Beyong the Gap

accompany us on the journey north. I think you are the man we need.'

'I?' Eyvind Torfinn said in mild astonishment.

'Certainly. You know so much about the Golden Shrine. Wouldn't you like to put what you know to use? Wouldn't you like to see the Temple with your own eyes?' If it's there to see, Hamnet Thyssen added, but only to himself.

Eyvind stared at him. 'I would like that very much,' he said. 'Whether I can make such a journey may be another question. Beyond the Glacier! I was not sure there was such a thing as beyond the Glacier. For all I knew, for all anyone knew, it went on forever.'

'I had the same thought when I learned the Gap has melted through,' Count Hamnet said. 'But Trasamund speaks of white bears and strange buffalo and other marvels he's seen with his own eyes.'

'Does he?' Eyvind Torfinn looked toward the tall Bizogot. By then Gudrid, with a sure instinct for self- preservation, no longer clung to him, even if she did hover close by. Seeing her set her present husband down a different thought-road. He swung back toward Hamnet. 'Can you stand to make a journey with me, your Grace? I would not be grateful—I fear I would not even be long ungrateful—if you set on me the moment we passed the Empire's borders, or perhaps even before we passed them.'

'By God, your Splendor, by God and by my honor, I will do nothing of the sort,' Hamnet Thyssen said. 'You have my oath, the strongest oath I can give. If it is not enough to satisfy you ... If it is not enough to satisfy you, sir, then be damned to you. I don't know what else to say.'

'If we meet danger, I am more likely to prove a liability than an asset,' Earl Eyvind said. 'I am not young. I am not strong. I am not swift or graceful. I have not even practiced with a sword for many years, let alone unsheathed one in anger.'

'You know things,' Hamnet said. 'You know things I did not think anyone could know. Speak to Trasamund.' Though not of your wife—she's not mine now. 'Speak to the Emperor. Knowledge is always an asset.'

'Is it?' Eyvind Torfinn raised a bushy gray eyebrow. 'Are you glad knowing . . . what you know about the lady who was once your wife?'

'Am I glad? No,' Count Hamnet answered steadily. 'Would I rather know the truth than live in a fool's paradise? Yes, and she played me for a fool.' And she'll play you the same way, if she hasn't done it already, and you may prove yourself a fool if you don't know that.

'The Golden Shrine,' Eyvind murmured. 'Well, maybe, if you don't think I would slow you up too much.'

'Persuade Trasamund. I have no trouble with riding a little slower than I might have ridden otherwise, but I'm no hot-blooded, impatient Bizogot.' And you have put horns on me, and Trasamund— I doubt not—will put horns on you, and if I should meet Trasamund's wife, if he has a wife... What a jolly gathering we would be then.

'Well! The Golden Shrine!' Eyvind Torfinn said, and he waddled off toward the Bizogot jarl.

Sigvat II was delighted that Earl Eyvind wanted to fare north, and delighted and amazed to discover him a scholar of the Golden Shrine. Trasamund was willing to bring him along, although amazed and less than delighted to discover him the husband of Gudrid. Hamnet Thyssen was . . . resigned. He would have had some strong opinions if he thought Gudrid was coming along, but she seemed furious that Eyvind Torfinn could find the Golden Shrine more interesting, more attractive, than she.

'She will spend my money while I am gone,' Eyvind said to Count Ham-net when they met two days after the reception to plan what they could. On a journey into the unknown, they couldn't plan nearly as much as Hamnet would have liked.

'No doubt you are right, your Splendor,' Hamnet replied. She will spend your reputation while you're gone, too, he thought with mournful certainty.

'I hope I have some left by the time I get home,' Eyvind Torfinn said.

'Maybe your chief of affairs should oversee your funds,' Hamnet said. And who would oversee Gudrid's affairs? Hamnet Thyssen almost laughed at himself. No doubt Gudrid would take care of those on her own.

