Harry Turtledove - Thessalonica

“That’s the other reason I don’t believe the story you’re telling,” John said. “If I’d been dodging Slavs for however long it was, I wouldn’t want to stick my nose outside the wall now. There are still barbarians skulking through the woods, you know. You remind me of the clever fellow during the storm at sea. He saw everybody else on the ship grab something to save himself with, so he took hold of the anchor.”

“Heh,” George said. “Have you used that one at Paul’s place yet, or are you trying it out on me first?”

“I’m trying to keep you from getting killed,” John said with some asperity. “I thought you’d gone and done it once, with a little help from your friend Menas, but then you came back again--however you came back again.” He gave George a dark look. “And now you want to go out there some more. You used to be such a sensible fellow.”

“I’m sensible enough to know when I need to do some hunting,” George said. Someone else went out of the Litaean Gate. George pointed. “See? I’m not the only one, either. Why don’t you nag him for a while?”

“I’m not his mother--I’m your mother,” John said, which startled a grunt of laughter out of George. John threw his hands in the air. “All right, go ahead. See if I care. But if you come back dead, don’t run crying to me saying I didn’t warn you.”

George contemplated following that through to its logical conclusion, but his own logical conclusion was that it didn’t have one. He walked out through the gate. When he looked back, John was still framed in the gateway, staring out after him. The tavern comic shook his head and turned back toward the center of the city. George headed out to the woods.

Once trees and brush screened him from view, he took Perseus’ cap out of the large leather wallet he was wearing on his belt in place of the more usual pouch. John had assumed he’d be bringing small game back to Thessalonica in it. He would, too, if he caught any. Meanwhile, though, the pouch let him take the cap out unnoticed. As soon as he put the cap on his head, he was unnoticed, too.

He headed north, toward Lete. When he got farther up into the hills, he intended to take off the cap, in the hope that a centaur or satyr would find him then and guide him to the pagan village, which he was still unsure of finding without such aid. In the meantime, he killed several rabbits that, thanks to Perseus’ cap, never knew he was there. It wasn’t sporting, but he wasn’t hunting for sport--he was hunting for the pot.

He spent the night in a chilly bed of leaves and boughs. Early the next morning, noises from beyond the brush ahead made him move forward cautiously. He had seen a couple of small bands of Slavs in the woods: poor, hungry-looking fellows for whom he would have felt more sympathy had he not known they would have cut his throat if he were visible. If he was coming up on another such, he wanted to make sure they had no idea he was anywhere close by.

These noises, though, weren’t quite like the ones the barbarians had made. As George drew closer, he realized they weren’t like any noises he’d ever heard in the woods. As he drew closer still, he realized that didn’t mean they were altogether unfamiliar.

Thanks to the cap, he made no noise working his way through the undergrowth. He bit down hard on his lower lip to keep from exclaiming, which would have been heard. He’d found a satyr, all right: there on the stump of a toppled forest giant stood Ampelus. And there, back to the satyr, golden tail in the air, stood Xanthippe the centaur. Nephele hadn’t been interested--which was putting it mildly--but the female had said other centaurs would sometimes sport with satyrs.

And some sport it was, too. Ampelus had both equipment and stamina to make George acutely aware of his merely human shortcomings (a most appropriate word) in those regards. At the end, when Xanthippe let out a sound half moan, half whinny, what George felt--as opposed to what the female centaur felt--was closer to awe than to excitement.

And, even afterwards, Ampelus tried to persuade Xanthippe to stay for another round. The centaur laughed. “One--and in especial one of that sort--sufficeth.”

“Not for me,” Ampelus said grumpily. Sure enough, the satyr’s body showed how ready it was for another go.

Xanthippe laughed. “Then thou mayest sate thyself.” Centaurs habitually used the familiar second-person pronoun when speaking to satyrs. Was it, here, the familiarity of insult or intimacy? A bit of each, George thought.

Laughing still, Xanthippe cantered away. Ampelus took a few trotting steps after the female centaur, then seemed to realize the game truly was over. The satyr stroked its own flesh. If what had gone before failed to satisfy it. . . it was, George supposed, true to its own nature.

With Xanthippe gone, the shoemaker thought he could reveal his own presence without embarrassing anyone-- not that Ampelus was liable to embarrassment under any circumstances. As soon as George took off Perseus’ cap, Ampelus stiffened, now with wariness rather than lust. Before the satyr could flee, George stepped out into the clearing.

“Oh. Is you.” Ampelus relaxed. An enormous grin stretched over the satyr’s not-quite-human features. “You know what I do?”

George knew exactly what the satyr had done. He shook his head anyhow. “Could you tell me on the way to Lete?” he asked.

“All right, I do,” Ampelus said. “Sooner tell you than other satyrs. They talk too much in front of centaurs, and I get a kicking like you don’t believe.” The bruise Nephele’s hoof had given the satyr was gone from its flesh by now, but evidently not from its memory.

Ampelus bragged all the way up to the pagan village hidden in the lulls. George had heard much the same from men. The satyr, by what he’d seen, boasted only of what it had truly done. As much as its incredible performance, that served to set it apart from mankind.

As they approached Lete, a woman who had been spreading tunics and cloaks on the branches of a tree to dry paused in her work and stared at Ampelus. The satyr leaped in the air with glee. “Maybe this the one Ithys get,” it said. “You go to village yourself now, George. I have to find this out.” It trotted toward the woman. She didn’t run for her life, so maybe she was the one with whom Ithys had frolicked--which meant Ithys’ bragging hadn’t been a pack of lies, either.

When George got to Gorgonius’ shop, the carpenter nodded as if he’d been expecting him just then. “See, I knew you’d be back,” Gorgonius said. “Is everything well down in the city?”

“Yes, the siege is broken,” George answered. A moment later, he realized Gorgonius might have meant something else. “And everything’s well with me, too--I think.” He set Perseus’ cap on a table. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” the carpenter said. “You’re a good fellow, even if you are a Christian.” George jumped to hear the name. Gorgonius laughed. “I can say it. No centaurs or satyrs to frighten now, so why not? I’m willing enough to let you go your way. Your bishops down in the city, though, they wouldn’t be willing to let me go mine.”

“When there were only a few Christians, pagans persecuted them,” George said with a shrug. “Now it’s the other way around, that’s all.”

It was Gorgonius’ turn to look surprised. “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” he admitted. “Shall we drink some wine on it?” When George nodded, he went on, “I’ve got some chicken left over from yesterday, too, if you’d like that.”

George nodded again. He reached into the wallet, took out a rabbit, and laid it by the ancient leather cap. “Why don’t you take this, then? You can use it tomorrow, or it’ll keep a couple of days more if you leave it out in the cold.”