“Have you heard that the Rulers have already conquered most of the steppe?” Hamnet demanded. “Have you heard they’ve smashed the Leaping Lynxes? They’re that far south, and getting closer.”
“I don’t believe it!” Kormak Bersi exclaimed. “You’re making that up so you can watch me jump and shout like a man a wasp just stung.”
“By God, servant of His Majesty” – Hamnet laced what should have been a proud title with scorn -”I am not. Some of these Bizogots lying here in the taproom are Leaping Lynxes. They’re what’s left of the Leaping Lynxes now, or what’s left that’s still free.” He switched to the Bizogot tongue: “Marcomer! Are you awake there?”
“Afraid I am,” Marcomer answered glumly. “Why? What do you want? Who’s that sour-looking fellow with you? I don’t know enough Raumsdalian to follow the two of you going back and forth, jabber, jabber, jabber.”
“His name’s Kormak Bersi, or that’s what he says, anyway,” Hamnet replied, drawing a glare from Kormak and proving the imperial agent understood the Bizogots’ language. Hamnet went on, “He serves Sigvat II. He doesn’t believe you’re from the Leaping Lynxes. He doesn’t believe what happened to them, either.”
“Well, he’s a bloody fool if he doesn’t,” Marcomer said, ambling over to join them.
“Watch your mouth, you.” Kormak not only understood the Bizogot tongue, he spoke it well – and arrogantly.
“Oh, go bugger a weasel,” Marcomer said. “What the demon do you think you can do to me that the God- cursed Rulers haven’t already done?”
“What
“Most of the noise is your own jaws flapping, seems like. Raumsdalians like to hear themselves talk, don’t they?” the Bizogot said. If he was trying to annoy Kormak even more, he succeeded. In fact, he succeeded even if he wasn’t trying. But while the imperial agent steamed, Marcomer told him of riding back to the stone huts at the eastern edge of Sudertorp Lake and discovering that the Rulers had got there ahead of him. He told of rescuing a tiny fragment of his clan and then riding after the band Trasamund led. And he finished, “Here we are in the Empire. If you think the Rulers are very far behind us, you’re even stupider than I give you credit for.”
Kormak Bersi didn’t seem any angrier, which proved he’d got caught up in Marcomer’s tale. “His Majesty must hear of this, and quickly,” the imperial agent said. “Our officers up in the forest need to know of it, too.”
“If they don’t know already, it isn’t because we haven’t spread the word,” Hamnet Thyssen said. “Of course, they may not want to listen. We can’t do anything about that.”
“When do Raumsdalians ever listen to Bizogots?” Marcomer sounded more resigned than bitter.
“I’m no Bizogot,” Count Hamnet reminded him. “Neither is Ulric Skakki. . . and neither is Audun Gilli.” The last name tasted like bad fish in his mouth; he spat it out as fast as he could, and wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve afterwards.
“If what I hear is true. .” Kormak Bersi began, and then stopped in alarm, for Marcomer’s growl sound much like an angry dire wolf’s. The Raumsdalian agent had nerve, for after gathering himself he repeated, “If this is true, it changes the nature of the orders I have.”
“What kind of orders are those?” Hamnet asked. “Lock me up, lose the key, and God forbid you should pay attention to anything that comes out of my mouth?”
“Something like that.” Kormak could sound almost as dry as Ulric Skakki. “But I may have to think twice.”
“That would be nice. Most people have trouble enough thinking once,” Count Hamnet said.
“Your precious Emperor must, if he doesn’t believe the things he’s heard about the Rulers,” Marcomer said.
Kormak looked at him – looked through him, really. “You will find it a good policy not to speak ill of His Majesty,” he said, his voice as chilly as if blown on the Breath of God.
“Why? If somebody’s an idiot, how’s he going to find out he’s an idiot unless somebody else tells him so?” Bizogots didn’t waste a lot of respect on their clan chiefs. To Marcomer, Sigvat II was nothing but a jarl writ large.
