Tale of the Fox gtf-2

by Harry Turtledove

  That didn't mean they wouldn't battle one another. Parol Chickpea said, "If the lord prince gives the order, we'll squash you lads underfoot like a nest of cockroaches. I won't much care for that, but what can you do?"

  "You can get beaten back to your own land where you belong," said the fellow sitting beside him: one of Ricolf's troopers, and one who, by his look and bearing, a man of sense would not annoy.

  Parol was a lot of things, but seldom sensible. A monster had bitten off a large chunk of one of his buttocks; Gerin wondered if sitting lopsided for years had unbalanced his brain. Probably not, the Fox judged. Parol hadn't been bright before he developed a list.

  "No one in this hall wants to go to war with anyone else here," Gerin said loudly, wishing Parol would keep his mouth shut. "If we wanted to go to war, we would have done it already. I always reckoned Ricolf a friend and his men allies. Father Dyaus grant that my men and those of this holding always stay friends and allies."

  "Truth there," Ratkis Bronzecaster said, and raised his drinking jack in salute. Gerin was pleased to drink with him.

  A buxom young serving girl did everything she could to attract Duren's notice but plop herself down in his lap. Duren did notice her, too. His eyes stuck to her the way little scraps of cloth would stick to amber after you rubbed it. But he did not get up and follow her, despite the glances she kept throwing over her shoulder.

  "Good for you," Gerin told him. "If you're going to rule this holding, you don't want to get a reputation as a man who thinks with his spear first and his head later. You're a likely-looking lad; finding willing women shouldn't be any trouble for you. But this wench-who knows what she's after, making up so soon to the fellow who's likely to be her overlord?"

  "That's what I was thinking," Duren answered. What else he was thinking, though, was also obvious from the way he kept watching the girl.

  Wacho Fidus' son breathed ale fumes into Gerin's face. "So you will be going on to Ikos, eh, lord prince?"

  "A man with a gift for the obvious," Gerin observed, which, as he'd expected, made Wacho stare at him in beery incomprehension. Sighing, he went on, "As a matter of fact, what point in going on to Ikos if you retainers of Ricolf's try to ignore what the god tells you if it's not to your liking? I don't want to do it, mind you, but we might as well just fight the war. You'd have no doubt of what you were supposed to do then, anyhow."

  Wacho understood that well enough, and looked appalled. He said, "No such thing, lord prince. We were just talking about what to do if the Sibyl's verse turned out to be obsc-ob-hard to make head or tail of, that's all. If it's plain, we have no quarrel."

  "By everything you and your three comrades have said and done, you'd do anything to show the Sibyl's verse was obscure, regardless of whether that's really so," Gerin said. "I don't know why I'm wasting my time with you."

  He knew perfectly well why he was wasting his time with them: he didn't want to get into a little war down here, not when two bigger ones were building in the west and Aragis the Archer loomed, watching and waiting, in the south. But if he could push Ricolf's vassals into forgetting that, he'd do it without hesitation or compunction.

  Still looking horrified, Wacho went off and collared Authari, Ratkis, and Hilmic. The four of them put their heads together, then came back over to the Fox. "See here," Authari said, his voice full of nervous bluster. "I thought we had a bargain to abide by what the Sibyl at Ikos said."

  "So did I," Gerin answered. "But when I got down here, what I found you people meaning was that you would interpret Biton's words they way they suited you, no matter what he said."

  "We never said any such thing," Hilmic Barrelstaves said indignantly.

  "I didn't say you said it. I said you meant it," Gerin told him. " `What do we do if we don't agree? What do we do if we don't agree? You might as well have been crickets, all chirping the same note." He got up as if to stamp out of the great hall, as if to stamp out of Ricolf's keep altogether, in spite of the ghosts that turned the night to terror.

  "Give us an oath," Ratkis said. "Give us an oath we can swear and we will swear it. Authari was talking about that with you, I know, and I said as much earlier myself. We want-I want-fair dealing here."

