I
The kaleidoscope of colored dots had slowed to an occasional swirl of green and purple ones. Now that their eyes could focus again, Sir Reed Chalmers, Ph.D, etc., etc., and Sir Harold Shea, Ph.D, took a good look at the country in front of them. It was virgin forest, some willow but mostly birch and oak, with the hint of yellow in the leaves that heralds autumn. The ground cover was thick brush, with an occasional wildflower.
There was only enough wind to stir the leaves, but the temperature said "autumn" even more than the yellow-tinged leaves. It was brisk enough to stimulate minds fogged by their transition from the world of the Aeneid.
"Well need something heavier than these tunics and cloaks," Shea remarked, pulling his cloak tight and his tunic down. "This is not a Mediterranean climate."
"Obviously, my boy," Chalmers replied. "Have you any speculation as to where we might be?"
"In a temperate-zone forest," Shea suggested. "They all look alike to me, and they turn up in mythology and literature from all over the world."
He looked around, trying to wave away the flies that sought the blood on his clothes and hands. They had left mythological Carthage shortly after attending a sacrifice, with no chance to wash.They were in a sort of clearing, but otherwise Shea saw nothing but forest in all directions. He heard rustles and chirpings, but except for the flies and an occasional flash of wings, no animal life was visible.
The sky was a pale blue, almost cloudless. By the sun it was somewhat past noon. Far off in the eastern sky Shea could make out what must be a large bird, the colour of a gaudy sunset. No clues there.
The land was fairly level, but sloped downward a trifle toward the south. As Shea watched, the previously motionless forest began to stir from that direction. Rabbits hopped, squirrels ran, and he caught a glimpse of a fox slinking by. A few minutes later they heard shouts and curses; the voices sounded human.
"Let's get under cover," Chalmers said.
They crouched behind a waist-high clump of bushes, thick enough to scratch skin, which only encouraged the flies. Presently two men jogged into the clearing, both carrying long spears with barbed iron heads. They were wide-skirted, knee-length coats, embroidered around the sleeves and hems, baggy trousers, and calf-length boots. They had bushy beards, and wore large round fur caps.
Two others followed, similarly armed and dressed. All appeared to be short of breath. They also appeared to be of normal proportions, not the outsized heroes of the Aeneid.
More cries and curses, and a full-grown brown bear, at least five hundred pounds, loped into the clearing. Its muzzle was wet and its temper obviously foul. To Shea, whose head was about two feet above the ground, its stained yellow claws looked as long as butcher knives.
Four more men followed the bear, and three of them flung their spears. One glanced off the bear's shoulder. A second struck the animal's side, but the third, badly aimed, landed beside the watchers in the thicket, a little too close to Shea for comfort.
Remembering his lessons as Aeneas's spear-bearer, Shea seized the six-foot shaft. Muttering:
"Backward, turn backward, O spear, in thy flight,
Speed to thy target and dim the bear's light,"
he aimed a yard from a spearless man, and threw.
The spear arcked down just close enough to the hunter for him to snatch at it, then somersaulted on its point before he could grip it and hurled itself butt-first at the bear. It struck a skull-cracking blow to the bear's head, then dropped to the ground.
Seven of the eight hunters hastily made gestures of aversion, but the eighth, the leader by his elaborate coat and high embroidered cap, thrust his spear through the bear's eye. They all waited a few minutes, but the bear stayed dead.
The leader glanced around the clearing. "Greetings and thanks to he who has helped us," he said in a strong, resonant voice. "I am Igor Sviatoslavich, Prince of Seversk. Pray join us. You have my word that you will not be harmed."
In the thicket Chalmers looked a little dubious.
"They know we're here, and they can always prod us out with those spears," Shea reminded him, and rose.
At eye level, the prince was a good six feet tall, with a stern, noble face. Approaching, Shea swept a respectful bow—he'd certainly had enough practice—and Chalmers followed.
"I am honored to have been of service to the noble prince of Seversk," Shea began, trying to figure out where and when Seversk might be. Seven spears at his back didn't help. "This is Sir Reed Chalmers, and I am Sir Harold Shea."
