The Ice Queen (39 page)

But as I came up gasping for air, the men of the caravan were already upon me, the long legs of the camels churning the water all around. Murad, with a guttural curse, leaned low from his saddle and slashed at me with his long rod. I covered my face with my arms and howled.

The next day he woke me with a kick and told me that I was to be sold; furthermore, if he could find no one to offer even one copper penny for me he would kill me and throw my body to the dogs.

This time, when we forded the river, he attached a chain to my iron collar and dragged me behind him. I was half drowned, half throttled, by the time we reached the bank.

All that day I stood in my rags beneath the blistering sun. A few customers paused to thumb my muscles or look at my teeth. Each time this happened I screamed and rattled my chains like a madman to frighten them away; and the more Murad cursed me the louder I screamed and flung myself about. If only he were true to his word I need not see another sunrise!

But nearly at the day's end a man with the costume and bearing of a boyar, put a silver coin in Murad's palm and instructed his servant to lead me away by my chain. I screamed, I gibbered, I dug my heels in the ground. No use. The servant was stronger than I was. My new owner never looked back, never slowed his pace. We mounted Borichev Slope and went in through the citadel gate. My little store of strength exhausted, I gave up struggling, and trotted at the end of my leash, my arms hanging loose and my head jerking up and down.

Everywhere we passed, building sites swarmed with workmen where fine houses and churches were rising. We stopped, at last, before a single-storied log house that lay off a narrow lane. The door opened to my owner's knock and I was dragged inside. The room had only one occupant. Resting his elbows on a table and with a toothsome smile lighting up his face, sat Stavko Ulanovich.

“Well done, gospodin Boris,” he said to the man who had bought me. “You will have your house back again by evening with many thanks.”

With a doubtful look at me, Boris and his servant left us alone.

“Odd Tangle-Hair, let me embrace you!” Like an affectionate dog on its hind legs he pawed me, eyes brilliant with happiness, spittle flying. “How you do look!” he cried in his wretched Norse. “Ribs sticking out, body black as Ethiopian's, hair and beard filthy, everywhere sores, flea bites, lash marks on shoulders—” he appraised all my defects with the thoroughness of his trade. “Dear friend, what has happened to you?”

I shook him off, my throat aching with tears and anger. “Why not yesterday, you bastard?”

“Please, do not spoil joyous moment. Yesterday was not safe to know you; today is. That's all.”

“Why this man's house?”

“Because my shop too well known, I do business always in Kiev these days. All will be clear in time, ha, ha.”

“All of what?”

“What do you think of city now? Big changes, eh? Hustle and bustle!” It seemed he had no intention of answering my questions. “Grand Prince has such plans for new capital! Stone cathedral, can you believe? And triumphal gate to rival Miklagard itself. What times these are! Only last year, those devils of Pechenegs attack city again. Again Yaroslav rushes to defense, but this time is Vladimir, the young eagle, who commands druzhina under his father's proud eyes. Since then, Grand Prince and Princess make Kiev their capital while son rules Novgorod—”

“Shut up, man! Give me food and drink, before I faint.”

“Ach! Stupid of me! You are starving, is plain to see. Only, damned inconvenient—servants all let go for today.”

He began an aimless search of the room which produced nothing in the way of food. Three doors gave access to other rooms. Two of these he opened; one he did not. Disappearing through the second one, he soon returned, wreathed with smiles and holding out a pail of beer and a round of cheese.

“Slowly, my friend, slowly, you make yourself sick.”

“More!”

He watched me in silence for a time; then began again in a hesitant manner:

“Odd Thorvaldsson, please to pay attention. I am speaking now as agent, once again, of Grand Princess Ingigerd. She, ah, has favor to ask of you.” He watched me closely to gauge the effect of his words.

“Ingigerd? Who owns me, you or she?”

“Owns you?” He rolled his eyes—incredulous, astonished. “Owns? Good God, what a thing to say! No one owns you, my poor friend; we are simply delighted to see you returned, so to speak, from dead.”

“Then get this off me.”

I hooked a finger in my iron collar from which the chain hung down my back.

He cursed himself for a heartless wretch—he had not seen it under my beard; could I forgive him?

