Eyvind said something to her, probably doing his best to calm her down. She snapped at him, too. He drew back, a wounded look on his usually placid features. If God had given her a sabertooth's fangs, chances were she would have bitten his head off in truth, not just as a figure of speech.
"What is the trouble?" Liv asked Eyvind. Somehow, Hamnet heard her clearly even though Gudrid s words were just noise to him. Maybe that had to do with her being a shaman. Maybe it had to do with how much he'd poured down. Drunks had selective hearing, and drunk he was.
The Raumsdalian noble only shrugged. "My wife is out of sorts," he answered. Well, so she was, but did he know why? Did he know how regularly Gudrid cuckolded him?
What would he do when he found out? Anything? That was an interesting question. Count Hamnet was glad it wasn't his worry ... or wouldn't have been, if he didn't worry about Gudrid all the time.
"All things considered, I'd rather share a tent with you," he told Ulric Skakki when the two of them snuggled under skins for the night.
"What? Me instead of three pretty girls who aim to please? I didn't know your tastes ran in that direction, my dear." Ulric batted his eyelashes again. It made him look ridiculous, which was bound to be what he had in mind.
"No!" Count Hamnet's ears heated. His tastes didn't run in that direction, and Ulric did know it. "I was thinking of. . ." He didn't even want to say her name.
"Of Liv?" Ulric Skakki seemed bound and determined to be as difficult as he could. "I'd like her better if she bathed, but the Bizogots mostly don't. Up here, I mostly don't, either. I'd like me better if I did, too." He held his nose.
Hamnet Thyssen wouldn't have minded a bath himself, but he missed bathing less than he thought he would when he set out from Nidaros. He didn't smell any worse than the people around him, which was all that really mattered. As for Liv . . . "She's strange."
"Of course she's strange. She's a shaman, and she wouldn't be if she weren't." Ulric paused to work out whether that really said what he wanted it to. Deciding it did, he went on, "Doesn't mean she's not pretty. She has a nice smile, don't you think?"
"I didn't notice." Hamnet didn't like to lie, but telling Ulric Skakki how much he noticed Liv's smile would only leave him open for more ribbing. Instead, he said, "I wasn't really thinking of her, anyway." That was true enough.
"Who, then?" Ulric didn't need long to answer his own question. "Gudrid? By God, you don't want to think about her, do you? I wouldn't, if I were you."
"No, I don't want to," Hamnet answered. "But what you want to do and what you end up doing aren't always the same beast."
"I always do what I want," Ulric Skakki said, which had to be a bigger lie than the one Hamnet told him. He added, "What I want to do now is go to sleep. Good night." He blew out the lamp. The smell of hot butter filled the tent. In moments, Ulric was snoring. He did what he wanted then, anyhow. Hamnet Thyssen lay awake brooding—but not very long.
People outside the tent were shouting at each other. The racket pried Hamnet's eyes open. One of the people shouting was Jesper Fletti, the other Gelimer. Hamnet understood both sides of the quarrel. Yawning, he needed a moment to realize neither of them was likely to.
"Keep your hands off me, you barbarous hound!" Jesper yelled.
"What do you think you're doing, fool of an outlander?" Gelimer shouted back.
Hamnet's breath smoked when he sat up. He pulled on his boots. Not far away, Ulric was doing the same thing. Quirking up an eyebrow, Ulric said, "Maybe we ought to let them kill each other. Jesper's no great loss."
"If he hurts Gelimer, the Bizogots will want to murder all of us," Hamnet answered.
"I suppose you're right. What a pity." Ulric Skakki stood up.
So did Hamnet. The shouting outside did nothing to improve the headache he discovered on waking. "Neither one of them understands the other's language," he pointed out.
"Just as well," Ulric said. "If they knew what they were calling each other, they would have gone for their knives long since."
Count Hamnet hadn't thought of that. "We really ought to calm them down if we can," he said.
"You're no fun," Ulric told him, but they left the mammoth-hide tent together.
"What's going on here?" Hamnet said, first in Raumsdalian, then in the Bizogot tongue.
Jesper Fletti and Gelimer gave up shouting at each other. Instead, they both shouted at him. That didn't do his head any good. "This lemming-brained idiot keeps wanting to bother the jarl," Gelimer said. "Doesn't he know Trasamund's in his tent screwing like there's no tomorrow?"