The prince hesitated, then asked in a tone that conveyed more suspicion than courtesy, "Ah, have you no patronymic?"
"Andre—ivich," Shea said, tacking on the Slavic suffix at the last minute. "And my colleague is Reed, uh—"
"My father's name was William," said Chalmers.
"Rurik Vasilyevich! A name of good omen!" the prince said. The thumps behind them told Shea that spears were being grounded. "How do you come to be in the forest?" Igor continued. "You have not the aspect of hunters."
"We are, um, scholars, from the West," Chalmers answered. "I fear we, ah, lost our way, and wound up here."
"What was your destination?"
"We were trying to reach the Silk Empire," Shea said, taking inspiration from Igor's cap as Chalmers's inventiveness ran out.
"Was there trouble along your way, that you did not go south, to Constantinople? Any merchant could have told you that eastbound caravans start from there, not the lands of the Rus."
"Merchants in the west are very secretive, Your Highness. They tell so many fabulous tales about the lands to the east that our—superiors—have sent us to seek the truth."
The prince looked dubious. "You carry no books or paper," he said.
With a sigh for his library in Ohio, Shea began a polite precis of the difficulties of carrying valuable and fragile objects through unsettled lands—
"Therefore, Your Highness, we keep them safely, and pull them out only when necessary." Gesturing, he recited:
"Who hath a book hath friends at hand,
And gold and gear at his command;
And rich estates if he but look,
Are held by him who hath a book."
A leather-bound, gold-stamped edition of the Almanack de Gotha popped out of thin air. Shea grabbed for it, caught it with one hand just before it hit the ground, and nearly dropped it from the weight. Carefully using both hands, he presented the stout volume to Prince Igor. The prince looked, but did not touch.
"The Rus honor learning, Egorov Andreivich, and I would know more of you, and yours," the prince said. "You and Rurik Vasilyevich will dine with me tonight."
"We are honored to be your guests," Chalmers said.
Leaving all but two of his men to skin the bear and haul the meat, Prince Igor led the way out of the clearing. Once out there was a suggestion of a path to the south, very easy to miss.
"Do you have any ideas about who these people are?" Shea asked, as they trailed the rest of the party.
"None, except that they are Slavs. I cannot recall any mythology or work of literature with this background." Chalmers' frustration was evident. "Your small magics have worked well, so far."
"Literally, I should say."
"What led you to try those in particular?"
Shea considered. "With the spear, it was a little insurance for something I was pretty sure I could do. The book—well, I had to do something. Prince Igor sounded pretty suspicious. We don't want to get locked up for spies, or something."
"At least we know we shall have to be careful in our phrasing here. Even a wish might produce something inappropriate."
"That's nothing new, Doc. But I'll keep 'em small and precise for the time being." He looked ahead; the forest was thinning out. "Maybe dinner will tell us something about this place." Then he looked at the Almanack de Gotha, which he didn't know how to return. "We need some sort of reference spell, Doc, for places like this."
"I'll think about it," Chalmers said.
On the edge of the forest they passed a rough two-wheeled cart to which a shaggy pony was hitched. A peasant lounged nearby. Igor sent them back up the forest trail.
After leaving the trees, Igor led the party along a small river through a logged-off stretch, then up a steepish incline to a walled compound set against another stand of forest. Inside were about six one-story log huts, with thatched or shingled roofs.
Prince Igor entered the largest of these. He came back to the doorway just as the psychologists, beginning to pant from the hike and the climb, reached it. The prince offered a flat basket to Chalmers. It contained two small loaves on a coarse linen napkin, and some large gray nuggets on another.
"Bread and salt, Doc," Shea muttered. "Can't refuse."
Dr. Chalmers looked annoyed, but bowed, took a loaf, dipped it in the salt, and chewed—carefully. To judge from his reaction it was dry but edible. Shea followed suit.
"Enter my house," Igor said with a slight bow, moving back from the threshold. "Although perhaps you would care to visit the bathhouse first," he added.
The psychologists accepted this evidence of civilization with exclamations of gratitude. A servant appeared in the doorway, and led them to one of the smaller buildings in the compound.
