"And worse," Ulric finished for him. Maybe he was thinking of the dire-wolf liver he'd downed on the frozen plains. Hamnet Thyssen had no trouble calling it back to mind. Ulric went on, "How much do you suppose the Rulers would enjoy a spread like this?"
"Oh, maybe a little," Count Hamnet answered. "Yes, maybe."
"I think they might, too." As Hamnet had before, Ulric Skakki looked around. But he wasn't seeking Audun Gilli-he wanted Sigvat II. "I wish his Majesty would come in," he said when he didn't see him. "He hasn't wanted to hear about the Rulers, has he?"
"Not as much as I hoped he would," Hamnet Thyssen said. "As soon as he found out we didn't find the Golden Shrine and we weren't bringing home any treasure, he stopped being interested. I think this reception is a consolation prize."
"I was thinking the same thing," Ulric said. "Pretty soon, he'll throw us out of the palace-either that or he'll start charging us rent."
Hamnet shrugged. "If he does, I'll go back to my castle, that's all. I can give you a room and a bed, if you like."
Liv set a hand on his arm. "But what about the Rulers? You said it yourself. If they come through the Gap, they aren't just the Bizogots' fight. They're the Empire's fight, too."
"I know," Hamnet said. "But if they turn into the Empires fight, it won't matter if I stay here or go back to the castle. I'll have to fight them either way. We may not be so ready if his Majesty doesn't care to listen to Ulric and Earl Eyvind and Audun and me, but we'll have to meet them ready or not."
"You're more likely to lose," Liv said.
"I can't make the Emperor see that. I can't make the Empire do anything about it, either." Hamnet shrugged again. "What I can do, I've done and I'm doing." Liv bit her lip but nodded; she knew that was true.
Musicians struck up a sprightly air. They distracted the Bizogot shaman. She knew about drums and flutes. She even knew about horns, though the Bizogots made theirs from the natural horns of musk oxen, not out of brass. But she'd never seen viols and basses and lutes before coming down to Nidaros. The look of them and the sounds they made fascinated her.
A courtier in a gaudy satin jacket spoke to the musicians' leader. He in turn gestured to his comrades. The strings suddenly fell silent. Horns and drums blared out a fanfare. "His Majesty, Sigvat II, by God's grace Emperor of Raumsdalia!" the courtier bawled into the silence that followed.
Sigvat wore ermine. Liv and Trasamund seemed much less impressed with his robe than his own subjects were. Up on the frozen plains, weasels wore their white coats far longer than they did inside the empire. Those splendid furs were commonplace to the Bizogots, even if they weren't to Raumsdalians.
Hamnet Thyssen and Ulric Skakki bowed low when Sigvat strode into the reception hall. So did the rest of the men there. The women dropped curtsies. Liv's was smoother than Hamnet expected. "Who taught you?" he whispered as she straightened.
"The maidservants," she answered, also in a whisper. "This is another strange notion you people have, to use people to serve other people. Among my folk, we can all do everything for ourselves." She drew herself up very straight indeed. In her own way, she had as much Bizogot arrogance as Trasamund did.
"As you were, everyone," Sigvat II called with a wave. "For the rest of the evening, let the thought be taken for the deed." He made for the tapman, who handed him a cup of golden wine from the far southwest.
"Shall we beard him?" Ulric Skakki asked.
"Do you think it'll do any good?" Count Hamnet asked in return.
"How can it hurt?" Ulric said.
Since Hamnet couldn't answer that, he approached the Emperor with Ulric. Sigvat was talking and laughing with a tall, black-haired woman whose gown displayed at least as much of her as Gudrid's. He was married, but who was going to tell the Emperor he couldn't amuse himself where and as he pleased? Not the Empress, certainly; she wasn't even at the reception. Sigvat II saw Hamnet and Ulric coming up to them. He seemed more interested in the black-haired woman. In one sense, Hamnet didn't blame him. In another.. .
"Your Majesty?" the nobleman said, politely but firmly. No one who knew him ever thought he wouldn't take the bull by the horns.
Sigvat's mouth tightened. With ill-concealed annoyance, he told the woman, "Please excuse me."
"Of course, your Majesty," she murmured in tones that said she would excuse him anything. Her curtsy almost made her fall out of that gown. Abstractly, Hamnet wondered why she didn't. Some sort of paste holding it to her? He wouldn't have been surprised.
