L. Camp: The Exotic Enchanter

Once out of the forest, the journey to the Don was Route 66 cubed and squared. The grass was turning pale as autumn came on, but was dotted with wildflowers. Sky and grass, grass and sky — the occasional rustle of rabbit in the grass or outline of bird against the sky did nothing to disturb their eternal immensity.

“I’m glad I’m not scouting,” Shea told Chalmers as they made camp one night. “I’d have to spend so much time on antihypnotic techniques that I’d never spot anything.”

As the sun rose on the tenth day, they saw the glint of the Don in the distance. The wind blew from the east, and the Ohioans discovered that Igor had been right about one thing. You could smell a Polovtsi camp a long way downwind.

The prince raised the trade-truce banner, a yellow trumpet on a field that must have been intended to be white, then slowed the pace of the advance to an amble. Easing into the smell made it no easier to get used to.

“Anything in your repertoire for this, Doc?” Shea asked.

“Unfortunately, this stink interferes with one’s logical faculties. Moreover, I suspect that since the odor has entirely natural causes, the only way to overcome it would be to plant a posthypnotic love of cleanliness in every Polovets.”

About three hours after sunrise Shea sensed that his mount was walking on softer ground, and he began to hear the cry of marshbirds, By the time they stopped for noon rations, they could all see where stands of brush and tall grass broke the steppe and marked the banks of the Don. The air had grown more humid as they made their way east, but the increased moisture did nothing to blunt the smell.

That afternoon, Shea got his first look at the river. The Don was broad and placid, seemingly untouched by humans. It was totally unlike the Mississippi at St. Louis, fringed with piers, spanned by bridges loaded with trains, carrying squadrons of barges and towboats. But this river can still flood , Shea reminded himself, though it looks to be at low water now . The psychologist had done his share of sandbagging before leaving St. Louis.

They finally ambled into the Polovets camp about two hours before sunset. At that particular spot the Don curved into a miniature bay, which made it easier to water horses. There were no permanent structures, but the grass was crushed, and the ground dimpled here and there with firepits.

Some thirty Polovtsi were waiting, mostly mounted. They looked remarkably similar, all with dark shaggy hair and moustaches. Their riding coats and breeches were similar to those of the Rus, and those who didn’t wear the caps Igor had described wore long pointed hoods that tied under the chin.

Polovets saddles, when they were used, were leather pads dangling ragged stirrups of the same material. Few of the riders wore mail, all all they carried besides bows and quivers was either long knives or short swords.

Looking at the Polovtsi, Shea realized the variety of physical appearance among the Rus. There was a bushy though well-groomed beard on every chin, but their hair ranged from dark to blond and they showed a wide range of heights and builds. This might look normal to an American, but not to a tribal people.

Multiply this lot, the psychologist thought, and you understand what starts the legends about enemies where two spring up for every one slain.

The Polovets leader, who wore a riding coat stiff with enough dirt to be half-decent armor, and lots of tarnished gold and silver jewelry, rode out on a shaggy steppe pony. Beside him on another pony rode a figure, recognizable in spite of his dirty robe, that the Ohioans hoped they’d seen the last of a dimension or two ago.

Recognizing Malambroso was all they had time for, because the Polovets chieftain hailed them.

“What brings the noble prince of Seversk to my tents?” he said.

To Shea’s surprise, Igor kept his temper. “It seems, chieftain, that some of my goods found their way to your tents.”

Suavity was not the chiefs strong point. “Dare you claim anything of mine, you self-gelded eunuch of a Rus? Your tongue Will be next!”

Igor ignored this. “Those who steal rather than fighting for their booty are bandits, not warriors, Those who lead bandits are not chiefs. Can one be sure they are even warriors?”

“Ask the spirits of your dead about the Polovtsi, oh prince of windy words! Warriors and free men are we all, and we stand by each other against all enemies.”

“So? Well, if one snake can speak for all, then I need not look for a particular thief. I may demand the return of my goods from any.”

The goods of our foes are ours to plunder at will. But as you have come under the truce banner, I will not refuse outright. You ask me to put myself to some trouble, and for that trouble I want twice eighty grivnas .”

“Than twice the blood price of my bailiff! Twenty grivnas for the return, alive and uninjured, of all the captives taken at Nizhni Cherinsk.”

“You ask for the ones from a particular raid? We are warriors, not scribes who sit about scribbling lists! Only a fool would expect us to tell one lot from another? You ask of me a long journey, many slaves come in each day, and the day we meet the traders approaches.

“A Greek trader would pay one hundred, for what you ask. You say the Rus are better than the Greeks. So pay me twice sixty.”

“Forty, you son of a she-ass.”

From Igor’s slightly relaxed seat and wandering attention among men on both sides, Shea gathered that the two leaders expected to be at it for a while. The figure at the chieftain’s side backed his horse and dismounted, as if to relieve himself. The psychologists drew off a little, for privacy.

“At least we know where he is, Doc,” Shea said. Chalmers’ thoughts appeared to be inexpressible, but deadly.

Florimel’s abductor, the wizard Malambroso, disappeared into a clump of brush. When he had not come out after the next three exchanges between the prince and the chieftain, Shea decided to follow.

“What if he’s setting a trap?” Chalmers asked.

“He can’t trap us without trapping all the Rus. If that costs the chieftain a profitable deal, the chieftain will be angry. He doesn’t look like like somebody I would want mad at me, and Malabroso’s not an idiot.”

Chalmers looked mollified. Shea turned his horse and urged it to a walk, toward the clump. “One for all and all for one, Doc!” he called back over his shoulder.

Maneuvering the horse between tangles of tall grass, Shea felt a sensation, as if he were entering an invisible tent. Everything seemed quiet. He grasped the hilt of his sword and looked around.

Malambroso was twenty feet away, pacing restlessly. Shea saw that some of the dirt on the wizard’s skin was mobile, and hastily backed his horse.

“I knew you’d be coming so I put up a see-the-expected spell,” Malambroso said. “All anyone on either side will see is this clump.” He shook his head vigorously. “That iron bathrobe you’re wearing does not become you.”

“That cootie sark doesn’t do much for you,” Shea replied, releasing his grip on the hilt. “What are you doing in such company? Come to think of it, how did you get here in the first place?”

Malambroso gave the grandfather of all sighs, but continued pacing. “You remember Freston’s, ah, unfortunate demise?”

“I do,” Shea said.

Freston was a demon who, tricked by Reed Chalmers into committing good suffered the ultimate penalty. The demon wasn’t the only one who suffered; Chalmers and Shea, Florimel, and Malambroso were flung separately from a world in which Don Quixote was its greatest knight and not a madman’s delusion, to that of the Aeneid .

Well, I wound up in Troy also, and shipped out with a chief named Agamemnon. I jumped ship in Egypt with a bunch of the loot: I figured it was a good place to hole up.