Harry Turtledove - Thessalonica

“You’re a gentleman,” Gorgonius said. “Don’t go away. I’ll be back with the wine and the food.”

He brought everything in on a fancy wooden tray he must have made himself. Along with the chicken, he had bread and sun-dried apples. One cup of wine became several. George taught him a couple of tavern songs from Thessalonica that hadn’t made their way up into the hills before. In turn, Gorgonius sang a couple so old they’d been forgotten down in the city. They might have been old, but they weren’t bad. George hoped he’d remember them.

After a while, Gorgonius said, “You’ll spend the night in my barn again. Better that than finding some place to he up in the woods, I expect.”

“I should be all right, as long as I have--” George stopped and stared suspiciously at his winecup. Once he left Lete, he wouldn’t have Perseus’ cap anymore. He covered his mistake as best he could, saying, Thanks again.”

“Any time, any time.” Maybe Gorgonius hadn’t noticed the error anyhow; he sounded pretty vague himself. He held out the dipper. “More wine?”

“Why not?” George said.

As he had the last time he slept in Lete, George spent a little while brushing wisps of hay out of his hair and off his tunic when he woke up in the morning. Gorgonius gave him a flat loaf of barley bread and a small flask of wine. “You want to have a care going home, you know,” he said seriously. “You won’t be wearing the cap, mind you.”

“Yes, I understand that,” George answered. No, the carpenter hadn’t noticed his flub the night before. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

“Come up here again,” Gorgonius said as the shoemaker stepped out into the street. You’ll be welcome.”

“Why don’t you come down to Thessalonica?” George said. “I won’t tell Bishop Eusebius you’re there.” He realized Irene would have some detailed opinions to express about the prospect of a visit from a pagan. But, since Perseus’ cap had saved not only George but also, very possibly, Thessalonica itself, the shoemaker had some opinions of his own, too.

“Who knows?” Gorgonius said. “Maybe I’ll even do that. You never can tell.” He sounded as if he might have meant it, and was surprised to discover as much.

As George headed out of Lete and down toward Thessalonica, he looked around for Ampelus and for the woman who’d been hanging out her wash. He didn’t see either one of them. The laundry she’d hung out was still draped in the tree. George wondered what that meant. She and Ampelus couldn’t still be at it… could they? He supposed satyrs wouldn’t be satyrs if anything along those lines were impossible for them.

When he got into the woods, he moved as quietly and cautiously as he could. He’d come to take for granted the protection Perseus’ cap gave him. Now that he was without it once more, he knew how vulnerable to his foes he was. If a band of roving Slavs found him, he was in trouble. If a Slavic wolf-demon found him, he was in bigger trouble.

Perhaps because he was so cautious, he had another good day hunting. He got a couple of rabbits, and also got a squirrel he caught on the ground before it could scramble up into a tree. If he found a place where he thought it safe to build a fire, he’d eat well. If he didn’t, he’d bring the meat home to Irene, who could do tasty things with it beyond toasting chunks of it on a stick over the fire or baking it in clay.

He was, he supposed, somewhere a little more than halfway to Thessalonica when he came across the Slav. Each of them stepped into the same small clearing at the same time. George’s sword was in his hand. The Slav carried a heavy javelin or light spear. If he threw it and hit George, he’d win the fight straightaway. If he threw it and missed, all he had left with which to defend himself was a short dagger.

He didn’t throw the spear. Instead, he darted back in among the trees. So did George. The shoemaker began a cautious sidle to his right, hoping--praying--the Slav was alone. He’d gone more than halfway round to the other side of the clearing before he called to mind the expression on the barbarian’s face at seeing him. The Slav had been at least as horrified as he was. That argued the fellow was alone, too, and hoping George wasn’t part of a band of Romans.

When George got to the point from which the Slav had emerged, he stepped into the clearing and looked around. At almost the same moment, the barbarian poked his head out from the spot George had occupied. They stared at each other again, then both went back into the forest once more.

This time, George kept on heading south. He paused every little while, listening to make sure the Slav wasn’t stalking him. He never heard anything, and the barbarian didn’t leap out at him from behind with a savage shout. After he’d gone a few furlongs, he had a sudden mental picture of the Slav nervously traveling north, pausing every little while to make sure the fearsome Roman wasn’t on his trail.

George laughed. He knew he wasn’t particularly fearsome. If the Slav didn’t know that, he wasn’t about to tell him. Even so, George walked a bit more confidently after that.

He got back to Thessalonica a few minutes after sunset, with the last of the evening twilight still staining the sky. “You have a good day out there?” a militiaman at the Litaean Gate asked.

“Pretty good.” George patted the wallet so the guard could see how nicely fat it was. Nodding, the fellow waved him into the city.

A few minutes later, he was back on his own street. People waved to him there, too. He was something of a hero to his neighbors, not for anything he’d actually done while he was trapped outside the city--he had said very little about that, thinking the fewer who knew, the better-- but simply because he’d come back after being given up for lost. Even Claudia called, “God loves you, George,” as he walked by. George wondered how much God had had to do with it, and how much the pagan powers had accomplished. He didn’t argue with Claudia, though. Arguing with Claudia was a losing proposition.

Constantine, Leo’s son, nodded warily to George as they passed on the street. George nodded back. He remembered giving that same sort of wary nod to Irene’s father, back in the days when they were courting and their families were dickering. He supposed that meant Constantine was likely to end up his son-in-law. He sighed. He still thought Sophia might have done better. But then, Irene’s father had thought the same thing about him.

He walked into his shop. Sophia and Theodore let out squeals inconsistent with the adult dignity they usually affected. He hugged them both. Irene came downstairs.

He hugged her, too, and showed her the carcasses of the animals he’d caught on the way to and from Lete.

She ignored them. “That thing you had” --she would not dignify Perseus’ cap by its proper name-- “it’s gone?”

“Yes, it’s gone,” George said.

“You went to and from that place” --Irene would not dignify Lete by its proper name, either--“safely?”

George decided on the instant that she did not need to know about the Slav he’d met in the woods. “Yes,” he answered.

He thought he’d spoken without hesitation. Irene’s face told him he was wrong. But she didn’t press the point, saying instead, “And now that you’re back, you’ll stay here with your own family for a while?”

By a while, he knew she meant something like, the next thirty or forty years. Nevertheless, he said “Yes” again.

This time, he really must have spoken without hesitation. His wife smiled and said “Good” and kissed him. Right then, staying in Thessalonica struck him as a pretty good idea after all.

As if Rufus were making a command decision in the middle of a battle, he grabbed three of the rickety little tables in Paul’s tavern and pulled them into a line. “There,” he declared. “Now we can all sit together.”