Ice And Stone And Teenage Girls [FICTOID]

“Why do you think this would amuse me?” the tsarina asked, voice sparkling with just enough mirth to terrify the sculptor.  He felt beads of sweat form on his scalp. 

“Her highness does not like the work?” he asked, striving to keep his tone even.  Russian royalty enjoyed a well-deserved notoriety for impetuous sadism.

“Oh, the work is fine, the detail superb,” said the tsarina.  Though only sixteen, she terrified the sculptor more than her late father ever did.  He at least behaved consistently, the sculptor thought.

“No, it’s all nice, all very nice,” she said, turning to eye him directly.  “But what purpose does it serve?”

The sculptor squirmed.  His go to answer -- that he carved the huge life-size marble replica of an iceberg to amuse and please the tsarina -- would probably result in his being drag hanged over a league of broken vodka bottles with a pack of wild wolves chasing him.

“I want an answer,” the tsarina said.

“For…the glory of Mother Russia?” he asked tentatively.

“Am I not glory enough?” the tsarina asked, turning sprightly on her white patent leather shoes.

“Oh, da!  You are!” said the sculptor.

“Liar,” said the tsarina, though she said it with a smile on her lips and in her voice.

The sculptor dared not feel relief, the tsarina’s whims notorious for their savagery.

The tsarina seemed pleased that she cowed him.  She smiled, looking up at the high arched ceiling overhead.  “It must have taken you years to carve this.”

“Oh, da!  Work started the year you were born.”

“But why marble?” the tsarina asked.

“Ice melts, your highness,” said the sculptor.  “Marble is permanent, thus more fit for a perfect replica of a genuine iceberg.”

“Perfect, you say?”

“Da.”

“Good,” said the tsarina with a merry laugh.  “Let’s test it.” 

To the captain of her honor guard, she said. “Drag it down to the ocean and see if it floats.”

The grizzled old soldier looked up at the huge stone structure towering over him, stoically refusing to groan at the thought.  “And this sculptor?” he asked.

“Put him inside,” said the tsarina.  “We’ll see if he floats, too.”

© Buzz Dixon