Gerin studied Wacho in some bemusement; he was showing more in the way of common sense than he'd given any hint of having till now. Hit a man over the head with an idea often enough and he sometimes got it.
Authari Broken-Tooth was getting it, too, but not caring for it once he had it. He set a hand on the hilt of his sword as he glared at Ratkis Bronzecaster. "If you hadn't shown up at the wrong time, we'd all still be free," he snarled.
"What, there on the Elabon Way when the Fox here was coming back from Ikos the second time?" Ratkis asked. Authari nodded. Ratkis, by contrast, shook his head. "I heard about what happened there. You could have squashed him, but you funked the job. And you've got no one to blame for that but yourself." Under his breath, he added, "Not that you will."
And, sure enough, Authari snapped, "That's a lie." But it wasn't a lie. Gerin knew it, and Authari probably knew it, too, down in his heart of hearts: he lacked the gambler's nerve that would have spelled the difference between a petty baron and something more prominent. He looked around the great hall, out toward the courtyard, and out toward the encampment some of Gerin's men had made beyond it. The Fox could gauge the moment when he accepted that he could not change what he saw. "Bah!" Authari said. "We might as well get this over with." He looked around again, this time for Duren.
Ratkis Bronzecaster did more than look. He waved, and got Duren's attention. Gerin waved, too: if Authari was going to give homage and fealty, the opportunity had to be seized, not wasted.
Duren hurried over. Gerin used elbows to help clear a space in the crowd where Authari and his fellows could kneel. Ratkis Bronzecaster had already sworn loyalty to Duren, but had no objection to doing it again. On the contrary: when he gave his new overlord homage and fealty, he obviously meant what he said, which exerted extra pressure on the other three men who had formerly been Ricolf's vassals to mean what they said, too.
After they had given Duren homage and fealty, he said in a loud voice, "Now we see how the prophecy Biton delivered through his Sibyl at Ikos is fulfilled. May the omen prove good!"
Gerin's men cheered raucously. So did a good many of the ordinary troopers Hilmic, Wacho, and Authari had brought with them. That in turn cheered the Fox. If ordinary soldiers favored his son, their leaders would have a harder time making trouble for Duren. And reminding the folk here of the oracular response also struck Gerin as clever. Duren could claim-and claim truthfully-he took the barony with the support of the gods.
The Fox made his way over to his son. "It's yours now. Use it the best way you know how. If you have trouble, you know you can call on me."
"Yes, I know that." Duren nodded. "I shouldn't do it save in direst need, though, or people will think I can't handle my own troubles."
"That's the answer a man gives." Gerin thumped his son on the shoulder.
Duren might have sounded like a man, but he didn't look like one, not in that moment. He looked about the way Gerin would have expected a youth leaving the only home he'd ever known to look: worried and a little afraid. "I'll have to make my place here," he said. "I won't have it on account of who you are."
"That's so," Gerin said, choosing to misunderstand him a little: "Your place here comes from your grandfather… and your mother." He wondered again what Elise would think if she learned her son had taken over her father's barony. He wondered again if she was still alive. Then he wondered what he'd think, what he'd feel, if he found out she was alive. All things considered, he hoped he'd end his days content just to wonder.
"My place here will spring from me, from what I do and what I don't do," Duren persisted. "If I'm right, if I'm clever, I'll do well. And if I'm not, I'll have no one to blame but myself."
"You're my son, all right," Gerin said. Duren looked puzzled. Gerin explained: "Most men-aye, and most women, too-will blame anything and anybody but themselves for everything that goes wrong in their lives. If you know better, that puts you ahead of the game from the start."
"I know better." Duren dropped his voice. "I'm not Authari, to try to blame Ratkis because he didn't strike hard when he had the chance."
"If Authari were as bold in truth as he dreams of being, you'd have more trouble with him, sure enough. With him as he is, though" — Gerin also spoke quietly- "the most you'll have to fret about is poison in your soup. Unless I miss my guess, he'll never try to fight you straight up."
"If you do miss your guess, I expect you'll avenge me," Duren said.
"Bite your tongue-hard." Gerin gestured to turn aside the evil omen. "I've tasted revenge too many times already, and it's a dish I'd sooner not eat of again."