At the doorway he asked for their clothes, saying that clean ones would be provided. Stripped to the skin, the two entered.
Inside the steam was so thick they could scarcely see each other, and so hot that Shea's sinuses, which had behaved well in other universes, gave him a painful reminder of their existence. An imprecation from Chalmers clued Shea to his partner's whereabouts.
"The Russian bath has a long way to go," the younger man agreed.
Groping about, they found benches, and wooden trays holding a greasy soap and bundles of reeds. These primitive substitutes for Ivory and washcloths actually got rid of blood and dirt.
They also got rid of aches and pains, and produced a wonderful feeling of lassitude. Shea found himself drowsing on a bench, unsure how long he'd been sitting there.
Eventually they heard the servant ask if they were ready to come out. When they answered yes, the other door of the bathhouse opened. They exited onto an open porch, where two large and well-aimed buckets of cold water were splashed over each of them.
Chalmers yelped, but the cold water had shocked a memory into Shea's conscious mind.
"Doc," Shea said, "I think I know where we are."
Chalmers looked out inquiringly from the coarse linen towel with which he was drying himself, as Shea reached into the pile of trousers, shirts, coats, and low boots the servant had brought.
"Remember that cocktail party for the new faculty last fall?"
Chalmers nodded. A wealthy alumnus who had never outgrown an adolescent passion for Tolstoy had recently endowed a chair of Russian literature. The new incumbent was an emigre who said he had taught at the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. It might even have been true, and he was certainly the lion of the party.
Everyone was following the elephantine choreography prescribed for such occasions when Professor Zerensky's path intersected that of Vaclav Polacek, the bad boy of the Garaden Institute. Polite introductions had degenerated into a katzenjammer conducted in Russian, and at one point Polacek started to take off his jacket. Shea elbowed him out of danger, and after threatening to allow him nothing but water until he cooled off, asked what the fuss was all about.
"That (Slavic epithet) had the gall to say that Borodin was a better composer than Smetana!" (More Slavic that Shea didn't really want to have translated.)
Shea had learned, from occasional dealings with colleagues at Notre Dame, never to argue with nationalist fanatics. He suggested that the Rubber Czech solace himself by sticking to Pilsner and boycotting the vodka.
"I will!" Polacek said, and stuck to it.
"It's too bad Polacek isn't here," Shea concluded. 'This cold water would be just the thing for him."
"I do not consider the theoretical virtues of the cold bath to be demonstrated in practice," Chalmers replied. "As Florimel is not here, the impulse it is supposed to quench does not arise. If she were, there would be even less need for one."
"Ah, right, Doc. But this Borodin character Professor Zerensky insulted Votsy with at that party—well, his last work was an opera called Prince Igor. He died before he finished it."
"You mean we're in an opera?" Chalmers cried, in the tone of someone who expects the overture to Tristan und Isolde to begin any second—and who can't escape. "And it's incomplete? Ah—are we expected to finish it?"
"I hope not," Shea said, with a shudder. "Anyway, someone else did, after his death. But it was based on legends of early Russian heroes, so we're probably in those."
"How early?" Chalmers asked.
"I dunno. A long time before Peter the Great made the Russians shave their beards, anyway."
"Peter the Great accomplished a great deal more than that, my boy. He founded the Russian navy, reorganized the military and civil administrations, and established the Imperial capital of St. Petersburg."
"Well, it's neither Imperial, the capital, nor St. Petersburg anymore."
The footcloths provided with the boots were puzzling to men accustomed to socks.
"Uh, Doc," Shea said, struggling with his, "about Florimel. Do you think she's . . . here?" Their departure from the world of the Aeneid had been made in haste and disorder, thanks to a vengeful god.
Chalmers' face was almost as stern as Igor's—his version of the stiff upper lip. "If she isn't . . ." was all he said.
Shea laced up his second boot, then rose and clapped (Chalmers on the shoulder. "Let's start looking. If nothing rise, we can join up with one of those merchants Igor mentioned. Meanwhile, we've eaten his bread and salt, so let's see what else he has to offer.
