We remain bored, George thought. Victor not only liked to talk, he liked to hear himself talk. Eventually, he might come to the point. Meanwhile, George could stop listening for a while. He admired a pretty girl not far away. The wind was blowing her tunic tight against her body, so that she might almost have been naked.

Looking with lust in your heart at a woman not your wife was a sin. George knew as much. He also knew that, had Irene been standing there beside him and caught his eye straying toward that girl, she might have stuck an elbow in his ribs, but she would have been laughing while she did it. He sometimes thought she had more forgiveness for human frailty than the church did.

He started listening again, on the off chance the prefect was getting around to anything important--assuming, as might or might not have been justified, that he ever did get around to anything important. At the moment, he was saying, “--our magnificent metropolis, guarded by God, certain of protection from our patron saint, warded by our walls--” Not being in the mood for alliteration, George daydreamed a little while longer.

Victor began to shift from foot to foot. That either meant he was coming to the point or that he needed to break off and run for the jakes. Hoping it was the former, George began paying attention once more. His optimism was rewarded, for the prefect declared, “And so, citizens of Thessalonica, my delegation and I shall travel to the imperial city, there to petition his imperial majesty, the splendid Roman Emperor Maurice, to send from elsewhere in the Empire, from lands less threatened by barbaric inroads, a new contingent of soldiers to take the place of those who have gone to fight. In the meanwhile, of course, I am certain our militia will continue to offer complete security for Thessalonica.”