“Maybe I will,” the taverner said again. Most of the time, that meant, Not on your life, but I’m polite about it. This time, George thought it meant he probably would.

Dactylius gulped down that second mug of wine and hurried out of the tavern. George’s opinion was that he shouldn’t have poured it down so fast; he was walking at a slant. If he was working on anything delicate, it wouldn’t turn out so well as it might have. Claudia would notice, too--as far as George could tell, Claudia noticed everything, whether it was there or not--and make Dactylius regret it.

Although Sabbatius liked to drink, he was next to sidle out the door. He’d been staring down where Paul had stowed the nasty club. He was bold enough shooting at targets in the field, and at practice with swords, too. George got the idea, though, that he’d found the notion of having nails pounded into his own personal, precious flesh distinctly unappealing.

George left the tavern a few minutes after Sabbatius. He hurried back toward his shop--this was news more important than having seen a satyr. No one could know for certain what the latter portended, but anybody this side of an idiot was able to see the garrison’s leaving Thessalonica meant trouble.

When Sophia saw him coming up the street, she ran out of the shop, exclaiming, “Father, guess what! You’ll never guess what!”

“I don’t know,” George said agreeably. “What? Once you’ve told me, I have something to tell you, too.”

“I was in the market square buying some parsnips for Mother,” Sophia said, her eyes snapping with excitement, “And people were saying the regular army is going to march out of town, to go help with the wars God knows where. Isn’t that important? Isn’t that worth hearing?”

“Well, yes, it is,” he admitted.

He was never a man who got very excited about anything. His stolidity this time, though, irked his daughter. “You must be angry at me for telling you my news and not waiting to hear yours,” she said. “What was your news, anyway?”