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.
The inside of the dome was painted gold, and the afternoon sunlight gilded it further. How many more sips before it was too bright to look at?
His companions at the table were also hard to see, but not because of what he'd been drinking. Despite the long embroidered robe of fine green wool that Reed Chalmers wore, and the brighter silks and brocades that clad the Rus, they were all lost against the paint and gilding of the walls. Bright reds, blues, and greens patterned with gold—the prince, princess, and Mikhail Sergeivich fit right in.
"Vsevolod will ride," Igor said. "The bards don't call him a fierce aurochs just to flatter him. He maintains a full band at Kursk, so they can start at once."
"The prince your brother needs to get his harvest in, as do you," Euphrosinia pointed out.
"Who needs warriors for that? We could be over the Don and back before threshing is over!"
"And who will collect your taxes if your men are over the Don? Besides, if the rains come early, you'll do well to return before butchering is over."
"Hm . . . Can the two of you control the weather, Egorov Andreivich?"
"I'm afraid not, Your Highness."
"Someone needs to keep an eye on young Sviatoslav Borisovich," Mikhail Sergeivich commented. "He's been talking too loudly and too long, of late."
"The ambitions of the young," Igor said. "Boris Vsevolodovich, God rest his soul, is a year dead. With the old stallion gone, the young one is kicking up his heels."
"Unless God brings Sviatoslav to a better mind, he'll be in your court before another year's out," Mikhail Sergeivich replied.
"Perhaps I should require his services on this expedition."
"Would you trust him at your back?" Both Euphrosinia and Mikhail Sergeivich seemed to speak at once.
"Ah, well . . ."
"And what is that sorcerer likely to do?" Mikhail asked.
"Probably set a trap with an illusion spell," Chalmers answered. "He'll be aching for the chance to pay us back."
"So will that chief," Euphrosinia said. "Will he even keep trade-truce?"
The talk turned to boyars and princes willing and able to ride. There was no question that the Polovtsi had numbers on their side, and it was obvious that the raid on Nizhni Charinsk had shaken many of the Rus.
"The raid may have been fortuitous, but no one wants to ride against a sorcerer," Euphrosinia concluded.
"They will if I order them, and I will if I must," Igor growled. "I have sworn to free those captives."
"They will ride more willingly after harvest," the princess said.
The meeting broke up shortly afterward. Chalmers and Shea took a turn in the palace yard to stretch their legs, then returned to their room. "The last thing I expected here was a Board of Directors meeting," Shea groused. "If I had taken a few more sips I would have sworn I was back at Garaden."
Chalmers did not respond, and Shea looked closely at his colleague. They'd survived some nasty spots in various dimensions, but this was the first time Shea had seen Reed Chalmers so close to the breaking point.
"My wife . . . is a slave, and I can't cut the bastards' throats!" Shea could hear the tears, but they didn't—quite—show.
"Reed," Shea said, and then no more for a while. When Chalmers seemed more in command of himself, Shea continued.
"Igor's doing the best he can, but we shouldn't depend on him. There's magic in this universe, so what can we do with it?"
They tried to recall verses on freedom and emancipation, but their harvest was meager. Slavery was also a part of this universe, so they doubted the effectiveness of any spell based on its immorality. The few spirituals that Shea remembered emphasized freedom in the next world.
"I don't think it would be any use trying to freeze the Don so she could walk across it, even if we could get there," Shea concluded, looking out at the sunset. "Maybe my subconscious will trigger something tonight. The morning is wiser than the evening, even if the Rus do say it all the time. Coming to dinner, Doc?"
"Not tonight. I really have no appetite."
Physician, heal thyself, Shea thought as he took another look at Chalmers, but he seemed safe to leave for an hour or so.
The Ohioan was not that enthusiastic about Kievan cooking, which, like that in the Faerie Queen, emphasized elaborate, highly spiced dishes. (A sturgeon stuffed with a carp stuffed with a mullet stuffed with a trout stuffed with something Shea couldn't identify stuffed with an egg stuffed with a pea was one main dish he remembered without pleasure.) But he wished to keep on the good side of the Patriarch, whose profession naturally required him to deplore the presence of sorcerers in the prince's domain.
