The Exotic Enchanter Read online

  “Well, it’s neither Imperial, the capital, nor St. Petersburg anymore.”

  The footcloths provided with the boots were puzzling to men accustomed to socks.

  “Uh, Doc,” Shea said, struggling with his, “about Florimel. Do you think she’s . . . here?” Their departure from the world of the Aeniad had been made in haste and disorder, thanks to a vengeful god.

  Chalmers’ face was almost as stern as Igor’s — his version of the stiff upper lip. “If she isn’t . . .” was all he said.

  Shea laced up his second boot, then rose and clapped Chalmers on the shoulder. “Let’s start looking. If nothing else, we can join up with one of those merchants Igor mentioned. Meanwhile, we’ve eaten his bread and salt, so let’s see what else he has to offer.

  “Ready, Doc?’

  “Quite, my boy,” Chalmers replied, steadily enough.

  * * *

  The servant led them back to the main building. Shea recognized the big, beehive-shaped stove in the corner; according to National Geographic, it was still used in the Russia of his own day. The benches and tables were of finely planed wood, and there was an icon on the east wall.

  The building was well chinked and had only one window. Though warm, by Harold Shea’s standards it wanted a good airing.

  Dinner was smoked venison, more of the coarse bread, and plenty of mead, kvass, and weak ale. The cups and bowls were finely finished wood, and steel knives were provided. Shea had tasted worse mead, but this was much too sweet for his taste so he only sipped.

  While they were eating, the huntsmen trailed in, by way of the bathhouse. Each bowed to the icon and the prince before sitting down. Two joined the psychologists at Igor’s table; they were introduced as Oleg Nikolaivich and Mikhail Sergeivich.

  Apparently it was considered bad manners to speak with one’s mouth full, but worse manners to have an empty cup. The room became loud with the sounds of cheerful drunkenness, the scurrying feet of servants and the stumbling ones of men seeking the privy.

  Igor, and Mikhail, and Oleg after they sat down, watched the two visitors closely. As Shea and Chalmers did nothing more alarming than eat, the atmosphere at the table soon relaxed.

  After the edge was off, Igor asked a number of shrewd questions about their origins. Shea left the answers to Chalmers, who said quite honestly that they were adventurers who had seen many a strange land.

  “Indeed, Your Highness, we have seen the hippogriff, ridden a flying carpet, and drunk the wine of the gods! May I tell you about — ?”

  “Another cup, and you will have battled sorcerers and tamed werewolves,” Igor interrupted. “Doubtless you also saw the firebird, and the Yaga in her hut, while you were in the forest. But tell me — by what road did you enter the lands of the Rus? Did you come from Galich, or by way of Polotsk?”

  “Ah, we came the long way round, Your Highness. We were trying to avoid trouble.”

  “Wise of you. But this is not trouble; you have yet to meet that. Now, to get to the forest, you must have passed Velikaya Klyucheva. How fared the harvest there?”

  “Really, I am not a farmer, Your Highness. I could see nothing wrong.”

  “Well, then, have you seen any burned or abandoned villages?”

  “No, Your Highness.”

  “Any men mounted on small, shaggy ponies, riding without stirrups and often without saddles? They would be wearing ragged coats and trousers, caps and boots. and many layers of filth. Their weapons would be long knives and curved bows.”

  “They sound like folk one would not care to meet. Bandits?”

  “Polovtsi. You saw none?”

  “No, Your Highness.”

  “Did you even pass by any of their campsites? They are hard to overlook, for one can smell them three days’ ride downwind.”

  “I am sure we passed nothing of the kind, Your Highness.”

  “Hippogriffs and flying carpets you have seen, but not the scourge of the steppes! And you call yourselves scholars! You did not need to come so far just to learn new tales to spin for your supper! So perhaps —”

  At this point, to the psychologists relief, someone struck up a gusla, an instrument that looked like a near ancestor of the balalaika. Then he started a song that had everyone lifting their cups.

