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It was snowing when he woke up the next morning. Fat white flakes danced in the air. Nothing else in all the world moved like snow on the breeze. If he hadn't seen too much of it, he might have marveled more. I'm old and jaded, he thought. His joints creaked as he climbed to his feet and stretched.
But he didn't feel old and jaded when he looked over toward Liv, She was already awake, and talking to Trasamund. She broke off to nod and smile and wave to Hamnet. He smiled back. He no doubt grinned like a fool, as he'd thought he might. He didn't care.
When had he last made love with a woman who mattered to him as a person, who wasn't just a willing body when his urges got too strong to ignore? The last time he made love with Gudrid—that was when. He'd had nothing but relief since. He'd nearly—more than nearly—given up hope of ever having anything more than relief.
Almost of themselves, his eyes went to Gudrid, who was toasting meat over the fire. Someone must have built it up again while he slept. Gudrid was watching him, too. Her gaze swung from him to Liv and back again. She laughed a light, mocking laugh and held her nose for a moment.
Ever since Gudrid left him, she'd been able to make his blood boil without even trying. Every woman he'd lain down with since, he compared to her. Every one of them he'd found wanting in some way or other. Now . . . Now he smiled at Gudrid, too, and waved to her, and blew her a kiss. He didn't care what she thought, and, in not caring, he felt as if a curse were lifted from his back. He and Liv would do what they did, go where they went—if they went anywhere—and that would be that. And if Gudrid didn't like it... well, so what?
Up till this moment, he'd never been able to think so what? about Gudrid, not since she first went to bed with another man. He shook his head—that wasn't right. Not since he found out she'd gone to bed with another man. If Liv let him finally not care about what Gudrid had done, what she was doing, which gift could be more precious?
He didn't even turn his back on his former wife. He didn't have to. All he had to do was not take her seriously. He'd needed too long—much too long—to realize that. And Gudrid must have seen the knowledge on his face. She’d always been able to read him like a codex. That, unfortunately, wouldn't go away as if it were a lifted curse.
Her eyes narrowed. So did her lips. Hamnet Thyssen sighed, and fog burst from his mouth and from his nostrils. Gudrid could put up with anything but being ignored.
Ulric Skakki came up and greeted Hamnet with a yawn. "I hope your watch was more exciting than mine," he said, and yawned again.
Well, yes, Hamnet thought, but that wasn't what he said. "You don't want a watch to be exciting," he remarked. Most of the time, that was true. But there was excitement, and then there was excitement.
"You don't want to think you'll fall asleep every bloody minute, either," Ulric said. "I hope I can doze on horseback today." Yet another yawn split his foxy face.
"Let's get going," Trasamund said. "The sooner we're back on our own side of the Glacier, the better."
"If our wizards were worth anything, they could talk with people there while we're still here," Gudrid said. "I suppose that's too much to ask, though." She sneered at Audun Gilli, and twice as hard at Liv. The Bizogot shaman couldn't understand what she said, but didn't like the way she said it. Liv glared back at her. That, of course, was just what Gudrid wanted.
"Come, my sweet—be reasonable," Eyvind Torfinn said. If that wasn't a forlorn hope, Hamnet Thyssen had never heard one. Eyvind went on, "No wizard can keep in touch with colleagues over such a distance."
"I'll bet the Rulers can do it," Gudrid said.
"If they can, they're even more dangerous than I think they are." That wasn't Eyvind Torfinn or Count Hamnet or Ulric Skakki. It wasn't Audun Gilli or Trasamund, either. It was Jesper Fletti, and the guard chief hardly ever let loose an opinion, let alone one that went against the woman he was charged to guard. The look Gudrid sent him was nearly as poisonous as the one she'd aimed at Liv.
"Jesper's right," Eyvind Torfinn said, which failed to make him the apple of his spouse's eye. "These new barbarians seem to be pretty good at war— at least, I never imagined anyone could ride a mammoth."
"Neither did I," Trasamund said. "This is something I must try when I get back to my clan grounds and finish healing. To ride a mammoth . . . That would be better than anything." Now he was the one Gudrid's gaze scorched. Since he'd ridden her, Hamnet understood why she might be miffed.
She went right on fuming as they started south and east. She hadn't managed to make the rest of the travelers resent Audun or Liv—particularly Liv, if Hamnet was any judge at all.
The snow went right on falling. Hamnet wondered if it would stop any time before spring. That wasn't his worry, though. All they had to do was get back on their own side of the Glacier ahead of the Rulers, and he thought they could. The mammoth-riders did not seem to have neared the Gap in any large numbers. Roypar and Samoth and the rest would probably have to go back to their main camp or heartland, wherever that was, and persuade their superiors that they'd found something interesting and important. That wouldn't happen in a day or a week or, chances were, a month, either. The Bizogots and the Empire would have some time to get ready.
And how will we use it? Hamnet wondered. Would the Bizogot clans join together under a jarl of all jarls? Would the Bizogots let Raumsdalian soldiers come up onto the chilly plain? Would Sigvat II see a threat from the land beyond the Glacier? Not long before, people had doubted there was any such thing as land beyond the Glacier. Hamnet Thyssen had doubted it himself. Now he had a new doubt—that the Bizogots and Raumsdalians would do anything about the Rulers till urgent danger forced them to.
