The Exotic Enchanter

by L. Sprague Camp

  “They didn’t, Chalmers replied. “Russia was never united until the Grand Dukes of Moscow took a hand. That’s why they styled themselves the ‘Czar of all the Russias.’ Plural.”

  “But no one’s mentioned Moscow, Doc. Does it even exist here?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure about the slaves.

  “Russia’s always been huge, Harold. Until the railroad and telegraph were invented, Its eastern frontier was just like our west — dangerous, but a place to run away and not be found if you didn’t want to be.

  “To prevent the farmers, the peasants, from doing just that, Russia stuck with serfdom a lot longer than most countries. It wasn’t officially ended until the reign of Czar Alexander II, well Into the nineteenth century.”

  “Yeah, but what does that have to do with Polovtsi slaves?”

  “It sounds as If these boyars and princes are trying to ensure a labor supply, and are not too scrupulous about its source.”

  There was silence, as both men remembered that the supply included Florimel.

  They journeyed for nearly ten days, sleeping in their cloaks and existing for the most part on smoked meat and journeybread. They made fires and did some hunting while in the shelter of the forest, but once on the steppe, the dry grass and the chance of being seen made for cold meats and nights.

  Shea occasionally visited his family in St. Louis by way of Chicago, and he was all too familiar with the hypnotizing sameness of Route 66. Mile after interchangeable mile of field and sky made the trip seem like three thousand miles, not three hundred. He was truly grateful for the succession of towns and country crossroads, which proved he was not just sitting in the same spot, and could even muster up some gratitude for the farm machinery ambling along. Having to watch for tractors did focus his attention.

  I hope no one ever builds one of those German auto-bahns down here, he remembered thinking. No one could stay awake long enough to reach St Louis.

  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 l
ike 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.

  Shea regretted that Malambroso had not continued to Mycenae with Agamemnon. If he had, Clytemnestra might have disposed of him permanently. According to the Greek legends, she’d made a pretty thorough sweep of her late husbands cronies.

  Malambroso smirked. “Then I bargained with Hermes the Lightfingered. Ten percent of everything I took in exchange for news of visitors from other continua. I bargained him down to five when I hinted that they might be the advance party for new gods.

  “But you can’t depend on those Olympians. By the time I found out what you’d been up to you’d already left, although Hermes did drop me off in the same universe.

  “I wound up on the edge of the steppe, and started looking for Florimel. I found her at Yuri Dimitrivch’s estate, but I couldn’t afford to have her recognize me. She was established enough to have me imprisoned. And I didn’t, ah, want to try amnesia spells before practicing with the magic of this world.”

  “You don’t seem to have learned much,” Shea said, increasing his distance as the wizard took a step forward.

  “Magic among the Rus is complicated, Malambroso replied. “Many of them are strongly pious, which can cause spells to have, um, unintended results. Things are easier among these Polovtsi. Their old customs and taboos are breaking down, thanks to the wealth gained from raiding settled areas and providing slaves for the trade. They want spells for spying and battle-luck, things like that.”

  “Why didn’t you just grab Florimel and run?” Shea asked. “Or are you a slave, too?”

  “No, no. I am the chieftain’s counselor, and expected to attend him at all times. After I was, er, captured, and happened to mention the, er, burned palisade, I am considered to bring good luck.”

  “Were you there when she was captured?”

  “Of course. I had some idea of running off with her during the raid, but I had not then worked out a spell for leaving this world. Nor have I been able to persuade the chief to give her to me. These people are quite mercenary; they insist on cash down.”

  “Ah, has she been hurt in any way?”

  “No, no. The chieftain, at least, understands the market value of undamaged merchandise. The captives are guarded by eunuchs. And — I have not been able to get her away. She and the other women get together and take turns calling on the saints to keep them safe.” Malambroso looked sour. “Besides, she has developed much skill in biting. kicking, and screaming.”

  Shea wondered just how he had found that out.

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because Florimel has a most unfortunate habit of loyalty. She won’t desert those she considers her comrades. And once she’s sold — do you know how hard it is to rescue a slave around here? Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and everybody so solicitous of everyone else’s property rights.”

  “Yeah, these bastards sure are.”