  As more of the men joined in the newcomers were able to hear that it was a listing of heroes; at every name a cup was drained. Igor and the rest drank to Sviatoslav of Kiev, Yaroslav the Wise, Mstislav the Brave, another Sviatoslav of Kiev, Vsevolod of Suzdal, and Yaroslav of Galich. But when a certain Oleg was named, Igor looked morose, and his cup lost its rhythm. Nor did he drink again, and the song faltered as others followed the prince. The player ended with a roaring paen to Vladimir the Great, then called for the singers due. No few cups were set before him.

  Igor muttered curses against another list, starting with Boris and Oleg. “They will do anything for silver,” he growled. “And you, who have come so far, and seen so little, tell me — are you for hire also?”

  Shea couldn’t tell if they were being insulted or recruited. “We are pledged to return to our own lands if we live, but on a journey such as this, it is no disgrace to earn some extra silver.”

  Further aminadversions were interrupted by a servant who hastily passed the prince’s table on his way to the door. “Your Highness, the princess’ personal guard is here!”

  The sound of hoofbeats and jingling harness now penetrated the noisy room. Igor woke up and so did Harold’s curiosity. He had seen a princess or two in his travels, and wondered how this one would measure up.

  When Euphrosinia Yaroslavna entered the room, all heads turned in her direction. Every man got to his feet and bowed as she saluted the icon. Igor left the table and embraced her warmly.

  She and her escort wore the boots, trousers, and coats of hunters; the escort carried longswords and shields instead of spears, and wore mail. All had grim faces.

  “The Polovtsi attacked Yuri the Red’s estate at Nizhni Charinsk two days ago,” she announced. “They were rebuilding the palisade after it burned last month, and were caught completely off guard.”

  From the curses that rent the air, the psychologists drew two conclusions: the Polovtsi had raided a “safe” location, and they had no business knowing that the palisade was down. Sure enough, the word “spies” came up.

  “Yuri’s son Boris rode to Seversk to report,” the princess continued. “The raiders took the entire household, including that young woman who is neither Rus nor Polovets nor Greek nor anything else we have been able to discover.”

  Chalmers’ face suddenly matched Euphrosinia’s for grimness. “Is she a small woman, Your Highness?” His voice didn’t break. “Good-looking, very fair skin and brown hair?”

  “It seems that you know her,” Euphrosinia replied. “What is her name?”

  “lady Florimel, Your Highness.”

  “So is she named.”

  “What — ?” Chalmers’ voice did break.

  “Can she — they — be ransomed or rescued?’ Shea asked, noting that many far from friendly looks were now aimed their way.

  “Perhaps,” the prince said. “What is she to you?”

  “She is Sir Reed’s wife, Your Highness.”

  Shea didn’t notice any warming of the atmosphere, but Igor suddenly gave a bark of laughter.

  “So that is why you said so little! ‘Reports to your superiors.’ Pig swill! You’re trying to find her! But how did you — what happened?”

  “She was stolen by a powerful enemy, Your Highness.”

  “He must have been. You don’t look it, but I’m thinking you are bogatyri yourselves.” He grinned. “Perhaps you really have seen hippogriffs and the rest of it.

  “Regardless, we now have a common foe. We must rescue your wife and Yuri’s family before they go to the Krasni Podok slave market.” He filled his cup with an unsteady but practiced hand and rose on still more unsteady legs.

  “By Our Lord who saved us, His
Mother who bore Him, the Saints who followed Him, the honor of Seversk, and my own honor as its prince, I swear that I will do all that may be needed, yea unto holding my own life as naught, until the Lady Florimel is rescued from her captivity among the Polovtsi.”

  Then he fell forward on the table and began to snore. Chalmers looked stricken, but the other Rus at the table, after hearing the snores, paid no heed to the fallen prince. Shea took a close look and a strong sniff “Just drunk,” he reassured his colleague.

  Euphrosinia Yaroslavna’s handsome face looked thoughtfully at Reed Chalmers’ hopeful one. “You should know,” she said. “that by both the laws and customs of the Rus, no man may be held to anything he promises while drunk.”

  Shea thought that spoke well for the good sense of the Rus, but wasn’t about to say so, “What says the law?” he asked, covering for Chalmers.

