Instead of answering, Parsh looked at his countryman, who kept on giving him his back. That seemed to make up his mind for him. "It cannot be done," he said for the third time. "I must make amends." He pulled his belt knife from its sheath and stared at the blade.
If he’d tried to go after Trasamund, Count Hamnet would have stopped him. Hamnet didn't think that would be hard; Parsh could barely walk and speak, let alone fight. But the man of the Rulers did nothing of the sort. He spat between his own feet, a gesture of vast contempt. Then he looked up into the sky—and then, before Hamnet or anyone else could stop him, he slashed the knife across his throat.
Blood spurted, scarlet in the afternoon sun. Parsh crumpled. No one could hope to stanch that wound. The man of the Rulers thrashed on the ground for a little while, then lay still in death.
Only after he died did his comrade deign to turn around and acknowledge him again. The other man of the Rulers closed the dead and staring eyes. He said something in his own language.
"I don't understand you," Hamnet Thyssen said, which was true on every level he could think of. Parsh's countryman spread his hands to show he knew nothing of the Bizogot language.
Trasamund and Samoth returned a few minutes later. Samoth eyed Parsh without surprise. "Redeemed himself, did he?" the wizard said.
"By God!" Trasamund muttered. "You are a hard-hearted folk." He looked down at his bandaged hands. "And a hardheaded folk, too."
"Do you want his weapons?" Samoth asked. "Such is the rule when one of us beats another. I do not know what the rule is when someone of a lesser breed beats a man of the Rulers. I do not think it happens enough for us to need a rule."
That was a compliment of sorts. Maybe the Bizogot jarl would have been wiser to show he saw as much. Or maybe not; the Rulers, arrogant themselves, seemed to appreciate arrogance in others—when those others could back it up. Trasamund had. "I didn't mean for him to die," he said, peering through puffed and slitted eyes at Parsh's gory corpse. "I only wanted to wipe out an insult."
"What better way to wipe it out than in blood?" Samoth returned. Trasamund shrugged. Then he grimaced. Even the little motion had to hurt.
Had Trasamund not beaten Parsh, Hamnet Thyssen wondered if the Rulers would have fed the Bizogots and Raumsdalians. As things were, the men from beyond the Glacier treated the travelers, if not like themselves, then at least with a certain circumspection. We may be beasts, Count Hamnet thought, but we've shown we're beasts with claws and fangs.
The meat came from the deer that roamed these plains. Maybe the Rulers were fancy cooks in encampments that held women and children. Here by themselves, the warriors cooked about the same way Bizogots or Raumsdalian soldiers would have—they roasted their meat over flames. The flames came from a fire of dried dung, as they would have in the Bizogot country. Instead of holding the meat on sticks, the men used skewers made from mammoth bone. Again, the Bizogots would have done something similar, though they sometimes got wood in trade from the Empire. Hamnet Thyssen judged no trees grew anywhere close to lands the Rulers ruled.
They did have salt; perhaps the edge of a sea lay not too far off, or perhaps it came from an outcrop of rock salt. And they had spices the likes of which none of the travelers had ever tasted. The black flakes the curly-bearded men sprinkled on the meat reminded Hamnet Thyssen of chills because they bit the tongue, but their flavor was different.
Eyvind Torfinn thought so, too. "What do you call this spice?" he asked the leader of the Rulers, a hawk-faced, middle-aged man named Roypar.
Roypar scratched his cheek and then tugged at the gold hoop he wore in his left ear. None of the other men of the Rulers wore such an ornament. Was it a badge of rank? A sign of wealth? Was there a difference? Count Hamnet wasn't sure about that, even among Raumsdalians. Among the Rulers? He could only guess.
"Is name of pepper," Roypar answered. He spoke only a little of the Bizogot tongue. In any case, the important word came from his own speech.
"Pepper." Earl Eyvind repeated, the unfamiliar name several times. Roypar nodded. Over meat, he seemed less ferocious than his fellows had before. "Do you raise this yourself?" Eyvind inquired. "Or do you trade for it?"
"Trade," Roypar said, "is come from far away." He pointed south and west. "Far, far away. Many days, many months."
"I see," Eyvind Torfinn said gravely. "And how far in that direction do the Rulers rule?"
"Long way. Very long way," Roypar replied. Was he clever enough to dodge Eyvind's probe or too naive to notice it was a probe at all? Hamnet Thyssen couldn't tell. That made him guess Roypar might be clever, even if he had no proof.
Eyvind went on, "And do you have it in mind to stretch your rule to the south and east now that there is a way through the Glacier?"
Now Roypar looked at him as if he were a witling. "Well, of course," said the chieftain or officer or whatever he was. "Of course. We are the Rulers. Where we can reach, we rule."
"Anyone who tries to rule the Bizogots will be sorry," Trasamund said. His voice was still a thick mumble through split and swollen lips. "Maybe you can kill us. Maybe we kill you instead." The roasted venison was tough. He chewed slowly and carefully, and on the side where he hadn't just lost a tooth.
"Maybe." That wasn't Roypar; it was Samoth the sorcerer. "You are strong. You are fierce. But your magic"—he sneered—"your magic is nothing much."
Audun C2iilli had no idea what he was saying; the Raumsdalian wizard knew nothing of the Bizogot language. Liv, of course, understood Samoth well enough. She'd said next to nothing herself up till then. Now, swallowing a bite of meat, she looked across the smoky fire at Samoth and hooted three times like an owl.
He jerked as if bitten by a mosquito the size of a falcon. "So you had somewhat to do with that, did you?" he growled. His comrades who could follow the Bizogot tongue sent him curious looks. Maybe he hadn't told them he'd had to fly from the travelers' magic down in the Gap.
Liv gave him a sweet smile. "Why, yes," she said, all innocence. "We did."
Samoth muttered into his curled mat of beard. Hamnet Thyssen sent Liv a small nod. He thought she'd found a fine way to prick the Rulers' pomposity. They were so very, very sure of themselves—anything that made them doubt was bound to be on the right track.
Ulric Skakki was sitting next to Audun. When the wizard whispered to him, he provided a translation. He hadn't spoken long before Audun Gilli twitched as violently as Samoth had. "Nothing much!" Audun said in Raumsdalian. "By God, I'll—"
"You'll shut up, is what you'll bloody well do," Ulric said, much more sharply than he was in the habit of speaking. Audun blinked at him, and then did shut up, though his eyes said he didn't understand why Ulric required it of him.
Hamnet Thyssen did. Ulric Skakki's little finger understood more of intrigue than all of Audun Gilli put together. If Audun showed Samoth how good a wizard he could be, that would alert the Rulers to a problem they didn't know they had right now.
And Hamnet Thyssen also saw something he wasn't sure whether either Ulric or Audun did. If Audun tried to impress Samoth and failed again, as he'd failed with the opal . . . That would give the travelers a serious problem.
"So you aim to bring our folk under your rule, do you?" Eyvind Torfinn asked Roypar. Now the Count frowned, wondering if the other Raumsdalian noble wasn't pushing too hard.
"Is right," Roypar said complacently. The Rulers ruled other folk. To him, that was a law of nature.
Voice elaborately casual, Eyvind Torfinn went on, "Perhaps you would do well to let us return to the south, then, so the Bizogot jarls and my Emperor, apprised of your imminent arrival, can prepare for you the most appropriate and honorable reception."