“What difference does it make then?” Marcovefa asked. “Better that the scavengers eat you than that the enemy does.” The lancer stared at her, no doubt thinking she was joking. She smiled back, knowing she wasn’t.
XV
Even well South of Nidaros, the Breath of God pressed hard. Hamnet Thyssen had expected nothing else. The Glacier might fall back. One day, it might vanish altogether. But it still ruled the weather through most of Raumsdalia.
Life went on. So did the war against the Rulers. Raumsdalians and Bizogots knew how to handle themselves in blizzards. The invaders from beyond the Gap did, too. Bands of curly-bearded men on riding deer appeared out of the swirling snow. When they met Marcovefa, they soon regretted it. When they didn’t, their warriors were a fair match for Hamnet’s men and their wizards had more strength than Liv and Audun and the handful of other sorcerers who’d joined them.
Hamnet found his army getting forced north no matter what he did. He-and, more to the point, Marcovefa-could only be in one place at one time. If the Rulers struck in two or three places at once, they were bound to break through somewhere. They were bound to, and they did.
He hated going north. Not only did it mean the Rulers had retaken the initiative, it also made the weather worse. Every mile seemed to mean more snow, thicker clouds, and worse cold. And every mile farther north also seemed to mean worse foraging. He got tired of listening to his belly growl.
“Everything will turn out all right. This is still rich country,” Marcovefa said.
“To you, maybe,” Count Hamnet said irritably-yes, he was hungry, all right. “You’re happy if you can charm mice out from under the snow.”
“Why not? Meat is meat,” Marcovefa said. She’d done that more than once. She ate mouse stew and toasted mouse with every sign of enjoyment. She’d eaten voles and pikas up on top of the Glacier, and mice and rabbits weren’t much different. Raumsdalians and Bizogots caught rabbits, but they drew the line at mice. If they got too much hungrier, though, they might have to undraw it. Marcovefa went on, “Up on the Glacier, not so much snow to hide under. Animals here have it easy. People here have it easy, too.”
“Yes, yes.” Hamnet had heard that, too, often enough to get tired of it. “But what seems easy for you doesn’t always seem easy to us. You don’t seem to have figured that out yet.”
“As long as everything will be all right, what difference does it make?” Marcovefa said.
“As long as!” Hamnet drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Things don’t look all right to me, by God.”
“You don’t see far enough,” said the shaman from atop the Glacier.
“Well, how am I supposed to?” Hamnet Thyssen waved a mittened hand through the blowing snow. “I’m lucky if I can see the nose in front of my face.” As a matter of fact, he couldn’t see it right now. A woolen scarf helped-some-to keep it from freezing.
Marcovefa (who also covered her nose and mouth) laughed at him. “That is not what I meant. I am talking about time.”
“If I’m going to live happily ever after, God’s hidden it from me mighty well,” Hamnet agreed.
She looked at him. All he could see were her eyes, and eyes by themselves showed surprisingly little expression. Even so, he guessed he’d disappointed her. Sure enough, she said, “No one lives happily ever after. Living hurts. Dying hurts. If you are lucky enough to find someone to love, you die or the other person dies, and that hurts, too. That hurts maybe worse than anything.”
“Or you stop loving each other,” Hamnet said harshly.
“Yes. Or that,” Marcovefa agreed. “So why talk nonsense about happily ever after?”
“You always do know how to cheer me up,” Hamnet told her. “I think I’ll go fall on my sword now.”
If he was looking for sympathy-and he was-he didn’t get much. Marcovefa shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “You still have too many things to do first. Later, if you want to, but not yet.”
“No, eh?” Nothing made Hamnet more intent on doing something than being told he couldn’t. “Who the demon would stop me? Who the demon would care?”
I would! That was what he wanted to hear. Marcovefa only shrugged and said, “Go ahead and try. You see then.”
“Demons take me if I don’t!” Hamnet was suddenly sick of carrying the world around on his shoulders. He tramped away, kicked at the snow till he found some rocks, and propped his sword up in them, point uppermost. It would hurt for a little while, but not long if he fell properly. Then the rest of the fools could bollix things up to their blundering hearts’ content. No one would be able to blame him any more. He positioned himself with great care-he didn’t want this to last any longer than it had to.
