The shoemaker didn’t really listen to the rest of John’s routine. People laughed every so often, so he suspected his friend was doing well. And, when John finally came back to the table, the bowl he brought with him was nicely full of coins. He sorted them with his usual quick dexterity.

George said, “I do wish you wouldn’t tell jokes on Menas so often.”

“Why, in God’s name?” John didn’t look up from what he was doing. “He’s funny, is what he is. I can’t think of anybody funnier in the whole world, him swaggering around like he’s got God’s hand in his drawers.”

“The trouble is, he does--or he did, anyhow--have God’s hand in his drawers,” George said uncomfortably,

“Yes, but God didn’t put it there to play Menas’ trumpet for him,” John answered, setting a silver miliaresion off by itself with a pleased grunt. “Menas still hasn’t figured that out, even though it’s been months. He’s pretty stupid, too; he may never get the idea.”

“Regardless of how stupid he is” --a sentiment with which George heartily concurred-- “he’s rich, too, and he’ll get you in trouble if you keep making jokes about him.” He’ll get me in trouble if you keep making jokes about him. But George remained too stubborn to tell John about that.

“What’s he going to do?” the comic asked. “Make me leave town? I can’t go by land, and if he puts me on a ship he does me a favor.”

“He can make your life miserable while you’re here,” George said. “Believe me, I know.” That was as close as he would come to revealing the trouble to which his friend had contributed.

“My life is already miserable while I’m here,” John said. “A little less miserable,” he amended, “because the night’s take is pretty good. And if Verina’s in the right kind of mood--” He raised his voice and called to the barmaid: “Hello, sweetheart! What do you say you and I--”

“I say no, whatever it is,” Verina answered. “All those broken cups I was cleaning up, I wish I’d broken them over your head.” George didn’t know what John had done to her, or what she thought he’d done to her, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with him now, stalking off nose in air.

If he was embarrassed, he didn’t show it. Going up in front of an audience to tell jokes for a living had no doubt hardened him against embarrassment. “It doesn’t matter,” he said lightly. “She’s no good in bed, anyhow.”

That, for once, hadn’t been pitched to carry to Verina’s ears, but she heard it and came storming back. “For one thing, you’re a liar,” she snapped. “For another, you’ve never had the chance to find out whether you’re a liar. And for one more, you’re never going to have the chance.” Off she went again.

John got more laughs than he had through his whole routine, all of them aimed at him. Had George been publicly humiliated like that, he wouldn’t have dared show his face on the street for weeks afterwards. John took it all in stride. By the calculating look on his face, he was figuring out the jokes he’d tell about it the next time he got up in front of a crowd.

Having gone to Paul’s tavern, George was glad he had an afternoon shift on the wall the next day. He was less glad about staring into the westering sun; the day was cold but brilliantly clear. The glare in his face made it hard for him to keep an eye on whatever the Slavs and Avars might be doing.

John didn’t worry about that, and had some reason not to worry: the barbarians’ encampment seemed as quiet as it ever had since the siege began. The comic said, “They’re probably all out with their sheep.”

“You told that one last night, John,” George said patiently.

“Go on, complain about every little thing,” John said. “I think--”

George didn’t find out what John thought. Up farther north along the wall, someone started shouting in a very loud, unpleasant voice: “Call yourself a fighting man, do you? A fighting man is supposed to be alert in the presence of danger. He is supposed to--”

Had Rufus been giving that dressing-down, neither George nor John would have thought anything of it. As it was, John’s face gave the impression that he’d smelled some meat several days later than it should have been smelled. George’s lip also curled. “Menas,” he said.

Menas it was, and he was, to George s dismay, heading in the direction of the Litaean Gate, spreading joy and good cheer in front of him. John glanced his way and said, “What’s that thing he’s carrying? Besides his big, ugly belly, I mean.”

“His war hammer--is that what you’re talking about?” George said. “I’ve seen him lugging that around before. It’s a rich man’s toy, if you ask me--something that makes him feel like a soldier even if he’s not.”

He wasn’t a soldier himself, as any member of Thessalonica’s regular garrison would have told him in as much detail as he could stand. But he’d done real fighting since the Slavs and Avars infested the city, which was more than Menas could have said. George checked himself. No: it was more than Menas could truthfully have said.

And here came the noble, twirling the hammer around by the leather strap attached to the end of the handle. He glared at George as if at a moldy spot on a chunk of bread. “Haven’t I told you to stop insulting me?” he growled. “Haven’t I warned you I’ll get my own back if it’s the last thing I do?”

“You’ve done all those things, sir,” George answered. “What I haven’t done is insult you.”

“Liar!” Menas shouted, loud enough to make militiamen within a bowshot of him turn their heads his way. “The latest is, you say God cured me so I could go around shouting at people.”

Whoever had reported John’s joke to him had got the words right, but Menas had got the source wrong, as George had known would happen. The shoemaker wondered if John would own up to having said it, and if Menas would believe him if he did. Since John kept quiet, the latter didn’t become an issue. George said, “I did not say that about you, sir.”

“Liar!” Menas shouted again.

“I did not say that,” George repeated. “If you keep doing the things that someone said about you, though, I will start saying them myself. I’ll have to start saying them myself, because you’ll have made them true.”

Menas stared at him. Being a rich and prominent man, being a man to whom God had granted a miracle (for what reason, George could not imagine, and he’d tried-- how he’d tried!), the noble was not accustomed to having anyone speak so pointedly to him. He raised the hammer, as if to strike George down.

George sprang backwards. He had an arrow on the string and the bow down almost as soon as his feet hit the walkway again. The point of the arrow--a bronze point, perhaps made by Benjamin--was aimed at a spot a palm’s breadth above Menas’ navel.

As nothing George said had ever managed to do, that made Menas thoughtful. He lowered the silver-chased hammer. George lowered the bow so the arrow pointed toward the walkway rather than Menas’ brisket. He held it at full draw, though, ready to bring it up in a hurry if the noble was only pretending to back away from a fight.

“How you’ll pay!” Menas snarled. “You’ll wish the Slavs and Avars had got hold of you by the time I’m done.” He stamped south along the walkway. George resisted the temptation to put the arrow in his bow straight through Menas’ left kidney. It wasn’t easy. He had to make himself replace the arrow in the quiver one motion at a time.

“Getting credit for my lines, are you?” John said when Menas started bellowing at some other luckless militiaman farther down the wall. “That’s a trouble you could probably do without.”

“Now that you mention it, yes,” George answered. John was bolder with his insults when the target wasn’t standing right there in front of him. George tried to get angry at that, but found he couldn’t. Most men were made the same way.

“That’s why you’ve been after me not to tell jokes about him anymore,” John said, with the air of a man for whom a dark corner of the world has suddenly become bright.