“I know that, too, but I find optimism hard to come by when I see no good reason for it.” The Fox wished he could cast aside his gloom. As Rihwin had said, he would have been a better wizard—though never a good one, he thought—without it. But it was as much a part of him as the scar over his left eye.
Just then, Fand came into the great hall. She pointed to Rihwin and Widin and Drago. “I know they had no luck,” she said. “Are you after finding your lost boy, and him so small and all?”
“No,” Gerin said, and the one word pressed the weight of defeat and despair more heavily onto his shoulders.
“Och, the black shame of it, to be snatching children,” Fand said. She meant it, Gerin judged, but hers was a nature that held the troubles of others in mind for only a little while before returning to her own concerns: “And fair lonely I was, too, with both my men off on a sleeveless errand. Still and all, though, they might have brought something back with them to make amends for being gone so long.” She looked hopefully from Gerin to Van.
The outlander answered first: “Maybe I should bring my hand across your greedy backside. Does that seem fair, when you think on what we were about?”
When Van spoke in that rumbling tone of warning, as if he were an earthquake about to happen, sensible men walked soft. But Fand was nothing if not spirited herself. She shouted, “Greedy, is it, to be asking a simple question of you? Often enough there’s a question you ask of me, aye, and with the understanding my answer had better be yes, too, or I’d be sorry for it. And you call me greedy? A pox take you!”
“If a pox did take me, where would I likely get it?” Van retorted.
“You’ve been staying with me too long,” Gerin murmured. “That’s the sort of crack I’m apt to make.”
Fand didn’t hear him. She let her wrath fall on Van: “You? Who knows where you’d be likely to come by the pox? You think I don’t know you’ll cover anything with a slit, like a billy goat in the springtime? I’ve more to fear from your wanderings than you from mine. Go on, now, tell me I’m a liar.”
Van turned the color of the embers smoldering on the hearth. “That’s the way of a man,” he sputtered. Drago, Rihwin, and Widin nodded. So did Gerin, though he was less inclined to make a tomcat of himself.
“Och, I know that.” Fand tossed her head in fine disdain. “But since it is, why blame me for what’d be the fault of your own self?”
Gerin worked so hard to choke down laughter that he had a coughing fit. Van wasn’t the only one who’d spent a lot of time with him. No toga-wearing Sithonian sophist could have done a neater, more logical job of punching holes in the outlander’s gibe than Fand just had.
Van looked his way. “Will you not come to my aid?” he asked plaintively, as if alone on the field and beset by a host.
“I think our lady here was greedy, too, but as for the rest, you got yourself into it, and you can get yourself out.” Gerin rose and headed for the stairs. “As for me, I’m going to see what sort of search spells I can use to try to find my son.”
Bass and alto shouts, like angry kettledrum and horn, followed him up to his library. He knew of no greater hoard of books anywhere in the northlands, yet he also knew how inadequate the collection was. There were hundreds of grimoires, for instance, but he owned fewer than ten. With them he had Lekapenos’ epics, a few codices of history, a couple on natural philosophy, a treatise on horsemanship, another on war, a school set of Sithonian plays (many of them crumbs from Lekapenos’ banquet)—and that was all. So much knowledge stored away in volumes he would never see, let alone own … thinking of his own ignorance saddened him.
He went through the grimoires one after another, looking for a spell that would let him see either who had taken Duren or where his son was now. He found a fair number of them, but had to dismiss most out of hand. Some were beyond his limited abilities as a mage. Some required ingredients he could not hope to obtain: dried sea-cow flipper from the Greater Inner Sea, for instance.
And too many needed wine. Even if it hadn’t been unavailable, he would have been afraid to use it. The last thing he wanted was to attract the angry notice of Mavrix.
“I wonder if ale would do?” he muttered, running a finger down the closely written column of a cantrip that looked promising except for prescribing a silver bowl full of wine as the scrying medium.
A sentence near the end of the spell leaped out at him: Whereas the aspect of Baivers god of barley is dull, sodden, and soporific, whilst that of Mavrix lord of the sweet grape (to whom the cry of Evoii! rings out) sparkles with wit and intelligence, the ill-advised operator who seeks to substitute ale for wine will surely have cause to regret his stupidity.
“It was only an idea,” the Fox said, as if talking things over with the author of the grimoire. That author was a Sithonian; though the Fox’s copy was an Elabonian translation, he’d already found several scornful references to the westerners who had conquered and then been all but conquered by the more anciently civilized land, and equally short shrift given to other Elabonian gods.
