L. Camp: The Exotic Enchanter

The chieftain and all the rest of his band were either heading toward the river or already in it. Shea saw heads bobbing around and clouds of spray as Polovtsi warriors tried to scrub themselves clean of what they’d seen. Some of the horses had run clear out of sight; others were winded and quietly grazing waiting for their riders to return.

Seeing all the Polovtsi out of bowshot, Shea dismounted and walked over to the sprawled rearguand. Neither of them seemed to be bleeding, and both were breathing regularly. He did not stay long; even a couple of Polovtsi were ripe enough to force a hasty retreat.

At this point Shea realized that he and Chalmers were alone in the camp. The Rus had galloped away from the Don as fast as the Polovtsi had dashed toward it. None of them seemed to have fallen off, but quite a few had dismounted, and were holding reins with one hand while busily crossing themselves with the other.

Shea let out a long gusty sigh of relief, at having changed the pronoun in the adaptation of Burns from “us” to “them.” Otherwise he might have routed the Rus as well, which Igor would not have appreciated.

Igor had not dismounted, and now he rode back, accompanied by Mikhail Sergeivich and two or three others. All, Shea noted, were keeping their hands very close to their sword hilts, except for one who had a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other.

“By God’s Holy Mother, Egorov Andreivich!” Igor exclaimed. “That was like something out of a tale. What did they see?” There was more than a touch of awe in the look Igor gave Shea. but also more than a touch of comradeship.

“Rurik Vasilyevich and I gave them a good look at their lice, Your Highness. Ah, does Your Highness know what a louse looks like?”

Prince Igor’s eloquent look told the psychologist he’d made a major blunder.

“Um, well, in the Silk Empire they make, uh, crystals, and these crystals let us see things like bugs, or flaws in Jewels, that are too small to see with just our eyes.

“If you looked at a louse through one of these crystals, you’d see that it has a small head and huge stomach, three pairs of legs, large jaws, and each of its eyes is made of millions of other eyes.”

“Monsters,” Igor said.

Shea nodded. “Exactly. The Polovtsi saw themselves covered with monsters, and panicked.”

The prince’s look was now one of complete amazement. “No bogatyr in any tale ever did a thing like that.”

“One other thing, Your Highness. The Polovtsi have a sorcerer with them. He may send more after us than arrows.”

Shea was relieved to see Igor shift back to the practical. He rose in his stirrups and called to the trumpeters and banner-bearers to signal the rally, then beckoned Shea and Chalmers.

Igor’s men rallied around the banner, except for the scouts, who rode out at once to open the distance between themselves and the main body. Igor also set out a rearguard in case some of the Polovtsi regained their wits and courage.

Shea offered to join the rearguard in case the pursuit took magical form. Igor thanked him all over again and accepted the offer.

As they rode into the fading light, Shea wished this dimension had a bookmaker to take his bet that the bathhouse was now as sacred as the church in the eyes of a good many men of the Rus. He could have made a pile.

* * *

They rode night and day until they were all away from the Don, and even after that set double guards around each encampment The two psychologists agreed that one of them should he awake at all times, although Shea didn’t care for Chalmers’ remark:

“I can hardly sleep anyway, so why shouldn’t I keep watch?”

The return trip seemed to take even longer than the trip out, without hope of Florimel’s quick recovery to spur them along. One night Chalmers commented that everything seemed to take longer, cost more, and smell worse in this Continuum than in any of the others they’d visited.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Shea replied, “Remember what you said about the peculiarities in the world of the Aeneid ?”

“There were a great many such,” Chalmers said. “Which ones were you thinking of in particular?”

“All of them, and your explanation,” Shea said. “Homer lived four hundred years after the Trojan War, and Virgil lived eight hundred years after Homer, besides being a Roman with a political axe to grind.”

“So?”

“Suppose whatever Borodin used for his opera — an old Russian epic, I suppose — was written by one of Igor’s contemporaries. Maybe one of his nobles, it would be favorable to Igor, but it might leave in a lot of the details.”

“Such as lice and smells and taking forever to let anywhere?” Chalmers snapped. “I suppose that could be an explanation. It is hardly an excuse.”

Shea decided that Chalmers was in no mood for academic analysis, and turned away to take the first watch.

* * *

By the evening of the third day, Chalmers was feeling more reconciled to the realism of Igor’s world and the absence of Florimel.

“Did that chief have any intention of negotiating at all?” he asked Igor as they made camp.

“They still respect the truce banner, though not as much as they used to,” the prince replied.

“The wizard said that their rules, even among themselves, are breaking down,” Shea added.

Igor frowned, and Shea gave a thought to one of the virtues of being a Hero — what would be a grimace on an ordinary man was an earnest, noble expression on the prince’s face. “I wouldn’t mind seeing them fight among themselves, but if they no longer keep trade-truce . . . Curse them for the Devil’s own spawn and fools as well!

“Trade law holds that no one may be attacked at a neutral trade site, or for three days’ journey before or after. In the lands of the Rus, of course, the princes punish theft, three days or no three days. But trade law holds even for the steppe, or has until now.”

“Does that mean, Your Highness, that if we find Florimel . . . ?” Reed’s voice faltered, “if we find Florimel — for sale — that we couldn’t challenge it there, or for three days after?”

“In the lands tithe Rus you could,” Igor replied with a touch of pride. “No one may be enslaved among us except according to the provisions of the law, and before witnesses. And the wise man will register his slaves, whether Rus or foreign, with the chiliarch’s clerk, so that if they flee, or are stolen, their ownership will not be in question.

“But those who buy slaves on the steppe, by tradetruce, do not question their origins. And if they go to the chiliarch’s clerk and say, ‘I bought this slave on the steppe’. the clerk has to accept it. If it turns out that the slave belonged to someone else, or was not a slave at all, well under the law, Polovtsi raids are treated as fire and shipwreck a natural loss.”

“I can see room for all kinds of corruption,” Shea muttered.

“I have seen it, Egorov Andreivich.”

“But how do we get my wife back?” Chalmers pursued.

“I could see about having her purchased by one of my agents,” Igor replied. “That’s risky, you never know how the bidding will go. A counterraid would be risky too, with that sorcerer among the steppe tribes. The only man I could count on would be my brother Vsevolod, but we might be enough if we can catch them before they reach the truce area.

The psychologists could see that Igor was now the warrior-prince, considering options. They said no more, nor, as he walked off to his own campfire, did he. III

Harold Shea sipped cautiously from the silver goblet in his hand. The mead in it was strong and sweet. Already he found himself unable to focus on the frieze of Olga’s revenge, that marked the point where the walls of this chamber arched up to form its dome.