The Ice Queen (40 page)

“By the Raven, Lady, you make me shudder; you're madder than ever.”

“Say what you like of me, my dear,”—her voice steady and even—“but tell me the truth: could you kill him?”

“Inge, why do you worry yourself about Harald now. Magnus is safe on his throne, isn't he?”

“He'll never be safe on the throne while that monster lives. I'll ask you again: can you kill him?”

“These past years have cut deep into my strength, I don't know how much will come back.”

“No, no, don't speak so, you can do it, I know you can. You'll play David to his Goliath, by God!”

“I'll play what?”

“Oh, never mind, you false Christian, it's not important. But you'll do it? You agree?”

“Princess, I'm a little confused. Why are you asking me to do this? Surely you can find assassins in Kiev.”

“Oh yes, I have plenty of druzhiniks who are brave enough, or stupid enough, to face Harald in a fight and lose their lives. But not one who has such reason to hate him as you do, not one who knows his tricks as well as you do, not one who's as resourceful as you are, for it will need wiles more than brawn to lay Harald low. Just to find your way in that huge city takes more brain than any of my men have. Will you do it?”

“Commit murder for you? Why should I?”

“I don't understand you, Odd. I'm sending you to do what you've dreamt of for four long years, and proposing to pay you well for it. Is that so hard to accept?”

“What d'you know about my dreams, damn you! Harald was not the only one who betrayed me. At least, he showed me an honest face; I knew what he was when I joined him. But you—you played me like a fish, and you're trying to do it still. Yes, I want Harald's life—among others, but how do you know, Inge, which one of you I'll take my revenge on first?”

She dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “Yes, yes, I told lies, what of it? How else can a woman make her way in the world? Much was at stake.”

“Meaning your neck? And what if I should take that white neck between my two hands now and crack it?”

“Then you would be a very great fool indeed! You really don't understand, do you? You think it's a sort of big village, Miklagard. You imagine you have only to stroll along the cow path once or twice to meet everyone there. You have no conception of the thing. Imagine a hundred Kievs side by side and that is still not the half of it.”

“You've been there?”

“I've heard.”

“One may hear many things.” I thought of the tales Leonidas had told me.

“What's more, an ordinary outlander can't stray from one small corner of the city except in the company of a palace official, and even that is not granted to most. Without credentials, decent clothes, money for bribes and the like you'll never get close enough to Harald to spit at him. You'll starve to death in some gutter and be swept out with the rest of the garbage.”

“Harald made his way.”

“Harald left with a great deal of our money. So will you, if you take my help. I propose to send you as an ambassador, with decent clothes and a retinue of servants; I will even give you real business to transact. That will get you into the palace and into the houses of important men. Someone there will know our Harald. Anyone as rich as he doesn't go unnoticed. The rest I leave to you. So, Odd, you must decide. Would you rather kill Harald or me? You can't manage both. If it's me you want, well, here I am, alone with you—you'll never have a better chance. Go on.”

My slave collar with its chain lay on the floor by my foot. In one swift motion I scooped it up, looped the chain around her neck, and pulled her to me.

“Stop! Stop it! Are you mad?”

I began slowly to tighten it. She beat my shoulders with her fists.

I twisted harder.

Her eyes were huge with fear; her nails dug into my wrists. “In the name of God,” she croaked, “don't kill the woman who loves you!”

I loosened the chain enough to let her draw a rasping breath. Her heart pounded against my chest. She pressed her lips to my cheek.

“Do you remember the first time you made love to me, Odd? Do you? And can you guess how I've missed you, how much I despise all the others? Let me live, Odd. This needn't be the end for us. Let me go—”

I let the chain clatter to the floor.

“Darling Odd, I knew you couldn't—”

With all the strength I had, I drove my fist into her face. She staggered back against the table by the wall, pressing a hand to her mouth.

“Mad dog!” she hissed. “You think I came unguarded? There are men outside. You won't get a dozen steps—!”

“Aye, Inge, but you cannot cut off my head and have Harald's too. You said it yourself. Now it's you who must choose: which one of us do you hate the most?”

She stared at me speechless.

“Come, Princess, which is it to be?”

“Harald,” she whispered.

I hit her again. She reeled against the cupboard on the wall, bringing down all the crockery with a crash.

“Not me?”

“Harald!”

“Are you sure?” I kicked the table away and came at her.

“HARALD! HARALD! Break my bones, God damn you, if that's your price, I'll pay it!”

Rage blew like a gale in my chest. I should have killed her, you will say. Had it been Harald in my place, he wouldn't have hesitated a second. But I lowered my hands.

Inge struggled to master herself. When she spoke again her voice was steady. “You will bring back the head. You will collect five thousand silver grivny from Stavko. Five thousand! And then you will leave Gardariki and never come back. You understand? Christ, if only you had taken Ragnvald's instead of my cousin's bribe in the first place, what a lot of trouble you'd have saved us all! Well? Do you agree to my terms?”

“I agree to go. As to terms, I'll leave you to worry about that. Have money, clothes, arms, and whatever documents I need sent round to Stavko's. I will travel under the name of Churillo Igorevich.”

She startled.

“You know that name, don't you, Inge? The husband of sweet Lyudmila, whom you claim not to have known. Good-bye, murderer.”

Stavko's shop-house was in the podol; I had no difficulty in getting directions. I lay up there for a week, during which time I did little besides sleep and eat. By week's end I was, in outward appearance, already much improved. But in my spirit—just as once before in my life, when I escaped the flaming ruin of my home—the unseen wounds were slower to heal.

Waking and sleeping, Murad haunted my thoughts. Hardly a night passed but I awoke with my heart pounding, feeling his rod on my back. And, by day, bouts of melancholy alternated with bouts of anger. I fear I was poor company for the genial Stavko. Of course, he offered me the freedom of his women but, strange to say, I had no appetite for them and, though I tried, I could do nothing—which frightened me and made me feel even worse.

