Thessalonica

One of George’s eyebrows quirked upward. “He’ll yell at us if we’re not late, too. You go to church to pray, You go to militia practice to get yelled at.”

Taking no notice of that, Dactylius grabbed him by the sleeve of his tunic and dragged him out into the street. Behind him, he heard Irene laugh softly. He was never late enough to matter, and most of the time his punctuality had nothing to do with Dactylius. For that matter, he kept the jeweler out of trouble more often than the other way round.

The practice field was just that: a field in the southeastern part of the city, not far from the hippodrome and fairly close to the sea. In the time of George s greatgrandfather, a grandee had had a mansion there, but no one had ever rebuilt the place after it burned down.

A scrawny brown dog sprawled in the grass and watched the rnilitiamen at their exercises. The commander of the regular garrison, up in the citadel on the high ground at the northeastern comer of Thessalonica, would either have laughed or suffered a fit of apoplexy to see it. The amateur soldiers were indifferent archers, poor spearmen, swordsmen longer on ferocious spirit than skill.

George knew he’d never use his bow as well as a professional soldier, even if he did bring back game when he went out hunting. Dactylius shot straighter than he did, though his own bow had a stronger pull. After he missed a shot from a range where he should have hit, he yanked a new arrow out of his quiver and made as if to break it over his knee.

Another of his fellow rnilitiamen, a gangly, curly-haired man named John, not only had the gall to hit the canvas target but then said, “You might as well shoot that arrow, George. After it’s gone wild, someone who knows what he’s doing may find it. If you break it, it’s gone for good.”

“I’ll have you know I bagged two rabbits and two birds yesterday,” George said with dignity.

“Aye, and if the bu

In the militia, though, your mouth would take you only so far. Rufus, the squadron commander, was a gray-haired veteran who’d fought the Ostrogoths in Italy under Narses the eunuch. He had one blue eye, one brown eye, and one nasty disposition. “Let’s see you hit it again, John, before you make like you’re the Second Coming.”

“You couldn’t have your second coming till a month after the first one,” John muttered. But he made sure Rufus didn’t hear him. George blamed him not at all for that. Rufus had to be nearing his threescore and ten, but George wouldn’t have wanted to fight him with any weapons or none.

John nocked his next arrow, drew the bow back to his ear, let fly--and missed, almost as badly as George had done. Rufus laughed raucously. John muttered again. This time, not even George could make out what he said. The shoemaker decided that was probably just as well.

Somebody shot an arrow at the dog. The shaft thumped into the ground six or eight feet away from the beast. The dog never moved. “He’s in the safest place he could be,” Rufus said, and laughed again.

“I would hate him, if only he weren’t right,” Dactylius said. “We have to get better.” His face was probably more intent than when he was setting a ruby into a golden necklace. He aimed, shot--and missed.

“You lugs are all hopeless.” Rufus rolled his eyes. “Come on--all together now.” A ragged volley followed. “By Jesus, the Virgin, and all of the saints, what will you do if the Slavs and Avars ever do come down on Thessalonica”

“Probably something like this,” John said, shivering as if he were about to freeze to death. “Or maybe this.” He gave an alarmingly realistic impression of a man suddenly seized by diarrhea. “Or this.” Now he mimed jumping onto a horse and galloping away as fast as he could go.

George was a sober, serious fellow most of the time. He found himself laughing helplessly at John’s antics. He would have felt worse about it, but everyone else was laughing, too. Rufus had a soul as flinty as any this side of a tax collector’s, but he guffawed with the militiamen he commanded. “You’re a fu

John’s next arrow not only hit the target, it pierced the center of the bull’s-eye. “How about that?” he said triumphantly.

“That’s even fu

On their way back to their places in the workaday world, several of the rnilitiamen, George among them, stopped in a tavern for a mug of wine. “Maybe even for two mugs of wine,” George said, liking to spell things out as precisely as he could beforehand.

“Maybe.” Dactylius sounded nervous. He might have been a trooper in the militia, but his wife Claudia, whose gray eyes and fair skin spoke of Gothic blood, was larger and brawnier and of a sharper temper than he.

The taverner, a long-faced, swarthy man named Paul, seemed gladder to see the rnilitiamen than was his wont. He filled their mugs up to the top and didn’t scrutinize the coppers they passed across the bar as if certain every other one was a counterfeit. “Are you feeling well, host of ours?” asked a plump fellow named Sabbatius.

“As well as a forest when the birds fly south for the winter,” Paul answered in a gloomy croak. “Aye, the birds are flying, sure enough.”

“Are you making riddles?” Sabbatius asked, swigging at his wine. He was liable to stay for more than a mug or two--or three or four.

“I don’t think he is,” George said. He studied Paul. “I think he’s heard something. You have heard something, haven’t you?”

“Good thing you make shoes instead of asking the questions when the torturer’s doing his job,” the taverner said. “Aye, I’ve heard something, and if it’s so, you militiamen are going to be all that’s in the way between us and trouble for a while.”

“What do you mean? Four or five of the amateur soldiers asked the question at the same time.

Paul shrugged. “My line of work, you do hear things. Some of the things you hear, you wish you hadn’t, if you know what I mean. This is one of them. If I did hear right, most of the regular garrison is heading out of town.”

“Christ have mercy!” Sabbatius said, beating George and several others to the punch. “Why do they want to go and do a fool thing like that?”

“Don’t know that they want to,” Paul answered. “When you’re a soldier, though, you don’t do what you want to. You do what they tell you to. Way I hear it is, Priscus the general is in trouble against the Avars and the Slavs somewhere off in the back of beyond”--he pointed vaguely toward the northeast--”and he needs soldiers, so off they’re going to go.”

“That’s not so good,” George said. He looked around the tavern, then back to Paul. “Would you want Thessalonica defended by the likes of us?”

“If I say no to that, you people will throw things at me,” Paul replied, a smile stretching his face in unfamiliar directions, “but if I say yes I’ll be lying. What am I supposed to do about that?”

“I will have two mugs of wine after all,” Dactylius said, as if that were a matter more important than the regular garrison’s leaving Thessalonica.

While the taverner filled his mug with a dipper, George pondered the question he’d asked. In due course, he told Paul, “Maybe you ought to join the militia, too. Then you’d have no one but yourself to blame for whatever might go wrong.”

“Aye, maybe I ought to at that,” Paul said. “I don’t have forty years on me yet, and if I’m no Hercules, I’m no tun of suet, either, like some people I could name.” He looked pointedly toward Sabbatius.