Beyond the Gap (37 page)

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Authors: Harry Turtledove

BOOK: Beyond the Gap
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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 detoured 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.
“She'd 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
.
H
AMNET 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 jaundicedlooking 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?”
“I hope so,” Hamnet answered. “It's the right thing to do—or will you tell me that's not so?” If Ulric tried, Hamnet intended to walk away.
But Ulric didn't, not straight out. He was practical instead, practical and devious. “It's only the right thing to do if you think the Bizogots can beat the Rulers. Otherwise, seems to me you'd do better waiting for trouble here. Besides,
do
you want Trasamund for your overlord? I mean …” He rolled his eyes.
But Count Hamnet refused to back down. “Better Trasamund than Sigvat,” he said. “Trasamund doesn't pull his head into his shell and sleep through the winter at the bottom of a pond the way the Emperor does.”
Ulric Skakki looked alarmed, not because he hadn't told the truth but because he'd told it too loud. “Keep your voice down, or you won't have the chance to go north!”
“Why not?” Count Hamnet said. “His Majesty should be as glad to get rid of me as I am to go, and that's saying a lot.”
He got only a shrug from Ulric, as if to say,
On your head be it
. The foxy-faced man asked, “And how do you think Trasamund will like having you for a subject?”
“I haven't talked with him yet,” Hamnet answered with a shrug. “He put up with me all the way through the Gap and past it. He ought to be able to stand me from here on out. It's not as if I'm likely to try to take the jarl's job away from him.”
“If you could get the Bizogots to listen to you, you'd do it better.” Ulric Skakki held up a hand. “I know. I know. Nobody can get the Bizogots to listen to him. That's one more reason what you're doing is madness.”
Count Hamnet looked at him—looked through him, really. “I have two questions for you. Are the Rulers the biggest trouble we have, or is something else?” He folded his arms across his chest and waited.
Ulric let out a snort of his own, but he answered, “Well, the Rulers are. I don't think there's anyway around that.”
“All right. Very good, in fact.” Hamnet Thyssen clapped his hands in mocking applause. Ulric looked more exasperated than ever. Ignoring his sour expression, Hamnet went on, “If the Rulers
are
the worst trouble we have, would you rather do something about them or do nothing about them?”
Ulric Skakki opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, but still didn't speak for some little while. At last, he managed, “That's not fair.”
“Fine. Have it your way. But why shouldn't I have it my way, too?” Hamnet said.
“Because you won't do what you think you will?” Ulric suggested.
“Fine,” Count Hamnet repeated. “But I'll do something. I want to do something. I need to do something. If you want to do nothing, that's your business.”
“And you'll be laying your pretty little Bizogot—except she's not so little, is she?—in the meantime,” Ulric jeered. Hamnet Thyssen swung on him. The next thing Hamnet knew, he was flying through the air upside down. He hit the stone floor on his back, hard. Ulric Skakki wasn't even breathing hard. “You all right?” he asked. “You rushed me a little there.”
Count Hamnet needed several heartbeats to take stock of himself. His right wrist was sore. So was the back of his head, which had also thumped the floor. “I … think so,” he said slowly as he climbed to his feet. “What did you do there? Can you teach it to me?”
“And spoil my air of mystery?” Ulric said archly.
Before either of them could say anything more, a servant stuck his head into the room. “What happened?” the man asked. “It sounded like the castle was falling down.”
“Oh, I dropped my winecup.” Ulric's voice was bland as butter without salt. “It was empty, so I didn't even make a mess.”
“Your
winecup?”
The servant thought he was lying or crazy or both. The man was right, too, but Ulric wouldn't let him prove it. The adventurer just nodded and smiled. The servant looked at Hamnet Thyssen, then quickly looked away. Hamnet's expression was probably terrifying. Thwarted, the man withdrew. Ulric Skakki winked. “Where were we, O winecup of mine?”
“Oh, shut up,” Hamnet muttered. He gathered himself. Standing on his
dignity wasn't easy, not when he'd just been flipped and thrown. “
Will
you teach me that trick?”
“Come at me again and you'll learn more about it than you ever wanted to know,” Ulric Skakki answered.
“Keep my woman out of your mouth, then.” Hamnet set a hand on his swordhilt. “And don't even start to make the joke that's in your filthy mind.”
“You can't prove it,” Ulric said. He didn't make the joke, so Hamnet didn't have to try.
 
