Thessalonica

by Harry Turtledove

  Thessalonica’s streets were dark and quiet and cold. George wished for a torch to light his way--and then, after a moment, he didn’t. No one could see him, but everyone would be able to see the torch. That just might cause talk in the city.

  Here came a fellow swaggering along as if he owned the street. The stout bludgeon he carried in his right hand was doubtless intended to persuade anyone who might doubt his view of the situation. George reached up to make sure the cap was firmly on his head. This was a fellow Thessalonican he had no interest in knowing better.

  Away from the main avenues, which formed a grid, Thessalonica’s streets wandered crazily. Without a torch, George got lost a couple of times and had to backtrack. If the Slavs and Avars broke into the city, he suspected some houses would go unplundered simply because the barbarians couldn’t find them.

  Shouts told him he was getting close to home. They weren’t shouts from anyone who’d seen him. They were Claudia’s shouts, aimed at Dactylius. In the nocturnal stillness, they carried a long way. Anybody who cared to listen could get an earful of Claudia’s views of her husband’s shortcomings. Anyone who didn’t care to listen was liable to be awakened.

  You could throw a rock or an old shoe at a cat. George had no idea how to make Claudia shut up.

  Partly guided by her abuse, he found his own front door. He tried the latch. The door was barred. He knocked on it. The same problem applied here as it had at the postern gate: he wanted to wake his family, but not the neighbors. He knocked again, louder, and hoped he wasn’t being too loud.

  After a while, he heard someone moving inside. Theodore’s sleepy voice came through the door: “Who’s there?”

  “I am,” George said.

  “Father?” Theodore undid the bar. Before his son opened the door, George remembered to snatch the cap off his head. He didn’t want Theodore thinking he was a ghost.

  He took off the cap just in time. The little lamp Theodore held in his left hand seemed dazzlingly bright. In Theodore’s right hand was the longest, sharpest awl in the shop, in case George had turned out to be somebody else. Theodore dropped the awl with a clatter, set down the lamp, and embraced his father, bursting into tears as he did.

  Somehow, George got into the shop and closed the door before Irene and Sophia dashed downstairs and added their embraces and tears to Theodore’s. “Thank God you’re safe,” Irene said, over and over. “Thank God you’re here to stay.”

  “I’m not here to stay,” George said. His wife stiffened against him. He had to drag his words out one at a time: “I have to leave the city again, or else, I think, it will fall.”

  “How can you leave the city?” Sophia demanded. “Stay here with us. You’ll. . . you’ll. . . Something bad will happen if you don’t.” She’d probably been trying to say something like, You’ll get killed if you don’t, but hadn’t been able to do it.

  “I don’t think so.” As George spoke, he set Perseus’ cap on his head. His wife and children cried out in astonishment as he disappeared. He took off the cap and became visible once more. “You see? The Slavs won’t even know I’m anywhere around.” He knew he was making it sound easier than it would be, but he didn’t want his family worried.

  Irene pointed to the cap. “Where did you get that? Who gave it to you? Who--or what?”

  Quick as he could, he explained what it was and where he’d got it. Irene’s disapproval grew with every word he said. He tried to forestall her: “Could you get me something to eat, please? I’ve been tramping all over everywhere on not very much, believe me.” Bread and honey and olives and wine put new heart in him.

  But no sooner had he taken the last swallow than Irene said, “Now--why did these pagans and these, these creatures send you into Thessalonica and expect you to come back out again?”

  “They want me to bring Father Luke to them,” George said.

  He’d thought that would startle his wife, and it did. “But they’re satyrs and centaurs and fairies and pagans,” Irene protested. “What do they think a man of God will do for them?”

  “Help drive back the Slavs and Avars and their powers,” George said. “They aren’t strong enough to do it by themselves. We may not be strong enough to do it by ourselves. Together, God willing ...”

  “Would Father Luke go?” Sophia asked. “I can’t believe a priest of God would hobnob with these, these things.” She shivered.

  “I think he will,” George answered. He explained the penance Eusebius had set on Father Luke for manipulating the Avars’ thunder gods. “I’m going to ask him, anyhow. He’s not so set in his ways as most of the other priests I know.”

