Beyond the Gap (38 page)

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Authors: Harry Turtledove

BOOK: Beyond the Gap
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Hamnet Thyssen watched Gudrid closely. If Liv's sarcastic comment turned out to be not a sarcastic comment but the truth, he thought his former wife's face would betray her, if only for a heartbeat. But Gudrid just shook her head. “I wouldn't poison you. You're going back to your tents, and you're taking Hamnet with you. That's a better revenge than poison ever could be.”
Instead of answering, Liv walked away and got a cup of wine. Count Hamnet lingered long enough to say, “We're going off to fight the Rulers, and this is the thanks we get?”
“As if you care a fart about the Rulers,” Gudrid said. “You're going off to screw yourself silly—sillier—and to collect lice and drink sour smetyn. And you're welcome to every bit of it, too.”
He growled, down deep in his throat. But then he turned away. Gudrid looked … disappointed? If he'd hit her, there in front of everybody, he would have stirred up a terrific scandal. Was that worth getting slapped? Gudrid would probably think so.
He gulped the wine a polite servant gave him. And then, out of the blue, Liv said, “She's jealous of you.” She used her own language, so most of the people who might overhear her wouldn't understand.
“Who? Gudrid?” Hamnet Thyssen didn't laugh in her face, which was a small proof of how much he cared for her. But he did say, “You must be joking.”
“No. No, indeed,” Liv said seriously. “You're doing something important. And you've found—I hope you've found—someone who matters to you. Whatever else she is, she is no fool. She has to know all this”—her wave took in Eyvind Torfinn's mansion—“is empty. We don't have so much up in the Bizogot country.” Scorn edged her voice. “We don't have so much, no, but we know what we need to do.”
Count Hamnet glanced over toward Gudrid again. She was laughing and flirting with Jesper Fletti. Hamnet wondered if Liv was right. He didn't want to argue with her, but he couldn't believe it. Because the Bizogot shaman had such a strong sense of purpose, she thought everyone else did, too. She couldn't grasp that Gudrid really was as shallow as she seemed.
Well, why should she?
Hamnet thought.
I had to get my nose rubbed in it before I understood
.
“Having fun?” Ulric Skakki had that gift for appearing at someone's elbow—and for disappearing just as readily.
“Me? No. But I knew I wouldn't,” Count Hamnet answered.
“Why did you come, then?” Ulric asked.
“Well, I didn't want to disappoint Eyvind Torfinn. He's doing something nice to see me off, and he's a pretty good fellow, even if—” Two words too late, Hamnet broke off.
Ulric Skakki knew what he was about to say, and said it for him: “Even if he's married to Gudrid.”
“That's right. Even then.” Hamnet Thyssen's shoulders went up and down. “And if
I
can say that about him, then chances are he's really better than a pretty good fellow, if you know what I mean.”
“He's not as smart as he thinks he is.” Ulric could always find something unkind to say about someone—and something that was true at the same time, too.
“Well, who is?” Count Hamnet said. This time, Ulric was the one who shrugged. Hamnet pointed at him. “Are
you
?”
“I like to think I am.” Ulric Skakki laughed. He could laugh at himself, which made him much easier to get along with than he would have been otherwise. “Of course, maybe I'm not so smart myself.” He bowed to Hamnet. “Yes, I do see your point, your Grace.”
“I'm so glad,” Hamnet said dryly, and Ulric laughed again. Hamnet asked, “Are you smart enough to come north with me?”
“I'm smart enough not to,” Ulric answered. Hamnet Thyssen raised an eyebrow. Unabashed, the adventurer went on, “I'm not a hero. I never wanted to be a hero. I've done my share of … interesting things. But I don't have to do this one, and I don't intend to. If you think you can save Raumsdalia up by the Glacier, be my guest. I wish you good fortune, and that's the truth. I aim to enjoy what you're saving, though. I like wine better than smetyn and spiced mutton better than roast musk ox. I confess to a weakness for real buildings and real beds and women who take baths. If that makes me a lazy, good-for-nothing weakling, well, I'll live with it.”