EYVIND TORFINN WAS even more surprised and even more dismayed to learn Count Hamnet intended to go north with Trasamund and Liv than Ulric Skakki had been. What Gudrid thought, Hamnet didn't inquire.
No matter what she thought, Eyvind Torfinn arranged a gathering of his own to see Hamnet and Liv and Trasamund off to the Bizogot country. That he was able to arrange it left Hamnet impressed. Earl Eyvind was more his own man than Gudrid's former husband had imagined before setting off for the north with him.
“Are you sure we should come here?” Liv asked as she and Count Hamnet rode up to Eyvind's large, rambling home. “Will that woman poison the food? Or will hired murderers greet us when we go in?”
“I doubt it,” Hamnet answered. “She hasn't tried to murder me—that I know of—since she left me. And I expect she'll put up with you. She knows you're dangerous, and she knows me well enough to fear my revenge.”
“Ah.” Liv nodded. That, she understood.
Like all entrances in Nidaros, Earl Eyvind's faced south. The bulk of the large home shielded Hamnet Thyssen and Liv from the Breath of God. Even so, the knocker had frozen to the door. Hamnet had to tug on it to free it.
Eyvind Torfinn opened the door himself—no hired bravos. “Your Grace,” he said to Hamnet, and then, to Liv, “My lady.” He remained polite to her. Maybe Gudrid hadn't told him everything that happened at the reception.
Just as well if she hasn't
, Hamnet thought.
“Your Splendor,” he and Liv said together. They smiled at each other, the way people will when they do that.
“Come in, come in,” Eyvind Torfinn said. “You are both welcome here … in spite of your foolishness, your Grace.”
“I thank you,” Hamnet Thyssen answered. “I don't look at it as foolishness, you know.”
“Yes, I do,” the older man told him. “It makes you the only one in Nidaros who doesn't.”
Liv squeezed Count Hamnet's hand. “No, your Splendor, it doesn't,” she said firmly in her new, slow, precise Raumsdalian.
“I stand corrected, my lady.” Earl Eyvind bowed to her. He bowed more readily than he would have before setting out for the Gap and the lands beyond the Glacier; he'd lost most of the comfortable paunch he'd carried then. Hamnet guessed he would get it back soon enough, but he hadn't yet. As he straightened, he went on, “I should have said, the only Raumsdalian in Nidaros who doesn't.”
“Oh, there must be some sot in a gutter somewhere who hasn't heard the news,” Hamnet said with a wry smile.
“You make light of it, but you shouldn't.” Eyvind's smile was just as sour. “Well, come along, come along. We will celebrate what you have done and hope you may yet do more in days to come if you return to your senses.”
“I'm not dead yet. I don't plan on dying any time soon, either,” Hamnet Thyssen said in some annoyance. “By God, I'm doing what I think is right.”
Trasamund was already in Eyvind Torfinn's reception hall, drinking wine and gnawing on a leg cut from a roast goose.
His
belly was thicker than it had been before he got down to the Empire. He enjoyed the good things of life when he could get them. He sent Hamnet Thyssen something more than a wave and less than a salute. “You
are
a brave man,” he boomed to Count Hamnet. “To put yourself in my hands, you must be.”
“I'm going north anyway,” the Raumsdalian nobleman answered. Liv smiled. Trasamund laughed. Audun Gilli watched in wide-eyed fascination. Ulric Skakki's face was unreadable; he was better at keeping it that way than anyone else Hamnet had ever seen. Jesper Fletti plainly thought Hamnet had lost his mind—but, with a cup of wine in one hand and a mutton rib in the other, he didn't seem to care much. If he hadn't gone north, he never would have been able to get an invitation to Eyvind Torfinn's home.
As for Gudrid … She had on almost as little as she did at Sigvat II's illfated fête. Was she reminding Hamnet of what he would be missing?—not just her, but also a city such as Nidaros, where there were dressmakers who turned out gowns like the one she was almost wearing.
Liv made a small noise, deep down in her throat. A lioness spotting prey might come out with a sound like that. If Gudrid had heard it, she would have been wise to take herself elsewhere as fast as she could go.
But she didn't. She swayed toward Hamnet Thyssen, a smile on her reddened lips. She leaned forward and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. Liv made that noise again, louder this time. Gudrid ignored it, saying, “So you're going away, are you? Well, I hope you enjoy the bugs and the smells.”
Had some of her paint come off so he was branded to the eye as well as to the touch? He would wipe his face … soon. For now, he said, “I can put up with them. And I'll be where I need to be. And”—he put his arm around Liv—“the company is better.”
Gudrid didn't lose her smile. Her face went ugly for a moment all the same. “Who would have thought someone like you would run away for love?” she said.
Someone boring like you
but hung in the air.
Hamnet shrugged. “I'm not running away. I'm running toward. You met the Rulers. You know what they're like.”
“Ah, the brave hero, sure he can charge off and save the day where nobody else has a chance. You sound like someone out of the romances
dear
Eyvind can quote for hours at a stretch.” Gudrid jeered at her present husband, too.
“I'm not sure of anything of the kind,” Hamnet answered steadily. “I'd rather not pretend there's no trouble, that's all.”
“Really?” Gudrid tilted her head to one side. “Since when?”
“You ought to know—you taught me the lesson.” He kept his voice even. “Will you excuse me, please? I'd like to get something to eat and something to drink.”
“So would I, please,” Liv said.
Gudrid had to notice her then. “How could I say no to you? Who knows what would happen if I did?”
Liv shrugged. “How do I know there is no … no poison in the food and drink?” She had to search for the word she wanted, but she found it.

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