“Too right I would,” Hamnet said regretfully.
“There you are, then.” Marcovefa might have been a schoolmistress going through a proof in geometry. Back in his school days, Hamnet had never imagined lying naked on a mammoth hide with a schoolmistress. Most teachers in Raumsdalia were men. Most of the ones who weren’t were neither young nor attractive. He supposed that rule was bound to have exceptions, but he’d never met one.
Again, he hauled his thoughts back to the business at hand: “How can we beat them?” But that wasn’t the question he really needed to ask. He asked the one that was: “Can we beat them?”
“They would not worry so much about us if they did not think we could,” Marcovefa answered.
“How?” Hamnet asked bluntly.
“I don’t know. We will have to find that way.” Marcovefa asked a question of her own: “Do you think you can find the way again?”
Most of the time, Hamnet would have said no—it was too soon, and he not young enough. But he found he could after all, so he did. As he’d seen before, having a shaman for a lover wasn’t the worst thing in the world. No, indeed.
XIX
SUDERTORP LAKE WAS thawing. Spring was in the air. So were countless thousands—millions, more likely—of waterfowl, all bound for the marshes around the lake to breed.
In years gone by, the Leaping Lynxes would have settled in their stone huts to live off the fat of the land as long as it lasted. No more: the Rulers had smashed that Bizogot clan. And Marcovefa didn’t want to go back toward the eastern edge of the lake, where the Leaping Lynxes’ village stood.
“Why not?” Hamnet asked her. So did Trasamund. So did Liv. So did Audun Gilli. So did Ulric Skakki. So did Runolf Skallagrim and everyone else who knew her.
“It is not lucky,” she answered. When people tried to argue with her—and a lot of them did—she added, “Are you the shaman, or am I?”
Liv and Audun had magical talents of their own. Neither claimed talents to match hers, though. Earl Eyvind tried to use logic against her. Logic he had in plenty, though no more sorcerous talents than one of the ducks that dabbled in the chilly lake.
Marcovefa heard him out. She respected logic and knowledge. Having heard him out, she smiled and repeated, “It is not lucky.” After a moment, she continued, “You may go there, if you think you must. If you have no joy of it, do not blame me.”
Eyvind Torfinn spluttered. “That makes no sense!” he complained.
“Then go—you and your wife,” Marcovefa said. “See what happens to you.”
“You sound as if you’d be glad to get rid of us,” Eyvind told her.
“You said it, not me,” Marcovefa replied. Hamnet Thyssen wasn’t sure how much Eyvind knew about Gudrid’s feuds with practically everyone else. More than the scholarly earl let on, odds were. He was sure Eyvind stopped arguing with Marcovefa. He was also sure neither Eyvind nor Gudrid left the band of Bizogots and Raumsdalians still in the field against the Rulers.
And he was sure the Rulers were moving against that band, though cautiously. Scouts reported squadrons of the invaders, along with their riding deer and war mammoths, both to the north and to the south. For the time being, though, the Rulers didn’t try to close with their enemies. They seemed content to gather strength for the fight once it did begin.
“They won’t fool around when they come after us this time, will they?” Trasamund said grimly.
“Think of it as respect from the enemy,” Count Hamnet told him.
“I’ve been thinking of it that way all along,” Ulric Skakki said. “Even so, I could do without the honor. If you can’t . . . well, in that case you’re foolish in ways I never gave you credit for.”
“Which ways did you give him credit for?” Now Trasamund sounded intrigued.
Ulric answered without the least hesitation: “Well, he’s foolish about women, of course. And he trusts people too bloody much. And there’s his confounded stubborn sense of duty.” He watched the jarl nod eagerly, then continued with a certain relish his voice hadn’t held before: “But for sheer blockheaded stupidity, give me a Bizogot every time.”
Trasamund swore at him. Ulric’s grin was raw impudence. Hamnet Thyssen considered the adventurer’s charges. “You son of a whore,” he said. “I can’t even tell you you’re wrong.”
“I am your servant, Your Grace,” Ulric Skakki replied. “Did I mention your deplorable habit of speaking the truth when a lie would serve you better? No, I don’t believe I did. Well, no matter. Emperor Sigvat would have more to say on that score.”
Hamnet expressed a detailed opinion on what His Majesty could do about it. Sigvat II would have had to be improbably limber to accomplish even a quarter of it. Trasamund guffawed. Ulric grinned again. Hearing Hamnet’s suggestions, Runolf Skallagrim asked, “Who’s that you’re telling off?”
“Nobody important,” Hamnet said. “Only the Emperor.”
Runolf looked troubled. “You really shouldn’t joke like that, Thyssen. Haven’t you seen what happens when you do?”
“Too right I have,” Hamnet said. “But who’s joking?”
“He’s right, you know,” Ulric said. By Baron Runolf’s scowl, he knew nothing of the sort. Sighing, Ulric spelled it out for him: “If Sigvat were important, the Rulers would go after him as hard as they could, right? Are they doing that? Are they doing anything close to that? Not likely! What are they doing? They’re pulling their warriors and mammoths out of Raumsdalia so they can come after us. How important does that make Sigvat?”
Runolf Skallagrim grunted. “Well, all right. If you’re going to put it that way . . . But you still shouldn’t say rude things about the Emperor.”
“I’d say them to his face if he were here,” Count Hamnet told him. “He deserves a lot of the blame for what’s gone wrong. If he hadn’t decided the Rulers weren’t dangerous, the Empire would be better off. I don’t know if we could have beaten the Rulers, but we would have given them a better fight. I’d bet on that.”
Since Runolf didn’t answer, Hamnet hoped he’d made his point. Up in the sky, an arrowhead of geese flew toward Sudertorp Lake, and another, and another. There were also ducks and swans and snipes and coots and every other sort of bird that lived on water or by it. They knew what season of the year it was, or would be soon. Hamnet Thyssen didn’t know how they knew, but they did.
Trasamund eyed the waterbirds and shorebirds, too. “Mosquito season any day now,” he said dolefully. The bugs knew when to hatch. Hamnet didn’t know how they knew, either. He only wished they didn’t.
WHEN SPRING CAME to the Bizogot steppe, it came in a rush. One day, the snow lay thick and drifted on the ground. The next, it was gone, and everything was green and growing, with flowers splashing the plains with color. It couldn’t really have happened so fast . . . could it? Looking back, Count Hamnet supposed that was impossible, but it didn’t seem so at the time.
Sudertorp Lake had already thawed. The new year’s growth around the lakeshore sheltered the incoming birds. Ulric Skakki baited a hook with bits of offal and pulled several fat trout out of the lake. Fishing fascinated the Bizogots. Most streams up here held nothing to catch because they froze top to bottom during the winter. As it so often was, Sudertorp Lake was different.
Ulric’s catch fascinated Hamnet for another reason. “How did you happen to have a fish hook?” he asked the adventurer.
“I have all kinds of things,” Ulric replied with dignity. “Never can tell when one of them will come in handy.”
“Where did you get the hook?” Hamnet persisted.
“Down in Raumsdalia.” Ulric could be maddeningly opaque when he told the truth. As if to explain himself further, he went on, “The Bizogots don’t make ’em, you know. Even if they did, they’d carve ’em out of bone. They wouldn’t use bronze.”