Gerin plucked at his beard as he thought. Substituting butter for olive oil had worked out well enough. No matter what this snooty Sithonian said, using ale in place of wine could also succeed. And he was and always had been on good terms with Baivers. He picked up the grimoire, saying, “I’ll try it.”
He had a silver bowl; it had been at Fox Keep since his grandfather’s day. He’d been thinking about melting it down along with the rest of the odd bits of silver in the keep and starting his own coinage. Now he was glad he’d never got round to doing that. And ale, of course, was easy to come by.
He took the bowl and a pitcher of the strongest brew in his cellar out to the shack where he essayed his magics. Before he began the conjuration, he took a while studying the text of the spell, making sure he could slip in Baivers’ name and standard epithets for those of Mavrix. He nodded to himself: that ought to work. He didn’t think he’d need to modify any of the mystical passes that accompanied the charm.
“I bless thee, Baivers, god of clear sight, and call upon thee: lift the darkness of night,” he intoned, and poured the silver bowl half full of golden ale. He smiled a little when he thought of that; mixing gold and silver, even symbolically, ought to make the spell work better.
As often happened, the sound of his chanting drew Rihwin, who stood in the doorway to see what he was up to. Gerin nodded to him and set a finger to his lips to enjoin silence. Rihwin nodded back; he knew a man working magic did not need and sometimes could not tolerate distraction.
Again, the wizard who had written the grimoire made the operator perform the more difficult passes with his left hand. Again, Gerin gratefully accepted that, because it made the spell easier for him. Soon, he thought, the ale would turn clear as crystal and he would be rewarded with a glimpse of Duren’s face, or at least of his surroundings.
He caught himself yawning in the middle of the spell. What’s wrong? he thought. He couldn’t say it aloud; he was in the middle of the chant. As if from very far away, he watched his sorcerous passes grow languid, listened to his voice turn fuzzy.…
“Lord prince! Lord Gerin!”
With a great effort, the Fox opened his eyes. Anxious faces crowding close blocked light from the smoking torches that lit the great hall. Gerin’s eyebrows came down and together—last he remembered, he hadn’t been in the great hall, and torchlighting was hours away.
“What happened?” he croaked. He discovered he was lying in the rushes on the floor. When he tried to sit up, he felt as if he’d forgotten how to use half his muscles.
Among the faces peering down at him was Rihwin’s. “Would that you could tell us, lord Gerin,” the southerner answered. “You fell asleep, or perhaps your spirit left your body—however you would have it—in the middle of the spell you were using. We’ve tried from that time to this to rouse you, but to no avail till now.”
“Aye, that’s the way of it,” Drago agreed. “We didn’t know wh
at in the five hells to do next—stick your foot in the fire, maybe.”
“I’m glad it didn’t come to that,” Gerin said. From Rihwin, the suggestion might have been a joke. Drago, though, had neither the wit nor the temperament for jokes. When he said something, he meant it.
That odd, unstrung feeling was fading. Gerin managed to get to his feet. Van, ever practical, gave him a jack of ale. “It’s not enchanted, Captain, but it’s pretty good,” he said.
Gerin gulped down half the jack before he choked and spluttered. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s what went wrong. This time, the chap who wrote the grimoire was smarter than I am. He warned that Baivers’ influence on the spell was soporific, and that’s just what he meant.”
“The Elabonian pantheon is so dismayingly stodgy,” Rihwin said. Like many of his educated countrymen, he preferred the Sithonian gods to those native to Elabon.
But Van said, “Honh! Remember how much joy you had of Mavrix.” Rihwin flinched but was honest enough with himself to nod, acknowledging the justice of the hit.
“Never mind any of that,” Gerin said; his wits were beginning to work more clearly again, and his body to seem as if it might be fully answerable to him after all. “I’ve learned something from this escapade, which may in the long run make it worthwhile.”
“What’s that?” Van asked, a beat ahead of the rest.
“That whatever magic I can do isn’t going to let me find my son. And find him I will.” Gerin counted stubbornness a virtue. If you kept hitting at a problem, sooner or later it was likely to fall down. He went on, “Using ale for wine in the spell might have knocked me out, but, by Dyaus, there are eyes that never sleep.”
“Not by Dyaus,” Drago said. “By Biton, you mean, or do I mistake you?”
“No, you have the right of it,” Gerin said. “I’ll fare forth to the Sibyl at Ikos. Her verse will tell me what I need to know.” He hesitated, then added, “If I can understand it, of course.”
III
After the Empire of Elabon conquered the land between the High Kirs and the Niffet, the Elabonians pushed an all-weather highway, the Elabon Way, north from the town of Cassat to the river so they would always be able to move troops against invaders or rebels.
