The Breath of God (52 page)

And then she said, “If I ever catch the scut who hit me with that stone, I'll eat his liver without salt.” A Raumsdalian would have meant it for a joke. An ordinary Bizogot would have, too, though a Raumsdalian who heard her might have wondered. Marcovefa was dead serious. And if she did find that slinger, he would be dead, too, dead and butchered.

Toward noon, a scout rode in. “They're out of the woods,” he reported. “We skirmished a little, and then fell back.”

“Are they heading for Kjelvik?” Count Hamnet demanded tensely. Could he stand siege here? If he couldn't, he would have to retreat
now
. If he did, Sigvat II would have one more reason not to love him.

But the scout shook his head. “No, uh, Your Grace. They're going southeast across country. You ask me, sir, they're heading straight for Nidaros.”

“Can we strike at their flank, then?” Hamnet aimed the question more at himself than at the rider who'd just come in. Regretfully, he rejected the idea. His men had no spirit for another fight yet. And, without Marcovefa's sorcerous aid, they might as well have gone into battle without shields against an army of archers.

“What do we do if we don't hit them, Your Grace?” the scout asked.

The question was more pointed than Hamnet Thyssen wished it were.
Wait for the axe to drop
was the first answer that sprang to mind. He didn't come out and say that; he feared the scout would believe him. Worse, he feared he would believe himself. “I'll talk with the others,” was what he did say, and that satisfied the scout, who didn't see—or didn't want to see—how little it told him.

When Count Hamnet gathered Ulric Skakki, Trasamund, and Runolf Skallagrim, none of them seemed eager to assail the advancing enemy. If Trasamund in particular held back, that told Hamnet the thing couldn't be
done. And the Bizogot jarl did. “No point hitting 'em unless we hit 'em hard, and we can't right now, curse it,” he said unhappily.

“Looks that way to me, too, I'm afraid,” Ulric Skakki said.

“And to me,” Runolf agreed. “If we're going to get squashed if we poke our noses outside the walls . . . well, then we don't, that's all.”

Had Hamnet Thyssen had any great hopes of victory, he would have argued against the others. Since he didn't, he accepted their argument. Sometimes the best thing you could do was nothing.

He did send another courier down to Nidaros, warning that the Rulers were loose in the Empire below the northern woods and that he lacked the force to do anything about it. “Maybe a miracle will happen,” he told Ulric. “Maybe the Emperor will send me more soldiers.”

“Don't wait up expecting them, or you'll get mighty sleepy,” the adventurer replied. “He'll probably yell for your head instead, for not doing enough with what he was generous enough to give you before.”

“Yes, that thought crossed my mind, too,” Count Hamnet said. “What am I supposed to do then?”

“Well, if you want to go to the chopper or back to the dungeon, you just do what dear, sweet, lovable Sigvat tells you to do,” Ulric said. “If you don't, you do something else. If you don't feel like getting chopped, I'll go with you, for whatever you think that's worth. If you do, you're on your own.”

Hamnet Thyssen set a hand on his shoulder, a gesture of affection and appreciation he rarely used. “Thanks. I'm not going to let Sigvat wreck me or the Empire, not if I can help it.”

“You've got a chance to keep him from wrecking you,” Ulric Skakki said. “If he doesn't wreck you, he'll have a harder time wrecking Raumsdalia, anyway. But you've got to worry about yourself first. You can do something about yourself. Right this minute, you can't do much about the whole bloody Empire.”

The Empire was going to get bloodier. Count Hamnet couldn't do much about that, either, not till Marcovefa's wits unscrambled—if they ever did.
Congratulations
, he told himself.
You just found something brand new to worry about
.

He sighed. “Up till now, I've always put the Empire first. I still do, I guess, but. . . .”

“Yes. But,” Ulric said. “One thing you still need to figure out is, there's a difference between the Empire and the Emperor. Raumsdalia can go on without Sigvat II, even if Sigvat's too cursed dumb to see that for himself.”

Since Hamnet Thyssen hadn't seen if for himself, he maintained what he hoped was a discreet silence. Even if not just Sigvat but his dynasty perished, the Raumsdalian Empire
could
go on. Sometimes a truth was too obvious to be easy to see. Sometimes, in the woods, a mastodon was next to invisible. But then it would lift its trunk and trumpet, and everyone for a long way in all directions would know where it stood.