  “ ‘If two men, both being drunk come to an agreement, and after, when they have both slept their drunkenness off, one of them is not satisfied with the agreement, it shall be void.’ ” Her fluent quotation gave Shea some notion of how often it was cited. “By custom, no vow, contract, or promise is valid unless all parties are sober.”

  “There is reason to go after them,” Chalmers said, his voice showing that he’d bounced back, for the moment. “Folk of the Rus were captured too.”

  The princess shrugged her elegant shoulders. She couldn’t hold a candle to Belphebe were that lady present, Shea decided, but she definitely held the eye on her own. “There are boyars of princely houses in the tents of the Polovtsi at this moment. Yuri was a muzh, yes, but a border lord.”

  She looked directly at them; her words might give pain, but she didn’t turn away from her victims, “Done is done. For now, it is more important to prevent further raids. The Polovtsi should not have been able to strike this close to Seversk.”

  In an academic setting, Dr. Shea might have appreciated her realpolitik. She showed more logic than most political commentators in the twentieth-century U.S. But thinking of Belphebe had triggered a gut reaction: if she were in a mess, politics could take a bath until she was out of it. And Reed Chalmers would back him up.

  Ergo, since Florimel is in a mess, politics can take that same bath, and I will back Reed. QED.

  Time for my realpolitik, Your Highness.

  Shea’s gut had also generated an inspiration. He looked in the kindling box (the prince’s table was close to the stove). Good, it held unpeeled willow branches as well as birchbark. Now to unruffle the princess’ feathers . . .

  “If I may, Your Highness, I would like to return His Highness’ hospitality by giving him a healing draught. He needs to be able to ride tomorrow, no matter where he goes.”

  “I will watch you prepare it, and you will drink it yourself before you give him any of it.”

  Shea had no problem with that, although he wished the samovar wasn’t still a few centuries in the future. “Please ask your servant to boil water in a clean pot.”

  While that was being prepared, Shea stripped the bark from the willow branches, and cut about two dozen small pieces.

  “What are you doing?” Chalmers murmured.

  “Using your synthesis spell to make aspirin, Doc. Mark these, please; the formula is C9H8O4.”

  Chalmers perked up and set to work with his knife, while Shea shredded the rest of the bark. The Rus were quiet, but Shea knew that if this didn’t work, the trouble Igor had mentioned would come, with a vengeance.

  A servant, his hands muffled in rawhide, brought in a pot of water, Shea indicated where it should go on the table, a fair distance from Igor. Then he arranged the marked pieces of bark around it, and dropped the rest of the bark into the pot.

  Finally, he and Chalmers stood on either side of the pot, Shea reciting, the older man gesturing.

  “When I consider how my life is spent,

  The time ill-used, the wealth I fling askance

  On fleeting follies tuned to my own bent.

  Or joined with others, dance delusions dance;

  O Willow! Emblem of the soul’s own tears,

  O weep with me, a-pent in mine own snare,

  Yet healing bring lest prey to mine own fears,

  I fall into the pit of black despair.

  Although thy leaves our dreary truths bespeak,

  Thy bark, now shredded, ’s balm to make us whole,

  This bitter draught gives strength, unlike the sweet

  Taste of the mead, to which our strength pays toll.

  Come, prince of drugs! Thy powers unleash, restore

  To all who drink, sobriety once more.”

  The atmosphere in the lodge was anything but salubrious, but the spears remained stacked and the swords sheathed. Shea checked the pot; the bark had steeped. He wiped his cup and dipped some out.

  Yeech!! It tasted vile, but warmed his stomach very nicely. In a few minutes he felt his incipient stomachache go away. His head felt clearer than ever.

  He held out the cup to the princess. “The draught, Your Highness.”

  All heads turned to her again. She didn’t hesitate. “Give him the draught,” she ordered. “If he is harmed, you will both be flogged and your eyes burnt out with hot irons before you lose your heads.”

  She gestured, and Mikhail Sergeivich raised the prince.

  Shea was relieved to see that he was not unconscious, just asleep. He put the cup to Igor’s lips; the prince swallowed by reflex. By the time it was empty he had opened his eyes.

