Fox and Empire
Page 39
Calmly, Gerin folded his arms across his chest. "I haven't taken advantage of every tiny thing that happens around me. I hope I am on my way toward doing that, though. In aid of which, shall we discuss the matter of suzerainty over the holding of Balser Debo's son?"
Aragis looked around. Had more of his men been close by than Gerin's, the Fox thought he would have ordered them to attack on the instant. But more of Gerin's troopers stood near the two kings, and they looked alert. Aragis' earlier glare had been mild to the point of benignity compared to the one he gave Gerin now. "You see what the imperials have done to my lands," the Archer ground out.
"Yes, I see that," Gerin said.
"You see they've hurt my fighting force worse than yours," Aragis persisted.
"Yes, I see that, too," Gerin said, nodding.
"And so, because I am weakened, you think to gain at my expense," Aragis said.
"Of course I do," Gerin said. "I'm not gaining anything I didn't think was rightfully mine beforehand, though. How hard would you have squeezed me if things were the other way round? You know the answer to that as well as I do: you'd take as much as you could get away with. I've said it before, Aragis: unless you make yourself so, you're not my enemy. You've spend twenty years not believing me. Will you believe me now?"
"Because I am hurt here, you think to drop the hammer on me," Aragis said, as if the Fox had not spoken.
"You're repeating yourself," Gerin said. "The words are different; the meaning is the same. You ought to try listening to me instead. If you don't want to listen to me, by the gods, I'm tempted to drop the hammer on you just to get you to pay attention for once in your life."
Aragis turned the color of molten copper. "No one has presumed to speak to me in that fashion for a very long time," he growled.
"Oh, I believe that," Gerin said. "You're the sort who hands a fellow his head if he has the nerve to tell you something to your face. That will make your vassals shut up around you, I must say. But it'll also make you miss things you ought to hear. You're not strong enough to hand me my head if I tell you something to your face, so you can bloody well listen to me instead."
He wondered if he oughtn't to hurt Aragis as badly as he could, to keep the Archer from trying for revenge as soon as he saw the chance. The only sure way of doing that, though, was killing Aragis now. He didn't have the stomach for it. Murder was not a political tool he kept in his chest.
Just for a moment, Aragis' hand dropped down toward the hilt of his sword. He checked the movement before he touched the hilt. Like a bear bothered by bees, he shook his head. "Slaughtering you might solve the problem, but you haven't-quite-done anything to deserve it," he said.
"For which polite qualification I do thank you," Gerin said. "I thought about stretching you out bleeding on the ground, too." He grimaced. "This being a king is a nasty business sometimes."
"So is being a baron. So is anything above being a serf," Aragis said, "and being a serf is a nasty business, too, in a different way. It's a nasty business all the time, with no letup ever. If I have a choice between taking orders and giving them, I know which one's for me."
"If I had a choice, I'd sooner do neither," the Fox replied. Aragis stared at him in blank incomprehension. He'd been sure Aragis would do something like that: as the Archer himself admitted, he liked giving orders. With a sigh, Gerin went on, "Since I don't have a choice, I'd sooner be on the top than on the bottom. I won't say different."
"You'd better not," Aragis said. "And I'll tell you one other reason I didn't try to let the air out of you there."
"You'd answer to Dagref," Gerin said.
He'd meant it for a joke, or mostly for a joke. Aragis, however, gave him a very odd look, a look as nearly frightened as the Fox had ever seen on his face. "How did you know that?" Aragis whispered. "How could you know that? To you, he'd be only a youth."
"Oh, Dagref is a youth, all right," Gerin answered, "but it's been a long time since I thought of him as only an anything. If I don't strangle him in the next two or three years, he'll go far, that one will."
He scratched his head. Did that mean he'd made up his mind about the succession? Maybe he had. Duren was doing a perfectly fine job as baron of the holding that had been his grandfather's, but how much did he look beyond it? Dagref had a wider view. But Dagref was also much younger, and had never actually ruled a barony or anything else. Who could tell what he'd be like when he was seventeen? So maybe Gerin hadn't made up his mind about the succession after all. Maybe.
