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.