Prince of the North

by Turtledove, Harry

  She sighed. “If you’re after knowing the answer, why d’you ask the question?”

  “Saying the words, hearing them, makes it seem real somehow,” he answered. “Besides, I might have been wrong.” He swung himself over to the side of the bed, grabbed his breeches, and put them back on. As he fiddled with the waist string, he added, “I won’t trouble you that way again.”

  “’Twas no trouble,” Fand said. “’Twasn’t much of anything at all, if you take my meaning. And isn’t that a strange thing, now? The gods know I looked for the two of us to break, but I thought ’twould be after a grand shindy we’d both remember all our days. But here we are, just—quits.”

  “Quits,” Gerin echoed dully. He leaned over and kissed her, not on the mouth but on the cheek. “It was always lively while it lasted, wasn’t it? If it’s come to the point where it’s not any more, as well we give it up.”

  “Truth there.” Fand sent him an anxious look. “You’d not throw me out of Fox Keep because I’m your doxy no more, would you?”

  He laughed. “And have Van come after me with that mace of his? Not likely. No, you’re welcome to bide here as long as you like—provided you don’t drive everyone around you utterly mad. That may not be so easy for you.” He chuckled to show he didn’t expect to be taken altogether seriously.

  “Och, when I’m the only one right and the whole world beside me wrong, how can I not speak out plain?” But Fand laughed, too. “I ken what you’ll tell me—you wish I’d find a way. Well, I’ll try, indeed and I will. What comes of it we’ll have to see.”

  He nodded and got to his feet. Walking to the doorway felt strange. He’d never parted from a longtime lover before. Elise had parted from him, and without a word of warning, but that wasn’t the same thing. With his hand on the bar, he turned back and said, “Good-bye.” The word came out funereally somber.

  Maybe that crossed Fand’s mind, too, for she said, “I’ve not died, y’know, nor yet headed back to the forests. I’ll be down for porridge come the dawn, same as always.” But she also seemed to feel the moment. “It won’t be the same any more, will it?”

  “No, but it’s likely better this way. If we did go on long enough, we’d have ended up hating each other.” Something of that had happened with him and Elise, though there it had been quiet and one-sided till it burst out when she left.

  If he stayed by the door talking, he was liable to end up talking himself out of what he’d resolved to do. He swung up the bar. Fand came over to lower it after he left. She smiled a farewell as he stepped out into the hallway, closed the door after him.

  From her chamber to his was only a few strides. In the moment he needed to step between them, Selatre came down the hall, probably on her way to the garderobe. She’d seen Fand’s door close. She looked from it to Gerin and back again, then kept walking without a word or another glance.

  His face heated. The kindest thing Selatre could think of him was that he’d just slaked his lust. He wanted to run down the hall after her and explain that he and Fand weren’t going to do that sort of thing any more, but he didn’t think she’d listen.

  “What’s the use?” he muttered, and opened the door to his own chamber. He closed it after himself, threw off his clothes, and flung himself down onto the bed. The straw-stuffed mattress shifted back and forth on the grid of rawhide straps that supported it. The slow, rolling motion made Gerin feel as if he were on a chariot just setting out.

  In a little while, Selatre’s soft footsteps came back up the hall as she returned to the chamber he’d given her. They didn’t pause in front of Fand’s doorway, nor in front of his. If anything, they sped up.

  Silence returned. Outside, the moons wheeled through their endless dance: Tiwaz full, Elleb lost in the bright skirts of the sun, Math waxing between first quarter and full, Nothos waning from full toward third quarter. Gerin got up and stared through his narrow window at the multiple shadows the moons cast.

  Nothos had climbed almost to his high point in the sky before the Fox finally slept.

  After a couple of days of thought, Gerin did appoint Rihwin his envoy to Aragis the Archer. He would sooner have fared south himself, but dared not, not with so many things poised to go wrong close to home.

  “Tell him how things are here,” he said to Rihwin. “The alliance I offer is equal, neither of us to have any claim of superiority over the other. If he doesn’t care for that, to the five hells with him. And Rihwin, my fellow Fox, my friend, my colleague—”

  “Ah, now that you’ve sweetened it, here comes the gibe,” Rihwin said.