  “Well, they are among themselves, and — confound it!” (although that wasn’t exactly what Malambroso said).

  The wizard slapped himself in a sensitive spot, and the tent effect disappeared. Shea could hear normal background noises again, and the bargaining had risen to bellowing. With a last glance at Malambroso, who definitely had ants, if not something bigger, in his pants, Shea rode back to the Rus.

  Igor’s men had pulled their helms low over their eyes, so that might have been the only reason they seemed to look suspiciously at Shea.

  Minus the infestation, Chalmers was as uneasy as his enemy. “This looks more like a challenge than a trade,” he whispered.

  “Or a trap,” Shea noted. Everyone who had been riding with bows unstrung had now started stringing them. Those whose bows were already strung seemed to be displaying great interest in the number of arrows In their quivers.

  “A lousy son of a mangy she-goat, am I?” the chieftain bellowed. “I’ll show you, you dung-weaned boar’s get of a Rus!”

  Shea braced for an arrow in his mail or in him, but nothing happened — yet. Instead the chieftain shouted something loud but wordless. All the Polovtsi who hadn’t mounted now did so. The ones already mounted started shifting outward, to the flanks. The Polovtsi would be stretched thin, but they would be able to hit the Bus with archery from three sides, and disperse rapidly if the Rus charged in any of the three directions.

  The psychologist looked behind him. The Rus also knew what they were doing. Several bowshots away, the scouts who’d led the way toward the camp and then stopped were spreading out. They would be able to cover the retreat.

  Except that Igor didn’t look like a man planning to retreat. Lances were coming out of their slings and the fading daylight sparked ruddy fire from steel points. If the Rus could get to close quarters without losing too many men to archery, their armor and longer reach would give them an advantage. The Polovtsi were going to have to fight their way off this battlefield.

  Shea scratched his sunburned nose. He was going to have to fight his way into the ranks of the Polovtsi, or lose his useful reputation as a bogatyr. He wished for a helmet with a nasal to keep his nose from leading the way.

  Hell, he wished (as he had done at other times) that he’d given up syllogismobiling across the continua after he’d married Belphebe! He wanted to see her. He wanted to see their child, other children, their grandchildren.

  Not to mention that an all-out fight now would probably end any chances of rescuing Florimel. He could see what that thought was doing to Chalmers; the older man’s face was even grimmer than before.

  Shea looked at his colleague. “Doc, make your passes!”

  Shea hastily began reciting:

  “O would some power the giftie gie them

  To see themselves as others see them!

  From many a hurtful notion free them!

  The truth make known;

  The sight o’ vermin carried wi’ them

  To them be shown!

  A Polovets bowman, stretched to the limit, sighted along his arm. It might have just been Shea’s imagination, but he seemed to be aiming at Igor.

  Then the man seemed to turn to stone, except for his eyes, which grew very wide. A moment later, he reanimated himself — and let out the scream of a banshee with a migraine headache.

  The scream was only the first of many, not to mention shouts and curses. All the Polovtsi grew bug-eyed, and some of them leaped from their horses to roll frantically on the
ground. One of them rolled into a campfire and out the other side, jumping up with his clothes on fire.

  He threw himself down again, rolled until the flames were out, then ran off toward the river, tearing off his clothes as he ran.

  He wasn’t the only one. Polovtsi swatted, punched and clawed at themselves, making their ragged clothes even more so. Some drew their knives and started slashing at their garments or even stabbing at themselves, although Shea noted that none of those seemed to hit a vital spot.

  Hardly any of the Polovtsi paid any attention to their horses, and it would have been a waste of time to do so. Their riders apparently going mad had thoroughly spooked all the ponies, and they were running off as fast as the Polovtsi themselves. Some of the ponies threw their uncaring riders off; others didn’t bother with that courtesy and ran away with them.

  Shea took a firm grip on his own mount’s reins, thrust his own feet even more firmly into the stirrups, and tried not to laugh.

  In what must have been less than five minutes, the camp area was completely empty of live, or at least conscious, Polovtsi. A couple lay staring at the sky, after stabbing themselves or perhaps knocking themselves silly falling off their horses.

  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.