The Breath of God (26 page)

“No, thanks,” Gunthar said. “I don't know where the demon she's from. For all I can say, she fell from the back side of the moon. But I know a shaman when I see one. We've had a witstruck shaman or two in our clan. It doesn't mean they can't use spells well enough.”

Buccelin showed Marcovefa how to use the pressure of her legs to urge the horse forward, and how to guide it to the right and left with the reins. She proved an apt pupil. The first question she asked was, “How do you make these big beasts your slaves?”

“We train them, starting when they're small,” Buccelin answered.

After Ulric translated, the shaman nodded. Then she asked, “And what do you do when they rebel?”

“She really doesn't know anything about this business, does she?” Buccelin remarked. With a shrug, he went on, “We train them some more. We punish them. If we still can't break them, we can always kill them and eat them.”

“Ah,” Marcovefa said. “You are men, sure enough.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” the Bizogot demanded. The woman from atop the Glacier said not another word. After a few more minutes, she dismounted, and did so with more grace than she'd used getting up on the horse. Buccelin mounted. Marcovefa sketched a salute. He gave back a brusque nod, then made a point of not riding anywhere near her.

In midafternoon, they approached a herd of musk oxen. Marcovefa pointed towards them. “So many large animals! Do you get up on top of these, too?”

“Maybe we could, but we don't.” By then, Buccelin seemed resigned to playing guide. “We use them for their meat and hides and milk and wool and bones and horn.” He chuckled. “Everything but the grunt.”

Marcovefa thought that was funny, which proved she came from the back of beyond. A couple of other Snowshoe Hares rode out from the herd. “Who are these ragamuffins?” one of them shouted. “Where did they come from? Down off the Glacier?” He threw back his head and laughed at his own wit.

“Yes, I think they really did,” Buccelin answered, which made the other Bizogot's jaw drop. “We're taking them to Euric. They know what the mess to the east is all about. This one”—he aimed a thumb at Trasamund—“used to be jarl of the Three Tusk clan.”

“And I still am, by God.” Pride rang in Trasamund's voice . . . for a little while. But he seemed to deflate as he continued, “It's just that the clan . . . has run into a few problems lately.”

“A few problems have run over the clan, he means,” Ulric whispered to Hamnet Thyssen, who nodded.

“We need to feed them,” Buccelin said. “They seem hungry like they just came down off the Glacier, that's for sure. Any beast in bad shape?”

“We've got a cow that's limping,” the other Bizogot said. “It's not slowing up the herd or anything, but we can kill it.”

They did, and butchered it, and got a big fire of dried grass and dung going to cook the meat. Meanwhile, Trasamund and his clansmates and the Raumsdalians told what they knew of the invasion of the Rulers. They also told how they'd climbed the Glacier and what they'd found on top of it. None of them, though, mentioned some of Marcovefa's dining habits. Maybe that was coincidence. Maybe it was shared revulsion. Maybe it was some subtle spell from the shaman. Hamnet Thyssen couldn't be sure.

He was sure he stuffed himself like a Bizogot, gobbling down meat and fat and breaking big bones to reach the marrow. His hands and face got all greasy. He didn't care. He'd been empty a lot lately. Not having the fist of hunger pounding his stomach felt wonderful.

So did not needing to worry about standing watch. The Snowshoe Hares insisted that was their job. None of the travelers tried to argue with them. “We're out of danger for a little while, anyhow,” Hamnet said.

“Danger from the outside, anyhow,” Liv said.

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“I'm like you and Ulric—I usually say what I mean,” she answered. “We have trouble—you and I have trouble—because you can't get over being jealous.”

“Can you blame me?” Hamnet said.

But Liv nodded. “Yes, by God, I can blame you, because I haven't done anything to make you jealous.”

“The demon you haven't.” Hamnet didn't like arguing in a near-whisper to keep the others from hearing what was going on. He wanted to shout and raise a fuss and pound on things. He wondered why he didn't. It wasn't as if they didn't know about his squabbles with Liv. But he went on quietly: “If you haven't been clinging to Audun Gilli—”

“I haven't!” Liv's voice was also soft, but fire filled it all the same.

