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 Trokmê, 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.
He wondered what would happen if one day Voldar won her fight up in the divine Gradihome. He’d told Duren he could deal with her, and still thought he was right, but, again, he didn’t want to have to find out.
“Do you know,” he said to Marlanz, “sometimes the most you can hope for is to stay ignorant.”
“I’m ignorant of what you mean,” Marlanz answered, smiling.
“Good,” Gerin said, and slapped him on the back.
The Fox began reckoning achievements in negatives: Voldar did not come down to the material world against him, and Aragis the Archer did not go to war. The monsters did not burst out of the caves under Biton’s temple at Ikos, one more worry he’d had, and Authari, Hilmic, and Wacho did not join together to overthrow or slay his son.
As the days flowed past, one after another, he began to believe those negatives might hold together for a time. That let him savor the positives: a good harvest and peace among his vassals, even including Adiatunnus. The best surprise of all came from Carlun. Once the harvest had been gathered and payments in kind brought into Fox Keep, the steward came up to Gerin with parchments in his hand and a surprised look on his face.
He thrust the parchments at the Fox, saying, “Lord king, if I’ve reckoned rightly, we have enough here to get through the winter. I never would have believed it, not with all those gobbling warriors trying to eat the keep empty.”
He still thought like a serf. “If it weren’t for those gobbling warriors,” Gerin reminded him, “you’d be explaining how this keep is set for supplies to some Gradi chieftain—if you were lucky. More likely, you’d be dead.”
“I suppose so,” Carlun admitted, “but it seems—wasteful.” He made the ordinary word into a curse.
“Why fix a roof in summer, when the weather’s fine and looks like staying fine for a long time?” Gerin asked “The same reason you have men trained in war: sooner or later, you know trouble’s going to come. Being ready ahead of time is: a better idea than trying to fix things at the same time as they’re falling apart.”
Carlun chewed on that for a while, then reluctantly nodded. Gerin, meanwhile, checked the steward’s figures with meticulous care. As far as he could tell, everything gibed. That meant Carlun was either a very clever cheater or too afraid of him to take any chances. He suspected the latter. That suited him fine.
Winter was the quiet time of the year, serfs and lords alike living on what they’d stored up in summer and fall. When they hadn’t stored enough, what they got was famine, which, all too often, brought peasant uprisings in its wake. To try to head them off, Gerin did send what grain he could west of the Venien, to the lands where unnatural summer weather, courtesy of the Gradi gods, had ruined the crops. He scored another negative success: the serfs there did not revolt.
“In a horrid sort of way, I understand why things are quiet there,” he said to Selatre one day. “They don’t have much food, but there aren’t many of them left, either, not after living under the Gradi for a while and then after the war. What little they’ve got, along with what little we could give them, is somewhere close enough to get them by.”
His wife nodded. “Life for farmers is never easy.” Having grown up a peasant’s daughter, she knew whereof she spoke. After a moment, she added, “You’ve done everything you could, and more than most lords would have dreamt of trying.”
“It sounds like an epitaph,” Gerin said, laughing. A moment later, as with Duren, his hand and Selatre’s twisted in a sign to avert the evil omen. That done, he let out a long sigh. “We got through it.”
Selatre nodded again. “So we did. And after what we got through, it has to get better, because how could it get worse?”
“That’s why we go on living,” he answered: “to find out how it could get worse.” Selatre poked him in the ribs, and he had to admit (though he didn’t have to admit out loud) he deserved it.
As winters went, this one was mild, again to Gerin’s relief: he’d feared the Gradi gods, if they got free at that season of the year, would do their best to freeze the northlands solid. Nothing of the sort happened, though, and in due course winter gave way to spring. Leaves came out on the formerly bare branches of oaks and maples, apples and plums; fresh grass sprouted on the meadows, pushing up through the yellow-brown dead growth of the year before. The peasants yoked their oxen to the plow and planted wheat and rye, oats and barley. Gerin blessed Baivers, and hoped the god heard him.
He had one more worry in the middle of spring: Elleb, Math, and Tiwaz came to fullness on successive nights. No reports of werebeasts ravaging flocks or peasants reached him, though. He hoped Marlanz Raw-Meat hadn’t given way to his lycanthropic tendencies during the run of full moons.
