“No, eh?” Hamnet said. “Why did you come up to the steppe again, in that case?”

“Maybe I’m a fool,” Ulric said. He was a great many things: scout, raider, thief, assassin. Hamnet Thyssen had never made the mistake of reckoning him a fool. Other mistakes, certainly. That one? No—he wasn’t such a big fool, or that particular kind of fool, himself. Then Ulric aimed a wry smile at him. “Or maybe you have such pretty eyes, I couldn’t resist.”

Count Hamnet snorted. He took his pleasure—and, too often, his pain—from women. So did Ulric Skakki. Hamnet had never thought pretending otherwise was funny. Ulric did.

“What are you going on about?” Trasamund rumbled. He was the very image of a Bizogot jarl, a clan chief. He was a big man, bigger than Hamnet. He had a hero’s muscles, a hero’s appetite for strong drink and willing women, a hero’s courage. Strong sun and chill winds had carved harsh lines that gave dignity to his bluffly handsome features.

He was, these days, a jarl almost without a clan. The Three Tusk Bizogots lived close by the Glacier. Trasamund was one of the first men through it, one of the first to begin exploring lands cut off by ice for thousands of years.

And the Rulers had fallen on his clan first when they swarmed into the lands on this side of the Glacier. Trasamund had been down in the Empire then. The only thing he could have done had he been among his clansmen was die with them. He knew that, but blamed himself anyhow.

“I was just telling Count Hamnet how beautiful he was, and he was getting all embarrassed about it,” Ulric said archly.

“If I didn’t know the two of you . . .” Trasamund let his voice trail away. Hamnet knew what he wasn’t saying. The Bizogots scorned men who lay with other men, which was putting it mildly. Trasamund didn’t know what to make of men who lay with women but affected not to. No Bizogot seemed to have thought of that particular vice before. Hamnet sent Ulric a not particularly warm glance. He didn’t want Trasamund thinking of him like that.