The Breath of God

by Harry Turtledove

  “I’ll bet they have. Most of what you’ve heard is less than what’s really going on.”

  “Oh? How do you know what I’ve heard?”

  “Have you heard that the Rulers have already conquered most of the steppe?” Hamnet demanded. “Have you heard they’ve smashed the Leaping Lynxes? They’re that far south, and getting closer.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Kormak Bersi exclaimed. “You’re making that up so you can watch me jump and shout like a man a wasp just stung.”

  “By God, servant of His Majesty” - Hamnet laced what should have been a proud title with scorn -”I am not. Some of these Bizogots lying here in the taproom are Leaping Lynxes. They’re what’s left of the Leaping Lynxes now, or what’s left that’s still free.” He switched to the Bizogot tongue: “Marcomer! Are you awake there?”

  “Afraid I am,” Marcomer answered glumly. “Why? What do you want? Who’s that sour-looking fellow with you? I don’t know enough Raumsdalian to follow the two of you going back and forth, jabber, jabber, jabber.”

  “His name’s Kormak Bersi, or that’s what he says, anyway,” Hamnet replied, drawing a glare from Kormak and proving the imperial agent understood the Bizogots’ language. Hamnet went on, “He serves Sigvat II. He doesn’t believe you’re from the Leaping Lynxes. He doesn’t believe what happened to them, either.”

  “Well, he’s a bloody fool if he doesn’t,” Marcomer said, ambling over to join them.

  “Watch your mouth, you.” Kormak not only understood the Bizogot tongue, he spoke it well - and arrogantly.

  “Oh, go bugger a weasel,” Marcomer said. “What the demon do you think you can do to me that the God-cursed Rulers haven’t already done?”

  “What did they do?” Kormak Bersi demanded. “So far, I’ve heard nothing but noise. What really happened?”

  “Most of the noise is your own jaws flapping, seems like. Raumsdalians like to hear themselves talk, don’t they?” the Bizogot said. If he was trying to annoy Kormak even more, he succeeded. In fact, he succeeded even if he wasn’t trying. But while the imperial agent steamed, Marcomer told him of riding back to the stone huts at the eastern edge of Sudertorp Lake and discovering that the Rulers had got there ahead of him. He told of rescuing a tiny fragment of his clan and then riding after the band Trasamund led. And he finished, “Here we are in the Empire. If you think the Rulers are very far behind us, you’re even stupider than I give you credit for.”

  Kormak Bersi didn’t seem any angrier, which proved he’d got caught up in Marcomer’s tale. “His Majesty must hear of this, and quickly,” the imperial agent said. “Our officers up in the forest need to know of it, too.”

  “If they don’t know already, it isn’t because we haven’t spread the word,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “Of course, they may not want to listen. We can’t do anything about that.”

  “When do Raumsdalians ever listen to Bizogots?” Marcomer sounded more resigned than bitter.

  “I’m no Bizogot,” Count Hamnet reminded him. “Neither is Ulric Skakki. . . and neither is Audun Gilli.” The last name tasted like bad fish in his mouth; he spat it out as fast as he could, and wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve afterwards.

  “If what I hear is true. .” Kormak Bersi began, and then stopped in alarm, for Marcomer’s growl sound much like an angry dire wolf’s. The Raumsdalian agent had nerve, for after gathering himself he repeated, “If this is true, it changes the nature of the orders I have.”

  “What kind of orders are those?” Hamnet asked. “Lock me up, lose the key, and God forbid you should pay attention to anything that comes out of my mouth?”

  “Something like that.” Kormak could sound almost as dry as Ulric Skakki. “But I may have to think twice.”

  “That would be nice. Most people have trouble enough thinking once,” Count Hamnet said.

  “Your precious Emperor must, if he doesn’t believe the things he’s heard about the Rulers,” Marcomer said.

  Kormak looked at him - looked through him, really. “You will find it a good policy not to speak ill of His Majesty,” he said, his voice as chilly as if blown on the Breath of God.

  “Why? If somebody’s an idiot, how’s he going to find out he’s an idiot unless somebody else tells him so?” Bizogots didn’t waste a lot of respect on their clan chiefs. To Marcomer, Sigvat II was nothing but a jarl writ large.