"As you say, Father." Duren matched the Fox's gesture.
Gerin set a hand on his shoulder. "You'll do fine, lad," he said. "The men jump when you talk to them, and that's a gift straight from the gods: if it isn't there, you can't bring it out. And you have a head on your shoulders, even if it's a head without much beard on it right now. Don't take too much for granted, don't fall head over heels in love with the first pretty girl you find down here-or even the third pretty girl-and try to learn from your mistakes. Do that and you'll make a fine baron."
"Good advice," Duren said. Maybe he would turn out to be the one young man in a hundred who actually took good advice. More likely, he'd have to do a lot of learning from his mistakes. So long as he doesn't make one that kills him, Gerin thought. Hardly anybody learns much after that.
A servant came by carrying a pitcher of ale. Gerin held out his drinking jack. The servant filled it. He drank. As far as he could tell, he badly needed more ale in him if his mind filled with such gloomy thoughts in the aftermath of a good-sized triumph.
The ale didn't make him stop worrying. Maybe he would do that when they flipped earth onto his shrouded body. On the other hand, he was liable to be thinking they weren't doing a proper job of burying him. That was a morbid thought, too. It made him laugh anyhow.
* * *
Authari, Wacho, and Hilmic took their men back to their castles the day after they acknowledged Duren as their overlord. Ratkis Bronzecaster, who was on better terms with his new suzerain, stayed a day longer. Then he too departed, leading his retainers off to the southwest. Ricrod looked visibly distressed when Gerin didn't leave the next morning.
"You think they're liable to come charging back as soon as they decide we've upped and gone?" Van asked.
"I don't know," Gerin answered. "I'm not what you call dead keen about finding out the hard way, either. And if the steward here wants to grumble about us eating the storerooms empty, let him." He lowered his voice so only Van could hear: "If I'm not crazy, I'd say Duren picks himself a new steward as soon as he has his feet on the ground."
"You are crazy, Fox, but nobody ever said you were stupid," Van answered. "Nobody ever said that about Duren, either, which means you're almost sure to be right."
None of the reluctant vassals tried anything untoward, so Gerin and his army rode north three days later. Duren stood on the wall of the keep now his, waving till a bend in the road took his father out of sight. The Fox was waving, too. When high ground hid Duren, he felt it had robbed him of a piece of himself, too. He wondered how long he would take to get over the feeling. He wondered if he ever would.
* * *
Up in the watchtower of Fox Keep, the sentry winded his trumpet. "A chariot approaches from the south, lord prince!" A moment later, sounding embarrassed, he corrected himself: "Lord king, I should say."
Still not being altogether used to his own royal title, Gerin did not take offense when those around him had trouble remembering it. He hurried up onto the palisade to see who had traveled almost to the Niffet to pay him a visit. A couple of the men up there shouted out a challenge to the newcomer.
From his chariot, he shouted back, at formidable volume: "I am Marlanz Raw-Meat, sent to treat with Gerin the Fox by my overlord, the grand duke Aragis the Archer."
That got complete and attentive silence from the men up on the wall, Gerin included. He'd been
sure he would hear from Aragis about his assumption of the kingship. He hadn't expected to hear so soon. He called, "Marlanz, you're my guest-friend from ten years ago. Use my keep as your own for as long as you choose to stay here." Hearing that, the men at the gatehouse lowered the drawbridge so Marlanz could ride over the ditch and into the keep.
Aragis' envoy was much as the Fox remembered him: a big, strong, muscular fellow, smarter than he looked and now a bit thicker through the middle than he had been ten years earlier. Gerin also remembered he had a streak of wereblood in him, but the moons had not come full together in clumps of late, and so Marlanz remained wholly human in form.
He clasped Gerin's hand in a grip few warriors could have matched. "Good to see you again, Fox," he said. "It's been a long time. You look well."
"I was thinking the same of you," Gerin answered.
"That was your son heading up what was old Ricolf's holding?" Marlanz asked. "Word came down Ricolf had passed on."
"It's true, I'm sorry to say." Gerin looked sharply at Marlanz. Maybe he hadn't come about the title after all. "Has the Archer a quarrel with that? Unless I were going to claim Ricolf's barony for my own, which I've never wanted to do, it has no other heir but Duren. If you doubt me, go speak to the Sibyl at Ikos."
