Beyong the Gap

"I don't do this all the time," Audun Gilli protested feebly.

"Of course you don't. If you did, you would have been dead in the gutter where Ulric Skakki tripped over you, not just lying in it." Count Hamnet rounded on Ulric. "Now answer me—or else I'll throw him out on his worthless ear and take the cost of three cups of sassafras tea out of his worthless hide."

"How can you take cost out of something worthless?" Audun asked, the first sign Hamnet Thyssen had that whatever he'd drunk hadn't curdled his wits for good.

"He's had a hard time," Ulric Skakki said. "If you'd had that hard a time, you would drink, too."

Since Hamnet had drunk when times got hard for him, and since Ulric Skakki probably knew as much, denying that didn't seem a good idea. In­stead, Hamnet turned back to Audun Gilli. "Well?" He made that more a challenge than a question.

"My wife burned down, and my house died in the fire," the wizard said, a pretty good sign not all his wits were working the way they should have.

It was also a pretty good sign he did deserve some sympathy. "When did this happen?" Count Hamnet asked, less roughly than before.

"Three years ago," Audun Gilli answered.

Count Hamnet could feel his neck swelling. "Easy, there," Ulric Skakki said. "When he dries out, he'll be fine. He's a student of sorceries from an­cient days, so he should be exactly the kind of wizard we want along if we find the Golden Shrine."

"I'll bet he's a student of ancient sorceries," Hamnet said. "He's been pickled from then till now."

"His Majesty sent me out to find a proper wizard. Me," Ulric Skakki replied with a touch—or more than a touch—of hauteur. "I say I've found him."

"I say you couldn't find your arse with both hands if you think so," Count Hamnet growled. They glared at each other.

Forgotten by both of them like a bone abandoned when two dogs go at each other, Audun Gilli stared at the mugs in which his sassafras tea had come. He chanted softly to himself. The language he used hadn't been spo­ken since long before the Raumsdalian Empire rose, but Hamnet Thyssen didn't notice that. In his quarrel with Ulric Skakki, Hamnet Thyssen didn't notice the wizard at all.

Then two of the mugs started shouting at each other in high, squeaky voices that sounded like parodies of Ulric's and Hamnet s. It wasn't ventriloquism; the mugs suddenly sported faces too much like theirs. The less than flattered models both gaped. So did the third mug, which looked like a sorrowful ceramic version of Audun Gilli.

The wizard chanted again, and the mugs . . . were only mugs again. "You see?" Ulric Skakki said triumphantly.

"I saw . . . something." However little Count Hamnet wanted to, he had to admit it.

"He's a wizard. He's a good wizard. And," Ulric went on pragmatically, "he'll be better the longer he stays sober."

"Who says he'll stay sober? We'll be drinking ale or beer or mead or fermented mammoth's milk as much as we can," Hamnet said. "Even runoff straight from the Glacier can give you a bloody flux. Have you ever been up in the Bizogot country, Ulric? Don't you know about that?"

"I've been there, all right. I know," Ulric said. Count Hamnet wasn't sure he believed him till the other man added, "We'll have to pick our way past the lands where a couple of clans range. They may remember me a little too well."

That held the ring of truth. "Why am I not surprised?" Hamnet Thyssen said. Ulric Skakki gave back a bow, as if at a compliment. Audun Gilli managed a wan smile when he saw it. Count Hamnet threw his hands in the air. When you knew you were going to lose a fight, sometimes the best thing you could do was give it up before it cost you more than you could afford to spend.

If only he'd figured that out with Gudrid. . . .

Earl Eyvind Torfi

Hamnet Thyssen knew that because Earl Eyvind insisted on inviting him to feast with the other members of the upcoming expedition. Refusing would have been churlish—Eyvind Torfi

Gudrid did her best to make sure that it should. She wore outfits that clung and revealed. She smiled. She sparkled. Much of that was aimed at captivating Trasamund. The Bizogot didn't prove hard to captivate. If she could wound Hamnet at the same time—well, so much the better.

He set his jaw and tried not to show he was wounded, as he would have if he'd taken an arrow in the leg. Gudrid knew better. She knew him altogether too well. When they were happy together, the way she knew him pleased him and made him proud. These days, it meant he was vulnerable.

Eyvind Torfi

Trasamund, for his part, took Gudrid's attentions as no less than his due. "That is quite a woman," he told Hamnet, plainly not knowing they'd once been man and wife. "Not as young as she used to be, maybe, but still quite a woman. Still plenty tight." The jarl leered and rocked his hips forward and back, in case Hamnet could have any doubt about what he meant.

"Is she?" Count Hamnet's voice held no expression whatever. That might have been just as well. If he had let it hold expression, what would have come out? Rage? Bitterness? Jealousy? Longing? Since he revealed even less to Trasamund than he did to Gudrid, the question didn't arise. So he told himself, anyhow.

He drank Eyvind Torfi

"You hate me, don't you?" Gudrid asked one evening after everyone had drunk a little too much. By the way her eyes sparkled, she wanted him to tell her yes.

"I loved you," Hamnet Thyssen said, which was not an answer—unless it was.

The gleam grew brighter. "And now?"

Count Hamnet shrugged. "We all make mistakes. Some of us make bigger mistakes than others."

"Yes, that's true," Gudrid agreed. "I never should have wed you in the first place."

"You didn't think so then," Hamnet said, and let it go at that. If he told her she'd loved him, she would have laughed in his face. He thought she had. He was convinced she had, in fact. But he was just as convinced that Sigvat Us torturers couldn't tear the confession out of her now.

"We all make mistakes. You said it; I didn't." Gudrid was like a cat, playing and swiping and tormenting before the kill.

"And what mistake did you make with Eyvind Torfi

She breathed sweet wine fumes into his face when she laughed. "Dear Eyvind? I made no mistakes with him. He lets me do whatever I please."