Beyond the Gap

by Harry Turtledove

  Trasamund glared at him. To the Bizogots, the time to do something was the time when you thought of doing it. But the jarl, unlike most of his countrymen, had gone down to the Empire and at least understood the idea of waiting, even if he didn't much care for it. "All right," he said grudgingly. "All right. It will keep, I suppose." He let out a martyred sigh that filled the air in front of him with fog. If he was going to pass up the opportunity, he wanted everyone around him to recognize what a fine fellow he was for doing it.

  When the Bizogot herdsmen learned that the Rulers rode mammoths, they too were wild to try it for themselves. They weren't going anywhere important; they had nothing to do but guide the beasts in their charge. If they wanted to clamber aboard one of those beasts, they could ... as long as the mammoth let them.

  "I wonder if they're going to do something they'll regret," Ulric said.

  "Well, if it goes wrong, they won't regret it long," Hamnet answered.

  "A point. A distinct point," Ulric said. "But look at them. They think they'll be mammoth-lancers by the time the Rulers come through the Gap."

  "The Rulers shouldn't come through the Gap—Liv's dead right about that," Hamnet said. "We ought to be able to stop them right there if they try."

  "We ought to be able to do all kinds of things," Ulric Skakki said. "What we will do . . ."

  Count Hamnet wished he hadn't put it like that. Plainly, the Bizogots and Raumsdalians wouldn't be able to do some things, no matter how obvious it seemed that they should. Trasamund's clansmen hated the idea of letting other Bizogots, let alone warriors from the Empire, cross their land even to fight the Rulers. Every other Bizogot clan would probably be just as unhappy to let its neighbors cross its grazing grounds. As for the Empire . . . Who could say whether the Empire would take the idea of a threat from beyond the Glacier seriously at all?

  "We may have made the greatest journey in the history of the world for nothing, you know," Hamnet Thyssen said.

  "Yes, that occurred to me." Ulric Skakki sounded surprised it had taken so long to occur to Hamnet. Then he glanced over toward Liv and smiled a little. "But you wouldn't say it was for nothing any which way, would you?"

  "For myself? No," Hamnet answered. "I was talking about things bigger than any one person's affairs." He waited for Ulric to make some lewd pun on that.

  The adventurer didn't. Instead, he asked, "How many people ever think past their day-to-day affairs?" And he answered his own question. "Not many, by God."

  "Some do," Hamnet said. "Some have to, in the Empire. If they didn't, we'd be as barbarous as the Bizogots."

  "Do you think we're not?" Before Count Hamnet could respond to that, Ulric Skakki held up a hand. "Never mind, never mind. I know what you're saying. But people like that are thinner on the ground than you think, your Grace. Not everyone comes with your sense of duty nailed inside his chest."

  "You make it sound so wonderful," Hamnet Thyssen said.

  "Oh, it is, it is." Ulric smiled a crooked smile that showed a great many sharp teeth. "If you don't believe me, ask Gudrid."

  For a red moment, Count Hamnet wanted to kill him. Then, grudgingly, he nodded, saying, "You have a nasty way of making your points."

  "Why, thank you," Ulric Skakki said with another carnivorous smile. Hamnet had no answer for that at all.

  * * * *

  When the travelers found the Three Tusk clan's main encampment, everyone celebrated—everyone but Hamnet Thyssen, For him, it seemed more an end than a beginning, and an end he didn't want.

  The smile on Liv's face flayed him. "This is my home," she said, and the words cut like flensing knives. "How I've missed these tents!" she went on, carving another chunk from his happiness. He wasn't used to being happy. Back before he was, he would have borne up under anything. Now . ..

  "Would you like to see Raumsdalia?" he asked, and worked with his tongue to free a chunk of musk-ox meat caught between two back teeth.

  She looked surprised. "I hadn't even thought of that. I hadn't thought of anything past coming back to the tents of my clan."

  Ulric Skakki knew what he was talking about, sure enough, Hamnet thought. "I don't want to leave you," he said. "I... hoped you didn't want to leave me."

  "I don't," Liv said, and peered at the dung fire over which the meat cooked. "No, I don't. But I don't think I can turn into a Raumsdalian, either."

