The Ice Queen (6 page)

The blare of war-horns shattered my sleep. I leapt up and rolled off the oven. The servant girl I was sleeping with caught me by my shirt and saved me from breaking an arm.

With Einar and a crowd of servants, wives, and children, I ran to the porch that overlooked the courtyard to see what the matter was. The sun, rising at our backs, had just cleared the roof of the palace and bathed everything below in the golden light of dawn. There was nothing yet to see, but the horses caught the smell of their brothers on the wind and trotted round and round the palisade, whinnying.

Our ears caught the distant rumble of men's voices singing a marching song, mingled with the clatter of hoofs and the tread of boots. Soon there came into view the tips of spears and two fluttering banners, both emblazoned with the trident emblem of the House of Rurik.

Then through the gate, hastily unbarred, rode a troop of heavy cavalry in spiked helmets and long mail hauberks, armed with lances and bows. Behind them marched a column of foot soldiers, battle-stained and dirty but singing away lustily, until the spacious yard was filled with them.

Yaroslav, as I'd been told, had gone to make war on the Chuds, accompanied by his brother Mstislav, who had joined forces with him on the march, and by Harald, whose good luck it was to arrive just as the prince was setting out. Here they were back again, weeks before they
were expected, and to judge from the dozen or more sledges heaped with precious furs now being dragged into the courtyard, the campaign had been a great success.

Ingigerd, with a fur thrown around her shoulders against the morning chill, pressed past us and descended the stairs to the courtyard, holding in her hands a goblet of mead. One figure detached itself from the knot of horsemen and rode toward her.

“Yaroslav Vladimirovich, by God's grace all is well with us here,” she declaimed in a voice that could be heard to the farthest rank, “though your people hunger for your wisdom, which no one, I least of all, can emulate.” Standing by his stirrup, she proffered the goblet, which he took and drained.

Hurrying after the princess came Father Dmitri, the family chaplain and tutor, all bows and smiles. Three deacons followed him, carrying the big icons that ordinarily hung above the throne in the great hall.

Yaroslav dismounted, knelt, and kissed each icon as it was held out to him, while addressing it by name: Saint George (his patron), Saints Boris and Gleb (who in life had been his half-brothers, murdered in the blood-letting that followed their father's death), and lastly the Theotokos—the Mother of God—whom he kissed most reverently. The warriors who filled the yard uncovered their heads and echoed his prayer of thanksgiving for the preservation of his City and himself.

From kissing the icons, he stood up to embrace his wife and kiss her tenderly on each cheek and on the lips. If a woman's back and shoulders could speak, Ingigerd's delivered an oration on the theme of frigid submission.

Then Mstislav threw back his head and laughed like a clap of thunder. “By the Devil's mother, Inge, it's good to see you again!”

Yaroslav, smiling weakly, yielded to his brother of the booming voice, who swept Ingigerd up in a huge bear hug and planted woolly kisses on her.

Where Yaroslav's embrace was chaste and careful, Mstislav's was a tornado. But her unyielding spine continued to speak—to shout—the same text as before.

“My children?” asked Yaroslav, finding himself with no one else to kiss. “Where are my sucking pigs?”

The ‘sucking pigs' were produced at once, hastily dressed and faces
washed, shepherded down the stairs by their old nurse, Thordis. They stood in a row, from shortest to tallest, and Yaroslav kissed each in turn gravely on the brow and called down God's blessing on them. Coming to his pretty Anna, his manly Volodya, and his darling Yelisaveta, he asked them in a most solemn tone if they had been good children and obedient to their nurse, their tutor, and their mother?

“Yes, Papa,” Yelisaveta lied for them all.

Mstislav, done with smothering Ingigerd, now directed his boundless joviality at his nieces and nephews. Where their father had blessed them, their uncle tossed them, spun them around, crushed them to his fur-clad bosom—especially Vladimir, calling him Young Falcon, and declaring, “Soon it'll be your turn, Eaglet, to go a-warring with us, for, damn my head! No young man who's worth anything can exist without war, eh? What sort of a Rus would he be who never once slew pagan! You're worthy of our father, Vladimir, whose name you bear, for by Christ, he slew many a pagan!”