At least I know where
I
stand
, Hamnet thought. That would have to do for now. “Who do you think hates me more right this minute?” he asked Ulric. “The Rulers or His Majesty?”

“Well, it depends,” Ulric said judiciously.

“On what?”

“On whether your messenger has got to Nidaros yet.”

“Oh.” Count Hamnet weighed that. Then he nodded. “Yes, I'm afraid so.”

“You're not afraid enough to suit Sigvat,” Ulric said. “That's one of the reasons he doesn't like you.” There was an understatement of almost cosmic proportions. Even the adventurer seemed relieved to change the subject: “How's your lady love?”

“About how you'd expect after almost getting her head smashed,” Hamnet replied. He hesitated, then asked, “How's Liv doing?”

“She'll heal. She'll have a scar. It's a shame—she's a nice-looking woman. And no, in case you're trying to find some reason to come after me with a hatchet, I never slept with her. She is anyway.” Ulric Skakki raised an eyebrow. “You don't need to ask me, you know. You could talk with her yourself. She's not like Gudrid—she doesn't aim to carve chunks off you every time she opens her mouth.”

“I understand that,” Hamnet said, as steadily as he could. “I still haven't decided whether it makes things better or worse.” Even the glib Ulric Skakki had no quick and clever retort for that.

 

C
OUNT
H
AMNET WAS
doing up his trousers as he came out of the garderobe when one of Runolf Skallagrim's junior officers spotted him. “Oh, there you are, Your Grace!” the very young subaltern exclaimed.

“Here I am, all right,” Hamnet agreed. “And why does it make any difference that I happen to be here?”

“Because the baron needs to see you right away, sir,” the junior officer said. “He's got six or eight men out looking for you.”

“Does he?” Hamnet said with a marked lack of enthusiasm. That could only mean something had gone wrong. Two possibilities leaped to mind; he
wondered which was the more appalling. “Well, I suppose I'd better go see him, then.”

“Follow me, Your Grace.” The youngster hurried off so fast, Hamnet Thyssen had very little choice
but
to follow him. He stopped in front of Runolf's door as abruptly as he'd sped away. When Hamnet came up a few heartbeats later, the fellow said, “Go on in, sir. I know he's expecting you.”

“I'm so glad to hear it,” Hamnet said.
What a liar I'm turning into in my old age
. He wasn't
that
old, but some days felt as if they added years. He worked the latch and went inside.

As he'd feared, a man with the look of an imperial courier waited with Runolf Skallagrim. “Morning, Thyssen,” Runolf said, trying to pretend he knew Hamnet not at all well.

“It certainly is,” Hamnet said, more or less at random. He inclined his head to the man who looked like a courier. “I don't think we've met.”

“No, I don't think so, either. I'm Gunnlaug Jofrid,” the man said. “I have orders to take you back to Nidaros.”

Hamnet looked at him. “No.”

“What?” By the way Gunnlaug gaped, Hamnet might have used a word in the language of the Rulers.

“It's a technical term,” Hamnet explained, not unkindly. “It means, well, no.”

“You can't say that!” Gunnlaug burst out. “His Majesty commands it!”

“Listen carefully. Watch the way my lips move. . . . No.”

“But you can't disobey the Emperor,” Gunnlaug Jofrid said, as if it were a law of nature.

“Oh, I can't, eh? I'm afraid we'll just have to see about that,” Hamnet said.

“What will you do? Where will you go? Every man's hand will be raised against you, all over the Empire.”

“Then I'll leave,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “I've done it before. His Majesty won't be sorry to see me do it again.”

Gunnlaug looked doubtful, to say the least. “That's not what my orders say. And how do I know you'll really do it, anyhow? How do I know you won't turn around and go somewhere and raise a rebellion? That would be worth my neck.”

He wasn't wrong. He was, in fact, bound to be right. “Well, you can come with me,” Hamnet suggested. “Then you'll be able to say you saw me ride up onto the Bizogot plain with your own eyes.”

“You'd rather go up there than down to Nidaros?” Gunnlaug seemed to have trouble believing his ears.