Disgusted with the world, disgusted with himself, he fell forward. Instead of piercing him, the blade went with him, and he measured the length in the snow. One of the rocks that had held up the hilt caught him in the pit of the stomach.
“Oof!” he said-a most undignified noise. He spent the next couple of minutes fighting for breath. When he finally got it back, he climbed to his feet, rubbing the sore spot.
Someone less determined-someone less pigheaded-would have given up there. Hamnet Thyssen had always prided himself on his stubbornness. He brushed snow off himself, then started to laugh. Why was he bothering? Methodically, he set up the sword again. He braced it more firmly this time and threw himself down as hard as he could.
The sword snapped.
A rock-maybe the same one as last time-got him in the pit of the stomach once more. “Oof!” he repeated. This time, it really hurt. For a moment, he thought he’d killed himself even if he hadn’t stabbed himself. At last, though, he managed to suck in a shuddering breath, and then another. He wouldn’t perish for lack of air.
He wouldn’t perish from falling on that sword, either. He picked up the nub with the hilt. He’d had no idea the blade was flawed. Maybe one of the blows he’d exchanged with the Rulers had cracked it. If he’d gone on fighting a little longer, suddenly he would have been most embarrassed.
Or maybe God just didn’t intend to let him die right now.
He looked at the broken sword for a long time. Then he muttered an obscenity and threw the hilt and nub away, as hard as he could. Snow puffed up where the fragment landed.
After another oath, he brushed more snow off himself. He started back toward camp. He was perhaps halfway there when he realized he still had his dagger, and could slash it across his throat or slit his wrist. He didn’t suppose it would break in his hand. But the black moment had passed. He went on walking.
“Anyone have a spare sword?” Hamnet asked.
“I do,” Ulric Skakki said. “What happened to yours?”
“Broke.” Hamnet mimed snapping a stick with his hands.
“Just like that?” One of the adventurer’s eyebrows rose. “What were you doing with it?”
“Trying to kill myself,” Hamnet said.
Ulric laughed. “Ask a stupid question, you deserve the answer you get.” He rummaged in the leather sack that held his worldly goods, then handed Hamnet a sword in a battered leather sheath. “Here you go. It’ll probably suit you better than me, anyhow. A little long and clumsy for my taste, but you’re bigger than I am.”
“Thanks.” Count Hamnet drew it. He tried a few cuts. “Kind of point-heavy,” he remarked. “Better for slashing than for thrusting.”
“That’s what you want if you’re fighting from horseback,” Ulric said.
“I hope I will be,” Hamnet said. Foot soldiers were at a grim disadvantage against mounted men who could strike from above-and who could leave infantry behind in a matter of minutes.
Trasamund had been trimming his nails with a clasp knife that must have come from inside the Empire. Finishing the job, he looked up and asked, “Why did you want to kill yourself this time?”
The time before, Hamnet had warned that he wouldn’t let himself live if anyone tried to make him Emperor. Now . . . Now he only shrugge
d. The impulse had passed, and seemed to have belonged to someone else. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Kill Rulers instead,” the jarl said. “When they’re gone, you can do whatever you want to yourself. Till then, you have more important things to worry about.”
“Thank you so much.” Hamnet Thyssen bowed. “I don’t know what I’d do with my life if I didn’t have someone to run it for me.”
“Not my job.” Trasamund shook his head. “You want someone to run your life, you need a woman. Since you have a woman, she has to do it.” He seemed as pleased with himself as a geometer with a new proof.
Reminded of Marcovefa, Hamnet was already reminded why and how he’d broken his sword. He didn’t like to think about that. He would probably go through it again and again in his nightmares. But which would be the more terrifying dream? The one where the sword snapped, or the one where it didn’t?
“What are we going to do to keep the Rulers from pushing us back farther?” Ulric asked. “If Marcovefa could lay eggs, if she hatched out twenty more like her, we’d have a pretty good chance. Or if she could be in four places at once . . .”
“She can’t,” Hamnet said bleakly. “We’re lucky she can be one place at once, by God.”