He was about as far from being a weakling as any man Hamnet Thyssen knew. That was part of the reason Hamnet so badly wanted him to go back to the Bizogot country. “I don't suppose I can do or say anything to make you change your mind?”
“Not likely, my dear,” Ulric Skakki said. “When have you ever known anybody to change somebody else's mind? The only person who can change my mind is me, by God.” He jabbed a thumb at his own chest.
Someone Hamnet Thyssen barely knew came up to him then. The man wore expensive clothes and had a big belly. He carried himself with the confidence of somebody who'd done well for a long time, though Hamnet couldn't remember what he did well in. No doubt he was a friend of Eyvind Torfinn's, which said something unflattering about Earl Eyvind's taste in friends.
“So you're going off to the Glacier again, are you?” By his accent, the near-stranger was born and raised in Nidaros. By the amused contempt in his voice, he thought too much of himself.
“That's right,” Hamnet answered. People like this made him wish he'd declined Eyvind's invitation after all.
“By God, you must be daft,” the fellow said cheerfully. “You'll freeze your stones off, and for what? For nothing, that's what.” He sounded altogether sure he was right—altogether sure he had to be right.
“Oh, I think going up to the Bizogot country may be worthwhile after all,” Count Hamnet said.
“Ha! How could it possibly be? Eh? Tell me that.” Eyvind Torfinn's rich acquaintance was convinced Hamnet Thyssen couldn't.
But Hamnet could. “Well, for starters, it takes me away from jackasses like you.”
The other man's face flushed ominously. “Here, now! What the demon is that supposed to mean?”
“I usually mean what I say,” Hamnet answered. “You should try it one of these days. It works wonders.”
“You can't talk to me that way! Do you know who I am?” the big-bellied man said.
“I've been trying to rememberyour name, but I'm afraid I can't.” Hamnet Thyssen shrugged. “If you push me a little more, though, I suppose I can always find out from your next of kin.”
“From my—?” The prosperous fellow must have drunk a good deal, because even that message took longer to penetrate than it should have. “You wouldn't—” He broke off again, because Hamnet plainly would. The big-bellied man gaped, discovering some things gold couldn't dissolve. “You
are
a barbarian!” he burst out.
Count Hamnet bowed. “At your service. And if you keep wasting my time and fraying my temper, I will be more at your service than you ever wanted. I promise you that.” He shifted his feet as if getting ready to draw his sword.
Although the prosperous man also wore a blade, he seemed to have forgot about it. That was wise, or at least lucky; whatever else he was, he was no trained warrior, and wouldn't have lasted long against someone who was. “Madman!” he blurted, and took himself elsewhere.
“You still know how to win friends, don't you?” There was Ulric Skakki again.
“Winning him as a friend is a dead loss, by God,” Hamnet answered. “And you
want
to spend your time with people like him? Why?”
“Oh, he's no prize. There are plenty here in Nidaros who aren't. Don't get
me wrong, Hamnet—I don't say anything different.” Ulric paused to snag a cup of wine from a pretty maidservant passing by with a tray. After sipping, he went on, “But you can't tell me the Bizogots are any better, not at that level. People are people no matter where you find 'em, and a lot of them anywhere will be boastful, blustering saps.”
Did his eyes travel to Trasamund? Or, instead of following Ulric's, did Hamnet Thyssen's go to the jarl on their own? “Trasamund's no sap,” Hamnet said. Whether the Bizogot was boastful and blustering was a different question, one he didn't try to answer.
“Mm, not all the time, I suppose,” Ulric Skakki said generously. “But often enough to make him a pain in the posterior.”
“He knows the Rulers are dangerous. You know the Rulers are dangerous. Does his Majesty know the Rulers are dangerous?” Hamnet said.
“He will by the time he has to do something about them. I hope he will, anyhow,” Ulric said.
