“About what you’d expect,” Tomril answered. “They’re loose there, too, the cursed things, and ripping serf villages to bits.”
“Oh, a pestilence,” Gerin said wearily. “If they’re in Ricolf’s holding, and Bevon’s, they’ll be here, too. How are the peasants supposed to grow crops if they’re liable to be killed in the fields or torn to pieces in their beds?”
“Curse me if I know the answer to that one,” Tomril said. “Things I’ve seen, things I’ve heard, make me think these creatures are worse than the Trokmoi, and harder to get rid of, too.”
“They don’t care a fart about loot, neither,” Digan chimed in. “They just kill and feed and go away—and in the woods, they’re clever beasts, and not easy to hunt.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right,” Gerin said. “How many Trokmoi have we disposed of because they stayed around to plunder or loaded themselves down with stolen gewgaws till they couldn’t even flee?”
“A good many, lord.” Tomril touched the hilt of his sword in fond reminiscence. Then he scuffed the ground with a hobnailed sandal. “Won’t be so with these monsters, though. They’ve got teeth and claws and enough of a man’s cleverness to be more dangerous’n wolves ever dreamt of, but they aren’t clever enough—I don’t think so, anyways—to steal the things we make.”
“Maybe they’re too clever for that,” Gerin said. His warriors stared at him in incomprehension. He didn’t try to explain; struggling against the black depression that threatened to leave him useless took all he had in him. After he’d ridden out the Trokmê invasion, he’d begun, now and then, to have hope that he might keep something of Elabonian civilization alive north of the High Kirs. Now even a god seemed to have abandoned the land, leaving it open for these monsters from underground to course over it.
Rihwin came up in time to hear the last part of the exchange between Gerin and the two troopers. He said, “Lord Gerin, meseems these creatures, however horrific their semblance, should by virtue of their beastly nature be most vulnerable to magic: nor are they likely to have sorcerers of their own to help them withstand the cantrips we loose against them.”
“The cantrips I loose against them, you mean,” Gerin said, which made Rihwin bite his lip in embarrassment and nod. Gerin went on, “A really potent mage might be able to do what you say. Whether I can is another question altogether. I tell you frankly, I’m afraid of spells of bane, mostly because I know too well they can smite me instead of the ones at whom I aim them.”
“A man who recognizes his limits is wise,” Rihwin said, which made Gerin snort, for if he’d ever met a man who had no sense of limit whatever, that man was Rihwin.
Gerin paced up and down in the courtyard. At last he stopped and made a gesture of repugnance. “I won’t try those spells,” he said. “That’s not just for fear of getting them wrong, either. Even if I work them properly, I’m liable to end up like Balamung, consumed by evil magic that’s overmastered me.”
Rihwin studied him judiciously. “If any man could work spells of bane without their corrupting him, I reckon you to be that man. But whether any man can do such is, I concede, an open question.”
“Sometimes open questions are best left unopened,” Gerin said. What he would do if faced by disaster complete and unalloyed he did not know; he muttered a silent prayer to Dyaus that he would not have to find out. Aloud, he went on, “What we need to do first, I think, is summon the vassals, fare south, and see if we can’t teach those creatures fear enough to make them learn to stay away from lands I hold.”
“As you say, lord prince,” Rihwin agreed cheerfully. “I look forward to sallying forth against them.” He mimed shooting a bow from the pitching platform of a chariot.
The Fox did not look forward to sallying forth. He felt harassed. He’d never wanted to be baron of Fox Keep, and once he became baron willy-nilly he’d never delighted in war for its own sake, as so many men of the northlands did. After the Empire of Elabon abandoned the northlands, his main aim had been to maintain its legacy in the lands he ruled. Fighting all the time did nothing to further that aim, but failing to fight meant dying, so what was he to do?
Rihwin said, “Of course, you also must needs take into account the possibility that the Trokmê clans north of the Niffet will seize the chance to strike south on learning of your deployment toward the opposite side of your holding.”
“Thank you so much, bright ray of sunshine,” Gerin said. “And I have to worry about Schild Stoutstaff, and Adiatunnus, and where in the five hells my son has disappeared to, and more other things than I have fingers and toes to keep track of.”