“You sure haven't clung to me lately. God only knows the last time we made love—
I
have trouble remembering,” Hamnet said.

“I could say I'm not your toy. I could say we've had a few other things
going on lately. I could even say you've been spending a lot of time around Marcovefa.”

“Her?” Hamnet Thyssen clapped a hand to his forehead. “You
are
out of your mind! She's a barbarian, a savage.”

“You mean you don't think the same thing about me?” Liv retorted. “And why am I out of my mind for doubting you when you're not out of yours for doubting me?”

“Because nothing's going on between me and the cannibal,” Count Hamnet answered. She couldn't accuse him of thinking
that
about her. “I'm just trying to learn a little of her language and teach her some of yours.”

“Well, what do you think I'm doing with Audun?”

“I don't know what you're doing with Audun. That's what worries me.”

“You pick stupid things to worry about, especially when we have so many real ones that are bigger.” Liv turned her back on him and rolled herself in her hide blanket. “Finding enough sleep is a real one. I had trouble up on top of the Glacier. I never thought I was getting enough air.”

Count Hamnet felt the same way, but he would sooner have jumped from the top of the Glacier than admit it. He got under a hide, too, and closed his eyes. He didn't think he would sleep at all—too much anger seethed inside him—but exhaustion sneaked up from behind and clubbed him over the head.

When he woke in the middle of the short northern summer night, Liv was leaning over him. He wondered if he ought to grab for one of the knives on his belt. But all she did was shake her head and say, “You fool.”

“What? For loving you too much?”

“Yes. For loving me
too much
. It makes you stupid, and you aren't stupid often enough to know how to do it right.” Shaking her head, Liv slid under the hide with him. “Well?” she said: a one-word challenge, as if he didn't deserve what she was giving him. She probably thought he didn't.

He did the best he could. It seemed to be good enough. But even if it was, he knew it didn't really settle anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“
W
E
'
VE STAYED UP
in the north too long,” Hamnet Thyssen said as the Bizogots and Raumsdalians and Marcovefa approached the Snowshoe Hares' encampment.

“Well, God knows I'm not about to argue with you, but why do you say so?” Ulric Skakki asked.

Count Hamnet pointed to the gaggle of tents made from mammoth and musk-ox hides. “Because that's starting to look like civilization to me.”

“Oh, my dear fellow! Are you well?” Ulric grabbed his arm and made as if to take his pulse. Swearing and laughing at the same time, Hamnet jerked free. Not a bit abashed, Ulric went on, “Much as I hate to admit it, I feel the same way. And if that's not a judgment on both of us, what would you call it?”

“It can't really be civilization, though, and I'll tell you why not,” Hamnet said. Ulric Skakki made an inquiring noise. Hamnet explained: “Euric may want to listen to us, and Sigvat sure didn't.”

“There is that,” the adventurer agreed. “Sigvat turned out to be one of the best arguments in favor of barbarian invasion anyone ever saw, didn't he?”

“I hadn't thought of it like that, but . . . yes,” Hamnet said.

Fierce Bizogot dogs—some of them, by their looks, at least half dire wolf—ran out of the encampment towards the newcomers, barking and snarling. Buccelin and Gunthar shouted at them, which slowed them down but didn't stop them. When Hamnet and Ulric and several of Trasamund's Bizogots drew their swords, the dogs
did
stop—they knew that meant danger. Audun Gilli looked disappointed. He had a spell that made him seem
like what God would have been if God were Dog instead, one that terrified even the fiercest beasts. Now he wouldn't get to use it.

Marcovefa eyed the big dogs and their big teeth. She said something in her language. “What's that?” Hamnet asked Ulric.

“She says they really are foxes the size of men,” Ulric answered. “One more thing we told her that she didn't believe.”

“Tell her these are tamed, like the horses. Tell her the real dire wolves are bigger and fiercer,” Hamnet said. Ulric Skakki did. Marcovefa raised an eyebrow. She said something else. “Well?” Count Hamnet asked.

“She says these will do,” Ulric reported.

