Liv glanced back toward the rest of the travelers. "How long since the two of you parted?"
"Sometimes it seems like a thousand years. Sometimes it seems as if it happened this afternoon," he said. "Sometimes it seems like both at once. It's worst then."
"She is . .." Liv paused, looking for words. '"If she were a Bizogot, she wouldn't last long. You Raumsdalians have more room for useless people than we do."
"Gudrid's not useless." Hamnet Thyssen's mouth twisted. "Ask Eyvind Torfinn if you think I'm wrong. Ask Trasamund. Ask Audun Gilli. Go back and ask Roypar. God! You can ask me, too." He remembered the last time he'd lain with her. He hadn't known it would be the last then. I should have, he thought. She yawned when we finished, and she wasn't sleepy. She'd slipped out of the castle the next day. He hadn't seen her since, only heard about her . . . till Sigvat II summoned him to Nidaros.
In the pale moonlight, Liv's face was unreadable. "You never found another woman after that, plainly," she said.
"I sleep with women now and again. You know I do," Hamnet said.
"That isn't what I meant," she said. "You never found one who mattered to you."
"No. I never did," Hamnet Thyssen agreed. "I can't say I've looked very hard, though. If things go wrong once, that's bad. If things go wrong more than once . .. If things go wrong more than once, why do you go on living?"
"Why do you think they would go wrong?" Liv asked.
"Why? Because they already did once. I have practice being stupid, you might say." Hamnet tried to make a sour joke of it. Even with that, he was surprised to be saying as much as he was.
"Not all women are like Gudrid," Liv said.
"No doubt you're right," he answered. "But how do I tell beforehand? I didn't think Gudrid was like Gudrid, either, you know."
"Do you think I am like her?" Liv asked quietly.
He laughed once more, this time in sheer surprise. "No," he answered. "I can think of a lot of things I might say about you, but that isn't one of them."
"Well, then," she said.
Well, then—what? But he needed only a heartbeat to realize he was being thick. He put an arm around Liv. She sighed and pressed herself against him. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"How can anyone ever be sure?" she said. "The chance seems good, though. And if you don't bet, how do you expect to win?"
Hamnet Thyssen didn't look at things that way. To him, not betting meant you couldn't lose. He hadn't even thought of winning. He still didn't, not really. He wondered how badly he would get hurt, some time later on. But later didn't seem to matter, not right this minute. He bent his head to Liv—not very far, because she was a tall woman.
Nothing either one of them did after that was surprising—only the things men and women have done as long as there have been men and women. They surprised each other a few times, because neither of them knew the other that way. Those weren't bad surprises; they were both trying to see what pleased the other.
"Easy, there," Hamnet whispered after Liv dropped to her knees. "Not too much of that, or. . ."
She paused. "I wouldn't mind."
"I would," he said, and laid her down on the clothes they'd shed. She inhaled sharply when he went into her, and wrapped her arms and legs around him. He thought he would spend himself almost at once, especially after what she'd been doing, but instead he went on and on, almost as if he were outside himself. Liv's breath came short; her back arched. He covered her mouth with his when she started to cry out—that might have brought the other travelers on the run. Her joy came, and then, a moment later, his.
She kissed him on the end of the nose. Then she said, "You're squashing me," sounding, well, squashed.
"Sorry." He took his weight on his elbows and then leaned back onto his knees. All at once, he noticed it was chilly. It must have been chilly all along, but he'd had other things on his mind. "We'd better get dressed," he said.
"Yes, I suppose so." Liv seemed sorry, which made him feel about ten feet tall. Then she remarked, "That woman was the fool," which made him wonder why he didn't float off the ground and drift away on the breeze.
He glanced back toward the fire. No one was stirring around it. Either the other travelers hadn't noticed what was going on or they were too polite to let on that they had. Which didn't matter to Hamnet Thyssen. Hardly anything mattered to him right then.
"There. You see?" Liv effortlessly picked up the conversation. "It just. . . makes things better for a while."
"For a while," Hamnet admitted.
Liv laughed. "That's all it does," she said. "I'm not trying to steal your soul or anything like that."
