“I’m not alone now,” the larger boy boasted. “We are four against one.”
“Tell us the story of your ancestor, the Emperor Claudius,” another of the boys taunted, but Constantine ignored him, his eyes never leaving the one called Trophimus.
Absorbed in the drama in which they were engaged, none of the boys noticed the approach of the two horsemen Constantine had seen entering the town. When the shorter of the two started to spur his horse forward to break up the incipient fight, however, his companion reached out a restraining hand to hold him back. The second man was taller and broader of shoulder than the first and, though the riding cloak he wore as protection against dust hid his uniform and his rank, soldierly bearing and the habit of command were evident in the way he sat his horse and the carriage of his body.
“Nay, Marios,” he said softly. “Let us see how the boy handles himself.”
“Against such odds?”
“He will know worse.”
Constantine spoke again, interrupting any further words the two travelers might have spoken. “You are four and I am but one, he pointed out to those who threatened him. I will challenge each of you to single combat, one at a time, beginning with this tub of lard before me.”
The youth called Trophimus flushed at the taunt but still hesitated, not certain whether the others would follow him. Then realizing that they were waiting for him to make the first move, his right hand darted to his belt and came up clenching the handle of a knife. It was not a dagger but a short blade with a wooden handle, such as butchers used to trim off the lean meat beside the spine of a beef or a hog. But against an unarmed boy, it was a dangerous weapon, nevertheless.
Ruthlessness of Constantine’s action
Now it was the second of the travelers who started to spur forward, but the swift ruthlessness of Constantine’s action in the face of the threatening knife took care of the situation long before he could intervene. And when the rider saw that the boy was quite able to fend for himself, he reined in his horse again, though watching closely and ready to act, if any of the group chose to attack.
As the blade of the knife flashed in the sunlight, Constantine moved, covering the short distance separating him from the youth called Trophimus in two swift steps. At the same moment, he swung the packet of scrolls he had carried over his shoulder by the end of the heavy strap holding them together. He was careful to keep clear of the knife, but his wouldbe attacker had been so startled by the speed with which his intended prey suddenly became the hunter that he had no time to use the weapon.
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