  To Kormak Bersi, the idea that the Emperor might be an idiot wasn’t far from blasphemous. “His Majesty is not an idiot,” he said stiffly. “His Majesty cannot be an idiot.”

  “Why not?” Now Marcomer sounded honestly puzzled. “Isn’t that like saying he can’t shit? Everybody’s an idiot now and again, on one thing or another. Over women, usually, or over men if you’re a woman, but other stuff, too.”

  “His Majesty is not an idiot,” Kormak repeated in tones more gelid than ever. “Anyone who says otherwise will be very, very sorry.”

  By Marcomer’s expression, he thought the threat was idiotic, too. Hamnet Thyssen kicked him under the table to keep him from saying so. Hamnet also thought the threat was idiotic, or at least juvenile, but he knew the agent could enforce it. Marcomer glowered but, for a wonder, took the hint.

  Ulric Skakki came down then, looking indecently - and that was probably just the right word - pleased with himself. He stopped and grinned. “Well, well! Kormak Bersi, as I live and breathe!”

  “Hullo, Skakki,” Kormak answered. “Have you really been daft enough to hook up with these fools and renegades? I heard it, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

  “You may as well, because it’s true.” Ulric’s grin got wider and more engaging - and, if you knew him the way Hamnet did, less reliable. “Life would be dull if you did the same old things over and over. Besides, there’s real trouble loose up there, no matter what His Majesty thinks - or even if he thinks.”

  “Don’t you start!” Kormak exclaimed.

  Ulric looked more innocent than ever. “Who, me? What did I do?”

  “You imagined that the Emperor might not be perfect,” Hamnet said. “Now Bersi here has to decide whether to roast you over a slow fire or just cut off your head.”

  “Well, if he does cut it off, I can’t very well tell him the Rulers are on the way down to cut off His Majesty’s,” Ulric said. “You’d think that was something people would want to know, but maybe not.” His shrug was a small masterpiece of its kind.

  “So you people plan on going to Nidaros and telling the Emperor he’s been wrong all along?” Kormak said.

  “You’d think he could see it for himself, but somebody’s got to tell him if he can’t,” Ulric replied. “Since nobody else seems to want to, we’ll do it.”

  “I’d better come with you,” the imperial agent said.

  “Why not? The more, the merrier.” Ulric nodded to Count Hamnet. “Isn’t that right, Your Grace?”

  “How could I be any merrier?” Hamnet replied. “It’s only my face that doesn’t know it.”

  Kormak Bersi gave him a tired and dutiful smile. Marcovefa came downstairs just then, and Kormak forgot about everything but her. His focus was so quick and so intent, Hamnet wondered if he was something of a wizard himself - enough to sense that she was one, at any rate. “Where are you from?” he asked her in the Bizogot language.

  “On top of the Glacier,” she answered. “What about you?”

  “Me? From Nidaros.” Kormak looked surprised that he’d told her. “Are you really from atop the Glacier? Does that mean the stories these rogues were telling are true?”

  “I don’t know their stories,” Marcovefa said. “But why would they lie?”

  “Plenty of reasons.” Kormak Bersi sounded sure of that. “How did you live, up there on top of everything?”

  Marcovefa shrugged. “As best I could. We did not know we had little. No one else up there has more. Only when I come down here do I see there is more to have.”

  “What don’t you have?” Kormak asked. “Up there, I mean.
”

  “Bread. Meat from beast larger than fox. Hide from beast larger than fox.” Marcovefa didn’t mention meat from men, which was bound to be just as well. She went on, “Smetyn. Beer. These are great wonders.”

  By the way the agent smiled, he didn’t think so. He took them all for granted, as Hamnet had before he saw how the clans atop the Glacier lived. “What do you think of the sorcery you’ve seen down here?”

  Marcovefa snapped her fingers. ‘About that much. You are puny shamans. You have so many things, you do not trouble with wizardry the way you should.”

  That rocked Kormak Bersi back on his heels. He must have expected her to praise it to the skies. “What will you do now that you’re down here among civilized people?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. Knock some sense into you, maybe,” Marcovefa replied.

  Kormak cast about for another question. He seemed to have trouble finding one that wouldn’t land him in trouble. At last, he said, “Would you like to see Nidaros? Would you like to meet the Emperor?”