  “Gaaaah!” was his first sound, and “Water!” his first word. The water was hastily brought, and the hands which had tightened on swordhilts relaxed a trifle, but did not move. Igor downed a pitcher and part of a second, then looked around, cold sober.

  The hands fell away from the swordhilts. The princess stared.

  “Did you prepare this draught?” Igor asked the psychologists.

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “It tastes like rotten maresmilk. You bogatyri have stomachs of iron.” He smiled broadly. “Mine is only that of a prince, but I owe you a boon. Ask what you will.”

  “Only that my wife be rescued, Your Highness,” Chalmers said, before the princess could recover.

  Igor repeated his previous vow, not as loudly but with more dignity, as well as several embellishments. By the time he had finished, half the room was cheering.

  The prince was also beginning to find company in sobriety. Three or four of the men came up to the table and dipped their cups, and many a respectful, even awed, look was aimed at the strangers.

  Princess Euphrosinia gave them a respectful nod, then turned to the prince. “Let us go to bed, my lord The morning is wiser than the evening, and there will be much to do.”

  Igor offered his arm. “Gladly, my lady,” he said, with more than a suggestion of a leer. He escorted her out.II

  Two days later, Harold Shea and Reed Chalmers were riding with Prince Igor’s party eastward to the Don country. It was a fine day for riding, clear and neither too hot nor too cold. The trails, the occasional wide trail that deserved to be called a road, and the stretches of grassland they frequently had to cross were all firm beneath the horses’ hooves.

  “Just as well we’re tiding now.” Oleg Nikolaivich remarked. “In another month, two at the most, this will all be mud.”

  Shea paraphrased an old description of a swamp. ‘‘Too thin to ride on, too thick to row through.”

  Oleg Nikolaivich grinned.

  Shea found the high-cantled saddle comfortable enough, and was grateful to be in a dimension that had invented stirrups. The Rus were clearly equipped to press home a charge with lance or sword, as well as fight from a distance with a three-foot bow. Some of them also carried battle-axes: Shea had yet to see a mace.

  They all wore mail shirts, of varying lengths, some ring mail and some made of metal discs sewn to leather backing, or strips of metal and leather woven together. Their helmets were iron, open-faced, and pointed, with mail attachments to
protect neck and throat. Their shields were kite-shaped, and the whole effect reminded Shea somewhat of the Bayeux Tapestry.

  Except that no self-respecting Norman knight ever used a bow. The Rus might have equally grand notions of honor, but that didn’t keep them from riding out equipped to pay horse archers back in their own coin.

  Shea himself wore only a helmet and a knee-length mail shirt. Hed buckled on his basket-hiked saber and borrowed a dagger, but refused a shield.

  “I am accustomed to fighting without one,” he said, and his status as a bogatyr rose. So had Chalmers’; he wore a shorter mail shirt and a helmet, but carried only a dagger.

  They were not actually headed for the Polovtsi camp — no prince of the Rus would do that unless he led a full war party. It would be prudent, Princess Euphrosinia reminded Igor, to see if the captives could be ransomed. So a negotiating party of forty men was headed for a neutral spot on the west bank of the Don, where the Polovtsi occasionally did some legitimate trading.

  They stayed in the shadow of the trees as long as they could, and Igor deployed scouts a couple of hours’ ride ahead. He feared treachery, it seemed.

  “Some of the boyars and even the princes have fought with the Polovtsi,” he explained. “You seldom know who’s turned his coat until they attack.”

  Shea wished he knew more of this continuum. He vaguely recalled that in the opera, Prince Igor had been a Polovets captive.

  “What is worse,” Igor continued, “is the way the Rus fight each other. If we put our joint strength against the Polovtsi we could crush them. By Saint Vladimir! My grandfather Oleg Sviatoslavich, curse his name, fought against the last Great Prince of Kiev. Now I must negotiate new alliances each time I face peril, instead of being sure of support from all the princes of the Rus.”

  “If the Polovtsi are such bad neighbors,” Shea asked, “why will any of the Rus deal with them?”

  “They want Polovtsi slaves,” Igor said shortly.

  Shea and Chalmers discussed this later in the day.

  “It sounds as If the Rus never learned about hanging together or hanging separately,” Shea said.