Then, without warning, the bowl broke. Marcovefa exclaimed in surprise. The water spilled out and carved a couple of tiny gullies in the dirt in front of the hut.

“I didn’t know it was cracked,” Hamnet said.

“It wasn’t,” Marcovefa answered.

“But it must have been. It wouldn’t have done that if it weren’t,” Hamnet insisted.

She shook her head. “No. That was part of the scrying. Look.” She picked up the pieces of the bowl, then dug something out of the dirt with her fingernail. She held it under Hamnet’s nose.

His eyes crossed as he tried to focus. “A little scrap of crystal. So what?”

“It’s more than that,” she said.

“Well, what is it, then?”

“Something to do with the divination.”

“How could it be? It wasn’t even in the water.”

“It was under the water. That’s what matters.”

“You aren’t making any sense,” Hamnet said impatiently.

Marcovefa looked annoyed—not at him, but at herself. “I can’t make sense about this—not as much as I want to, anyhow. The scrying broke apart when the bowl did.”

“You mean you don’t know what’s ahead?” Hamnet felt like kicking something. “We just wasted the time and the bowl?”

“No.” She shook her head again. “I learned . . . something, anyhow. You will face the Rulers here, in the land of the Bizogots.”

“Not down in Raumsdalia?” Hamnet said in some surprise.

“Maybe there, too. But when it matters most, it will be here.”

“And what happens then?”

“Then . . . the bowl breaks.” Marcovefa gave him a crooked grin he would have thought he’d be more likely to see on Ulric Skakki’s face. “You don’t always find out everything you want to know.”

“Of course not,” Hamnet said. “That would make things too easy.”

Marcovefa nodded, even if he’d meant it for a sour joke. “Yes. It would. But if I do not know what happens after the bowl breaks, neither do the Rulers. I saw that much, anyhow.”

“Can you get another bowl and try again?” Count Hamnet asked.

“I am not brave enough,” the shaman answered. “When the bowl broke and the water spilled, that told me I was not supposed to know any more. But the Rulers know what they are about. Whatever happens here, it happens on account of you.”

“I’m going to go out and punch Ulric in the chops,” Hamnet said.

“Why?”

“For being right.”

“Ah.” Marcovefa nodded once more. “Yes, that makes sense. Not many worse things a man can do.”

Now he thought she was joking—but if she was, she hid it very well. “I still can’t believe it,” Hamnet said. “I’m nobody in particular. Why does this have to land on me?”

“Why not you? It has to land on someone. Or else it lands on no one, and the Rulers win without a real fight,” Marcovefa said. “But you aren’t ‘nobody in particular.’ Who has been beyond the Glacier? Who has been to the top of the Glacier, too?”

“Ulric. Trasamund.” Hamnet Thyssen hesitated, then produced two more names: “Audun Gilli. Liv. So why me?”

“One in five is not ‘nobody in particular,’ ” Marcovefa said. “Who has loved a woman from your folk, from the Bizogots, and from my folk? Only you.”

“Is that why?” Hamnet was more appalled than anything else. He started to blurt, Much good it’s done me, but swallowed the words. He didn’t want to anger Marcovefa.

Swallowing words around a shaman didn’t always help. By Marcovefa’s expression, she knew what he was about to say even if he didn’t say it. “I do not know if that is why or not,” she said. “Maybe. Maybe not. But there is more to you than you want to see.”

“More to land me in trouble,” he said.

“That, too,” she agreed, which didn’t make him any happier. “Maybe also more to get you out, though.”

He laughed. “When was the last time I wasn’t in trouble?” He knew the answer to that, whether Marcovefa did or not: “The day before Sigvat’s courier got to my castle to tell me I had to come to Nidaros, that’s when. One thing after the other.”

“Am I one thing—or the other?” she asked sharply.

“Of course you are,” Hamnet said. “You know it as well as I do, too. You wouldn’t be able to stand yourself if you didn’t make trouble. Go ahead—tell me I’m wrong.”

Marcovefa preened. She tried to pretend she hadn’t, but she couldn’t do it. Then she said, “Well, maybe I am. But not just trouble to you. Trouble to your enemies, too. You have lots of enemies.”

“Who?” Count Hamnet said. “Me?” He was convincing enough to make Marcovefa poke him in the ribs. She didn’t kick him in the ribs: he supposed to show him she wasn’t his enemy . . . yet.

THREE DAYS LATER, another rider from the Empire came into what had been the Leaping Lynxes’ summer village. Per Anders looked relieved to find Hamnet Thyssen there. “God be praised!” he said. “I bring you a letter from His Majesty.” He took a fancy, beribboned, multiply sealed rolled parchment from his saddlebag and presented it to Count Hamnet with the best flourish a weary man could manage.

“Oh, joy,” Hamnet said as he took it.

“Happy day,” Ulric Skakki agreed.

The courier glanced from one of them to the other. “Does the honor of hearing from the Emperor—of having a letter in his own bright hand—not please you?”

“No,” Hamnet said shortly.

“Sorry, Anders—not your fault,” Ulric added. “But either he’s going to lie to us or he’s going to beg from us or he’s going to do both at once.” His voice elaborately casual, he went on, “So tell me—does the Empire still hold Nidaros?”

Per Anders flinched. “How the demon did you know it was lost?”

“Well, it wasn’t the last time a rider made it up here, but we sent that poor bugger off with a flea in his ear,” the adventurer answered. “It’s the logical place for the Rulers to aim at, and they’ve got wizards we mostly can’t match. So . . . Sigvat got away, did he? Where’s he holed up now?”

“Aarhus,” Anders said unwillingly. Count Hamnet whistled under his breath. Aarhus lay a long way south of Nidaros: four or five days’ travel. The small sound drew the courier’s attention back to him. “Aren’t you going to read that?”

“I don’t know. Am I?” Hamnet asked, not at all in jest. Per Anders winced. But Ulric was right—it wasn’t the horse man’s fault. He’d risked his life to obey Sigvat II, a man who, to Hamnet’s way of thinking, had long since proved he wasn’t worth obeying. Hamnet took a certain grim pleasure in tearing the ribbon and cracking the blobby red and green seals.

“Well? What sort of horse manure have we got here?” Ulric asked as Hamnet unrolled the parchment.

Hamnet didn’t answer, not right away. Anders was right: the letter was in the Emperor’s own hand, which made it much harder to read than if one of his secretaries had written it. Where were they now? Dead? Fled? How many poor bastards had the Rulers found in the dungeons under Sigvat’s palace? What did they do with them? Turn them loose? Broil them for supper? Hamnet didn’t think the Rulers were cannibals, but how could you be sure?

Sigvat II swore he’d lost Nidaros by treachery. Maybe it was even true. Count Hamnet couldn’t see that it mattered now one way or the other. The Emperor also swore he would get the capital back by himself, which Hamnet didn’t believe for a minute. Then he wrote, We all need to work together against these savage, barbarous foes. Hamnet Thyssen swore under his breath. Of all the things he hated, agreeing with his much-unloved sovereign stood close to the top of the list.

He wordlessly passed the letter to Ulric. “About what you’d expect,” the adventurer said after going through it faster than Hamnet had. “His toes are scorched, and he wants us to come pull him off the fire.”

“We’re already doing more than he knows about,” Hamnet said. “Not a lot of Rulers getting down to the Empire.”

“The ones already down there are bad enough,” Per Anders said. “More than bad enough. If you and the mammoth-herders here can come south to help us, Sigvat will be grateful.”