  “Nidaros, yes. Big buildings ... We have no big buildings. You must be clever, to make them so they don’t fall down,” Marcovefa said. Then she shrugged. “Your clan chief? Who cares? I have met plenty of clan chiefs. Man like other men, yes?”

  “His Majesty Sigvat II, Emperor of Raumsdalia, is no clan chief,” Kormak Bersi said haughtily.

  “That’s true. Most clan chiefs have better sense,” Ulric Skakki said.

  “Not you, too!” Kormaks scowl said he might have expected such things from Hamnet Thyssen, but not from Ulric.

  “Yes, me, too,” Ulric said. “What am I supposed to think when the Emperor’s flat-out wrong and doesn’t want to set things right?”

  “Anything you say will be remembered,” Kormak warned.

  “That would be nice,” Hamnet said. The agent stared at him. He explained: “Up till now, everyone’s forgotten what we’ve said. Otherwise, somebody would have paid a little attention to it. I can hope so, anyhow.”

  “You aren’t helping yourself,” Kormak Bersi said.

  “Take us to Nidaros. Tell the Emperor how naughty we’ve been,” Count Hamnet said. “My guess is, he already knows.”

  XV

  Kormak Bersi rode out of Burtrask with the travelers. “Are you our nursemaid, our shepherd, or our jailer?” Count Hamnet asked him.

  “Not your jailer,” the agent answered. “Plenty of others to tend to that. If you’re lucky, I may keep you out of their clutches.”

  “And if we aren’t?” Hamnet persisted.

  “If you aren’t, I may not.”

  There didn’t seem to be much to say to that, so Hamnet Thyssen didn’t try. Short of murder, they weren’t going to shake Kormak. And murder seemed pointless when he went at least halfway towards believing them. Plenty of others in the Empire, from Sigvat II on down, didn’t. Was riding on towards Nidaros pointless, then? Hamnet could only hope it wasn’t, and wouldn’t be.

  As if to remind him of why he was taking the chance of returning, Raumsdalia spread itself out to best advantage before him. The weather stayed fine and mild. Fields of barley and rye ripened under that watery but steady sunshine. Horses and cattle and sheep grazed on the meadows. When the Raumsdalians and Bizogots rode through woods, red and gray squirrels frisked through the trees above, chattering and scolding as the horses clopped past.

  With their soft fur, large eyes, and clever, handlike paws, squirrels charmed the Bizogots. Ulric Skakki, who knew them better, liked them less. “Nothing but rats with fluffy tails,” he sneered.

  “And people are nothing but dire wolves who comb their hair,” Hamnet said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ulric said. “We’d go to war less often if we could lick our own privates.”

  They eyed each other. Hamnet wondered which of them was more cynical. By the look on Ulric’s face, the adventurer was wondering the same thing. Better that, better admiring the scenery, than brooding about what would happen when he came to Nidaros. The Emperors displeasure awaited him there. So did Gudrid’s.

  Thinking of her made him think of Liv. He’d hoped he would never think of the two of them together. But, like Gudrid, Liv was proving herself happier with someone else than with him. How Gudrid would laugh when she found out about that! She’d bedded Audun Gilli, too, before setting out from Nidaros. Hamnet wondered why. Probably so as not to leave anyone out.

  Thinking about Sigvat or Gudrid or Liv hurt. Yes, better to watch squirrels in the pines and beeches and maples, better to watch wind rippling through growing grain, better to watch beasts fattening on long, green grass than to think of his own personal and political follies.

  He’d just ridden out of a stretch of woods when he spotted vultures and teratorns and ravens spiraling down out of the sky ahead. “Well, well,” he said. “Is that a sabertooth’s work, or dire wolves’, or bandits’?”

  “All we have to do is ride on, and we’ll find out . . . one way or another,” Ulric Skakki said.

  “Let it be bandits,” Trasamund rumbled. “My sword has rested too long in its sheath. It grows thirsty.” He reached back over his shoulder to stroke the hilt of the great two-handed blade.

  “Fighting is too important to make a sport of it,” Ulric said.

  Count Hamnet was inclined to agree. Trasamund shook his head. “What better sport than scattering your enemies before you?” he said.