When he said as much to Ulric Skakki, Ulric only shrugged. "The sun will come up tomorrow, too," he remarked.
"Curse it, I'm not joking," Count Hamnet said.
"Neither am I," Ulric replied. "No one gets excited about a danger he hasn't seen himself."
He was probably right. No, he was certainly right. Hamnet Thyssen knew human nature too well to think anything else. He wished he could have another view of things—it would have given him more hope for the Empires safety.
A herd of deer like the ones the Rulers rode made the travelers hold up. It wasn't as large as the herd of buffalo had been not long before, but Hamnet still started fidgeting before it passed them by. Nor was he the only one. "Are the Rulers trying to slow us down?" Audun Gilli murmured.
"What does he say?" Liv asked Count Hamnet. They'd ridden close together since leaving camp. Gudrid sneered and tossed her head. Hamnet pretended to ignore her. He taught Liv bits of Raumsdalian, as she'd asked him to do. Most of the time, though, he simply enjoyed her company. He wasn't used to doing anything like that. Now he translated for her. She thought it over, then shook her head. "I don't believe it. We've already been through the reasons why the Rulers couldn't reach the Gap ahead of us, no matter how much they might want to. And this is the time of year when animals are on the move, looking for better pasture."
Now Audun asked, "What does she say?"
Again, Hamnet did the honors, adding, "I think she's probably right."
"Well, of course you do." That wasn't Audun; it was Gudrid. "But what would you think if you used your head and not your crotch?"
"You would know more about that than I do," Hamnet said.
Audun Gilli ignored the sniping. Hamnet Thyssen abstractly admired him for that; it took concentration—or possibly blindness. "Yes, I suppose she is likely to be right," the wizard said. Hamnet translated that into the Bizogot language for Liv, who smiled.
On came the deer, emerging from the snow like materializing ghosts and then vanishing into it as if expelled from the everyday world once more. They knew where they were going, whether the travelers did or not. So Hamnet thought for a little while, anyhow. But then he shook his head. It might not be true at all. Chances were that one deer at the front knew, and the others simply followed. Or maybe—and here was a frightening thought—the deer at the front had no idea where he was going, but the others followed anyhow. Were deer that much like people? Hamnet Thyssen wouldn't have been surprised.
At last, they were gone. But for their tracks and dung, but for the receding footfalls that the snow and wind soon muffled, they might not have been there at all. "Come on," Trasamund said. "Let's get moving. We'll go till it gets dark." It definitely did get dark now, even on days when skies were clear. Days shrank and nights stretched and grew. Before long, the sun would become no more than a midday intruder peeking up over the southern horizon and then disappearing again.
The travelers hadn't ridden long before Gudrid held up her hand and said, "I think we're going in the wrong direction. Shouldn't we be heading that way?" She pointed toward what Count Hamnet thought was the northeast.
"No, that's not right, I fear," Trasamund said.
"I believe the Bizogot is correct, my sweet," Eyvind Torfinn added.
Gudrid wasn't convinced—or wasn't about to let herself be convinced. She pointed again. "I'm sure the Gap lies there."
"We're going the way I think is proper, by God, and we'll keep on doing it." Now Trasamund had a harder time staying polite. That he'd bothered even once said Gudrid had a hold on his affections. Affections—that's one word for it, Hamnet Thyssen thought with a wry grin. The Bizogot jarl went on, "Besides, I've been here before, and nobody else has. If I don't know the way, who does?"
Ulric Skakki stirred, but didn't say anything. He did smile at Hamnet, who nodded back. We know something you don't know, went through Hamnet s head—one of the simple pleasures any man could enjoy.
But Gudrid wasn't mollified. Maybe she really thought they were going in the wrong direction, or maybe she just wanted to be the center of attention. "You're going to get us lost," she said shrilly. "Lost in the middle of all this—this nothing!" Her wave took in the whole world on this side of the Glacier.
"Really, my dear, Trasamund knows more about these things than you do," Eyvind Torfinn said in tones no doubt meant to be soothing.
"You're against me, too!" Gudrid burst into tears.
"What is her trouble? She sounds like she needs a kick in the arse," said Liv, who had a straightforward view of the world even for a Bizogot.
"She thinks we're going in the wrong direction," Hamnet Thyssen said. He didn't think that was Gudrid's only trouble, but it was the only one he felt like talking about.
Liv rolled her eyes up to the heavens. "She couldn't find her way back to the Gap by herself if someone soaked the path in mammoth fat and set fire to it. She's making noise for the sake of making noise."
Hamnet thought she was doing that, too. He shrugged. "If Eyvind Torfinn wants to calm her down, he's welcome to ay." And good luck to him, too, he added, but only to himself.
Earl Eyvind did his well-meaning but ineffectual best. "Really, my love, I have every confidence in Trasamund's sense of direction. He is right—he knows this terrain better than you do. And he is more familiar with traveling over roadless country in the snow."