So Shea put on his best robe and a seemly mien, and went down to his place at a table near the prince's. Shea was surprised when the Patriarch sat down with him, instead of taking his seat at the high table.
"May God smile on you and your house in all their lawful undertakings," the Patriarch murmured.
"May we always deserve His favor," Shea replied, wondering where this was leading.
As dinner progressed, it turned out that the Patriarch, who was near Shea's own age, wanted to hear about his travels. The psychologist edited these a bit, thinking that he'd better not admit to encountering demons and living to tell about it.
"I always loved tales, so I badgered my father into having me taught to read," the Patriarch said wistfully. "Naturally, he thought I had a desire for the religious life."
"Being able to read lets a man pursue all kinds of wisdom," Shea said, hoping he couldn't go wrong with that response.
"Or unwisdom," the Patriarch replied. Original vocation or not, he was a churchman now.
The Patriarch left right after dinner, and so did Shea. Reed Chalmers was dozing in their chamber, and Shea went quietly to bed himself.
Chalmers and Shea spent the next few days thinking up potential spells and wishing there were some way to test a few of them. After what Malambroso had said about the piety of the Rus, they would not have cared to test many in the shadow of the basilica, even if the Patriarch had been friendlier. Chalmers avoided company, and seldom left their chamber. Shea did not press him to socialize; Chalmers was in no mood to be diplomatic.
But there were times when Chalmers wanted no company at all, and Shea spent those in the practice yard. Regular dimension-hopping meant regular sword practice, even back in Ohio. Shea worried about leaving his colleague at these times, but there was nothing he could do, and as a psychologist, he knew when to leave well enough alone.
I never thought to play shrink to Doc Chalmers, Shea thought. He's supposed to be my mentor.
"Contagion and Similarity should work in this universe," Chalmers summarized one morning, "and you proved that Synthesis will. There's a strong literal element to the magic here. Your willow-bark analgesic might not have been so bitter if you hadn't insisted on that in your spell."
"There's also that strong element of reality we discussed," Shea replied. "Willow-bark tea is naturally bitter. It might not have worked otherwise."
"Malambroso seems to have found a way around any limitations of this world's magic," Chalmers said bitterly. "His see-the-expected spell would be just the thing for rescuing Florimel."
"We'll be expected to defeat such spells. Igor doesn't want his men confused when they have to fight."
"He is still planning to ride, then?" Chalmers asked.
"Oh, yes. He thinks it will discourage further raids, and besides, he just can't stand Polovtsi."
"When is he leaving?"
"He hasn't said."
The next day Shea was returning from arms practice when he met Igor. The prince wore old riding clothes and invited the psychologist to take a turn on the ramparts with him.
Igor's fortress—Shea couldn't quite use the Rus word kremlin with a straight face—was a good deal less imposing than its later Muscovite counterpart. It covered a considerable area on a rise of ground near the western edge of Seversk, but most of it was built of wood, including the walls.
A stout railed platform ran around the ramparts. The upper part had archery slits, and there was a deep ditch clear around the castle. The ditch served (from its smell) as the fortress' garbage dump, and also (Shea suspected) as a firebreak. Seversk was nine-tenths wood, and from where he stood beside the prince Shea could see three burned-out blocks without looking hard.
Inside the ramparts were two outer courtyards and an inner one. The larger of the outer ones held the storehouses, kitchens, and servants' quarters. It was also the place where taxes collected in kind were deposited, in sacks, barrels, chests, carts, or whatever else they came in.
The other courtyard had an outer gate guarded by two stone towers and an inner gate that led to the inner gate that led to the inner courtyard. Here were stables, smithies (one recently rebuilt, judging from the mixture of smoke-blackened and new wood Shea saw), and more storehouses. Shea didn't know precisely where the kitchen was; from the temperature of the food it had to be some ways from the dining hall.
