Atlantis and Other Places (31 page)

The priest nodded. “That’s what the Farmers’ Law says you do if a mill takes too much water out of a river—not that the Lalandos is much of a river, especially in summertime. It’s a fair law, I think.”

“So do I.” Sophia reached out and set a hand on his arm, a startling intimacy. “And so does Demetrios. He never said a word when he had to let it rest idle. And why should he have? We make a good living from the smithy as is.” Pride rang in her voice, as Demetrios’ hammer rang off hot metal.

“I’m sure you do,” George said, truthfully enough: Sophia’s earrings were gold, not brass, and her tunic of fine, soft wool from the sheep near Ankyra.

“Well, then—Demetrios wouldn’t have any reason to hurt Theodore, and so he couldn’t have.” Sophia made it sound simple.

Father George wished it were. “By all the signs, nobody had any reason to hurt Theodore. But someone did.”

“Someone certainly did,” Sophia said sharply. “You might ask John about
his
dealings with Theodore. Yes, you might indeed.”

“I intend to,” George said. Sophia nodded. For a heartbeat, he thought she would kiss him. For half a heartbeat, he hoped she would. She didn’t. She just turned and walked away. Shame filled him.
Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart
. He repented of his sin, but he would have to do penance for it, too.

 

 

As soon as the sun rose the next day, Father George went looking for John. He wasn’t astonished to discover John walking toward his house. The farmer nodded to him. Like Kostas, John was a scarred veteran. Unlike Kostas, he was actively bad-tempered. “All right,” he said now, by way of greeting. “I know that miserable bitch Sophia’s been spreading lies about me, but I don’t know what kind yet. I suppose you’ll tell me, though.”

“You didn’t think she was a miserable bitch before she married Demetrios,” Father George said. “None of the young men did.”
I certainly didn’t
. He remembered, and grimaced at, his own desirous thoughts the day before.

John dismissed that with a snort and a wave. “Just tell me what she said.”

“That you were going on about Demetrios’ mill, and why it’s idle,” the priest answered.

“By the Virgin, that’s the truth,” John said. “It’s not like what
she’s
been doing—talking about that ox of mine Theodore killed three years ago. He said it was in his field, and so he had the right, but the carcass was on
my
land. Farmers’ Law says he should have paid me, but he’s a big sneeze here. Did I ever see a copper follis? Not me.”

“Why tell me this?” George asked. “Do you
want
me to think you bore a grudge?”

“Of I course I bore a grudge.” John tossed his head in scorn. “Like I’m the only one in Abrostola who did.” George had to nod; he’d already seen as much there. John went on, “I’ve had it for years. Why should I all of a sudden decide to smash in his stinking, lying head? One of these days, I’d’ve found a revenge to make his heart burn for years. I want to kill whoever did him in, is what I want to do, on account of now I won’t get the chance.” He spat in the dirt. “What do you think of that?”

“I believe you.” It wasn’t what Father George had intended to say, but it was true.

“All right, then. Don’t waste your time coming after me. Don’t waste your time at all.” John stalked off, leaving the priest staring after him.

 

 

“He could have done it,” Irene said that night, over a supper of hot cheese pie with leeks and mushrooms. “He could be covering his tracks.”

“John? I know he could.” Father George nodded to his wife. He wasn’t so sure about John as he had been that morning. “But so could plenty of other people. The longer Theodore’s dead, the more it seems everyone hated him.”

“Who hated him enough to kill him?” Irene said. “That’s the question.”

“I don’t know,” George said unhappily. “And if I don’t find out soon, Anna will go down to Amorion, and the
strategos
or his people will come back up here, and ...” He sighed. “And Abrostola won’t be the same.” He didn’t dwell on what would happen to him, even if the Emperor Constantine and his officials weren’t kind to priests who venerated images.

“It’s not fair. It’s not right,” Irene said. Then she gave a small gasp and grabbed for their daughter, who was helping herself to cheese pie with both hands. “Wash yourself off!” she exclaimed. “You’re a horrible mess.”

“Mess.” Maria sounded cheerful, no matter how glum her parents were. She grabbed a rag and did a three-year-old’s halfhearted job of wiping herself off. “There!”

Irene shook her head. “Not good enough. See that big glob of cheese on your left hand?”

Maria looked confused. “My best hand, Mama?”

“No, your
left
hand,” Irene said, and cleaned it herself. The two words were close in Greek—
aristos
and
aristeros
.
Aristeros
, the word for left, was a euphemism, Father George knew: in pagan days, the left side had been reckoned unlucky. He looked down at his own left hand, on which he wore a wedding ring—to him, a sign of good luck, not bad.

He stared at the ring in dawning astonishment. Then he crossed himself. And then, solemnly, he kissed his wife and daughter. Maria giggled. Irene looked as confused as Maria had a moment before, till George began to explain.

Abrostola hadn’t seen such a procession since Theodore’s funeral, and not since Easter before that. Father George led this one, too. Kostas and John followed him like a couple of martial saints: they both carried shields and bore swords in their right hands. Basil capered along behind them. He had a light spear, the sort a shepherd might use against wolves—not that he got much chance to herd sheep these days. Several other villagers, all armed as best they might be, also followed the priest.

