The Ice Queen by Bruce MacBain Page A

pretty well with each other. It was their custom to exchange yearly visits in the summer or fall, taking it in turn to play host, and to assist each other in military ventures.
    But if Yaroslav was content with their arrangement, his wife was not. Ingigerd, I began to see, despised her husband for a weakling and cherished a bitter hatred of Mstislav. And he, knowing this perfectly well and being a man of high good humor, missed no opportunity to provoke her.
    â€œBrother of mine,” he cried, throwing an arm round Yaroslav’s neck, “let us drink to brotherhood! To the bond between brothers—between men, damn my head!—that no woman ever has, nor ever will comprehend.”
    Yaroslav, pinioned in this embrace, with some difficulty got his cup to his lips. They drank and Mstislav flung his cup at the wall shattering it to splinters (it was made of colored glass, from Miklagard, and must have cost a good deal—there were only a few on the table). Yaroslav, drinking from its twin, seemed on the point of doing the same, but had second thoughts and set it down carefully.
    It must have been hard, I thought, for Yaroslav the boy to have grown up with a brother like Mstislav.
    â€œNow Inge, my darling girl,” Mstislav teased her, “why such a sour face? Heh? Are we not friends? Damn my head, if this brother of mine hadn’t married you, I think I’d have done it myself! What’s the old saying—’If there were only one scheming woman on earth, every man would claim her for his wife’? Hah! Ha, ha, ha!”
    â€œWhat a blessing, Mstislav Vladimirovich,” she answered softly, without looking at him, “to have so keen a wit. Take care on whom you exercise it.”
    The Prince of Chernigov hadn’t any exceptional wit, really. He struck me rather as a sort of great bearded child, who could pass from laughter to tears and back again in a twinkling. In the course of the evening I saw him weep when he remembered that his youngest son had been gored to death by a bison exactly a year ago to the day; yet a few moments later he was roaring with laughter at the antics of Putscha.
    These particular antics were not a part of the dwarf’s performance but were the gyrations of the frightened creature as he slapped at his coat, which some druzhinik had set fire to. Comical as this was, it would not be worth mentioning except that it had an interesting result.
    â€œYou, whatever you call yourself,” Ingigerd turned savagely on the prankster, who was so drunk he hardly knew where he was, “if you ever assault gospodin Putscha again I will have your privates cut off and thrown to my dog for a tit-bit, since they’re too small to make a meal of.”
    There was plenty of laughter around the table at the drunken man’s expense; but Mstislav, already vastly amused, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. “‘Gospodin’ Putscha!” he gasped. “‘Gospodin’ to a dwarf with a wooden sword? What a joke, heh? Ha, ha!”
    In the meantime someone had the goodness to throw a pail of water on Putscha.
    The drunken offender stared at Ingigerd stupefied. Doubtless, he’d never been spoken to so roughly by a woman and it took a few seconds for the insult to penetrate his fuddled brain. When it did, he lurched to his feet and made a violent grab for the dwarf, who fled under the table to his mistress’s side. The man’s friends, while laughing, did their best to restrain him.
    â€œEilif Ragnvaldsson, I want that man beaten with a rod,” cried Ingigerd, who was now very angry, “and fined the cost of two coats to replace my dwarf’s ruined one! Now, you there, take him away!”
    Now the laughter stopped. The Swedes looked questioningly at Eilif, their captain.
    Eilif scowled at his plate in silence.
    Is he afraid to punish his own men? I wondered. He’s not his father’s son, that’s for