Another guard gave him some nasty-smelling lotion and said, “Rub this into your hair – all your hair.” Maybe the stuff was intended to deal with his lice. Standing up, he smeared it over his scalp and in his crotch and under his arms. In the other tub, Kormak was doing the same thing.
When Hamnet rinsed the lotion out of his hair, he got a little in his eyes. Then he quickly splashed more water into them. “Be careful,” he warned Kormak Bersi, spluttering. “Burns like fire.”
“Now you tell me,” Kormak said, which doubtless meant he’d found out the same thing for himself.
Hamnet’s old clothes had disappeared while he was bathing. So had the imperial agent’s. The tunic and trousers Hamnet put on when he got out of the tub fit him tolerably well, but no better than that. The boots they gave him were loose, but that was all right. He asked for a second pair of thick wool socks, and the guards brought them to him. If the season really had turned, as seemed likely, the extra layer would help keep his feet warm when he had to go outside.
Kormak Bersi put on a similarly bland outfit. As soon as they were both dressed, the guards hustled them out of the bathroom. “Will you tell me where you’re taking me?” Count Hamnet asked.
“Shut up,” one of the guards explained.
“You’ll find out,” another one added. Hamnet Thyssen asked no more questions. The men seemed jumpy – and they were armed, while he and Kormak weren’t. If they wanted to dispose of a couple of prisoners, they could. Hamnet consoled himself by thinking they wouldn’t have bothered cleaning him and Kormak off if they were just going to take their heads. He hoped not, anyhow.
“In here,” growled the guard who’d told him to shut up. Hamnet got shoved through a door into what looked like a small meeting room. So did Kormak Bersi. Hamnet wasn’t astonished to discover Sigvat II sitting behind a small table there. Nor was he particularly surprised that the Emperor looked as if he hated him. Sigvat had looked at him that way often enough to get him used to it.
No matter how sour Sigvat looked, he remained lord of the Raumsdalian Empire. The forms had to be observed. Dropping to one knee, Count Hamnet murmured, “Your Majesty.” Beside him, Kormak went to both knees.
“Get up, you two,” Sigvat snapped. As Hamnet and the imperial agent rose, the Emperor went on, “I hope you’re happy, now that you’ve gone and shown how smart you are.”
“Your Majesty?” This time, Hamnet Thyssen used the phrase as a question. He couldn’t very well know what had happened while he was in the dungeon. The Emperor couldn’t expect him to. . could he? Sigvat couldn’t reasonably expect him to, no, but how reasonable was His Majesty? One more question Hamnet wished he hadn’t thought of.
Sigvat didn’t look reasonable now – he looked angry enough to bite horseshoe nails in half. “You’ve gone and shown how cursed smart you are,” he repeated, vitriol in his voice. “These – these Rulers, that’s what.” He spat out the name of the tribe from beyond the Glacier.
“What have they done, Your Majesty?” Kormak Bersi asked. . reasonably.
“They wrecked an army of ours near Vesteralen,” the Emperor answered. “Wrecked it, I tell you. We had wizards attached to the army – whether you people think so or not, I did listen to you, by God. I don’t think any of the wizards got out. For all I know, the Rulers ate them.”
He wasn’t joking, or not very much. Hamnet Thyssen tried to remember just where Vesteralen lay. Somewhere up in the northern woods – he knew that much. He couldn’t come closer than that; as far as he knew, he’d never gone through the town.
“What do you want us to do about the Rulers, Your Majesty?” he asked.
Sigvat looked at him as at any idiot. “Stop them!” he exclaimed.
“How?” Hamnet asked. “What do you think a couple of men fresh from the dungeons can do that an army and a squad of wizards can’t?”
“You have friends. I have trouble imagining how or why, but you do.” The Emperor might have been accusing him of some nasty vice, like accosting little girls. Scowling and spiteful, Sigvat continued, “Some of those friends have been whining that I should have let you out a long time ago, or even that I never should have jugged you in the first place.”
I really do have friends, Count Hamnet thought with some surprise. Maybe Eyvind Torfinn had done what he’d said he would do. Maybe Ulric Skakki had greased a few palms. Maybe – no, almost certainly – Trasamund had made a nuisance of himself. For me. Hamnet had trouble believing it.
But, as if to confirm it, Sigvat said, “Your friends, taken all in all, are a sneaky slither of snakes. Put all of you together and you should be able to give the Rulers trouble if anyone can.”
“Yes. If,” Kormak Bersi said, which perfectly echoed what was going through Hamnet’s mind.
“I will do what I can, Your Majesty, on one condition,” Hamnet said.
“You dare bargain with me?” Thumbscrews and racks and endless gallons of water roughened Sigvats voice.
Hamnet Thyssen nodded anyway. “I do, sir. Whatever you do to me here, it won’t be worse than letting Gudrid come north with me. She is no friend of mine. If you send me against the Rulers, don’t send her. If you send her. . well, I’d rather go back to the dungeon.”
“If I take you up on that, you won’t come out again,” Sigvat warned. Count Hamnet only shrugged. The Emperor filled his lungs to call for guards to take Hamnet away.
“Wait, Your Majesty. Think,” Kormak Bersi urged. “You need Thyssen more than you need me. He knows more about this business than I do, and he’s a better man of his hands than I am, too.”
Sigvat looked as astonished as if one of his chairs had spoken to him. He rounded on Count Hamnet. “Gudrid is no fonder of you than you are of her.”
“Then why would she want to come north again?” the Raumsdalian noble asked.
But that question almost answered itself. Hamnet wanted nothing more than to stay away from his former wife. She, on the other hand, wanted to keep sticking pins in him to make him writhe. He’d done all the writhing he intended to do, though, at least on her hook. What Liv could do to him . . . He hadn’t said anything to Sigvat about Liv. Was that because she’d wounded him less or because he had the feeling the fight would need her? He wasn’t sure himself.
“If I didn’t think you were important -” the Emperor ground out. Hamnet said nothing. He just waited for whatever happened next. If it was the dungeon, then it was, that was all. But if it wasn’t. . “Stop the Rulers, and there aren’t many rewards big enough.”
“By God, Your Majesty, I don’t care about most of that nonsense. You know I don’t,” Count Hamnet said. “I just want people to leave me the demon alone. You, Gudrid, everybody. Is that too much to ask?”
“Frequently,” Kormak said before Sigvat could answer.
The Emperor said, “You’d have all the privacy you want in a cell.”
“True.” Again, Hamnet left it there – but not for long. He couldn’t help adding, “Till the Rulers get here, anyway.”
Sigvat II made a horrible face. That worry had to be in his mind, too. “Give me what I want, Your Grace, and I’ll do the same for you,” he said. “I will keep Gudrid away from you while you fight the foe – you have a bargain there.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Hamnet said. “And the rest of it?”
“If you beat the Rulers, I’ll leave you alone,” the Emperor said. “Before God, I will, and I’ll see that Gudrid does, too. But if you don’t -”
“Don’t worry about it, Your Majesty,” Hamnet said. Sigvat stared at him. He explained: “If I lose, chances are you won’t get the chance to punish me. I’ll be too dead for you to worry about it. Losing to the Rulers is its own punishment.”
“Mm, yes, I can see how that might be.” Sigvat smiled a thin smile. Hamnet Thyssen had a pretty good idea of what he was thinking. Whether Hamnet won or the Rulers did, the Emperor didn’t lose everything.