He couldn't resist going after the last word, though. He walked up to Gudrid and said, "My pretty, you will remember last night forever."
"Why?" she said. "Nothing happened between us." By the look in her eye, she was glad nothing happened, too.
Riccimir ignored that look. It wasn't easy; Hamnet Thyssen envied his singlemindedness. "That is why you will remember it," he said. "You will regret that you did not come to know the mighty love of Riccimir." He struck a pose.
What Gudrid's horse did a moment later probably matched her opinion of Riccimir's mighty love. His clansmates could dry the results and use them for warmth and cooking. If she had spoken, her words probably would have given them plenty of warmth, too. As things were, her expression was eloquent enough. The jarl, convinced to the marrow that he was wonderful, never noticed.
"Are we ready?" Eyvind Torfinn said. "Perhaps we should depart, then."
"God keep you safe on your journey," Riccimir said. "May he bring you back to your homes with wealth or wisdom or whatever you seek. And may he bring you to my clan on your way south. Good will be the guesting on your return—and may the sweet one's heart be softened by then."
Count Hamnet didn't see how Eyvind Torfinn could answer that without landing in trouble with Riccimir or with Gudrid or with both of them at once. Earl Eyvind showed uncommon wisdom—he didn't try. He flicked his horse's reins and used the pressure of his knees to urge the beast forward. The rest of the Raumsdalians and Trasamund followed.
"An interesting time," Audun Gilli said, riding up alongside Hamnet and Ulric Skakki.
"That's one way to put it," Hamnet said. "Some interesting times I could live without."
"It wasn't so bad," Audun said.
"Demons take me if it wasn't!" Hamnet exclaimed.
Ulric laughed. "He didn't mind it, Thyssen. Didn't you see him go off with that Bizogot wench?" His hands shaped an hourglass in the air.
"No, I didn't." Hamnet couldn't remember when he'd lost track of the wizard. Audun wasn't what anyone would call memorable, so he had trouble. "When was this?"
"You were exchanging compliments with your lady love." Ulric Skakki stopped. Hamnet Thyssen had a hand on his swordhilt. He probably also had murder in his eye. He didn't mind being chaffed about many things. The list was short, yes, but Gudrid headed it. Ulric hastened to backtrack. "My apologies, your Grace. When you were quarreling with your former wife, I should have said."
"Yes. You should have." Hamnet made his hand come off the sword. He made himself look away from Ulric Skakki and toward Audun Gilli. "So. You lay down with a Bizogot woman, did you? How was it? Did you have to hold your nose?"
"I'm not so clean myself these days. After a bit, you stop noticing that." Audun grinned. It made him look surprisingly young. "As for the rest, well, the parts work the same way here as they do down in the Empire."
"There's a surprise." Ulric Skakki grinned, too.
Count Hamnet only grunted. Losing Gudrid had soured him on women. He still bedded them now and again—sometimes his body drove him to do what he wanted to despise. But he couldn't take them lightly, the way most men did.
Trasamund led them away from Sudertorp Lake. The jarl of the Three Tusk clan was not in a good humor. Since Hamnet Thyssen wasn't, either, he soon found himself riding next to Trasamund. The big blond jarl scowled at him. When he scowled back, Trasamund seemed satisfied.
After a while, Trasamund said, "That Leaping Lynx clan .. ." He didn't seem to know how to go on.
"What about them?" Hamnet asked.
"They hardly seem like Bizogots at all!" It burst from Trasamund.
They seemed very much like Bizogots to Hamnet. But he was looking at them from the outside, not from the inside the way the jarl was. Slowly, he said, "The waterfowl give them so much to eat at this season, they don't have to wander. Things are different when you can stay in one place for a long time."
"I suppose so." Trasamund went right on scowling. "It's wrong, though. It's unnatural. They . .. might as well be Raumsdalians." By the way he said it, he couldn't imagine a stronger condemnation.
"I will tell you, your Ferocity, that to a Raumsdalian they don't seem much like Raumsdalians at all," Count Hamnet said.
"They live in stone houses. They have fat people. They are like Raumsdalians." No, Trasamund had no more idea of what being a Raumsdalian meant—probably less—than Hamnet did about being a Bizogot. He also didn't know that he really didn't know what being a Raumsdalian meant.
Arguing with him would only make him angry. Hamnet Thyssen didn't try. Instead, looking out across the frozen plain, he pointed and asked, "What's that?"
All at once, Trasamund was back in his element. He forgot about the Bizogots of the Leaping Lynx clan. "That's a God-cursed dire wolf, is what that is." His voice rose to a shout. "Close up! Close up! We've got wolves! Archers, string your bows! We've got wolves!"
To Hamnet Thyssen, it was only a moving squiggle at the edge of visibility. But he wasn't at home here, any more than Trasamund knew all the ins and outs of life in Nidaros, or even in the distant keep where Hamnet would rather have spent his time. Accepting that Trasamund knew and he didn't, Hamnet braced himself for an onslaught.
He didn't have to wait long. Just as the Bizogot recognized a distant moving squiggle as danger, so the dire wolf saw distant moving squiggles as meat. It couldn't take their scent; the wind was with them. But before long, a formidable pack of dire wolves trotted purposefully toward the travelers.
Dire wolves were half again as big as their cousins that skulked through the eastern forests. Their fur was thicker, and of a paler gray so as not to stand out against the snow. Some people said timber wolves were smarter than their larger cousins. Hamnet Thyssen didn't know about that one way or the other. People also said dire wolves ate more carrion than timber wolves did. Count Hamnet thought that was true. But it didn't mean dire wolves turned up their noses at fresh meat. If Count Hamnet hadn't known that, he would have found out now.
The pack leader stood there right at the edge of bowshot, eyeing the travelers. The dire wolf grinned a doggy grin at them, long pink tongue lolling out of his mouth. Even at that distance, though, Hamnet could make out the animal's teeth, long and sharp and yellow. Dire wolves needed to be wary around men. Any animal bigger than a bedbug needed to be wary around men. But men needed to be wary around dire wolves, too.
After a moment's appraisal, the dire wolf lifted its head and let out a howl. If it were speaking a human tongue, Hamnet would have thought that howl meant, All right. Let's try it and see what happens.
And it seemed to mean just that. The dire wolves trotted forward again. They might have been trying to cut a weak musk ox or a baby mammoth out of the herd. Almost of their own accord, Hamnet's eyes went to Gudrid. That was a tempting thought, but he didn't suppose she would appreciate it.
"Shout at them," Trasamund called. "Sometimes you can scare them off."
Hamnet yelled at the top of his lungs. So did the rest of the travelers. Some of the dire wolves skidded to a stop. A few even went back onto their haunches. But the rest kept coming. Seeing their comrades advance, the frightened wolves got up and went on, too. It was as if they didn't want their friends to think them cowards.
In some ways, dire wolves were much too much like men.
VI
Trasamund's bowstring twanged. An arrow hissed through the air. It just missed the lead dire wolf and stood thrilling in the ground. The wolf kept coming without so much as a sideways glance. Dire wolves weren't just like men. The pack leader wasted no time dwelling on what might have been. It dwelt only in the real world. Hamnet Thyssen didn't know whether to pity it or envy it.