The Ice Queen (29 page)

Harald and his companions had arrived back just in time for the prince's celebration, bursting into the hall with a great show of noisy
joviality as the meat was being carved. Throughout the meal and the drinking that followed, Yelisaveta waited on her husband-to-be as though she were one of his slaves. Her servility was rewarded with an occasional grunt of appreciation, which seemed to be enough for her. She looked happy.

As soon as the plates were cleared away, Yaroslav, pretending that he had just now thought of it, invited me to entertain the company with a story. I tried my best with the tale of the giantess Kraka who fell in love with a shepherd lad, but disconcerted by Inge's cold unblinking eyes, I made a hash of it—starting and stopping, fumbling for words, losing my way. The moment I finished, she murmured a faint thank you and left the table, without a parting word to her husband or anyone else. This time the prince made no move to follow her, but only stared glumly at his plate.

The party broke up soon afterward. Yaroslav limped off to the cold comfort of his books, while his daughter sneaked away with Harald to find some cozy place for love-making. Yngvar hung about for a while after most of the others had gone, and we exchanged a few words. I had the feeling he was working himself up to ask me something, but if so, he changed his mind. With an exaggerated yawn and stretch he went off to sleep.

Leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I felt balked and frustrated. I simply didn't know what to make of Inge in her present mood. Did she want our affair to end like this? All right then, damn her, that was fine with me too! I banged my empty mug on the table to punctuate this thought, and was about to stalk off to my sleeping bench when Putscha appeared suddenly out of nowhere.

Perhaps he had slipped back into the hall after his mistress left, or, perhaps, had hidden in some dark corner all this time, waiting to catch me alone. Touching his finger to his lips, he beckoned me to follow him. I had no friendly feelings for this vainglorious little manikin, who swaggered about with his ridiculous toy sword and his great bunch of keys. But, sensing that it must have to do with Inge, I obeyed. He led me through a side door and into the long corridor that ran the length of the palace, connecting a series of little rooms. Choosing one that was empty, he motioned me inside and carefully shut the door after him. There was among the sparse furniture a foot-stool, on which he indicated I should sit so that my head was level with his. I have already remarked upon this
head, with its crisp silver curls and handsome features. But the face was more lined than I had remembered it, and the eyes weary.

“Well, Putscha, say whatever it is and be quick.” I determined to take a brisk tone with him and let none of my uncertain feelings show.

“Haraldsskald, sir, lend ear, please, for begging,” he began in a halting Norse that was even more painful to the ear than Stavko's. “Not like Putscha beg, eh? But am with shoulders holding—no—carrying—ah—”

“Speak Slavonic, man, I can follow you.”

With an expression of relief, he switched to his native tongue. His voice, like every dwarf's, was thin and reedy.

“Gospodin, I bear a heavy load on these small shoulders of mine. From that day last fall when the merchants returned from Kiev to report Eilif's death and trumpet Harald's praises, my mistress began to sicken. You understand me, you have seen her. She scarcely sleeps or eats, weeps for hours on end, or flies into sudden rages; is dead to everyone but Magnus. Him she hugs to her bosom, when she thinks no one is watching, and drenches with her tears.

“Whole days she spends on her knees, imploring the Virgin and Saint Irene to pity her. Other times”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“she goes out to the villages, attended by no one but myself, where certain old women dwell. She tells them her dreams and together they look for omens in drops of blood, and do other things best not to speak of, even in private.”

“Witchcraft? Hah!” I couldn't hold back a bitter laugh. “How fortunate that her husband let a few of those crones escape the noose!”

“You make a joke of it, gospodin?” said the dwarf icily. I motioned him to go on. “Yes, well—all the months you were away, your name was always on her lips. This is the truth I'm telling you, not flattery. ‘When Odd comes back all will be right. Odd will defend me from my enemies.' That was how she talked.”

“Well, damn it all, Putscha, here I am—where is she?”

“As the time of your return drew nearer, she began to suffer terrors: you've been so long away, and constantly in Harald's company; what if your feelings toward her have changed? She can't bring herself to test you and learn that they have. Forgive her weakness, gospodin; she's a woman after all.”

