"No, eh?" Hamnet Thyssen wanted to laugh, too, and happily, which didn't happen every day-or every month, either. "You may have anyhow." He meant it for a joke. It didn't come out like one.
She shook her head. "That wouldn't be good. I have enough trouble taking care of myself. I don't want to take care of anyone else."
"You'd better be careful," he said.
"Why?"
"If you aren't, we'll end up getting along. Who knows how much trouble that might cause?"
"Oh." Liv smiled. She squeezed his hand. "I'll take the chance. And now I think I'd better go back by the fire, before anyone else wakes up and notices I'm gone."
"Good idea, but I think people will notice anyway before long," Hamnet said.
"Do you? Why should they?"
"Because I'm going to be wandering around with a foolish grin on my face, and I've never done that before," he answered.
"I don't care who knows," Liv said. "I wouldn't have done it if I did. Do you?"
"When Gudrid finds out, she'll try to find some way to spoil things." For a moment, Count Hamnet sounded as mournful as he usually did.
"What can she do?" Liv sniffed scornfully.
Hamnet Thyssen only shrugged. Liv sniffed again, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him, and walked back toward the fire. He didn't want to let her go, but the moon and the slow-wheeling stars said he had to stay on watch a while longer.
Before he went back, clouds rolled out of the northwest and hid the moon and stars. After that, he was on his own guessing the hour. The storm he'd seen coming in the halo around the moon was here before he'd expected it.
He went back when he thought it was midnight and cautiously shook Ulric Skakki awake. Being cautious when waking Ulric was a good idea; the adventurer had a habit of rousing in a hurry, and with a weapon in his hand-sometimes with a weapon in each hand.
Here, he just grunted and groaned and yawned, much as Hamnet Thyssen might have. "Is it that time already?" he asked around another yawn.
"Somewhere close, anyhow." Hamnet waved at the cloudy sky. "We're going to get the bad weather sooner than I thought."
"It has that look, doesn't it?" Yawning one more time, Ulric Skakki got to his feet. "Well, if it starts snowing too hard to let me see my way back here, I'll just scream my head off."
"You do that," Count Hamnet said. Ulric clapped him on the back and trudged away from the dimmed remains of the fire. They'd both been joking and not joking at the same time. Snowstorms like that weren't impossible up here, any more than they were in the Bizogot country or in the northern reaches of the Empire. Hamnet didn't think this storm would be one of those-the wind didn't have that sawtoothed edge to it-but you never could tell.
You never can tell, he told himself as he rolled himself in his mammoth-hide blanket. Of all the things he hadn't looked for, finding happiness- even if it proved only a few minutes of happiness-here beyond the Glacier stood high on the list.
Looked for or not, here it was, and he would have to figure out what to do about it. So would Gudrid, no matter what Liv thought. She hadn't left him to make him happy. She'd left for her own sake. "Well, too bad," he mumbled, and fell asleep.
Xlll
It was snowing when he woke up the next morning. Fat white flakes danced in the air. Nothing else in all the world moved like snow on the breeze. If he hadn't seen too much of it, he might have marveled more. I'm old and jaded, he thought. His joints creaked as he climbed to his feet and stretched.
But he didn't feel old and jaded when he looked over toward Liv, She was already awake, and talking to Trasamund. She broke off to nod and smile and wave to Hamnet. He smiled back. He no doubt grinned like a fool, as he'd thought he might. He didn't care.
When had he last made love with a woman who mattered to him as a person, who wasn't just a willing body when his urges got too strong to ignore? The last time he made love with Gudrid-that was when. He'd had nothing but relief since. He'd nearly-more than nearly-given up hope of ever having anything more than relief.
Almost of themselves, his eyes went to Gudrid, who was toasting meat over the fire. Someone must have built it up again while he slept. Gudrid was watching him, too. Her gaze swung from him to Liv and back again. She laughed a light, mocking laugh and held her nose for a moment.
Ever since Gudrid left him, she'd been able to make his blood boil without even trying. Every woman he'd lain down with since, he compared to her. Every one of them he'd found wanting in some way or other. Now . . . Now he smiled at Gudrid, too, and waved to her, and blew her a kiss. He didn't care what she thought, and, in not caring, he felt as if a curse were lifted from his back. He and Liv would do what they did, go where they went-if they went anywhere-and that would be that. And if Gudrid didn't like it… well, so what?
Up till this moment, he'd never been able to think so what? about Gudrid, not since she first went to bed with another man. He shook his head-that wasn't right. Not since he found out she'd gone to bed with another man. If Liv let him finally not care about what Gudrid had done, what she was doing, which gift could be more precious?
He didn't even turn his back on his former wife. He didn't have to. All he had to do was not take her seriously. He'd needed too long-much too long-to realize that. And Gudrid must have seen the knowledge on his face. She’d always been able to read him like a codex. That, unfortunately, wouldn't go away as if it were a lifted curse.
Her eyes narrowed. So did her lips. Hamnet Thyssen sighed, and fog burst from his mouth and from his nostrils. Gudrid could put up with anything but being ignored.
Ulric Skakki came up and greeted Hamnet with a yawn. "I hope your watch was more exciting than mine," he said, and yawned again.
Well, yes, Hamnet thought, but that wasn't what he said. "You don't want a watch to be exciting," he remarked. Most of the time, that was true. But there was excitement, and then there was excitement.
"You don't want to think you'll fall asleep every bloody minute, either," Ulric said. "I hope I can doze on horseback today." Yet another yawn split his foxy face.
"Let's get going," Trasamund said. "The sooner we're back on our own side of the Glacier, the better."
"If our wizards were worth anything, they could talk with people there while we're still here," Gudrid said. "I suppose that's too much to ask, though." She sneered at Audun Gilli, and twice as hard at Liv. The Bizogot shaman couldn't understand what she said, but didn't like the way she said it. Liv glared back at her. That, of course, was just what Gudrid wanted.
"Come, my sweet-be reasonable," Eyvind Torfinn said. If that wasn't a forlorn hope, Hamnet Thyssen had never heard one. Eyvind went on, "No wizard can keep in touch with colleagues over such a distance."
"I'll bet the Rulers can do it," Gudrid said.
"If they can, they're even more dangerous than I think they are." That wasn't Eyvind Torfinn or Count Hamnet or Ulric Skakki. It wasn't Audun Gilli or Trasamund, either. It was Jesper Fletti, and the guard chief hardly ever let loose an opinion, let alone one that went against the woman he was charged to guard. The look Gudrid sent him was nearly as poisonous as the one she'd aimed at Liv.
"Jesper's right," Eyvind Torfinn said, which failed to make him the apple of his spouse's eye. "These new barbarians seem to be pretty good at war- at least, I never imagined anyone could ride a mammoth."
"Neither did I," Trasamund said. "This is something I must try when I get back to my clan grounds and finish healing. To ride a mammoth . . . That would be better than anything." Now he was the one Gudrid's gaze scorched. Since he'd ridden her, Hamnet understood why she might be miffed.