Thessalonica

by Harry Turtledove

  Deacons and acolytes and altar boys scurried up and down the aisle, keeping it clear so Bishop Eusebius could advance to the altar. A rising hum of conversation said he was on his way. George craned his neck, but taller people around him kept him from seeing the bishop. Rumor declared Eusebius would say something important this morning, which was why George and his family had come to St. Demetrius’. Rumor, frustratingly, was mute about what the bishop would say.

  Celebrating the divine liturgy in a church as splendid as any outside Constantinople was of itself enough to leave George convinced the longer walk than usual had been worth making. But when Bishop Eusebius finally got around to his sermon, more jostling and pushing and shoving started up, with everyone trying to get closer to hear him better.

  “My children,” he began, “the vicious barbarians outside our gates still seek to inter Thessalonica in a sarcophagus of their design.” George smiled to himself; Eusebius remained fond of trotting out tombs and coffins. “Thanks to the power of God and of our own holy saint, we have thus far prevented them from achieving their wicked ends.”

  The bishop went on, “But our hold on safety is not secure. Far from it! The Slavs and Avars, being ignorant of the power of the one true God, have at their beck and call a host of vile powers, whom they have summoned again and again to try to overwhelm us. They have come too close to success.”

  A murmur of agreement ran through the basilica, much of it, George thought, from militiamen. He added his small part to the murmur, whispering to Theodore, “They certainly have.” His son nodded but waved for him to be quiet so they could hear what Eusebius was saying.

  George had, to his annoyance, missed a few words. “--so they think we can use our own power, the power of truth and righteousness, only for defense,” the bishop declared. “But, my fellow Christians, I tell you they are mistaken. God not only heals His flock, He curses the wolves who seek to pray upon it. Let us beseech Him to curse the Slavs and Avars, who so plainly need to become acquainted with His wrath.”

  Back in Paul’s tavern, George had casually wished a pestilence on the Slavs. He was sure half the people in Thessalonica, likely more, had expressed similar wishes. That was not the sort of thing Bishop Eusebius was talking about. A shiver ran through George. When a bishop formally asked God to bring a curse down on an evildoer’s head, the Lord was likely to deliver.

  Eusebius said, “God has granted such prayers before,” echoing George’s thought. The bishop went on, “When Pharaoh of Egypt would not let the children of Israel depart his lands in peace, God visited upon him the Ten Plagues. Did Pharaoh of Egypt oppress the children of Israel more harshly than the khagan of the Avars oppresses the people of Thessalonica? I think not, my children.”

  Was Eusebius right? George wondered. The Slavs and Avars had ravaged the countryside and killed and wounded a number of militiamen on the walls, but they hadn’t enslaved the Thessalonicans or forced them to make bricks without straw. And they’d been here for weeks; they hadn’t held the Thessalonicans in bondage for generations. But if the Avars ever broke into Thessalonica, what they would do was liable to be worse than anything Pharaoh had visited upon the Israelites. George gave Eusebius the benefit of the rhetorical doubt.

  The bishop went on, “When the wicked Assyrians, who knew God not, besieged Jerusalem, the Lord sent a plague into their camp, so that they had to give over the siege. What He did for Jerusalem, He shall surely be willing to do as well for this famous city of Thessalonica, which, as He has shown, He enfolds under His protecting arm.”

  Thessalonica did indeed have a name for being a God-guarded city. And it was more than a name, or Rufus would not have been inspired to warn of the Slavs’ onset. That thought passed through George’s mind in a moment. The one that followed and stayed longer was curiosity about how Benjamin the Jew would have felt, listening to Eusebius going on about miracles worked on behalf of his people, not on behalf of Christians.

  If that inconsistency bothered Eusebius, he gave no sign of it, continuing, “What God has done in days gone by, He can surely do again, for, as we have seen with our own eyes, my children, the age of miracles is not yet past. And so let us with full hearts and reverent spirits offer up a prayer to God our Lord that He have mercy upon us now as He did upon the Israelites in days gone by and smite the Slavs and Avars with plagues and pestilences such that they are compelled to withdraw from the environs of this God-protected city, and such that they suffer from the aforesaid sickness as they deserve for the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Let us pray that they are requited as justice demands.”

  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.

  But he pointed to show the shoemaker and Rufus what he was seeing. “Look!” he exclaimed. “They’ve got the galloping trots.”