  "No more can I make myself into a Bizogot," Hamnet Thyssen said.

  "Are you sure?" Liv asked. "You would be an ornament to my folk, an ornament to my clan. You are strong and brave and wise—and a man, as I should know." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "What holds you to the Empire?"

  "Loyalty," he said at once. "I must go down to Nidaros and let the Emperor know what I have seen, what I have done, and what I think we need to do in times to come."

  Liv gave him a nod that was almost a bow. "Your answer does you honor. But once you've shown your loyalty, why not come north again and lead the free life of the tents with me? What would you be losing?"

  Hamnet had never thought of himself as a man who set much store by material things. But things were what sprang to mind when he asked himself why he didn't want to live the mammoth-herders' life for the rest of his days. Books. Beds. Linen. Bread. Ale. Beer. Wine. Mead. Even the language he'd known from his cradle was a thing ot sorts. He could get along in the Bizogot tongue—he could, indeed, do better than get along—but it wasn't his, and never would be. He laughed a little when he thought of tobacco. It was Ulric's vice, not his; he'd smoked only enough to convince himself he didn't want more. But the herb came up to Raumsdalia from the south, and it hardly ever came any farther north. The only Bizogots who used it were men who'd learned the habit in the Empire. But never having the chance to smoke again . . . That seemed a bigger thing.

  How much would he miss the society of his fellow Raumsdalians? Not much, not most of the time; he was honest enough to own up to that. But, most of the time, he stayed in his castle, and his countrymen had the courtesy to leave him the demon alone. Escaping the Bizogots if he came north to live would be much harder. It might well prove impossible. For all the vast plains they roamed, the barbarians lived in clumps and knots of people, especially in winter. If they were going to survive, they had to. Hamnet Thyssen imagined himself cooped up with a tentful of nomads for months on end. The picture didn't want to form. The more he thought about it, the less that surprised him.

  He sighed. "You have your place; I have mine. Maybe you wouldn't fit in mine. I don't know if that's so, but I can see how it might be. But I'm sure I would never make a Bizogot. I need to be by myself too much."

  He wondered if that would make any sense to her. To his relief, and a little to his surprise, she nodded at once. "Yes, I saw as much when we traveled," she said. "Few Bizogots have such a need. Is it common in your folk?"

  "Not very," Hamnet admitted. Liv nodded again; all the other Raumsdalians up here, even hapless Audun Gilli and scholarly Eyvind Torfinn, were more outgoing than he. He continued, "But what others of my folk feel is not the problem. What I feel is."

  "You seem to want my company." Liv didn't mean only that he wanted to sleep with her, though that was in her voice, too.

  And now Hamnet Thyssen nodded. "I do," he said. "Aside from that"— he wasn't going to deny it was there; he hardly could, things being as they were—"I like talking with you. And one of the reasons I like talking with you is that you don't feel as if you have to talk all the time. You . .." He groped for words. "You keep quiet in a pleasant tone of voice."

  He waited. That would have said what he wanted to say in Raumsdalian. He wasn't so sure it did in the Bizogot language. When Liv smiled, so did he, in relief. "I thank you," she said. "I'm not sure I ever got higher praise."

  Now Hamnet wasn't sure whether she was sincere or sarcastic. "I meant it for such."

  She smiled again. "I know you did. Bizogots do live in each other's pockets, don't we? We can't help it, you know. If we did
n't help each other all the time, if we didn't stay close so we could help each other, we couldn't live up here at all."

  "No, I suppose not," Hamnet said. "Now I've seen how you live. Don't you want to come down to the Empire and find out what life is like there? You wouldn't have to stay. I don't think I'll stay forever myself." He drummed his fingers on the outside of his thigh. "I don't think the Rulers will let me peacefully stay there."

  Liv bit her lip. "Part of me would like to, but... I don't know. It's a far country, far away and very strange."

  "You went through the Gap. You went beyond the Glacier." Hamnet gestured toward the towering ice mountains that shaped the northern horizon. "After that, what is the journey to the Empire? A stroll, a nothing. The way south gets easier, not harder."