“If I go down to Nidaros, Sigvat will either throw me back in the dungeon or kill me,” Count Hamnet said. “If I go up into the Bizogot country, maybe the Rulers will kill me. But maybe they won't, too. And at least I'll be able to fight back. Any which way, I'm better off. Is that plain enough, or shall I get a stick of charcoal and some parchment and draw you a picture?”

“You're making fun of me!” Gunnlaug Jofrid's voice went shrill.

Hamnet looked at Runolf Skallagrim. “Nothing gets by him, does it?” Gunnlaug spluttered indignantly. Ignoring him, Count Hamnet went on, “Sorry this is awkward for you.”

“I can see how you might not want to meet the chopper just yet—or any time at all, to tell you the truth,” Runolf said.

“If you think I'm going to go to the back of beyond with you—” Gunnlaug began.

“The other choice is killing you right now,” Hamnet Thyssen broke in. The courier shut up with a snap. Hamnet eyed Runolf again. “I didn't know I was so persuasive.”

“Maybe I'd better stash the poor fellow in the guardhouse till you're ready to leave,” Runolf said. “Wouldn't want him complicating your life even worse than it is already, would we?”

“This is an outrage!” Gunnlaug said. “An outrage, I tell you! When the Emperor finds out what you've done—” He broke off.

Had Count Hamnet the courier's boots, he would have stopped some time sooner. The snow wouldn't melt for months up here. A body that went into a drift wouldn't see the light of day till spring, and spring came late in these parts. Hamnet wondered whether he could afford to take the courier along. If the fellow kept trying to escape . . . Well, there was plenty of snow up in the forest, too.

“Do stick him in the guardhouse, Runolf,” Hamnet said. “That will give me time to see who all wants to come along and to load pack horses. Easier than running off before we're ready.”

“I'll take care of it,” Runolf promised, and he did.

 

H
AMNET RODE OUT
of Kjelvik the next day. Marcovefa rode with him. So did Ulric Skakki. Audun Gilli and Liv came out side by side. Trasamund went along, as did a few of the other Bizogots. Most of the Leaping Lynxes who still lived stayed behind, though, judging their chances better inside
the Empire than back up on the frozen steppe. Hamnet Thyssen had to hope they were wrong.

Also accompanying his band was Gunnlaug Jofrid. The imperial courier said, “Do you really imagine you can get away with this?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Count Hamnet answered. “I can't believe Sigvat will send an army up into the Bizogot country after me. Can you?”

“He'd better not!” Trasamund rumbled. “He'd better not even think about it, by God! We'd swarm down into Raumsdalia and tear his precious Empire up by the roots if he tried. The very idea!” He snorted in disgust.

Ulric Skakki snorted, too, though quietly. An amused smile played over his features for a moment. Hamnet understood why: poor Trasamund had forgotten something. With the Bizogot clans shattered by the Rulers, the big blonds would swarm into the Empire only as refugees, or perhaps as vassals and hirelings of the mammoth-riders. The Bizogots' independent power would be a long time reviving, if it ever did.

The Rulers were still trickling down into Raumsdalia. Count Hamnet's band rode past several small groups of them even before it reached the edge of the woods. Hamnet led enough men to make the Rulers think twice about quarreling with him. He wasn't sure whether that pleased Trasamund or disappointed him.

Plunging into the forest again felt strange. Not far ahead lay the clearing where his army had battled the Rulers to a standstill . . . till that one unlucky slingstone took Marcovefa out of the fight and let the wizards from beyond the Glacier use the spells she'd blocked up till then.

She didn't remember much about what had gone on here. Hamnet doubted she ever would. He'd seen that loss of memory before in people who'd taken blows to the head. More often than not, it was a mercy.

Marcovefa didn't look at it that way. “I want to know what I did!” she complained. “I want to know what all they magicked at me. I want to know what I magicked at them. I know I was doing good—these Rulers are not so tough. But I want to know!”

“Maybe . . .” Hamnet Thyssen had to pause, because talking while he was gritting his teeth was hard. He made himself unclench his jaw and go on: “Maybe you could ask Liv and Audun Gilli. If anyone on our side knows, they're the ones.”

Marcovefa kissed him. That made him glad he'd said what he had; he hadn't thought anything could. “I do that!” she said. She rode over to the
Raumsdalian wizard and the Bizogot shaman. Count Hamnet turned his head and looked the other way. He could suggest it, but he couldn't like it.