And then, when for once he saw no trouble on the horizon at all, the midwife came rushing up from the peasant village near Fox Keep to let him know Fulda had been delivered of a baby boy. He thumped his forehead with the heel of his hand, angry at himself for letting the imminence of the event slip his mind. “What’s Mavrix’s bastard like?” he asked.
“Lord king, you’d better come see for yourself,” said the midwife, a sturdy, middle-aged woman named Radwalda.
And so the Fox followed her down to the village. She pointed the way to Fulda’s hut, but showed no eagerness to go into it herself. Shrugg
ing, Gerin stepped through the low entrance, ducking his head as he went.
His eyes needed a moment to adjust to the gloom. When they did, he saw Fulda sitting up on the bed. She didn’t look nearly so worn as other women he’d seen just after childbirth: one more advantage of divine parentage, he supposed.
Smiling, she held up the newborn baby. “Isn’t he beautiful, lord king? I’m going to call him Ferdulf.”
“Hello, Ferdulf,” Gerin said.
Ferdulf’s eyes, which had been closed, came open. “Hello yourself,” the infant demigod said in a distinctly unbabylike baritone.
Gerin looked at Fulda. She nodded. “Oh, dear,” the Fox said.
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Also By Harry Turtledove
Series
Gerin the Fox
1. Were Blood (1979) (writing as Eric G Iverson)
2. Werenight (1979) (writing as Eric G Iverson)
3. Prince of the North (1994)
4. King of the North (1996)
5. Fox and Empire (1997)
The Misplaced Legion
1. The Misplaced Legion (1987)
2. An Emperor for the Legion (1987)
3. The Legion of Videssos (1987)
4. Swords of the Legion (1987)
Krispos
1. Krispos Rising (1991)
2. Krispos of Videssos (1991)
3. Krispos the Emperor (1994)
Time of Troubles
1. The Stolen Throne (1995)
2. Hammer and Anvil (1996)
3. The Thousand Cities (1997)
4. Videssos Besieged (1998)
Darkness
1. Into the Darkness (1998)
2. Darkness Descending (2000)
3. Through the Darkness (2001)
4. Rulers of the Darkness (2002)
5. Jaws of Darkness (2003)
6. Out of the Darkness (2004)
War Between the Provinces
1. Sentry Peak (2000)
2. Marching Through Peachtree (2001)
3. Advance and Retreat (2002)
Crosstime Traffic
1. Gunpowder Empire (2003)
2. Curious Notions (2004)
3. In High Places (2005)
4. The Disunited States of America (2006)
5. The Gladiator (2007)
6. The Valley-Westside War (2008)
Pacific War
1. Days of Infamy (2004)
2. End of the Beginning (2005)
Gap
1. Beyond the Gap (2007)
2. The Breath of God (2008)
3. The Golden Shrine (2009)
Atlantis
1. Opening Atlantis (2007)
2. The United States of Atlantis (2008)
3. Liberating Atlantis (2009)
Supervolcano
1. Eruption (2011)
Other Novels
Agent of Byzantium (1987)
Noninterference (1987)
A Different Flesh (1988)
Kaleidoscope (1990)
A World of Difference (1990)
Earthgrip (1991)
The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump (1993)
The Two Georges: The Novel of an Alternate America (1995) (with Richard Dreyfuss)
Thessalonica (1996)
Between the Rivers (1998)
Household Gods (1999) (with Judith Tarr)
Ruled Britannia (2002)
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (2003)
Bridge of the Separator (2005)
After the Downfall (2008)
Collections
Departures (1993)
Down in the Bottomlands: And Other Places (1999) (with L Sprague de Camp)
Counting Up, Counting Down (2002)
Reincarnations (2009)
The "Scepter of Mercy" Series (Writing As Dan Chernenko)
The Bastard King (2003)
The Chernagor Pirates (2004)
The Scepter's Return (2005)
Harry Turtledove (1949 – )
Harry Turtledove was born in Los Angeles in 1949, and has a PhD in Byzantine history. He has taught ancient and medieval history at a number of universities including UCLA, and has published a translation of a ninth-century Byzantine chronicle, as well as several scholarly articles. A full-time science fiction writer since 1991, he is best known for his rigorously researched alternative history, such as the classic The Guns of the South, in which the Confederacy wins the American Civil War. Harry Turtledove is married to novelist Laura Frankos, and lives in Los Angeles.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Harry Turtledove 1996
All rights reserved.
The right of Harry Turtledove to be identified as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 12100 3
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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