  “What if he won’t go, Father?” Theodore said. “Will you stay here then?”

  “Yes, then I will stay,” George said. “If we come through the siege, I’ll have to go up into the hills afterwards and give the cap back to Gorgonius. But for now, I’ll stay.” He held up a hand. “But if I do go with Father Luke, don’t let anyone know I’ve come back into the city now. just say you hope I’m all right and you think you’ll see me again.”

  “What I hope,” Irene said fiercely, “is that Father Luke tells you he wants nothing to do with this scheme, and hat it’s mad, pagan wickedness. And I hope you listen o him, too.”

  “If he says that, I will listen to him,” George promised. If he says that, I’ll be back here in an hour or so, and we’ll go on about our business and hope for the best. I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “We’ll wait up for you,” Irene said. Sophia and Theodore nodded.

  “All right.” George would sooner have told them to go back to bed, but he knew they wouldn’t listen. He said, “In case I don’t come back here, remember, don’t let anyone know I was in the city. If people are gossiping up on the wall, the Slavs and Avars are liable to hear them and find some way to stop Father Luke and me.”

  His son and daughter nodded again. At last, reluctantly, so did Irene. George embraced her, knowing he was using up a marriage’s worth of faith in a night, and going into debt besides. If it didn’t come out right--if it didn’t come out right, he doubted he’d be in any position to apologize.

  He hugged Theodore again, and then Sophia. “Everything will be fine,” he said. Words had power. They were magical things. Saying that made it likelier to come true. After a last awkward nod, he set Perseus’ cap on his head. His wife and children exclaimed again, so he knew he’d vanished He opened the door and went back out into the night.

  St. Elias’ church was only a few blocks away. Its doors stood open, as they always did. It was dim and dark inside, though, with but a handful of candles burning. George’s shadow flickered and swooped like an owl after mice as he walked down the aisle toward the altar, in front of which Father Luke stood praying. Probably still at his penance, George thought.

  At the sound of George’s footsteps, the priest turned. Even in the semidarkness, Father Luke’s smile glowed. “George!” he exclaimed. “Thank God you’re safe!”

  “Yes, I--” George stopped in confusion as he realized he was still wearing the cap. “You can see me?”

  “Of course I can.” Now Father Luke gave him a quizzical look. “Shouldn’t I be able to?”

  “This is hallowed ground,” George muttered, reminding himself He hoped that meant nothing more than that the magic in Perseus’ cap was overcome by a stronger power here, not gone for good. Only one way to find out. “Your Reverence, will you please not think I’m a crazy man if I ask you to step outside with me for a minute or two?”

  “George, I could think you were a great many things,” the priest answered, “but I’m hard-pressed to imagine you crazy. I’ll come with you.”

  George couldn’t feel anything different happen when he left the holy precinct. Father Luke, though, suddenly jerked in surprise. George let out a sigh of relief. He took off the cap. His reappearance startled Father Luke again. “You see, Your Reverence,” George said.

  “Yes, I see,” Father Luke said. “
Or rather, I didn’t see you for a little whole there. I suppose you’re going to tell me there’s a story attached to this, this--vanishing trick.”

  “There certainly is,” George said, and proceeded to tell it. Only the faintest light leaked out of the church. Shrouded in darkness and shadow, Father Luke’s face was unreadable as the shoemaker went through the strange things that had happened to him since Menas slammed the postern gate in his face.

  When he’d finished, Father Luke stood silent for a while, then said, “This village of Lete and others like it up in the hills, they sound as if they’re ripe for evangelizing one day soon.”

  “That may be so, Your Reverence,” George said in some alarm, “but--”

  The priest held up a hand and laughed quietly. “But one day soon isn’t quite yet,” he said. George nodded. Father Luke stood in thought for another little while, then said, “Well, let’s go.”

  “Just like that?” George said in surprise.

  “Just like that,” Father Luke agreed. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, but--” Only a couple of days before, George had been thinking about the difference between what he wanted and what life commonly handed him. Something else crossed his mind, too: “What will Bishop Eusebius do to you after you come back from consorting with pagan powers again?”

