Drinking In 1280 AD

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

"...kumiss..." (pp. 139, 162) is "...fermented mare's milk..." (p. 139), with mild alcohol content.

"...bonze..." (p. 166) is an obsolete Western term for Buddhist clergy. 

"...kvass..." (p. 167) is a thin beer.

The Noyon Toktai offers to drink with the prisoner Eburar (Everard) but the latter does not like kumiss so they fetch his two captured canteens of Scotch. When Toktai samples it, he asks whether it is made of dragon's blood.

Everard, glimpsing a way out, offers a drink to his two guards. Toktai cannot object because Mongol officers share equally with their men. When Toktai says it is time to turn in, Everard taunts him with not being able to drink whisky so, of course, he continues. (In ancient Persia, Everard taunted Harpagus into attacking him, enabling Everard to dispatch Harpagus instead of continuing to fight with his two men.)

Most thirteenth century brews are well under five per cent alcohol with high food content whereas Scotch whisky cannot be drunk like beer or even like wine. Everard tries to grab the Scotch back and is knocked down to the guards' amusement. They do not notice Toktai passing out. One guard falls and vomits and the other is easily knocked out by Everard who is then free to escape.

This is perhaps Anderson's best "our hero has been captured but is able to knock out a guard and escape" scene. Every step from Toktai offering a drink to Everard knocking out the second guard is plausible. If Toktai had refused to continue drinking when taunted, what would have happened? Sandoval dies in captivity, Everard continues to be a prisoner, the Mongols conquer North America and the timeline guarded by the Time Patrol does not exist? Can the fate of the universe depend on the outcome of a drinking contest?

I think that some Danellians and retired Patrolmen, maybe including Everard, are based in the far past and can intervene to restore the preferred timeline if necessary.

Mongols

The Epilogue (pp. 319-320) of SM Stirling, The Sea Peoples (New York, 2017) contains the terms:

noyons;
khans;
Tngri (singular);
Tengri (singular);
tngri (plural).

(Confusing. Rereading this, I thought that I had miss-spelled.)

For these terms in a Poul Anderson story, see the post:

Some Points To Note In "The Only Game In Town"

- including the Comments.

Both authors also refer to Mongols drinking fermented mare's milk.

Posts remain even more telegrammic than usual while I still suffer a cold.

The Experiences Of Time Travelers

I said in Catching Up that I would add an "approach to fiction" to the Science Fiction blog and another to the Logic of Time Travel blog. See:

The Very First Draft Of A Science Fiction Story
Mask

Manse Everard and Carl Farness are Time Patrolmen;
Jack Havig is a mutant time traveler;
everyone else mentioned below is an accidental time traveler.

Everard and Duncan Reid share a Midwestern upbringing.
Everard and Havig share a knowledge of the history of science. Both know that Galileo never said:

"'E pu si muove.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), 1987 A.D., p. 27;
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), V, p. 46.

Carl's Goths resist Huns whereas Hun Uldin attacks Goths, both in the fourth century A.D.

Oleg Vladimirovitch sees the "...sun-spilling sky..." (The Dancer From Atlantis, Chapter Two, p. 14) whereas Uldin sees "...huge hawk-haunted heaven..." (p. 15) and recalls the tribal camp on summer evenings -

sounds: creaking wagons, noise, laughter, crackling flames, talk, lays, songs;
smells: smoke, roasting meat etc;
tastes: gluttonous eating and kumiss, fermented mare's milk;
sight: whirling flames showing friends' faces among restless shadows;
sex: after getting drunk on kumiss.

Erissa asks her husband to pour a rhyton of Cyprian wine for her eldest son whose father was a god, Duncan. Kneeling, signing herself and praying at the household shrine, Erissa prefigures later visions and practices:

"Cradling Her Son in Her arms, Our Lady of the Ax seemed in the uncertain light to stand alive, stirring, as if Her niche were a window that opened upon enormous reaches." (p. 17)

Time travelers lead colorful lives even before they time travel.

Five Senses In AD 1280

"The Only Game in Town," 3.

Sight
low sun
silver snowcaps
lengthening shadows
darkening forest
glowing meadow

Sound
underlying quiet
swirling river
ringing ax
cropping horses

Scent
woodsmoke

Physical Sensation
rugs to squat on

Taste
fermented mare's milk
hot tea

Poul Anderson gives us all this before the conversation starts.

The Winter Of The World II

I have referred to Poul Anderson's The Winter Of The World as post-Ice Age, but the novel begins, "Once during the Ice Age..." (1)

In the novel, the Rogaviki, an entire population who turn out to be a new human species, live by hunting bison, moonhorn cattle, bronco, antelope, wild deer, caribou, moose and elk. This makes them sound like the most primitive of homo sapiens societies.

However, a multi-chimneyed, mostly underground Rogaviki dwelling surrounded by shed, smokehouse, workshop, stable, kennel and mews uses both a sunpower collector and a windmill manufactured in neighbouring urban civilizations and shelves hundreds of books in its principal chamber below.

The largest formal social group is a single family. Associations of families are informal. Households are self-sufficient in necessities but buy finely made goods either imported in exchange for metal salvaged from ancient ruins or manufactured at "Stations," where Rogaviki, frequently traveling alone, can swap ponies and self-employed postal couriers stay overnight. A Station is a set of independent businesses run by single women or misfit men.

Bullgore Station print shop can bind books but buyers usually do this in winter when they practice arts or enjoy idleness. One new pamphlet describes astronomical observations made by a man with an imported telescope and navigator's clock at Eagles Gather. Most paper is imported although Whitewater Station on the Wilderwoods edge has a paper mill. Rogavikian manufacture is expanding and innovative, e.g., a portable loom and a repeating crossbow. All manufacture and trade are private with no government, guilds or laws although no one would sell game meat or hides because they live by the game beasts.

Bullgore makes brandy and distils, from fermented wild grain and fruits, alcohol to fuel blow torches and small machine tools. Although there is a windmill, the main energy source is the solar collector sending water to a subterranean fired clay tank where pressure generates heat used for cooking and warmth. Domesticated horses, hounds and hawks are indistinguishable from their wild counterparts. Rogavikians live healthily on a mainly meat diet by eating the whole animal, adding fish, fowl, eggs, breads, mare's milk and cheese, fruits, herb teas, beer, wine and mead.

One Rogavikian seriously offended by another severs all relationship with the offender. Offenders of too many become Outrunners, vicious bandits.

A kith is a set of families traditionally sharing a single large hunting ground. Territorial herds define each kith's territory which no other kith ever invades although individual travelers are welcome guests and may hunt en route. There are less than a hundred kiths and each has at most three thousand members. Rogaviki women can control their fertility. In a cross-kith marriage, the man joins his wife's. A Rogavikian woman decides whether to become a wife of several husbands or to remain unmarried but with other sexual outlets.

(1) Anderson, Poul, The Winter Of The World, New York, 1976, p. 9.