Beyond the Gap (40 page)

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Authors: Harry Turtledove

BOOK: Beyond the Gap
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Her eyes glinted. “I can do that now.” She blew out the lamp. And she did.
 
TWICE UP THE Great North Road in the same year. Twice up into the Bizogot country. Count Hamnet had stayed in his castle most of the time after Gudrid left him. He traveled because he had to, not because he enjoyed it for its own sake. He would get where he was going, and he would try to do what needed doing.
Ulric Skakki, now, savored each new day, each new sight. He couldn't
stand doing the same thing all the time. Everything interested him—the fading of the fields, the approach of the forest that stretched north to the tree line. Trasamund and Liv were the same way. They were nomads from a nomad folk. Where Ulric came by his wanderlust was harder to fathom.
Audun Gilli? The wizard was always hard to fathom, at least for Hamnet. He rode along, never saying much. Sometimes he got drunk when the travelers stopped at a serai. If he did it all the time, Hamnet would have tried to make him stop or sent him back to Nidaros. But he didn't. Some nights he stayed sober. If he drank for amusement and not because he had to, Count Hamnet didn't see that he had any business complaining.
Serais grew fewer, too. They'd done the same thing the last time Hamnet came north, but he didn't notice it so much then. In spring, mosquitoes were the only things wrong with camping outdoors. They could come inside, too, as he had reason to know. If you didn't have a good notion of what you were doing during the winter, though, you could easily freeze to death—and the more easily the farther north you went.
Hamnet Thyssen wasn't bad at tending to himself in winter weather. He freely admitted the Bizogots and Ulric Skakki were better. When they ran up tents, no cold air got inside. They built snow barriers north of the tents to blunt the force of the Breath of God. They made the most of fur blankets and small braziers.
Audun Gilli seemed much more lackadaisical. Count Hamnet wondered if he should scold the wizard or worry about him. Liv shook her head when he raised the question. “He uses spells to keep himself snug,” she said. “I wouldn't do that. It would make me tired, and I have enough things making me tired already. Easier just to do things right the first time. But if you have the spells, you can use them if you choose.”
“All right,” Hamnet said. “I won't bother him about it, then. I didn't want to wake up one morning and find we had an icicle instead of a wizard, that's all.”
“He won't freeze,” Liv assured him. “Not unless someone overpowers all his wards, and who would want to do anything like that?”
“The Rulers?” Hamnet said.
Liv's breath caught. She hadn't looked for an answer to her question. “How could they reach him here, inside the Empire?” she asked. “How could they even know he's coming north again?”
“I'm no wizard—I can't tell you that,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “But we saw they know more of magic than we do. Just because we can't imagine
how they would do something doesn't mean they can't do it. Or am I wrong?”
Plainly, Liv wanted to tell him he was. As plainly, she couldn't. Her voice troubled, she said, “Maybe you should speak of this with him tomorrow. I don't know if you're right or wrong. Either way, though, Audun should think about it.”
“I'll do that.” Hamnet blew out the candle that lit their tent. As darkness descended, he added, “Tomorrow.”
He almost forgot about it the next day. Audun Gilli didn't draw attention to himself. He seemed to do everything he could not to draw attention to himself. Eventually, Hamnet did remember. The wizard heard him out; Audun was seldom rude. “Well, there's a cheery notion,” he said when Hamnet finished.
“What can you do about it? Can you do anything?” the Raumsdalian noble asked.
“I don't know. I don't know how much I have to worry about it, either,” Audun said. “Maybe I'll tighten up my wards, just in case. Maybe your lady friend ought to do the same thing, too.”
Hamnet grunted. He hadn't thought about that. But if the Rulers could know Audun was on the move, they could know the same thing about Liv. “I'll tell her,” Hamnet promised.
“Me?” Liv said when he did.
“Why not? Who here besides Audun knows as much about their magic as you do?” Count Hamnet said. “If they
can
reach this far, doesn't that give them a reason to go after you? Do you want to take the chance that they can't?”
He admired the way she thought it over and then shook her head. She really did think things through; she didn't start with her mind closed, the way so many people did. “No, I don't want to take that chance,” she said. “If they marked Audun, they might have noticed me, too.”
“If they didn't notice you, they were blind,” Hamnet Thyssen said.
That flustered Liv much more than the idea of sorcerous attack from the Rulers did. “You!” She wagged her hand at him; it would have been an angry finger if she weren't wearing mittens. “Why do you say such things?”
“Because they're true?”
She ignored him. He smiled, which only seemed to annoy her more. He wasn't a great one for fancy speeches and praise of women's beauty. But any praise at all seemed more than Liv was used to.
They came to a serai not long before the sun went down. There would be a few more in the towns in the north woods. After that, the travelers would have to arrange their own shelter or pay the price for failure. A roaring fire and greasy roast mutton suited Hamnet fine after a long day on the road.
He ate more mutton for breakfast, and washed it down with beer mulled with a hot poker. “Not fancy, but it sticks to the ribs,” Ulric Skakki said, and Hamnet nodded.
The travelers were about to go out to the horses when a newcomer walked into the serai. Hamnet and Ulric looked at each other. Had the stranger traveled through the frigid night to get here? By the way he yawned and rubbed at his red-tracked eyes, he probably had. “Do I see Count Hamnet Thyssen here?” he asked.
Hamnet got to his feet. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. “You see me,” he said. “Why do you care?”