Hamnet turned away from him. “Enjoy yourself, then.”
“That's what I'm here for.” Nothing fazed Ulric Skakki—or if anything did, he didn't let on.
 
AFTER THE UNFORTUNATE feast, Hamnet took leaving for the frozen plains much more seriously. He bought everything he could think of that might be useful—a second sword, knives, iron arrow points, wooden arrow shafts (lighter and straighter than the bone arrows the Bizogots commonly used), a spare helmet, poppy juice, horse trappings, a pillow, soap, insect powder (which probably wouldn't work, but you never could tell), and several sets of flint and steel for making sparks and starting fires.A man could find flint up in the Bizogot country, but not much steel went up there.
“You get no clothes. You get no feathers for fletching or bowstrings,” Liv said, accompanying him as he spent his silver.
“I don't seen any need for those. You Bizogots make better cold-weather gear than anything I could buy here,” Count Hamnet answered. “Sinew will do for bowstrings, and I can get feathers and fletching tools up on the plain. What I want here are things I can't get there.”
“Ah.” Liv nodded. “This is wise.”
“Well, I hope so.” Hamnet sometimes fancied his own cleverness. Usually it turned and bit him when he did.
“On some of these things, you could also turn a fine profit,” the Bizogot woman said.
“I'm not going up there to be a trader,” Hamnet told her. “If the Rulers don't come, maybe I'll trade what I don't need, but that's not why I'm bringing it.”
If the Rulers don't come, I'll look like an idiot. If they don't come, I'll feel like an idiot, too.
“You should have things to trade. It will help you live among us,” Liv said seriously. “You ride well and you fight well, but you have no practice herding musk oxen or mammoths. Sooner or later, you need to learn.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Hamnet said with no great enthusiasm. She was right; he couldn't lie around waiting for a war that might not come and eating what the rest of the clan gave him. He wouldn't be a guest now—he would be one of them. And the Bizogots didn't have enough to spare for idle hands. Children worked at whatever they were big enough to try. Men and women who got too old to work—not that many lived so long up there—went out on the plains to die a cold but mostly merciful death. It wasn't cruelty; it was a harshness the land imposed.
“Not many Raumsdalians would be able to do it,” Liv said. “You, though—once you learn, I think you'll do as well as if your hair weren't dark.”
“Thank you so much,” he said. Many Raumsdalians sneered at the Bizogots because they were so fair—though not many Raumsdalian men, from all Hamnet Thyssen had seen, sneered at Bizogot women. Amusing to find the mammoth-herders looking down their noses at their southern neighbors.
Most of the time, Liv recognized his irony for what it was. She took him seriously here. “I mean it,” she assured him. “You can do the work. Ulric Skakki, I think, could do the work—but he would rather find ways to get out of it instead. The rest of the Raumsdalians who traveled with us? The ones I've seen here?” She shook her head.
“Each cat his own rat,” Hamnet said. “Up in the north, everyone has to be able to do everything, near enough. You said that yourself. Here, we pick one thing and get good at it. That leaves a lot of us not so good at other things. It's the price we pay.”
“If the Rulers come this far …” Liv said.
“If the Rulers come this far, they'll see that some of us make good soldiers, too,” Count Hamnet said.
“I hope so.” Liv didn't sound convinced. “From what I saw of Jesper Fletti and the other Raumsdalian soldiers who came north, though …” Her voice trailed away again.
“No, no, no, no.” Hamnet Thyssen shook his head. “Don't judge our soldiers
by them. They're imperial guards. Part of their job is to look pretty while they take care of Sigvat. They can fight some, or they'd be useless. But they have to be impressive while they're doing it. Most soldiers don't bother with that nonsense.”
“I hope so,” Liv repeated, still seeming dubious.
“Look at it like this,” Hamnet said. “Never mind the Rulers. If all our soldiers were like the ones you saw, who'd stop the Bizogots from overrunning the Empire?”

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