“Lord Gerin, that’s why the Sithonians devised counting boards,” Rihwin said with a sly smile. Gerin stooped, picked up a clod of dirt, and flung it at him. Rihwin ducked. His smile got wider and even more impudent. “Ah, my fellow Fox, I see you’ve been taking lessons in deportment from your lady.”
“Grinning and ducking won’t save you now,” Gerin exclaimed. “You’d better run, too.” He chased Rihwin halfway round the keep, both men laughing like boys. Gerin finally stopped. “You’re made of foolishness, do you know that?”
“Maybe I am,” Rihwin said. “But ifsobe that’s true, what does it make you?”
“Daft,” Gerin answered at once. “Anyone who’d want to run a holding, let along the beginnings of a realm, has to be daft.” He sobered quickly. “I’ll have to send out word to my vassal barons to gather here with as many armed men as they can bring. That can’t wait. If it does, we’ll have other visitors than our warriors.”
Fand stood in the doorway to her chamber and shook her head. “No, Fox, I don’t care to have you in here this evening, so back to your own bed you can go.”
Gerin scowled at her. “Why not? This is three times running you’ve told me no, and I know you’ve said aye to Van at least twice.” One reason the two friends had stayed friends and not quarreled over Fand was that she’d always treated them pretty evenhandedly—till now.
“Because I don’t care to, is why,” she said, now tossing her head so her hair flew about in coppery ringlets. “And if that’s not enough of an answer to suit you, why, to the corbies with you.”
“I ought to—” he began.
“Ought to what?” she broke in. “Have me by force? Och, you can do it the once, belike; you’re bigger nor I am, and stronger, too. But your back’d never be safe after that, nor had you better sleep but behind barred door. For that I’d take vengeance if it cost the life of me.”
“Will you shut up, you idiot woman, and let me get a word in edgewise?” he roared in a startlingly loud voice—loud and startling enough to make Fand give back a pace. “I was trying to say, before you started screeching at me, that I ought to know what you think I’ve done wrong so I can figure out whether I really meant it or if I should try to make amends.”
“Oh.” Fand came as close to seeming subdued as she ever did. After a moment, she sighed. “It’s not that you don’t mean well, indeed and it isn’t. But haven’t you had enough to do with women to know that if you need to ask a question like that, the answer’ll do you no good?”
Elise had said things like that, not long before she left him. He hadn’t understood then, and didn’t altogether understand now. “I don’t fancy guessing games,” he said slowly. “Usually you tell me whatever’s in your mind—more than I want to hear, sometimes. Why not now?”
“Och, it’s late at night, and I’d sooner sleep than have a row with you the now,” Fand said. “Go on to your own bed, Fox. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel kinder toward you—who knows?” Then, because she was honest in her own fashion, she added, “Or maybe I won’t.”
Evasion made Gerin angry; when he wanted to know something, he kept digging till he found out. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he growled. “If I’ve done something wrong, I’ll find a way to make it right.”
“You do try that, I’ll own; you’re just enough and to spare, for a fact,” Fand said. “T
his time, though, ’twill not be so easy for you, I’m thinking.” She shut her mouth tight then, and gave him a stubborn look that warned she’d say no more.
More than her words, the set of her face finally told Gerin what she meant. He clapped a hand to his forehead. “You’re still sizzling because I brought Selatre to the keep,” he exclaimed.
“And wouldn’t you be, now, if I was after coming back here with a big-thewed, big-balled Trokmê man with a fine yellow mustache on him?” she said. “Och, puir fellow, by the side o’ the road I found him, starving and all. Sure and I didn’t fetch him back to sleep with him, even if he will be living in the castle from here on out.” She did a wicked parody of his explanation of how he’d come to bring Selatre to Castle Fox, and topped it off by assuming an expression innocent and wanton at the same time.
Gerin hoped he managed to disguise his startled laugh as a cough, but wouldn’t have bet money on it. “You have the tongue of a viper, do you know that?” he said. It pleased her, which wasn’t what he’d had in mind. He went on, “By the gods, I haven’t set a hand on her since she got here. I don’t mean I haven’t tried to take her to bed, I mean I literally have not touched her. So I don’t know why you keep wanting to have kittens about it.”