This was close enough to the truth that it sent a tremor through me:
could these witches of hers have seen into my thoughts? But I said aloud, with true feeling, that it was a sad thing to see a proud woman brought down to this.

He gave me a sorrowful nod. “Imagine an apple, gospodin,” he said, “with a worm in its core. Imagine that worm eating and boring, day and night, never ceasing, but consuming more and more of the healthy fruit until, in the end, nothing remains but a hollow rind. From the outside you would at first notice nothing.”

“Hmm. And by the worm you mean her passion for a certain dead saint who loved God more than he loved her? That's at the root of all this, isn't it?”

“It might be. Or it might be her passion for a certain young poet. Or maybe, somehow, both at once. Who can understand women?” A tear appeared in the corner of his eye. He seized my hand with his small ones and said, “Go to her, gospodin, for only you can give her joy again, if anyone can. Go tonight, I beg you, before she—before she does herself a harm. You understand what I'm saying? I'm afraid for her, I would not be here otherwise.”

“What? Putscha, you're imagining things.”

“No, gospodin, I do not imagine. She has poison; I was with her when she bought it. I don't know from one day to the next if I will see her alive. It's turning me old, gospodin. What will become of Putscha if my Lady dies? I'm hated here; they will drive me away, kill me!”

So this was what he really feared, and I could well believe it. I answered him earnestly, “Putscha, I don't desire Ingigerd's death any more than you do. She's a woman of great intelligence and spirit—I only wish she used them to better purpose.”

The dwarf looked not entirely reassured by my words; he had hoped for something stronger.

“I've meant to see her since I came back; could it be arranged for tonight?”

“I will see to it, gospodin”

“Whatever I say to her, Putscha, will be between the two of us alone. You get my meaning?”

“But, gospodin, I always sit in the corner …”

“Not tonight, little man.”

He scowled at me. By her own preference and despite my grumbling
there was scarcely a meeting between Inge and me that he had not been a silent witness to. I never understood her mind in this. And Putscha knew very well that I disliked him for it.

“Make up your mind, dwarf, I'm putting on no more performances for you. Keep clear of her chamber or else. Agreed?”

“You've no right—!”

“Agreed?”

A lengthy pause, a sigh. “If you insist.”

“Good. Now see that the tower door is left unbarred and I will need nothing more from you—you understand me?”

“It will be as you say.” He turned to go.

“Putscha,” I called after him, “I will do my best to ease her pain.”

“Thank you, gospodin. God will bless you, I'm sure.” With these words he bowed himself out the door.

It was still too early to enter the tower without risk of meeting someone—the children, or Thordis, or some servant—on the stairs, so I went back into the hall to wait and ponder what I'd heard.

Poor Ingigerd. I had no joy nor comfort for her—and I felt none myself. To be honest, I dreaded this meeting, now more than ever because of what Putscha had said. Still it must be done. I would make it plain to her that our intrigue must end; that, though I had loved her, I was Harald's sworn man and intended to remain so; that I hoped we could part with a promise to remain friends and not betray one another. That was the gist of it, anyway.

When, at last, deep night descended, I drank down what was left in someone's half empty ale horn and headed for that heavy door at the end of the hall which no one might pass without the permission of the prince or princess. As the dwarf had promised, it was unbarred and unguarded.

I crept up the spiral stairway, which I had trod so often before, and with each step felt my courage leak away. I made myself remember last spring: the enormous relief I had felt to be quit of Novgorod; and how clearly I had come to see Ingigerd for the Queen Spider that she was, entangling in her web me, Yaroslav, Harald, little Magnus—making us all unwilling partners in her private misery.

Now I stood hesitating before her door. Kind but firm, I commanded myself like an officer instructing a nervous recruit. Don't touch her, say your piece, and leave.

I knocked. Then, hearing no sound, gave the door a push. The chamber was lit only by the candle flames that flickered before the icons, and a hazy moonshine that sifted through the quartz window pane. But even if it had been black as pitch I could have found my way to her bed with ease, I knew that room so well.