  “What happens when they scatter you instead?” Ulric returned. “Where’s the rest of your clan, jarl of the Three Tusk Bizogots?” Trasamund gave him a horrible look, one that proved looks couldn’t kill, for Ulric stayed upright and smiling his usual mocking smile in return. Trasamund started to reach for the sword again, but arrested the gesture before his hand reached it. Ulric Skakki hadn’t told him anything but the truth. Of course, the truth often hurt worse than any lies. Hamnet Thyssen knew that too well - and if he hadn’t, one look at Liv riding alongside of Audun Gilli would have flayed the lesson into him forever.

  Instead of looking at her, he grimly stared straight ahead. After he rode to the top of a low rise, he could see what the carrion birds were waiting for. A sabertooth had pulled down a cow in a meadow, and was tearing great chunks of flesh from the carcass. The big cat’s short, stumpy tail quivered in delight as it ate.

  The rest of the cattle in the herd had run off. They were starting to graze again, a couple of bowshots away. Every so often, their heads would rise - they knew where the sabertooth was, all right. But they also knew the killer wasn’t likely to go after them now that it had other meat.

  And what it didn’t eat, the birds would. They waited in an expectant ring around the cat and the carcass. A raven hopped up and grabbed a gobbet of meat. Two more ravens tried to steal the dainty. The first one flew off, croaking angrily. One of the others chased it; the second seemed to decide its chances were better by the dead cow.

  The sabertooth had ignored the thieving raven. Maybe it wasn’t big enough to seem a competitor. Teratorns were another story. A bird with a body bigger than a turkey’s and a wingspan as wide as three or four tall men - more to the point, a bird that size with a hooked beak in proportion - was enough to draw even a sabertooth’s notice. This one lashed out with a mitten-sized front paw, warning the teratorn back. The oversized vulture squawked irately and retreated. Teratorns had a name for being stupid, but this one wasn’t dumb enough to take on a sabertooth.

  And the sabertooth wasn’t dumb enough to take on three dozen people on horseback. Its short tail quivered again, this time in fury, as they approached. It roared, baring its formidable teeth. When it saw it couldn’t scare them off, it slunk away. Its short hind legs gave it a peculiar gait, different from any other big cat’s.

  As soon as the sabertooth scuttled off towards the woods, the teratorns and lesser vultures and ravens - and a couple of opportunistic foxes - swarmed over the dead cow. There was plenty of meat for all of them, but they snapped and screeched at one another just the same.


  Eyeing them with wry distaste, Ulric Skakki asked, “Remind you of anything you’ve seen before?”

  “What? You mean Nidaros?” Count Hamnet replied, and Ulric nodded. Hamnet went on, “I think they have better manners here.”

  Kormak Bersi looked from one of them to the other. Hamnet had the feeling he was remembering everything they said, and he would use it against them when they got to the capital. How can I land in worse trouble, though? he wondered, and smiled a little. Being in bad odor at the court had advantages he hadn’t suspected.

  As the travelers made their long, crablike progress towards Nidaros, Hamnet Thyssen wondered what news was coming straight to the imperial city from the Bizogot plains. Were couriers pounding down from some border post farther east with news that the Rulers had shattered the Leaping Lynxes? Did they have word that the Rulers were closer to the tree line than that? Were the Rulers already over the border themselves?

  If Sigvat II got news like that, what would he think? Would he decide he’d been hasty when he looked down his nose at Hamnet and his warnings? Would he set Raumsdalia in motion to fight the danger pressing down from the north?

  Would he care at all? Or would he be so busy with his pleasures in the capital that it wouldn’t matter a bit to him? One way or the other, Hamnet thought, I’ll find out pretty soon.

  One thing didn’t happen: they didn’t pass couriers galloping out from Nidaros with orders for the imperial armies to assemble. Maybe that was a good sign - maybe it meant the Rulers weren’t close to the border. Or maybe it meant that Sigvat wasn’t going to worry about them even if they were. Again, Count Hamnet had the feeling he’d know the answer before long.

  The scarred badlands that stretched out west from what had been Hevring Lake slowed the journey to the capital. Shrubs and clumps of grass sprouted here and there; birds and rabbits and other small game prowled the pocked landscape. The road had to make its way around and through all the scabby ravines and canyons, often doubling back on itself like a snake with a twisted spine. No farmers worked that land; it was far too rough to be broken to the plow. Some of the handful of people who did live there were hunters. Others were men and women who hoped everyone outside the badlands had forgotten they were alive.