  “I don’t know,” the priest answered. “Whatever it is, he will do it and I will accept it. If we save the city, he’ll be able to do it. If Thessalonica falls to the Slavs and Avars, what Bishop Eusebius might want to do to me becomes a bit less important, wouldn’t you say?”

  Since that was exactly what George would have said, he didn’t say it. Instead, he nodded again. “Thank you, Your Reverence.”

  “For what?” Now Father Luke sounded startled. “You’ve been risking your life, and maybe your soul as well, for the sake of the city. Wouldn’t you call me mean-spirited if I did anything less?” Without giving George a chance to reply, he started west along the street on which St. Elias’ church lay. “You did say you came in at the Litaean Gate?”

  “That’s right.” George hurried after him. If the priest was worried about traveling through Thessalonica by night without even a torch to light his way, he showed no sign of it. George said, “Uh, Your Reverence, the one thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how to get you out of the city and past the Slavs and Avars without them spotting you.”

  “God will provide,” Father Luke said serenely. “His plans are hidden from mortal eyes, but never from His own thought. Now, I suggest you put on that extraordinary headgear you borrowed. You won’t want to leave the fellow at the postern gate any more confused than he is already.”

  “You’re right about that,” George said. He and Father Luke were walking past the cistern where the priest had defeated the Slavic water-demigod. Seeing it reminded George how urgent their mission was. He set the leather cap on his head. He’d carried it till then, out of a vague sense that vanishing in front of Father Luke would be rude.

  “Extraordinary,” the priest repeated when he did disappear.

  No footpads came leaping out of deep shadow to assail Father Luke. That was as well for them, since he now had more unseen protection than the power of the Lord alone. On a cosmic scale, George supposed his using Perseus’ cap to baffle robbers would be only slightly more important than Gorgonius’ using it to spy on good-looking women, but, as a mere man, the shoemaker found the cosmic scale too large to worry about anyhow.

  When he and Father Luke got to the Litaean Gate, he discovered a new crew of guards had come on duty since he’d entered Thessalonica. He was glad of that; as things were, the fellow who’d admitted him wouldn’t be faced with the improbability of Father Luke’s wanting to go out along with the flat impossibility of his own arrival.

  The new man at the postern gate was surprised enough as things were. “Why on earth do you need to go out there, Your Reverence?” he asked Father Luke.

  “Because I have reason to believe the Slavs and Avars are planning something particularly devilish, and I have the chance to forestall it,” the priest answered: all true, but none of it very informative. Father Luke put some snap in his voice, saying, “Are you going to listen to me, or shall we send for Bishop Eusebius to tell you what he thinks?”

  George knew sending for the bishop was the last thing Father Luke wanted. The guard didn’t. Hastily, he said, “All right, Your Reverence. You know what you’re doing, I’m sure.” He unbarred the postern gate and pulled it open. Perhaps because it had been opened not long before to admit George, the hinges did not squeak much.

  Father Luke got between the guard and the open gate for a moment. That let George slip out ahead of the priest The postern gate shut behind Father Luke. “Well, well,” he murmured, peering this way and that. “How best to get past the Slavs and into the woods?”

  “Would you like to wear the cap yourself, Your Reverence?” George asked. “I got past them once in the daylight. I expect I can do it again.”

  “No, don’t worry about it.” Father Luke stepped away from the sheltering shadow of the wall. “We’ll just go on and trust in God.”

  In every church in Thessalonica, in every church in the Roman Empire, in every church in Christendom, priests preached sermons on the glory of martyrs. St. Demetrius was a martyr for the faith. George felt horribly certain Father Luke was about to become another one.

  As Father Luke had stood between the guard and the postern gate, so now George stood between the priest and the encampment of the Slavs and Avars. He told himself that was useless: if he was invisible, the barbarians would see right through him and spot Father Luke. He kept on doing it anyhow, on the notion that it couldn’t hurt and might possibly do a little good. He didn’t know exactly how the invisibility worked. If it made people see around him instead of turning him transparent, maybe it would make the barbarians see around Father Luke, too.

