Beyong the Gap

In due course, the attendant returned. "It is as this fellow says," he said, an unhappy expression on his face. "He is one of Lord Dragnar's agents."

Hamnet wondered if he ought to speak up. Before he could, the chief guardsman said, "Oh, he is, is he? Well, let's strip him, then, and see what else he's carrying."

They didn't just peel Ulric Skakki's clothes off him. They examined him much more intimately than Hamnet Thyssen would have cared to be searched. And they found a couple of sharp-edged throwing disks that could double as armlets, as well as a long, sturdy pin—all objects that escaped the notice of the usual search spell.

By the scars that seamed Ulric Skakki's arms and legs and torso, he'd done more fighting than Count Hamnet would have guessed. By the nasty smile on his face, the guards hadn't found everything. To him, that seemed more important than standing there naked and shivering in the hallway.

That nasty smile goaded Sigvat II's attendants, as no doubt it was meant to do. At last, in a seam of Ulric Skakki's jacket, they found a nasty little saw-edged blade. "All right, now you've got all of it," Ulric Skakki said. "Can I have my clothes back? It's bloody cold."

"Get dressed," the chief guardsman said. "If it was up to me . . ." He didn't say exactly what would happen then. Whatever it was, Count Ham-net didn't think he would want it to happen to him.

Ulric Skakki dressed without another word. If he'd told the attendants and the wizard they should have done a better job of protecting the Emperor, they would have found ways to make him—and, incidentally, Count Hamnet Thyssen—sorry for it. As things were, he projected an air of silent reproach that also had to set their teeth on edge.

"Come with me," one of the attendants said when Ulric had his clothes on again.

On they went. The maze of corridors and passageways inside the palace was nearly as confusing as the maze of streets and lanes and alleys outside. Though Count Hamnet had not come here for years, he found his bump of direction still worked. "This isn't the way to the throne room," he said sharply.

"No, it's not, your Grace," the attendant agreed. "But it is the way to his Majesty's private chambers."

"Oh," Count Hamnet said, startled. In all the years he'd come to the palace, he'd been to the Emperor's private chambers only once or twice. "Can you tell me what this is about?" he asked. Whatever it was, it bore even more weight than he'd thought when the order calling him away from his castle arrived.

The attendant shook his head. "Whatever it is, his Majesty will tell you what you need to know."

Hamnet muttered as he tramped along. He had always been a man for whom the Emperor's word was the be-all and end-all in life. Now he found himself dissatisfied with having to wait for it. A slight smile pulled up the corners of Ulric Skakki's mouth, almost, it seemed, in spite of themselves. Hamnet scowled at him, thinking, So you know that about me, do you?

Ulric Skakki looked back blandly, the little smile still on his face, as if to say, Well, what if I do? Hamnet trudged ahead. He didn't like other people understanding him so well, being able to think along with him. Gudrid had taught him the hard way how dangerous that could be.

Not that he was in any great danger of falling in love with Ulric Skakki. The first thing you had to do around Ulric was keep your hands in your pockets, or else they'd get picked. And how could you love anyone you couldn't trust? Gudrid had taught him the folly of that, too. By comparison, Ulric's being of the wrong gender seemed a thing of little weight.

A palace servitor fed more charcoal into a brazier. Braziers and fireplaces scattered through the enormous building heated it... somewhat. Hamnet hadn't walked five paces past this brazier before a frigid breeze slithered down the back of his neck. Maybe that was just as well. In places sealed too tightly against the cold, men sometimes lay down by braziers and never got up again. Not even wizards knew why that happened, but no one doubted that it did.

"Wait here," the attendant told Hamnet Thyssen and Ulric Skakki. The man ducked through a doorway. Hamnet could hear him speaking to someone inside, but couldn't make out his words.

"Yes, yes. Send them in. I've been waiting for them, haven't I?" Count Hamnet had no trouble hearing that, nor in recognizing Sigvat II’s voice. Emperors often had less cause to exercise discretion than ordinary mortals did.

Out came the attendant. He gestured to Hamnet and Ulric Skakki. They followed him into the chamber. Rather than on his throne, Sigvat II sat on an ordinary three-legged pine stool. Hamnet Thyssen, being of noble blood, dropped to one knee before his sovereign. Ulric Skakki fell to both knees—he was only a commoner.

A tall, blond Bizogot stood in the room, his back to the fireplace. His blue eyes blazed contempt; Bizogots bent the knee before God, but to no living man. This nomad from the northern steppe wore a cape made from the skin of a short-faced bear. That meant he'd killed the animal himself— Bizogot men would not use hides from beasts they had not slain. And anyone who'd killed a short-faced bear would not be likely to have much trouble with mere men.

The Emperor broke into Count Hamnet s thoughts, saying, "Rise, gentlemen." Hamnet's knee clicked as he got to his feet—one more reminder he wasn't as young as he used to be. Ulric Skakki rose as smoothly as if dipped in bear grease. Hamnet wished he hadn't had that thought; it made his eyes travel to the formidable-looking Bizogot again. The man scowled at him.

Instead of scowling back at the barbarian, Count Hamnet asked Sigvat, "How may we serve you, your Majesty?" However he and Ulric Skakki were to serve, it would involve the Bizogot in some way. The man wouldn't be here otherwise. Hamnet found the prospect less than delightful—quite a bit less, in fact—but knew he couldn't do anything about it.

"There is news from the north," the Emperor said, which was anything but a surprise. Though Hamnet Thyssen would never have said such a thing, he'd long thought Sigvat II had a gift for the obvious. Sigvat was unlikely to go down in history as one of the great Raumsdalian Emperors. No one five hundred years from now would speak of him in the same breath as Domaldi the Conqueror or Faxi Blood-Hand or even Smiling Solveig, who hadn't been much of a general—or, indeed, much of an Emperor—but who'd passed away in circumstances that proved his personal popularity.

"And what is the news from the north, your Majesty?" Ulric Skakki asked when the Emperor didn't go on right away.

Sigvat II looked a trifle miffed at being pushed, but he seldom looked more than a trifle miffed; he was a good-natured man. His face, round and bland, suggested as much. But Hamnet Thyssen saw something in Sigvat s eyes he'd never even imagined there before. Was it fear or awe or a bit of both? He couldn't be sure; it was too unfamiliar.

"I think," Sigvat said, "I had better let Trasamund here give it to you. He found it, and he is the man who brought it to Nidaros. Trasamund," he added, "is jarl of the Three Tusk clan of the Bizogots."

"Jarl?" Hamnet Thyssen said in surprise. "The clan chief came here himself?" He spoke to the Emperor, not to the Bizogot.

"I am the clan chief, and I came here myself," Trasamund said in excellent Raumsdalian. He looked from Count Hamnet to Ulric Skakki and back again. "Do the two of you know my clan?" He used the dual number, implying Hamnet and Ulric were a natural pair. That insulted Count Hamnet; by the pained look on Ulric Skakki's face, he liked it none too well, either.

Ulric Skakki's expression also said he knew something of the Three Tusk clan. Before he could parade his knowledge, Count Hamnet beat him to the punch. "I do," he said, stressing that /ever so slightly. "You dwell in the farthest north, up against the Glacier as close as any folk may go."