Aragis' envoy spread his hands and shook his head. "You haven't meddled in the grand duke's part of the northlands, so he has no business meddling up here. And, so far as he knows, what you say about your son's claim is true. But-"
Gerin realized his first guess had been right after all. "Go on," he said.
Marlanz Raw-Meat coughed, as if to advertise he spoke hesitantly. He'd gained in subtlety since his previous trip north. But the point of the visit could not be delayed: "Is it true, Fox, what the grand duke has heard, that you've taken the title of king for yourself?"
"Actually, I had it given to me," Gerin answered. "By Adiatunnus the Trokm-, of all people."
"We heard that, too, but had trouble crediting it," Marlanz said. "If you say it's so, though, I'll believe you. The question grand duke Aragis would have me put is this: what do you mean by it?"
"When Adiatunnus offered it to me, I kept it, because I think I've earned it," Gerin answered. "If Aragis disapproves-"
Marlanz broke in to repeat, "What do you mean by it? When you style yourself king of the north, do you lay claim to the whole of the northlands? Do you claim to be overlord to the grand duke? If you do, I am to tell you he rejects out of hand any such claim."
"Oh," Gerin said, and then, "Oh," again, because that let him make noise without obliging him to make sense. It also gave him a chance to think, and think he did. He felt as he had when light returned under the shrine of Ikos after he and the monsters' gods finished their strange parley: no longer altogether in the dark. "I see what troubles Aragis. Tell him no, Marlanz. In my own lands, my style is now king, not prince. But I do not claim any lands I did not claim before simply because of my new style. As far as I'm concerned, the grand duke Aragis is lord of his own lands, and is not obliged to me in any way for them."
"That is the question I was asking, yes," Marlanz said gratefully. "The grand duke will be pleased at the news I bring him. You and he have lived side by side with each other for a long time now. He may not be your closest friend, but he respects you."
"And I him," Gerin said truthfully. He was glad he had earned Aragis' respect. Aragis, from all he had seen, either respected you or fell on you like a landslide and crushed you. He was a man with no middle ground in him.
"He has always thought so, Fox," Marlanz replied. He did not call Gerin lord king, possibly because Aragis had told him not to. Gerin gave a mental shrug. He was not about to fret over trifles. Marlanz looked thoughtful, then went on, "You said you claimed no new lands because of your new style. Do you claim new lands for some other reason?"
Gerin eyed him with considerable respect. A decade earlier, he wouldn't have noticed such a subtle point. The Fox would have been just as well pleased if he hadn't noticed it now. But, since he had noticed it, he had to be answered: "Aye, I do. Most of the land between my former western border and the Orynian Ocean has passed into my hands by right of conquest over the Gradi."
"We've heard somewhat of this down in the south, but the tales are new and sound confused," Marlanz said. "What really happened?"
That was a dangerous question to ask a man who'd studied historical philosophy down in the City of Elabon. It was a particularly dangerous question to ask in this case, where the quarrels of the gods, which mortals could at best only partly understand, clouded (or, with Stribog's discomfiture, unclouded) the picture. But Gerin knew Marlanz didn't want the truth, or not all of it. What he wanted was a story: the truth set into an interesting framework. That the Fox could give him.
"Come into the great hall and drink a jack or two of ale with me," he said easily. "I'll tell you what happened."
In the hall sat Geroge and Tharma. Marlanz reached for his sword, then checked himself. "These are the two of whom I've heard, not so?"
"Yes," Gerin said. Marlanz Raw-Meat, when his were streak came out, hadn't looked much different from Geroge. The Fox decided mentioning that would be imperfectly tactful, and so kept quiet. He introduced the monsters and Marlanz to one another.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Geroge said politely, speaking as he usually did for the two of them.
"Uh, pleased to make your acquaintance as well," Marlanz answered, perhaps taken aback by the spectacle of a well-mannered monster but doing his best not to show it. His best was good enough to satisfy Geroge and Tharma, who were less than exacting critics. They both smiled at him, which left him taken aback again. Warily, he said, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but is that tooth made of gold?"
"Real gold," Geroge agreed. "Lord Gerin made it for me, to make up for the one the gods under Ikos tore out of my head. It's not as good as a real tooth, but it's better than a hole in my head."