  She shook her head. "The travel might not be hard. The travel probably isn't hard. But when I went beyond the Glacier, I was still myself. What would I be when I came to the Empire? Nothing but a barbarian." She spoke the last word in the Raumsdalian she was slowly learning.

  "If anyone calls you a barbarian, turn him into a lemming," Hamnet Thyssen said. "That will teach the next fool to mind his manners. Or if it doesn't, he's a big enough fool to deserve being a lemming."

  "You don't understand." Liv sounded almost desperate. "Chances are no one will call me a barbarian to my face. You people don't come out and say the things you think the way we do. But you think them whether you say them or not—and what can I do about that?"

  Count Hamnet grunted. She wasn't wrong. Raumsdalians did think Bizogots were barbarians. He thought so himself. He had good reasons for thinking so. He also had good reasons for making exceptions now and again—as with this shaman with tears standing in her eyes. Would his countrymen make those kinds of exceptions? He feared not.

  And what he feared must have shown on his face, for Liv said, "You see? It would be the way I told you." She started to turn away, then looked back at him in angry defiance. "Give me one good reason why I should go down to the Empire. A good reason, I tell you."

  She was afraid. He could see that, but for a moment he could find no reasons anyhow, not reasons of the kind she meant. Then he did—and in finding one he discovered Liv was not the only one who could be afraid on this cold autumn morning. If he told her what the reason was .. . But he would lose her if he didn't. He could see that.

  Even so, his heard pounded like a kettledrum in his chest as he answered, "Because I love you."

  Her eyes widened. Maybe she had some small idea of how hard that was for him to say. She couldn't possibly know all of it, not unless she knew everything about him and Gudrid. Even not knowing everything, she said, "You look as if that was harder than going into battle."

  "Maybe it was," Hamnet said.

  "How could it be?"

  "In a battle, all they can do is kill you. If you love someone and it goes wrong, you spend years wishing you were dead." Hamnet knew how true that was.

  "You mean it," Liv said, wonder in her voice.

  "I usually mean what I say," he answered. "I meant what I said when I told you I loved you, too. And I meant what I said when I told you I wanted you to come down to the Empire with me. Will you?"

  "I don't know," she said, which made him want to shout in frustration. He made himself keep quiet; if he pushed too hard, he would push her away. He could feel that. Instead of pushing, he waited. Slowly, she went on, "But I don't see how I can say no, not with things the way they are, not when I love you, too."

  "Ah," he said—a small sound, one that didn't come close to showing how his heart exploded in rainbow delight.

  Liv's nod was altogether serious. "Yes," she said. "I do. And because I do, it seems only right I should go south. You've seen how Bizogots live, I should at least see your way, too." She made it sound only reasonable. Hamnet was much too glad to care how it sounded.

  XVI

  Setting out across the broad plains of the Bizogot country with winter's frozen fingers gripping tighter every day should have chilled Hamnet's heart. It should have, but it didn't.

  Snow and sleet and likely hunger and Bizogots who couldn't stand Raumsdalians or the Three Tusk clan or both at once? Hamnet Thyssen didn't worry. Not worrying felt strange, unnatural, almost perverse. All the same, he didn't. He was with someone who mattered to him more than all the possible worries put together.

  "I hardly know you with that smile on your face," Ulric Skakki said.

  "Ah, well," said Hamnet, who hardly knew himself. "With this smile on my face, I hardly know you, either."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Ulric asked.

  "Just what it said, and not a bit more," Count Hamnet answered. Ulric Skakki rode off shaking his head, which suited Hamnet fine.

  Gudrid left him alone at the start of the journey south from the Three Tusk clan's encampment, which suited him fine. He waited for her to try to find some way to make him less happy, as she'd done whenever she caught him smiling after she left him.

  He’d always stolidly pretended not to care about her, never with much success. Now, though, he truly didn't, an armor he'd never enjoyed before. He was tempted to flaunt his happiness with Liv to get Gudrid's goat.

  He wouldn't have minded revenge; Gudrid had put him through too much to leave him immune to its charms. But what he wanted even more was freedom from the hooks she'd set in his soul. She'd been harder to break away from than poppy juice, mostly because he'd always wanted her back more than he'd wanted her to go away and leave him alone.