"No, eh?" Hamnet Thyssen wanted to laugh, too, and happily, which didn't happen every day—or every month, either. "You may have anyhow." He meant it for a joke. It didn't come out like one.
She shook her head. "That wouldn't be good. I have enough trouble taking care of myself. I don't want to take care of anyone else."
"You'd better be careful," he said.
"Why?"
"If you aren't, we'll end up getting along. Who knows how much trouble that might cause?"
"Oh." Liv smiled. She squeezed his hand. "I'll take the chance. And now I think I'd better go back by the fire, before anyone else wakes up and notices I'm gone."
"Good idea, but I think people will notice anyway before long," Hamnet said.
"Do you? Why should they?"
"Because I'm going to be wandering around with a foolish grin on my face, and I've never done that before," he answered.
"I don't care who knows," Liv said. "I wouldn't have done it if I did. Do you?"
"When Gudrid finds out, she'll try to find some way to spoil things." For a moment, Count Hamnet sounded as mournful as he usually did.
"What can she do?" Liv sniffed scornfully.
Hamnet Thyssen only shrugged. Liv sniffed again, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and walked back toward the fire. He didn't want to let her go, but the moon and the slow-wheeling stars said he had to stay on watch a while longer.
Before he went back, clouds rolled out of the northwest and hid the moon and stars. After that, he was on his own guessing the hour. The storm he'd seen coming in the halo around the moon was here before he'd expected it.
He went back when he thought it was midnight and cautiously shook Ulric Skakki awake. Being cautious when waking Ulric was a good idea; the adventurer had a habit of rousing in a hurry, and with a weapon in his hand—sometimes with a weapon in each hand.
Here, he just grunted and groaned and yawned, much as Hamnet Thyssen might have. "Is it that time already?" he asked around another yawn.
"Somewhere close, anyhow." Hamnet waved at the cloudy sky. "We're going to get the bad weather sooner than I thought."
"It has that look, doesn't it?" Yawning one more time, Ulric Skakki got to his feet. "Well, if it starts snowing too hard to let me see my way back here, I'll just scream my head off."
"You do that," Count Hamnet said. Ulric clapped him on the back and trudged away from the dimmed remains of the fire. They'd both been joking and not joking at the same time. Snowstorms like that weren't impossible up here, any more than they were in the Bizogot country or in the northern reaches of the Empire. Hamnet didn't think this storm would be one of those—the wind didn't have that sawtoothed edge to it—but you never could tell.
You never can tell, he told himself as he rolled himself in his mammoth-hide blanket. Of all the things he hadn't looked for, finding happiness— even if it proved only a few minutes of happiness—here beyond the Glacier stood high on the list.
Looked for or not, here it was, and he would have to figure out what to do about it. So would Gudrid, no matter what Liv thought. She hadn't left him to make him happy. She'd left for her own sake. "Well, too bad," he mumbled, and fell asleep.
XIII
It was snowing when he woke up the next morning. Fat white flakes danced in the air. Nothing else in all the world moved like snow on the breeze. If he had
n't seen too much of it, he might have marveled more. I'm old and jaded, he thought. His joints creaked as he climbed to his feet and stretched.
But he didn't feel old and jaded when he looked over toward Liv, She was already awake, and talking to Trasamund. She broke off to nod and smile and wave to Hamnet. He smiled back. He no doubt grinned like a fool, as he'd thought he might. He didn't care.
When had he last made love with a woman who mattered to him as a person, who wasn't just a willing body when his urges got too strong to ignore? The last time he made love with Gudrid—that was when. He'd had nothing but relief since. He'd nearly—more than nearly—given up hope of ever having anything more than relief.
Almost of themselves, his eyes went to Gudrid, who was toasting meat over the fire. Someone must have built it up again while he slept. Gudrid was watching him, too. Her gaze swung from him to Liv and back again. She laughed a light, mocking laugh and held her nose for a moment.
Ever since Gudrid left him, she'd been able to make his blood boil without even trying. Every woman he'd lain down with since, he compared to her. Every one of them he'd found wanting in some way or other. Now . . . Now he smiled at Gudrid, too, and waved to her, and blew her a kiss. He didn't care what she thought, and, in not caring, he felt as if a curse were lifted from his back. He and Liv would do what they did, go where they went—if they went anywhere—and that would be that. And if Gudrid didn't like it... well, so what?