“Foosh, I know you’ve not touched her.” Fand tossed her head in fine contempt. “But can you tell me so easy you’ve not wanted to?”
“I—” Gerin lied with few qualms when he dealt with his neighbors; only a fool, he reckoned, told the bald truth on all occasions. But lying to his leman was a different business. He ended up not answering Fand at all.
When she saw he wasn’t going to, she nodded and quietly shut the door between them. The bar on her side did not come down; he could have gone in.
He stood in the hallway for a minute or so, then muttered, “What’s the bloody use?” He went back to his own chamber and lay down. He was still awake when pale Nothos rose in the east, which meant midnight had come and gone. Eventually he slept.
Van sang in the stables as Raffo readied the chariot to go out on campaign. Gerin had always looked on war as an unpleasant part of the business of running a barony, but now the idea of escaping from Castle Fox for a while suited him fine.
When he said as much, Van stopped singing and started to laugh. “What’s so stinking funny?” the Fox asked irritably.
“You’re that glad to get away from sweet Fand, are you?” Van said, laughing still. “This I tell you: she’s as happy to have you gone as you are to be going. Not just her eyes are green; she’s jealous enough to spit poison like some of the snakes they have in the jungles of the east.”
“I already saw that for myself, thank you very much,” Gerin said. He wished Van hadn’t brought it up where Raffo and a good many other men as well could listen, but after a moment he realized that didn’t matter: the only people in his holding who hadn’t heard about how well Fand liked his coming back with Selatre were deaf, and their friends had probably drawn pictures in the dirt for them. Fixing the outlander with a baleful stare, he ground out, “And how is it she hasn’t stayed angry with you? You had as much to do with getting Selatre here as I did.”
“Oh, no doubt, no doubt,” Van admitted. Just then Raffo climbed into the chariot. Van followed him, setting his shield in the bracket on his side of the car.
Gerin did the same on his side. “You were saying?” he prompted when Van showed no sign of going on.
“I was, wasn’t I? Well, how do I put it?” Van fiddled with his weapons to give him time to gather his thoughts. Raffo flicked the reins and got the horses going. As they passed from the stable out into the courtyard, the outlander said, “I guess the nub of it is, she believes me when I tell her I’m not out to bed Selatre. You she’s not so sure about.”
“I don’t know what I have to do,” Gerin said wearily. “I’ve told Fand and I’ve told her—”
“Not that simple, Captain, and you likely know it as well as I do,” Van said. “Me, I’m a wencher and not a lot more, and Fand, she suits me well enough, though the gods know I’d sooner she didn’t have that redheaded temper of hers. You and Fand, though … but for bed, damn me to the hottest one of your five hells if I can see where the two of you fit together.”
“She came to Fox Keep at the right time,” Gerin answered.
“Oh, I know that,” Van said. “After Elise up and left, any woman would have done you for a while, just to let you remember you’re a man. But I’d not expected this to last so long.” He laughed again. “I figured you’d sicken of quarreling with her and leave her all to me, not that I know whether I could stand that myself.”
“You have all of her now, seems like, without my having any say at all,” the Fox answered, less than delighted his friend had seen into him so clearly.
“So I do, and I still don’t know whether I can stand it.” The outlander sighed. “What made it work so well, the three of us I mean, is that Fand has more than enough venom for any one man, but she’s bearable when she has two to spread it on. Of course, it helps that neither of us is the jealous sort.”
“No.” Gerin let it go at that. Had he cared more for Fand, he thought, he would have been more likely to be jealous, too, but he didn’t care to say as much straight out. He did add, “Another thing that helps is that she’s lickerish enough for the two of us together. I think she’d wear me out if I had to try to keep her happy by my lonesome.”
“You’re getting old,” Van said, to which the Fox mimed throwing a punch, for his friend was no younger. Then Van sighed again, and went on, “One more thing to worry about.” He stopped, seemed to listen to himself, and guffawed. “By the gods, I’ve been with you too long, Captain. I’m even starting to sound like you.”
