Thessalonica

“Yes, surely,” Irene agreed, but less confidently than he would have expected from her. She was worried, too, then.

She lay on her left side, facing him; he lay on his right. He set a hand on her hip, partly to reassure her, partly as a sort of silent question. He’d learned early in their marriage not to take her when she didn’t feel like being taken; the anger and arguments following that lasted for days, and were far more trouble than brief pleasure was worth. She, on the other hand, had learned not to deny him unless she was emphatically uninterested. For the most part, the compromise--about which they’d never said a word, not out loud--worked well.

If she’d flopped down onto her belly, he would have rolled over, too, and gone to sleep. Instead, she moved toward him, sliding across the linen of the mattress cover. He held her for a while, then peeled her out of her tunic and took off his own. Her body was warm, familiar, friendly in his arms. They seldom surprised each other in bed these days, but they made each other happy. As far as George was concerned, that counted for more.

Afterwards, he and Irene both used the chamber pot again, then redo

Breakfast was leftover stew, along with more bread. Irene sighed, then said, “I wonder how many women have prayed for a way to keep food fresh longer than a day or two.”

“God has bigger things than that to worry about,” George said.

“Evidently,” his wife answered, leaving him with the feeling that he’d been punctured, even if he couldn’t quite tell how.

He didn’t have time to worry about it long; with the rest of the family, he went downstairs and got to work. Whenever they didn’t have anything else to do, they worked on heavy-soled sandals in assorted sizes. Some farmers outside of town would make their own, but those were usually crude rawhide affairs, and didn’t last. George had spent years building up a reputation for solid craftsmanship. When you buy from George, you get your money’s worth, people said.

Once, a couple of years before, Theodore had remarked, “You know, Father, if we made the leather thi

He’d obviously thought he was being clever. Because of that, George had been gentle when he said, “The trouble is, son, if the leather wore out faster, people would have to come back sooner, yes, but they wouldn’t come back to us. They’d pick another shoemaker, one who gave them sandals that didn’t fall to pieces in a hurry.”

And, sure enough, the first customer of the morning was a farmer named Felix. “Good to see you’re still here,” he said to George in backwoods Latin. “I’m not fixing a hole this size, I don’t think.”

He held up a sandal. The sole was mostly hole. What wasn’t hole was bits of leather, some ta

Felix did. His gnarled hands had a little trouble with the small bronze buckles, but he managed. He walked back and forth inside the shop. A smile came over his weathered face. “That’s right nice,” he said. “I’d forgotten walking doesn’t have to feel like you’ve got a sack of bumpy beans under each foot.”

“Glad you like them,” George said; starting off the day with a sale always struck him as a good omen.

Felix, all at once, looked less happy than he had a moment before. “Guess I shouldn’t have said that. Now you’re going to charge me more on account of it.” He cast an apprehensive eye toward George. “What are you going to charge me?”

“That’s a good pair of sandals--you did say so yourself,” George answered. “I was thinking … six miliaresia.”

“Half a solidus?” Felix exclaimed. He made as if to throw the shoes at George. “I figured you’d say something more like two.”

After an argument they both enjoyed, they split the difference. Felix also promised to bring a sack of raisins to the shop the next time he was in Thessalonica. Maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. The four silver coins he did pay were enough for George to turn a profit on the deal.

“How are things treating you these days?” the shoemaker asked, to make sure no bad feelings lingered after the haggle--and because life would have been boring if he let people out of his shop without finding out what they knew.

“Not bad, not bad,” Felix answered. “Always a lot of fairies and such about, there away from town. It’s quiet here, God be praised: everybody inside the walls believes in Him, pretty much. Not like that out in the country, you know. Old ways hang on.”

“That’s so,” George agreed. “I saw a satyr myself yesterday, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve seen them, too,” Felix said. “I chase my daughters into the house when they’re about, just on account of you never know--you know? But these I saw a few days ago, they weren’t like anything I seen before. Pretty women, they looked like, with long yellow hair and with wings on their backs. Not angel wings, with feathers and all--more like beetle wings, all clear and shimmery. I made the cross at them, like a good Christian ought to, but they stood there and smiled at me. It was like they never seen it before.”

“Maybe they hadn’t,” George said, and told him about the wolf. “New people on the move, new gods and demons moving with them.”

Felix clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Hard times, sure enough,” he said. “Well, God will protect us, I expect I hope He will, anyhow.” He headed out of the shop, then turned back. “The sandals feel good, George. I thank you for that.” With a wave, he was gone.

George turned back to his son. “There, do you see, Theodore? Do a proper job and your customers come back to you.”

“Yes, I see, Father.” Theodore gri

The shoemaker didn’t know whether to smack the youth or start laughing. He let out a strangled snort, which satisfied neither of those impulses. If God did protect Thessalonica, he thought, it would be either because He ignored the younger generation or because He was even more merciful than the Holy Scriptures said. As George pondered those two choices, he realized one didn’t necessarily exclude the other.

He was delicately tapping an awl to produce a tooled pattern on a boot for a prominent jurist when Dactylius stuck his head into the shop. “Archery practice this afternoon!” the little Greek jeweler exclaimed. He carried a bow and had a quiver on his back. “Have you forgotten? I’ll bet you have!”

“You’re right, I did forget,” George admitted. “I start doing this fine work”--he pointed to the boot-- “and I don’t think about anything else.”

“Go on, dear,” Irene told him. “Germanus won’t be expecting those boots for at least another week. You’ll have plenty of time to finish them.”

“You’re right.” He didn’t know why he bothered saying that; Irene was generally right. To Dactylius, he said, “I’ll go get my bow and arrows--be right back.” He hurried upstairs, grabbed the bow off the pegs where he’d hung it, and picked up his own quiver. He slung it over his shoulder as he returned to the ground floor.

Dactylius was hopping from foot to foot, as if he needed to visit the latrine. He seemed all the more excitable when paired with stolid George. “Come on!” he said. “Rufus will yell at us if we’re late.”