“I know what we need to do.” Ulric Skakki’s bright, assured tone made Hamnet certain that, whatever he proposed, it wouldn’t be anything they could actually manage. And it wasn’t: “We need to go back to the Glacier, climb it again, and bring back some more shamans like her.”
“Go ahead,” Hamnet said. “Hurry back. I’ll see you here in three or four days, right?”
“But of course.” Ulric grinned at him. They were both spouting nonsense, and they both knew it. The difference was, it amused Ulric and didn’t come close to amusing Count Hamnet.
“Wouldn’t help, anyhow,” Trasamund said. “The other shamans would come from different clans. They’d likelier go after Marcovefa or one another than the Rulers. Why should they care about a bunch of people they’ve never seen before?”
“If you’re going to complain about every little thing . . .” Ulric said. Trasamund snorted. After a moment, Ulric went on, “Well, all right. How about this? Instead of these shamans, we set all the short-faced bears moving against the Rulers. They mostly don’t sleep through the winter, the way black bears do.”
“That’s . . .” Hamnet’s voice trailed away. He’d started to say it was ridiculous, but it wasn’t. What came out of his mouth was, “That’s not a half-bad notion.”
“It isn’t, by God,” Trasamund agreed. “Bears are trouble. If they’d go after the Rulers, that would give those miserable mammoth foreskins all kinds of grief.”
“Have mammoths got foreskins?” Ulric sounded intrigued.
“It only matters to another mammoth,” Hamnet assured him. “Now we need to see whether Marcovefa laughs at us for coming up with a foolish notion or whether she thinks she can make a magic like that.”
“I meant it for a joke, you know,” Ulric Skakki said.
“So what?” Count Hamnet answered. “A shipwright means a mast to hold the sails. That doesn’t mean a drowning man won’t hang on to it to keep his head above water. Let’s go talk to Marcovefa.”
“Yes. Let’s.” Trasamund started away from the fire.
Not long before, Hamnet Thyssen had wished he were dead and done his best to make his wish come true. Now he was going off to find Marcovefa with a new scheme to bedev il the invaders. That was very strange-just how strange, he didn’t think about till much later.
Marcovefa’s eyes glinted when she saw Hamnet. “You see?” she said. “It is not so easy after all.”
“Never mind that,” he answered, and she laughed out loud. He and Trasamund and Ulric Skakki took turns explaining what they had in mind. Hamnet finished with an eager question: “Can you do that?”
“It is a thought of weight. It may be a thought of merit.” Marcovefa’s gaze went far away as she weighed possibilities-or, for all Hamnet knew, impossibilities. After a long pause, she said, “It may be, yes. Have we here men of the bear clan? Have we men whose spirit animal is the short-faced bear?”
Raumsdalians didn’t define themselves in those terms. Bizogots did. Marcovefa, whose people sprang from Bizogot stock, must have known as much. “I will ask among the folk who come from the free plains,” Trasamund said. Then his blunt-featured face clouded. “The plains that once were free, I should say.”
If Marcovefa noticed the amendment, she paid no attention to it. “Find one of them,” she said. “Bring him to me. I will see what I can do. I promise nothing. But I will try.”
Off Trasamund went. He came back half an hour later with a scarred Bizogot he introduced as Grimoald. “He is of the Bear Claws clan,” he said. Sure enough, Grimoald wore a necklace of claws.
“Good,” Marcovefa said. “These are the claws of the short-faced bear?” She sounded like-and was-someone making sure.
“They are,” Grimoald said.
“Those are the only bears in the Bizogot country,” Trasamund said. “They have others down here, and we saw still others beyond the Glacier. But if a man is of the Bear Claws clan, they are the claws of the short-faced bear.”
“All right. Fine,” Marcovefa said. “Shall we move these bears against our foes?”
“If you know how, shaman, I would like to do that,” Grimoald said. “If I can help you do it, I will.”
“You can,” Marcovefa told him. “Are you allowed to take off those claws? May I hold them?”
“You may.” Grimoald lifted the necklace off over his head and handed it to her. “I would not do this for any stranger, but for a foe of the Rulers I will do anything I can.”