Hamnet glanced over toward Trasamund. Did the Bizogot jarl speak fluent enough Raumsdalian to make that joke, or one like it, for himself? By the smirk on his ruddy, weathered face, he did.

Earl Eyvind was either blind to what Gudrid was or resigned to it. Hamnet hadn't made up his mind which. He wouldn't have wanted to be either one, though he'd stayed blind for too long when she was his wife. Maybe he hadn't wanted to see. Considering all the strife that sprang up when he finally couldn't help it... He shook his head. He didn't want to consider that.

'We still need a sorcerer,' Eyvind Torfinn said. He was looking ahead again to the lands beyond the ice, not to what Gudrid would do while he wasn't here to watch her. 'His Majesty was wise to suggest one.'

'I suggested one,' Trasamund said in a voice like distant thunder.

'Did you indeed, your Ferocity?' For the first time, Earl Eyvind eyed the Bizogot as something more than a dangerous and dubiously tame animal. Eyvind didn't seem to have imagined a brain might lurk under that handsome, well-muscled exterior. He blinked once or twice, revising his opinion.

'I did.' Trasamund proudly drew himself up straight. All Bizogots were full of ungodly gobs of pride—so it seemed to Raumsdalians, anyhow. A Bizogot jarl was apt to be proud even by the standards of his people. Having known quite a few clan chiefs among the mammoth-herders, Hamnet Thyssen had seen that for himself. And Trasamund was proud even for a Bizogot jarl.

'Well, good for you, then.' Eyvind Torfinn kept his voice mild. Even if Trasamund wanted to act irascible, that mildness left him not the smallest excuse. Eyvind's gaze swung back to Count Hamnet. 'And where will we come by the wizard?'

'Ulric Skakki is searching Nidaros for the best man,' Hamnet answered.

'You know this Skakki, don't you?' Eyvind Torfinn said. 'I confess I had not met him before. He seems . . . versatile.'

'A sneak, a thief, a cutpurse, a knife in the dark, a pretty song to woo the ladies.' Trasamund delivered his judgment before Hamnet Thyssen could. 'A good man at your side, maybe not so good at your back.' He mimed taking a knife in the kidney.

'And what do you think, your Grace?' Eyvind Torfinn asked Count Hamnet—he valued a Raumsdalian's opinion more than the jarl's.

But Hamnet said, 'I think his Ferocity is a keen judge of men.' He bowed to Trasamund. 'I rode with Ulric Skakki once. We had some business to attend to for his Majesty—this was toward the end of the first Sig-vat's days.' He made a sour face. 'It was one of those nasty little things you wish you didn't have to do, the kind you don't like talking about afterwards. And we took care of it, and Ulric was .. . everything you said he was, Trasamund.'

'Did you let him get behind you?' the Bizogot inquired.

'No. I'd already decided that wasn't a good idea,' Count Hamnet answered. 'As long as I could keep an eye on him, everything was fine.'

Trasamund nodded. That satisfied him. And hearing his cleverness and judgment praised pleased him no less than it would have pleased a Raumsdalian. He likes himself pretty well, Hamnet thought. No, Bizogots were no more immune to vanity than the folk of the Empire. Many people would have said they were less immune to it.

'How far did you travel after you passed through the Gap?' Eyvind asked him.

'I stayed beyond the Glacier for about three weeks all told,' Trasamund said. 'I wasn't heading out in a straight line to see how far I could go, you understand. I was wandering here and there, wandering wherever I pleased.'

'Drunkard's walk,' Eyvind Torfinn murmured.

'By God, I wasn't drunk!' Trasamund's cheeks flamed with anger. 'I drank water all through that journey—well, almost all through it.'

Eyvind held up a plump, placating hand. 'No, no—I meant no offense. The drunkard's walk tries to answer the question of how far from where you start you will end up if you travel at random for such and such a time.'

Trasamund's face remained thunderously suspicious. 'How can anyone know that? And why would anyone care?'