She lay upon the bed, fully dressed, one arm thrown across her eyes, the other hanging limp over the edge. On the floor, beneath her curving fingers, a bit of glittering glass caught my eye. I stooped and picked up a little stoppered flask half full of some liquid. A cold shiver went through me. “Inge!” I grasped her chin and shook her hard.

Her eyelids fluttered. “Odd? Is it you?”

“What have you done, Inge?”

“Is it really you?”

“Princess,” (there must be no more ‘Inge's I reminded myself) “what is this for? Have you lost your mind?”

“My mind? Yes, I think so,” she replied in a small voice. “If only that were all. I've lost everything, Odd—my pride, my power, everything. I've lost even the courage to die, though I long to die. I've tried and tried to drink the poison—Oh, Odd help me to die if you do nothing else for me!”

Fending her off with one hand, I pulled the stopper with my teeth and emptied the contents of the flask on the floor; it gave off a strong, sweetish odor. There was a jug, too, on the table beside her bed, but it contained only a little wine, doubtless to mix the poison in. She must have drunk a fair amount of it for courage and then passed out.

“I'm glad to have put a stop to this foolishness, anyway.”

“Are you? Are you truly? Then I've not lost everything after all.” Holding my face between her two hands she stared into my eyes. “You haven't turned against me? You swear it?”

“Princess, listen to me—”

“No, don't answer me with words—words are liars. If you love me give me back my life, darling Odd, make love to me as you used to.” She put her arms around my neck.

“No, Princess, I—”

I tried to pull away from her embrace, but she drew me down on her, clawing up her skirt and fumbling with the drawstring of my breeches. I tried—oh, believe it, you sour-faced Christmen who will judge me—I tried, but I was helpless. I would happily blame it on magic, on incantations
mumbled over a lock of my hair, on binding runes hidden among my clothes: but witchcraft or not, the craving for her overwhelmed me. I cursed myself and kissed her.

She made love with a desperate fury—twisting, plunging, crying out, and lifting me with her to a pitch beyond anything we had known before. No time now for ‘the decencies': the painted eyes of Saint Irene, unveiled at last, grew wide with wonder, I don't doubt, and saw more—oh, much more—than a saint should.

Afterward, we lay still together, and it felt as though I held a wraith in my arms, there was so little substance to her. With my fingertips I could feel every bump of her spine. The worm-eaten apple; a body consuming itself. And yet a body that held such power over me. What was I to do now?

“Christ! I've missed you, she breathed in my ear. So many months. This was like the first time again, wasn't it? Better, even.”

“Yes.” It was the simple truth.

Just then a small sound—an in-drawn breath or the rustle of cloth—came from the shadows across the room. Inge felt me stiffen.

“It's only Putscha,” she whispered. “He must have come in while I was asleep. Never mind—you know he's seen it all before, and you've nothing to be modest about, my darling.”

“Damn the little spy, I'll wring his neck for him!”

“Odd, don't. What's the matter—” I was half out of bed with Inge doing her best to restrain me. “Putscha,” she cried, “you've angered my friend. Get out and leave us alone!”

At that, the odious little liar darted across the room—the top of his curly head outlined for an instant against the window pane—and ran out the door, slamming it behind him. I'd never known him move so fast. I let Inge draw me back into bed. I would settle with the dwarf later.

“And now, my darling,” whispered Inge, when I was reasonably calm again, “now that I'm sure of your love, I have the courage to ask a great favor of you.”

This was the moment. “Inge, I also have—”

“No, Odd, hear me out.” There was an unmistakable edge of command in that low voice. “I've never asked of you anything but to make me feel like a woman, which you have done—with some pleasure to yourself, too, I think. Now, I ask you for one thing more. Oh, God, in my mind I've
made this speech a thousand times, and now that you're really here, my courage almost fails me.”

“Then stop before you go too far.”

“No, I must speak! The insolence of Harald Sigurdsson has become unendurable to me. He is a serpent that strangles me in its coils. He hoodwinks my husband, he corrupts my daughter, he conspires against my foster son, and all the while mocks me to my face! This is what I ask of you, Odd Tangle-Hair: rid me of that monstrosity, that freak, that troll! Every death I devised for him stupid Eilif has bungled: ambush, spells, poison, fire—why do you look at me so? Surely, you guessed.”