Which sounded easy enough, till you set about doing it.
Dejectedly, Tahpenes turned away from him. “I will go back to the encampment now,” she said.
“I’d better come with you,” Hamnet said. “Just in case you might happen to wander in some other direction instead. By accident, of course.”
“Of course,” she said, as demurely as she could. She recognized a joke, even if a man from the herd made it.
She limped only a little. “Your wounds are healing well,” Hamnet said.
“Well enough,” Tahpenes agreed. “The worst wound now is in my spirit because I am a captive.”
Count Hamnet almost told her about the wounds the Rulers had given the Bizogots and the Empire. Then he decided he might as well save his breath. She wouldn’t understand what he was talking about. As far as she was concerned, the folk on this side of the Glacier deserved what happened to them because they presumed to stand against the Rulers.
Audun Gilli took charge of Tahpenes when she got back to the almost-town the Leaping Lynxes had built. The Raumsdalian wizard spoke much less of the Bizogots’ tongue than he should have; Tahpenes was probably more fluent. But Hamnet didn’t think she could get away from him . . . unless he let her, that is.
“Did you have fun with the little charmer we caught?” Ulric asked.
“She isn’t little, and she isn’t charming. Other than that, well, no.” Hamnet paused, then added, “She has a low opinion of you.”
“Only proves she’s a keen judge of character,” Ulric said blithely, which left Hamnet nowhere to go. Then the adventurer gave him somewhere, because he asked, “And how did she express her distaste?”
Hamnet told him.
Ulric Skakki threw back his head and laughed. “Yes, I’ve heard that from her. She’d be right, too, if my taste in women were bad enough to include her. By God, Thyssen, even your taste in women isn’t that bad.”
“Leave my taste in women out of this,” Hamnet growled.
“Oh, I see.” Ulric favored him with a mocking bow. “You get to insult me however you choose, but I don’t have the right to return the disfavor. Yes, that’s a fair bargain all the way around.”
“You asked me what Tahpenes told me about you,” Hamnet said. “I only repeated it. If I want to know what you think about me, I promise I’ll ask. Till then, I’m not interested.”
“You only repeated it.” Ulric Skakki did some repeating himself. He also did some more laughing. “You didn’t enjoy repeating it or anything? Oh, no. Not you. You’re too good and pure and righ teous for that.”
Count Hamnet’s ears heated. “You make a sport of twisting other people’s words, don’t you?”
“Why not? It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on,” Ulric answered. “But I don’t need to do any twisting here. Don’t worry, though-I love you, too.” He gave Hamnet a noisy, smacking kiss on the cheek.
Hamnet shoved him away. “You’ve done that before. I didn’t like it then, and I cursed well still don’t.”
“I see. And you think I did enjoy it when you twitted me. You have an odd way of looking at the world sometimes, Your Grace.” Ulric Skakki followed up the mocking title with a mocking bow.
“I ought to-” Count Hamnet cocked his fist, but he didn’t swing. Unfortunate, surprising, and painful things happened to people who swung at Ulric. And, still more unfortunately, surprisingly, and painfully, the outlander had a point. The fist opened. “I ought to apologize, I suppose. And so I do: your pardon, I beg.” Hamnet bowed stiffly.
Ulric stared. “Be careful, Your Grace. If you don’t watch yourself, you’ll take all the fun out of life.”
V
Hamnet Thyssen had begun to wonder if he would ever see another Raumsdalian besides Ulric Skakki. The man who rode into the Leaping Lynxes’ village looked hungry and weary and scared almost to death. The Bizogots gave him a roast duck and a skin of smetyn, after which he perked up remarkably.
He nodded to Hamnet. “You’re Thyssen?”
“I am Count Hamnet Thyssen, yes,” Hamnet said. Ulric snickered off to one side. Hamnet didn’t care. In dealing with the Empire, his dignity was about all he had to fall back on.
“Sorry . . . Your Grace,” the Raumsdalian said. “I am Gunnlaug Kvaran, a messenger from His Majesty, Sigvat II. I am the fourth man he sent out. Did any of the others reach you?”
“Not a one,” Count Hamnet replied. Gunnlaug muttered something his beard muffled. Hamnet asked the question he was no doubt intended to: “And how are things in the Empire these days? They must be pretty bad if Sigvat wants to talk to the likes of me.”
Gunnlaug Kvaran nodded grimly. “Things couldn’t be much worse. Those cursed Rulers are demons in human shape. They-” Instead of snickering, Ulric Skakki burst into loud, raucous laughter. Gunnlaug sent him a reproachful look. “You scorn our troubles? You must be Skakki.”
“I not only must be, I am,” Ulric answered. “And I don’t scorn your troubles. I scorn God-cursed Sigvat, and I scorn Count Hamnet and me, too. We tried to tell you what kind of trouble was heading your way, and the thanks he got was . . . an inside view of the dungeons under the imperial palace. Hamnet loves Raumsdalia in spite of everything, but Hamnet owns a castle and he’s a sentimental fool besides. Me, I was just glad to get away.”
A sentimental fool? Hamnet Thyssen had thought of himself as a lot of different things, but that was a new one. Gunnlaug said, “Well, you were right, if it makes you feel any better.”
“Not much,” Ulric said. Hamnet nodded-he felt the same way. Ulric went on, “If Sigvat told us the same thing-”
“It still wouldn’t make much difference, not any more,” Count Hamnet broke in. Ulric looked surprised, but now he nodded.
“Then what are you people doing up here?” Gunnlaug Kvaran asked.
“Fighting the Rulers, by God!” Trasamund boomed. “What else is there that’s even half as much worth doing?”
“I don’t understand,” Gunnlaug said.
“You’re Sigvat’s man, all right,” Ulric said. “He doesn’t understand, either.”
“We’re fighting them because we want to,” Count Hamnet added, “not because the Raumsdalian Emperor wants us to.”
Ulric shook his head. “No. That’s not strong enough. We’re fighting them even though Sigvat wants us to.”
“True,” Hamnet said, which made Gunnlaug Kvaran looked unhappier yet. Count Hamnet hadn’t thought he could.
Trasamund didn’t loathe Sigvat quite so much as Hamnet and Ulric did-but then, the Bizogot jarl hadn’t passed any time in the Emperor’s dungeons. Rough sympathy in his voice, he said, “Well, you managed to get here, Kvaran, where none of the other poor sorry southern bastards did. So tell us what’s going on down there.”
“Nothing good,” Gunnlaug answered. “We still hold Nidaros, or we did when I set out, anyway. But the Rulers are plundering just about everything north of there. Their soldiers fight as if they don’t fear death-”
“They mostly don’t,” Hamnet said. “They fear losing more. Death happens. Losing is a disgrace.”
“If you say so,” Sigvat’s messenger said bleakly. “I wasn’t finished, though. They have wizards the likes of which we’ve never seen the likes of.”
Ulric snickered again. Hamnet Thyssen forgave Gunnlaug his fractured syntax. “We tried to tell you,” he said once more.