  Him Gerin believed. He was less sure about the other three. But a strong enough oath would attract the notice of even the rather lackadaisical Elabonian gods if it was violated. "All right. Will you swear by Father Dyaus and farseeing Biton to accept the words of the Sibyl on their face if there is any possible way to do so. Will you also swear that, should you violate your oath, you pray you will have only sorrow and misfortune in this world and that your soul will not even wander the world by night, but will rest forever in the hottest of the five hells?"

  Ricolf's four vassals looked at each other, then went off to put their heads together again. When they came back, Authari Broken-Tooth said, "That's a strong oath you require of us."

  "That's the idea," Gerin said, exhaling through his nose. "What point to an oath you don't fear breaking?"

  "Will you swear the same oath?" Wacho demanded.

  By his tone, he expected the Fox to recoil in dismay from the very idea. But Gerin said, "Of course I will. I don't fear what Biton says. If Duren isn't fated to rule this holding, the god will make that plain. And if he is so fated, Biton will tell us that, too. So I will swear that oath. I'll swear it now, this instant. Join me?"

  They went off once more. Gerin sipped his ale and watched them argue. It seemed to be Authari and Ratkis on one side, Wacho and Hilmic on the other. He couldn't hear them, but he would have been willing to guess which men were on which side.

  At last, rather glumly, the barons returned. Speaking for them, Authari said, "Very well, lord prince. We will swear the oath with you. If we disagree in spite of it, we will settle the disagreements as you proposed. In short, we agree with all your proposals, straight down the line."

  "No, we don't agree with them," Hilmic Barrelstaves said angrily. "But we'll go along with them. It's either that or fight you, and our chances there don't look good to us, not even if Aragis comes in on our side."

  "You're right," Gerin said. "Your chances wouldn't have been good. Shall we swear now, before our men?"

  Wacho and Hilmic looked as if they would have delayed if they could have found any good reason for doing so. But Ratkis Bronzecaster said, "It would be best so. That way, our retainers can have no doubt about what the agreement is."

  "Exactly my thought," Gerin said. It also makes it harder for you to go about breaking the oath later: your own men will call you on it if you do.

  When the two hesitant barons nodded at last, Duren said, "I will swear this oath, also. If this is to be my holding, it will be mine, so I should speak for myself in matters that touch on it."

  "Good enough," Gerin said heartily, and Ricolf's vassals also made approving noises. Down deep, Gerin wondered how good it really was. Would his son, if he became lord here, suddenly start ignoring everything he said? Duren was of about the right age to do something like that. And his mother, from whom he drew half his blood, had always been one to follow her impulses to the hilt, whether it was running away with Gerin or running away from him a few years later. Was Elise's blood showing itself in Duren? And if it was, what could the Fox do about it?

  He quickly answered that one: nothing. Forcing the issue by bringing Duren here had been his idea. Now he would have to face the consequences, whatever those turned out to be.

  He got to his feet. So did Duren, and so, a moment later, did Ricolf's four leading vassals. Gerin looked at them, hoping one of their number-maybe Authari, who liked to hear himself talk-would announce to the expectantly waiting warriors his approval of what they had agreed upon. That would make it look as if the oath had been in large measure their idea, not his.

  But Authari and his comrades stood mute, leaving it up to the Fox. He made the best of it he could: "We now seal by this oath we are about to swear to abide by the farseeing god's choice as to
whether Duren should rule this holding, the oath setting out what we hope will happen to us in this world and the next if we go against any of its provisions. I will say the terms, and Ricolf's vassals and my son will repeat them after me, all of us committing ourselves to this course."

  He waited for any objection from his men or from those who owed allegiance to Ricolf's vassals. When none came, he said, "I begin." He turned to Duren and to Ricolf's lordlets: "Say each phrase of the oath after me: `By Dyaus All-Father and farseeing Biton I swear-`"

  "`By Dyaus All-Father and farseeing Biton I swear-`" Authari and Ratkis, Wacho and Hilmic, and Duren all echoed him. He listened carefully to make sure they did. If not everyone swore the same oath, people would be able to question its validity. That was the last thing he wanted.