"Back to matters at hand," he said, as much to himself as to Aragis. "Balser Debo's son wants me as his overlord. I have accepted him as my vassal. I don't want a war, but I was ready to fight to keep that holding as part of my domain before the imperials came, and I am still ready. So." He turned away, picked up a long, thin broken branch that had fallen out of a load of firewood, and used it to draw a circle in the dirt around Aragis' feet. "Shall we have peace, or shall we fight? Answer me one way or the other before you step out of that circle."
Aragis' eyes looked about ready to bug out of his head. "Of all the high-handed-" he spluttered. "You have not the right to use me so. No one has the right to use me so."
He started to stride out of the circle, but stopped when Gerin held up a hand and said, "I have the right, and it's one even you understand."
"What is it?" Aragis demanded.
"Simple-I'm stronger than you are," Gerin answered. "Now-peace or war? If you step out of the circle without naming one or the other, we shall have war right now, I promise."
To some degree, he was running a bluff. He was far from sure that, if he suddenly shouted for his men to attack the Archer's, they would obey him. But he was also far from sure how many of Aragis' men would fight hard for their overlord.
Aragis must have been making the same calculations, and coming up with answers not far removed from his own. "You are an arrogant son of a whore," he ground out, to which the Fox bowed as at a compliment. " May you toast your toes in the hottest of the five hells forever." Gerin bowed again. Aragis bared his teeth in another wolf's smile before going on, "But you are stronger than I am, curse you. Take the holding of Balser Debo's son. Keep it. I hope you choke on it, but I will not fight you for it." He stepped out of the circle.
Gerin wondered if he was lying. If he was, he would be made to pay for it, that was all. He had done as the Fox required. Trying to hold him to more-even trying to get an oath from him-would be too much in the way of arrogance.
"We've beaten the imperials," Gerin said. "Now, if the time does come, we can settle things that have to do with the northlands between ourselves-and, if the Empire puts down the revolt in Sithonia and decides to have another go at us, we can still fight side by side. Remember, I am not taking anything that was yours; you weren't Balser' s suzerain. You wanted him to become your vassal, aye, but he never did."
"Hmp." If Aragis was mollified, he wasn't about to let Gerin know it. Had the sandal been on the other foot, Gerin wouldn't have let him know it, either. But the Archer had got a better deal from him than he would have got from from the Elabonian Empire, and he had to know as much. If Crebbig I sent another army north, the Archer was unlikely to be inclined to throw in with it.
"We aren't friends-we've never been friends," Gerin said, "but we' ve had our borders march for a lot of years without going to war against each other, and that's something a good many friends can't say. I'd sooner see it go on than end."
"Hmp," Aragis said again. He turned and walked away. He'd said he wouldn't fight the Fox over Balser's holding. If he meant that, everything would be fine. If he didn't… Gerin sighed. If he didn' t, there would be another war, that was all.
Another war. Gerin was mildly amazed at how little the prospect bothered him. After so many wars, what would one more be? And maybe Aragis would live up to his word after all. Stranger things had happened. "Not many," Gerin muttered, "but a few. They really have." He might even have meant it. He hoped with all his h
eart that he did mean it.
**
As Gerin's men began pulling back from the lands over which Aragis the Archer ruled as king, Aragis said not another word about his foraging on the countryside. Gerin took that for a good sign. He did not take the state of the countryside for a good sign. Aragis and his vassals were going to have a hungry time of it over the winter. Maybe that would leave the Archer too weak to fight come spring. Maybe, on the other hand, it would leave him with no choice but to fight come spring.
"How will you know, Father?" Dagref asked.
"Oh, it's a simple enough business," the Fox answered. "If he attacks me, he does. If he doesn't, he doesn't, that's all."
"Yes, that is simple," Dagref agreed, "but what I meant was, how will you know beforehand?"
