Eyvind stared at him. "I would like that very much," he said. "Whether I can make such a journey may be another question. Beyond the Glacier! I was not sure there was such a thing as beyond the Glacier. For all I knew, for all anyone knew, it went on forever."

"I had the same thought when I learned the Gap has melted through," Count Hamnet said. "But Trasamund speaks of white bears and strange buffalo and other marvels he's seen with his own eyes."

"Does he?" Eyvind Torfinn looked toward the tall Bizogot. By then Gudrid, with a sure instinct for self-preservation, no longer clung to him, even if she did hover close by. Seeing her set her present husband down a different thought-road. He swung back toward Hamnet. "Can you stand to make a journey with me, your Grace? I would not be grateful—I fear I would not even be long ungrateful—if you set on me the moment we passed the Empire's borders, or perhaps even before we passed them."

"By God, your Splendor, by God and by my honor, I will do nothing of the sort," Hamnet Thyssen said. "You have my oath, the strongest oath I can give. If it is not enough to satisfy you ... If it is not enough to satisfy you, sir, then be damned to you. I don't know what else to say."

"If we meet danger, I am more likely to prove a liability than an asset," Earl Eyvind said. "I am not young. I am not strong. I am not swift or graceful. I have not even practiced with a sword for many years, let alone unsheathed one in anger."

"You know things," Hamnet said. "You know things I did not think anyone could know. Speak to Trasamund." Though not of your wife—she's not mine now. "Speak to the Emperor. Knowledge is always an asset."

"Is it?" Eyvind Torfinn raised a bushy gray eyebrow. "Are you glad knowing . . . what you know about the lady who was once your wife?"

"Am I glad? No," Count Hamnet answered steadily. "Would I rather know the truth than live in a fool's paradise? Yes, and she played me for a fool." And she'll play you the same way, if she hasn't done it already, and you may prove yourself a fool if you don't know that.