Then he glanced over at Dagref again, in sudden sharp suspicion. If a young man disappeared for a while and then came back tired and with his mind far away from whatever his father was talking about, one obvious explanation sprang to mind.
That it was obvious didn't make it true. Gerin looked this way and that to see if he could spy Maeva. He couldn't, which proved nothing one way or the other. The only ways to prove anything would be to catch the two of them in the act (if there was any act in which to catch them) or to have her belly start to swell-and even that wouldn't prove who the father was.
Van lay snoring a few feet from Dagref. For Dagref's sake, Gerin hoped Van's mind didn't work the way his own did.
**
Next evening, Rihwin's eyes got big and round. "Do you mean what you say, lord king?" he breathed.
"Of course not," Gerin snapped. "I'm lying to build your hopes up." He snorted in exasperation. "Yes, I mean what I say, curse it. I' ve thought things through, and I've decided you had a good idea there after all. We shall try to summon the lord of the sweet grape to our aid."
He wished he'd looked up before he spoke. Ferdulf, drifting overhead, had been close enough to hear. The demigod dove down to screech in his face: "You want my father here again? I forbid it!"
"You can't forbid it," Gerin said. "You can make my life difficult-the gods know you do make my life difficult-but you can't stop me. Ferdulf, I am going to do this. What you do afterwards is your affair and Mavrix's."
"He'll be sorry if he comes here," Ferdulf said darkly.
"You'll be sorry if he comes here and you try annoying him," Gerin answered. "He's stronger than you are, and you'd do well to remember it."
Ferdulf stuck out his tongue. "I'm not afraid of him. Bring him on. He'll regret it, he will."
Gerin shrugged and forbore to argue any more. People had an amazing ability to put unpleasant truths out of their minds. The Fox saw that also applied to demigods. For that matter, it probably applied to gods, too.
"Shall we now summon the lord of the sweet grape to the northlands without any further delay?" Rihwin said with a sidelong glance at Ferdulf.
Ferdulf sneered. "I'll delay you, all right. I'll turn all the wine you have left into vinegar, the same as I did with that wagonload you captured from the imperials."
"No, you won't," Gerin said, much as he might have told Blestar he wouldn't jump off the palisade walkway back at Fox Keep.
"And what's to stop me?" Ferdulf said, sticking out his tongue again.
"If you turn that wine to vinegar," Gerin said deliberately, "I will use the vinegar to call your father, it being the best I have for the purpose, and I will tell him why I could use nothing better. Then we can all find out what he chooses to do about that."
Ferdulf's glare came close to scorching him where he stood. "How could a mere mortal prove so hateful?" he demanded.
"Practice," Gerin answered. "Come on, let's get on with this."
He had Rihwin do the actual honors, drinking a cup of wine and imploring Mavrix to appear. His fellow Fox was the one who most wanted the Sithonian god to come forth. Gerin himself would have been just as glad-gladder-to have Mavrix stay down in Sithonia. The only reason Ferdulf wanted to see his father was to harass him.
"We summon thee, lord of the sweet grape," Rihwin called, sipping the wine he and his riders had captured from the warriors from south of the High Kirs. He didn't shudder with ecstasy, as he had before he' d drunk his first cup of wine in so many years. He simply drank, without making a fuss about it. Gerin took that for a good sign.
"Well, where is he?" Ferdulf said nastily when Mavrix did not forthwith appear. "Is he asleep? Is he drunk? Is he off buggering a pretty boy, or perhaps a pretty lamb?"
"You would do well, I think, to watch your tongue," Gerin said.
Ferdulf stuck it out farther than any man could have, and, for good measure, waggled the end of it. "There," he said indistinctly-he didn't bother pulling it back in before he started talking. "I'm watching it. It isn't doing very much, though."
"Heh," Gerin said-the sound of a laugh, without the mirth.
Rihwin drank more wine and called on Mavrix again. The Sithonian god stayed wherever he was; he did not come to that part of the northlands. Rihwin looked unhappy. So did Gerin, though he did not feel that way.
"Maybe he won't come. Maybe he won't hear us." Rihwin sounded as disappointed as he looked
"Maybe he won't." Gerin also sounded as disappointed as he looked, but, again, he did not feel that way.