It was a common type of lock; he tried two or three of his own keys and found one that fit it. Removing the collar, he lightly touched my skin where it was rubbed raw. Gravely, with none of his customary foolishness, he said in a low voice, “You are much changed, my friend.”

“Bath and a haircut, I'll be all right.”

“Not just that, something else. Your eyes: they were never so cold. Last time I saw you, there was still—excuse me for saying—some little bit of boy in you. I don't see now. Where has gone that boy?”

“He died, Stavko Ulanovich. Beatings killed him; hunger.”

“So? And what remains?”

“What you see, nothing more.”

“Here, sit down, tell me your story.”

“My story? I hardly remember it. I slipped out of Novgorod aboard Yngvar Eymundsson's ship—”

“Princess's nephew helped you escape!”

“He knew nothing about it, though that can't matter to anyone now. He fattened the crows long ago. They all did. They were brave men. Be sure and tell that to the slandering bitch when you see her.”

Stavko seemed to cringe and fell into a fit of coughing. “Perhaps God has spared you for reason, Odd Tangle-Hair.”

“If it's to tear out the throats of the ones who betrayed me I'll thank him for it.”

This time he couldn't restrain a desperate glance at the one door that he had not opened.

I spoke to it in a loud voice: “Ingigerd, your Man of Affairs is on the point of shitting in his pants he is so nervous. You want to talk to me? Come out where I can see you.”

There was a pause, and then the door swung open.

Serene, cool, the lips faintly smiling—she was not the screaming virago I had last set eyes on, but looked as she had on that first day when she summoned me to her chamber—all easy charm and pleasantry. Her waist might be a little thicker, her face a little fuller (she was forty and some now), but still as beautiful—as achingly beautiful—as ever. Her dress was very plain and she wore no jewelry. Was she afraid to be recognized coming here?

“I won't need you any longer, Stavko,” she said. “Leave us.”

“Princess, is that—?

“It will be all right.”

He bowed himself out the door.

She sat down on the only other chair in the room, removed her head cloth and shook out her yellow hair. There was a long silence, which I waited for her to break.

“Slandering bitch? Really, Odd, that's uncivil of you.”

I made no reply. After a moment, she continued, “Poor Yngvar. We couldn't imagine what had happened, you're the first survivor to come back. Of course, the Grand Prince will have to be told—he's been very worried—but your name needn't be mentioned. How did my nephew die?”

“Puking and praying. I'll spare you the poetic touches.”

“I always admired your poetry.”

“You're looking well, Inge. Sleeping all right? Appetite good?”

“Quite good, thank you. But you, my poor Odd—what you've been through! I had my people search the rubble for days to see whether you still lived—”

“And to slit my throat if I did.”

She waved her hand impatiently. “You've no right to talk like that to me, Odd. To give you a warrior's burial, is what I meant to say. But when it seemed you had escaped death I prayed for you, wherever you might be. Was it awful, Odd?” She leaned towards me, her eyes full of tender concern.

“I don't know. Compared to having my privates cut off for raping a princess, it wasn't bad, really.”

“It's cruel of you to say that. I had to protect myself.”

“Of course. And everything's smoothed over now, is it?”

“Yes”, she said. Her husband was actually a changed man. As blindly
devoted to her as ever, but no more the bookish recluse. He was busy day and night now with his Greek architects and his builders—with the pleasing consequence that she rarely had to endure his company. She kept in close touch with Magnus, whose rule over Norway appeared secure; he had grown into a fine young man, loved by his subjects. For herself, she was, at least, no longer plagued by seditious boyars and meddlesome bishops. The mayor of Kiev was her own creature and, as for Yefrem, he had vacated his bishopric quite suddenly and his replacement was a very pliable priest.

“I congratulate you on your good fortune, Princess. And Putscha? Lurking in the next room with his ear to the wall, I suppose? Come out, little spy, and say hello to your old prison mate!”

