They’d run out of thongs and were raiding the leather merchants’ stores for more material, when Igor rode up at the head of his warriors. The prince stared at the acres of helpless Polovtsi, and laughed so hard that anyone but a Hero would have fallen off his horse. Then he dismounted and embraced Shea.
“You are a bogatyr like none ever named in song or story! The Polovtsi are finished and Rurik Vasilyevich has his life, by all the saints!”
“Did you capture the slave train, Your Highness? And what of that other wizard? And Yuri Dimitrivich’s family? And — ?” Shea hoped his days victory entitled him to a few straight answers.
“We captured it, all right,” the prince interrupted. “Word of your drinking party reached the guards, and half of them rode off to join it. They are out there,” he added, waving a hand at the field of drunks.
“The rest seemed to suspect something, but we had a scout who knew a ford across a little stream that they counted on to protect one flank. We had our men on foot right into the camp before the guards knew anything. Then the horsemen charged before the Polovtsi could so much as draw a sword!
“We had the camp and the caravan under our hands in less time than it took one of those wretches to drain a cup. Yuri Dimitrivich’s family and household, those who survived, are free.”
“What did you do with the rest, Your Highness?” The prince replied cheerfully. “They are on their way to Krasni Podok, and this vermin will join them. Don’t worry about any blood prices, Egorov. The grivnas from that sale will more than cover the price of a few wounds.”
Igor lowered his voice. “I think I really will raise the liquor tax. If these merchants will go to so much trouble to supply drink to Polovtsi perhaps I can persuade them to take as much trouble for their prince. Speaking of which, I could use a drink right now.”
“Ah, Your Highness, if anything is left, it would leave you flat alongside your enemies. In fact, I’d not offer anything here to anyone but an enemy.”
The prince looked around, then headed for the spring. He gestured for Shea to follow, which the psychologist did, telling himself that his dreams of freeing all the slaves in the train had been a few centuries too early. But what about —
“Florimel, Your Highness! Was she freed?”
“I gave Rurik Vasilyevich permission to look for her, once we’d taken the caravan,” Igor replied. “He will be coming in with the rest of my band. Oleg Nikolaivich will take the caravan to Krasni Podok and bring back my profits.” His smile grew a trifle cruel. “I will also find out who has been depending on Krasni Podok to supply his needs, at the expense of his fellow Rus.”
That should help a bit, Shea thought.
* * *
Near sunset the rest of the party rode in, including Reed Chalmers. Never was there a more truly named Knight of the Woeful Countenance.
He was still guarded, but Shea could see that the guards were now superfluous. Reed slumped in the saddle so that it was a wonder he didn’t fall. There was no sign of Florimel.
Shea helped his comrade down, and wished he had a drink to offer him. The best he could do was privacy, so he took Chalmers to the outskirts of the camp.
“What happened?”
Shea was relieved to see a trace of life in Chalmers’ eyes, even if it was only frustration. “I — I don’t know.”
“Can you tell me what you saw, at least?”
“What — how can that help?”
Florimel is gone again, Shea thought. Aloud, he said, “We never know what won’t help. Besides, we kept our promise to Igor. He owes us something. Even if I can’t help —”
“All right.”
Chalmers described a search of the slave caravan, wagon by wagon and tent by tent, him and four guards. (Not just to keep an eye on him, either; suicidal last-ditch attacks were a Polovtsi speciality.) There’d been hundreds of slaves, some more wretched then others, but none of them as happy as Chalmers had expected to find them, now that they were free.
“One man was bold enough to explain that Yuri the Red’s household had been freed but no others,” Chalmers said. “He asked If this was a true prince’s justice. One of my guards knocked him senseless.”
Chalmers kept his anger on a tight rein until they came to the last tent. It had some sort of warding at the entrance, that kept Chalmers and his guards from going in.
The warding did not keep the psychologist from seeing Florimel, standing with Malambroso in the far corner of the tent.