One day at dusk I said, “I'm going out, Stavko Ulanovich. I have some business to attend to.”

He jumped up and put his back to the door. “Please, my friend, better you stay put until fleet sails. Would be very embarrassing for princess if you should be recognized.”

“Lend me a long cloak and get out of my way.”

“Tell me what business, I take care of it for you.”

“The cloak, Stavko!” I took a menacing step toward him.

“Yes, yes, don't get angry. But I warn you, Odd Tangle-Hair, stay out of trouble.”

“No trouble, Stavko.” I had already stolen a knife from his kitchen and hidden it under my shirt.

I walked at a leisurely pace through the crowded market, stopping now and then to examine some item for sale, until I came to the place where the Saracens had their stalls. They were just closing up for the night.

“Murad Bey—”

He looked around sharply.

“It's me, your former slave. See how my fortunes have risen in only one week!” I smiled at him.

He eyed me mistrustfully: What did I want?

“I bear a message to you from my new master—the gentleman who bought me, you remember. He has some choice boys to sell, young beauties fit for castrating, he offers you the pick of them.”

No. He squinted, trying to read my eyes. He was going to pray now, he might look at them tomorrow.

“Too bad,” I shrugged, “they're Christian children and stolen, he's anxious to get them off his hands, you understand. Someone else will buy them tonight.”

I turned to go.

“Wait,” he called after me, “where does he keep them?”

“Just along there, not far.” I jerked my thumb toward a warren of shop-houses and narrow alleys up by the citadel slope.

He was tempted, uncertain what to do. I tried to take his elbow, but he drew back. “No, no, I go nowhere with you—”

“Then die here!”

Holding out my cloak for cover, I shoved the knife into his heart. He never made a sound. I let him down gently and propped him in a sitting position against the wheel of a push-cart. It was over in an instant.

I knew he wore his key around his neck—the one with which he
locked the manacles, the leg-irons, and the collars that prevented his merchandise from strolling away. I cut it loose and tossed it up onto the platform among the slaves. That should keep everyone busy for a while.

Shucking off the cloak, I slipped into the swirling crowd, taking my time, not running nor looking back, while shouts and alarms rose behind me.

“No trouble, you said!” Stavko stepped out from behind a coppersmith's booth and gripped my arm tightly. “That was very foolish act, my friend.”

We moved up the lane side by side, looking as innocent as a couple of deacons.

“Risking mission just to pay off private grudge. What if all slaves acted like you? My God, where would we be then?”

“I know where you'd be.”

“Now, now, now, such talk between comrades.” He shot me a reproachful look.

“Follow me again and I'll kill you.”

“Really, Odd Tangle-Hair. I only keep friendly eye on you—these are my orders. Luckily for us all, convoy sails tomorrow. Up on citadel they have just sighted smoke-signal from Vyshgorod: Novgorod fleet is passing it now. So! What shall we do, last night in Kiev? For Rus, only way to begin long journey is in state of drunkenness, is not so with you? Come along home now, we finish cask of mead together, there's good fellow.”

But I soon found Stavko's company tiresome and went early to sleep. A sleep in which I plunged my knife again and again into a heart which sometimes was Murad's, and sometimes was Harald's, and sometimes Inge's.

The trading fleet from Novgorod had doubled the number of strugi to nearly one hundred and the podol now presented a scene of even more bustling activity as merchants, sailors, and porters jostled each other along the crowded riverfront. Human chains stretched from the warehouses to the water's edge as, from hand to hand, were passed the precious furs of Gardariki, the kegs of honey, and the great wheels of wax, enough for all the candles in Christendom.

And slaves. Miklagard devoured slaves. The best-looking of the women were destined for the city's brothels, of which it had as many as it had churches. The strongest of the men were fated to sweat out their short lives in the furnace rooms beneath the great bath-houses, where the lowliest citizen of Miklagard could waste his day in princely splendor.

And then there were the little boys—the luckiest of the lot, really. First, of course, there was the terror of the knife, the pain, the mortifying wound. But for those who survived the removal of their manhood, and were ambitious besides, there lay open boundless opportunities to exercise their subtle talents. The imperial eunuchs—as I would one day learn to my sorrow—were among the most powerful men in the state, and most were ‘barbarians' by birth.

Among all this human cattle were Stavko's recent purchases: twenty-six good-looking females, some of them purchased from my late master,
the rest picked up here and there. He licked his lips anticipating the day when they would stand on the auction block in Miklagard.

Besides making money for himself though, Stavko had another mission: to keep an eye on me

From my belt hung a purse heavy with gold; in it, too, was a letter naming me gospodin Churillo Igorevich, boyar and envoy of Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Rus. It asked the favor of an imperial audience for the purpose of contracting a marriage between the eldest of Yaroslav's daughters—a marvel of beauty, prudence, and affability—and some lucky Greek princeling.

Needless to say, all this had been concocted by Ingigerd without ‘Wise' Yaroslav being any the wiser. She counted on rumor of my business reaching Harald, wherever he might be, and bringing him out in the open. Then all I had to do was kill him.

Simple.

The strug that Stavko and I had bought places in was a vessel of about fifty feet in length and nine or ten in the beam, carved, as all the Rus ships are, from a single enormous tree trunk, without deck or keel. The only additional timber she carried were a mast and rudder, rowing benches, and strakes added to the sides to give her more freeboard. Twenty rowers sat on the benches and an equal number wedged themselves in amongst the cargo to wait their turn at the oars. No room here for passengers who didn't like to work. Or to fight. Every man aboard carried arms and looked as though they could use them.