Inside were the quarters for the prince's household troops, the family quarters, the basilica, the treasury, and (noises in the night hinted) the dungeon. The place would not last long against medieval or even Roman siege engines, but this did not seem to be an era, or an area, where sieges were feared. The fortress walls kept thieves out of Igor's treasury and fires out of his bedchamber, and that was enough.
The sun was crawling down toward the horizon; Shea had been here long enough for the days to shorten. He thought of everything the term "Russian winter" conjured up and hoped that he, Reed, and Florimel could be back in Ohio before the days grew much shorter.
"It seems we have less to fear than Mikhail Sergeivich thought, from my cousin Sviatoslav Borisovich," the prince said. "The first three carts of his taxes are in the lesser courtyard, together with a pack train. They are being unloaded now."
A party of men with Igor's colors on their shields came tramping up to the main gate. Shea counted twenty-five or thirty, all on foot but armed with everything but lances. Igor saw them too.
"Ah, those must be the men I bade Oleg Nikolaevich send out, returning. There was a small tax matter that is no concern of yours that I wished to see settled peacefully before we left. We shall have to—"
He broke off, as one of the approaching men nocked an arrow. "The fool—" Igor began.
The "fool's" arrow picked off a guard on top of the tower. Several more arrows soared up, then whistled down on the heads of the remaining guards and the men on the ramparts to either side or the towers. On the ground, the men not wielding bows drew their swords, except for a few who pulled axes from under their cloaks.
"By the Holy Mother—!" Igor exclaimed. He didn't get to finish this remark either. A din broke out in the other courtyard, among the storehouses. Shea heard shouts, screams, and the clash of weapons.
So did Igor. He spoke no more, but dashed back along the ramparts, heading for the family quarters. His expression reminded Shea somewhat of Chalmers', but this was a warrior prince of the Rus, not an American academic. Igor was in a berserker's fury, and Shea sincerely hoped that nothing would happen in the next hour to turn that fury against him.
First, though, he had to stay alive for the next hour.
Moving as fast as Igor, Shea dashed for the nearest stairway. He was too late. The inner gate to the courtyard flew open, knocking several defenders sprawling. What seemed like an army of men in Igor's colors swarmed in.
Shea whirled and headed for the other stairway on his side of the courtyard. Whoever the new arrivals were, they weren't friendly. Had Oleg Nikolaevich turned traitor?
As Shea took the stairs two at a time, an arrow whistled across the courtyard from the far wall. It stuck in his mail and only pricked his skin. He came down even faster after that, knowing that jumping down like Errol Flynn made a great movie shot but would probably sprain his ankle.
Several more arrows passed close enough to Shea for him to hear the whistle. Then the archer gave up, as if he couldn't tell friend from foe.
Shea sympathized. He had the same problem. Everyone was in Igor's colors, although one side was closer to the inner gate and one closer to the outer. Shea decided to assume the inner group was Igor's men, the good guys. He also saw that they were outnumbered at least two to one.
He hurried toward them, joining their ranks just as the other group charged. None of the defenders turned to fight him, and he suspected why. With only a mail shirt, and no surcoat, he had no place to show colors, and his basket-hilted saber was now fairly well known.
What bothered him about the next couple of minutes was that none of the attackers seemed to bother with him either. Did they expect to find somebody dressed like him on their side, and if so, how?
Shea decided to settle that point right now.
"Forward, for Igor of Seversk!" he shouted. Several men around him took up the cry. Several others decided that he'd proclaimed himself an enemy, and charged.
The two groups collided. Shea found himself ducking under the swing of an axe. The axeman thought he was inside Shea's sword's reach and drew a dagger. Shea thrust clumsily but effectively upward, catching the axeman under the chin. The wound made quite a mess and put the man out of the fight, even if it might take a while to kill him.