  “If you choose to take it as one, aye,” Gerin answered. “To me, it was just going to be a remark your nature makes me make. What I was going to say is this: for Dyaus’ sake, don’t get cute.”

  “I?” Rihwin was the picture of offended dignity. “What could you possibly mean?”

  “What I said. I’ve met Aragis. He has about as much laughter and merriment in him as a chamber pot does, but he’s anything but stupid. Stick to the matter at hand with him and you’ll do fine. Get away from it—start telling jokes, drink too much ale, anything of the sort—and all you’ll earn from him is contempt. I don’t want that to rub off on me, because you’re going there as my agent. Is that clear?”

  “If you don’t care for the way I do things, send Drago the Bear,” Rihwin said sulkily. “He’ll do exactly as you say—he hasn’t the wit to do anything else.”

  “That’s why I’m sending you,” Gerin answered. “But you need to understand what’s riding on this, and that I don’t want any of your japes and scrapes as you fare south. You may not be able to help it; I know they’re in your blood. Do your best all the same.”

  Rihwin’s features registered anger, resignation, and amusement, all in the space of a couple of breaths. At last he said, “Very well, lord prince. I shall essay the role of a sobersided nitpicker: in short, I shall model my conduct on you in all regards.” As if that were not enough, he added, “To make the impression complete, I shall seek to carry off any nubile female relative the Grand Duke may happen to have.” He cocked his head to one side to see what impression that had on Gerin.

  The Fox started to scowl, started to curl his hands into fists, but gave up and threw them in the air while he broke out laughing. “You, sirrah, are incorrigible,” he declared.

  “I certainly do hope so,” Rihwin answered blithely. “Now that we’ve settled how I’m to comport myself on this embassy, with how large a retinue am I to be entrusted?”

  “Four chariots and teams feels about right to me,” Gerin said. “Any more and you’d look like an invasion; any fewer and you’re liable not to get through. What say you to that, my fellow Fox?”

  “It strikes me as about the right number,” Rihwin said. “If you’d said I was to go alone, I wouldn’t have gone. Had you put me in charge of a dozen chariots rather than a dozen men, I’d have assumed you’d gone daft—more daft than usual, I should say.”

  “For this ringing endorsement of my faculties, I thank you,” Gerin said. “Now go ready yourself. I want you to leave before sunset. The matter grows too urgent to admit of much more delay.”

  “If you and Aragis together can’t control what happens in the northlands, who can?” Rihwin asked.

  “Adiatunnus, perhaps,” Gerin said. Rihwin looked startled, then made a sour face, and finally nodded. He began a prostration such as he might have offered to the Emperor of Elabon. Had he actually got down on his belly, Gerin would have kicked him in the ribs without hesitation. But he stopped with the obeisance half made and went off to get ready to travel.

  Gerin felt better now that he’d made his decision. He was doing something, not waiting on Adiatunnus and the monsters to do something to him. That desire to see something, no matter what, happen had brought others down. He knew as much. But waiting to be ruined did not sit well with him, either.

  He walked back into the keep from the courtyard. He didn’t know how badly his raid had
hurt Adiatunnus, but at the least it must have made the Trokmê thoughtful, for the Fox had had no reports of woodsrunners on his side of the border since. Not many monsters had gone after his peasants, either. To him, that made the raid something worth doing, too.

  Van and Fand were sitting in the great hall, jacks of ale in front of them. Van gnawed on a mutton shank left over from the night before. When Gerin came in, Fand pushed herself closer on the bench to the outlander, as if to say the Fox couldn’t take her away from him. But Gerin was mostly relieved not to have to look forward to their next tiff. If Van wanted to stay with her, he wouldn’t stand in his friend’s way.

  He dipped up a jack of ale for himself and sat down across from the close-knit couple. After a pull at the jack, he told Van what he’d done.

  The outlander considered it, nodded gravely. “If your pride won’t keep you from working in harness with Aragis, it’s probably the best move you could make.”

  “If it’s between pride and survival, I know which to choose,” Gerin said.