  Sure enough, a couple of Slavs were squatting just beyond archery range from the wall. A couple of more were running for the trees. One of them, realizing he wasn’t going to make it, also suddenly assumed an undignified posture. More and more of the besiegers seemed afflicted.

  “Isn’t that nice?” Rufus said happily. “One of their cooks must have tossed something bad into the stewpot last night, and now they’re paying for it. I’ve been in armies where things like that happened.”

  “Look at them,” Sabbatius said again, in high glee. “The whole bunch of ‘em’ll be sick by this afternoon, looks like.”

  George stared out at the Slavs. “Do they just have bad stomachs,” he asked, “or is that the plague Bishop Eusebius asked for?”

  “What?” Rufus snorted and started to laugh. “You think God’s answering Eusebius’ prayer through the Slavs’ arseholes? Because ...” He couldn’t go on, but doubled over, grabbing his knees as he guffawed.

  “Do miracles have to be fancy?” George said. “You know dysentery. Have you ever seen a whole army come down with the runs as fast as this?”

  “A whole army down with the runs? Plenty of times,” Rufus answered. “It would happen to the Goths and the Franks all the time. They were too stupid to keep from pissing and shitting in rivers upstream from their camp, and I’ll bet the Slavs and Avars are, too. But as fast as this?” He rubbed his chin. “Mm, maybe not. They were fine an hour ago, sure as sure they were.”

  “They aren’t fine now,” Sabbatius said. “Look at ‘em go!” George wondered if he’d intended the double meaning, or, for that matter, even noticed it. Sabbatius went on, “Shame it’s so far into fall, most of the flies are gone. Otherwise, they’d be biting ‘em on their bare bums, just like they deserve.” His pronouns were tangled, but his meaning seemed clear.

  “If we attack now, could they fight back?” George asked Rufus.

  “Probably,” the veteran answered. “You don’t die from the runs, most of the time--you just wish you did. If somebody’s really trying to kill you, you’ll yank up your trousers fast enough, and that’s the truth. I remember back in Italy, there was this Lombard, and he--”

  What the incontinent Lombard did or did not do, George never found out. Sabbatius pointed out over the wall again, saying, “Look. Here’s that ugly Avar bugger with the funny clothes again, and he’s got some Slavs with him who’re cursed near as ugly and funny-looking as he is.”

  Sure enough, the Avar wizard or priest or whatever he was and the Slavic sorcerers who had defeated Bishop Eusebius’ charm on the grappling hooks had their heads together now. The way they were seriously discussing things, now and then pointing toward the stricken Slavs, left George sure of what they were talking about. Their manner almost made him laugh; in different vestments, they might have been Eusebius and some priests hashing over a fine theological point.

  Rufus said, “You don’t see any of the likes of them running for the slit trenches, mind you.”

  George kicked himself for not having noticed that. What it meant wasn’t hard to figure out. “They have some way of turning aside the curse, then.”

  “I’d say you’re likely right,” Rufus answered, nodding. “Wish you weren’t, but I think you are. Next question we get to have answered is whether they can protect the odds and sods in their army, not just themselves.”

  “How can they do that?” Sabbatius said indignantly. “This isn’t Eusebius cursing
them--its God cursing them. You can’t keep God from doing what He’s going to do to you.”

  “You can if you’ve got gods of your own--or maybe you can, anyhow,” George said. “Some of those gods are pretty strong, too, not like the pagan ones we’re used to. Those gods, they’ve been fighting God for hundreds of years, and they’re worn out and beaten. The gods of the Slavs and Avars are running up against God for the first time now. They have all their strength and power still, and that means they can put up a good fight, same as the Avars and Slavs do against Roman armies.”

  He might as well have been talking to one of the paving stones of the walkway. “You can’t keep God from doing what He’s going to do to you,” Sabbatius repeated, as if George hadn’t spoken at all.

  Out beyond the wall, one of the Slavic wizards might have accused another of heresy. The reaction was about the same as if one Christian priest had accused another of heresy, anyhow: the offended party first struck a dramatic pose, almost as if he were turned into a statue illustrating denial, and then, that failing, punched his accuser in the nose. The two of them rolled around on the ground, hitting and kicking each other till their companions pulled them apart.

  After that, their deliberations went more smoothly. The Avar walloped one Slav, but the lesser wizard accepted the rebuke in the same way a junior priest might have accepted chastisement from Bishop Eusebius. The Avar priest stared in toward Thessalonica. From where he stood, he would have been peering more or less in the direction of the basilica of St. Demetrius, though the walls hid it from his gaze.