“Believe me, I like the idea even less than you do,” Gerin answered, and Van pretended to wallop him. Up ahead at the reins, Raffo snickered.
The chariots rolled south down the Elabon Way in no particular order, now bunched together, now strung out in a long line. Sometimes the Fox’s warriors sang or swapped jokes, sometimes they kept them to themselves. Gerin knew the Empire of Elabon had imposed stricter discipline on its soldiers when it was strong, but he didn’t know how the trick was done. By all the evidence, Elabon didn’t know anymore, either.
Even though he was still in his own holding, he kept a wary eye on the woods and brush to either side of the Elabon Way. If the monsters from Ikos had been seen in Bevon’s holding (not that Bevon held much of it), they might be loose in Palin’s lands, too—and they might have come farther north than that.
Serfs in the fields stared as the chariots bounced past them. A few took no chances, but dropped their hoes and stone-headed mattocks and ran for the safety of the trees. After the chaos the northlands had endured the past five years, that did not surprise the Fox, but it left him sad. Here he and his comrades fared forth to protect the peasants, and they seemed to feel they needed protecting from their overlords.
Thanks to Gerin’s forethoughtfulness, the little army had several hens among the baggage. They also had enough axes to cut plenty of firewood for a good-sized blaze. Between the offering and the fire, the evening ghosts were hardly more than a distraction.
“We’ll set pairs of sentries out all night long in a triangle,” Gerin said. “I won’t have us assailed without warning.”
Van took charge of roasting the two chickens they’d sacrificed. He was the logical man for the job: not only was he as good a roadside cook as anyone else, he was also no one to argue with when he passed out pieces of meat, for there weren’t enough to go around. Those who went without chicken made do with hard-baked biscuits and smoked meat, cheese, and onions. Everyone drank ale.
Gerin tossed a gnawed thighbone into the fire. He chewed at a biscuit about as tough as his own teeth. “I wonder if this came from Ros the Fierce’s reign, or just Oren’s,” he said after he managed to get a mouthful down.
“You have no cause to make complaint against Oren the Builder,” Rih
win said, “for the image of him you fetched back from the fane at Ikos leaves you perhaps the richest man in the northlands.”
“Aye, gold is good to have, I’ll not deny” Gerin said. “That’s not the way I expected to come by it, but you hear no complaints from me.”
Some of the warriors rolled themselves in their blankets as soon as they’d finished eating. Others stayed up a while to talk or roll knucklebones by the light of the fire. Van snarled in angry dismay when he lost three throws in a row; his luck usually ran better than that. Then he lost again, and stood up from the game. “Enough is enough,” he declared.
“Well, if you won’t gamble with us, what about a tale?” Widin Simrin’s son said. He had his own reasons for being willing to call off the game: a nice little pile of silver gleamed in front of him.
Everyone who heard the suggestion spoke up for it all the same, especially the men from outlying keeps who seldom got the chance to hear Van yarn. The outlander coughed and plucked at his beard. “Which tale shall I give you?” he asked. “You pick one for me.”
“How about the one about how they teach the monkeys to pick pepper?” Gerin said. “You were going to start it a few days ago, but we got interrupted. And if I’ve not heard it, my guess is that few others here have.”
From the way the warriors exclaimed, none of them knew the story. “So I’ve not told it in all the time I’ve been at your keep, eh, Captain?” Van said. “Nice to know I’ve not yarned myself dry, and that’s a fact. All right, here goes: the tale of the way they teach monkeys to pick pepper.”
Before he started the story, he paused to swig ale and lubricate his throat. That accomplished, he said. “This is what I saw in Mabalal, which is a hot, damp country a good ways east and south from Kizzuwatna. Take the muggiest summer day you’ve ever known here, imagine it ten times worse, and you’ll start to know what the weather there is like.
“Now maybe it’s on account of the weather, but a lot of the folk of Mabalal are what you’d have to call lazy. Some of ’em, I swear, would just as soon lie with their mouths open in the rain as get up and find themselves a cup to drink from—but that’s no part of the tale.
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