Beyond the Gap (30 page)

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Authors: Harry Turtledove

BOOK: Beyond the Gap
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“If I had to guess,” Earl Eyvind said, “the Golden Shrine has ways to make sure that those who would trouble its tranquillity have no chance to do so. I cannot prove this, not with the little I know now, but I believe it to be the case.” He sounded like a scholar even while speaking the Bizogot language. In an abstract way, Hamnet Thyssen admired that; he'd never imagined such a thing was possible.
Wulfila seemed impressed, but he asked, “If that's so, how do you know the Golden Shrine wasn't hiding from
you?”
That it might hide from a Raumsdalian seemed natural to him, where he never would have dreamt it might conceal itself from one of his own folk.
Eyvind Torfinn looked quite humanly surprised. “I do not know that, not for a fact. I do not believe it is true, but neither do I know it is not.”
Count Hamnet was surprised in turn, for that seemed to satisfy Wulfila. Voice gruff, the Bizogot said, “Well, you seem honest, anyhow. Who would have thought it, from a man of the south?”
Trasamund upended a skin full of smetyn. He belched enormously, which showed good manners among the Bizogots. Then he yawned enormously. “Let us speak of all this another time. For now, I do believe I will die if I don't crawl under a skin pretty soon.”
None of the travelers—those who'd stayed awake that long—argued with him. The Bizogots had hides and blankets to spare. The weather was cold, but not as cold as it might have been. Plenty of covers could make the difference between life and death when the Breath of God blew its hardest. Now the mammoth-herders shared them out to their guests. Hamnet Thyssen was as glad to slide beneath one as any of the others—and even gladder when Liv slid under the same one.
 
COUNT HAMNET WOKE in darkness. Livwas draped over him, smooth and bare, one arm flung across his chest, one thigh over his leg. One of his hands rested on the small of her back. He moved it, just a little. She murmured something wordless. It sounded happy. He hoped it was.
How long since he'd wakened with a woman in his arms before Liv? He knew that, down to the very day—since the last time he'd awakened so with Gudrid. After that, he'd bedded women, yes, but he hadn't slept with them, not in the literal sense of the words. He hadn't wanted so much intimacy.
Now … Now he had to remind himself not to wake Liv, not to rouse her as he was roused himself. He might want her, but she wanted sleep, and she'd earned the right to it. If she woke by herself … But that was a different story. So he told himself, over and over again, and made himself hold her quietly. It wasn't easy.
Then, just when he was on the point of drifting off again, she did wake—in surprise, more surprise than he'd shown. “What?” she said, and then, a long beat later, “Oh. Hamnet.”
“Yes,” he said, as if the two of them lying naked and entwined was the most natural thing in the world.
And why not?
he wondered.
Why not, by God?
She smiled against his shoulder. “That's good,” she murmured.
“Yes,” he said again. He might have been announcing magic grander
than any the most talented wizard could hope to work. He might have been—and, as far as he was concerned, he was.
Feeling her warmth against him made most of his warmth concentrate in one spot. Liv could scarcely help noticing. She laughed softly. “You're ready? So soon?”
He said, “Yes,” one more time, and he might have been announcing another miracle. Again, he thought he was. He hadn't been so eager, so avid, for a very long time. At his age, he hadn't thought he could be. Getting
happily
surprised made a pleasant novelty.
Had he
ever
been so avid? He likely had, back in the first days with Gudrid. His arms tightened around Liv. She laughed again, and kissed him, and then twisted, limber as an eel, and suddenly they weren't just entwined but joined. “Shhh,” she whispered as they began to move. By the nature of things, the Bizogots often made love in a tent with others present. That was all right. Waking others up while you did it, though—that was rude.
Hamnet Thyssen tried to remember his manners. Afterwards, he thought he did well enough, right up till the moment when joy overwhelmed him. He didn't think Liv remembered very well then, either. Neither one of them was inclined to be critical. He sighed with regret when he slipped out of her. A moment later, his eyes slid shut and he was asleep again.
 