"Ready, Doc?"
"Quite, my boy," Chalmers replied, steadily enough.
The servant led them back to the main building. Shea recognized the big, beehive-shaped stove in the corner; according to National Geographic, it was still used in the Russia of his own day. The benches and tables were of finely planed wood, and there was an icon on the east wall.
The building was well chinked and had only one window. Though warm, by Harold Shea's standards it wanted a good airing.
Dinner was smoked venison, more of the coarse bread, and plenty of mead, kvass, and weak ale. The cups and bowls were finely finished wood, and steel knives were provided. Shea had tasted worse mead, but this was much too sweet for his taste, so he only sipped.
While they were eating, the huntsmen trailed in, by way of the bathhouse. Each bowed to the icon and the prince before sitting down. Two joined the psychologists at Igor's table; they were introduced as Oleg Nikolaivich and Mikhail Sergeivich.
Apparently it was considered bad manners to speak with one's mouth full, but worse manners to have an empty cup. The room became loud with the sounds of cheerful drunkenness, the scurrying feet of servants and the stumbling ones of men seeking the privy.
Igor, and Mikhail, and Oleg after they sat down, watched the two visitors closely. As Shea and Chalmers did nothing more alarming than eat, the atmosphere at the table soon relaxed.
After the edge was off, Igor asked a number of shrewd questions about their origins. Shea left the answers to Chalmers, who said quite honestly that they were adventurers who had seen many a strange land.
"Indeed, Your Highness, we have seen the hippogriff, ridden a flying carpet, and drunk the wine of the gods! May I tell you about—?"
"Another cup, and you will have battled sorcerers and tamed werewolves," Igor interrupted. "Doubtless you also saw the firebird, and the Yaga in her hut, while you were in the forest. But tell me—by what road did you enter the lands of the Rus? Did you come from Galich, or by way of Polotsk?"
"Ah, we came the long way round, Your Highness. We were trying to avoid trouble."
"Wise of you. But this is not trouble; you have yet to meet that. Now, to get to the forest, you must have passed Velikaya Klyucheva. How fared the harvest there?"
"Really, I am not a farmer, Your Highness. I could see nothing wrong."
"Well, then, have you seen any burned or abandoned villages?"
"No, Your Highness."
"Any men mounted on small, shaggy ponies, riding without stirrups and often without saddles? They would be wearing ragged coats and trousers, caps and boots, and many layers of filth. Their weapons would be long knives and curved bows."
"They sound like folk one would not care to meet. Bandits?"
"Polovtsi. You saw none?"
"No, Your Highness."
"Did you even pass by any of their campsites? They are hard to overlook, for one can smell them three days' ride downwind."
"I am sure we passed nothing of the kind, Your Highness."
"Hippogriffs and flying carpets you have seen, but not the scourge of the steppes! And you call yourselves scholars! You did not need to come so far just to learn new tales to spin for your supper! So perhaps—"
At this point, to the psychologists' relief, someone struck up a gusla, an instrument that looked like a near ancestor of the balalaika. Then he started a song that had everyone lifting their cups.
As more of the men joined in the newcomers were able to hear that it was a listing of heroes; at every name a cup was drained. Igor and the rest drank to Sviatoslav of Kiev, Yaroslav the Wise, Mstislav the Brave, another Sviatoslav of Kiev, Vsevolod of Suzdal, and Yaroslav of Galich. But when a certain Oleg was named, Igor looked morose, and his cup lost its rhythm. Nor did he drink again, and the song faltered as others followed the prince. The player ended with a roaring paen to Vladimir the Great, then called for the singer's due. No few cups were set before him.
Igor muttered curses against another list, starting with Boris and Oleg. "They will do anything for silver," he growled. "And you, who have come so far, and seen so little, tell me—are you for hire also?"
Shea couldn't tell if they were being insulted or recruited. "We are pledged to return to our own lands if we live, but on a journey such as this, it is no disgrace to earn some extra silver."
Further aminadversions were interrupted by a servant who hastily passed the prince's table on his way to the door. "Your Highness, the princess' personal guard is here!"