Young Volodya looked as if he thoroughly agreed with his uncle's view.

“You, Father What's-Your-Name, tutor.” Mstislav dragged Dmitri to him by the front of his cassock. “Let these young pups be free of lessons for today. Damn it all, how often do they see their uncle?”

Yelisaveta, Volodya, and Anna whooped and threw their arms around him, and he enfolded them all in one great embrace. A stranger coming upon this scene could pardonably have made the mistake of thinking that these were Mstislav's children and that Yaroslav was only some elderly bachelor to whom they had just been introduced. Not that Yaroslav didn't love his children—he did, fiercely. But even with them, he could not overcome the timorous shyness that thwarted his relations with everyone.

Neither brother, though, had much of a greeting for Magnus, who, as always, hung back from the rest. Ingigerd drew him to her and put her hand on his head.

Meantime, Vsevolod, the littlest ‘sucking pig', or ‘falcon', or ‘eaglet', whom his uncle had absent-mindedly tucked under one vast arm, reached that pitch of excitement that he pee'd on Mstislav's armor. He was hastily given back, howling, into Nurse's arms.

Then the two brothers, handing their horses over to the grooms, mounted the steps to the porch, where I and the other members of the household stood watching.

On horseback, and seen from a distance, Yaroslav looked the part of a warrior and prince; but at closer hand one noticed the clubbed foot and the limp, as well as the shortness of his stature, the roundness of his shoulders, the mildness of his face, and overall, the awkward movements of one who plainly felt uncomfortable, even slightly absurd in helmet and armor and massive sword belt and scabbard.

Other warriors in the front rank dismounted and followed the two princes up the stairs. Harald, taking the steps two at a time, led the pack.

I stepped in front of him.

“What?—Tangle-Hair! You're alive, you bloody beggar! I almost didn't know you! Don't they feed you here? The fever, of course! Christ, it's good to see you! How long have you been here? You're all settled in? Ah, you should've been with us!”

He looked triumphant, a whirlwind of energy and high spirits.

Dag, right behind him, began apologizing: “Look, old fellow, I hated to leave you with Ragnvald but your ferocious friend here”—with a glance at Einar Tree-Foot—“seemed to have everything in hand so—”

The fever was nothing, I assured him. It was boredom I was dying of at the moment.

“No fear of that now!” laughed Harald. “Now you'll see things happen!”

“What sort of things? Tell me.”

“No,” said Dag, with a twinkle in his eye, “let him be surprised. Odd Tangle-Hair, your curiosity must wait a little longer.”

And, grinning both, they would say no more.

A feast was announced for sundown. The butchers and the cooks got busy; heralds were dispatched all over the town, bearing invitations to various important personages; the druzhiniks, dismissed to the barracks or to their houses, were instructed to wash and change their clothes, and reassemble at the appointed hour.

Yaroslav and Mstislav enjoyed a steam bath and then spent an hour together in St. Sophia's church, thanking God for their victories. (Mstislav, in his way, was every bit as pious as his brother.) Harald, Dag, Einar, and I passed the day in drinking and trading impressions of our Rus friends.

When the festive board was finally laid, you would have had to listen closely to hear it groan; by which I mean that the vittles were adequate but not what you would call princely. The meal consisted mainly of tough mutton and black bread. The prince himself, because he had painful teeth, had to be content with a little boiled chicken minced up fine, some cabbage soup, and mushrooms—the latter provided by his ‘sucking pigs' who had spent the afternoon mushrooming in the woods beyond the town and had returned with full baskets. Yaroslav was an expert on the subject of mushrooms. He picked through their baskets carefully, naming all the different varieties and exclaiming on the delicious qualities of each.

The majority of his army—Rus, Slav, Swede, Norwegian, and Pecheneg (a troop of the latter serving as Mstislav's personal guard)—caroused in the barracks in Gotland Court. Only some fifty of the most favored dined with the prince in his hall.

Nearest Yaroslav sat his wife and brother. Seated next to Ingigerd was Yefrem the Bishop, a sleek, well-oiled man, whom I had not seen before, but would see much of hereafter. Farther down sat Dyuk the mayor. Next to him was Eilif, Jarl Ragnvald's eldest son, who held the post of captain of the druzhina. Eilif was about thirty years old, short and coarse-featured (though I should be the last to hold that against anyone). In fact, he bore a strong resemblance to his parent, although compared with the jarl, he
was slower of tongue and duller of eye. Opposite these sat Harald, Dag, and myself.

