Breath of God

“I thought the very same thing when we were together,” Gudrid said.

He’d thought she loved him. He’d always known he loved her. Part of him still did, and always would. That only made her betrayal more bitter. He tried to show she couldn’t wound him – a lying, and a losing, battle. “Are you enjoying yourself? Stare all you please,” he said.

“I should throw peanuts, the way I would at monkeys in cages,” she said, smiling wider yet. “What would you do for a peanut, Hamnet?”

He told her where she could put a peanut. He told her where she could put a year’s worth of peanuts, and how well they would fit there, and why. She only laughed. Why not? She was on the outside looking in. He was on the inside looking out. It made all the difference in the world.

“Did Eyvind Torfi

That only made Gudrid laugh again. “Don’t be sillier than you can help, darling. Dear Eyvind knows, yes, because I told him. But Sigvat told me.”

She sounded smug as a cat in a creamery. She no doubt had the right to sound that way, too. Hamnet Thyssen used a shrug for a shield. “He can say what he wants. He can do what he wants. He’s the Emperor, after all.”

“Oh, you do know that!” Gudrid exclaimed in mock surprise. “He didn’t seem to think you did.”

“Well, there is one thing,” Hamnet said. “If the Rulers overrun Raumsdalia, he won’t stay Emperor for long.”

Gudrid sneered. “How likely do you think that is?”

“You were up there. You saw the Rulers last year. You saw more of some of them than I did, by God.” Count Hamnet wasn’t quite sure Gudrid had slept with their chief; he hadn’t watched them in the act, for which he was duly grateful. But he was sure enough, and that was the kind of thing Gudrid did. For good measure, he added, “They’ve spent the time since last winter smashing up the Bizogots.”

His former wife didn’t bother denying anything. She did ask, “Is Trasamund all right?”

“He’s not hurt, but his clan’s wrecked. He’s down here in Nidaros, too.” Hamnet Thyssen didn’t think he was giving anything away with that news.

All Gudrid said was, “Ah.” Then she asked, “And your new barbarous beloved?”

“Liv is here, too.”

Count Hamnet didn’t think he revealed anything by how he said that. He must have been wrong, though, for Gudrid pounced – or rather, burst out laughing. “So she’s gone and left you, has she? Well, that didn’t take long.”

How did she know? How could she tell? Whatever the answer was, her instincts were unfailing. “Yes, she’s left me,” Hamnet said. “She doesn’t torment me for the fun of it, anyhow.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. Sooner or later, she will.” With that casual reassurance, Gudrid blew him a kiss and swept out of the dungeon. A guard followed her. Hamnet watched them as far as the grate allowed, which wasn’t very. Then, shaking his head, he went back to the pallet and lay down again.

The guard spoke to him: “You were married to that gal?”

“Afraid so,” Hamnet said.

“I was married to her, I’d be afraid, too,” the guard said. “She’s nothing but trouble.”

“I found that out. A little late, but I did,” Hamnet Thyssen said.

“She why you’re shut up here?”

“No.” Hamnet shook his head. “I found out about the Emperor a little late, too.”

“Here, now. You can’t talk like that,” the guard said. “You do, and -”

“I know. I know. It’ll be even worse than it is already,” Hamnet said wearily. “But you asked. I tried to tell you the truth.”

“That’s what they all say.” The guard didn’t want to listen. And he didn’t have to listen, either. He walked away instead.

What will they do to me now? Hamnet wondered. He knew how it could get worse, all right. They could stop feeding him. They could stop giving him water. Or they could just grab him and haul him off to the torturer. If enough of them came in, he hadn’t a prayer of fighting them off.

They didn’t do any of those things. The loaves and the water kept coming. He stayed in the cell. . and stayed, and stayed. That might not have been worse, but it was bad enough and then some.

“You! Thyssen!” A guard with a raspy voice barked at him through the grate.

“What now?” Count Hamnet asked. Any change in routine worried him. Silence, being ignored, was routine. Getting noticed? He didn’t expect good news.

“Somebody here wants to talk to you,” the guard said.

Do I want to talk to Gudrid again? Hamnet wondered. After what had to be days of doing nothing, even a quarrel with his former wife might seem entertaining. If that wasn’t madness, he didn’t know what would be. All the same, it was so. He got to his feet and walked up to the door.

Seeing him approach, the guard nodded. “Here’s the bum,” the man said, and stepped to one side.

Hamnet braced himself to start snarling at Gudrid again. But those were not her aging but still attractive – still beautiful – features on the other side of the grate. Instead, Hamnet Thyssen found himself face-to-face with Earl Eyvind Torfi

Gudrid’s husband. Gudrid’s husband who hadn’t, or acted as if he hadn’t, the slightest idea how many times she’d put horns on him.

“I grieve to see you like this, Your Grace,” the scholarly noble said.

“I’m not too happy about it myself, Your Splendor,” Count Hamnet answered. “Did Gudrid finally tell you I was here?”

Earl Eyvind didn’t notice that finally. He shook his head. His jowls wobbled. He’d regained the comfortable plumpness he’d enjoyed before his journey to the north the year before. Scratching at the edge of his whiskers, he said, “No. I don’t think she knows you’re here.”

That only proved the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing – nothing new where Gudrid was concerned. “Well, how the demon did you find out I was stuck here, then?” Hamnet demanded.

“Ulric Skakki is a resourceful chap,” Eyvind replied: a truth so obvious, even he could see it. “He got word to me that you were having, ah, difficulties. I was shocked. I truly didn’t believe His Majesty would be so, ah, unaccommodating.”

“Oh, you can’t say that.” Hamnet Thyssen wagged a finger at him. “No, you can’t, by God. After all, here I am – accommodated.”

“Er, yes.” Eyvind Torfi

“Sigvat’s got the answer. He says I should.” Count Hamnet sounded more nearly resigned than outraged, which only proved he made a better actor than he’d ever dreamt he could.

“So I discovered,” Eyvind said. “I urged your release – urged it in strong terms, too – but His Majesty was not amenable to reason.”

He sounded surprised that reason couldn’t sway the Raumsdalian Emperor. Reason would have swayed him, and so he believed it should sway everyone. That might have been logical – but it wasn’t reasonable. Gudrid would have known better. Even Count Hamnet knew better.

“Thank you for trying,” he said, and meant it. He couldn’t dislike Eyvind Torfi

“It was my pleasure, my privilege,” he said now. “And Skakki hinted at some remarkable adventures. Ascending to the top of the Glacier. Meeting people who dwelt up there. . . Extraordinary! I wish I could have been with you.”

You had your chance last winter, and you stayed here, Hamnet Thyssen thought. Then he didn’t just think it – he said it out loud. If Eyvind Torfi

The scholarly earl winced. “I am not a young man, Your Grace,” he said stiffly. “I thought myself unequal to another journey up into the wilds so soon after the first, and Gudrid would have been adamantly opposed to setting out again, you know. The travels were a considerable hardship to her.”