"Maybe he's afraid of me." Ferdulf sounded arrogant. He was a demigod. He had reason to be arrogant most of the time. He did not, in Gerin's view have reason to be arrogant when he was talking about making a god afraid. Maybe, when he was older, Ferdulf would figure that out for himself. Maybe he would stay arrogant as long as he lived. Maybe, if he stayed arrogant around gods, he wouldn't live so long as he expected.
Rihwin drank yet again. "We implore thee, lord of the sweet grape, to favor us with thy presence," he said.
When nothing happened, Gerin began, "Well, all right, you've had yourself some wine, Rihwin, but the lord of the sweet grape doesn't-"
And then the lord of the sweet grape did. Glowing softly, Mavrix appeared before Gerin, Rihwin, and Ferdulf. The Sithonian god did not look happy. Mavrix, in fact, looked intensely annoyed. "Well, what is it now?" he asked in a peevish voice. "You keep bellowing in my ear until I can hardly hear myself think. Rudeness, that's what it is."
"Welcome, lord of the sweet grape," Gerin said. Now that Mavrix was here, he had to make the best of it. "We have summoned you to the northlands once more to implore you for aid against the Elabonian Empire, and-"
"And to take your much-used backside out of here, and never come back again," Ferdulf broke in.
"Is that so?" Mavrix said. Between that and so he moved from where he had been to right next to Ferdulf, apparently without crossing the intervening space. He seized his son. Ferdulf squalled and tried to get away, but could not. Mavrix gave Ferdulf a harder, more thorough spanking than Gerin had ever dared administer. "This is for the filthy tongue in your head." After a brief pause, he walloped his son again, harder than ever. "And this is for presuming to tamper with the blood of the sweet grape-so much wine wasted, so much wine men will never drink."
In an aside to Gerin, Rihwin muttered, "I'd do that to Ferdulf for wasting a wagonload of wine, too, if only I dared."
"Mavrix has the power to do it," Gerin whispered back.
Presently, Mavrix left off chastising Ferdulf, who collapsed in a weeping puddle. The Sithonian god turned his fathomless black eyes on the Fox. "What were you saying before we endured that tasteless interruption?"
"Lord Mavrix, I was saying that I hoped you might change your mind and aid me against the forces of the Elabonian Empire," Gerin replied.
"No," Mavrix said. He then repeated himself several times, at increasing volume: "No. NO. NO! Does that adequately acquaint you with my feelings in this matter?"
"But why not, lord?" Rihwin asked.
"Why?" Mavrix screeched-yes, he was exercised, and Gerin felt a certain amount of relief that Rihwin had beat him to the question. Since this whole summoning had been his fellow Fox's idea, let the ohso-clever fellow take the heat for it. And heat there was. Mavrix continued, high and shrill, "I am not required to tell you anything, you pustule on the backside of this backwoods nest of barbarians!"
"I know you are not required to do anything of the sort, lord," Rihwin said: for a wonder, he had the sense to walk very small. "I thought you might, in your great generosity, deign to tell me, that's all."
"Well," Mavrix said, somewhat mollified by a mortal's flattery. " You are trying. But then, you are trying, too, if you take my meaning." He stuck out his tongue at Rihwin, but then drew it back in. "All right. All right. If you must know, if you must, one reason I have no interest whatever in coming to your aid is on account of what this little wretch did." He dug his foot into F
erdulf's ribs in what was half a poke, half a kick.
"I didn't do half of what I wish I could," Ferdulf snarled.
Mavrix ignored him, which was probably his good fortune. The Sithonian god went on, "Don't you think there's a basic rudeness involved in insulting a deity and then beseeching him for aid? Don't you?"
"Lord, I did not insult you," Rihwin said. "Gerin the Fox did not insult you. We are the ones who seek your aid, not your son."
Gerin would have been just as well pleased-better than just as well pleased-had Rihwin not mentioned him. But, when Mavrix turned those deep, deep black eyes his way, he found he had no choice but to nod. "Assuredly, lord, I offered you no insult," he said, and that was true-he, unlike Ferdulf, knew better than to insult a god.