Up till this moment, he'd never been able to think so what? about Gudrid, not since she first went to bed with another man. He shook his head—that wasn't right. Not since he found out she'd gone to bed with another man. If Liv let him finally not care about what Gudrid had done, what she was doing, which gift could be more precious?
He didn't even turn his back on his former wife. He didn't have to. All he had to do was not take her seriously. He'd needed too long—much too long—to realize that. And Gudrid must have seen the knowledge on his face. She’d always been able to read him like a codex. That, unfortunately, wouldn't go away as if it were a lifted curse.
Her eyes narrowed. So did her lips. Hamnet Thyssen sighed, and fog burst from his mouth and from his nostrils. Gudrid could put up with anything but being ignored.
Ulric Skakki came up and greeted Hamnet with a yawn. "I hope your watch was more exciting than mine," he said, and yawned again.
Well, yes, Hamnet thought, but that wasn't what he said. "You don't want a watch to be exciting," he remarked. Most of the time, that was true. But there was excitement, and then there was excitement.
"You don't want to think you'll fall asleep every bloody minute, either," Ulric said. "I hope I can doze on horseback today." Yet another yawn split his foxy face.
"Let's get going," Trasamund said. "The sooner we're back on our own side of the Glacier, the better."
"If our wizards were worth anything, they could talk with people there while we're still here," Gudrid said. "I suppose that's too much to ask, though." She sneered at Audun Gilli, and twice as hard at Liv. The Bizogot shaman couldn't understand what she said, but didn't like the way she said it. Liv glared back at her. That, of course, was just what Gudrid wanted.
"Come, my sweet—be reasonable," Eyvind Torfinn said. If that wasn't a forlorn hope, Hamnet Thyssen had never heard one. Eyvind went on, "No wizard can keep in touch with colleagues over such a distance."
"I'll bet the Rulers can do it," Gudrid said.
"If they can, they're even more dangerous than I think they are." That wasn't Eyvind Torfinn or Count Hamnet or Ulric Skakki. It wasn't Audun Gilli or Trasamund, either. It was Jesper Fletti, and the guard chief hardly ever let loose an opinion, let alone one that went against the woman he was charged to guard. The look Gudrid sent him was nearly as poisonous as the one she'd aimed at Liv.
"Jesper's right," Eyvind Torfinn said, which failed to make him the apple of his spouse's eye. "These new barbarians seem to be pretty good at war— at least, I never imagined anyone could ride a mammoth."
"Neither did I," Trasamund said. "This is something I must try when I get back to my clan grounds and finish healing. To ride a mammoth . . . That would be better than anything." Now he was the one Gudrid's gaze scorched. Since he'd ridden her, Hamnet understood why she might be miffed.
She went right on fuming as they started south and east. She hadn't managed to make the rest of the travelers resent Audun or Liv—particularly Liv, if Hamnet was any judge at all.
The snow went right on falling. Hamnet wondered if it would stop any time before spring. That wasn't his worry, though. All they had to do was get back on their own side of the Glacier ahead of the Rulers, and he thought they could. The mammoth-riders did not seem to have neared the Gap in any large numbers. Roypar and Samoth and the rest would probably have to go back to their main camp or heartland, wherever that was, and persuade their superiors that they'd found something interesting and important. That wouldn't happen in a day or a week or, chances were, a month, either. The Bizogots and the Empire would have some time to get ready.
And how will we use it? Hamnet wondered. Would the Bizogot clans join together under a jarl of all jarls? Would the Bizogots let Raumsdalian soldiers come up onto the chilly plain? Would Sigvat II see a threat from the land beyond the Glacier? Not long before, people had doubted there was any such thing as land beyond the Glacier. Hamnet Thyssen had doubted it himself. Now he had a new doubt—that the Bizogots and Raumsdalians would do anything about the Rulers till urgent danger forced them to.
When he said as much to Ulric Skakki, Ulric only shrugged. "The sun will come up tomorrow, too," he remarked.