“It should not have kept her from seeing me, either, but perhaps it did. Certainly she showed no signs of recognition. She looked like a sleepwalker.”
Then Malambroso began making passes with his hands. Chalmers knew there was only one thing to do: break the ward, then negate Malambroso’s spell.
He tried three times to enter the tent, using three different verses (and Shea couldn’t have remembered what they were to save his life). The warding stayed firm, which was more than could be said of the guards. Igor’s orders or no, two of them ran off.
The other two remained in sight, but at a safe distance, as if fearing Chalmers might burst into flames at any moment, like a pot of Greek fire.
In the middle of Chalmers’ fourth attempt, Malambroso and Florimel vanished.
“I’m sure I did everything correctly,” Chalmers concluded. “Any one of those spells should have stopped him.” His voice was tight with rage and grief. “And what has he done with my wife?” His voice rose to a shout. “Where has he taken her?”
Shea mentally cursed the whole continuum, starting with Malambroso, going on to the Polovtsi, and not stopping there. He didn’t dare curse out loud but right now he would knowingly have accepted a drink from the caravan’s remaining stores.
The day was ending even worse than it had begun, and Shea hoped that Chalmers didn’t want any company, because he himself certainly didn’t. With a farewell grunt to Chalmers, he stumbled half-blindly, back toward the center, where fires were beginning to glow.
Shea had to swing wide before he’d gone more than a few yards. The sober merchants had pulled their wagons into a tight circle, in case any sober Polovtsi wandered by. The drunken Polovtsi covered as much ground as ever, although some of them were awake enough to groan and a few were struggling against their bonds.
The psychologist was passing a wagon with a cover of smelly furs tied to poles, when one of the furs flew out and hit him in the face. Before he could react, a human figure leaped after the fur.
The attacker landed on Shea’s back and the Ohioan felt the pressure of a knife seeking to pierce his armor. He tried to keep his balance and draw his sword, but did neither. He went down, his sword caught under him and the attacker on top of him. Shea felt another stab, this time higher up. He tried to free one arm to draw his dagger, because he had the feeling that the third time his attacker stabbed, the knife wasn’t going to hit armor — Something cracked, something else thumped, and a third something went wssssh. The attacker let out a scream and released Shea. The psychologist rolled clear, drawing his sword as soon as his right arm was free, then leaping up ready to go into action.
He didn’t have to, The attacker, a thickset man with a Rus robe and a scarf over his face, was sprawled on the trampled grass. Reed Chalmers stood over him, with a long pole from the wagon’s cover in one hand.
Shea took a deep breath. “Thanks, Doc. You’re improving.”
“I thought of killing him, but I suspect he may have something to tell us.”
Definitely improving, thought Shea.
The scuffle had drawn the attention of the guards, and the prisoner was soon dragged to the center of camp and stripped of his scarf and headdress. In the light of fires and torches, it could be seen that in spite of his Rus merchant’s dress, the prisoner had Polovets blood in him.
Chalmers looked closely at the man for a minute, then frowned.
“Do you how this man, Rurik Vasileyevich?”
Igor had come up, although both of the
psychologists were too numb to notice. Chalmers stiffened like an icon. Those words wore all too clearly etched in his mind.
“Yes, Your Highness,” he said. “This is the man who approached me in Seversk.”
“Doubtless a spy,” Igor said. “But if I find out he had the cooperation of the merchants’ guilds, they will pay.”
He shouted for Mikhail Sergeivich. “Learn what you can from this one,” the prince told his captain. “If he survives, he goes to Krasni Podok.”
* * *
The return to Seversk took as long as ever, and what seemed like the final failure to rescue Florimel raised neither of the Ohians’ spirits. Chalmers was also frustrated and a little frightened at the failure of his spells. Shea did his best to help his mentor find an answer, but none of their speculation brought them any closer to Florimel or home and Belphebe, and chilly nights made it clear that winter was coming on fast.
