“Were is right,” Hamnet told her. “I don’t think any of them got away.”
“Sure hope not, anyhow,” Ulric Skakki put in.
Tahpenes turned around to stare at him. She looked away in a hurry when he blew her a kiss from close range. “This is not possible. You are not of the Rulers. You are of the herd, to be ruled as we think best. How could you beat our wizards?”
“Wasn’t too hard,” Count Hamnet answered. “And here’s a lesson for you: if something happens, it isn’t impossible. You should remember that.”
“How dare you mock me?” Tahpenes demanded.
“We enjoy mocking silly ideas. It makes us laugh,” Ulric answered.
“You are not afraid.” By the way Tahpenes said it, she might have accused them of cheating at dice. She was at least as arrogant as the men of her people. Why am I not surprised? Hamnet thought wryly. Tahpenes went on, “Folk of the herd should be afraid. Something is wrong, something is perverse, if you are not.”
“Get used to it, sweetheart,” Ulric Skakki said cheerfully. “You’ve beaten us more than we’ve beaten you, sure, but we’ve won often enough so we know we can. Ask your wizards if you don’t believe me-if you can find any of them alive to ask, I mean.”
“But you cannot beat our wizards.” Tahpenes might have been stating a law of nature. She doubtless thought she was. Well, too bad for her.
She suddenly let out an indignant squeak. Hamnet Thyssen didn’t see exactly what Ulric had done to her, but it was something that damaged her dignity. The adventurer said, “That’s to remind you not to talk nonsense. You see we did, so why do you say we can’t?”
Tahpenes didn’t answer. She was one sadly confused Ruler. Count Hamnet almost didn’t blame her. If not for Marcovefa, the wizardry from her folk would have dominated anything the shamans and sorcerers from south of the Gap could do against it.
A Bizogot spotted the two horses coming back to the stone huts. He rode toward them. “Who’ve you got there?” he called.
“A captive.” Hamnet stated the obvious.
“It’s a woman!” The Bizogot was full of clever observations. “Did you bring her in for the sport of it?”
“No, for questioning,” Ulric answered. “If she lies to us, then we can have fun with her. But if she tells the truth, she’s worth more for that.”
“Says you,” the mammoth-herder exclaimed. “I sure don’t think so.”
“Well, if you want to fight me, we can do that,” Ulric said easily. “Just let me know what you want me to do with your body once you’re dead.”
That took longer to sink in than Hamnet thought it should have. This Bizogot plainly wasn’t overburdened with brains. And if he had as much pride as a lot of his comrades, he would fight Ulric on general principles. For a moment, Count Hamnet thought he would do just that-in which case, he would have died, and in short order, too.
Instead of charging, though, he jerked his horse’s head around and rode away. Hamnet didn’t reckon him a coward; few Bizogots were. But he must have heard the anticipation in Ulric Skakki’s voice. Ulric didn’t just know he could kill; he looked forward to it. And that was plenty to put the Bizogot’s wind up.
It made Tahpenes thoughtful, too. “You act more like a man of the Rulers than one from the herd,” she remarked.
A moment later, she let out another shrill, irate squeal. “Tell you what-you don’t insult me, and I won’t feel you up,” Ulric said. “Deal?”
Tahpenes was silent for some little while. At last, she said, “I did not think I was insulting you. I meant it for praise.”
“I know,” the adventurer said. “That’s part of what’s wrong with you. You need to understand that your new neighbors don’t love you. We don’t admire you. We don’t want to be like you. And we’re strong enough to make what we want matter. If we weren’t, would we have caught you?”
She looked unhappy-no, unhappier. “I thought I could spy on you without drawing notice. It seems I was wrong.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Ulric Skakki’s tone of voice suggested she was an idiot for thinking any such thing.
“It’s all of a piece,” Hamnet said, more to Ulric than to their captive. “The Rulers think they can do whatever they want, get away with whatever they want. Sooner or later, they’ll find out they’re wrong.”They’d better, or they’ll end up winning this fight after all.
“They all think like that, don’t they?” Ulric had a knack for embellishing other people’s thoughts. “Maybe they should have called themselves the Herd, not the Rulers. They all act the same, like so many, uh, riding deer.”
“How dare you speak of us like that? How dare you?” Tahpenes snarled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Doesn’t stop you from talking about us,” Hamnet said. “Why should it stop us from talking about you?”
The answer blazed in her black eyes. Hamnet Thyssen read it there. The Rulers had the right to do as they pleased, because they were the Rulers. Lesser folk existed only on sufferance. When those “lesser” folk had captured you, though, bragging about how wonderful and mighty you were could prove inexpedient. For a medium-sized wonder, Tahpenes was smart enough to see that.
Hamnet pointed ahead. “There are the houses the Leaping Lynx Bizogots built. Yes, those are the houses where your precious wizards met. They died right in front of them.”
Were he speaking Raumsdalian, he would have called the stone structures huts. He always thought of them that way when he used his own language. Here, though, he wanted to make them seem impressive to Tahpenes. She was a nomad herself; any permanent buildings were bound to be large and imposing in her eyes.
“Here comes Trasamund.” Ulric pointed to the burly jarl.
Tahpenes knew the name. “We beat his clan when we first came here,” she said.
“So you did,” Count Hamnet agreed. “Why don’t you tell him all about it? Don’t you think he’d want to know just how you embarrassed the Bizogots he led?”
Tahpenes didn’t answer. She didn’t boast to Trasamund, either. Pretty plainly, she was clever enough to see the obvious. Just as plainly, that put her several lengths ahead of most of the Rulers.
Marcovefa had trouble with the idea of prisoners. “This woman doesn’t know very much,” she complained to Hamnet Thyssen. “We’ve got most of what she does know. Keeping her alive is nothing but a waste of food.”
“We can spare it,” Hamnet said. “Are you hungry?”
“Hungry? No, by God!” Marcovefa laughed. “So much food right now-all these waterfowl-I’m getting fat. No one up on top of the Glacier gets fat. No one, not unless you have something wrong with you and you die soon.”
Only the rich got fat down in the Empire. That was one way you could tell they were rich: they always had plenty to eat. Hardly any Bizogots grew fat. In the springtime, the Leaping Lynxes had been the exception. So many ducks and geese and swans and other birds bred at Sudertorp Lake, what the Bizogots took barely dented the abundance.
Now Trasamund’s band was reaping the same benefits. Hamnet could smell duck grease on his own mustache. He said, “You aren’t fat. You’re just right.” He hoped Marcovefa believed him, because he meant it.
“How do I know that?” she asked.
“Well, if I haven’t shown you, I must be older and feebler than I thought I was,” he said. He knew exactly what he could do. For a man his age, it wasn’t bad at all. Of course, he did get magical help every now and then, too.