They stopped not at the church, but at Demetrios’. As usual, the blacksmith was pounding away at something—a plowshare, by the shape of it. He looked up in surprise, sweat streaming down his face, when Father George and Kostas and John strode into the smith. “What’s this?” he demanded.

Sadly, George answered, “We’ve come to take you to Amorion for trial and punishment for the murder of Theodore.”

“Me?” Demetrios scowled. “You’ve got the wrong man, priest. I figure it’s likely John here, if you want to know the truth.”

But Father George shook his head. “I’m sorry—I’m very sorry—but I’m afraid not, Demetrios. Theodore wouldn’t think anything of seeing you with a hammer or an iron bar in your hand, because you carry one so often. And it would have been in your left hand, too, for the blow that killed him was surely struck by a left-handed man.”

Demetrios stood over the anvil, breathing hard. As always, the tongs were in his right hand, the hammer in his left. With a sudden shouted curse, he flung that hammer at Father George. Quick as a cat, Kostas leaped sideways to ward the priest with his oval shield. As the hammer thudded off it, Demetrios ran past Kostas and John and out of the smithy.

John swung his sword, but missed. “Catch him!” he shouted. He and Kostas and Father George all rushed after Demetrios.

The smith hadn’t got far. He’d knocked one man aside with the tongs, but the rest of the villagers swarmed over him and bore him to the ground. “Get some rope!” somebody shouted. “We’ll tie him up, throw him over a mule’s back, and take him to Amorion for what he deserves.”

“They’ll put him to the sword, sure enough.” That was Basil, brandishing his spear so fiercely, he almost stabbed a couple of the men close by him. “Sure enough.”

From under the pile of men holding him down, Demetrios shouted, “I gave Theodore what he deserved, the son of a pimp. Thought his turds didn’t stink, screwed me out of the profit I deserved for the mill. His soul’s burning in hell right now.”

“And yours will keep it company.” Three or four men said the same thing at the same time.

Kostas patted Father George on the back. “You did well here.”

“Did I?” the priest asked. He wondered. Murder didn’t come under the Farmers’ Law, but this one had sprung from its provisions.

Just then, Sophia came out and started to shriek and wail and try to drag the villagers off her husband. A couple of them pulled her away from the pile, but not till after she’d raked them with her nails.

“What else could you have done?” Kostas asked.

Father George sighed. “That’s a different question,” he said, and started back toward his house.

OCCUPATION DUTY

Theidas wasn’t thrilled about going upcountry from Gaza—who would have been? But when you were a nineteen-year-old conscript serving out your term, nobody gave a curse about whether you were thrilled. You were there to do what other people told you—and on the double, soldier!

He got into the armored personnel carrier with all the enthusiasm of someone climbing into his own coffin. None of the other young Philistinians climbing aboard looked any happier than he did. The reason wasn’t hard to figure: there was a small—but not nearly small enough—chance they were doing exactly that.

The last man in slammed the clamshell doors at the rear. The big diesel engine rumbled to life. “Next stop, Hierosolyma,” the sergeant said.

“Oh, boy,” said Pheidas’ buddy Antenor.

He spoke softly, but Sergeant Dryops heard him anyway. “You better hope Hierosolyma’s our next stop, kid,” the noncom said. “If we stop before we get there, it’s on account of we’ve got trouble with the Moabites. You want trouble with the stinking ragheads? You want trouble with them on their terms?”

Antenor shook his head to show he didn’t. That wasn’t going to be good enough. Before Pheidas could say as much, Dryops beat him to the punch.

“You want trouble with them on their terms?”
he yelled.

“No, Sergeant,” Antenor said loudly. Dryops nodded, mollified. And Antenor’s reply not only took care of military courtesy, it was also the gods’ truth. The Moabites caused too much trouble any which way. As far as they were concerned, their rightful border was the beach washed by the Inner Sea. The Philistinians? Invaders. Interlopers. Never mind that they’d been on the land for more than three thousand years. In the history-crowded Middle East, that wasn’t long enough.

They don’t even believe in Dagon
, Pheidas thought as the APC clattered north and east, one of a long string of armored fighting vehicles. It wasn’t that he wanted the miserable Moabites worshiping the same god he did. If that didn’t ruin the divine neighborhood, he didn’t know what would. But too many Moabites didn’t believe Dagon
was
a god. Some thought he was a demon; others denied he was there at all. They felt the same way about the other Philistinian deities, too.

Antenor’s mind must have been running in the same direction as Pheidas’, for he said, “They’re jealous of us. They’ve always been jealous of us.”

“Sure,” Pheidas said. You learned that in school. Right from the beginning, the Philistinians had been more progressive than the tribes of the interior. They were the ones who’d first learned how to work iron, and they’d done their best to keep the hill tribes from finding out how to do it. Some things didn’t change much. The Moabites were still backward . . . but there were an awful lot of them, and they didn’t mind a bit if they died in the service of their own grim tribal gods.

Around Gaza, the land was green and fertile. The Philistinians had always had a knack for making the desert bloom. That was why so many nasty neighbors had coveted their country, almost from the very beginning.