“I am an imperial courier.” The newcomer handed him a rolled parchment held closed by a ribbon and by the imperial seal stamped into golden wax. “This is an order recalling you to Nidaros at once.”
“Give it to me.” Hamnet broke the seal and read the order. It was exactly what the courier said it was. He recognized Sigvat's signature; the document was genuine. Nodding to the man, he said, “All right—I have it. Thank you.”
“You will accompany me back down to the capital, then?”
“No.”
The courier's jaw dropped. “But … But …” He tried again. “You are
ordered
to return.
Ordered
. By the Emperor. Sigvat II.” He added the name as if Count Hamnet might have forgot who ruled Raumsdalia.
“No,” Hamnet said again. “He's welcome to exile me. Why not? I'm leaving the Empire anyhow. And I
am
leaving. I'm not going back to Nidaros. If he wants to confiscate my castle down in the southeast, he can do that, too. I'm in no position to stop him, God knows. I hope he'll treat my retainers well. I haven't seen them since last spring, and they have nothing to do with this.”
“But … you're disobeying a direct imperial command.” The courier didn't seem to think such a thing was possible, or even imaginable.
“I am, all right.” Count Hamnet nodded, as if to encourage him. “You catch on fast.”
“You can't do that.” The young Raumsdalian sounded absolutely certain.
“Watch me,” Hamnet Thyssen said calmly. Being clear in his own mind
about what he aimed to do brought a wonderful sense of freedom. He was his own man, not Sigvat's man or even the Empire's man. He would do what he chose, and hard luck to anyone who didn't like it.
“What am I supposed to do?” the courier bleated.
“Tell the Emperor you delivered his order. Tell him I told you no. Here, wait.” He borrowed a quill and ink from the seraikeeper, who watched the drama with wide eyes.
I have read this order. I decline to obey it. Do not blame the messenger
—
it is not his fault
, Hamnet wrote, and signed his name in a fine round hand. He gave the parchment back to the courier. “There you go. It shouldn't have anything to do withyou.This is between his Majestyand me.”
“This won't help,” the courier predicted, voice full of gloom.
“Would you like the wizard here and me to witness whatever Count Hamnet wrote?” Ulric Skakki asked.
Even more gloomily, the courier shook his head. “I could have God witness it, and it wouldn't do me any good.”
If Sigvat was in one of
those
moods, the man might be right. “Tell me something,” Hamnet said. “Did Earl Eyvind Torfinn's wife have anything to do with getting this order sent?” The courier looked blank. Hamnet added, “Her name is Gudrid.”
“Oh. Her. I know who you mean. The one who's like
that
with the Emperor.” The courier twisted two fingers together. But then he shrugged. “I don't know anything about it. A clerk gave me the order and told me what was in it in case it got wet or something, that's all.”
The one who's like that with the Emperor.
Hamnet Thyssen wasn't much surprised; he'd already had a good idea that that was so.
“All right, then. You'd better head south, then, and let Sigvat know.” Hamnet had a second thought. “Unless you'd sooner come north with me?”
“No, thanks. I'm not a crazy man. I'm not a rebel.” Shaking his head, the courier walked out of the common room.
Ulric Skakki patted Count Hamnet on the back. “You crazy man, you,” he said affectionately. “You rebel.”
“Do not mock this man,” Trasamund growled. “He has done what a free man should. He has done what a Bizogot would. He's shown he is worthy to come north, worthy to take his place in the Three Tusk clan.”
“However you please, your Ferocity.” Now Ulric seemed as indifferent as a dead man. He could assume any tone, or none, in the blink of an eye. “See how much you like it when Hamnet tells you where to head in instead of the Emperor.”
“He would not do that.” But Trasamund sounded doubtful.
“Don't be an idiot. Of course he would.” Ulric turned back to Hamnet Thyssen. “Wouldn't you, your Grace?”
“Probably.” Hamnet knew he would be lying if he said anything else. “I would if the jarl made the same sort of mistake Sigvat's made, anyhow.”
Trasamund beamed. “Then we have nothing to worry about.” He thumped his chest. “Me, I do not make mistakes like this. I am too clever.”
“And too modest, too,” Ulric Skakki remarked.
“Yes. And that,” Trasamund agreed. Liv raised an eyebrow. Audun Gilli looked up at the ceiling. Count Hamnet looked down at his hands. Ulric whistled a snatch of something or other. Trasamund wouldn't have recognized irony if he were a lodestone.
“I think we'd better leave,” Hamnet Thyssen said.
As he went out the door, he wished he were wearing chainmail instead of furs and leather. If that courier decided to exact punishment for disobeying an imperial order, he could be waiting out there with a bow, looking for a good shot. He could be, but he wasn't.
The travelers hadn't gone far from the serai before the Great North Road plunged into the forest belt. Liv sighed. “All these trees,” she said. “We could do so much with them—and they even smell good.” Her nostrils twitched. Then they twitched again. The wistful smile left her face. “That's not just trees I smell.”
Hamnet Thyssen sniffed, too. “I know what that is—it's the musk of a short-faced bear.”
“It is,” Ulric Skakki agreed. “No doubt about it.”Maybe a sow that had a litter, and now she's out of food.” He strung his bow. “Much as I hate to mention it, we qualify. If a short-faced bear would try to eat Gudrid, it only goes to show they'll eat anything.”
That jerked a laugh out of Count Hamnet. Trasamund visibly started to say something. Then, just as visibly, he changed his mind. Hamnet strung his bow, too. Short-faced bears were hard to kill with arrows. Sometimes, though, they would run away if they got hurt. And sometimes getting hurt would only infuriate them and make them attack all the more ferociously. You never could tell.
“Audun, Liv—if you know any charms for fighting off animals, this would be a good time to dust them off,” Hamnet said.
“These don't always work,” Liv said. “Animals are more deeply connected to nature than shamanry can ever hope to be.”
“Well, see if you can make this beast unbearable all the same,” Ulric said. Audun Gilli and Hamnet Thyssen winced. Liv was too new to Raumsdalian to get the pun or realize how bad it was.

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