"I don't care," Mavrix said sniffily. "My son insulted me, and he associates with you. Therefore, you might as well have insulted me."
That was breathtakingly unfair. Had Gerin really wanted Mavrix's aid, he would have protested loud and long. Since he didn't, he contented himself with saying, "I myself would never do such a thing, and I cannot control everyone who associates with me." He gave Rihwin a pointed stare.
"I don't care," Mavrix repeated. "I am insulted, and one of yours insulted me. You get nothing from me in return."
"I'm not one of his!" Ferdulf shouted. "I'm yours."
"He showed me a pleasant peasant wench to tempt me to his keep," Mavrix answered, pointing at Gerin. "I let myself be tempted… and then I let myself be tempted. You, Ferdulf, are the result."
Ferdulf's curses, aimed impartially at Gerin and Mavrix, were loud and fierce and vile. In point of fact, Rihwin, who had a more intimate acquaintance with the charms of peasant women than did Gerin, had chosen Fulda, who'd proved tempting to Mavrix. Gerin refrained from mentioning that. Ferdulf was quite upset enough as things were.
Rihwin said, "What other reasons have you for refusing, lord?"
"None I need discuss with you," Mavrix said haughtily. "None I intend discussing with you. Whatever they may be, they are mine, and no business of yours in any particular."
He'd said pretty much the same thing about his first reason, which made Gerin, whose curiosity never rested, ask, "Can we not persuade you to explain yourself?"
Maybe Mavrix would have explained himself, maybe he wouldn't. Before he could speak, though, Ferdulf broke in: "Can we not persuade you to bugger off? Can we not persuade you to take a flying futter at fast Fomor, as the Trokmoi say? Can we not persuade you to-?"
Gerin did not get a chance to find out what else Ferdulf might have wanted to persuade his father to do, because Mavrix gave the demigod another licking, more savage than either of the first two. Demigod Ferdulf might have been, but he was not strong enough to withstand punishment from a god. He wailed and shrieked and made noises not far different from those any child might have made after a drubbing from its father.
Through that racket, Mavrix said to Gerin, "You see how it is. This north country is unpleasant enough without the insults. With them, it is intolerable. I go, and, if fate be kind, I shall not return." He vanished.
"Well," Gerin said to Rihwin, "so much for that."
"Er-yes, lord king," Rihwin answered. "I think it shall be some long while before I once more seek to have aught to do with Mavrix, lord of the sweet grape." He sketched a salute and strode off, shaking his head.
That left Gerin alone with Ferdulf, not a position he would have chosen. But the choice was not his to make. He thought about walking off, as Rihwin had. Ferdulf, after all, had been the author of his own troubles. The Fox was mildly surprised to discover himself not hardhearted enough to leave the battered little demigod by himself in his pain.
"Are you all right?" he asked Ferdulf.
"You can bugger off, too," Ferdulf growled. "You're laughing at me. You hate me. Everybody hates me."
"Not quite everybody," Gerin answered, "though that certainly isn' t from any lack of effort on your part. You seem to go out of your way sometimes to make yourself hateful."
"Go away," Ferdulf said. "You're not my father. I haven't got a father. As far as I'm concerned, he isn't real. He doesn't exist."
"You were scandalized about the foolish god of the Weshapar, who said the same thing about his neighbor gods," Gerin said. "Do you think it sounds any wiser coming out of your mouth?"
"I don't care," Ferdulf said. "I just don't care. You had a proper father, a father who cared about you."
Gerin burst into laughter so bitterly raucous, it made Ferdulf stare. The Fox said, "What in the five hells do you know about it? My father thought he could cure me of books and make me a warrior with the back of his hand. It was only when he finally figured out he was wrong that he shipped me over the High Kirs to be rid of me."
"But you ended up a warrior anyhow," Ferdulf said.
"So I did," Gerin said. "But that was my doing, not his-and I didn't waste his time and mine with a pack of childish tricks and tries for revenge."
"I am not a child," Ferdulf said. "I am a demigod."
"You are a demigod," the Fox agreed. "But you're also a child. That's what makes things so difficult for everyone around you."