  With every step he took, he expected a hoarse shout from a Slavic sentry. He glanced back at Father Luke. The priest’s lips were moving in prayer. Maybe that was why the Slavs and Avars faded to spot him as he walked across the open ground toward the woods. Maybe George-- and Perseus’ cap--did help shield him. Whatever the reason, no outcry came.

  In among first brush and then trees, George murmured, “Thank God.” Father Luke heard that. The shoemaker thought he smiled, though in the darkness he had trouble being sure. “Did I not say the Lord would provide?” the priest said quietly. “If He sent a chariot and horses all for fire for Elijah, surely He could manage something rather less dramatic for me.”

  George wondered what sort of miracle God had worked. Had He cloaked Father Luke in a separate bit of invisibility, or had He used Perseus’ cap to His own ends? Could He do that with magic not His own? George had no answers, but those were intriguing questions.

  He wondered what Father Luke thought. If he ever had the chance in a place where making noise mattered less, he resolved to ask him. Of one thing he was certain: this was not the moment.

  Having been this way before, he guided Father Luke north. He did not think, though, that he could find the hills beyond those he knew without help from Ampelus or one of the other creatures out of legend. He would have to get to the encampment of the centaurs and satyrs on his own.

  Somewhere ahead in the woods, a wolf-demon howled. George knew the creature could not sense him, not when he wore the cap. The Slavs and Avars hadn’t been able to sense Father Luke’s presence, but they were only men. He wondered what the wolf-demon would do, and remembered what Ampelus had said of the one that encountered a priest in the woods.

  No sooner had he whispered a prayer that none of the wolf-demons would find Father Luke and him than one of them, eyes glowing even in forested night, strode out onto the game track the two men from Thessalonica were using. It snarled--it knew the priest was there.

  George drew his sword and started to advance on the wolf. If it could not see him, he might hurt
it badly-- that was how Perseus had slain Medusa. But before he got close enough to slash, Father Luke made the sign of the cross and said, “Depart, in the name of God.”

  The wolf howled. It sat back on its haunches in absurd surprise, as if the priest had hit it in the muzzle with a stick. Then, awkwardly, it turned and ran, tail between its legs--again, for all the world like a beaten dog.

  “How--how did you do that, Your Reverence?” George asked in a low voice. “These creatures, they--”

  “I have faith,” Father Luke said calmly. “I need nothing more.”

  Remembering Father Gregory, whom the water-demigod had killed, George slowly nodded. The other priest, the one Ampelus had watched, must have been uncertain or arrogant, too. Father Luke, as far as the shoemaker could tell, had neither arrogance nor uncertainty in him.

  They went on, stumbling through the undergrowth. More wolf-demons gave cry, but none came near. He’s put the fear of God in them, George thought. Most of the time, that was only a phrase. Not here. Not now.

  And then, instead of the wolf-demon Father Luke had routed, Vucji Pastir blocked his way through the woods. As he had with the wolf, the priest crossed himself and said, “Depart, in the name of God.”

  Vucji Pastir’s eyes, always protuberant, almost popped out of his head. Their glow, and that of his hair and beard, dimmed a little. But he did not depart, nor even retreat. “You are strong, priest,” he said, “but not strong enough to defeat the shepherd of the wolves.” As it had in Georges earlier meeting with him, his voice sounded directly in the shoemakers mind, and no doubt in that of Father Luke as well.

  “Depart,” Father Luke repeated. “In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the name of the holy Virgin Mother of God, in the name of St. Demetrius the chief martyr, in the name of gentle St. Catherine, in the name of St. Elias whom I serve--depart, depart, depart!”

  Now Vucji Pastir’s eyes blazed. He opened his mouth wide, showing his own fierce teeth. A great laugh burst from him. “Are you deaf, foolish priest? You have not the strength to make me do your will. I shall not leave if you tell me once, if you tell me three times, or if you tell me three hundred. Flee now, I tell you in the name of great Vucji Pastir--flee or be my meat.”