"I was thinking the same thing," Ulric said. "Pretty soon, he'll throw us out of the palace—either that or he'll start charging us rent."
Hamnet shrugged. "If he does, I'll go back to my castle, that's all. I can give you a room and a bed, if you like."
Liv set a hand on his arm. "But what about the Rulers? You said it yourself. If they come through the Gap, they aren't just the Bizogots' fight. They're the Empire's fight, too."
"I know," Hamnet said. "But if they turn into the Empires fight, it won't matter if I stay here or go back to the castle. I'll have to fight them either way. We may not be so ready if his Majesty doesn't care to listen to Ulric and Earl Eyvind and Audun and me, but we'll have to meet them ready or not."
"You're more likely to lose," Liv said.
"I can't make the Emperor see that. I can't make the Empire do anything about it, either." Hamnet shrugged again. "What I can do, I've done and I'm doing." Liv bit her lip but nodded; she knew that was true.
Musicians struck up a sprightly air. They distracted the Bizogot shaman. She knew about drums and flutes. She even knew about horns, though the Bizogots made theirs from the natural horns of musk oxen, not out of brass. But she'd never seen viols and basses and lutes before coming down to Nidaros. The look of them and the sounds they made fascinated her.
A courtier in a gaudy satin jacket spoke to the musicians' leader. He in turn gestured to his comrades. The strings suddenly fell silent. Horns and drums blared out a fanfare. "His Majesty, Sigvat II, by God's grace Emperor of Raumsdalia!" the courtier bawled into the silence that followed.
Sigvat wore ermine. Liv and Trasamund seemed much less impressed with his robe than his own subjects were. Up on the frozen plains, weasels wore their white coats far longer than they did inside the empire. Those splendid furs were commonplace to the Bizogots, even if they weren't to Raumsdalians.
Hamnet Thyssen and Ulric Skakki bowed low when Sigvat strode into the reception hall. So did the rest of the men there. The women dropped curtsies. Liv's was smoother than Hamnet expected. "Who taught you?" he whispered as she straightened.
"The maidservants," she answered, also in a whisper. "This is another strange notion you people have, to use people to serve other people. Among my folk, we can all do everything for ourselves." She drew herself up very straight indeed. In her own way, she had as much Bizogot arrogance as Trasamund did.
"As you were, everyone," Sigvat II called with a wave. "For the rest of the evening, let the thought be taken for the deed." He made for the tapman, who handed him a cup of golden wine from the far southwest.
"Shall we beard him?" Ulric Skakki asked.
"Do you think it'll do any good?" Count Hamnet asked in return.
"How can it hurt?" Ulric said.
Since Hamnet couldn't answer that, he approached the Emperor with Ulric. Sigvat was talking and laughing with a tall, black-haired woman whose gown displayed at least as much of her as Gudrid's. He was married, but who was going to tell the Emperor he couldn't amuse himself where and as he pleased? Not the Empress, certainly; she wasn't even at the reception. Sigvat II saw Hamnet and Ulric coming up to them. He seemed more interested in the black-haired woman. In one sense, Hamnet didn't blame him. In another.. .
"Your Majesty?" the nobleman said, politely but firmly. No one who knew him ever thought he wouldn't take the bull by the horns.
Sigvat's mouth tightened. With ill-concealed annoyance, he told the woman, "Please excuse me."
"Of course, your Majesty," she murmured in tones that said she would excuse him anything. Her curtsy almost made her fall out of that gown. Abstractly, Hamnet wondered why she didn't. Some sort of paste holding it to her? He wouldn't have been surprised.
"Thyssen. Skakki." Sigvat acknowledged the two of them with their family names—the least politeness he could give. No, he didn't like being interrupted. He muttered to himself, then went on, "Well, what can I do for you gentlemen?" That was better—a little, anyhow.
"Your Majesty, we wish to thank you for this reception in our honor," Ulric Skakki said. He was smoother than Hamnet, and sly enough to remind the Emperor that the reception was in the travelers' honor.
"My pleasure." Sigvat unbent—again, a little. When he spoke of pleasure, though, his eyes slid back to the woman waiting beside him. He sipped from his winecup, then went on, "You did something marvelous when you went beyond the Glacier."
"Thank you again, your Majesty," Ulric said.
Before he could go on, Hamnet interrupted him, saying, "One of the things we did, your Majesty, was find danger in the far north. The Rulers are not foes to be despised."
By the way Sigvat II said, "Maybe so," he didn't believe it for a minute. He went on, "Whatever else the so-called Rulers are, they're very far away. I don't think we need to worry about them for a long time—if we ever have to."
"With respect, your Majesty, that may be so, but it may not," Count Hamnet said. "Both our Raumsdalian wizard and the Bizogot shaman who went north with us from the Three Tusk clan believe they have new magic, magic the likes of which no one on this side of the Glacier has ever seen, magic we may not be able to match."
The Emperor's eye found Liv. Even in this hall full of lovely women, she stood out. "While I admire the shaman's, uh, opinions," Sigvat said, "she is not necessarily expert on what Raumsdalian sorcerers know. And neither she nor, uh, Audun Gilli is expert on what the barbarians beyond the Glacier can really do."
Don't bother me about this now. That was what he meant, all right. Hamnet Thyssen didn't care. Stubbornly, he plowed ahead. "We would do better, your Majesty, to meet this new threat as far from our own borders as we can."
"I decide what we would do better to, uh, do." Sigvat II made a face. That didn't come out the way he wanted it to. But even if it didn't, what he meant was only too clear. "If you'd found the Golden Shrine, now . . ."
He cared more about what wasn't there, or wasn't found to be there, than about the real danger. "Your Majesty—" Ulric Skakki began.
"I have spoken." Sigvat II sounded most imperial indeed. "If this people—if these Rulers—show themselves or itself or whatever the right word may be, then Raumsdalia will deal with it or them. Till that time, the Empire has enough real troubles without borrowing imaginary ones. Good evening, Skakki."
That was dismissal, harsh as a slap in the face. Expressionless, Ulric Skakki bowed. "Your Majesty," he said, and stepped away.
When Hamnet Thyssen didn't join him in withdrawing, Sigvat raised an eyebrow. "Your Majesty, you are making a mistake," Count Hamnet said. Then he bowed and turned away without giving the Emperor a chance to reply.
If Sigvat were a different kind of ruler, that could easily have cost him his head. He was too angry to care. But Sigvat, if he didn't want to look north, also wasn't vindictive for the sake of being vindictive. He just went back to the statuesque brunette in the revealing gown. "Sorry to keep you waiting there," he said.
"It's all right, your Majesty," she replied, her voice like a crystal bell.
It wasn't all right, or even close to all right, but Hamnet Thyssen couldn't do anything about it. Savagely, he stalked over toward the tapman. Ulric Skakki was right behind him. "I aim to get as drunk as Audun Gilli ever did," Hamnet warned.
"Good," Ulric said. "We can end up in the same gutter, because I aim to get that drunk too. Maybe we'll keep each other warm."
Hamnet Thyssen wasn't usually a man who drank to oblivion. He'd done it a couple of times after Gudrid left him, but he hadn't seen that it helped him much. He was in the same mess when he sobered up, but with a headache and a sour stomach besides. Once in a while, though, the world seemed too idiotic to stand. This was one of those times.