“We need help.” Nephele spoke unhappily, but without hesitation. “Thus your coming is welcome, even if Ampelus aided it for reasons of his own rather than to promote the general welfare.”
“I do what I do,” Ampelus said. “I like to do what I do.” The satyr rocked his hips forward and back again, aiming that enormous phallus at Nephele. The female centaur ignored it. George wondered whether that sprang from remarkable aplomb or standards of comparison different from those he was used to using.
“What is your craft, mortal?” Crotus asked. “Are you by any chance a priest of. . . ?” Again, the male used a pause to do what it could not.
That almost made George laugh. “No,” he answered. “I’m only a shoemaker.” That sounded as ordinary as any trade possibly could, till he realized none of the beings with whom he was talking had any need for what he did. He shook his head like a man caught between dream and reality; the difference of his new companion’s feet brought home to him that dream was reality here.
“ ‘Tis too much to be hoped for that any priest should find our kind fit for aught but exorcisms,” Nephele said. “So many woods and streams and paths barred to us on account of words from that book.” It glared at George as if that were his fault.
In a way, he supposed it was. He was a Christian man. His belief gave the priests some part of their power, just as lack of belief threatened to doom centaurs and satyrs and other failing creatures of pagan days. But-- He brightened. “I think I know a priest who would come here,” he said.
He wondered what sort of penance Bishop Eusebius would set Father Luke for associating with these beings. He did not wonder whether Father Luke would associate with them if it meant saving Thessalonica. He was sure the priest would come. Which left the next question: how to get him to come?
“Of necessity, ‘twill be you delivering word he is wanted,” Crotus said. “Saints hem Nephele and me and the rest of our land so close, it were the end for any of us to venture forth from these hills, as hath been previously intimated to you. Being of ruder substance, Ampelus and his fellows may fare farther abroad more readily, but cannot think to enter into the city where so many are of your opinion.”
“Mm.” George rubbed his chin. “Since it’s surrounded by the Slavs and Avars, I can’t think about entering it, either. Can you help me come close enough--maybe through the hills my land don’t usually travel anymore-- to give me some chance of getting in?”
“It may be so,” the male centaur answered. “I cannot speak with certainty, not here, not yet. But the thing must be essayed, lest all fail.”
“New things in woods, things in those hills,” Ampelus added fearfully. “Things with wings, to spy and see. Things with teeth and claws, to bite and kill.”
“You can speak of them, can’t you?” George asked. The satyr and the two centaurs nodded. Watching Nephele nod was worth the candle, even if the female’s voice was as deep as his. Refusing to let himself be distracted, he went on, “I’m surprised you don’t want to see those powers win at Thessalonica. They’re more your kind than . . .” Now he used silence to indicate God, Whom he would not name here.
“Not so,” Crotus said, “for their people lack all knowledge of and belief in our kind. Did they win, did they defeat even that which hath reduced us to our present estate, they would on the instant then proceed to hunt us to extinction: not a slow fading but a quick and bitter end.”
“He hath courage, to speak on what reboundeth not to his advantage,” Nephele said, tempering the compliment a moment later by adding, “Courage, or a signal want of good sense.”
“How soon can you try to get me back into the city?” George asked. “My family--” He broke off, thinking of his family for the first time since Menas slammed the postern gate in his face. As far as they knew, he was probably dead. He hoped someone had seen him escape into the woods, but even if someone had, so what? The most reasonable guess was that the Slavs would have hunted him down regardless. Had he been up on the wall watching someone else run, that was what he would have believed.
Crotus and Nephele looked toward Ampelus, who could approach Thessalonica more closely than they. The satyr nervously masturbated itself. “Not be easy,” it said, its rusty voice worried. “People round the city, things in the woods--”
George looked at the sky. The sun would soon be down, hurrying toward the southwestern horizon on this cold near-winter day. “Would it be easier” --by which he meant safer-- “to travel at night?”
“No!” Ampelus spoke with great certainly, and kneaded its own tumescent flesh to emphasize the point. “Things worser at night. Eyes glow, they see like owls, they . . . No.”
Realizing the hour made George also realize how worn and hungry he was. “Will you take me to that village, then?” he asked. “That should be safe.”
“I doubt we should reach it ere the sun’s chariot leaveth the sky,” Crotus said. “Are you fain to pass the night with us, George who feareth not that which dwelt in this land long ago and abideth here yet?” Unlike Ampelus, the male centaur plainly did not want to go anywhere near where men dwelt. Fear of wine, George thought, and then, or is it lust for wine?
“Yes, of course. Thank you.” The shoemaker bowed to the centaur. He did his best to tell himself getting back among men, even backwoods pagans who probably didn’t know the Emperor’s name, was better than passing his time with creatures whom Bishop Eusebius and almost all his fellow Christians back in Thessalonica reckoned fit only for exorcism. That was the right thing, the proper thing, to think. He couldn’t make himself believe it. His curiosity was itching too fiercely. How many modern men got a chance like this? For that matter, how many men in ancient days had got a chance like this?
Crotus and Nephele went ahead at a pace he could not match. Ampelus led him through the woods to what might easily have been a hunters’ encampment. It was almost disappointingly prosaic: several neat lean-tos (some of them outsized, to accommodate centaurs), with a fire in the middle, a large pot bubbling over it.
Little by little, strangenesses surfaced. The knife Nephele used to cut up the rabbit and add it to the stew was bronze, with a bone handle. The pot into which the female threw the pieces of meat had a delicate perfection of shape potters these days didn’t even attempt, and was ornamented with capering satyrs in black on a red background. George didn’t know how old that made it-- Leo might have--but knew it was very old indeed.
Ampelus walked over to the pot. Nephele gave the satyr a look that warned it not to steal any stew. But that wasn’t what it had had in mind. It pointed to one of the satyrs the potter had painted, then to its own chest. “Me,” he said proudly.
For a moment, George thought that only an idle boast.
Then he took a closer, more careful look. The potter had labeled each dancing satyr. Beside the one at which Georges guide had pointed were Greek letters: AMTIE?O?. The shoemaker stared at the ancient portrait. It was a good likeness.
Another satyr came into the encampment, carrying a couple of squirrels by the tail. “Ha, Stusippus!” Ampelus said. “Here is George, this man I tell you I meet yesterday.”
It hadn’t been yesterday. It had been months before. George started to say as much, then abruptly closed his mouth. Here was a creature with a picture from at least as many centuries before the Incarnation as had passed since. No wonder the recent past blurred together for it.
“Friendly man--I remember,” Stusippus said. The new satyr’s features were less manlike than Ampelus’, its erection even larger. “Man with wine.”
“I have no wine today,” George said, and Stusippus’ phallus drooped for a moment, as Ampelus’ had done at the same sad news.
“Give thou me thy meat there,” Nephele said. Stusippus handed the female the squirrels without making the bawdy comment George had expected. Nephele still had that knife in hand.