They reached Seversk before the weather turned completely sour, and were promptly invited to the victory toast in the palace. Neither of the psychologists was in the mood for a party, but neither of them wanted to insult their host by refusing to celebrate his victory, particularly when he owed much of it to them and was not backward in saying so.
By the standards of his time, Shea realized, Igor probably was a great and noble warrior-prince. So they put on their best robes and new boots of the finest kidskin, and went to the party.
They might as well have gone in monk’s robes, for all the attention they drew. Everyone had brought out their finest garments, some of which had obviously been in storage a bit too long. Shea wondered if Igor would appreciate a gift of mothballs.
Cloth of gold, brocades with half a dozen colors in them, fine wool and linen with borders of gold thread and jewels, a dozen kinds of fur, swords with jeweled hilts — for once the diners in the great ball were brighter than the painting on its walls. The food was just as lavish; the stuffed-sturgeon dish appeared again, this time with the innermost item some kind of shellfish, and a sauce poured over the whole thing that made Shea ask for more ale several times.
As authentic bogatiri Shea and Chalmers were seated at the head table, one on either side of the Patriarch.
He listened with fascinated amusement to their account of the piles of Polovtsi.
“You never tasted any of it?” he asked Shea.
“I didn’t dare. And if I had known what the effects would be — a soldier who drank the mead said that at first he felt as if he could carry the world on his shoulders, and then felt as if the world had fallen on him. There is a riddle in this, for all that I cast the spell myself.”
“There is another riddle to be solved here, is there not?” the Patriarch said. He looked at Chalmers in a way that told both psychologists that someone had been talking. “You were not able to defeat a single Polovtsi sorcerer, while your comrade was able to defeat entire bands. It may be that warriors with no magic are no match for a wizard, my son, but there may be another answer. Cast a small spell for me. Now.”
Both psychologists looked at the Patriarch as if he’d grown a second head.
He smiled. “I grant you absolution if they are harmless. But I think I see the answer to your riddle.”
Shea recited:
“Who hath a book hath, friends at hand,
And gold and gear at his command.”
Shea nearly dropped the small gold-stamped photo album into the sauce. It looked like — but it couldn’t be, He opened it, Belphebe stared back at him from the photograph.
“Go back where you belong,” he told the album. His voice nearly broke. The album vanished.
Chalmers tried the same spell. The three waited expectantly for a minute. Chalmers tried again. Still no results.
Chalmers’ face now showed stark honor. “Have I lost my ability?” His voice shook.
“You shouldn’t have,” Shea said. “Symbolic logic is a constant, all across the continua. It hasn’t stopped.” Shea did stop, as he realized that he still had more questions than answers which wasn’t helping Chalmers.
“You took the prince’s bread and salt the night you met,” the Patriarch said. “You, Rurik Vasilyevich betrayed that bread and salt. This has become far too common among the Rus, and it is never pleasing to God. Sooner or later a traitor’s luck deserts him. And your magic was your luck — at least that is how I read this riddle.”
“But it was for my wife’s sake — I didn’t betray her!”
“Were you able to help her, when she needed help?”
“What can we do?” Shea asked. Chalmers was past speech, apparently not knowing whether to curse or weep.
“If you wish to help your wife, you must do penance for the wrong you did the prince. But it must be true repentance,” the Patriarch warned.
Chalmers was a good academic; “repentance” was a religious concept and more than a little alien to him. He hemmed and hawed and blustered longer than Shea cared for. At any moment he was afraid Chalmers would use the word “superstition” or even “nonsense,” and he didn’t want to think about the Patriarch’s reply.
But Chalmers had no alternatives to offer. The Patriarch had the patience of those who take on the work of leading strayed sheep back into the flock. He listened calmly, until there was more grief than anger in Chalmers’ voice. Finally, the older psychologist put his head in his hands for a moment, then looked at the Patriarch.
“What must I do?” he asked.
“You must fast tomorrow — that shouldn’t be difficult, after tonight — and come to the basilica tomorrow night. I will meet you there.”