"Thyssen. Skakki." Sigvat acknowledged the two of them with their family names-the least politeness he could give. No, he didn't like being interrupted. He muttered to himself, then went on, "Well, what can I do for you gentlemen?" That was better-a little, anyhow.
"Your Majesty, we wish to thank you for this reception in our honor," Ulric Skakki said. He was smoother than Hamnet, and sly enough to remind the Emperor that the reception was in the travelers' honor.
"My pleasure." Sigvat unbent-again, a little. When he spoke of pleasure, though, his eyes slid back to the woman waiting beside him. He sipped from his winecup, then went on, "You did something marvelous when you went beyond the Glacier."
"Thank you again, your Majesty," Ulric said.
Before he could go on, Hamnet interrupted him, saying, "One of the things we did, your Majesty, was find danger in the far north. The Rulers are not foes to be despised."
By the way Sigvat II said, "Maybe so," he didn't believe it for a minute. He went on, "Whatever else the so-called Rulers are, they're very far away. I don't think we need to worry about them for a long time-if we ever have to."
"With respect, your Majesty, that may be so, but it may not," Count Hamnet said. "Both our Raumsdalian wizard and the Bizogot shaman who went north with us from the Three Tusk clan believe they have new magic, magic the likes of which no one on this side of the Glacier has ever seen, magic we may not be able to match."
The Emperor's eye found Liv. Even in this hall full of lovely women, she stood out. "While I admire the shaman's, uh, opinions," Sigvat said, "she is not necessarily expert on what Raumsdalian sorcerers know. And neither she nor, uh, Audun Gilli is expert on what the barbarians beyond the Glacier can really do."
Don't bother me about this now. That was what he meant, all right. Hamnet Thyssen didn't care. Stubbornly, he plowed ahead. "We would do better, your Majesty, to meet this new threat as far from our own borders as we can."
"I decide what we would do better to, uh, do." Sigvat II made a face. That didn't come out the way he wanted it to. But even if it didn't, what he meant was only too clear. "If you'd found the Golden Shrine, now . . ."
He cared more about what wasn't there, or wasn't found to be there, than about the real danger. "Your Majesty-" Ulric Skakki began.
"I have spoken." Sigvat II sounded most imperial indeed. "If this people-if these Rulers-show themselves or itself or whatever the right word may be, then Raumsdalia will deal with it or them. Till that time, the Empire has enough real troubles without borrowing imaginary ones. Good evening, Skakki."
That was dismissal, harsh as a slap in the face. Expressionless, Ulric Skakki bowed. "Your Majesty," he said, and stepped away.
When Hamnet Thyssen didn't join him in withdrawing, Sigvat raised an eyebrow. "Your Majesty, you are making a mistake," Count Hamnet said. Then he bowed and turned away without giving the Emperor a chance to reply.
If Sigvat were a different kind of ruler, that could easily have cost him his head. He was too angry to care. But Sigvat, if he didn't want to look north, also wasn't vindictive for the sake of being vindictive. He just went back to the statuesque brunette in the revealing gown. "Sorry to keep you waiting there," he said.
"It's all right, your Majesty," she replied, her voice like a crystal bell.
It wasn't all right, or even close to all right, but Hamnet Thyssen couldn't do anything about it. Savagely, he stalked over toward the tapman. Ulric Skakki was right behind him. "I aim to get as drunk as Au
dun Gilli ever did," Hamnet warned.
"Good," Ulric said. "We can end up in the same gutter, because I aim to get that drunk too. Maybe we'll keep each other warm."
Hamnet Thyssen wasn't usually a man who drank to oblivion. He'd done it a couple of times after Gudrid left him, but he hadn't seen that it helped him much. He was in the same mess when he sobered up, but with a headache and a sour stomach besides. Once in a while, though, the world seemed too idiotic to stand. This was one of those times.
Eyvind Torfinn and Gudrid had been talking, for all the world like any married couple. Eyvind left her and came over to Hamnet and Ulric, both of whom were getting their cups refilled by the impassive server who took care of the wine. "No luck?" Eyvind asked.
"Not a bit of it, your Splendor. Not one bloody bit," Hamnet growled. "Haven't you tried explaining things for him?"
