She stretched like a lion after a kill. “What do you think?”
“If it got any better than that, I don’t know if I’d live through it.” Hamnet was stretching things, but not by much. Never a dull moment with Marcovefa.
Her smile said she liked the answer. She drank more smetyn. Then she said, “In a little while, we do it again.”
“I’ll try,” he said. “I may need some magic to hold up my end of the bargain.”
“I can do that,” Marcovefa said, and he’d seen that she could. She went on, “Or we could do other things besides just screwing.”
“Whatever you please,” Hamnet Thyssen said. They weren’t prudes, up there on top of the Glacier. They didn’t have much in the way of entertainment, so they made the most of what they did have-lovemaking included.
And he ended up doing more than he’d thought he could. There were advantages to having a shaman for a lover. There were also disadvantages. Liv had left him, but she hadn’t hated him. He hoped Marcovefa wouldn’t hate him, either, if she ever decided to leave. If she did hate him, he’d need to look for a place to hide-and he’d need to hope he could find a place like that with a shaman after him.
“What do you suppose the Rulers think about us right now?” Ulric Skakki came up with interesting questions to make time go by while riding on patrol.
“Nothing good, I hope,” Count Hamnet said.
Ulric dropped the reins in his lap for a moment so he could sarcastically clap his hands. “Brilliant, Your Grace! Bloody fornicating brilliant! A lesser mind would be incapable of such analysis.”
“Oh, bugger off,” Hamnet said, which made the adventurer laugh out loud.
But Ulric didn’t give up: “If you were the Rulers, how would you try to get rid of us?”
“Annoy us to death?” Hamnet suggested, and Ulric laughed again. But the question got Hamnet thinking. Slowly, he said, “Magic didn’t work-came close, but it didn’t work. Little raids haven’t worked, either. What’s left? Using an anvil to swat a fly-coming down on us with everything they’ve got. Or do you have some different kind of scheme in mind?”
“No, not me.” Ulric shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I hoped you did.”
“Afraid not,” Hamnet Thyssen said.
“Pity.” Ulric didn’t let the chatter stop him from looking around every few heartbeats. “What do we do if they decide to land on us with both feet like that?”
“Probably can’t fight if they come at us with everybody and his favorite mammoth,” Hamnet said. Ulric Skakki nodded, which disappointed him; he’d wanted the adventurer to tell him he was wrong. Sighing, Hamnet went on, “If we can’t hold them off, we’d better run.”
“Seems logical,” Ulric agreed. “Next question is, where? Sort of all over the landscape, or some place in particular?”
Count Hamnet smiled in spite of himself. “Chances are, going somewhere in particular would be smart.”
“Oh, good! I knew you were a clever fellow.” Ulric made as if to clap his hands again. Hamnet made as if to punch him; sarcasm could wear thin. As if ignorant of that, the adventurer went on, “Now let’s see how clever you really are. If you have to run somewhere, where do you want to run?”
That required some thought. Hamnet Thyssen didn’t like the first answer he came up with, so he tried to see if he could find a better one. To his dismay, he couldn’t. Reluctantly, he gave the first one: “The Empire. Better my own people should jail me than the Rulers should kill me . . . I suppose.”
“Yes, I suppose so, too,” Ulric Skakki said. “And no, I don’t like it any better than you do. But what choice have we got? The Bizogots are shattered, all up and down the plain, and as far across it to east and west as we can reach. The Empire isn’t doing all that well, but it isn’t shattered, either.”
“Well, it wasn’t when that last messenger made it up here, anyhow,” Hamnet said.
“You’re right. It wasn’t then.” Ulric nodded. “He said Nidaros hadn’t fallen. If it has by now, Sigvat II’s bound to be dead, and-”
“And that’s bound to help what’s left of Raumsdalia,” Count Hamnet broke in.
Ulric showed his teeth in what looked like a grin but wasn’t. “How right you are! It’s no wonder His Majesty has brown eyes, is it?”
“Eh?” Hamnet was a beat slow getting the joke. Then he did. “Oh. No, no wonder at all, by God. Whatever they find to take his place-even if it’s the old drunk who sweeps out the stables-is bound to be better.”
“You don’t like Sigvat, do you?”
“He stuck his head up his arse when we found the Rulers. He stuck me in a dungeon when I kept reminding him about that. And he stuck us with Gudrid when we went up through the Gap. Why the demon should I like him?”
“Interesting which one you put last,” Ulric murmured.
“Oh, shut up. So I’m not over Gudrid yet. So chances are I never will be. So what are you going to do about it?” Hamnet said.
“Mm, when you put it that way, probably nothing,” the adventurer replied. “All right-back to the Empire . . . if we can get there. Good-sized army of Rulers already down there, remember. If they move up against us-”
“Why would they do that?” Hamnet said. “It’d be like a sabertooth walking away from a buffalo carcass to chaster after a yappy little fox.”
“A sabertooth wouldn’t be that stupid,” Ulric admitted. “I’m not so sure about people. And we haven’t just yapped at the Rulers. We’ve nipped them a few times-and nobody else on this side of Glacier seems able to do even that much. They have their reasons from coming after us. Besides, they’re afraid of you, remember.”
Hamnet Thyssen laughed bitterly. “If they are, they’re every bit as stupid as you make them out to be. Too much to hope for, though, I fear.”
“They’re smarter than you are, because they’ve got some notion of what’s dangerous to them,” Ulric said.
“Oh, I know what’s dangerous to me, all right,” Hamnet said. “I ought to, after all the mistakes I’ve made with them.”
“You may be dangerous to women. That doesn’t mean they’re dangerous to you,” Ulric told him.
“If they’re not, God save me from running into anything that is,” Count Hamnet said.
“You take things too seriously,” the adventurer said.
“I’ve had things happen to me that need to be taken seriously,” Hamnet retorted. “Not everybody slides through life with a greased hide the way you do.”
“Just goes to show you don’t know me as well as you think.” Ulric shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, not really. We decided what we needed to decide. Only thing left now is convincing Trasamund.”
That sent Hamnet laughing again. “You don’t ask for much!”
“Oh, he’ll come around. He’ll yell and fuss and bellow till he works all the indigestion out of his system, and then he’ll be fine. He doesn’t sit around brooding like some people I could name.” Ulric sent Hamnet a pointed glance.
When Hamnet suggested a few things Ulric could do if he didn’t like it, the adventurer only laughed. That made Hamnet offer more suggestions. Ulric laughed harder. Hamnet knew Ulric was trying to get his goat. The adventurer was good at getting what he wanted, too. Instead of swearing any more, Hamnet subsided into quiet fury.
That wasn’t what Ulric Skakki wanted. “Come on, Thyssen-swear some more,” he said. “You need to get it out of your system, too, and I don’t care if you call me names. You wouldn’t be the first one, God knows.”