"Curse it, I'm not joking," Count Hamnet said.
"Neither am I," Ulric replied. "No one gets excited about a danger he hasn't seen himself."
He was probably right. No, he was certainly right. Hamnet Thyssen knew human nature too well to think anything else. He wished he could have another view of things—it would have given him more hope for the Empires safety.
A herd of deer like the ones the Rulers rode made the travelers hold up. It wasn't as large as the herd of buffalo had been not long before, but Hamnet still started fidgeting before it passed them by. Nor was he the only one. "Are the Rulers trying to slow us down?" Audun Gilli murmured.
"What does he say?" Liv asked Count Hamnet. They'd ridden close together since leaving camp. Gudrid sneered and tossed her head. Hamnet pretended to ignore her. He taught Liv bits of Raumsdalian, as she'd asked him to do. Most of the time, though, he simply enjoyed her company. He wasn't used to doing anything like that. Now he translated for her. She thought it over, then shook her head. "I don't believe it. We've already been through the reasons why the Rulers couldn't reach the Gap ahead of us, no matter how much they might want to. And this is the time of year when animals are on the move, looking for better pasture."
Now Audun asked, "What does she say?"
Again, Hamnet did the honors, adding, "I think she's probably right."
"Well, of course you do." That wasn't Audun; it was Gudrid. "But what would you think if you used your head and not your crotch?"
"You would know more about that than I do," Hamnet said.
Audun Gilli ignored the sniping. Hamnet Thyssen abstractly admired him for that; it took concentration—or possibly blindness. "Yes, I suppose she is likely to be right," the wizard said. Hamnet translated that into the Bizogot language for Liv, who smiled.
On came the deer, emerging from the snow like materializing ghosts and then vanishing into it as if expelled from the everyday world once more. They knew where they were going, whether the travelers did or not. So Hamnet thought for a little while, anyhow. But then he shook his head. It might not be true at all. Chances were that one deer at the front knew, and the others simply followed. Or maybe—and here was a frightening thought—the deer at the front had no idea where he was going, but the others followed anyhow. Were deer that much like people? Hamnet Thyssen wouldn't have been surprised.
A
t last, they were gone. But for their tracks and dung, but for the receding footfalls that the snow and wind soon muffled, they might not have been there at all. "Come on," Trasamund said. "Let's get moving. We'll go till it gets dark." It definitely did get dark now, even on days when skies were clear. Days shrank and nights stretched and grew. Before long, the sun would become no more than a midday intruder peeking up over the southern horizon and then disappearing again.
The travelers hadn't ridden long before Gudrid held up her hand and said, "I think we're going in the wrong direction. Shouldn't we be heading that way?" She pointed toward what Count Hamnet thought was the northeast.
"No, that's not right, I fear," Trasamund said.
"I believe the Bizogot is correct, my sweet," Eyvind Torfinn added.
Gudrid wasn't convinced—or wasn't about to let herself be convinced. She pointed again. "I'm sure the Gap lies there."
"We're going the way I think is proper, by God, and we'll keep on doing it." Now Trasamund had a harder time staying polite. That he'd bothered even once said Gudrid had a hold on his affections. Affections—that's one word for it, Hamnet Thyssen thought with a wry grin. The Bizogot jarl went on, "Besides, I've been here before, and nobody else has. If I don't know the way, who does?"
Ulric Skakki stirred, but didn't say anything. He did smile at Hamnet, who nodded back. We know something you don't know, went through Hamnet s head—one of the simple pleasures any man could enjoy.
But Gudrid wasn't mollified. Maybe she really thought they were going in the wrong direction, or maybe she just wanted to be the center of attention. "You're going to get us lost," she said shrilly. "Lost in the middle of all this—this nothing!" Her wave took in the whole world on this side of the Glacier.
"Really, my dear, Trasamund knows more about these things than you do," Eyvind Torfinn said in tones no doubt meant to be soothing.
"You're against me, too!" Gudrid burst into tears.
"What is her trouble? She sounds like she needs a kick in the arse," said Liv, who had a straightforward view of the world even for a Bizogot.
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