Beyong the Gap

"Do you?" Hamnet eyed him suspiciously. "With .. . ?" He didn't finish. His hand slipped toward the basket hilt of his sword. The basket was big enough to let him wield the blade even with a mitten. If Ulric Skakki didn't give him the right answer. . . Well, no matter what sort of trick the other man had in mind, he wouldn't profit from it.

But Ulric Skakki nodded. "Yes, with the Emperor."

Count Hamnet's hand retreated, not quite so smoothly as it had advanced. He hadn't known Sigvat had summoned anyone else. But, since he still didn't know why the Emperor had summoned him, he couldn't be surprised his Majesty had also called someone else. And Ulric was a man of parts, no doubt about it. Just what the parts added up to ... Yes, that was a different question.

"Let's go, then," Hamnet said roughly, and rode on into Nidaros.

"Yes, let's." Ulric Skakki's voice was mild as milk, sweet as honey. He rode beside Hamnet as if he had not a care in the world. Maybe he didn't. Some men were born without a conscience, or perhaps had it sorcerously removed. Count Hamnet's still worked all too well, however much he wished it didn't.

Nidaros .. . Nidaros was worse than a maze, for a maze bespoke intelligent design. Nidaros was a jumble, surely the place where the phrase You can't get there from here was born—and where it had flourished mightily ever since. Nidaros' streets and lanes and alleys twisted back on one another, worse than a mammoth's bowels in the cavern of its belly.

The imperial capital was an old town, an old, old town, which helped account for that. New cities farther south had their streets arranged in neat grids, some ru

Because those districts were in the southern part of town, the wind from the Glacier blew their stinks away more often than not. The Glacier . . . The great shield over the north of the world .. . You couldn't see it from Nidaros any more, as you had been able to in ancient days, but its might, though somewhat lessened, still lingered. And the Glacier, and the wind from the Glacier, was the other reason Nidaros' streets behaved the way they did.

No one wanted to give the wind from the Glacier a ru

No, you couldn't beat the wind. If you weren't a Bizogot, if you dwelt within the marches of the Raumsdalian Empire, you did what you could to blunt it. Streets twisted. Houses stood tall, and almost shoulder to shoulder. Their steep-pitched roofs helped shed snow. Windows were small and slitlike, to hold heat in. No house, no shop, in Nidaros had a north-facing doorway. Walls unlucky enough to face north were almost always blank. Where owners could afford it, they were double, to put a dead-air space between living and working quarters and the ravening wind.

Rich people on the street wore furs. The richer the man or woman, the richer—and the warmer—the fur. Poor folk made do with wool. Folk too poor to keep their capes and cloaks and greatcoats in good repair didn't last long, not in Nidaros.

"Why do you suppose the Emperor wants us?" Ulric Skakki asked after a long and not very companionable silence.

"Well, it's not for our looks," Count Hamnet answered. Ulric Skakki blinked, then laughed loud and merrily enough to make heads turn up and down the cobbled street.

Hamnet had tried to stay away from Nidaros since Gudrid started her wandering ways. He still knew how to get around the city, in a rough sort of way, but he wasn't as confident as he had been once upon a time. He found himself letting Ulric Skakki take the lead. The foxy-faced man didn't hesitate. He might be wrong, but he wasn't in doubt.

And he turned out not to be wrong, either. Hamnet Thyssen's nose told him as much even before he caught sight of the towers of the imperial palace above the rooftops. If you smelled musk and sandalwood from distant shores and rosewater in the air, you were close to the Street of Perfumers, and if you were close to the Street of Perfumers you were also close to the palace.

A deep ditch surrounded the palace's thick walls. It wasn't for storing snow, though it sometimes filled during the winter. It was, literally, the last ditch. If, God forbid, an enemy broke into Nidaros, the palace could serve as a citadel till rescuers arrived.

Or, chances are, till it falls, Count Hamnet thought morosely. Chances were that piercing the heart of the Raumsdalian Empire would kill it. Being as sensitive about omens as any less gloomy man, he held that thought to himself.

A drawbridge spa

Count Hamnet Thyssen and Ulric Skakki gave their names. "We are expected," Ulric added.

"We'll just see about that." The sentry produced a scrap of parchment and, lips moving, read through the list on it. He might have been cousin to the man Count Hamnet encountered at the South Gate—nothing was official till he said it was. In due course, he did. He nodded to his comrades, who raised their spears. "Pass on!" he said. Horses' hooves booming on the planks of the drawbridge, Hamnet and Ulric Skakki rode on.

On the far side of the bridge, unarmed attendants took charge of the newcomers' horses. Armed attendants relieved them of their weapons. Hamnet Thyssen surrendered his sword, his dagger, and a holdout knife in his right boot. Ulric Skakki wore his holdout knife in his left boot, which reminded Hamnet he was dangerous with either hand. He'd forgotten that about the other man.

After the guardsmen disarmed them, a mage came up with a knife carved of wood. He held it in his left hand and made passes with his right all the while, murmuring a spell. The language of the charm was older, far older, than Raumsdalian, itself not a young speech. The wizard used it by rote— only a vanishing handful of scholars spoke it with understanding.

Rote or not, the charm served its purpose. The wizard suddenly stopped and stiffened. He pointed to Ulric Skakki. "On his right arm!" he exclaimed.

Growling like dire wolves, the attendants seized Hamnet's companion. Sure enough, he carried a stiletto, slim but deadly, in a sheath strapped to his right forearm. "What do you have to say for yourself, wretch?" a guardsman growled, the tip of his sword at Ulric's throat.

"That among other things I am charged with ensuring that his Majesty's safety is everything it ought to be," Ulric Skakki answered. "Speak with the first minister. Use my name. If he does not confirm it, drink my blood." He sounded as calm as if haggling over buttered oatcakes.

One of the attendants hurried away. The others stayed ready to slay Ulric Skakki on the instant. Count Hamnet watched Ulric out of the corner of his eye. Even if the first minister vouched for the other man, that could mean one of two things. Maybe Ulric was telling the truth. Or maybe he and the first minister were plotting against the Emperor together.