  She couldn't go away now, not till they got back to Nidaros. She could keep on leaving him alone, though. He wanted no more from her—and no less.

  But not long after he found what he wanted, Gudrid suddenly decided she couldn't stay away from him. It would have been funny ... if he didn't have so much trouble keeping his hand off the hilt of his sword.

  She guided her horse alongside his as they rode south. When he made as if to steer his mount away from her, she stayed with him. "So slumming makes you happy, does it?" she asked.

  He looked at her—looked through her, really. "No, I didn't end up happy with you," he replied.

  Gudrid laughed. "If you were half as funny as you think you are, you'd be twice as funny as you really are."

  "If you don't care for my conversation, you're welcome to find someone else to annoy," Hamnet Thyssen said.

  "Here I try to give you good advice, and this is the thanks I get." Gudrid sounded convincingly wounded—but not convincingly enough.

  "The only good advice you'd give me is which poison to take and how to jump off a cliff," Count Hamnet said.

  "Oh, I expect you can figure out that sort of thing for yourself." Gudrid pulled off a mitten for a moment so she could flutter her fingers at him. "You're clever about matters like that. It's people you have trouble with."

  "No doubt," Hamnet Thyssen said. "Look how long I put up with you."

  "Just so," Gudrid said placidly as she returned the mitten to her hand. "What makes you think you'll do any better this time around?"

  "Well, I could scarcely do worse, could I?" Hamnet said.

  "You never know, not till it happens."

  "I'll take my chances," Hamnet said. "Why don't you go back to telling Eyvind Torfinn what to do? He's your sport these days, isn't he?"

  "You're more amusing, though. It's harder to make him angry."

  "I'm sure you could manage if you set your mind—or something—to it."

  "Meow," she said. "Jealousy doesn't become you."

  "I'm not jealous of Eyvind Torfinn." Hamnet listened to himself. It was true. He wasn't jealous. It so surprised him, he said it again: "I'm not jealous of Eyvind Torfinn, by God. If he wants you so much, he's welcome to you."

  Gudrid stared. She must have heard the conviction in his voice, and it must have surprised her as much as it surprised him. She yanked hard at her horse's reins. The luckless beast snorted as she jerked its head away and rode off.

  Hamnet Thyssen went on alone
for some little while after that. For the time being, he was free from the longing for what once had been. He wasn't sure she entirely believed that, even now, but she would surely begin to suspect it might be so. And when she decided it was .. . What would she do then?

  * * * *

  Whenever the travelers met other Bizogot clans, Trasamund would go on—and on, and on—about their wanderings beyond the Glacier. He'd come with them precisely so he could speak with each clan's jarl as an equal. He talked about the Rulers, and about the way they rode mammoths. That always made the Bizogots, chieftains and clansmen, sit up and take notice. Everyone who heard about it seemed wild to try it. "Why didn't we think of that?" was a refrain Count Hamnet heard over and over again.

  Then Trasamund would talk about how the Bizogot clans needed to band together against the invasion that was bound to come before long. Every other jarl who heard that would smile and nod politely, and then would go on with whatever he'd been doing before Trasamund raised the point. Riding mammoths interested the Bizogots. Taking steps against what hadn't happened yet... didn't.

  "What's wrong with them?" Trasamund growled when yet another jarl refused to get excited about the threat.

  "I can tell you, your Ferocity," Ulric Skakki said. "And I can tell you something else—you won't like it."

  "Try me." Trasamund turned it into a challenge.

  "Suppose a jarl from near the border with Raumsdalia came up to the Three Tusks country and told you the Empire was going to invade his grazing lands when spring came. What would you do about it?"

  The jarl frowned. "Me? Probably not much, not by my lonesome. It's a long way off, and . .." His voice trailed away. He sent Ulric Skakki a perfectly poisonous glare. "You have a nasty way of making your point."

  "Ah, God bless you, your Ferocity. You say the sweetest things," Ulric crooned. Trasamund muttered into his beard. Not for the first time, Ulric's gratitude for things that weren't meant as compliments succeeded in confusing the person who'd aimed the unpleasantry his way.