"Of course I have," Earl Eyvind answered. "Whatever happened beyond the Glacier doesn't seem real to him. God may know why-God must know why-but I don't." He sighed. "Maybe we should have lied. Maybe we should have said we did find the Golden Shrine. That would have kept his interest, anyhow."
Ulric Skakki shook his head. "Jesper Fletti and the rest of Sigvat's hounds would have given us the lie." He wasn't drunk yet, but he didn't care what he said. He had to be disgusted with the world; he didn't usually let himself go like that.
"I suppose you're right," Eyvind Torfinn said with another sigh. "It's most unfortunate."
"It'll be worse than unfortunate if we have to deal with the Rulers here toward the end of next summer," Count Hamnet said.
"Maybe the Bizogots will hold them in check." Eyvind didn't sound as if he believed they could, either.
Hamnet gulped his wine. As he drank, he watched Gudrid out of the corner of his eye. He wished he could stop doing that, but getting what he wished for, even after falling in love with the woman from the north, wasn't easy.
His former wife said something to Liv. Across the room, Count Hamnet couldn't tell what it was. The Bizogot shaman answered. Again, Hamnet couldn't tell how. Gudrid said something else. This time, Liv just shook her head.
Gudrid stuck her nose in the air. Hamnet Thyssen had seen that gesture more times than he could count. Whatever Gudrid heard, she didn't like it. Maybe Liv was rash enough to have said something nice about him. Or maybe she said something rude about Nidaros. Whatever it was, it roused Gudrid s ire, or at least her contempt.
If she'd walked away with her nose held high, everything would have been fine. But she decided she had to do more than that. So as she turned to go, she stepped on Liv's foot. It might have been an accident. It might have been-but it wasn't.
His own anger inflamed by the strong wine he'd poured down, Hamnet Thyssen started over toward them. He hadn't gone more than a couple of strides before he found, not for the first time, that his present beloved could take care of herself.
Liv's lips moved. Hamnet could see that. Gudrid didn't turn back, so the Bizogot woman's words weren't intended for her ear-which didn't mean they weren't intended for her. Gudrid made a fundamental mistake. She forgot the lesson she'd had to learn far to the north-getting on the bad side of a wizard or shaman was a long way from smart.
One heartbeat, Gudrid's minimal gown held together as well as overstrained fabric could reasonably be expected to do. The next, things fell apart, literally and spectacularly. They had no obvious reason for falling apart. It might have been an accident. It might have been-but it wasn't.
Gudrid looked down at herself, first in surprise and then in horror. The involuntary squawk she let out swung every eye in the reception hall toward her. That was just what she didn't want. There was more of her to cover up than she had hands to cover it.
She started to pick up what was left of the gown, then seemed to realize she couldn't put it back together again. She took a step toward a table full of trays of appetizers, but must have decided the trays weighed down the tablecloth too much for her to grab it. With another squawk, she kicked out of the remnants of what she'd worn and fled the reception hall.
"Oh, dear." Eyvind Torfinn hurried after her.
"Well, well. There's a dressmaker who won't live to grow old," Ulric Skakki predicted. "But I'll bet half the men here want to know who he is so they can get him to make gowns for their lady friends."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Count Hamnet answered, but didn't think it was the dressmaker's fault. When he walked over to Liv, he carefully de-toured around the bits of fabric still on the floor. He wagged a finger at her. "That was naughty of you."
"Too bad," she said. "Did you see what happened?"
"I saw, yes. I couldn't hear what the two of you said, but I know she stepped on you on purpose."
"If she did that in the Three Tusk country, I would have killed her," Liv said. "But I know you Raumsdalians are soft when it comes to such things, so I thought I'd embarrass her instead."
"You did," Hamnet said. Gudrid might have arranged for her own wardrobe to fail, but she would have gloried in her nakedness if she did. To get surprised . . . That was embarrassing.
"She's spent a lot of time tormenting you, so she thinks she can torment me, too, because I make you happy," Liv said. "She won't get away with that, no matter what she thinks. I can make her more unhappy than she makes me." Her eyes flamed.
"Chances are she's got the message now," Hamnet said.
"Shed better." Liv glanced over toward Sigvat II, who was happily chatting with the well-made brunette. "Did the Emperor get the message about the Rulers?"
