Harry Turtledove - The Golden Shrine

“Nice to know what you think of me,” Hamnet remarked.

“Not just you. Any of your folk. Any of these blond Bizogots, too,” she replied.

Nothing personal , he thought. Oh, good. Does that make it better or worse? He couldn’t decide. The truth was, the only thing she wanted was to get away from here, and she’d do anything she needed to do-anything at all-to get what she wanted.

She eyed him. “Will you tell the others now? Tell them I want to go back to my own folk?”

“Do you think I need to? Do you think they don’t already know?” Easier to parry questions with more questions.

“Who can guess what folk of the herd know or don’t know?” Tahpenes said. “Maybe they think I am docile, the way they are.”

Hamnet Thyssen burst out laughing. He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t remember the last time he’d been so surprised or heard anything so funny. “Bizogots docile?” he said. “Tell that to Trasamund, by God! You’ll leave here, all right, but you won’t be able to tell your people what you found out.”

Tahpenes frowned. “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“He’ll kill you for the insult, that’s what,” Hamnet answered. “And I will tell you how docile Trasamund is. He beat one of your men, a fellow named Parsh, at Bizogot stand-down on the other side of the Glacier a couple of years ago.”

“What kind of stupid sport is that?” Tahpenes asked.

“Two men stand face-to-face. They take turns hitting each other till one of them can’t stand up and swing any more. He knocked Parsh cold. When Parsh woke up-it took a while-he cut his own throat.” Count Hamnet grimaced. He didn’t like that memory.

“He would. The disgrace of losing to someone not of the Rulers . . .” Tahpenes nodded to herself. What Parsh did made sense to her, even if it didn’t to Hamnet. The woman from Parsh’s folk went on in thoughtful tones: “Bizogot stand-down, you say? No, that does not seem docile.”

“Trasamund uses his hands to tell the weather these days. He broke both of them punching Parsh, and they pain him when a storm is coming,” Hamnet said.

“My brother broke his arm when he was a boy. He can do that,” Tahpenes said.

“You have a brother?” Hamnet didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of her as coming from a family. Maybe because the Rulers seemed too perfectly military for such mundane things as families. They might have been stamped from molds.

They might have been, but they weren’t. Tahpenes nodded. “I have two brothers, and also a sister,” she said. “They will wonder what has happened to me.”

“Plenty of Bizogots and Raumsdalians wonder what’s happened to their kin, too,” Hamnet Thyssen said.

Tahpenes only gaped at him. He’d looked for sympathy from her-he’d looked, but he hadn’t found it. She didn’t care. The Rulers didn’t care. To them, other people weren’t human beings. It was as simple as that. Count Hamnet didn’t know what anybody could do about it. The only thing that occurred to him was getting rid of all the Rulers.

Which sounded easy enough, till you set about doing it.

Dejectedly, Tahpenes turned away from him. “I will go back to the encampment now,” she said.

“I’d better come with you,” Hamnet said. “Just in case you might happen to wander in some other direction instead. By accident, of course.”

“Of course,” she said, as demurely as she could. She recognized a joke, even if a man from the herd made it.

She limped only a little. “Your wounds are healing well,” Hamnet said.

“Well enough,” Tahpenes agreed. “The worst wound now is in my spirit because I am a captive.”

Count Hamnet almost told her about the wounds the Rulers had given the Bizogots and the Empire. Then he decided he might as well save his breath. She wouldn’t understand what he was talking about. As far as she was concerned, the folk on this side of the Glacier deserved what happened to them because they presumed to stand against the Rulers.

Audun Gilli took charge of Tahpenes when she got back to the almost-town the Leaping Lynxes had built. The Raumsdalian wizard spoke much less of the Bizogots’ tongue than he should have; Tahpenes was probably more fluent. But Hamnet didn’t think she could get away from him . . . unless he let her, that is.

“Did you have fun with the little charmer we caught?” Ulric asked.

“She isn’t little, and she isn’t charming. Other than that, well, no.” Hamnet paused, then added, “She has a low opinion of you.”

“Only proves she’s a keen judge of character,” Ulric said blithely, which left Hamnet nowhere to go. Then the adventurer gave him somewhere, because he asked, “And how did she express her distaste?”

Hamnet told him.

Ulric Skakki threw back his head and laughed. “Yes, I’ve heard that from her. She’d be right, too, if my taste in women were bad enough to include her. By God, Thyssen, even your taste in women isn’t that bad.”

“Leave my taste in women out of this,” Hamnet growled.

“Oh, I see.” Ulric favored him with a mocking bow. “You get to insult me however you choose, but I don’t have the right to return the disfavor. Yes, that’s a fair bargain all the way around.”

“You asked me what Tahpenes told me about you,” Hamnet said. “I only repeated it. If I want to know what you think about me, I promise I’ll ask. Till then, I’m not interested.”

“You only repeated it.” Ulric Skakki did some repeating himself. He also did some more laughing. “You didn’t enjoy repeating it or anything? Oh, no. Not you. You’re too good and pure and righ teous for that.”

Count Hamnet’s ears heated. “You make a sport of twisting other people’s words, don’t you?”

“Why not? It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on,” Ulric answered. “But I don’t need to do any twisting here. Don’t worry, though-I love you, too.” He gave Hamnet a noisy, smacking kiss on the cheek.

Hamnet shoved him away. “You’ve done that before. I didn’t like it then, and I cursed well still don’t.”

“I see. And you think I did enjoy it when you twitted me. You have an odd way of looking at the world sometimes, Your Grace.” Ulric Skakki followed up the mocking title with a mocking bow.

“I ought to-” Count Hamnet cocked his fist, but he didn’t swing. Unfortunate, surprising, and painful things happened to people who swung at Ulric. And, still more unfortunately, surprisingly, and painfully, the outlander had a point. The fist opened. “I ought to apologize, I suppose. And so I do: your pardon, I beg.” Hamnet bowed stiffly.

Ulric stared. “Be careful, Your Grace. If you don’t watch yourself, you’ll take all the fun out of life.”

Hamnet Thyssen had begun to wonder if he would ever see another Raumsdalian besides Ulric Skakki. The man who rode into the Leaping Lynxes’ village looked hungry and weary and scared almost to death. The Bizogots gave him a roast duck and a skin of smetyn, after which he perked up remarkably.

He nodded to Hamnet. “You’re Thyssen?”

“I am Count Hamnet Thyssen, yes,” Hamnet said. Ulric snickered off to one side. Hamnet didn’t care. In dealing with the Empire, his dignity was about all he had to fall back on.

“Sorry . . . Your Grace,” the Raumsdalian said. “I am Gunnlaug Kvaran, a messenger from His Majesty, Sigvat II. I am the fourth man he sent out. Did any of the others reach you?”

“Not a one,” Count Hamnet replied. Gunnlaug muttered something his beard muffled. Hamnet asked the question he was no doubt intended to: “And how are things in the Empire these days? They must be pretty bad if Sigvat wants to talk to the likes of me.”