To Kormak Bersi, the idea that the Emperor might be an idiot wasn’t far from blasphemous. “His Majesty is not an idiot,” he said stiffly. “His Majesty cannot be an idiot.”
“Why not?” Now Marcomer sounded honestly puzzled. “Isn’t that like saying he can’t shit? Everybody’s an idiot now and again, on one thing or another. Over women, usually, or over men if you’re a woman, but other stuff, too.”
“His Majesty is not an idiot,” Kormak repeated in tones more gelid than ever. “Anyone who says otherwise will be very, very sorry.”
By Marcomer’s expression, he thought the threat was idiotic, too. Hamnet Thyssen kicked him under the table to keep him from saying so. Hamnet also thought the threat was idiotic, or at least juvenile, but he knew the agent could enforce it. Marcomer glowered but, for a wonder, took the hint.
Ulric Skakki came down then, looking indecently – and that was probably just the right word – pleased with himself. He stopped and grinned. “Well, well! Kormak Bersi, as I live and breathe!”
“Hullo, Skakki,” Kormak answered. “Have you really been daft enough to hook up with these fools and renegades? I heard it, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“You may as well, because it’s true.” Ulric’s grin got wider and more engaging – and, if you knew him the way Hamnet did, less reliable. “Life would be dull if you did the same old things over and over. Besides, there’s real trouble loose up there, no matter what His Majesty thinks – or even if he thinks.”
“Don’t you start!” Kormak exclaimed.
Ulric looked more innocent than ever. “Who, me? What did I do?”
“You imagined that the Emperor might not be perfect,” Hamnet said. “Now Bersi here has to decide whether to roast you over a slow fire or just cut off your head.”
“Well, if he does cut it off, I can’t very well tell him the Rulers are on the way down to cut off His Majesty’s,” Ulric said. “You’d think that was something people would want to know, but maybe not.” His shrug was a small masterpiece of its kind.
“So you people plan on going to Nidaros and telling the Emperor he’s been wrong all along?” Kormak said.
“You’d think he could see it for himself, but somebody’s got to tell him if he can’t,” Ulric replied. “Since nobody else seems to want to, we’ll do it.”
“I’d better come with you,” the imperial agent said.
“Why not? The more, the merrier.” Ulric nodded to Count Hamnet. “Isn’t that right, Your Grace?”
“How could I be any merrier?” Hamnet replied. “It’s only my face that doesn’t know it.”
Kormak Bersi gave him a tired and dutiful smile. Marcovefa came downstairs just then, and Kormak forgot about everything but her. His focus was so quick and so intent, Hamnet wondered if he was something of a wizard himself – enough to sense that she was one, at any rate. “Where are you from?” he asked her in the Bizogot language.
“On top of the Glacier,” she answered. “What about you?”
“Me? From Nidaros.” Kormak looked surprised that he’d told her. “Are you really from atop the Glacier? Does that mean the stories these rogues were telling are true?”
“I don’t know their stories,” Marcovefa said. “But why would they lie?”
“Plenty of reasons.” Kormak Bersi sounded sure of that. “How did you live, up there on top of everything?”
Marcovefa shrugged. “As best I could. We did not know we had little. No one else up there has more. Only when I come down here do I see there is more to have.”
“What don’t you have?” Kormak asked. “Up there, I mean.”
“Bread. Meat from beast larger than fox. Hide from beast larger than fox.” Marcovefa didn’t mention meat from men, which was bound to be just as well. She went on, “Smetyn. Beer. These are great wonders.”
By the way the agent smiled, he didn’t think so. He took them all for granted, as Hamnet had before he saw how the clans atop the Glacier lived. “What do you think of the sorcery you’ve seen down here?”
Marcovefa snapped her fingers. ‘About that much. You are puny shamans. You have so many things, you do not trouble with wizardry the way you should.”
That rocked Kormak Bersi back on his heels. He must have expected her to praise it to the skies. “What will you do now that you’re down here among civilized people?” he asked.
