Harry Turtledove - Beyong the Gap

The tapman dipped her up a cup of wine red as blood, and another for Hamnet Thyssen. Liv's eyes widened as her nose caught the bouquet. "It even smells sweet," she said, and Hamnet nodded. She raised the silver cup to her lips. "Oh," she whispered.

Hamnet took a pull at his own cup. He nodded again. Nothing else was like wine, not even mead. Some of the southern Bizogots, who lived in country where bees could survive the year around, knew of mead. Liv's clan, though, wouldn't be able to brew it. Hamnet wondered if they ever got any in trade. He hadn't seen or heard of any while he was with the Three Tusk Bizogots.

Liv emptied the cup as fast as she could and held it out to the tapman. Face impassive, he filled it again. She made a good start on the refill, then said, "With this wonderful stuff to drink, why don't Raumsdalians stay drunk all the time?"

"Some of us do." Hamnet thought of Audun Gilli. He looked around for the wizard. As often happened, his eye slid past Audun and had to come back. Audun was drinking, or holding a silver cup, anyhow. He didn't seem drunk-but then, the night was still young. He was talking with a woman who wasn't wearing a great deal more than Gudrid. Maybe she would give him an incentive to stay somewhere within shouting distance of sober.

Ulric Skakki materialized at Hamnet's elbow. So it seemed, anyhow- one heartbeat, he was nowhere near; the next, there he stood, a winecup in hand, a slightly mocking smile on his face. "Not a bad bash," he said.

"No, not bad at all," Hamnet agreed. "I'm getting used to beef and mutton and pork again, after so long eating musk ox and-"

"And worse," Ulric finished for him. Maybe he was thinking of the dire-wolf liver he'd downed on the frozen plains. Hamnet Thyssen had no trouble calling it back to mind. Ulric went on, "How much do you suppose the Rulers would enjoy a spread like this?"

"Oh, maybe a little," Count Hamnet answered. "Yes, maybe."

"I think they might, too." As Hamnet had before, Ulric Skakki looked around. But he wasn't seeking Audun Gilli-he wanted Sigvat II. "I wish his Majesty would come in," he said when he didn't see him. "He hasn't wanted to hear about the Rulers, has he?"

"Not as much as I hoped he would," Hamnet Thyssen said. "As soon as he found out we didn't find the Golden Shrine and we weren't bringing home any treasure, he stopped being interested. I think this reception is a consolation prize."

"I was thinking the same thing," Ulric said. "Pretty soon, he'll throw us out of the palace-either that or he'll start charging us rent."

Hamnet shrugged. "If he does, I'll go back to my castle, that's all. I can give you a room and a bed, if you like."

Liv set a hand on his arm. "But what about the Rulers? You said it yourself. If they come through the Gap, they aren't just the Bizogots' fight. They're the Empire's fight, too."

"I know," Hamnet said. "But if they turn into the Empires fight, it won't matter if I stay here or go back to the castle. I'll have to fight them either way. We may not be so ready if his Majesty doesn't care to listen to Ulric and Earl Eyvind and Audun and me, but we'll have to meet them ready or not."

"You're more likely to lose," Liv said.

"I can't make the Emperor see that. I can't make the Empire do anything about it, either." Hamnet shrugged again. "What I can do, I've done and I'm doing." Liv bit her lip but nodded; she knew that was true.

Musicians struck up a sprightly air. They distracted the Bizogot shaman. She knew about drums and flutes. She even knew about horns, though the Bizogots made theirs from the natural horns of musk oxen, not out of brass. But she'd never seen viols and basses and lutes before coming down to Nidaros. The look of them and the sounds they made fascinated her.

A courtier in a gaudy satin jacket spoke to the musicians' leader. He in turn gestured to his comrades. The strings suddenly fell silent. Horns and drums blared out a fanfare. "His Majesty, Sigvat II, by God's grace Emperor of Raumsdalia!" the courtier bawled into the silence that followed.

Sigvat wore ermine. Liv and Trasamund seemed much less impressed with his robe than his own subjects were. Up on the frozen plains, weasels wore their white coats far longer than they did inside the empire. Those splendid furs were commonplace to the Bizogots, even if they weren't to Raumsdalians.

Hamnet Thyssen and Ulric Skakki bowed low when Sigvat strode into the reception hall. So did the rest of the men there. The women dropped curtsies. Liv's was smoother than Hamnet expected. "Who taught you?" he whispered as she straightened.

"The maidservants," she answered, also in a whisper. "This is another strange notion you people have, to use people to serve other people. Among my folk, we can all do everything for ourselves." She drew herself up very straight indeed. In her own way, she had as much Bizogot arrogance as Trasamund did.

"As you were, everyone," Sigvat II called with a wave. "For the rest of the evening, let the thought be taken for the deed." He made for the tapman, who handed him a cup of golden wine from the far southwest.

"Shall we beard him?" Ulric Skakki asked.

"Do you think it'll do any good?" Count Hamnet asked in return.

"How can it hurt?" Ulric said.

Since Hamnet couldn't answer that, he approached the Emperor with Ulric. Sigvat was talking and laughing with a tall, black-haired woman whose gown displayed at least as much of her as Gudrid's. He was married, but who was going to tell the Emperor he couldn't amuse himself where and as he pleased? Not the Empress, certainly; she wasn't even at the reception. Sigvat II saw Hamnet and Ulric coming up to them. He seemed more interested in the black-haired woman. In one sense, Hamnet didn't blame him. In another.. .

"Your Majesty?" the nobleman said, politely but firmly. No one who knew him ever thought he wouldn't take the bull by the horns.

Sigvat's mouth tightened. With ill-concealed annoyance, he told the woman, "Please excuse me."

"Of course, your Majesty," she murmured in tones that said she would excuse him anything. Her curtsy almost made her fall out of that gown. Abstractly, Hamnet wondered why she didn't. Some sort of paste holding it to her? He wouldn't have been surprised.

"Thyssen. Skakki." Sigvat acknowledged the two of them with their family names-the least politeness he could give. No, he didn't like being interrupted. He muttered to himself, then went on, "Well, what can I do for you gentlemen?" That was better-a little, anyhow.

"Your Majesty, we wish to thank you for this reception in our honor," Ulric Skakki said. He was smoother than Hamnet, and sly enough to remind the Emperor that the reception was in the travelers' honor.

"My pleasure." Sigvat unbent-again, a little. When he spoke of pleasure, though, his eyes slid back to the woman waiting beside him. He sipped from his winecup, then went on, "You did something marvelous when you went beyond the Glacier."

"Thank you again, your Majesty," Ulric said.

Before he could go on, Hamnet interrupted him, saying, "One of the things we did, your Majesty, was find danger in the far north. The Rulers are not foes to be despised."

By the way Sigvat II said, "Maybe so," he didn't believe it for a minute. He went on, "Whatever else the so-called Rulers are, they're very far away. I don't think we need to worry about them for a long time-if we ever have to."

"With respect, your Majesty, that may be so, but it may not," Count Hamnet said. "Both our Raumsdalian wizard and the Bizogot shaman who went north with us from the Three Tusk clan believe they have new magic, magic the likes of which no one on this side of the Glacier has ever seen, magic we may not be able to match."

The Emperor's eye found Liv. Even in this hall full of lovely women, she stood out. "While I admire the shaman's, uh, opinions," Sigvat said, "she is not necessarily expert on what Raumsdalian sorcerers know. And neither she nor, uh, Audun Gilli is expert on what the barbarians beyond the Glacier can really do."