That meant more talking. Count Hamnet sighed. Maybe it would help, maybe it wouldn't. 'Spread the word,' he said. 'The more people who know trouble's coming, the more who know what kind of trouble it is, the better off we'll be.' He could hope that was true, anyhow.
He paid the serai-keeper extra for a private room with Liv. 'Do you think they believed you?' she asked as they got ready for bed. 'Or was it all another travelers tale to them?'
'Some of them believe some of it, anyhow.' Hamnet smiled at his convoluted answer. 'Maybe spreading the news will do some good. Maybe some more people will ask Sigvat questions he doesn't want to hear. That may help, too. Who knows? Who knows if anything we do means anything at all?'
Liv lay down on the bed. The frame creaked under her weight. 'I've got used to sleeping soft,' she said. 'It won't be so easy to lie on a mat or wrapped in a hide on the ground when we get back to the Bizogot country.'
Hamnet lay down beside her. 'Well, then,' he said, 'you can always lie on me instead.'
Her eyes glinted. 'I can do that now.' She blew out the lamp. And she did.
Twice up the Great North Road in the same year. Twice up into the Bizogot country. Count Hamnet had stayed in his castle most of the time after Gudrid left him. He traveled because he had to, not because he enjoyed it for its own sake. He would get where he was going, and he would try to do what needed doing.
Ulric Skakki, now, savored each new day, each new sight. He couldn't stand doing the same thing all the time. Everything interested him—the fading of the fields, the approach of the forest that stretched north to the tree line. Trasamund and Liv were the same way. They were nomads from a nomad folk. Where Ulric came by his wanderlust was harder to fathom.
Audun Gilli? The wizard was always hard to fathom, at least for Hamnet. He rode along, never saying much. Sometimes he got drunk when the travelers stopped at a serai. If he did it all the time, Hamnet would have tried to make him stop or sent him back to Nidaros. But he didn't. Some nights he stayed sober. If he drank for amusement and not because he had to, Count Hamnet didn't see that he had any business complaining.
Serais grew fewer, too. They'd done the same thing the last time Hamnet came north, but he didn't notice it so much then. In spring, mosquitoes were the only things wrong with camping outdoors. They could come inside, too, as he had reason to know. If you didn't have a good notion of what you were doing during the winter, though, you could easily freeze to death—and the more easily the farther north you went.
Hamnet Thyssen wasn't bad at tending to himself in winter weather. He freely admitted the Bizogots and Ulric Skakki were better. When they ran up tents, no cold air got inside. They built snow barriers north of the tents to blunt the force of the Breath of God. They made the most of fur blankets and small braziers.
Audun Gilli seemed much more lackadaisical. Count Hamnet wondered if he should scold the wizard or worry about him. Liv shook her head when he raised the question. 'He uses spells to keep himself snug,' she said. 'I wouldn't do that. It would make me tired, and I have enough things making me tired already. Easier just to do things right the first time. But if you have the spells, you can use them if you choose.'
'All right,' Hamnet said. 'I won't bother him about it, then. I didn't want to wake up one morning and find we had an icicle instead of a wizard, that's all.'
'He won't freeze,' Liv assured him. 'Not unless someone overpowers all his wards, and who would want to do anything like that?'
'The Rulers?' Hamnet said.
Liv's breath caught. She hadn't looked for an answer to her question. 'How could they reach him here, inside the Empire?' she asked. 'How could they even know he's coming north again?'
'I'm no wizard—I can't tell you that,' Hamnet Thyssen said. 'But we saw they know more of magic than we do. Just because we can't imagine how they would do something doesn't mean they can't do it. Or am I wrong?'
Plainly, Liv wanted to tell him he was. As plainly, she couldn't. Her voice troubled, she said, 'Maybe you should speak of this with him tomorrow. I don't know if you're right or wrong. Either way, though, Audun should think about it.'
'I'll do that.' Hamnet blew out the candle that lit their tent. As darkness descended, he added, 'Tomorrow.'
He almost forgot about it the next day. Audun Gilli didn't draw attention to himself. He seemed to do everything he could not to draw attention to himself. Eventually, Hamnet did remember. The wizard heard him out; Audun was seldom rude. 'Well, there's a cheery notion,' he said when Hamnet finished.
'What can you do about it? Can you do anything?' the Raumsdalian noble asked.
'I don't know. I don't know how much I have to worry about it, either,' Audun said. 'Maybe I'll tighten up my wards, just in case. Maybe your lady friend ought to do the same thing, too.'
Hamnet grunted. He hadn't thought about that. But if the Rulers could know Audun was on the move, they could know the same thing about Liv. 'I'll tell her,' Hamnet promised.
'Me?' Liv said when he did.
'Why not? Who here besides Audun knows as much about their magic as you do?' Count Hamnet said. 'If they
He admired the way she thought it over and then shook her head. She really did think things through; she didn't start with her mind closed, the way so many people did. 'No, I don't want to take that chance,' she said. 'If they marked Audun, they might have noticed me, too.'
'If they didn't notice you, they were blind,' Hamnet Thyssen said.
That flustered Liv much more than the idea of sorcerous attack from the Rulers did. 'You!' She wagged her hand at him; it would have been an angry finger if she weren't wearing mittens. 'Why do you say such things?'
'Because they're true?'
She ignored him. He smiled, which only seemed to annoy her more. He wasn't a great one for fancy speeches and praise of women's beauty. But any praise at all seemed more than Liv was used to.
They came to a serai not long before the sun went down. There would be a few more in the towns in the north woods. After that, the travelers would have to arrange their own shelter or pay the price for failure. A roaring fire and greasy roast mutton suited Hamnet fine after a long day on the road.
He ate more mutton for breakfast, and washed it down with beer mulled with a hot poker. 'Not fancy, but it sticks to the ribs,' Ulric Skakki said, and Hamnet nodded.
The travelers were about to go out to the horses when a newcomer walked into the serai. Hamnet and Ulric looked at each other. Had the stranger traveled through the frigid night to get here? By the way he yawned and rubbed at his red-tracked eyes, he probably had. 'Do I see Count Hamnet Thyssen here?' he asked.
Hamnet got to his feet. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. 'You see me,' he said. 'Why do you care?'
'I am an imperial courier.' The newcomer handed him a rolled parchment held closed by a ribbon and by the imperial seal stamped into golden wax. 'This is an order recalling you to Nidaros at once.'
'Give it to me.' Hamnet broke the seal and read the order. It was exactly what the courier said it was. He recognized Sigvat's signature; the document was genuine. Nodding to the man, he said, 'All right—I have it. Thank you.'
'You will accompany me back down to the capital, then?'
'No.'
The courier's jaw dropped. 'But.. . But. ..' He tried again. 'You are
'No,' Hamnet said again. 'He's welcome to exile me. Why not? I'm leaving the Empire anyhow. And I
'But. .. you're disobeying a direct imperial command.' The courier didn't seem to think such a thing was possible, or even imaginable.
'I am, all right.' Count Hamnet nodded, as if to encourage him. 'You catch on fast.'
