“Maybe.” Dactylius sounded nervous. He might have been a trooper in the militia, but his wife Claudia, whose gray eyes and fair skin spoke of Gothic blood, was larger and brawnier and of a sharper temper than he.

The taverner, a long-faced, swarthy man named Paul, seemed gladder to see the rnilitiamen than was his wont. He filled their mugs up to the top and didn’t scrutinize the coppers they passed across the bar as if certain every other one was a counterfeit. “Are you feeling well, host of ours?” asked a plump fellow named Sabbatius.

“As well as a forest when the birds fly south for the winter,” Paul answered in a gloomy croak. “Aye, the birds are flying, sure enough.”

“Are you making riddles?” Sabbatius asked, swigging at his wine. He was liable to stay for more than a mug or two--or three or four.

“I don’t think he is,” George said. He studied Paul. “I think he’s heard something. You have heard something, haven’t you?”

“Good thing you make shoes instead of asking the questions when the torturer’s doing his job,” the taverner said. “Aye, I’ve heard something, and if it’s so, you militiamen are going to be all that’s in the way between us and trouble for a while.”

“What do you mean? Four or five of the amateur soldiers asked the question at the same time.

Paul shrugged. “My line of work, you do hear things. Some of the things you hear, you wish you hadn’t, if you know what I mean. This is one of them. If I did hear right, most of the regular garrison is heading out of town.”

“Christ have mercy!” Sabbatius said, beating George and several others to the punch. “Why do they want to go and do a fool thing like that?”

“Don’t know that they want to,” Paul answered. “When you’re a soldier, though, you don’t do what you want to. You do what they tell you to. Way I hear it is, Priscus the general is in trouble against the Avars and the Slavs somewhere off in the back of beyond”--he pointed vaguely toward the northeast--”and he needs soldiers, so off they’re going to go.”