  He made the oath as comprehensive and strict as he could, so much so that Wacho and Hilmic and even Authari looked at him sidelong as provision after stern provision rolled off his tongue. Duren took the oath without hesitation. So did Ratkis Bronzecaster. The Fox thought Ratkis honest. If he wasn't, he was so shameless as to be deadly dangerous.

  At last he could think of nothing more to bind Ricolf's vassals to their promises. "So may it be," he finished, and, with evident relief, they repeated the words after him: "So may it be." The oath had done what it could do. The rest would be up to the men who had followed Ricolf so long-and to the farseeing god.

  * * *

  Eight chariots rattled down the narrow track through the strange and haunted wood that grew around the little valley housing the hamlet of Ikos and Biton's shrine nearby. Gerin, Duren, and Van rode in one; their retainers filled three more; and Authari, Wacho, Ratkis, and Hilmic each headed one crew.

  "I've never been to see the Sibyl, not in all my days," Hilmic Barrelstaves said, his voice unwontedly quiet as he peered this way and that into the wood. "Did I see a-? No, I couldn't have." He shook his head, denying the idea, whatever it had been, even to himself.

  Gerin had been through that curious wood a good many times, but he was wary there, too. You were never quite sure what you saw or heard-or what saw and heard you. Sometimes you got the strong feeling you were better off not knowing.

  Even Van spoke softly, as if not wanting to rouse whatever powers rested in uneasy sleep. "I think we'll make it to the town before sundown," he said. "Hard to be sure, when the leaves block the sunlight so-and when you're in this place any which way. Time feels-loose-here, so it's hard to judge how long you've really been traveling."

  "This forest is as old as the world, I think," Gerin answered, "and now, it's a little, mm, disconnected from the rest of the world. It puts up with this road through it, but only just barely."

  Duren drove on in silence. The horses were nervous, but he controlled them. Like Hilmic, he was making his first visit to Ikos, and he was as busy as Ricolf's vassal trying to look in every direction at once, and as wide-eyed at the things he was-and the things he wasn't-seeing.

  To Gerin's relief, Van proved right: they emerged from the wood with some daylight left. The idea of having to camp in among those trees chilled the Fox. Who could say what kind of ghosts lived in this place? He did not want to find out, and was glad he would not have to.

  "Rein in," he told his son, and Duren obediently brought the chariot to a stop. Gerin stared down into the valley at the white-marble splendor of Biton's shrine and the almost equally splendid wall of marble blocks surrounding its compound. "Will you look at that?" he said softly.

  "Amazing," Van agreed, nodding. They'd both seen that shrine and that wall overthrown in the earthquake that had released the monsters from their age-long underground captivity and loosed them on the upper world. Van went on, "It looks the same as it always did."

  "That it does," Gerin said. It would have been impossible for any men in the northlands to restore that temple, built as it was with the full resources of the Empire of Elabon in its glory days and all the talented artists and artisans the Empire provided. But Biton had rebuilt the shrine, and in an instant. Because of that, Gerin had wondered if it would be even more magnificent than it had been before. But no-at least from a distance, it merely seemed the same.

  Ikos-the town, as opposed to the shrine-was different from what it had been. Biton had not restored the overthrown hostels and eateries as he had his own temple. There were fewer of them now than there had been before the quake; some then had been just hanging on, for traffic to the Sibyl's underground chamber had shrunk since the Empire of Elabon cut itself off from the northlands. The ones who had been suffering, evidently, had not rebuilt. By the quiet streets that wound between the surviving shelters, more would have been superfluous.

  When the innkeepers saw eight cars bearing down on them at once, they fell with glad cries on the warriors those cars carried. Gerin remembered the outrageous prices he'd paid to rest his head in the days before the werenight. He and his companions got bigger rooms, with meals thrown in as part of the bargain, for less than half as much. Any business, these days, was better than none to the townsfolk.

  "How do these people live when the inns are empty, the way they look to be most of the time?" Van asked in the taproom later that evening.

  "They get rich, taking in one another's laundry," Gerin answered, deadpan.

