Harry Turtledove: Thessalonica

“One cup,” George said, and the barmaid went off to pour it. Father Luke beamed, pleased to have been taken at his word. George had long since found that taking the priest at anything less than his word was a mistake.

When the woman brought back the wine, Father Luke asked, “May I propose a toast? If you consider that rude because I am not drinking, by all means say so. George made haste to wave for him to go on. Smiling, the priest said, “Drink to Nephele and Crotus and the rest of the centaurs for me, then. They went without wine rather longer than Bishop Eusebius has enjoined such abstinence for me.” Half to himself, he murmured, “Abstinence,” again, and then, very quietly, “Nephele.” If the thoughts going through his mind at that moment were ecclesiastical, George would have been amazed.

“I’m glad to drink to that one,” the shoemaker said, and did. “If it hadn’t been for the centaurs--and for you to persuade them to get roaring drunk--we’d all be worse off than we are now.” He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Didn’t the bishop tell you not to have anything more to do with them, though?”

“That he did.” Father Luke grinned. “He did not, however, forbid me to drink their health, at least vicariously.” The grin got wider. George recognized it: it was the one Theodore had given him when, as a small boy, he’d found a way around some instruction of George’s. Laughing, George finished the wine.

But he didn’t laugh long. After a little while, he said, “I’m afraid we’re not rid of the Slavs and Avars for good.”

That sobered Father Luke, too. “If the Emperor Maurice can drive the barbarians back beyond the Danube--which I pray he succeeds in doing--then we may be free of them for a long time to come,” he said. “If he is less fortunate on the battlefield--”

“Heaven forbid!” George exclaimed. “What I wouldn’t have given to see our garrison of regulars come galloping to the rescue, there at the end of the siege.”

“And I,” the priest agreed. “But they served the Roman Empire elsewhere, as was God’s will. And so we, and Thessalonica, made do with centaurs. Centaurs fit into the divine plan, too.”

“They would tell you otherwise, if they could speak the name of God,” George said.

“I know they would.” Father Luke was unruffled. “They are undying, and wise, and lovely.” Was he thinking of Nephele again? Before George could nerve himself to ask, the priest went on, “But they are also faded, defeated by the new dispensation, and in any case only creatures of local power seeking to judge the one universal and almighty God. They may no more comprehend Him in fullness than may you or I.”

“They would tell you otherwise there, too,” George said.

“I know,” Father Luke repeated, unruffled still. “If you like, I’ll say my say all over again, so we can have the argument at yet another remove.”

“No, thanks.” George tried another tack: “If we’d been late coming down from the hills, the gods of the Slavs might have overthrown Thessalonica before we could do anything to the wizards who brought them forth.”

“So they might have,” Father Luke said. “But we were in good time, if barely in good time, the reason being that God did not allow us to be late.”

“You’ve got all the answers,” George said, chuckling.

The priest shook his head. “No. Only one.” He rose from the table and clasped George’s hand. “I was heading back toward St. Elias’ when you waylaid me and dragged me in here. If you can stay a bit longer, drink another cup of wine for me.” Off he went, a man who knew where he was going and why.

“Do you want that cup of wine or not?” the barmaid asked when George sat for a minute or two without calling for it.

He stared at her. She stared back, altogether unembarrassed about eavesdropping. “Yes, I’ll take it,” he said at last. She brought it over to him and hovered till he set coins on the tabletop. By the way she scooped them up, she might have suspected they were counterfeit. Thus encouraged, George gulped down the wine and left.

It had started to snow while he was in the tavern. Snowflakes danced in the air. A thin layer of white lay over everything, not yet streaked with soot, not yet trampled into slush. George stood outside the doorway for a moment: the falling snow was beautiful.

It was also cold. He wrapped his tunic more tightly around himself and hurried off toward his own home and shop. The snow crunched under his boots. Every time he exhaled, he breathed out fog.

As he walked along, shivering, he thought about what Father Luke had said. Crotus and Nephele thought differently: he’d said as much himself. The Avar priest had thought differently, too, till the centaurs put paid to him. Who had the right of it?

“Menas, a part of God’s plan?” George snorted. The notion was absurd on the face of it.

He walked a few steps farther. Then, despite snow, despite cold, he stopped. Was it absurd? Or was the pattern of events larger and more complex than George had perceived till this moment? Had God cured Menas’ paralysis so that the rich noble, having become George’s enemy, could, by shutting him out of the city, force him up into the hills to meet the centaurs, to gain Perseus’ cap, to bring Father Luke up into the hills to get the centaurs drunk so they would have the spirit to attack the Slavs and Avars besieging Thessalonica and help save it?

He looked up into the gray sky. Was that God’s will he saw, or only his own imagination running away with him after a couple of cups of wine? Either way, how was he supposed to tell?

A snowflake landed on the tip of his nose. He brushed it off and started walking again. He was only a couple of blocks from home.