Beyong the Gap

Now Count Hamnet studied the jarl in surprise. Not all Bizogots even realized they were barbarians by the standards of the Raumsdalian Empire. Most of the ones who did realize it answered Raumsdalian scorn with contempt of their own. To them, Raumsdalians were weak and tricky and corrupt, of use to the Bizogots not for themselves but for their things, the things they could make and keep and the northerners couldn't.

But Trasamund, plainly, was no ordinary mammoth-herder. He grasped something a lot of Raumsdalians couldn't—that the way writing bound knowledge across time gave the Empire a breadth and a depth of thought no Bizogot clan could even approach. Facing the unknown beyond the Glacier, Trasamund wanted people equipped to understand it—if any people were.

Sigvat II seemed taken aback. When he did not answer at once, Count Hamnet said, "Your Majesty, if a wizard and a scholar will go with us, we would do well to have them. Who knows what we may find? Who knows what we may try to understand?"

"The Golden Shrine," Ulric Skakki murmured.

Hamnet Thyssen still had no idea if there was any such thing as the Golden Shrine. An hour earlier, he would have laughed at the very idea. He wasn't laughing now. If the Gap had opened, who could say what lay beyond the Glacier? No one now—no one except Trasamund and whoever traveled with him.

And whoever lived beyond the Glacier, if anyone did. Trasamund thought so. Hamnet wouldn't have believed it, but so what? The opening of the Gap made his beliefs, and everyone else's in the Empire, irrelevant. Belief worked well enough when a man could not measure it against facts. But when he could . .. Facts crushed belief like a mammoth crushing a vole.

After a few heartbeats of thought, the Emperor nodded. "Well, your Ferocity, your Grace, let it be as you desire," Sigvat said. "We shall indeed summon a scholar and a sorcerer to accompany you. God grant they prove useful."

Trasamund and Count Hamnet both bowed. The jarl of the Three Tusk clan said, "I thank you for your kindness, your Majesty, and for your wisdom."

"It was not my wisdom—it was yours," Sigvat said. "Count Hamnet helped me see it."

"Count Hamnet has a name for good sense," the Bizogot chieftain said. "I was glad when you summoned him."

"You have heard of me, too, you said. What do I have a name for?" Ulric Skakki inquired in what might have been amusement or might have been something altogether darker and more dangerous.

Trasamund took him literally, answering, "For getting in and getting out again. Where we are going, what we are doing, that may be the best name of all to have."

"Each of you will be my guest here at the palace till we find you suitable companions," Sigvat said. "I will lay on a reception and a feast in your honor tonight."

So much for wisdom. So much for good sense, Count Hamnet thought unhappily. Now he was stuck in Nidaros for God only knew how long, stuck in the same town with Gudrid and Eyvind Torfi

II

Torches blazed bravely. They drove night back to the corners of the dining hall, even if they did fill the room with a strong odor of hot mammoth fat. Perfumed beeswax candles spilled out more golden light and fought the tallow reek to something close to a draw.

A goblet of mead in his hand, Count Hamnet Thyssen surveyed the throng gathered at least partly in his honor. He tried to imagine some of these gilded popinjays up on the tundra, or in the endless forests to the east. That was enough to squeeze a grunt of laughter from even his somber spirit.

So far, he hadn't spotted either his former wife or her new lord and master. He snorted again, more sourly than before. He didn't think even a wild Bizogot could master Gudrid, and he didn't think many wild Bizogots would be fool enough to try.

His gaze flicked to Trasamund. Tall and fair and handsome, the jarl had already acquired a circle of female admirers. The smile on his ruddy face said he enjoyed the attention. The ruddiness on his smiling face said he'd already had as much mead—or beer, or ale, or even sweet wine from the far southwest—as was good for him. Up on the tundra, Bizogots drank fermented mammoth's milk. Count Hamnet had made its acquaintance. It was as bad as it sounded. No matter how nasty it was, the Bizogots drank heroically. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing summed up the nomads' view of the world.

And Bizogots wenched as heroically as they drank. That might—was all too like to—cause trouble. Hamnet drifted toward a steward. A word to the wise .. . probably wouldn't help. He held his tongue. This wasn't the first time Bizogots had been feted in the royal palace. The steward—and the Emperor—would know what they were like.

A serving woman came by with a plate of treats—toasted deer marrow on crackers of barley and maize. Count Hamnet took one. The fatty richness of the marrow went well with his mead. Beer might have been even better, but he preferred the fermented honey.

Someone—someone with long fingernails—rumpled the hair at the nape of his neck. He whirled around. If the goblet hadn't been nearer empty than full, mead would have sloshed out of it onto the rug.

"Hello, Hamnet," Gudrid said. "I wondered if you weren't noticing me on purpose."

He knew how old she was—not far from his own just-past-forty. She didn't look it, or within ten years of it. Her hair was still black, her skin still smooth, her chin still single. Her eyes were almost the color of a lion's, a strange and penetrating light brown. They sparked now in smug amusement.

She was going to jab at him. She did whenever they met. She always wounded him, too. He did his best not to show it; that way, she missed some of the sport. So he shook his head now. "No, I really didn't see you," he said truthfully. "I'm—"

He broke off. He was damned if he'd say he was sorry. He could still feel her fingers on the skin at the back of his neck. His hand tightened on the goblet till he feared the stem would snap. Somehow, the stolen caress infuriated him worse than all her infidelities. She'd lost the right to touch him that way. No, she hadn't lost it. She'd given it up, thrown it away. She took it back for a moment only because she wanted to provoke him.

She knew how to get what she wanted. She commonly did.

Her smile said she knew she'd scored, even if she might not know just why. Her teeth were white and strong, too. That also made Hamnet want to scowl; poppy juice and henbane or not, he'd had a horrid time with a tooth-drawer the year before.

"So you're going traveling with the splendid Trasamund, are you?" she said, eyeing the tall Bizogot with admiration unfeigned and unconcealed. If she decided she wanted him, she would go after him. Yes, she knew how to get what she wanted, all right.

And what would Eyvind Torfi

Eyvind Torfi

"Thyssen," her new husband said politely.

"Torfi