Harry Turtledove - Beyong the Gap

"I don't know what to do about it. I don't think I can do anything about it-except bang my head against a stone wall, I mean," Hamnet Thyssen said. "I've done that before. By God, I've made a career out of it. But this time I can see it won't get me anywhere."

"So what will you do, then?" Liv asked.

"Well, I told you I was thinking about going back to my castle and waiting for the sky to fall," Hamnet answered. "Sooner or later, it will. We both know that. And … I was hoping you'd come with me." He had to work to say that, but he got it out. Now to see what happened next.

"I like being with you. You know that. I like it better than I ever thought I could like being with anyone," Liv said. "And the Empire has more . . . more things in it than I thought there were, there could be, in the whole world. But-"

"But?" Hamnet broke in harshly. As soon as Liv started saying nice things, he knew trouble lay ahead.

"But," Liv said again. "The sky will fall here sooner or later, yes. For the Three Tusk clan, the sky will fall sooner. We roam nearest the Gap. The Rulers will strike us first. By the nature of things, they have to. The Three Tusk clan . . . They are my folk. I will do what I can to help them. I have to do that, Hamnet-don't you see?"

He started to ask if anything he could do or say would make her change her mind. He started to, but he didn't; he could see it was hopeless. Not without admiration, he said, "You're as stubborn as I am. Do you know that?"

She nodded again. "That was one of the things that drew me to you. I wondered if we would bang heads, the way musk-ox bulls do in rutting season. But we never did, did we? Not till now."

"You will go north?" Hamnet asked.

"I will. I have to," Liv said.

He thought about his castle, about the estate surrounding it, about the game-filled woods to the east. He thought about how many Raumsdalians, starting with his bailiff, could care for the castle and estate as well as he could. He thought about the Gap, and the building storm beyond it.

"Would you put up with a half-baked Bizogot if I came north with you?" he asked.

Liv stared at him as if she didn't believe her ears. Then she threw herself into his arms. Naked Gudrid might have made a bigger spectacle at the reception, but not by much. Well, Hamnet thought dizzily as the embrace went on and on, at least I know why I'm doing this.

Hamnet Thyssen did have a hangover from the drinking he'd done at the reception the night before. Maybe his own headache and touchy stomach made him think Ulric Skakki seemed especially jaundiced-looking the morning after. Or maybe Ulric was as astonished and dismayed as he seemed to be.

"You're really going back to the barbarians?" he yelped in what certainly sounded like pained disbelief.

"That's right." Count Hamnet took a cautious sip from a mug of wine. The hair of the dire wolf that bit him might ease his pangs. He sent the adventurer a defiant stare. "What about it?"

"You mean, besides your being out of your bloody mind?" Ulric was also nursing a mug. He was eating a sticky roll with candied fruit, too. Hamnet wasn't ready for food yet. Ulric Skakki went on, "You're the last man on earth I would have looked for to think with his cock."

"By God, I'm not!" Hamnet said, loud enough to make his own head throb. More quietly, he continued, "Sigvat s not going to do anything about the Rulers. You know that as well as I do. He rubbed our noses in it last night. So what does that leave me? Either I go home and wait for the world to go to the demons or I try to do something about it. I thought about sitting on my hands, but I just can't."

"An idealist?" Ulric Skakki asked sardonically. Hamnet Thyssen's nod was as defiant as his stare. Ulric laughed in his face and said, "Sitting on your hands, eh? How idealistic would you be if the Bizogot girl weren't sitting on your-"

"Watch your mouth, Skakki." Hamnet Thyssen folded his right hand into a fist. "It's early for a brawl, but you can have one if you want." He wondered if he was bad-tempered because of his headache or because Ulric's gibe held more truth than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

The adventurer shook his head. "No, not me. I'm a peaceable chap," he said. Count Hamnet snorted. Ulric Skakki went on, "Seriously, though, would you think of doing something like this if you weren't in love with Liv?"

"I hope so," Hamnet answered. "It's the right thing to do-or will you tell me that's not so?" If Ulric tried, Hamnet intended to walk away.

But Ulric didn't, not straight out. He was practical instead, practical and devious. "It's only the right thing to do if you think the Bizogots can beat the Rulers. Otherwise, seems to me you'd do better waiting for trouble here. Besides, do you want Trasamund for your overlord? I mean . . ." He rolled his eyes.

But Count Hamnet refused to back down. "Better Trasamund than Sigvat," he said. "Trasamund doesn't pull his head into his shell and sleep through the winter at the bottom of a pond the way the Emperor does."

Ulric Skakki looked alarmed, not because he hadn't told the truth but because he'd told it too loud. "Keep your voice down, or you won't have the chance to go north!"

"Why not?" Count Hamnet said. "His Majesty should be as glad to get rid of me as I am to go, and that's saying a lot."

He got only a shrug from Ulric, as if to say, On your head be it. The foxy-faced man asked, "And how do you think Trasamund will like having you for a subject?"

"I haven't talked with him yet," Hamnet answered with a shrug. "He put up with me all the way through the Gap and past it. He ought to be able to stand me from here on out. It's not as if I'm likely to try to take the jarl's job away from him."

"If you could get the Bizogots to listen to you, you'd do it better." Ulric Skakki held up a hand. "I know. I know. Nobody can get the Bizogots to listen to him. That's one more reason what you're doing is madness."

Count Hamnet looked at him-looked through him, really. "I have two questions for you. Are the Rulers the biggest trouble we have, or is something else?" He folded his arms across his chest and waited.

Ulric let out a snort of his own, but he answered, "Well, the Rulers are. I don't think there's any way around that."

"All right. Very good, in fact." Hamnet Thyssen clapped his hands in mocking applause. Ulric looked more exasperated than ever. Ignoring his sour expression, Hamnet went on, "If the Rulers are the worst trouble we have, would you rather do something about them or do nothing about them?"

Ulric Skakki opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, but still didn't speak for some little while. At last, he managed, "That's not fair."

"Fine. Have it your way. But why shouldn't I have it my way, too?" Hamnet said.

"Because you won't do what you think you will?" Ulric suggested.

"Fine," Count Hamnet repeated. "But I'll do something. I want to do something. I need to do something. If you want to do nothing, that's your business."

"And you'll be laying your pretty little Bizogot-except she's not so little, is she?-in the meantime," Ulric jeered. Hamnet Thyssen swung on him. The next thing Hamnet knew, he was flying through the air upside down. He hit the stone floor on his back, hard. Ulric Skakki wasn't even breathing hard. "You all right?" he asked. "You rushed me a little there."

Count Hamnet needed several heartbeats to take stock of himself. His right wrist was sore. So was the back of his head, which had also thumped the floor. "I… think so," he said slowly as he climbed to his feet. "What did you do there? Can you teach it to me?"

"And spoil my air of mystery?" Ulric said archly.

Before either of them could say anything more, a servant stuck his head into the room. "What happened?" the man asked. "It sounded like the castle was falling down."