Shea slashed and thrust his way back and forth across the courtyard, as vigorously as he dared. The two lines were breaking up and it was almost impossible to tell friend from foe even down on the ground. Everybody was now shouting "Igor of Seversk!" or some other battle cry; Shea began to think he might have made the confusion worse rather than better.
He got through several encounters with no damage to himself and some to his opponents, although he didn't think he'd actually put anybody down for good except the first man. The saber wasn't the world's best armor-chopper, but it gave him a useful advantage against anyone who didn't think of swords having points.
Working on that bogatyr reputation was all very well, but something smelled wrong. Something smelled magical.
Had someone put the see-the-expected spell on the gate and courtyard? And if they had could Shea break it in about two seconds, which was the longest interval he'd had between opponents? Otherwise he'd be the latest sorcerer to be run through for poor spelling.
Here came another man. Shea thought he saw Mikhail Sergeivich under the helm, but he'd already fought a couple of men who had the appearance of ones he'd sparred with in the practice yard.
"Wizard! This is your doing!" Mikhail's voice, too—but the swordcut he launched at Shea wasn't aimed at a friend.
Shea parried, the swords slammed together hilt to hilt, then the psychologist disengaged and opened the distance. He had reach and a point, and a fat lot of good either would do if they killed one of Igor's captains!
Sparks flew twice more, before realization flickered on Mikhail's face. He sprang back; Shea let him go; they both lowered their points and stood, staring and breathing hard.
"What's happening? Who's fighting whom?" Shea panted. He took another step backward and brought his heel up against a fallen body. It wasn't the first one.
"Our men have gone mad! They fight each other!" From the dazed way he spoke, Mikhail Sergeivich hadn't had time to think much.
Suspicion turned to blazing certainty in Shea's gut and burned its way to his brain. "Mount guard," he told the Rus. "I can stop it."
He didn't dare sheathe his sword, but kept his guard down. Gesturing with the sword in his right hand, he recited:
"O would some power the giftie gie us
To see the truth the spell hides frae us!
What friends, what foes do battle wi' us
To us be shown!"
Shea could detect no change in the fading sun or clouds, but everything looked a bit brighter. He could see small differences in the appearance and the armor of the fallen. As he caught his breath and looked around, he saw the living change also. Some still bore Igor's device on their shields, but others had their shields covered.
Mikhail Sergeivich looked a trifle less hostile. Before he could say anything a scuffle on the ramparts made them both look up. Euphrosinia Yaroslavna and a boy of about twelve, daggers in hand, grinned triumphantly at a prisoner between two guards.
Mikhail Sergeivich smiled too, or at least moved his lips. All around them the strange swordsmen were drawing back toward the outer gate.
A door in the wall between the two courtyards burst open. Igor charged through it at the head of bloodstained men moving too fast to be counted. The prince still wore his riding clothes, but carried his sword and wore a helmet at least two sizes too large for him. All were stained with blood.
The attackers recoiled from Igor. That left the prince a clear path to the gate. In a moment the last avenue of retreat was blocked—and a moment after that the strange men were dropping their weapons and lowering their shields.
Igor followed everyone's glance at the ramparts.
"Glory to God!" Igor exclaimed. A smile split his face. Then it vanished as he recognized the prisoner.
"Bring him down."
While the guards did so, the prince looked around the court, apparently counting the dead. His own men cordoned off the prisoners. Shea wiped and sheathed his saber, but Mikhail Sergeivich stayed at his elbow, his longsword still in his hand.
The guards shoved the prisoner, his hands bound behind him, through the archway. The princess and Vladimir Igorovich followed. Igor hugged Euphrosinia tightly, and she didn't seem to mind the blood.
Igor smiled at his son. "Did you capture him?"
"Well, I helped," Vladimir said. "I was in Mother's outer chamber when he broke in. He kept trying to grab Mother, and I kept trying to stab him, and finally the guards came. If I'd had my own sword . . ." His voice trailed off.