  Fand sniffed. “Where’s the spirit in that? A serf would say as much.”

  Gerin started to bristle, then reminded himself he didn’t have to let her outrage him. “Have it however you’d like,” he said. “I can only answer for myself.” He drained the jack, set it down on the table in front of him, and got to his feet. “A very good morning to you both. Now, by your leave, I have other things to attend to.”

  As he headed for the stairway, he felt Fand’s eyes on his back. She didn’t say anything, though; maybe she was also reminding herself that they didn’t have to quarrel. On the other hand, he thought, maybe she was just speechless that he hadn’t risen to her bait.

  Upstairs, he hurried down the hall toward the library. He’d been doing that ever since he came back from south of the High Kirs; when he was with his books, he could remember the scholar he’d wanted to become and forget the baron the gods had decided he would be. Had his footsteps grown quicker yet since he started teaching Selatre her letters? Well, what if they have? he asked himself.

  She was waiting for him when he got there. She was not the sort to sit idle; she had a spindle and some wool, and was busy making thread. She smiled and put down the spindle when he came through the door. “Now for something my wits can work on, not my hands,” she said, sounding as if she looked forward to the switch.

  “More on the nature of the gods,” Gerin said, pulling a scroll from the pigeonhole where it rested.

  “Ah, good,” she said briskly. “My own life was so bound up with Biton that I know less of the rest of the gods than I should, especially seeing how my circumstances have changed.” She no longer sounded bitter, only matter-of-fact.

  The Fox slipped the velvet cover from the scroll, worked the handles until he reached the section he and Selatre were going to read. “Ah, today we come, to the god—” His voice changed. “Here, read it for yourself.”

  “Mavrix,” Selatre said, sounding out the name. She’d caught Gerin’s sudden shift of tone. “Why does the Sithonian god of wine—what’s the word I want?—disturb you?”

  “Raise my hackles, you mean?” Gerin shivered. “We’ve had dealings, Mavrix and I. I’d guess the god’s not happy with them, and I know I’m not. If it weren’t for Mavrix, Rihwin would still be a mage. If it weren’t—But never mind all that now; I can tell it another time. Just read me what our deathless author set down on parchment.” Irony filled his voice. The scroll was a thoroughly humdrum compilation of the deities worshiped by the various peoples of the Elabonian Empire. He would gladly have replaced it with a more interesting volume on the same theme, had he been lucky enough to stumble across one.

  Selatre was not yet at the point where she could appreciate fine points of style. She fought her way through words and sentences, seizing meaning as best she could. “‘Mavrix, the god of wine native to Sithonia,’” she read, “‘is also widely reverenced in Elabon. His votaries are even found north of the High Kirs, although all wine in that distant province is of necessity imported.’”

  “The scroll says it, but I never knew of Mavrix’s cult up here,” Gerin said, “Still and all, when Rihwin invoked him in a minor magic, he appeared—not to do Rihwin’s bidding, but to punish him for associating with me.”

  “And why did the god see fit to do that?” Selatre asked. Before the Fox could answer, she held up a hand. “Tell me another time, as you said. I resume: ‘The cult of Mavrix is held in chief repute by those who have little happiness in their lives. In the release they take from wine and from the orgiastic nature of his worship, they find the pleasure otherwise lacking to them.’ Does orgiastic mean what I think it does?”

  “Every sort of excess?” Gerin asked. Selatre nodded. Gerin said, “That’s what it means, all right. Go on; you’re doing very well.”

  “Thank you.” Selatre started reading again: “‘The Emperors of Elabon sometimes persecuted those who took part in Mavrix’s rites when Sithonia was a newly acquired province. Like much else Sithonian, however, the god’s cult has become an accepted part of Elabonian life in recent years, and the cry “Evoii!” is often heard all through the Empire.’”

  “I’ve heard it,” Gerin said. “If I never hear it again, I’ll be just as glad. Mavrix is a powerful god, but not one whom I care to worship. I like order too well to be easy with the lawlessness the lord of the sweet grape fosters.”