"No, curse it." Hamnet shook his head. "He says he'll worry about them when they bother the Empire, if they ever do. Till then, he doesn't care."
"Well, why should he? He has more important things to worry about." The Bizogot woman's voice was tart. Sigvat s companion laughed at something he said. If the Emperor made a joke, of course it was funny.
"I don't know what to do about it. I don't think I can do anything about it-except bang my head against a stone wall, I mean," Hamnet Thyssen said. "I've done that before. By God, I've made a career out of it. But this time I can see it won't get me anywhere."
"So what will you do, then?" Liv asked.
"Well, I told you I was thinking about going back to my castle and waiting for the sky to fall," Hamnet answered. "Sooner or later, it will. We both know that. And … I was hoping you'd come with me." He had to work to say that, but he got it out. Now to see what happened next.
"I like being with you. You know that. I like it better than I ever thought I could like being with anyone," Liv said. "And the Empire has more . . . more things in it than I thought there were, there could be, in the whole world. But-"
"But?" Hamnet broke in harshly. As soon as Liv started saying nice things, he knew trouble lay ahead.
"But," Liv said again. "The sky will fall here sooner or later, yes. For the Three Tusk clan, the sky will fall sooner. We roam nearest the Gap. The Rulers will strike us first. By the nature of things, they have to. The Three Tusk clan . . . They are my folk. I will do what I can to help them. I have to do that, Hamnet-don't you see?"
He started to ask if anything he could do or say would make her change her mind. He started to, but he didn't; he could see it was hopeless. Not without admiration, he said, "You're as stubborn as I am. Do you know that?"
She nodded again. "That was one of the things that drew me to you. I wondered if we would bang heads, the way musk-ox bulls do in rutting season. But we never did, did we? Not till now."
"You will go north?" Hamnet asked.
"I will. I have to," Liv said.
He thought about his castle, about the estate surrounding it, about the game-filled woods to the east. He thought about how many Raumsdalians, starting with his bailiff, could care for the castle and estate as well as he could. He thought about the Gap, and the building storm beyond it.
"Would you put up with a half-baked Bizogot if I came north with you?" he asked.
Liv stared at him as if
she didn't believe her ears. Then she threw herself into his arms. Naked Gudrid might have made a bigger spectacle at the reception, but not by much. Well, Hamnet thought dizzily as the embrace went on and on, at least I know why I'm doing this.
XIX
Hamnet Thyssen did have a hangover from the drinking he'd done at the reception the night before. Maybe his own headache and touchy stomach made him think Ulric Skakki seemed especially jaundiced-looking the morning after. Or maybe Ulric was as astonished and dismayed as he seemed to be.
"You're really going back to the barbarians?" he yelped in what certainly sounded like pained disbelief.
"That's right." Count Hamnet took a cautious sip from a mug of wine. The hair of the dire wolf that bit him might ease his pangs. He sent the adventurer a defiant stare. "What about it?"
"You mean, besides your being out of your bloody mind?" Ulric was also nursing a mug. He was eating a sticky roll with candied fruit, too. Hamnet wasn't ready for food yet. Ulric Skakki went on, "You're the last man on earth I would have looked for to think with his cock."
"By God, I'm not!" Hamnet said, loud enough to make his own head throb. More quietly, he continued, "Sigvat s not going to do anything about the Rulers. You know that as well as I do. He rubbed our noses in it last night. So what does that leave me? Either I go home and wait for the world to go to the demons or I try to do something about it. I thought about sitting on my hands, but I just can't."
"An idealist?" Ulric Skakki asked sardonically. Hamnet Thyssen's nod was as defiant as his stare. Ulric laughed in his face and said, "Sitting on your hands, eh? How idealistic would you be if the Bizogot girl weren't sitting on your-"
"Watch your mouth, Skakki." Hamnet Thyssen folded his right hand into a fist. "It's early for a brawl, but you can have one if you want." He wondered if he was bad-tempered because of his headache or because Ulric's gibe held more truth than he wanted to admit, even to himself.
The adventurer shook his head. "No, not me. I'm a peaceable chap," he said. Count Hamnet snorted. Ulric Skakki went on, "Seriously, though, would you think of doing something like this if you weren't in love with Liv?"
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