“I think so, too,” Hamnet said. He frowned a moment later. He had the feeling you can sometimes get when someone is staring at you from behind—not quite sorcery, but the next thing to it. He also had the feeling he knew who it would be, and he was right. When he turned, not quite so casually as he would have liked, he caught Liv's eye on him.
It was nothing!
He didn't say it, for it was too obviously true to need saying. She eyed him even so.

Had he eyed her and Audun the same way for as little reason? He didn't shake his head, since Liv was still watching him, but that was how he felt. He hadn't been thinking anything untoward about Marcovefa. He knew that, down deep inside. He didn't know what Liv thought about Audun Gilli.

He also didn't know how unfair that comparison was. But he didn't know that he didn't know, and so it did him no good.

The dogs reluctantly moved back and to the sides as the travelers advanced. Children stared at them, too: particularly at Hamnet and Ulric and Audun, who, in spite of their clothes, plainly weren't Bizogots. Marcovefa stared at everything: the dogs, the children, the tents, the fires burning in front of them, the pots—trade goods up from the south—bubbling on top of those fires. The shaman sighed and spoke.

When Count Hamnet raised a questioning eyebrow, Ulric translated: “She's going on again about how lucky the Bizogots are. They have big animals to get big hides for their tents. They have big bones to use. They have these big fires because of all the dung. They have those—things—to cook in. She wonders why the men of the Glacier never thought of those.”

Hamnet Thyssen tried to imagine the men of the Glacier making pottery. They almost certainly didn't have the clay they would need. They would have trouble making fires big enough and hot enough to bake the clay even if they did have it. “I didn't even see any baskets up there, let alone pots,” he
said. “I was surprised they could make rope—and what they do make is the strangest stuff I ever saw.”

“That it is,” Ulric said. “It does the job, though.” It had done the job on the descent from the top of the Glacier. No one could ask more from it than that.

Buccelin held open a tent flap. “Here is the jarl. You will show him the respect he deserves.”

“We will,” Trasamund agreed, “if he shows us the respect we deserve.”

Buccelin looked dismayed at that, but did not contradict it. Along with Trasamund, Hamnet and Ulric and Audun went into Euric's tent. So did Liv and Marcovefa. Liv stayed as far from Marcovefa as she could. Inside the tent, especially with so many people in it, that wasn't very far.

Butter-burning lamps and the open tent flap gave what light there was inside. The smell of the lamps warred with that of indifferently cured hides and with the smell of Euric himself. He was a big, burly man a few years younger than Hamnet. Nodding to Trasamund, he said, “Hello, Your Ferocity. I've heard a lot about you.”

“I've heard a lot about you, too, Your Ferocity.” Seeing that Euric did treat him as an equal made Trasamund preen.

“Tell me who your comrades are,” the jarl of the Snowshoe Hares said. Trasamund named them one by one. When he got to Marcovefa, Euric's eyebrows leaped upwards. “Men from the south are one thing,” the other Bizogot observed. “A woman from the north—a woman from the north and from on high—is a different story.”

“We were there,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “We had to go up there, or the Rulers would have killed us. They are another story, too, and one you need to worry about. You won't find the men of the Glacier coming down to eat your musk oxen.”

“Or your clansmen,” Ulric Skakki added, too quietly for Euric to hear.

“We've heard there is trouble with the Three Tusk clan, and lately with the White Foxes, too,” Euric said.

“Worse than trouble,” Trasamund said. “The only free folk left from the Three Tusk clan are with me here. The White Foxes have also been broken.”

“So have the Red Dire Wolves, south of the Three Tusk clan's grazing grounds,” Count Hamnet said. “The Rulers make bad enemies.”

“Do they make good friends?” Euric asked, proving himself as practical and cynical a diplomat as any Raumsdalian ever born.

Hamnet Thyssen, Ulric Skakki, and Trasamund all looked at one another.
They'd come looking for an ally, not an opportunist. Ulric had the quickest tongue among them, and he gave an answer upon which Hamnet couldn't have hoped to improve: “Good luck, Your Ferocity.”

Euric grunted. He was neither foolish nor innocent enough to imagine that Ulric meant the words literally. “How do you know?” he asked. “Did you try?”