“And the Empire is?” Count Hamnet suspected there would be endless uprisings and revolts and attempted breakaways. All he wanted to do was stay clear of them. Whether he’d get what he wanted . . . he would just have to see.
A few of the Bizogots who’d stuck with the band rode off across the steppe on their own. With the Rulers crushed, they’d try to find a clan to which they could adhere. Or they might try to live on their own. Hamnet wouldn’t have wanted to try that, but the Bizogots knew this country more intimately than he ever could.
Off in the distance, a man on a riding deer saw strangers on horse back approaching and rode away from them as fast as his mount would take him. Not all the Rulers were dead, then. Well, that would have been too much to hope for. Most if not all of their wizards were. That mattered more than anything. The surviving warriors might make brigands, but brigands were a nuisance. They wouldn’t overrun the Bizogot steppe or overthrow Raumsdalia.
“I do wonder what those words mean,” Marcovefa said.
Hamnet wasn’t sorry to think about something besides the fall of empires. “So do I,” he answered.
Had Hamnet been coming north, the scraggly fields of oats and rye ahead wouldn’t have been worth noticing, much less talking about. Since he was riding south, out of the great dark forests that marked the Raumsdalian Empire’s northern border, those sad little fields took on more meaning.
“We’re back in the country where crops can grow,” he said, pointing toward the weedy green.
Ulric Skakki nodded. So did Runolf Skallagrim and Eyvind Torfinn and Audun Gilli. Raumsdalians themselves, they understood what that meant. North of these fields, people either brought grain up from where it would grow or did without, living by hunting and gathering like Bizogots.
“Back in civilization,” Earl Eyvind said, perhaps incautiously.
“Huh!” Trasamund said: a scornful sniff. “I didn’t see the Golden Shrine showing up in Raumsdalia.” Eyvind Torfinn opened his mouth, then closed it again. That might have been the wisest thing he could have done.
If it was civilization, it was no more than the ragged edge. The local farmers didn’t want to hang around and talk things over with men on horse back who carried weapons. They ran their livestock off into the woods. Pines and firs and spruces didn’t stop growing south of the forest line. It was only that other plants could claw out a foothold there along with them.
“They ought to know we aren’t Rulers. We don’t ride deer-or war mammoths, either,” Runolf said.
“Even if they know, it’s not obvious they’d care,” Ulric pointed out.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Baron Runolf had served the Empire his whole life, and took its inherent goodness for granted.
Ulric Skakki had also served it for many years. As far as Hamnet could see, Ulric took nothing for granted. “I’ll tell you what,” he said now. “It means they think Raumsdalians would be just as happy to plunder them as the Rulers would. And you know what else, Your Excellency? I’d bet they’re right.”
Runolf Skallagrim spluttered. “We are His Majesty’s soldiers, by God!”
“All the more reason to run, wouldn’t you say?” Ulric replied. Runolf spluttered some more. He looked to Hamnet for support. Hamnet had none to give him: he sided with Ulric here. Seeing as much, Baron Runolf eyed him as if he were in the habit of accosting young girls.
Hamnet sighed. Runolf was a decent sort. Men like him had been Raumsdalia’s backbone for generations. They had their limits, but within them were solid as iron. He’d been a man like that himself, till too much to do with Sigvat turned him into another kind of man altogether. Well, that was nobody’s fault but the Emperor’s. If Sigvat didn’t care for the kind of man Hamnet was now, he had only himself to blame.
Riding up alongside him, Ulric spoke in a low voice: “What do you suppose dear Sigvat will do after you give him the message from the Golden Shrine?”
“Depends on what it means,” Hamnet answered. “I feel like a seed that hasn’t sprouted, but I don’t know if I’m a lily or a stinkweed.”
“Well, Your Grace, I’ve got news for you,” Ulric said. “If those folks in the fancy gold robes have anything good to say about Sigvat-or to him-they’re dumber than I think they are.”
“Or maybe we’re dumber than they think we are, because we can’t see how wonderful Sigvat really is.” Hamnet Thyssen considered that. Then he shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, but no. I’ve been stupid all kinds of ways, but if I were that stupid I would’ve died a long time ago.”
“I feel the same way,” Ulric said. “Of course, we could be wrong.”
“Yes. We could. I used to think the Glacier stretched north forever, so the Gap couldn’t melt all the way through.” Count Hamnet sighed. “Shows what I knew, didn’t it? But if Sigvat’s a good Emperor, if he’s done even a lead slug’s worth of good against the Rulers, I think I’ll go ride off and find a land somewhere that isn’t so wonderfully ruled.”
“Come up to the plains,” Trasamund boomed. “Even if you’re dark, you’d make a pretty fair Bizogot. I’m not trying to butter you up, either-I’ve said the same thing before.”
“So you have,” Hamnet agreed. “And maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll go way down into the south so I don’t have to think about the Glacier at all any more. Ulric here has seen more of that part of the world than I have.”
“Too hot’s as bad as too cold,” Ulric said. “Worse, maybe. When it’s too cold, you can put on more clothes or make a fire. When it’s too hot, what can you do? Sweat-that’s about it. And too hot will kill you just as easy as the Breath of God will.”
“Not too hot right now. Not too cold, either,” Hamnet said. “Let’s ride down toward Nidaros while the weather stays good.”
On their way to the capital, they skirted the badlands Hevring Lake had gouged out after its earthen dam broke. They rode across the rich cropland that had been lakebottom when the edge of the Glacier lay not far north.
“One of these days,” Eyvind Torfinn said, “wheat and barley may grow on the bed of Sudertorp Lake, around the Golden Temple.”
“That’s Bizogot country, by God,” Trasamund declared.
“It is now, yes,” Earl Eyvind said. “When the weather was colder, nomads roamed near Nidaros, too. Two thousand years ago, Nidaros was a hunting camp beside a meltwater lake. No one can say what the weather will be like two thousand years from now.”
Trasamund muttered discontentedly. Ulric Skakki said, “No one, eh? What about the folk in the Golden Temple?”
Eyvind inclined his head. “You have something there-they may be able to do that. But even if they can, I don’t believe they will. Do you?”
After brief consideration, Ulric answered, “Well, Your Splendor, when you’re right, you’re right.”
Gudrid looked from one of them to the other as they talked about the Golden Shrine. Hamnet watched her. She heard them. She understood them. She knew there was such a thing as the Golden Shrine. She seemed to have some idea that they’d gone there. But she hadn’t the faintest notion that she’d been inside the Shrine herself. Hamnet didn’t think she ever would. The priestess there knew what she was doing, all right.