  Selatre clicked her tongue between her teeth. “The lord Biton is also a patron of order and reason, so I understand what you are saying, and yet—may I read on?”

  “Seems you already have, if you know what comes next in the scroll,” Gerin said. “You read that with just your eyes alone, didn’t you? Not many can do that so soon; quite a few have to say the words to themselves no matter how long they’ve been reading.”

  “You don’t,” Selatre said. “I tried to imitate you.”

  After a few seconds, he said, “I can’t think of the last time anyone paid me a compliment like that. Thank you.” He let out a wry chuckle. “Not that you’re likely to find the way most folks go by looking to me for a guide.”

  “I think you have the better way,” Selatre said, which produced a longer silence, especially since, as Gerin noted, she didn’t qualify the comment with here or any such thing. She looked down at the scroll again and read some more: “‘Mavrix is also the god who chiefly inspires poets and other artists, and is the patron of the drama. His love for beauty is well known.’” She looked up from the scroll. “Those are worthy attributes for a god, I think.”

  “Oh, indeed.” Gerin’s voice was dry. “Our chronicler here, though, is a rather—hmm, how should I put it?—a reticent man, shall we say. Among other ways, the god’s ‘love for beauty’ manifests itself as a passion for pretty boys.”

  He wondered how Selatre would take that, and whether she’d even understand what he was talking about. Both the Sithonians and their gods were fonder of pederasty than the northlands peasants among whom she’d spent her life until Biton chose her for his own. But she must have figured out what he meant, for she laughed heartily. Then, sobering, she said, “Is that written down in one of your other books? If not, it may be lost.”

  “Do you know, I’m not sure,” Gerin answered. “You’ve just made me sure of one thing, though, not that I wasn’t already: I couldn’t have found anyone better to oversee this library.”

  “Now you compliment me,” she said. “In turn, I want to thank you once more for bringing me here to tend your books. It’s not the life I had, but it’s far more than I had any reason to hope for.”

  This time, she didn’t just set her hand on his, she clasped it, nor did she pull away when he returned the pressure. He started to lean forward to kiss her, then hesitated, not from lack of desire but out of a scrupulous sense of fairness. He said, “If you’re drawn to me, think on why. If it’s only because I’m the one who brought you out of Ikos and helped show you how to live in the wider world, think on whether that’s reas
on enough.”

  She laughed at him. She couldn’t have surprised him more if she’d burst into flame. “I am a woman grown, lord Gerin, and you are not my father.” As was her way, she sobered fast. “What you are with the lady Fand is something else again, especially in light of what I saw the other night.”

  That sobered Gerin in turn. Slowly, he said, “The thing is dead. Aye, you saw me leave her chamber.” He sighed. “Aye, we’d been to bed—what point denying it when it’s so? We won’t do that again—no sense to it, not when it was as it was. If she and Van get along, I wish them nothing but joy. If they don’t, I probably ought to wish him a hide as hard and thick as his corselet.”

  “So you should.” She smiled again, but not for long. “And is it because what you and Fand knew is dead that you now show an interest in me?”

  “Maybe in part,” he answered, which surprised her. He quickly added, “But only in small part, I’d say. More—far more—is that you are as you are. Believe me or not, as you will.” One of his eyebrows rose, a sort of punctuation by expression. “Besides, you were the one who took my hand. I wouldn’t have presumed to do such a thing, not with you being who you are.”

  “I noticed that,” Selatre said. “You’d promised as much when you took me away from Ikos, but who knows what a man’s promises are worth till they’re tested? When I saw you meant what you said, I—” She didn’t go on, but looked down at the scroll in front of her. Unlike Fand’s, her skin did not usually show much color, but she flushed now.

  “You decided you wanted to take the first step,” Gerin said. Selatre kept her eyes on the scroll but, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

  Gerin plucked at his beard. What he’d known with Fand had gone beyond the pleasure of the bedchamber, but not far beyond; there was a core of himself he’d never yielded. He’d done that only once, with Elise … and after what came of that, he was wary—no, frightened, he told himself—of risking it again. But if he involved himself with Selatre, he would have to risk it; he could feel as much already.