At the same time, Jesper Fletti said, "This fleabitten savage won't let the lady Gudrid talk to Trasamund."
"Oh." Hamnet Thyssen's head pounded anew, for an altogether different reason.
"Oh, for God's sake," Ulric Skakki said in about the same tone of voice.
Hamnet stepped between Gelimer and Jesper. He set both hands on Jes-per's shoulders. The imperial guardsman bristled at the liberty, but grudgingly allowed it from a Raumsdalian noble. "Go back to Gudrid," Hamnet said. "Tell her she can't see Trasamund now. Tell her she can't see him now even if she's seen every single inch of him before. Tell her it doesn't matter if she's a noblewoman. Tell her she's a guest among the Bizogots, and what they say goes. Tell her that if she causes any more trouble she's liable to get you killed and she's liable to get herself killed."
"Tell her that if she causes any more trouble that involves waking people up, the Bizogots may not be the ones who kill her—or you," Ulric Skakki added.
"And who will try to do this?" Jesper asked softly, setting a hand on the hilt of his sword. "You and who else?"
"I'm the who else," Hamnet said. Jesper Fletti looked horrified. Hamnet went on, "Tell Gudrid she can't get away with playing the spoiled brat up here. She won't hear that from me, no matter how true it is. Maybe she'll listen to you." Or maybe she won't listen to anybody. Half the time, she doesn't.
Jesper Fletti looked from him to Ulric to Gelimer. Abruptly, the guardsman spun on his heel and stalked away. He ducked into a tent. Count Hamnet heard his voice from inside, but couldn't make out what he said. Then Gudrid let out a screech like a lion impaled on a woolly rhino's horn.
She stormed out of the tent. She didn't stop when she saw Hamnet, but she did slow down. He looked around to make sure he still had Ulric Skakki at his back. Ulric might have borrowed some magic from Audun Gilli, for he'd just vanished. Count Hamnet sighed. Up to him, was it? Well, if it was, it was.
"Why can't I see Trasamund?" Gudrid demanded.
"Because he's still with the women from his clan," Hamnet answered. "Can't you figure that out for yourself, or are you just being difficult for the sake of being difficult?"
"Do you think I care about that?"
"Yes, I think you care about it very much. But I don't think you understand Bizogots as well as you think you do. This isn't your land. You're a guest here. Good guests have all the privileges of clan members—and more besides, because they're forgiven if they're ignorant, and clansmen and -women aren't. If they go past ignorant, though, if they get to annoying . . . God help them in that case, because no one else will."
He wished Ulric Skakki hadn't ducked out on him. If Ulric intoned something solemn like, He's right, it might help make Gudrid believe him. Or maybe nothing would do that. "Trasamund will listen to me," Gudrid said with her usual assurance.
"Why? Because you're special? Do you think you're any more special than any of the women he's with now?" Hamnet asked. Before Gudrid could answer or even nod, he went on, "Do you think he thinks you're more special than any of them? If you do, you're fooling yourself even worse than usual."
"By God, you are a hateful man!" Gudrid said.
"Anyone who tells you anything you don't want to hear is a hateful man," Hamnet answered. "And anybody who tells you anything true you don't want to hear is even more hateful. So I suppose I qualify, yes." He bowed.
Gudrid snarled something foul. He bowed again, as if at a compliment. Gudrid whirled and stormed off. Count Hamnet had no idea if he'd convinced her. If he hadn't, he wouldn't be sorry. She would.
But she didn't bother Trasamund. For that her former husband was duly grateful, because, whether Gudrid did or not, he knew he hadn't been joking or even exaggerating the danger. Sometimes you measured progress not by what people did but by what they didn't do. As far as Hamnet Thyssen was concerned, this was one of those times.
In due course, Trasamund emerged from his tent. He looked indecently pleased with himself—that struck Hamnet as the right word, sure enough. Gudrid went right on staying away from him. She probably thought she was punishing him. Hamnet was convinced he either didn't notice she was avoiding him or thought it was funny if he did. As long as neither of them actually did anything, though, that was all right.
Hamnet had no qualms about approaching Trasamund. "When do you plan on traveling north again, your Ferocity?" he asked.
"I've been going into gaps all night long." The jarl threw back his head and laughed. "Now you want me to worry about another one?"
After a dutiful grin, Hamnet said, "You were the one who came down to Nidaros. You will know best how important you think this journey is. The farther north we go, the shorter the time the weather will stay good—or even tolerable."