"If he does choose to attack me, I may not know beforehand," Gerin said. "I may get signs beforehand that tell me he isn't going to war, though. If his harvest is as it looks now, his serfs are liable to rise against him. If they do, he'll be too busy dealing with them to worry about me."
"I'll say he will," Van put in. "He's been grinding his peasants' faces in the dirt for a long time. If they rise up, they'll try to pay him back all at once."
"Some of his vassals may decide to rise against him, too," Gerin went on. "He's a demon of a warlord, but that's not all that goes into the mix for making a good king. Maybe some of his barons will decide as much, anyhow."
"Maybe you'll help some of them decide as much," Dagref said.
"Hmm. Maybe I will, if I can do it so that Aragis doesn't figure out I'm doing it," Gerin said. He thumped his son on the back. "One fine day, you're going to make all your neighbors, whoever they may be, very uncomfortable." He was liable to make all his friends very uncomfortable, too, but that was another matter.
Gerin sent riders north to Duren, not only to let him know what had happened in the war against the Elabonian Empire but also to tell him the Fox had met Elise. That was, of course, something Duren was liable to know already. Gerin instructed the riders to bring word back to him if Elise was at Duren's keep. He wondered what he'd do if she was. He wondered whether he could do anything if she was. He had his doubts.
Balser Debo's son received him like a hero. Gerin listened to his new vassal's fulsome praise with but half an ear; he'd heard such praise delivered many times before, and heard it done better, too. As often as not, he knew what Balser was going to say three sentences before he said it. That let his mind dwell on more interesting things.
There were some. Chief among them was the way Rowitha the serving girl had come out into the courtyard and was staring so intently at Dagref. Dagref might have stared back at Rowitha, too, if Maeva hadn't been standing by Van, only a few feet away. As things were, Dagref alternated between a polite smile and doing his best to pretend Rowitha didn't exist.
That was a tricky bit of juggling; a man three times Dagref's age would have had a hard time bringing it off with aplomb. He did about as well as could have been expected: better than most his age would have done, Gerin thought, because he habitually showed less of what was in his mind than most.
Maeva was watching Rowitha, too, watching her, not much liking what she was seeing, and liking it less by the moment. She'd slept out with the rest of the riders when Gerin's army was on its way south. Only a couple of people, Gerin certainly not among them, had known what she was then. Things were different now.
But Maeva couldn't very well keep Dagref from going over and talking with Rowitha after Balser finally finished blathering, not without giving more away to Van than would have been wise. She had to stand and stare and do her best not to fume too openly. Her best wasn' t so good as Dagref's had been.
Rowitha, now, Rowitha didn't have to hold anything back, and she didn't. She listened to Dagref's low-voiced explanation, or part of it, and then hauled off and slapped him, a ringing report that made all heads in the courtyard turn his way. He stood, his cheek turning red-actually, his whole face turning red, but his cheek turning redder-while she stomped away.
"Haw, haw, haw!" Van boomed. "Well, there's something that'll happen to most men a time or twelve before they shovel dirt on 'em. The lad may be starting a little early, but then, thinking back, he may not, too."
Maeva, by contrast, hurried over and put her arm around Dagref's shoulder. Remembering his promise to his son, Gerin spoke to Van: "You said you'd hoped her eye might fall on Dagref if she'd stayed back at Fox Keep. Maybe it's fallen on him anyhow."
"Maybe it has," Van agreed, in tones polite but imperfectly delighted. He was probably wondering how long ago Maeva's eye had fallen on Dagref, and what might have happened since. Turning a thoughtful frown toward Gerin, the outlander continued, "We'll have to speak of this further when we get back to Fox Keep, I expect."
"I expect we will," Gerin agreed. He also expected he would have to dicker with Fand. As if in anticipation, his head started to ache.
Dagref came over to him, the mark of Rowitha's palm and fingers still printed on his cheek. "Father," he said, "would you mind if I asked you to spend as little time here in Balser's holding as you possible can?"