The sound of hoofbeats and jingling harness now penetrated the noisy room. Igor woke up and so did Harold's curiosity. He had seen a princess or two in his travels, and wondered how this one would measure up.
When Euphrosinia Yaroslavna entered the room, all heads turned in her direction. Every man got to his feet and bowed as she saluted the icon. Igor left the table and embraced her warmly.
She and her escort wore the boots, trousers, and coats of hunters; the escort carried longswords and shields instead of spears, and wore mail. All had grim faces.
"The Polovtsi attacked Yuri the Red's estate at Nizhni Charinsk two days ago," she announced. "They wen1 rebuilding the palisade after it burned last month, and were caught completely off guard."
From the curses that rent the air, the psychologists drew two conclusions: the Polovtsi had raided a "safe" location, and they had no business knowing that the palisade was down. Sure enough, the word "spies" came up.
"Yuri's son Boris rode to Seversk to report," the princess continued. "The raiders took the entire household, including that young woman who is neither Rus nor Polovets nor Greek nor anything else we have been able to discover."
Chalmers' face suddenly matched Euphrosinia's for grimness. "Is she a small woman, Your Highness?" His voice didn't break. "Good-looking, very fair skin and brown hair?"
"It seems that you know her," Euphrosinia replied. "What is her name?"
"Lady Florimel, Your Highness."
"So is she named."
"What—?" Chalmers' voice did break.
"Can she—they—be ransomed or rescued?" Shea asked, noting that many far from friendly looks were now aimed their way.
"Perhaps," the prince said. "What is she to you?"
"She is Sir Reed's wife, Your Highness."
Shea didn't notice any warming of the atmosphere, but Igor suddenly gave a bark of laughter.
"So that is why you said so little! 'Reports to your superiors.' Pig swill! You're trying to find her! But how did you—what happened?"
"She was stolen by a powerful enemy, Your Highness."
"He must have been. You don't look it, but I'm thinking you are bogatyri yourselves." He grinned. "Perhaps you really have seen hippogriffs and the rest of it.
"Regardless, we now have a common foe. We must rescue your wife and Yuri's family before they go to the Krasni Podok slave market." He filled his cup with an unsteady but practiced hand and rose on still more unsteady legs.
"By Our Lord who saved us, His Mother who bore Him, the Saints who followed Him, the honor of Seversk, and my own honor as its prince, I swear that I will do all that may be needed, yea unto holding my own life as naught, until the Lady Florimel is rescued from her captivity among the Polovtsi."
Then he fell forward on the table and began to snore.
Chalmers looked stricken, but the other Rus at the table, after hearing the snores, paid no heed to the fallen prince. Shea took a close look and a strong sniff. "Just drunk," he reassured his colleague.
Euphrosinia Yaroslavna's handsome face looked thoughtfully at Reed Chalmers' hopeful one. "You should know," she said, "that by both the laws and customs of the Rus, no man may be held to anything he promises while drunk."
Shea thought that spoke well for the good sense of the Rus, but wasn't about to say so. "What says the law?" he asked, covering for Chalmers.
"'If two men, both being drunk, come to an agreement, and after, when they have both slept their drunkenness off, one of them is not satisfied with the agreement, it shall be void.'" Her fluent quotation gave Shea some notion of how often it was cited. "By custom, no vow, contract, or promise is valid unless all parties are sober."
"There is reason to go after them," Chalmers said, his voice showing that he'd bounced back, for the moment. "Folk of the Rus were captured too."
The princess shrugged her elegant shoulders. She couldn't hold a candle to Belphebe were that lady present, Shea decided, but she definitely held the eye on her own. "There are boyars of princely houses in the tents of the Polovtsi at this moment. Yuri was a muzh, yes, but a border lord."
She looked directly at them; her words might give pain, but she didn't turn away from her victims. "Done is done. For now, it is more important to prevent further raids. The Polovtsi should not have been able to strike this close to Seversk."
In an academic setting, Dr. Shea might have appreciated her realpolitik. She showed more logic than most political commentators in the twentieth-century U.S. But thinking of Belphebe had triggered a gut reaction: if she were in a mess, politics could take a bath until she was out of it. And Reed Chalmers would back him up.
