By the way Gudrid listened to him, he might have been talking about a mistress he'd kept secret from her. Maybe she thought he was, and maybe she was right; knowledge was like that for some men. Hamnet Thyssen hadn't known Eyvind was one of them. Plainly, his former wife hadn't, either. After a couple of exaggerated yawns didn't make Eyvind Torfinn dry up, she flounced off, hips working in the clinging maroon wool knit dress she wore.

Her husband never noticed. He was comparing and contrasting modern ideas about the Golden Shrine with those from bygone days. He knew more about ideas from bygone days than Hamnet Thyssen had thought any living man could. "And so you see," Eyvind Torfinn said with an enthusiast's zeal, "there is more than a little consistency about these notions through time. Not perfect consistency, mind you, but more than a little. Enough to persuade me something real lies behind all the guesswork and the legends."

What Hamnet saw was Gudrid doing everything but painting herself against Trasamund. She all but purred when the Bizogot stroked her. If her gap wouldn't open for him, Hamnet would have been very much surprised.

But that was not his worry now, for which—some of him—thanked God. He set a scarred and callused hand on Eyvind Torfinn's shoulder. "Your Splendor," he said, "his Majesty was talking about recruiting a scholar to accompany us on the journey north. I think you are the man we need."

"I?" Eyvind Torfinn said in mild astonishment.

"Certainly. You know so much about the Golden Shrine. Wouldn't you like to put what you know to use? Wouldn't you like to see the Temple with your own eyes?" If it's there to see, Hamnet Thyssen added, but only to himself.