“Your precious Emperor must, if he doesn’t believe the things he’s heard about the Rulers,” Marcomer said.
Kormak looked at him – looked through him, really. “You will find it a good policy not to speak ill of His Majesty,” he said, his voice as chilly as if blown on the Breath of God.
“Why? If somebody’s an idiot, how’s he going to find out he’s an idiot unless somebody else tells him so?” Bizogots didn’t waste a lot of respect on their clan chiefs. To Marcomer, Sigvat II was nothing but a jarl writ large.
To Kormak Bersi, the idea that the Emperor might be an idiot wasn’t far from blasphemous. “His Majesty is not an idiot,” he said stiffly. “His Majesty cannot be an idiot.”
“Why not?” Now Marcomer sounded honestly puzzled. “Isn’t that like saying he can’t shit? Everybody’s an idiot now and again, on one thing or another. Over women, usually, or over men if you’re a woman, but other stuff, too.”
“His Majesty is not an idiot,” Kormak repeated in tones more gelid than ever. “Anyone who says otherwise will be very, very sorry.”
By Marcomer’s expression, he thought the threat was idiotic, too. Hamnet Thyssen kicked him under the table to keep him from saying so. Hamnet also thought the threat was idiotic, or at least juvenile, but he knew the agent could enforce it. Marcomer glowered but, for a wonder, took the hint.
Ulric Skakki came down then, looking indecently – and that was probably just the right word – pleased with himself. He stopped and grinned. “Well, well! Kormak Bersi, as I live and breathe!”
“Hullo, Skakki,” Kormak answered. “Have you really been daft enough to hook up with these fools and renegades? I heard it, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“You may as well, because it’s true.” Ulric’s grin got wider and more engaging – and, if you knew him the way Hamnet did, less reliable. “Life would be dull if you did the same old things over and over. Besides, there’s real trouble loose up there, no matter what His Majesty thinks – or even if he thinks.”
“Don’t you start!” Kormak exclaimed.
Ulric looked more innocent than ever. “Who, me? What did I do?”
“You imagined that the Emperor might not be perfect,” Hamnet said. “Now Bersi here has to decide whether to roast you over a slow fire or just cut off your head.”
“Well, if he does cut it off, I can’t very well tell him the Rulers are on the way down to cut off His Majesty’s,” Ulric said. “You’d think that was something people would want to know, but maybe not.” His shrug was a small masterpiece of its kind.
“So you people plan on going to Nidaros and telling the Emperor he’s been wrong all along?” Kormak said.
“You’d think he could see it for himself, but somebody’s got to tell him if he can’t,” Ulric replied. “Since nobody else seems to want to, we’ll do it.”
“I’d better come with you,” the imperial agent said.
“Why not? The more, the merrier.” Ulric nodded to Count Hamnet. “Isn’t that right, Your Grace?”
“How could I be any merrier?” Hamnet replied. “It’s only my face that doesn’t know it.”
Kormak Bersi gave him a tired and dutiful smile. Marcovefa came downstairs just then, and Kormak forgot about everything but her. His focus was so quick and so intent, Hamnet wondered if he was something of a wizard himself – enough to sense that she was one, at any rate. “Where are you from?” he asked her in the Bizogot language.
“On top of the Glacier,” she answered. “What about you?”
“Me? From Nidaros.” Kormak looked surprised that he’d told her. “Are you really from atop the Glacier? Does that mean the stories these rogues were telling are true?”
“I don’t know their stories,” Marcovefa said. “But why would they lie?”
“Plenty of reasons.” Kormak Bersi sounded sure of that. “How did you live, up there on top of everything?”
Marcovefa shrugged. “As best I could. We did not know we had little. No one else up there has more. Only when I come down here do I see there is more to have.”
“What don’t you have?” Kormak asked. “Up there, I mean.”
“Bread. Meat from beast larger than fox. Hide from beast larger than fox.” Marcovefa didn’t mention meat from men, which was bound to be just as well. She went on, “Smetyn. Beer. These are great wonders.”
By the way the agent smiled, he didn’t think so. He took them all for granted, as Hamnet had before he saw how the clans atop the Glacier lived. “What do you think of the sorcery you’ve seen down here?”
Marcovefa snapped her fingers. ‘About that much. You are puny shamans. You have so many things, you do not trouble with wizardry the way you should.”
That rocked Kormak Bersi back on his heels. He must have expected her to praise it to the skies. “What will you do now that you’re down here among civilized people?” he asked.
“Don’t know. Knock some sense into you, maybe,” Marcovefa replied.
Kormak cast about for another question. He seemed to have trouble finding one that wouldn’t land him in trouble. At last, he said, “Would you like to see Nidaros? Would you like to meet the Emperor?”
“Nidaros, yes. Big buildings … We have no big buildings. You must be clever, to make them so they don’t fall down,” Marcovefa said. Then she shrugged. “Your clan chief? Who cares? I have met plenty of clan chiefs. Man like other men, yes?”
“His Majesty Sigvat II, Emperor of Raumsdalia, is no clan chief,” Kormak Bersi said haughtily.
“That’s true. Most clan chiefs have better sense,” Ulric Skakki said.
“Not you, too!” Kormaks scowl said he might have expected such things from Hamnet Thyssen, but not from Ulric.
“Yes, me, too,” Ulric said. “What am I supposed to think when the Emperor’s flat-out wrong and doesn’t want to set things right?”
“Anything you say will be remembered,” Kormak warned.
“That would be nice,” Hamnet said. The agent stared at him. He explained: “Up till now, everyone’s forgotten what we’ve said. Otherwise, somebody would have paid a little attention to it. I can hope so, anyhow.”
“You aren’t helping yourself,” Kormak Bersi said.
“Take us to Nidaros. Tell the Emperor how naughty we’ve been,” Count Hamnet said. “My guess is, he already knows.”
XV
Kormak Bersi rode out of Burtrask with the travelers. “Are you our nursemaid, our shepherd, or our jailer?” Count Hamnet asked him.
“Not your jailer,” the agent answered. “Plenty of others to tend to that. If you’re lucky, I may keep you out of their clutches.”
“And if we aren’t?” Hamnet persisted.
“If you aren’t, I may not.”
There didn’t seem to be much to say to that, so Hamnet Thyssen didn’t try. Short of murder, they weren’t going to shake Kormak. And murder seemed pointless when he went at least halfway towards believing them. Plenty of others in the Empire, from Sigvat II on down, didn’t. Was riding on towards Nidaros pointless, then? Hamnet could only hope it wasn’t, and wouldn’t be.
As if to remind him of why he was taking the chance of returning, Raumsdalia spread itself out to best advantage before him. The weather stayed fine and mild. Fields of barley and rye ripened under that watery but steady sunshine. Horses and cattle and sheep grazed on the meadows. When the Raumsdalians and Bizogots rode through woods, red and gray squirrels frisked through the trees above, chattering and scolding as the horses clopped past.
With their soft fur, large eyes, and clever, handlike paws, squirrels charmed the Bizogots. Ulric Skakki, who knew them better, liked them less. “Nothing but rats with fluffy tails,” he sneered.
“And people are nothing but dire wolves who comb their hair,” Hamnet said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ulric said. “We’d go to war less often if we could lick our own privates.”
They eyed each other. Hamnet wondered which of them was more cynical. By the look on Ulric’s face, the adventurer was wondering the same thing. Better that, better admiring the scenery, than brooding about what would happen when he came to Nidaros. The Emperors displeasure awaited him there. So did Gudrid’s.