Ergo, since Florimel is in a mess, politics can take that same bath, and I will back Reed. QED.
Time for my realpolitik, Your Highness.
Shea's gut had also generated an inspiration. He looked in the kindling box (the prince's table was close to the stove). Good, it held unpeeled willow branches as well as birchbark. Now to unruffle the princess' feathers . . .
"If I may, Your Highness, I would like to return His Highness' hospitality by giving him a healing draught. He needs to be able to ride tomorrow, no matter where he goes."
"I will watch you prepare it, and you will drink it yourself before you give him any of it."
Shea had no problem with that, although he wished the samovar wasn't still a few centuries in the future. "Please ask your servant to boil water in a clean pot."
While that was being prepared, Shea stripped the bark from the willow branches, and cut about two dozen small pieces.
"What are you doing?" Chalmers murmured.
"Using your synthesis spell to make aspirin, Doc. Mark these, please; the formula is C9H804."
Chalmers perked up and set to work with his knife, while Shea shredded the rest of the bark. The Rus were quiet, but Shea knew that if this didn't work, the trouble Igor had mentioned would come, with a vengeance.
A servant, his hands muffled in rawhide, brought in a pot of water. Shea indicated where it should go on the table, a fair distance from Igor. Then he arranged the marked pieces of bark around it, and dropped the rest of the bark into the pot.
Finally, he and Chalmers stood on either side of the pot, Shea reciting, the older man gesturing.
"When I consider how my life is spent,
The time ill-used, the wealth I fling askance
On fleeting follies tuned to my own bent,
Or joined with others, dance delusion's dance;
O Willow! Emblem of the soul's own tears,
O weep with me, a-pent in mine own snare,
Yet healing bring, lest prey to mine own fears,
I fall into the pit of black despair.
Although thy leaves our dreary truths bespeak,
Thy bark, now shredded,'s balm to make us whole,
This bitter draught gives strength, unlike the sweet
Taste of the mead, to which our strength pays toll.
Come, prince of drugs! Thy powers unseen, restore
To all who drink, sobriety once more."
The atmosphere in the lodge was anything but salubrious, but the spears remained stacked and the swords sheathed. Shea checked the pot; the bark had steeped. He wiped his cup and dipped some out.
Yeech!! It tasted vile, out warmed his stomach very nicely. In a few minutes he felt his incipient stomachache go away. His head felt clearer than ever.
He held out the cup to the princess. "The draught, Your Highness."
All heads turned to her again. She didn't hesitate. "Give him the draught," she ordered. "If he is harmed, you will both be flogged and your eyes burnt out with not irons before you lose your heads."
She gestured, and Mikhail Sergeivich raised the prince.
Shea was relieved to see that he was not unconscious, just asleep. He put the cup to Igor's lips; the prince swallowed by reflex. By the time it was empty he had opened his eyes.
"Gaaaah!" was his first sound, and "Water!" his first word. The water was hastily brought, and the hands which had tightened on swordhilts relaxed a trifle, but did not move. Igor downed a pitcher and part of a second, then looked around, cold sober.
The hands fell away from the swordhilts. The princess stared.
"Did you prepare this draught?" Igor asked the psychologists.
"Yes, Your Highness."
"It tastes like rotten maresmilk. You bogatyri have stomachs of iron." He smiled broadly. "Mine is only that of prince, but I owe you a boon. Ask what you will."
"Only that my wife be rescued, Your Highness," Chalmers said, before the princess could recover.
Igor repeated his previous vow, not as loudly but with more dignity, as well as several embellishments. By the time he had finished, half the room was cheering.
The prince was also beginning to find company in sobriety. Three or four of the men came up to the table and dipped their cups, and many a respectful, even awed, look was aimed at the strangers.
Princess Euphrosinia gave them a respectful nod, then turned to the prince. "Let us go to bed, my lord. The morning is wiser than the evening, and there will be much to do."
Igor offered his arm. "Gladly, my lady," he said, with more than a suggestion of a leer. He escorted her out.