  Van started to nod, then stared sharply and let out a snort. "You want to watch that tongue of yours, Fox. One fine day you'll cut yourself with it." Gerin stuck out the member in question and stared down at it, cross-eyed. Van made as if to drench him with a jack of ale, but didn't do it. That relieved the Fox; his friend started tavern brawls for the sport of it.

  Gerin and Duren shared a chamber. Van took the one next to theirs, and didn't want any of the rest of the Fox's followers in there with him. Even with the bargain rates they were getting, Gerin, who made money last till it wore out, fretted at the extra expense. But it quickly became obvious Van did not intend to sleep alone. He made advances to both serving girls who were bringing food from the kitchens, and soon had one of them sitting on his lap, giggling at the way his beard tickled while he nuzzled her neck.

  The Fox sighed. One way or another, word of what Van was doing would get back to Fand, and that would start another of their fights. Gerin was sick of fights. How were you supposed to live your life in the middle of chaos? But some people reveled in such disorder.

  Van was one of them. "I know what you're thinking, Captain," he said. "Your face gives you away. And do you know what? I don't care."

  "That's what Rihwin said, when he danced his wife away," Gerin answered. Van wasn't listening to him. Van wasn't listening to anything save his drinking jack and the stiff lance he had in his breeches.

  Duren looked hungrily at the serving girl. But then he took a long look around the taproom. A couple of other wenches were serving there, true. But all the men they were serving were both older and far more prominent than he. He took a sip from his jack of ale and then said, "My chances aren't good here tonight, are they?"

  The Fox set a hand on his shoulder. "You're my son, sure enough," he said. "There're men twice your age-Dyaus, there're men four times your age-who'd never make that calculation, and who'd sulk or rage for days because they didn't have some doe-eyed girl helping 'em pull their breeches down."

  Duren snorted. "That's foolish."

  "Aye, so it is," Gerin answered. "Doesn't stop it from happening all the time-and women aren't immune to it, either, not even a little bit. People are foolish, son-haven't you noticed that yet?"

  "Oh, maybe once or twice," Duren said, as dryly as the Fox might have. Gerin stared at him, then started to laugh. If Duren did take over at what had been the holding of Ricolf the Red, Wacho, Hilmic, and Authari would never know what hit them. Ratkis Bronzecaster might, but the Fox had the feeling he'd be on Duren's side.

  After a while, Gerin tipped his drinking jack over on its side and went upstairs carrying a candle, Duren trailing along behind him. Van and the serving maid had already gone up there; the noises fr
om behind the outlander's door told without any possible doubt what they were doing. The amatory racket came through the wall, too. As Gerin used the candle to light a couple of lamps, Duren said, "How are we supposed to sleep with that going on?"

  "I expect we'll manage," Gerin said. A moment later, a moan from the other side of the wall contradicted him. He thought about rapping on the timbers, but forbore; as any man was liable to do, Van grew testy if interrupted, and a testy Van was not something to contemplate without trepidation. "We'll manage," the Fox repeated, this time as much to convince himself as his son.

  * * *

  When the shutters were closed, they made the bedroom dark and hot and stuffy. Leaving them open let in fresh air, but also bugs and, come morning, daylight, which woke Gerin earlier than he would have liked.

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes with something less than enthusiasm. He hadn't slept as well as he would have liked, and he had had a little more ale than he should have-not enough for a true hangover, but plenty to give him the edge of a headache behind his eyes and to make his mouth taste like something scraped off the dung heap.

  To improve his mood yet further, a rhythmic pounding started in the chamber next door. That was enough to wake Duren, who stared at the wall. "I was asleep," he said, as if not quite believing it. He lowered his voice. "Is he at it still, Father?"

  "Not still, the gods be thanked. Only again." Gerin raised an eyebrow. "If he's not down by breakfast, we'll rap on the door. Of course, if he's not down by breakfast, the serving girl won't be, either, so breakfast may be late."

  Van did come down for breakfast, looking mightily contented with the world. After bread and honey and ale, he and Gerin and Duren, along with Ricolf's four leading vassals, walked down to Biton's shrine, a little south of the hamlet of Ikos.