Thessalonica

But he might well have been the first Christian ever to set foot in Lete. That he walked into the village with Ithys and Ampelus and Stusippus, with Crotus and Nephele, argued that he was. Had Christians dwelt in Lete, their crosses and relics and icons would have forced the satyrs and centaurs to stay away.

The villagers stared at the centaurs, but only in surprise, not in superstitious dread. They took the satyrs utterly for granted, nodding and waving to them and calling greetings to Ithys, who was evidently a frequent visitor. Oh, a couple of matrons hustled young daughters presumably maidens off the streets when Ampelus and Ithys strolled by fondling themselves, but that was the sort of motherly precaution Irene would have taken with Sophia had they dwelt here rather than down in the city.

George got a much more careful scrutiny than satyrs or centaurs. The people of Lete were familiar with his companions. He was a stranger, and therefore an object of suspicion till proved otherwise.

He wondered what Bishop Eusebius would have made of a place like this. The short answer, he thought, was hash.

He understood why the good and holy bishop of Thessalonica left Lete alone. The good and holy bishop undoubtedly hadn’t the slightest idea the village existed. Ithys, leading the way, had found it without trouble, but George doubted whether he himself could have come back unaided. Folds in the hills hid a good many villages, but none so well as this one.

“What can they have here?” he asked Crotus.

“Means for your ingress into Thessalonica, an we be fortunate and the cockproud satyr speak sooth,” the male centaur answered.

That was more of a response than any George had dragged out of the creature till now. “What sort of means?” he demanded.

“I know not, not with certainty,” Crotus said. “I had not thought such means yet lay under the sun.”

“If you don’t know what and you don’t know whether, what in” --he almost said God’s holy name, which would have forced his companions to flight-- “do you know?”

“I know we have hitherto failed, which doth vex me, as it doth you, in no small measure,” Crotus said.

George walked along fuming. The male made no more sense than if it had suddenly started speaking Slavic. Seeing his anger and confusion, Ampelus said, “All sorts old things here: old things, strong things. Strong things, but not strong enough out there.”

That didn’t make any sense, either. And then, after a moment, it did, or maybe it did. Christianity was too strong for the old paganism of Greece. As the old faith and old powers fell back, naturally they would bring their talismans with them. Could winged slippers fly without a god in them? Or maybe the satyr meant something else altogether. George would find out.

In the midst of strangeness, one thing was familiar: the grapevine painted outside a budding near the center of the village. George said, “Shall we go in and have some wine?”

Ampelus and the other satyrs nodded. As their heads happily bobbed up and down, so did their phalluses. But Crotus and Nephele drew back in something like horror. “This is why we come not into villages,” Nephele said. “Did you not hear, foolish mortal, that wine doth madden and enrage us?”

That deep voice coming from such a lushly female form never failed to disconcert George. At the moment, his own embarrassment disconcerted him more. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I forgot.”

“Fortunate it is that the folk of Lete have memories better trained to retention,” Crotus said. “They know better than to serve us of the drink that inflameth us-- and that, by its sweet savor, tempteth us to inflammation.” The male’s left forehoof took a quarter of a step toward the tavern. When it noticed, it stood very still indeed. “I want wine,” Ampelus said.

“Wait,” George told the satyr. Pouting, it obeyed. George spoke to satyrs and centaurs both: “Who here is best able to tell us how we can use whatever is in this village against the Slavs and Avars?”

“The taverner,” Ampelus exclaimed.

Crotus and Nephele both loomed over the satyr. “Enough of this japery and nonsense,” the male centaur rambled,

“It is Gorgonius the carpenter,” Ithys said. “He has this--thing.”

“I pray he hath a tongue that scoffeth not,” Nephele said. “Lead on.”

Ithys led. George followed, not without a regretful glance at the wineshop as they passed it. He also came with a certain amount of relief that Menas had locked him and not Sabbatius out of Thessalonica. Sabbatius would have headed for the wineshop regardless of what that might do to the centaurs.

Along with the pleasant smells of new-cut wood and sawdust, Gorgonius’ establishment smelled of leather, an odor with which George was intimately familiar-- and which made him wish he were back in his own city. The carpenter was repairing the webbing of a bedframe when George and his companions came in. “Good day, friend,” Ithys said.