"Good," Ferdulf said, and drifted away, apparently none the worse for wear from the beatings Mavrix had given him and just as apparently intent on taking no notice whatever of Gerin's sermon. The Fox sighed. He didn't suppose he should have been surprised.
**
"Aye, lord king, that's how it is," Fandil Fandor's son said as he rubbed down his horse. "I got around the imperials with no great trouble, but it didn't do me as much good as I would have liked. It didn't do you as much good as you'd like, either." He patted the horse's neck. "I will tell you this, though-I had no trouble getting through the bastards and back again."
"Wonderful," Gerin said sourly. "But, once you did get through, you found that Aragis had gone to earth?"
"That's what I said, lord king." Fandil returned to rubbing the horse's back. Gerin sympathized with the animal. Fandil's father had been called Fandor the Fat. Fandil was more along the lines of the Chubby, but Gerin wouldn't have wanted to try carrying him on his back.
"He doesn't plan on doing any more fighting out in the open, then?" Gerin persisted.
"Not if he can help it," Fandil answered. "He and his army are holed up in the strongest keeps they can find, and he doesn't think the imperials can pry him out of them before winter comes and they get too hungry to stay in the field. If they tear up the countryside but then go home, what does he care? He's ahead of the game."
"His peasants aren't," Gerin said, but that only made him laugh at himself. As long as the imperials went away, Aragis didn't care what happened to the peasantry. Gerin supposed he had to sympathize with that, but Aragis didn't care what happened to the peasantry any other time, either.
Fandil said, "Looks like the imperials are settling down to the sieges, too. Don't know whether they'll try knocking down walls or just sit there and starve the places out one at a time-if they can."
"If they can," Gerin agreed. "The one thing I'm sure of is that Aragis wouldn't put his men into castles that are easy to take, and he wouldn't put them into castles that don't have plenty in their cellars, either."
"You know best about that, lord king," Fandil said. "But what it looks like to me is, we're on our own over here."
Gerin sighed. "It looks that way to me, too, Fandil. We've been on our own over here all along, and we haven't done any too well so far."
"You'll come up with something." Gerin might not have confidence, but Fandil, like a lot of his men, did.
"I hope so," Gerin said. "To the crows with me if I have the faintest notion what it is, though." Fandil didn't seem to hear that, any more than Aragis had heard Gerin when he said he wasn't a sorcerer. Not for the first time, nor for the five hundredth, either, he wondered why people didn't pay more attention to what other people said. They already had their own ideas, and that seemed to be enough for them.
The next morning, he and Van and Dagref rode out along the picket line of horsemen he kept west of his force to warn him if the imperials decided to come at him again. For the moment, the men of the Elabonian Empire were holding back. They had pickets out, too, in chariots, to warn of any sudden move Gerin might make against them.
"They're not bad fellows," one of Rihwin's riders said, pointing toward an imperial chariot perhaps a quarter of a mile away. "For business like this, they don't bother us and we don't bother them. When the time comes to really fight again, they'll really go after us, I suppose, and we'll do our best to fill 'em full of arrow holes, but what's the use till then?"
"None I can see," Gerin allowed. "It's a pretty sensible way of going about things, when you get down to it."
He glanced over at Van. In the outlander's younger days, odds were he would have thundered out something about killing the foe whenever you found any chance to do it. Had Gerin had Adiatunnus with him, the Trokm? chieftain probably would have said the same thing now. But Van only shrugged and nodded, as if to say the horseman's words made good sense to him, too. Little by little, he was mellowing.
A couple of riders farther along the line, Maeva patrolled a stretch of meadow. "No, lord king," she said when Gerin asked her, "I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary." As the earlier rider had, she pointed toward an imperial chariot out of arrow range to the west. "They're keeping an eye on us, same as we're keeping an eye on them."
"All right," Gerin said. "Right at the moment, I'm not sorry things are quiet. We need the time to pull ourselves back together."
"They're probably thinking the same thing about us, lord king," Maeva answered seriously. "We had to pull back, aye, but we bloodied them."
"They have more room to make mistakes than we do, though," Van said. "By the gods, we didn't make any mistakes I could see in that last fight, and we lost it anyhow."
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