"You shall have one, of the finest Frankish steel." The pleasure vanished from Igor's voice as he stared at the prisoner. "Sviatoslav Borisovich! Rebellion? From you, cousin?"
The prisoner stared at his cousin and prince with a corpse's eyes. "I thought to take Seversk by guile." He stopped.
Prince Igor looked at the prisoners, then gestured at one. The guards brought him over. '"What were your orders?" Igor asked.
"To seize the castle, most especially the inner parts and the armory, slay you and Prince Vladimir, and take the Princess Euphrosinia alive," the soldier answered dully.
"You knew that this was treason," the prince stated.
"He was our lord."
Oleg Nikolaivich now entered the court, accompanying a man with a bloody bandage on his arm. "Sergei Ivanovich is one of the scribes assisting—who assisted—your steward, Your Highness. You should hear him." Oleg's voice was soft with tightly leashed anger.
In a low voice that grew stronger as he continued, Sergei Ivanovich told how the wagons supposedly bringing Sviatoslav's taxes contained weapons and armed men. They had slain the steward, seized the storehouses, and opened the gate to the inner kremlin.
"I lay as if dead from a wound," the scribe said. "The boyar ordered that word be brought to him when Your Highness, Prince Vladimir, and the princess were taken. But he also said, 'Make sure it's Prince Igor's men you're fighting.'"
Murmurs and gestures of aversion followed this, but Igor paid no heed. "What demon possessed you, cousin? Even if you had succeeded, do you think the boyars of Seversk would have accepted you as prince? Or Vsevolod, or the Prince of Kiev?"
"I was told there was a man of power here, a bogatyr, who hated you. He would have given me your semblance until all enemies to my rule were either slain or won over."
A good many stares showing both understanding and hostility turned in Shea's direction.
"Not this man," Mikhail Sergeivich said. "He fought our enemies and broke the spell. I saw him." He looked at Shea. "Where is Rurik Vasilyevich?"
"In our chamber, the last I saw of him."
"Bring him down," Igor ordered.
"May I go up, Your Highness?" Shea spoke low, to keep his voice from shaking with the knowledge of what Chalmers had done. But Harold Shea would not desert him. Neither of them was Igor's man, after all.
Igor considered. "Disarm and bind him," he ordered. "Let neither of them speak or act, and bring them both back."
Mikhail Sergeivich unbuckled Shea's swordbelt and tossed it to a guard. He gestured, and another guard came over, bound Shea's hands with a rawhide thong, and gagged him with another. The two marched him off.
At the door of their chamber Mikhail marched him in, barely two seconds after his, "Open in the prince's name!" Fortunately, the door was not latched.
Chalmers was sitting calmly, but he was obviously shocked at the spectacle of Shea in bonds. "Take them off!" he ordered.
Then he recognized Mikhail Sergeivich, and Prince Igor's device. His shoulders slumped just a trifle.
That was enough to convince Mikhail Sergeivich. He grabbed Chalmers and tied his hands. Being out of rawhide, he took the gag off Shea and used it on Chalmers.
"Just cut that one's throat if he squeaks," Mikhail told the guard.
The augmented party returned to the courtyard, where, in addition to those they'd left, they found the Patriarch and a man who had to be an executioner; he held a huge two-handed sword.
Chalmers and Shea were shoved to the front rank of the prisoners. Mikhail Sergeivich exchanged a few words with Igor.
"Sviatoslav Borisovich," Igor said, "do you know either of these men?"
"No, Your Highness."
"Rurik Vasilyevich, do you know this man?"
The guard removed Chalmers' gag. "No, Your Highness," he practically spat.
"Do you, Egorov Andreivich?"
"No, Your Highness."
"Who told you then, that there was one here who would work with you?"
Sviatoslav was silent.
"Sviatoslav Borisovich, boyar of Seversk," Igor pronounced. "You did not pay the tax due the prince of Seversk. For that, triple taxes will be collected from your estate.