Harald had already introduced me to Yaroslav as his skald and the prince gave me a warm greeting. Not so Ingigerd. Her greeting to him and Dag was frosty. And to me also, even though she had been so affable at our first meeting and in the days that followed whenever I encountered her. This stung me. It seemed unfair in her to make me an enemy, just when I had decided that I liked her. (It never even entered my head that she might be acting coolly toward me in order not to compromise me with Harald and Dag.)

The feast proceeded with an unstinting flow of ale and mead—in this respect, at least, Yaroslav was not miserly. And he himself drained as many cups as anyone.

Toast after toast was drunk to the Holy Orthodox Faith, may God preserve it! A great amount of crockery was flung about. There were brawls, in the midst of which some men puked and others keeled over. I felt I might do either one, as I tried to match drink for drink with these Rus. Einar Tree-Foot slipped in beside Old Thordis on the bench, and, as far as I could see, made himself quite entertaining.

Yaroslav, too, became ardent after downing half a dozen goblets of mead, and pulled Ingigerd onto his lap and kissed her several times.

While we feasted we were entertained by the palace dwarfs, who performed feats of tumbling and stilt-walking. The head of the troupe was that same Putscha whom I have already described. With him was Nenilushka, his daughter.

(On the subject of these dwarfs, I should explain that they are not the same as the dwarfs one hears of in stories, those tireless miners who delve in the earth for gold. Nor are they of the Lappish race, whom I had met on my travels. They are not, in fact, a race different from ourselves at all, but merely sports of nature. The Rus keep them as pets, and a man or woman will do anything, no matter how shameful, in a dwarf's presence, as though it had no more sense than a dog or a piece of furniture. As far as I could discover, however, their feelings are no different from ours.)

The dwarfs performed their handsprings and vaults with great skill—Putscha especially, who was able to support a pyramid of the other three on his shoulders. Seeing him stripped to the waist, I was surprised by his muscularity; there was considerable strength in that little body.

A feast is an ideal occasion for studying one's hosts. Drunk, they will show you more of themselves in a few hours than in a week sober. And so I took this opportunity to observe the brothers Vladimirovich.

Yaroslav had a homely face with a rather large nose; his graying hair was cut in a bowl, his beard spade-shaped. He wore rings on all his fingers as well as other costly jewelry, and yet his clothes were plain and even threadbare. He was a man, I concluded, who liked to boast his wealth, while at the same time caring little about his person.

Mstislav presented (as I have already said) the strongest contrast to his brother. About the same age as Yaroslav, he enjoyed a great reputation for boldness in battle and generosity to his retainers. (His druzhiniks, it was rumored, ate with silver spoons where we had to be content with wooden ones.)

This night he wore a bear-skin cloak, one pearl earring of great size, and a necklace of wolf's teeth—and not just any wolf but a particularly crafty old fellow, whom he had patiently tracked to its lair and dispatched with only a knife. His trousers, to use a poetic figure of the Rus, were as wide as the sea, and his boots had arches so high that a sparrow could fly underneath them. He was a stupendous drinker and seemed always, as I observed in the days to come, to be somewhere between drunkenness and sobriety.

“Ale!,” he bellowed and, impatient to be served, strode over to the vat, thrust his whole head in, and brought it up with the foaming liquid dripping from his hair and his long moustaches. “Hah! Ha, ha! Drunkenness is a blessing sent by God, eh, brother? ‘Strong drink is the joy of the Rus, they cannot live without it.' I'm quoting our father's very words.”

I found it hard to believe that he and Yaroslav were sons of the same father, but they were—and in a family not noted for brotherly love. In the past they had fought each other to a draw over who should possess their father's capital of Kiev. The result was that Yaroslav had promised not to move his court there for so long as Mstislav lived. To make certain of it (for Yaroslav would not have been the first in that family to break an oath), Mstislav installed himself as Prince of Chernigov, from where he could keep his eye on Kiev, only a few miles distant.