“I am a foe of the Rulers,” Marcovefa said. “You may doubt many things, but you should not doubt that.”
She gave the bear claws an oddly tender look as she held them in her hand. She might almost have been holding a newborn baby, not these souvenirs of one of the most dangerous beasts the world knew. Of course, a baby would grow up to be a creature that made a souvenir of short-faced bear claws. Hamnet scowled, wishing that hadn’t crossed his mind.
The song Marcovefa crooned was also oddly tender. It sounded more like a lullaby than a charm. Off in the distance, though, Hamnet heard growls and snarls that didn’t seem at all soothing.
“You’re sure this spell is aimed at the Rulers?” Grimoald asked, so Hamnet wasn’t the only one that chorus alarmed.
Marcovefa gave the man from the Bear Claws clan a bright-eyed, almost carnivorous smile. “I am almost sure,” she said.
“Almost?” Now Grimoald sounded genuinely frightened. “That’s not good enough. If they come after us-”
“She’s having you on,” Count Hamnet told him.
“Are you sure?” The Bizogot sounded anything but convinced. Then he took a long look at Marcovefa’s face. Her smile, plainly, was hiding a laugh. Grimoald saw as much. He looked as sheepish as a Bizogot was ever likely to. “Well, I guess you are,” he said to Hamnet.
“He is,” Marcovefa agreed. She handed back the necklace. Grimoald made haste to put it on again. Marcovefa added, “What these short-faced bears can do to the Rulers, they will do.”
“That’s good.” Grimoald clutched some of the claws. They clicked together, almost like worry beads. Hamnet Thyssen hoped the invaders would soon be the ones doing the worrying.
If they were, it didn’t show right away. Skirmishing between the Rulers and the Raumsdalians and Bizogots went on every day. Sometimes Hamnet’s men had the advantage, sometimes they didn’t. A week after Marcovefa’s magic, they were farther north than they had been when she tried the spell. Overall, then, the Rulers had advanced more than they’d retreated.
“Maybe I should go climb the Glacier again,” Ulric Skakki said. “We could use more fancy shamans.”
“Well, so we could,” Hamnet said. “But we need you around here, too, you know.”
“You say the sweetest t
hings.” Ulric batted his eyelashes at Hamnet. “How do I know I can believe you, though? You probably say them to everybody.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Hamnet exploded. “I’m not trying to seduce you.”
“A good thing. I’m as dull and normal as you are-I like women, too,” Ulric said.
“I’m sure all the women are delighted to hear it,” Hamnet said.
“Well, now that you mention it, so am I.” Ulric was undeniably-and annoyingly-smug.
Hamnet might have gone on harassing him, but a white-faced Bizogot came into the encampment calling his name. “I’m here,” Hamnet said, standing up to let himself be seen. “What’s gone wrong now?” By the fellow’s tone, he was sure something had.
All the fellow said was, “You’d better come with me.”
Count Hamnet had to saddle his horse before he could. That did nothing to make him any more enthusiastic, especially when the horse didn’t want to exhale to let him tighten its girths. He kicked it in the ribs. That did the trick. Ulric was saddling his mount, too. “Can’t let ’em play games with you,” he said.
“No.” Hamnet nodded. He asked the Bizogot, “Should Marcovefa see this, too, whatever it is?”
The man didn’t need long to think about that. He nodded. “By God, she should.”
“All right-go get her,” Hamnet told him. “She can ride double with me. That way, we won’t waste any more time.” Nodding again, the Bizogot hurried away.
“What do you suppose it is?” Marcovefa asked as they started to ride. “He didn’t want to say anything much to me. Only that it was important.”
“That’s more than he told me,” Hamnet Thyssen answered. “I figured it out myself, though-I will say that.”
They followed the Bizogot across snow-covered fields toward a stand of pines ahead. Hamnet wondered if they were riding into an ambush. He made sure his sword was loose in its scabbard. Maybe Marcovefa would scent that kind of danger ahead. He could hope so, which didn’t mean he was sure of it. He checked the sword again.
Marcovefa gave no sign of sensing trouble. But that was not to say that she seemed happy. “Oh,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning down.
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