Thessalonica

Father Luke shrugged. “After George brought me here, I was asked how I could help rally the strength of your land and mine together. I didn’t know then. I still don’t know, but this is far and away the best idea I’ve had.”

Hearing George’s name reminded Nephele he was there. The centaur rounded on him, demanding, “What think you of this crackbrained scheme?”

“Me?” George said. “I think that, if you haven’t got any better ideas yourself, you’d be foolish not to pay attention when somebody else does.”

Nephele’s shoulders sagged, as if the answer he’d given was exactly the opposite of the one the female wanted to hear. “Even you, too?” The centaur sighed, a wintry sound. “Very well, then: I shall broach the matter to my fellows. What may come of it, I do not presume to say. This prohibition your friend is eager for us to break hath almost the status among us of a law of nature. But we shall see.” The centaur turned and trotted away.

“Isn’t this interesting?” Father Luke said with a broad smile.

“Very interesting,” George replied. “If it’s all the same to you, Your Reverence, I’d sooner be bored.”

After Nephele left, George expected the female or Crotus or one of the other centaurs would be back with an answer, yea or nay, in short order. That didn’t happen. George remembered what the satyrs had said about centaurs and discussion, and also his own experience with Crotus. He wondered if he and Father Luke would have a response before spring.

While he waited and the centaurs debated, he asked Ithys to take him to Lete. Father Luke stayed behind, operating under what George was convinced to be the delusion that the centaurs would decide anything soon. “I shall have to be ready to cooperate when the critical moment comes,” the priest insisted.

“I understand that,” George said. “You understand that. The centaurs don’t understand that, though. And they don’t understand that they don’t understand--they think they’re in a hurry. And you, Your Reverence, I don’t think you understand that they don’t understand they don’t understand.”

“I don’t think I understand you,” Father Luke said, laughing. George listened again in his mind to what he’d just said, no longer sure he understood himself. But, after a little thought, he decided he’d--probably--said what he’d meant to say.

A little thought was all he got, because Ithys kept plucking at the sleeve of his tunic. “We go,” the satyr said. “Come. We go.” Having found a willing woman in the village, he was comically eager to get back there: not only to see if she was willing again, but also to learn whether he could find another one.

George carried Perseus’ cap. Now that he was out of Thessalonica, he wished he’d used it to pay a visit to Menas. He hadn’t thought of it while he was in the city, having been more worried about his family’s knowing he was alive and about getting Father Luke. He wondered if that single-minded concern for duty made him an exceptionally virtuous man or an exceptionally stupid one.

He and Ithys drew near Lete without seeing any women of any sort, lecherously inclined or otherwise. The satyr grumbled: “This bad time of year. Spring, summer-- women bathe in streams. Wintertime, no.”

“It’s cold in the winter,” George pointed out. “Do you go into a stream in the middle of winter?”

“Bad time of year,” Ithys repeated. Where centaurs seemed given to endless arguments, satyrs hardly argued at all. They knew what they knew (regardless of whether what they knew had anything to do with the truth), and had no interest in anyone else’s opinions.

Lete occupied only a small hole in the woods, even with fields all around the village. One moment, Ithys was leading George down a game track; the next, they were staring at the village across those fields. Crossing the open ground, Ithys nodded familiarly to the now bare grape vines. He had nothing against wine--on the contrary.

To his annoyance, he got nothing more than giggles from the few women walking through Lete’s narrow, twisting streets. “Not right.” He gave George a dirty look. “Must be your fault.”

George wondered how many times, over the centuries, Ithys had failed to find female companionship coming into Lete alone. Thousands, no doubt. Of course, he’d had only himself to blame then, which was sure to mean he’d blamed nobody.

Gorgonius was pounding a wooden peg into the end of a table leg when George came into his shop. “Good day,” the carpenter said, setting down his mallet. “I’m glad to see you back, and that’s the truth. You seemed a good fellow, but nobody can tell for certain till the deeds are done, if you know what I mean.” He suddenly looked anxious. “I don’t aim to offend, of course.”

“I’m not offended,” George said. “I understand what you mean. You did me a large favor that you didn’t have to do, and I’m grateful for it.”