"Because they're true?"

She ignored him. He smiled, which only seemed to annoy her more. He wasn't a great one for fancy speeches and praise of women's beauty. But any praise at all seemed more than Liv was used to.

They came to a serai not long before the sun went down. There would be a few more in the towns in the north woods. After that, the travelers would have to arrange their own shelter or pay the price for failure. A roaring fire and greasy roast mutton suited Hamnet fine after a long day on the road.

He ate more mutton for breakfast, and washed it down with beer mulled with a hot poker. "Not fancy, but it sticks to the ribs," Ulric Skakki said, and Hamnet nodded.

The travelers were about to go out to the horses when a newcomer walked into the serai. Hamnet and Ulric looked at each other. Had the stranger traveled through the frigid night to get here? By the way he yawned and rubbed at his red-tracked eyes, he probably had. "Do I see Count Hamnet Thyssen here?" he asked.

Hamnet got to his feet. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. "You see me," he said. "Why do you care?"

"I am an imperial courier." The newcomer handed him a rolled parchment held closed by a ribbon and by the imperial seal stamped into golden wax. "This is an order recalling you to Nidaros at once."

"Give it to me." Hamnet broke the seal and read the order. It was exactly what the courier said it was. He recognized Sigvat's signature; the document was genuine. Nodding to the man, he said, "All right—I have it. Thank you."

"You will accompany me back down to the capital, then?"

"No."

The courier's jaw dropped. "But.. . But. .." He tried again. "You are ordered to return. Ordered. By the Emperor. Sigvat II." He added the name as if Count Hamnet might have forgot who ruled Raumsdalia.

"No," Hamnet said again. "He's welcome to exile me. Why not? I'm leaving the Empire anyhow. And I am leaving. I'm not going back to Nidaros. If he wants to confiscate my castle down in the southeast, he can do that, too. I'm in no position to stop him, God knows. I hope he'll treat my retainers well. I haven't seen them since last spring, and they have nothing to do with this."

"But. .. you're disobeying a direct imperial command." The courier didn't seem to think such a thing was possible, or even imaginable.

"I am, all right." Count Hamnet nodded, as if to encourage him. "You catch on fast."

"You can't do that." The young Raumsdalian sounded absolutely certain.

"Watch me," Hamnet Thyssen said calmly. Being clear in his own mind about what he aimed to do brought a wonderful sense of freedom. He was his own man, not Sigvat s man or even the Empire's man. He would do what he chose, and hard luck to anyone who didn't like it.

"What am I supposed to do?" the courier bleated.

"Tell the Emperor you delivered his order. Tell him I told you no. Here, wait." He borrowed a quill and ink from the serai-keeper, who watched the drama with wide eyes. I have read this order. I decline to obey it. Do not blame the messenger—it is not his fault, Hamnet wrote, and signed his name in a fine round hand. He gave the parchment back to the courier. "There you go. It shouldn't have anything to do with you. This is between his Majesty and me."

"This won't help," the courier predicted, voice full of gloom.

"Would you like the wizard here and me to witness whatever Count Hamnet wrote?" Ulric Skakki asked.

Even more gloomily, the courier shook his head. "I could have God witness it, and it wouldn't do me any good."

If Sigvat was in one of those moods, the man might be right. "Tell me something," Hamnet said. "Did Earl Eyvind Torfinn’s wife have anything to do with getting this order sent?" The courier looked blank. Hamnet added, "Her name is Gudrid."

"Oh. Her. I know who you mean. The one who's like that with the Emperor." The courier twisted two fingers together. But then he shrugged. "I don't know anything about it. A clerk gave me the order and told me what was in it in case it got wet or something, that's all."

The one who's like that with the Emperor. Hamnet Thyssen wasn't much surprised; he'd already had a good idea that that was so.

"All right, then. You'd better head south, then, and let Sigvat know," Hamnet had a second thought. "Unless you'd sooner come north with me?"

"No, thanks. I'm not a crazy man. I'm not a rebel." Shaking his head, the courier walked out of the common room.

Ulric Skakki patted Count Hamnet on the back. "You crazy man, you," he said affectionately. "You rebel."

"Do not mock this man," Trasamund growled. "He has done what a free man should. He has done what a Bizogot would. He's shown he is worthy to come north, worthy to take his place in the Three Tusk clan."

"However you please, your Ferocity." Now Ulric seemed as indifferent as a dead man. He could assume any tone, or none, in the blink of an eye. "See how much you like it when Hamnet tells you where to head in instead of the Emperor."

"He would not do that." But Trasamund sounded doubtful.

"Don't be an idiot. Of course he would." Ulric turned back to Hamnet Thyssen. "Wouldn't you, your Grace?"

"Probably." Hamnet knew he would be lying if he said anything else. "I would if the jarl made the same sort of mistake Sigvat's made, anyhow."

Trasamund beamed. "Then we have nothing to worry about." He thumped his chest. "Me, I do not make mistakes like this. I am too clever."

"And too modest, too," Ulric Skakki remarked.

"Yes. And that," Trasamund agreed. Liv raised an eyebrow. Audun Gilli looked up at the ceiling. Count Hamnet looked down at his hands. Ulric whistled a snatch of something or other. Trasamund wouldn't have recognized irony if he were a lodestone.

"I think we'd better leave," Hamnet Thyssen said.

As he went out the door, he wished he were wearing chainmail instead of furs and leather. If that courier decided to exact punishment for disobeying an imperial order, he could be waiting out there with a bow, looking for a good shot. He could be, but he wasn't.

The travelers hadn't gone far from the serai before the Great North Road plunged into the forest belt. Liv sighed. "All these trees," she said. "We could do so much with them—and they even smell good." Her nostrils twitched. Then they twitched again. The wistful smile left her face. "That's not just trees I smell."

Hamnet Thyssen sniffed, too. "I know what that is—it's the musk of a short-faced bear."

"It is," Ulric Skakki agreed. "No doubt about it. "Maybe a sow that had a litter, and now she's out of food." He strung his bow. "Much as I hate to mention it, we qualify. If a short-faced bear would try to eat Gudrid, it only goes to show they'll eat anything."

That jerked a laugh out of Count Hamnet. Trasamund visibly started to say something. Then, just as visibly, he changed his mind. Hamnet strung his bow, too. Short-faced bears were hard to kill with arrows. Sometimes, though, they would run away if they got hurt. And sometimes getting hurt would only infuriate them and make them attack all the more ferociously. You never could tell.

"Audun, Liv—if you know any charms for fighting off animals, this would be a good time to dust them off," Hamnet said.

"These don't always work," Liv said. "Animals are more deeply connected to nature than shamanry can ever hope to be."

"Well, see if you can make this beast unbearable all the same," Ulric said. Audun Gilli and Hamnet Thyssen winced. Liv was too new to Raumsdalian to get the pun or realize how bad it was.

The horses snorted and sidestepped. They smelled the bear, too, and didn't like it. "The wind is blowing from it to us," Hamnet said. "Maybe it won't realize we're here."

"I hate to tell you this, your Grace, but bears have eyes as well as noses. They have ears, too," Ulric said.