* * *
The next night a thunderstorm raged as the Patriarch led Shea to the door of the basilica. Shea wore a heavy wool cloak a hood that so far had kept him no worse than damp, but the mud underfoot was another matter. It kept trying to pull his boots off, and be wished paving wasn’t another of those little conveniences this continuum hadn’t developed.
The basilica was the snuggest building Shea had yet seen here, and one look at the sanctuary told him why. A vast iconostasis — a screen of icons — rose higher than Igor’s head and spread out wider than most rooms in the palace. On the left were Old Testament scenes — Cain slaying Abel, Noah leading the animals aboard the Ark, Moses breaking the Golden Calf, Daniel in the lion’s den.
On the right Shea recognized other scenes, from the New Testament — Christ walking on the water, performing the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, and on the cross. Above the two wings was the Holy Trinity — and Shea couldn’t tell if the Holy Spirit was intended to be incorporeal or if the artist hadn’t known how to draw.
The whole iconostasis and many of the individual icons’ frames were gold or silver or at least gilded or silvered wood. Elaborate carvings or castings, inlaid ivory and jewels, tapestry-work that made any formal-dress brocade look drab — the iconostasis outshone even the elaborately painted walls and ceiling of the basilica.
The only way to make that thing any brighter, Shea thought, would be to set it on fire. Then he hastily chased the irreverent thought out of his mind. This was a place that could almost make one believe in blasphemy.
It did make Shea remember Sunday school, and discreetly kneel.
The Patriarch returned, leading Chalmers, who was wearing a dun-colored penitent’s robe. Facing the iconostasis, the Patriarch pointed out one just over halfway up the New Testament side. “Judas’ kiss, the betrayal of Our Lord to His enemies. Meditate upon that, my erring son.”
They watched Chalmers prostrate himself on the floor. The Patriarch turned to Shea.
“We must leave now.”
The priest extinguished the basilica lamps and picked up their lantern. It penetrated the darkness but feebly, but it got them out, leaving Chalmers with only the sanctuary light.
“Let us pray that though be lie in darkness, God will lead him to the light,” the Patriarch said. He began to pray, loudly enough not to notice that Shea was only mouthing words.
* * *
Shea had finally worked up an appetite for breakfast the next morning, when Chalmers entered their chamber. The older man still wore his penitent’s robe, but he had the first smile on his face that Shea had seen in weeks.
“My penitence seems to have worked,” he said. “I cast a small spell, and it worked. I changed wine into water.”
Shea swallowed a chunk of dry bread. “I suppose the other way around might have been in bad taste.”
Chalmers’ smile turned into a grin. “Who cares about bad taste? Now that we can follow Florimel, all I want to do is leave this world. I have never been in one I shall be so happy to see the last of!”
His ending a sentence with a preposition told Shea just how excited his colleague was. Nor did he disagree — although there was no point in even thinking about returning to Ohio. not with Chalmers in this mood.
It took them barely ten minutes to dress and pack. Five minutes more and they were standing hand in hand, one on each side of a large puddle on the floor, the result of a leak opened by last night’s storm.
“By the power of saints, and the might of princes, by the strength of men and the wit of women, may all the powers of the sky above, and the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth grant that if there is P, and there is Q, then P equals not-Q. and Q equals not-P. . . .”
They were off.
Part II:
Sir Harold And
The Hindu King
Christopher Stasheff
The lights faded, the ground jolted up under their feet, and Shea and Chalmers found themselves alone in the dark. Shea had a confused impression of single-story houses with curving adobe walls and thatched roofs, with bigger buildings of stone looming behind them in the moonlight. A world of aromas filled his head, sharp and pungent, some familiar, most not; the only one he could name was something that smelled like curry. The ground beneath him was just that — ground, the packed earth of an unpaved street. He seemed to be in a sort of expanded intersection, not big enough to call a plaza.
The Exotic Enchanter Page 7