L. Camp - The Exotic Enchanter

“If this works, they’ll actually be falling down. Tell the soldiers to stick to water tomorrow. There’s nothing we can do about the merchants.”

“True” said Mikhail, and went off to give the orders.

* * *

Shea was up before dawn the next morning. Sure enough one of the Polovtsi had made a nuisance of himself last night, insisting on having his cup filled again and again and never offering to pay. The merchant involved seemed more resigned than angry, and Mikhail told Shea (after saying “I told you so”) that the guild would cover his losses out of total profits, if any.

The rider had thrown the cup away after emptying it the seventh time, and Shea had retrieved the leather vessel. The Polovets had been satisfyingly drunk, too, but in this matter of life or death Shea intended to hedge his bets.

Concealed among the wagons, and as close to the sleeping Polovtsi as he could stand, Shea held the cup in one hand and gestured with the other. He didn’t quite sing, but a melody lurked under his intonation.

“They’re Polovets riders who’ve lost their way,

Da! Da! Da!

Goats who have gone astray.

Da! Da! Da!

Lousy barbarians out on a spree,

Doomed to get drunk until they can’t see,

And the Rus will make prey out of all they see,

Da! Da! Da!”

Then he crept back to the trade area proper, and unstoppered a leather flask. It was filled with a mixture of ale, kvass, mead, and wine, and the thought of drinking the concoction was enough to make Shea turn Prohibitionist. Again holding the flask in one band, and gesturing with the other, Shea chanted:

“All liquor in the cask and tun

And every barrel on this ground,

You mighty waters old and young

In which our senses oft are drowned;

From strength to strength let every drop

Proceed, nor let that power fail,

Let kvass be strong, the limbs to stop,

Nor be there weak nor watery ale.

Let mead o’ercome the will to move,

And wine be poured that blood not flow,

And every drop a Samson prove

And twenty men or more o’erthrow.”

They’ve been warned , he thought, as be curled up under the nearest wagon and tried to get a nap in before the action started. He wasn’t sure just what the strengthening spell had done, but he wouldn’t have touched a drop of liquor in the camp.

As dawn lightened the eastern sky, the camp began to stir. The night guards came in, the day guards went out, the merchants lit fires and prepared meals. The wiser ones, Shea noticed, had all the old men and young boy’s out of sight and were offering food to the soldiers. The soldiers ate, and repeated their warnings about drinking only water today.

Mikhail added, “Put the best drink out first, to put them in a mood to pay.”

Shea didn’t really care if the Polovtsi were in a mood to pay. All he needed was Polovtsi in a mood to drink.

* * *

The first Polovtsi rode in shortly after sunrise, and they kept coming steadily after that. By midmorning the camp was surrounded by the steppe horsemen, and the stench was something one could almost reach out and pluck from the air in handfuls.

The riders needed no encouragement to drink, and some of them even had the courtesy to pay — at first. After the fourth or fifth cup, they seemed to forget that there was such a thing as money. Shea could see the merchants gritting their teeth as they watched their stocks disappear, without any reasonable amount of silver appearing in return.

There was also a little trading in dry goods. The psychologist saw an occasional Polovets festooned with wooden trinkets or woolen cloth, But balancnng debits and credits (Shea was the son of a bookkeeper), he doubted that the merchants guilds would show a profit today.

Shea was starting to wonder if his strengthening spell had worked at all, and if instead he should have tried turning the mead to whiskey. The amount the steppemen could get through, on empty stomachs too, gave him the feeling of lice in his pants (at least he hoped it was only the feeling).

But by noon, Polovtsi were falling down and crawling around like cockroaches. They couldn’t walk, but they could still drink. If they couldn’t get to the barrels, they could send friends who were still stumbling instead of crawling.

Shea watched one Polovets give friends his short sword, his metal cap (it looked like something captured from a long-dead Rus), his shirt (complete with lice), and his trousers, all to trade for more wine. They came back with the wine, all except one man.

The last friend came back empty-handed, just as the now practically-naked warrior was finishing off the wine. He glared at his friend.

No friend of mine you are. Buy wine — with my trousersh — then drink it yourshelf.

“Ho, I did —”

“You did.”

“Did not.”

“Did!”

“Did not!”

“I’ll take — your trousersh —”

“No, you won’t!”

The warrior on the ground suddenly developed the ability of a leopard. He gripped his friend by the ankles. tumbled him off his feet, and began pulling at his trousers. The other struggled, kicking at the first man’s face.

A foot connected with the first man’s jaw. His head snapped back and to the side. He rolled over on his side, then onto his back. A moment later he began to snore.

His friend lurched to his feet and staggered off, He staggered straight into the wheel of a cart, then reeled back, rubbing his nose.

“No brawl, my chief,” he said. “Nothing — like that, Just a bet between friendsh. Jusht a . . .” His voice trailed off. Having lost his vision, the Polovets now lost his balance. He gripped the iron rim of the cartwheel, but that only slowed his fall. In another moment he was as soundly asleep as his friend, the only difference being that the second man was facedown.

Those two were the first Shea saw go down from drinking too much breakfast, but they weren’t the last. Between them, breakfast and lunch took out a good half of the visitors.

By early afternoon, they were coming in dribs and drabs instead of whole bands. Some bought drink and rode off with it; Shea hoped it would at least knock the fight out of them.

A Polovets lurched up, his arm around a merchant’s apprentice and brandishing an empty cup in his free hand.

“More wine! This — hish mastersh a pig. Won’t — no more.”

“You’ve had enough, friend,” the young man said.

From his voice and breath, Shea thought that the apprentice could also skip the next few cups. But the spell was working on both of them; they were going to drink themselves under the table, under the wagon, or wherever else the drunks were ending up.

Shea personally refilled their cups. They emptied those cups twice before reeling off, thanking Shea with embraces that left him badly wanting a bath. Drunken Polovtsi were adding assorted stinks to a camp already ripe from the horde of sober ones.

Good thing I didn’t turn the mead to whiskey, Shea thought. I wasn’t planning to kill the Polotsi from alcohol poisoning. Now, if the drink just holds out —

It did. A few Polovtsi seemed to realize what was happening, and tried to mount and ride off. Most of them fell right back off, and none of them got more than five hundred paces from the camp.

A few also didn’t survive the afternoon — brawls, falling into streams and drowning, breaking necks falling off horses or wagons, and so on. Even that didn’t sober up their surviving comrades.

Shea had seen alcoholics, people who couldn’t stop drinking, and they weren’t a pretty sight. Neither were the Polovtsi, as his spell drove them to pour more and more down their throats.