L. Camp: The Exotic Enchanter

The Patriarch said a prayer for those about to be executed, and two guards flung several bales’ worth of straw at the executioner’s feet. Fifteen times a man was forced to the straw, and fifteen times the executioner struck. He turned his blade and honed the other edge after the eighth man, but never missed his stroke.

Shea did not enjoy his front-row view of this expertise. The only things he could be grateful for were that this brawl had started well before dinnertime, so he had nothing in his stomach to lose, and that Mikhail Sergeivich was holding him upright. He got one look at Chalmers, obliquely away from him, and did not risk what composure he had left by looking again. He found an angle of the rampart he could focus on, and kept his attention there.

The blinding was worse. The bodies were removed, and the straw swept up and fired, along with some wood. Irons were heated, then taken out —

Shea kept his attention firmly on the rampart. He heard a gasp, then a throat-tearing scream that echoed around the courtyard and died away to whimpering. The smell of burned flesh joined the reek of blood. Mikhail Sergeivich’s hand trembled on his arm.

Sviatoslav was led out of the yard, still whimpering. Igor turned to Reed Chalmers.

“Fifteen men are dead, and one is blind, for which you hear some blame. Confess your part in this.”

Underneath his caution, Chalmers had courage. “A man, none of these, approached me and offered to return the Lady Florimel to me if I helped him. If not, he said she would be sold beyond the Volga and I would never get her back.”

Had Reed actually watched the executions?

“How do you know he was none of these?” Igor asked.

“He looked to have Polovets blood, Your Highness.”

“And you believed him?”

“I couldn’t take the chance that he was lying, Your Highness.”

“What did you agree to do?”

“To cast a spell, so that strangers could enter the palace without being questioned. Further orders would have been given me when the palace was taken.”

“You knew, then, that you were dealing with my enemies?”

“It was for my wife, Your Highness.”

From the look on Igor’s face, Shea knew he had better say something before the prince pronounced sentence.

“Your Highness,” Shea managed, hoping that Mikhail Sergeivich would keep his dagger sheathed, “I swear to you that Rurik Vasilyevich has done nothing out of malice to you, but only for the sake of his wife. Among us, the marriage bond is strong. A man who will not risk his honor to rescue his wife has no honor at all.”

“A man who will take the word of a Polovets also has no sense,” Igor said. “And with thirteen dead and more wounded men, it will be harder for me to rescue Yuri Dimitrivich’s household.”

Shea knelt, awkwardly because of his hands. “I beg you to spare his life, Your Highness. We can’t pay your blood price in grivnas , only in service. When we work together, we can do much more than either of us can alone. Won’t you spare him to recover your losses, if nothing else?”

George Raft could not have improved on the smile Igor’s face wore. “He stands condemned, but I will pardon him if you defeat the Polovtsi for me without more loss of men. Or, if men are lost, if you pay their blood price — in grivnas .

“I place no punishment on you, Egorov Andreivich. Mikhail Sergeivich bears witness that you fought for me, and you are free to accept or refuse for your comrades sake. If you succeed, he is free. If you do not succeed, and die in the attempt, his punishment stands but you shall have a warrior’s grave. If you do not succeed, and live, I can think of no punishment greater than that you watch your comrade quartered on the execution ground.

“Do you accept?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Free him.” Mikhail Sergeivich hauled Shea to his feet, and cut his bonds. “Take Rurik Vasilyevich to the penitents’ cells beneath the basilica. Keep him guarded, but I doubt he can work sorcery there. And Egorov Andreivich,” Igor concluded, “you will go to the barracks, where you can be watched.”

The royal trio swept off, and the rest began to carry out their orders. IV

Harold Shea swore as his horse shied from yet another balky mule. He had been in the saddle for what seemed like weeks, certainly long enough to learn the difference between riding with a war party stripped for action, and riding herd on a cavalcade of merchants. The dust from a long line of horses, pack and riding mules, carts and wagons, and a fair bit of foot traffic kept his throat constantly dry. He was reaching for his waterskin just as Mikhail Sergeivich rode by.

“Drink up. We’ll reach a spring before noon,” Mikhail said. Like Shea, the Rus soldier wore the plain armor of mercenaries rather than anything with Prince Igor’s device.

“I swear, we seem to add more merchants every day,” Shea said.

“That ruse of yours worked a little too well,” Mikhail replied. “But I must admit it was clever.”

To get Reed Chalmers out from under Prince Igor’s death sentence, Shea had improvised a fairly desperate plan; hit the Polovtsi while they’re drunk. The prince had laughed aloud when the psychologist explained it, then had come close to him and sniffed.

“No, you are sober,” he’d said. “Eh, well, with you in charge it might work. But how will we get them drunk?”

That was the difficult part. They needed thirty or forty wagonloads of wine and mead, more if all they could find was ale and kvass. They also needed an excuse for the Polovtsi to all be drinking at a particular spot. Finally, Shea needed to spare Seversk’s treasury, or the plan would never go anywhere.

Remembering tales of moonshiners in both the old and new worlds of his own universe, Shea suggested that a rumor be circulated that the prince was planning to raise the liquor tax in kind, and that his agents would be starting their collections in the west very soon, He hoped that would put liquor merchants on the roads east, trying to dispose of their stocks before the tax collectors caught up with them.

The rumor succeeded far better than Shea, or Igor, could have believed. It was compounded by an even less pleasant one, that Seversk would face more frequent Polovets raids shortly. It was possible that some of the merchants were trying to turn goods into more easily hidden coin. Most of them, though, were probably just trying to evade their taxes.

The vintners and brewers were soon joined by all kinds of other vendors. Not the purveyors of luxury goods silk, fine glass, gold and silverware, anything whose primary market was in the city itself was not put at risk on the roads. But woodwork, cheap iron and tinware, woolens, rough-cured hides — everything that could be taxed in kind found a market on the roads and added to the sights (and smells) of the cavalcade.

The merchants were being delicately herded to a spot on the border of the principality of Seversk. The area was hardly settled at all, thanks to Polovtsi raids as much as anything, and the actual border was somewhat disputed. Shea’s plan required however that Igor claim the spot in question.

It was the logistics of getting the merchants there and no further, protecting them from raids along the way, and pretending all the time to have no connection with the prince, that was making Shea and the other men Igor had sent curse, sweat, and ache. The strain of holding back the “in the prince’s name” they were accustomed to use soon had the soldiers beginning every sentence with an obscenity.

A few of the merchants too poor to afford horses or mules, tried to make do with oxen. They held everyone back so much that Mikhail Seigeivich finally ordered them to the rear, to keep up as best they could, for the caravan could not be held to their pace. The merchants howled, they offered bribes, they threatened to protest to the prince.