“Alas,” she said, lowering her eyes, “dear Putscha Churillovich hanged himself soon after our trial. He became despondent when his daughter suffered a rather grisly accident. Somehow the foolish child got into the mews and frightened the birds—you know how high-strung they are—especially a pair of young eagles who were still quite wild. We heard her screams; I suppose she couldn't find her way out in the dark. By the time we beat the birds off she was quite horribly gashed and died the next day. Putscha didn't long outlive her. It was all very sad. One of the eagles broke a wing and had to be destroyed.”

“By God, you chill my blood, Inge. The dwarf was devoted to you, he never would have betrayed you. Tell me, Princess, whose back do you stand on now?”

“I don't think I care for your question, gospodin.”

“No? Well, here's another. What have you done with his mother?”

“Who—?”

“His mother, god damn you!”

“Why, I know nothing of her. I shall send at once to Novgorod to have her found and provided for.”

“Liar. Lyudmila Ilyavna was the wise-woman who sold you potions and amulets. You've got rid of her, too, haven't you? I can see it in your face. You've done away with them all; except Thordis—the bishop's torturer spared you the trouble of killing her. So now there's no one left who really knows what we did together—no one, that is, but me. Why are we sitting here, chatting like old mates, Inge? Have I drunk poison with my ale? Are you here to watch my death agony?”

“Stavko was right, you are changed.” Just for an instant her eyes turned cold: a murderer's eyes. “I liked the old Odd better.”

“You ought to—he was a fool.”

“Perhaps a little,” she smiled. “Be easy, Odd Tangle-Hair, I'm not here to kill you. I can see you've had a harder fate than you deserved. Four years has it been? By Christ, I see ten, at least, carved on your face. I am here to repay you for them.”

“You haven't got money enough.”

“Oh, money is the least of it, although you shall have plenty of that too. Enough to return to Iceland in magnificent style, shall we say? And King Magnus, if I ask him, will do as much as Harald would have done to help you avenge the murder of your family.”

With a sudden stab of feeling, I realized how faint had grown my memory of all that. My family? My enemies? I had scarcely thought of them in years—

“Odd, are you listening to me? Money, I said, will be the least of your rewards. The greatest will be satisfaction.

“What are you talking about?”

“I want a man killed.”

“What man?”

“Harald. I know where he is.” She looked at me hard.

“Go on.”

“You take it that calmly? Have four years erased the memory of how he betrayed you, kicked you, took a whip to you? Your sworn lord!”

“I said, go on.”

“All right. Last fall, after four and a half years of silence, he announced himself. A man claiming to be a merchant of Novgorod stopped here on his way home from Miklagard and delivered a casket of jewels—sapphires, pearls, rubies, priceless stuff—a present, he was instructed to say For the Grand Prince of all Rus from Harald of Miklagard as a token of friendship and alliance past and to come. The impudence of him! And more rich gifts are promised. How he comes by such wealth the messenger could not, or would not, say. He claimed that both the jewels and his instructions were conveyed to him by a go-between, who told him nothing more than the message he was to deliver. Harald, it seems, is playing a little game with us; and my fool of a husband is half persuaded already that he never heard him call me whore to my face.”

“He knows the shortest way to Yaroslav's heart.”

“For a fact. But there's worse than that. With the jewels came a packet of letters—by mistake—they were intended for my daughter. Poems again, sheaves of them, declaring his love. Love! What can that monstrosity know of love? And all written in such a scrawl—my little Svyatoslav makes his letters better than that. I suppose he's learned to write himself, not having you to do it for him anymore.”

“A wasted effort, since you intercepted them.”

“That was luck. There'll be others, or have been already, for all I know.”

“And Yelisaveta still unmarried at—what?—eighteen? And living here?”

Inge flung out her arm. “She lives in Novgorod with her brother, who is too good to think ill of her and lets her do as she pleases. It's an impossible situation. She refuses to wed anyone but Harald, and her father is too tender-hearted to compel her. And until the little idiot either marries or becomes a nun, we can't find husbands for her sisters without the whole family being a laughing stock. Christ! I would cut out her heart with these hands if I could. It's as well that a thousand versts lie between us. But that will all change when you, my dear, return from Miklagard with Harald's head. Mind you, there must be no room for doubt whose head it is, you must pickle it in brine in a well-tarred cask. When I throw it at her feet, Yelisaveta will sing a tune more to my liking.”