Liv stared at him as if she didn't believe her ears. Then she threw herself into his arms. Naked Gudrid might have made a bigger spectacle at the reception, but not by much. Well, Hamnet thought dizzily as the embrace went on and on, at least I know why I'm doing this.
XIX
Hamnet Thyssen did have a hangover from the drinking he'd done at the reception the night before. Maybe his own headache and touchy stomach made him think Ulric Skakki seemed especially jaundiced-looking the morning after. Or maybe Ulric was as astonished and dismayed as he seemed to be.
"You're really going back to the barbarians?" he yelped in what certainly sounded like pained disbelief.
"That's right." Count Hamnet took a cautious sip from a mug of wine. The hair of the dire wolf that bit him might ease his pangs. He sent the adventurer a defiant stare. "What about it?"
"You mean, besides your being out of your bloody mind?" Ulric was also nursing a mug. He was eating a sticky roll with candied fruit, too. Hamnet wasn't ready for food yet. Ulric Skakki went on, "You're the last man on earth I would have looked for to think with his cock."
"By God, I'm not!" Hamnet said, loud enough to make his own head throb. More quietly, he continued, "Sigvat s not going to do anything about the Rulers. You know that as well as I do. He rubbed our noses in it last night. So what does that leave me? Either I go home and wait for the world to go to the demons or I try to do something about it. I thought about sitting on my hands, but I just can't."
"An idealist?" Ulric Skakki asked sardonically. Hamnet Thyssen's nod was as defiant as his stare. Ulric laughed in his face and said, "Sitting on your hands, eh? How idealistic would you be if the Bizogot girl weren't sitting on your—"
"Watch your mouth, Skakki." Hamnet Thyssen folded his right hand into a fist. "It's early for a brawl, but you can have one if you want." He wondered if he was bad-tempered because of his headache or because Ulric's gibe held more truth than he wanted to admit, even to himself.
The adventurer shook his head. "No, not me. I'm a peaceable chap," he said. Count Hamnet snorted. Ulric Skakki went on, "Seriously, though, would you think of doing something like this if you weren't in love with Liv?"
"I hope so," Hamnet answered. "It's the right thing to do—or will you tell me that's not so?" If Ulric tried, Hamnet intended to walk away.
But Ulric didn't, not straight out. He was practical instead, practical and devious. "It's only the right thing to do if you think the Bizogots can beat the Rulers. Otherwise, seems to me you'd do better waiting for trouble here. Besides, do you want Trasamund for your overlord? I mean . . ." He rolled his eyes.
But Count Hamnet refused to back down. "Better Trasamund than Sigvat," he said. "Trasamund doesn't pull his head into his shell and sleep through the winter at the bottom of a pond the way the Emperor does."
Ulric Skakki looked alarmed, not because he hadn't told the truth but because he'd told it too loud. "Keep your voice down, or you won't have the chance to go north!"
"Why not?" Count Hamnet said. "His Majesty should be as glad to get rid of me as I am to go, and that's saying a lot."
He got only a shrug from Ulric, as if to say, On your head be it. The foxy-faced man asked, "And how do you think Trasamund will like having you for a subject?"
"I haven't talked with him yet," Hamnet answered with a shrug. "He put up with me all the way through the Gap and past it. He ought to be able to stand me from here on out. It's not as if I'm likely to try to take the jarl's job away from him."
"If you could get the Bizogots to listen to you, you'd do it better." Ulric Skakki held up a hand. "I know. I know. Nobody can get the Bizogots to listen to him. That's one more reason what you're doing is madness."
Count Hamnet looked at him—looked through him, really. "I have two questions for you. Are the Rulers the biggest trouble we have, or is something else?" He folded his arms across his chest and waited.
Ulric let out a snort of his own, but he answered, "Well, the Rulers are. I don't think there's any way around that."
"All right. Very good, in fact." Hamnet Thyssen clapped his hands in mocking applause. Ulric looked more exasperated than ever. Ignoring his sour expression, Hamnet went on, "If the Rulers are the worst trouble we have, would you rather do something about them or do nothing about them?"
Ulric Skakki opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, but still didn't speak for some little while. At last, he managed, "That's not fair."
"Fine. Have it your way. But why shouldn't I have it my way, too?" Hamnet said.
"Because you won't do what you think you will?" Ulric suggested.
"Fine," Count Hamnet repeated. "But I'll do something. I want to do something. I need to do something. If you want to do nothing, that's your business."
"And you'll be laying your pretty little Bizogot—except she's not so little, is she?—in the meantime," Ulric jeered. Hamnet Thyssen swung on him. The next thing Hamnet knew, he was flying through the air upside down. He hit the stone floor on his back, hard. Ulric Skakki wasn't even breathing hard. "You all right?" he asked. "You rushed me a little there."
Count Hamnet needed several heartbeats to take stock of himself. His right wrist was sore. So was the back of his head, which had also thumped the floor. "I... think so," he said slowly as he climbed to his feet. "What did you do there? Can you teach it to me?"
"And spoil my air of mystery?" Ulric said archly.
Before either of them could say anything more, a servant stuck his head into the room. "What happened?" the man asked. "It sounded like the castle was falling down."
"Oh, I dropped my winecup." Ulric's voice was bland as butter without salt. "It was empty, so I didn't even make a mess."
"Your winecup?" The servant thought he was lying or crazy or both. The man was right, too, but Ulric wouldn't let him prove it. The adventurer just nodded and smiled. The servant looked at Hamnet Thyssen, then quickly looked away. Hamnet's expression was probably terrifying. Thwarted, the man withdrew. Ulric Skakki winked. "Where were we, O winecup of mine?"
"Oh, shut up," Hamnet muttered. He gathered himself. Standing on his dignity wasn't easy, not when he'd just been flipped and thrown. "Will you teach me that trick?"
"Come at me again and you'll learn more about it than you ever wanted to know," Ulric Skakki answered.
"Keep my woman out of your mouth, then." Hamnet set a hand on his swordhilt. "And don't even start to make the joke that's in your filthy mind."
"You can't prove it," Ulric said. He didn't make the joke, so Hamnet didn't have to try.
Eyvind Torfinn was even more surprised and even more dismayed to learn Count Hamnet intended to go north with Trasamund and Liv than Ulric Skakki had been. What Gudrid thought, Hamnet didn't inquire.
No matter what she thought, Eyvind Torfinn arranged a gathering of his own to see Hamnet and Liv and Trasamund off to the Bizogot country. That he was able to arrange it left Hamnet impressed. Earl Eyvind was more his own man than Gudrid's former husband had imagined before setting off for the north with him.
"Are you sure we should come here?" Liv asked as she and Count Hamnet rode up to Eyvind's large, rambling home. "Will that woman poison the food? Or will hired murderers greet us when we go in?"
"I doubt it," Hamnet answered. "She hasn't tried to murder me—that I know of—since she left me. And I expect she'll put up with you. She knows you're dangerous, and she knows me well enough to fear my revenge."