, anyhow. That kind of curse, if God grants it, usually comes later than you wish it would.” Motion at the top of the stairs made his eyes flick in that direction. “Speaking of curses coming later than you wish they would--”
Actually, Sabbatius wasn’t late, or wasn’t very late, anyhow; George had been early. “Hah!” Sabbatius said. He smelled like wine past its best days, but he usually smelled like that.
“A good day to you,” George told him. There were people with whom he would sooner have spent his time up on the wall--the faces of almost all the members of his militia company flashed before his eyes--but telling Sabbatius what he thought of him wouldn’t solve anything. It wouldn’t even mean they could avoid stints together. It would just make them snarl at each other. George saw no point to that.
Rufus didn’t leave right away. George sometimes wondered if the militia captain had set up housekeeping on top of the wall. Aside from that, Rufus also had a habit of staying around longer than usual when Sabbatius was coming up for his turn, no doubt to make sure Sabbatius could get through that turn without falling asleep or starting to see things that weren’t there.
Except for squinting against sunlight that didn’t need to be squinted against, Sabbatius seemed in good enough shape this morning. He walked out to the edge of the wall to see what the Slavs and Avars were up to, which was more than he often did. When he started to laugh, George wondered if he was seeing snakes and aurochs instead.