After a few heartbeats of thought, the Emperor nodded. "Well, your Ferocity, your Grace, let it be as you desire," Sigvat said. "We shall indeed summon a scholar and a sorcerer to accompany you. God grant they prove useful."

Trasamund and Count Hamnet both bowed. The jarl of the Three Tusk clan said, "I thank you for your kindness, your Majesty, and for your wisdom."

"It was not my wisdom—it was yours," Sigvat said. "Count Hamnet helped me see it."

"Count Hamnet has a name for good sense," the Bizogot chieftain said. "I was glad when you summoned him."

"You have heard of me, too, you said. What do I have a name for?" Ulric Skakki inquired in what might have been amusement or might have been something altogether darker and more dangerous.

Trasamund took him literally, answering, "For getting in and getting out again. Where we are going, what we are doing, that may be the best name of all to have."

"Each of you will be my guest here at the palace till we find you suitable companions," Sigvat said. "I will lay on a reception and a feast in your honor tonight."

So much for wisdom. So much for good sense, Count Hamnet thought unhappily. Now he was stuck in Nidaros for God only knew how long, stuck in the same town with Gudrid and Eyvind Torfinn. He wished he could have got in and got out again. And it was his own damned fault he hadn't.

II

Torches blazed bravely. They drove night back to the corners of the dining hall, even if they did fill the room with a strong odor of hot mammoth fat. Perfumed beeswax candles spilled out more golden light and fought the tallow reek to something close to a draw.

A goblet of mead in his hand, Count Hamnet Thyssen surveyed the throng gathered at least partly in his honor. He tried to imagine some of these gilded popinjays up on the tundra, or in the endless forests to the east. That was enough to squeeze a grunt of laughter from even his somber spirit.