Harry Turtledove: Thessalonica

I

George was hunting rabbits in the hills not far from Thessalonica when he spied the satyr. His first thought, when its brown eyes peered out of the ugly, snub-nosed face and met his, was to make the sign of the cross and frighten it away.

He didn’t act on his first thought. He was the kind of man who commonly thought three times before he did anything. His build matched his character: he was stocky and strong, thick through the shoulders, by no means someone who moved quickly, but hard to stop once he did get moving.

Instead of crossing himself, he raised his right hand and rubbed his chin. Whiskers rasped under his fingers. He should have shaved yesterday, or maybe the day before. He thought about growing a beard. They were coming back into fashion, though many Romans, perhaps most, still plied their razors as they had since the days of Constantine the Great.

When he didn’t drive it off, the satyr cautiously came toward him, picking its way along the rocky ground with surprisingly delicate, graceful strides. He supposed getting a rock in its hoof would cause it as much trouble as that would for a horse, which the satyr resembled from the waist down.

It was certainly hung like a horse, its phallus juttingly erect. The old stories said satyrs were hard all the time. Till now, George had never had a chance to put the old stories to the test. Satyrs were rare these days, almost six hundred years after the Son of God came down and was made flesh.

What a trophy to bring hack to town, George thought. Bishop Eusebius would probably bless him from the ambo of the basilica of St. Demetrius. He could all but hear the bishop going on about another turn being given to the winding sheet Christianity was wrapping around the corpse of paganism: Eusebius was a good man, but one who sometimes had a distinctly mortuary cast of mind.

He didn’t pluck an arrow from his quiver and set it to his bow, any more than he had signed himself. He stood quiet and let the satyr approach. Up in an oak tree, a blackbird trilled. The breeze sighed through the leaves of the tree. The satyr made no sound at all. Maybe, being a creature of wood and forest, that was its way. And maybe, being more than an ordinary creature, it had ways on which Christian men were wiser not to speculate, for the sake of their souls.

It paused almost within arm’s length of him. Nervously, it stroked its erection with one hand, as a flighty woman might have played with a lock of hair while hardly noticing she was doing it. Then, as if making up its mind, the satyr pointed to the skin George carried on his belt.

“Wine?” it asked, its voice a plaintive baritone. It spoke in Greek, of course, being native to this soil. George had grown up with Latin his birth speech, but, like most Thessalonicans, he was fluent in both tongues.

“Yes, it’s wine,” he answered. Water up here in the hills was mostly good, but still, who would drink water by choice?

“Drink some, please?” The satyr’s syntax was rusty, as if it wasn’t used to speaking with men. It probably wasn’t.

These days--these centuries--few would welcome it, or even tolerate it as George was doing.

As was George’s way, he hesitated before replying. Drunken satyrs were supposed to do all sorts of appalling things. But the wineskin he carried wasn’t that large to begin with, and he’d already drunk from it. The satyr could hardly get drunk on what was left. Besides, it sounded so sad.

He unfastened the skin from his belt and handed it to the satyr. The creature’s homely features became almost beautiful for a moment as joy lit them. It fumbled with the cord that held the skin closed; obviously, it wasn’t used to dealing with any man-made things, even ones as simple as that. But it managed, and sighed with ecstasy as it poured wine into its open mouth.

Considering the quality of the wine, George was glad he’d given it to the satyr, which was taking far more pleasure from it than he ever could have. He would have been miffed, though, had the creature guzzled the skin dry. He was about to say so, in no uncertain terms, when the satyr figured that out without his help. After wiping its mouth on its hairy arm, it held the skin out to him.

“Thanks,” he said, and swigged from it himself. The wine tasted better than it had; maybe being touched by the satyr had improved it.

Being touched by wine had certainly improved the satyr. It seemed bigger, stronger, younger, and even more ithyphallic than before. It had lost its hangdog air: its eyes flashed. Its large nostrils dilated, as if to taste the wind. “That good,” it said, almost crooningly.

“Glad you like it,” George answered, polite as if he were talking to a monk. He cocked his head to one side, studying the satyr. “Didn’t know your kind came so close to Thessalonica anymore,” he remarked, looking back over his shoulder towards the city.

“Not like to come so close,” the satyr answered. A moment later, it added, “Hard to come so close. Saints almost everywhere to keep me away.”

George nodded, half matter-of-factly, half sympathetically. As Christianity’s hold on the land tightened, the old creatures found it harder and harder to approach holy men or holy places. The satyr hadn’t had any trouble approaching him. He shrugged. He was just a man, just a sinner. He knew it.

“Where have you been living?” he asked.

“Up in rough country.” The satyr pointed off to the north and east: rough country sure enough, well away from the Via Egnatia that still--tenuously--linked Thessalonica with the Adriatic and Italy on the one hand and with Constantinople on the other. The satyr went on, “Villages not so bad. Not so much--” Being what he was, he couldn’t make the sign of the cross, but George got the idea.

He nodded to show the satyr he followed. Bishop Eusebius was always talking about doing a better job of evangelizing the little upcountry villages. It wasn’t only satyrs that hung around them. Bacchus still came around in the fall, when the grapes were being crushed for wine. Up in the hills, Pan had a festival, too, though even there some said he was dead.

“Why didn’t you stay up in the rough country, if it was easier there?” George asked.

The satyr’s eyes got wide. It stroked itself again, as if for reassurance. Breathing wine fumes into George’s face, it answered, “Not easier there. Not so good, no. People all right, even if some--” Again, he would have crossed himself if he could. “But new things in woods.”

“What kind of things?” George tried to put the same kind of dread into the word as the satyr had, but knew he didn’t come close.

“Lots new things in the woods.” The satyr looked back toward the northeast, as if expecting those things, whatever they were, to burst from the woods and tear it to pieces. Up and down, up and down went that hand. After a moment, it added, “Wolves worst. Yes, wolves.” It nodded to itself; it might have been comparing the wolves to something else almost as dreadful.

George scratched his head. For one thing, you heard wolves howling outside the walls of Thessalonica every winter. For another-- “I wouldn’t think ordinary wolves would be the sort of things to worry you,” he remarked. Satyrs weren’t what they had been, back in the days before Christianity came to this land. They were a long way from diminishing to mere flesh and blood, though.

“Not ordinary wolves,” the satyr said. “Not ordinary, no.” It seemed grateful to George for having given it the word to describe the wolves, even if only in the negative.

“Ah,” George said. “New sorts of powers trying to come down here: is that what you mean?” The satyr nodded, head moving in rhythm with its hand. George shrugged. “I expect the priests will drive them away.”