IT WAS STILL dark when he next woke. If anything, he and Liv were even more tangled up than they had been before. He didn't pat her.
I am a virtuous man,
he told himself.
I can resist small temptations.
He hadn't tried—or wanted—to resist larger ones.
Other people were stirring now. Morning had to be close by, if so many were waking up. Liv came back to herself not long after Hamnet did. This time, she knew where she was, and with whom. She kissed him on the end of the nose. “We should dress,” she said.
“Ah, too bad,” Hamnet answered, which made her laugh.
They wriggled into their clothes under the hide. Anyone watching that from the outside might have guessed they were doing something else instead. No one seemed to be, though, and they weren't the only ones who'd celebrated returning to the Three Tusk clan. Trasamund hadn't always been perfectly quiet under his hide, either.
Roast meat left over from the night before broke their fast. The jarl left three or four of the weariest horses behind at the encampment, exchanging
them for beasts his clansfolk had been using. “Sooner or later, we'll replace them all,” he said, “but I don't want to leave a whole herd of screws up here. They might need sound horses.”
“Sensible,” Ulric Skakki whispered to Hamnet. “Who would have thought Trasamund had it in him?”
“Not fair. He's a good enough jarl—better than good enough,” Hamnet said.
As if he hadn't spoken, Ulric went on, “Of course, by the noises last night, he had it in everything but the cat.”
Ears heating (some of those noises might have been his), Count Hamnet said, “The Bizogots don't keep cats.”
“That must be why he didn't, then,” Ulric said blandly.
“Er—right.”
Hamnet didn't have one of the fresh horses, but even the animal he was riding seemed glad of the longer than usual rest it had got the night before. The travelers hadn't been riding for more than a couple of hours before they came upon a herd of mammoths, with a couple of Bizogots steering it toward the best foraging. Trasamund shouted back and forth with the herders. He eyed the mammoths in a way he hadn't before. “How would you climb up on their backs without making them want to squash you flat?” he murmured.
“Personally, I wouldn't,” Hamnet Thyssen said quietly. Laughing, Ulric Skakki nodded.
But Trasamund, with the thought in his mind, didn't want to turn loose of it. “How would you?” he repeated. “Do you suppose it takes magic, Liv? Do the Rulers spell their mammoths into quiet so they can mount them?”
“I don't know, your Ferocity,” she answered. “I saw no sign of that, but I can't prove anything.”
“I want to try it.” Trasamund seemed ready to jump off his horse—he rode one of the fresh ones—and onto the back of the closest mammoth.
“This is perhaps not the ideal time for experimentation,” Eyvind Torfinn said. “We have news to deliver, important news, and your untimely demise would assist only the raiders from beyond the Glacier.”
“What untimely demise?” the jarl demanded indignantly. “Nothing would happen to me.”
One of the mammoths swung up its trunk and let out a sound that reminded Hamnet Thyssen of a blaring bugle filled with spit. It also made him wonder if the enormous beast was giving Trasamund the horse laugh.
A glance at Ulric Skakki's raised eyebrow made him suspect the adventurer was thinking the same thing. “There's a time and a place for everything, your Ferocity,” Hamnet said. “This probably isn't the time to try riding mammoths.”
Trasamund glared at him. To the Bizogots, the time to do something was the time when you thought of doing it. But the jarl, unlike most of his countrymen, had gone down to the Empire and at least understood the idea of waiting, even if he didn't much care for it. “All right,” he said grudgingly.
“All right
. It will keep, I suppose.” He let out a martyred sigh that filled the air in front of him with fog. If he was going to pass up the opportunity, he wanted everyone around him to recognize what a fine fellow he was for doing it.
When the Bizogot herdsmen learned that the Rulers rode mammoths, they too were wild to try it for themselves. They weren't going anywhere important; they had nothing to do but guide the beasts in their charge. If they wanted to clamber aboard one of those beasts, they could … as long as the mammoth let them.
“I wonder if they're going to do something they'll regret,” Ulric said.
“Well, if it goes wrong, they won't regret it long,” Hamnet answered.
“A point. A distinct point,” Ulric said. “But look at them. They think they'll be mammoth-lancers by the time the Rulers come through the Gap.”
“The Rulers
shouldn't
come through the Gap—Liv's dead right about that,” Hamnet said. “We ought to be able to stop them right there if they try.”
“We ought to be able to do all kinds of things,” Ulric Skakki said. “What we
will
do …”
Count Hamnet wished he hadn't put it like that. Plainly, the Bizogots and Raumsdalians wouldn't be able to do some things, no matter how obvious it seemed that they should. Trasamund's clansmen hated the idea of letting other Bizogots, let alone warriors from the Empire, cross their land even to fight the Rulers. Every other Bizogot clan would probably be just as unhappy to let its neighbors cross its grazing grounds. As for the Empire … Who could say whether the Empire would take the idea of a threat from beyond the Glacier seriously at all?
“We may have made the greatest journey in the history of the world for nothing, you know,” Hamnet Thyssen said.
“Yes, that occurred to me.” Ulric Skakki sounded surprised it had taken so long to occur to Hamnet. Then he glanced over toward Liv and smiled a little. “But you wouldn't say it was for nothing any which way, would you?”
“For myself? No,” Hamnet answered. “I was talking about things bigger
than any one person's affairs.” He waited for Ulric to make some lewd pun on that.
The adventurer didn't. Instead, he asked, “How many people ever think past their day-to-day affairs?” And he answered his own question. “Not many, by God.”
“Some do,” Hamnet said. “Some have to, in the Empire. If they didn't, we'd be as barbarous as the Bizogots.”
“Do you think we're not?” Before Count Hamnet could respond to that, Ulric Skakki held up a hand. “Never mind, never mind. I know what you're saying. But people like that are thinner on the ground than you think, your Grace. Not everyone comes with your sense of duty nailed inside his chest.”
“You make it sound so wonderful,” Hamnet Thyssen said.
“Oh, it is, it is.” Ulric smiled a crooked smile that showed a great many sharp teeth. “If you don't believe me, ask Gudrid.”
For a red moment, Count Hamnet wanted to kill him. Then, grudgingly, he nodded, saying, “You have a nasty way of making your points.”
“Why, thank you,” Ulric Skakki said with another carnivorous smile. Hamnet had no answer for that at all.
 
WHEN THE TRAVELERS found the Three Tusk clan's main encampment, everyone celebrated—everyone but Hamnet Thyssen. For him, it seemed more an end than a beginning, and an end he didn't want.
The smile on Liv's face flayed him. “This is my home,” she said, and the words cut like flensing knives. “How I've missed these tents!” she went on, carving another chunk from his happiness. He wasn't used to being happy. Back before he was, he would have borne up under anything. Now …
“Would you like to see Raumsdalia?” he asked, and worked with his tongue to free a chunk of musk-ox meat caught between two back teeth.
She looked surprised. “I hadn't even thought of that. I hadn't thought of anything past coming back to the tents of my clan.”
Ulric Skakki knew what he was talking about, sure enough,
Hamnet thought. “I don't want to leave you,” he said. “I … hoped you didn't want to leave me.”
“I don't,” Liv said, and peered at the dung fire over which the meat cooked. “No, I don't. But I don't think I can turn into a Raumsdalian, either.”
“No more can I make myself into a Bizogot,” Hamnet Thyssen said.
“Are you sure?” Liv asked. “You would be an ornament to my folk, an ornament to my clan. You are strong and brave and wise—and a
man
, as I
should know.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “What holds you to the Empire?”

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