"You caused the death of my steward, and thirteen of my guards. For that you owe a blood price of eighty grivnas for the steward, and forty for each guard. You also owe a blood price for every wounded man.
"Finally, you attempted to slay the prince of Seversk and his family. For this, your estates are forfeit, as is your life, if I see fit to take it.
"I shall not take your life, Sviatoslav Borisovich. Instead, you shall be blinded. Before you are blinded, you will see the deaths of the men you led into treason. That is the last thing you will ever see."
The Patriarch said a prayer for those about to be executed, and two guards flung several bales' worth of straw at the executioner's feet. Fifteen times a man was forced to the straw, and fifteen times the executioner struck. He turned his blade and honed the other edge after the eighth man, but never missed his stroke.
Shea did not enjoy his front-row view of this expertise. The only things he could be grateful for were that this brawl had started well before dinnertime, so he had nothing in his stomach to lose, and that Mikhail Sergeivich was holding him upright. He got one look at Chalmers, obliquely away from him, and did not risk what composure he had left by looking again. He found an angle of the rampart he could focus on, and kept his attention there.
The blinding was worse. The bodies were removed, and the straw swept up and fired, along with some wood. Irons were heated, then taken out—
Shea kept his attention firmly on the rampart. He heard a gasp, then a throat-tearing scream that echoed around the courtyard and died away to whimpering. The smell of burned flesh joined the reek of blood. Mikhail Sergeivich's hand trembled on his arm.
Sviatoslav was led out of the yard, still whimpering. Igor turned to Reed Chalmers.
"Fifteen men are dead, and one is blind, for which you bear some blame. Confess your part in this."
Underneath his caution, Chalmers had courage. "A man, none of these, approached me and offered to return the Lady Florimel to me if I helped him. If not, he said she would be sold beyond the Volga and I would never get her back."
Had Reed actually watched the executions?
"How do you know he was none of these?" Igor asked.
"He looked to have Polovets blood, Your Highness."
"And you believed him?"
"I couldn't take the chance that he was lying, Your Highness."
"What did you agree to do?"
"To cast a spell, so that strangers could enter the palace without being questioned. Further orders would have been given me when the palace was taken."
"You knew, then, that you were dealing with my enemies?"
"It was for my wife, Your Highness."
From the look on Igor's face, Shea knew he had better say something before the prince pronounced sentence.
"Your Highness," Shea managed, hoping that Mikhail Sergeivich would keep his dagger sheathed, "I swear to you that Rurik Vasilyevich has done nothing out of malice to you, but only for the sake of his wife. Among us, the marriage bond is strong. A man who will not risk his honor to rescue his wife has no honor at all."
"A man who will take the word of a Polovets also has no sense," Igor said. "And with thirteen dead and more wounded men, it will be harder for me to rescue Yuri Dimitrivich's household."
Shea knelt, awkwardly because of his hands. "I beg you to spare his life, Your Highness. We can't pay your blood price in grivnas, only in service. When we work together, we can do much more than either of us can alone. Won't you spare him to recover your losses, if nothing else?"
George Raft could not have improved on the smile Igor's face wore. "He stands condemned, but I will pardon him if you defeat the Polovtsi for me without more loss of men. Or, if men are lost, if you pay their blood price—in grivnas.
"I place no punishment on you, Egorov Andreivich. Mikhail Sergeivich bears witness that you fought for me, and you are free to accept or refuse for your comrade's sake. If you succeed, he is free. If you do not succeed, and die in the attempt, his punishment stands but you shall have a warrior's grave. If you do not succeed, and live, I can think of no punishment greater than that you watch your comrade quartered on the execution ground.
"Do you accept?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
"Free him." Mikhail Sergeivich hauled Shea to his feet, and cut his bonds. "Take Rurik Vasilvevich to the penitents' cells beneath the basilica. Keep him guarded, but I doubt he can work sorcery there. And Egorov Andreivich," Igor concluded, "you will go to the barracks, where you can be watched."
The royal trio swept off, and the rest began to carry out their orders.