"Well, then," she said.
Well, then—what? But he needed only a heartbeat to realize he was being thick. He put an arm around Liv. She sighed and pressed herself against him. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"How can anyone ever be sure?" she said. "The chance seems good, though. And if you don't bet, how do you expect to win?"
Hamnet Thyssen didn't look at things that way. To him, not betting meant you couldn't lose. He hadn't even thought of winning. He still didn't, not really. He wondered how badly he would get hurt, some time later on. But later didn't seem to matter, not right this minute. He bent his head to Liv—not very far, because she was a tall woman.
Nothing either one of them did after that was surprising—only the things men and women have done as long as there have been men and women. They surprised each other a few times, because neither of them knew the other that way. Those weren't bad surprises; they were both trying to see what pleased the other.
"Easy, there," Hamnet whispered after Liv dropped to her knees. "Not too much of that, or. . ."
She paused. "I wouldn't mind."
"I would," he said, and laid her down on the clothes they'd shed. She inhaled sharply when he went into her, and wrapped her arms and legs around him. He thought he would spend himself almost at once, especially after what she'd been doing, but instead he went on and on, almost as if he were outside himself. Liv's breath came short; her back arched. He covered her mouth with his when she started to cry out—that might have brought the other travelers on the run. Her joy came, and then, a moment later, his.
She kissed him on the end of the nose. Then she said, "You're squashing me," sounding, well, squashed.
"Sorry." He took his weight on his elbows and then leaned back onto his knees. All at once, he noticed it was chilly. It must have been chilly all along, but he'd had other things on his mind. "We'd better get dressed," he said.
"Yes, I suppose so." Liv seemed sorry, which made him feel about ten feet tall. Then she remarked, "That woman was the fool," which made him wonder why he didn't float off the ground and drift away on the breeze.
He glanced back toward the fire. No one was stirring around it. Either the other travelers hadn't noticed what was going on or they were too polite to let on that they had. Which didn't matter to Hamnet Thyssen. Hardly anything mattered to him right then.
"There. You see?" Liv effortlessly picked up the conversation. "It just. . . makes things better for a while."
"For a while," Hamnet admitted.
Liv laughed. "That's all it does," she said. "I'm not trying to steal your soul or anything like that."
"No, eh?" Hamnet Thyssen wanted to laugh, too, and happily, which didn't happen every day—or every month, either. "You may have anyhow." He meant it for a joke. It didn't come out like one.
She shook her head. "That wouldn't be good. I have enough trouble taking care of myself. I don't want to take care of anyone else."
"You'd better be careful," he said.
"Why?"
"If you aren't, we'll end up getting along. Who knows how much trouble that might cause?"
"Oh." Liv smiled. She squeezed his hand. "I'll take the chance. And now I think I'd better go back by the fire, before anyone else wakes up and notices I'm gone."
"Good idea, but I think people will notice anyway before long," Hamnet said.
"Do you? Why should they?"
"Because I'm going to be wandering around with a foolish grin on my face, and I've never done that before," he answered.
"I don't care who knows," Liv said. "I wouldn't have done it if I did. Do you?"
"When Gudrid finds out, she'll try to find some way to spoil things." For a moment, Count Hamnet sounded as mournful as he usually did.
"What can she do?" Liv sniffed scornfully.
Hamnet Thyssen only shrugged. Liv sniffed again, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and walked back toward the fire. He didn't want to let her go, but the moon and the slow-wheeling stars said he had to stay on watch a while longer.
Before he went back, clouds rolled out of the northwest and hid the moon and stars. After that, he was on his own guessing the hour. The storm he'd seen coming in the halo around the moon was here before he'd expected it.
He went back when he thought it was midnight and cautiously shook Ulric Skakki awake. Being cautious when waking Ulric was a good idea; the adventurer had a habit of rousing in a hurry, and with a weapon in his hand—sometimes with a weapon in each hand.
Here, he just grunted and groaned and yawned, much as Hamnet Thyssen might have. "Is it that time already?" he asked around another yawn.
"Somewhere close, anyhow." Hamnet waved at the cloudy sky. "We're going to get the bad weather sooner than I thought."
"It has that look, doesn't it?" Yawning one more time, Ulric Skakki got to his feet. "Well, if it starts snowing too hard to let me see my way back here, I'll just scream my head off."
"You do that," Count Hamnet said. Ulric clapped him on the back and trudged away from the dimmed remains of the fire. They'd both been joking and not joking at the same time. Snowstorms like that weren't impossible up here, any more than they were in the Bizogot country or in the northern reaches of the Empire. Hamnet didn't think this storm would be one of those—the wind didn't have that sawtoothed edge to it—but you never could tell.
You never can tell, he told himself as he rolled himself in his mammoth-hide blanket. Of all the things he hadn't looked for, finding happiness— even if it proved only a few minutes of happiness—here beyond the Glacier stood high on the list.
Looked for or not, here it was, and he would have to figure out what to do about it. So would Gudrid, no matter what Liv thought. She hadn't left him to make him happy. She'd left for her own sake. "Well, too bad," he mumbled, and fell asleep.
Xlll
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?