Harry Turtledove - The Golden Shrine

And he nodded. “With you? Yes, I should hope so.” But he went on, “I’d be happier if we could drive the Rulers back beyond the Gap.”

Marcovefa grunted. She got out from under the blanket and, in a marked manner, got into her clothes. She paused only once, to say, “No wonder you lose women.”

“No wonder at all,” Hamnet agreed mournfully, wondering if he’d lost her, too. All he did was answer the question she asked him. He didn’t even forget to say something nice about her. But then he went on to the rest of what was in his mind. Too late-as usual-he realized that was his mistake. When would he ever learn? No. Would he ever learn, late or otherwise?

“You are what you are, that’s all.” Marcovefa seemed to be reminding herself. She shrugged. “Well, who isn’t?”

Since she seemed willing to leave it there, Hamnet Thyssen didn’t push it, either. As he also dressed, he decided not pushing it was a good idea, and progress of a sort. That also would have been too late to do him any good had he decided the other way.

The Bizogots had a fire of dried dung going. They were roasting meat above it. Hamnet’s stomach rumbled. There were appetites, and then there were appetites. Filling your belly wasn’t so much as making love, but you wouldn’t go on making love very long, even with sorcerous assistance, if you were empty.

Hamnet got a musk-ox rib. Instead of gnawing on it, he gave it to Marcovefa. Then he grabbed another one for himself. Maybe she would recognize the peace offering, maybe not.

She certainly ate with good appetite. Bizogots always did, and their close kin from atop the Glacier even more so. And the only way she could have got more off the bone was with a rough tongue like a lion’s. Her tongue wasn’t the least bit rough. Hamnet knew that as well as a man could.

She took another rib, and denuded that one, too. “You people are so lucky to have such big meat-beasts,” she said. “Do you know how lucky you are? Voles, pikas, hares . . . That’s all we knew. Well, that and the beasts that go on two legs.”

“I was up there. I saw how you lived,” Hamnet said. “You did what you could with what you had. People everywhere do the same.” He thought of the Manches again, and of how they scraped a living from their desert. That wasn’t the same as what the Bizogots did, but it wasn’t necessarily easier, either.

“There is so much more to have down here,” Marcovefa said. “The animals . . . The trees . . . The-what do you call them down in the Empire? The crops! That’s it. Plants that aren’t berries, but you can eat them anyhow. And the big berry things that grow on trees-”

“Fruit,” Hamnet said. Apples and pears and plums surprised the Bizogots, too. They had nothing like them.

Marcovefa wasn’t done. “And the head-spinning stuff, the smetyn and the beer and the wine . . . Once in a while, we find mushrooms to send shamans into the spirit world. You go whenever you want. You are so lucky! I am so jealous!”

Count Hamnet wouldn’t have called getting drunk going into the spirit world. When he did it, he mostly did it to forget whatever was troubling his spirit. But it was new and wonderful to the shaman from atop the Glacier. Everything was new and wonderful to Marcovefa. She was like a child in a fairyland. If it sometimes looked like a nightmare to Hamnet, maybe he was the jaded one.

And maybe he’d seen enough of the world down here on the ground to have a better notion of what was what than she did. He suspected that was so, but didn’t make the claim out loud. He didn’t feel like arguing. Besides, he might have been wrong. He rather hoped he was.

Ulric Skakki also snagged a second rib. He took a bite, then nodded to Hamnet. “Cozy little place we’ve got, isn’t it?”

“Till the Rulers find out we’re here,” Hamnet replied. “How long do you think that will take?”

“Depends on whether any of them got away yesterday,” the adventurer said. “I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. Or maybe one of the wizards got word out magically, and they already know. Won’t be long any which way. When the wizards don’t show up wherever they’re supposed to, the Rulers will come see why not.”

That was less palatable than juicy musk-ox meat. “I wish you didn’t make so much sense,” Hamnet said.

Ulric only shrugged. “If you don’t like the answers, don’t ask the questions.”

Hamnet Thyssen sighed. “I don’t like the answers. Who would? But I needed to hear them.”

“Well, there you are, then,” Ulric said. “Now you’ve heard them. I don’t think the Rulers will get here before we finish breakfast-at least if we hurry.” He bit another chunk of meat off the rib. Ears burning, Hamnet ate some more, too.

“We need to send out patrols,” Trasamund said in his usual tone of brooking no arguments. “If the Rulers are moving to the north and south, we need to know about it.”

“Suppose they’re going around the west end of Sudertorp Lake.” Ulric Skakki liked arguments, brooked or not. “What do we do then?”

Trasamund scowled. “Why would their wizards meet here if their main route runs around the other end of the lake?” he demanded.

“Well, you’ve got something there,” Ulric said. “How much, I don’t know, but something.”

The jarl gave him a sardonic bow. “More than I expected from you, by God. You never admit you’re wrong, do you?”

Hamnet could have told him that was the wrong thing to say to Ulric. He didn’t need to; Ulric proved quite capable of demonstrating it on his own: “When I am wrong, I don’t have any trouble admitting I am-unlike some people I could name. The difference is, I’m not wrong very often, so naturally you wouldn’t have heard me talk about it much.”

“You are a funny man,” Trasamund rumbled. “Funny as my nightmares.”

“Really? Let me take a look.” Ulric Skakki ambled over and peered into the Bizogot’s left ear. He started to laugh. “You’re right. That is a funny one in there.”

Cursing, Trasamund cuffed him-or tried. Ulric caught his arm before the blow landed, caught it and twisted. Trasamund let out a startled grunt of pain. When he tried to get away, Ulric twisted harder. “You’ll break it if you do much more,” Trasamund said. Hamnet admired how calmly he brought out the words.

“That’s the idea,” Ulric answered. “When you go hitting people who didn’t hit you, you can’t look for them to like it. Well, maybe you can, but you’ll be disappointed.”

“Let go of me, and I’ll cut you in half,” Trasamund snarled.

Ulric gave back a merry laugh. “You really know how to get a man to do what you want, don’t you, Your Ferocity?”

“What do you expect me to say?” the Bizogot asked.

“How about, ‘Sorry, Skakki. Now I know better than to talk to people with my fist’? That ought to do it.” Ulric jerked on Trasamund’s arm a little more. Something in there creaked. Count Hamnet heard it plainly.

Despite Trasamund’s courage, his face went gray. He choked out the words Ulric Skakki wanted to hear. The adventurer let him go and jumped back in case he still showed fight. Trasamund didn’t, not right away. He worked his wrist to make sure it wasn’t broken after all. Once satisfied of that, he managed a glare. “I’ll pay you back for that one day, Skakki,” he growled.

“You’re welcome to try,” Ulric said politely. “But would you give any man leave to hit you for a joke?”

“No man has leave to hit me, no matter why,” Trasamund said.

“Then why did you think you had leave to hit me?” Ulric asked.

“Because he was doing the hitting, not taking the blow,” Hamnet Thyssen said when the Bizogot didn’t answer right away.