To Count Hamnet’s amazement, Ulric shook his head. Hamnet hadn’t thought of Trasamund’s argument, and it seemed to him to carry weight. But Ulric said, “If God is waiting for people who are pure of mind and heart and speech, the Golden Shrine will stay hidden to the end of time. A good thing, too, because people who are that pure are hardly people at all.”

“You turn everything upside down and inside out!” Trasamund complained.

Ulric gave him another bow. “Your servant,” he repeated.

Trasamund swung at him. Hamnet could have told the Bizogot that was a mistake, even if he had been baited. But Hamnet never got the chance. Ulric Skakki turned Trasamund upside down and almost inside out: he grabbed the jarl’s arm, then dipped, wheeled, and threw. Trasamund’s startled shout cut off abruptly when he hit the ground. Not enough snow had stuck yet to soften his landing.

Count Hamnet helped him up. “How the demon did he do that?” Trasamund mumbled, shaking his head to try to clear it.

“He’s done the same thing to me,” Hamnet said, reasoning that misery loved company. And it was true. “He knows some wrestling tricks I’ve never seen before.”

“I know a trick, too,” Trasamund growled. “How about Bizogot stand-down?” He’d won that brutal game against the Rulers, as Hamnet had told Tahpenes while she was a prisoner.

“No, thanks,” Ulric said. “If you want me to admit your head is harder than mine, I’ll do it. You don’t have to prove it on me.”

“You—” But Trasamund couldn’t call him a coward, not after all they’d been through together. Since the word stuck in his throat, the jarl tried a different tack: “Will you show me that flip?”

“One of these days, maybe. Not right now,” Ulric answered. “Don’t you think we ought to ride?”

Most of the Bizogots and Raumsdalians were already mounted. Quite a few of them had watched Trasamund’s sudden, unexpected overthrow. No one had seen Hamnet fly through the air, though the thud he made on landing brought palace servants running to see what had collapsed. Neither of them had got badly hurt, but Trasamund’s dignity and pride took a worse beating.

The Bizogot did some more muttering. “Another time, then,” he said aloud. “In the meanwhile, I will take out on the Rulers what I think about you.”

“It’s all right by me,” Ulric said cheerfully. “If I were the Rulers’ chief, I’d start running right now.” Trasamund muttered yet again.

“Don’t push him too hard,” Hamnet said.

“Why not? What other fun do I have these days?” Ulric eyed him with a mild and speculative air. “Or should I start in on you instead?”

“If you want to,” Hamnet answered stolidly. “I can take it better.”

“But that means you don’t give so much sport.”

“Take what you can get,” Count Hamnet advised. “We need Trasamund—without him, the Bizogots fall apart like a snowball slamming into a rock. Nobody cares whether I’m happy or not. Nobody even cares whether I’m here.”

“Well, I would have said the same thing,” Ulric told him—if Hamnet left himself open for a thrust, the adventurer would deliver. So Hamnet thought, anyhow, till Ulric went on, “But Marcovefa thinks you’re wrong, remember? I’ll argue with you any day. I think twice before I decide she’s made a mistake.”

Hamnet Thyssen did remember what Marcovefa had said about him. Remembering it didn’t mean he believed it. It made him profoundly uneasy—he didn’t want to carry so much weight in the scales of the world. What he mostly wanted was to go back to his castle down in the far southeast and be left alone. He knew he was no more likely to get that than any of his other wishes.

“Marcovefa doesn’t know everything there is to know,” he said after a pause he hoped wasn’t too obvious—if it was, it would make a liar out of him all by itself.

Ulric Skakki’s knowing smirk said it did. “She may not know everything, but she knows a demon of a lot more about this business than you do. Go on—tell me she doesn’t. Make me believe it.” He folded his arms and waited.

However much Count Hamnet wished he could, he didn’t even try. He couldn’t make Ulric believe it . . . and he couldn’t make himself believe it, either. Whether he liked it or not, whether he wanted to or not, he did carry weight. He wondered if he would have any say in how it got used.

You won’t if the Rulers kill you, he thought. That was as true for him as it was for Marcovefa. Her safety mattered to him. His own didn’t seem to.

Try as he would, he couldn’t get very excited about it. With a slow shrug, he said, “We needed to ride a while ago. We’re still gabbing instead.”

“Yes, your Grace,” Ulric said—mockery in the guise of respect, one of his favorite barbs. Hamnet didn’t rise to it. Ulric sighed. “Sure as the demons, Trasamund gives better sport.”

“Pity.” Hamnet methodically checked his horse’s cinches and girths. When he was satisfied, he swung up into the saddle. Ulric was only a moment behind him. The Raumsdalians and Bizogots rode in a mass compact enough to let them keep an eye on their outriders. The Rulers wouldn’t have an easy time picking off a few men, anyhow.

Hamnet’s eyes went this way and that, this way and that. They kept coming back to Marcovefa. She might think he was important in the fight against the Rulers. He knew she was.

FAGERSTA WAS A town of no particular importance. Hamnet Thyssen had a hard time believing even the people who lived there would have said anything else. It wasn’t very big or very small. It wasn’t very rich. It sat by a stream deep and wide enough for small boats, but not for ships. Because it was right in the middle of the Empire and no foreign foes had come anywhere near it for at least two hundred years, people had torn down the wall that once surrounded it and used the timber and stone for buildings.

The Rulers had gone through Fagersta some time earlier in the year. They hadn’t razed it; why bother? They’d plundered some, they’d stolen livestock from the surrounding farms, they’d killed and raped enough to keep themselves both safe and amused, and then they’d gone on their way.

As soon as the locals saw the mix of Raumsdalians and Bizogots approaching from the north, they sent out a man with a flag of truce. That was about the only thing they could have done. The Breath of God swirled snow all around, so Fagersta didn’t discover it had new visitors—and the visitors didn’t discover there was such a place as Fagersta—till they were almost on top of it.

“Oh!” the herald exclaimed in glad surprise when he got a better look at the newcomers. “You aren’t . . . those people.” He didn’t say what he really thought of the Rulers, perhaps in case he proved wrong about who these strangers were.

“No, we aren’t,” Hamnet agreed gravely.

“In fact, we want to kill those people,” Trasamund added.

His accent and his long, golden beard announced that, while he wasn’t a Ruler, he wasn’t a Raumsdalian, either. The local herald eyed him as warily as a shepherd might eye a sabertooth. That was sensible of the man, as Trasamund was at least as deadly as one of the big cats. The local soon noticed other big blond warriors among those who might be of his own kind.

“You aren’t those people,” he said again. This time, he added, “But who the demon are you?” Under the circumstances, it was a more than reasonable question.

“I am Trasamund, jarl of the Three Tusk clan.” Trasamund struck a pose on his horse. He was wasting his time; the Raumsdalian knew more of Bizogot clans and their jarls than he did about riding a war mammoth. After a moment, Trasamund saw as much. He simplified things: “I’m with you Raumsdalians. The Rulers are my enemies.”

“Oh.” The man from Fagersta seemed to understand that, anyhow. Whether he believed it was liable to be another question. “But you’re a foreigner,” he said, and waited, as if hoping Trasamund would deny it. When Trasamund didn’t, the local sighed. “Didn’t know much about foreigners till a couple of weeks ago. Don’t much fancy what we found out, neither.”