"No, I wouldn't mind that." Gerin hid a smile. "We do have to head north."
"That's good," Dagref said. "That's very good." He looked around to see if the serving girl had reappeared. Not spotting her, he relaxed a little.
"You know, if you ask Balser to make sure your lady love-excuse me, your former lady love-doesn't come inside the castle as long as you're here, he'll likely find her something else to do," Gerin said.
"Do you think so?" Dagref looked astonished. Gerin felt pleased with himself, though he didn't show it: Dagref wasn't used to asking special favors just because of who he was. Then his son went on, " Would you do it for me?"
Gerin was less pleased with that. "If you do it, I said," he replied. "You're the one who wants the wench out of your hair. When we were here last, I didn't do anything to get any wenches into my hair."
"You are the soul of virtue," Dagref said sourly. "Besides, Mother would be in your hair if you did anything like that. I didn't have anyone special in my life when Rowitha and I-" He coughed a couple of times, finishing, "But I do now, you see." Gerin only shrugged, which left his son dissatisfied.
Maybe Dagref talked to Balser and maybe he didn't. In either case, Maeva ate in the great hall with Gerin and Van and Dagref, and Rowitha did not make an appearance there. Dagref did his best to pretend Rowitha had never existed. Maeva, by contrast, kept looking around for her. She still dressed like a warrior, with a sword on her belt. Maybe Rowitha had noticed that instead of getting orders from Balser. Gerin did not inquire. It was not his business.
Van kept watching Maeva watching out for Rowitha. He kept muttering things that weren't quite words and that didn't quite get past his beard and mustaches. He was, it seemed, drawing his own conclusions, and not much caring for the pictures they made. Every now and then, he would glance over toward Dagref, too, and then mutter some more.
"This was a match you said you wanted," Gerin reminded him, continuing to keep his promise. "I think it's a good one, too, for whatever it may be worth to you."
"Eh?" Whatever Van had been thinking, it wasn't about how good a match Dagref and Maeva might make. Now, very visibly, he did. He grunted instead of muttering-progress, of a sort. At last, he came out with real words: "Oh, aye, Fox, I don't doubt you're right, or I don't doubt it too much, anyhow. But good match or bad, I didn't look for it so bloody soon."
"That I understand. Neither did I, though I might have noticed a sign or two even back at Fox Keep." Gerin slapped his friend on the back. "There isn't one cursed thing in life that doesn't happen too bloody soon, especially when it happens to our children."
Van thought that over. He'd had enough ale to make thinking take a while. Slowly and deliberately, he nodded. "Tell your fancy Sithonian philosophers to go on home, Fox," he said. "Once you've said that, you don't need to say any more."
**
Duren's vassal barons had been anything but delighted about accepting him as their overlord. Gerin had wondered if they would see his own preoccupation with the south as an opportunity to rise against his son. That hadn't happened; everything looked peaceful as he led his army up the Elabon Way toward Duren's keep. Either Duren's vassals had thought the Fox would win and punish them for rebelling against his son, or else they'd figured Duren could put them down by himself. Gerin hoped for the latter.
"Who comes to the castle of Duren Ricolf's grandson?" a sentry shouted as the Fox's army drew within hailing distance. The question had a certain formal quality to it-either it was Gerin, or someone was about to lay siege to the keep. But, Duren not owing his father homage and fealty, he treated with him as one equal with another.
"I am Gerin the Fox, king of the north, returning from my campaign against the Elabonian Empire," Gerin answered, again as one equal to another.
"Congratulations on your victory, lord king," the sentry said. The Fox's messengers would have told of that. Without any orders Gerin heard, the drawbridge began to lower. "Enter into the keep of Duren Ricolf's grandson. The baron eagerly awaits you."
Sure enough, Duren stood just inside the wall. He looked to be about ready to burst, waiting for Gerin to dismount from his chariot. When the Fox and Van and Dagref did get down, Duren couldn't at once ask Gerin what was so plainly on his mind, either; he had to go through polite greetings first.