Beyong the Gap

know how close his owl-self came to breaking free?' She sighed again, even more deeply than before. 'Nothing is ever simple, however much we wish it would be.'

Count Hamnet nodded; he couldn't argue there, either. But he said, 'You did everything you could. It all worked, every bit of it. Be proud of that.' He put his arm around her.

She leaned against him for a little while, drawing strength or at least consolation from his touch. Then she straightened and took her weight on her own feet again. 'I am,' she said. 'But it should have worked better. It should have worked easier.'

Hamnet Thyssen almost did argue with her then. At the very end, he held his tongue. He recognized that drive to have everything come out perfect, and the gnawing sense of dissatisfaction when any tiny little detail didn't. He had it himself. If anyone had told him not to worry so much, what would he have done? Ignored the advice and probably lost his temper. Why wouldn't Liv do the same? No reason at all, not that he could see. And so he kept quiet.

When the travelers rode south the next morning, Audun Gilli had the oddest expression on his face. He rode up alongside of Count Hamnet and asked, 'Did anything strange happen in the nighttime?'

'Strange? What do you mean?' Hamnet couldn't have sounded more innocent if he'd worked at it for a year.

'I had the oddest dream,' Audun said. 'I was flying. I was a bird of some kind, not a flying man, the way you can be in dreams. I know I was a bird, because I looked down and saw myself. I don't know how I could, though, because it was night in the dream. But I did. And then—then I didn't. Then everything was all confused, as if I couldn't see at all. And I was flying away as fast as I could. But do you know what the oddest thing was?'

'No,' Hamnet Thyssen said gravely. 'You're about to tell me, though, aren't you?'

'The oddest thing was'—Audun Gilli ignored, or more likely didn't notice, his irony—'that in the middle of all this, your Grace, I somehow shook hands with you. Isn't that peculiar?'

'Yes, that is peculiar,' Hamnet said. The wizard's occult senses, whatever they were, must have picked up some of what Liv was doing. But Audun never fully woke, and so had only a dreamer's confused notions of what had happened.

Audun sent him a quizzical look—or maybe a look a little more than quizzical. 'You don't seem surprised by what I tell you.'

'Nothing you tell me ever surprises me,' Count Hamnet said—let Audun make of that what he would.

The wizard scratched his head. 'When we get back to Nidaros, I will buy myself scented soap and a tub of hot water,' he said. 'And then . ..' He didn't go on, not with words, but his smile was blissful.

'Sounds good to me,' Hamnet said, nodding. 'Buy one more thing while you're at it.'

'What's that?' Audun Gilli asked.

'A brush with at least medium-strong bristles,' Hamnet answered. 'We've been up here a long time, and the soap will need some help.'

'You're right.' Now Audun nodded, as if making sure he would remember. 'I'll do that.' Hardly noticing, he went on scratching.

Watching him made Hamnet scratch, too, the way someone else yawning might make him do the same. And once he started scratching, he also went right on. 'You wizards don't have a sorcerous cure for bugs, eh?' he said.

'Not one that does much good,' Audun Gilli said mournfully. 'If we did, we'd be richer than we are, I'll tell you that.'

Hamnet Thyssen scratched some more—thoughtfully at first, and then just because scratching felt good. 'Speaking of rich . . . Meaning no offense, but Ulric Skakki found you in the gutter. How do you aim to buy your soap and your soak and your brush?'

Now Audun Gilli looked appalled. 'Won't the Emperor pay us, reward us, for going beyond the Glacier in his name?'

'Well, I don't know.' Hamnet made his hand stop scratching, lest he rub himself raw. It wasn't easy. He went on, 'He may think we can live on fame.' He could himself. Eyvind Torfinn could, easily. Jesper Fletti and the other guardsmen would go back to the duty they'd had before setting out. Ulric Skakki? Count Hamnet didn't know how much Ulric had stashed away, but Ulric was enough like a cat to be able to land on his feet no matter what happened.

Audun Gilli. . . wasn't. 'I hope you're wrong,' he said in what had to be one of the most desperately tense understatements of all time. 'Times were . . . hard for me before I started this journey.'

'I know,' Hamnet said. 'No matter what, you have a story people will want to hear, likely a story people will pay to hear. That will help you carry on your trade, too. You'll be a known man, even a famous man.'

'Do you think that will stop me from ending up in the gutter again?' Audun asked. It was a serious question; he sounded as if he really wanted to know.

'Well, I can't answer that. Only you can,' Hamnet Thyssen said. 'If you can't keep yourself out of the gutter, who else will?'

'I suppose you're right.' Audun Gilli sighed, almost as wearily as Liv had the night before. 'I don't know whether it's good news or bad, though. Well, I expect I'll find out.' As the Bizogot shaman's had, his breath filled the air with fog.

The travelers hadn't left winter behind. The wind didn't howl so hard on this side of the Glacier, but the cold still reached into Hamnet Thyssen's bones in spite of the furs that muffled him.

'Before long, we should run into bands of my folk and their herds,' Trasamund said. 'It will good to see my clansmen's faces again. It will be good to see the faces of the women, too,' he added in a different tone of voice. Gudrid's back stiffened.

They started to run low on meat. Things might have got serious if they hadn't come upon a herd of musk oxen. Ulric Skakki slew one bull with an arrow through the eye, a perfect shot that dropped the big beast in its tracks.

'You couldn't do that again in a hundred years,' Jesper Fletti said as they started the gory job of butchery.

Ulric studied him with a mild and speculative gaze. 'Would you like me to try?' he asked in a voice so mild that no one could possibly take offense at it. Despite that mildness, Jesper was quick to shake his head. Maybe he didn't think Ulric was talking about shooting musk oxen. Hamnet Thyssen certainly didn't.

They gorged themselves on the meat once they cut it off the bones. People needed much more food in this climate just to fight the cold. Hamnet Thyssen was amazed at how much half-scorched, half-raw flesh he put away. It was as if he were doing hard physical labor even while only riding. When he actually did have to work hard ... he needed even more.

The horses were in worse shape than their riders. They had trouble finding enough fodder under the snow. When one of them went down and would not rise, Trasamund knocked it over the head. The travelers butchered it as they'd butchered the musk ox. Hamnet had eaten horse before after similar misfortunes. It was chewy, almost gluey, but ever so much better than nothing.

Chewing—and chewing, and chewing—Eyvind Torfinn smiled wryly. 'I don't believe my cook down in Nidaros has any recipes for this particular meat.'

'I hope he doesn't,' Gudrid said.

'It may not be wonderful food,' Ulric Skakki said, 'but any food is better than going hungry.'

'All Bizogots know this, for we know how hard life can be when winter clamps down,' Trasamund said. 'I was not sure a man from the south, where you have bread and grain as a cushion against bad times, would understand it.'

'I've been hungry a time or two, your Ferocity,' Ulric answered. 'Believe me, having food is better.'

'To food!' Trasamund said. 'A toast I will make in earnest when I can.'

After they ate, they rode. Hamnet Thyssen had never spent so much time in the saddle before this journey. He wondered if he was growing bowlegged, the better to fit his shape to the horse's. He also wondered how long he would be able to go on riding. If the horses kept getting weaker, he and the other travelers might have to dismount and lead them. They might have to slaughter them one by one. The thought of more meals like the one he'd just eaten did not appeal. He patted the side of his mount's neck.

'Sizing up how tender the beast will be when the time comes to roast it?' Ulric Skakki asked.