"Yes, I can see how it would be," Marlanz said. Turning to Gerin, he asked in a low voice, "This is what you spoke of earlier? By the gods under Ikos, he means the gods of his own kind?"
"This is what I spoke of earlier, aye," the Fox said. "As for the other, he does mean the monsters' gods, but he never calls them the gods of his kind or anything like that. He may well be right not to call them that, too, for he and Tharma are of the monsters' blood, but they don't act like them."
"I would not presume to quarrel with my host," Marlanz replied, by which he meant he thought Gerin was spouting nonsense. Then Gerin remembered the hunt on which he'd joined the monsters earlier in the year, and Geroge's excitement-in every sense of the word-after he'd killed. Maybe I am spouting nonsense, the Fox thought. I expect I'll find out.
Instead of pursuing that, he changed the subject: "I brought you in here for ale, but we've been standing around talking instead."
"Don't let it worry you," Marlanz told him. "Ale I can get anywhere, even the meanest peasant village. Here at Fox Keep, I have many things to see and to talk about that I think I would find nowhere else in all the northlands."
Despite that, Gerin did get him a jack of ale. Only after he'd handed it to Marlanz did he pause to wonder about the propriety of pouring ale for someone else now that he was a king. Since Marlanz accepted it without comment, he decided not to make an issue of it himself. "Is it all that different at Aragis' keep?" he asked, half slyly, half from genuine curiosity.
"It is," Marlanz answered. "The grand duke is, you will forgive me, of steadier and more orderly temper than yourself." Yes, he had learned the arts of diplomacy in the years since Gerin had last seen him. The Fox, who knew Aragis, had no trouble extracting the reality from the bland phrasing: anyone who made Aragis unhappy once was quickly disposed of so he never got the chance to do it twice.
Gerin knew that could happen to him. The best way to keep it from happening was to be-or at least to seem-too strong for the grand duke to attack with any hope of success, but not so strong as to
put Aragis in fear of him. The balance between those two was delicate. Picking his words with care, the Fox asked, "How will Aragis respond to my taking the kingship once you've made it plain I intend him no harm?"
"That depends," Marlanz said. "If he believes me when I tell him-if he believes you for what you've told me-all should be well. If he decides not to believe me, or rather, you…" He let Gerin draw his own pictures.
None of the pictures his fertile imagination conjured up filled him with delight. Aragis the Archer was a long way from the best of rulers. Obedience through fear worked, but not well. But as a soldier, Aragis was not only as direct and aggressive as a Trokm-, but also more cunning than any woodsrunner, even Adiatunnus. Going to war against him, even with superior force, carried distinct risks.
The Fox said, "I hope you'll be convincing, Marlanz, for your sake and the grand duke's." And mine. But that was one more thing he would not say to Aragis' envoy.
He wondered if Marlanz would cast about for some incentive to be convincing. The bluff young warrior he'd known a decade before would never have thought of such a thing. But this Marlanz was subtler, smoother; Aragis had felt no need to send an older, more polished man with him, as he'd done the last time he'd used him as ambassador.
Marlanz took a long pull at his ale. Gerin eyed him narrowly. That sort of thoughtful pause was exactly what a man looking for a bribe would give in an effort to demonstrate that the notion had only just now occurred to him. The Fox wondered how much in the way of gold and silver he had left after a summer spent campaigning with his warriors and feeding them when they weren't in the field. Carlun Vepin's son would know-or, if he didn't, Gerin would either have to train up a new steward or go back to doing the job himself.
But all Marlanz said was, "I think I will be, Fox. Will you give me your oath by Father Dyaus that what you've told me is true?" He held up a hasty hand. "Not that I doubt you, mind: I mean no offense. But if I can tell the grand duke you've sworn it-"
"I understand," Gerin replied, and gave him the oath. Even as he said the words, his eyes traveled to the altar to Dyaus that stood close by the hearth. He wondered once more if the All-father paid any attention to oaths offered in his name. From what Baivers had said, he had his doubts. But you didn't want to be wrong about something like that. Best to go on as if Dyaus were as immanent in the material world as Voldar had been before Baivers and the monsters' gods distracted her.
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