No large numbers of imperial troops had been seen in the northlands for generations before Elabon severed itself from its province north of the Kirs, but the highway remained: far and away the best land link the northlands boasted. Even barons who did little else maintained the stretch of the Elabon Way that ran through their territory: if for no other reason, then to make sure they collected tolls from travelers along the road.
“Hard on the horses’ hooves,” Van remarked as the wagon rumbled onto the flag-paved roadbed.
“So it is,” Gerin said. “Nothing to be done about it, though, unless you want to throw away the road whenever it rains for more than two days straight. Getting a wagon through hub-deep mud isn’t much fun.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Van agreed. “Still, we don’t want the animals lamed or stonebruised, either.”
“No. Well, we won’t push them hard, not when it’s a five days’ run to Ikos,” Gerin said. “As a matter of fact, the horses aren’t what worries me most.”
“You always have something to worry about—you’d be worried if you didn’t,” Van said. “What is it this time?”
“Ricolf the Red’s would be a logical place to stop for the third night,” the Fox answered. “Or it would have been the logical place—” His voice trailed away.
“—if Ricolf weren’t Elise’s father. If Elise hadn’t up and left you,” Van finished for him. “Aye, that does complicate your life, doesn’t it?”
“You might say so,” Gerin agreed dryly. “Ricolf’s not my vassal. When Elise was with me, there seemed no need, and afterwards I hadn’t the crust to ask it of him. Nor has he ever sought my protection; he’s done well enough on his own. When Elise was with me, I had a claim on his keep once he died. Now that she’s gone, I suppose Duren is the rightful heir: she’s Ricolf’s only legitimate child, and none of his bastard sons lived.”
“Which means Duren is Ricolf’s only grandson, too,” Van said. “He’ll need to know about the boy disappearing. Or let me put it another way—he’d have cause to quarrel with you if you rode by without saying so much as a word.”
Gerin sighed. “I hadn’t thought about it quite like that, but I fear you’re right. I’m his guest-friend from years gone by, but it’ll be bloody awkward just the same. He thinks Elise never would have run off if I’d done … Dyaus, if I’d known what I should have done, I’d have done it. He won’t think better of me for letting Duren be kidnapped, either.”
“Captain, you feel bad enough about that all by yourself—you won’t hardly notice anyone else piling on a little more.”
“Only you would think of making me feel better by reminding me how bad I feel now.” The method was, Gerin admitted to himself, nicely calculated to suit his own gloomy nature.
Sitting beside him on the wagon’s bench, Van stretched and looked about with an almost child like delight. “Good to be out on the road again,” he said. “Fox Keep’s all very well, but I like having new things to see every minute or every bend in the road—not that the Elabon Way had many bends in it, but you take my meaning.”
“So I do.” The Fox looked eastward. Quick-moving Tiwaz, now a day past first quarter, had raced close to Nothos, whose pale gibbous disk was just rising over the tree-covered hills. He shook his head. Just as Tiwaz gained on Nothos, so troubles seemed to gain on him with every day that passed, and his own pace was too slow to escape them.
“There’s a pleasant thought,” Van said when he spoke his conceit aloud. “Tell you what, Fox: instead of sleeping in the open tonight, what say we rest at the next serf village we come upon? They’ll have ale there, and you’ll be better for drinking yourself drunk and starting off tomorrow with a head that thumps like a drum. Then at least you’ll know what ails you.”
“I know what ails me now,” Gerin said: “Duren’s missing. What I don’t know is what to do about it, and that eats at me as much as his being gone.” Nevertheless, he went on reflectively, “Headman at the next village south is Tervagant Beekeeper. His ale doesn’t have the worst name in the lands I hold.”
Van slapped him on the back, nearly hard enough to tumble him out of the wagon. “The very thing. Trust me, Captain, you’ll be better for a good carouse.”
“That’s what Rihwin thought, and he ended up with his robe round his ears and his pecker flapping in the breeze.”
Even so, the Fox reined in when they rolled up to Tervagant’s village. The headman, a nervous little fellow who kept kneading the front of his tunic with both hands as if it were bread dough, greeted the arrival of his overlord with ill-concealed alarm. “W-what brings you so far south, l-lord prince?” he asked.
“My son’s been stolen,” Gerin answered flatly. Tervagant’s eyes widened. The news, the Fox saw, had not reached the village till this moment. He set it forth for the headman and the crowd of listeners—mostly women and children, for the men still labored in the fields—who gathered round the wagon.
“Lord prince, I pray the gods give you back your boy,” Tervagant said. Everyone else echoed his words; noble and peasant shared the anguish a missing child brought. The headman’s hands fell away from his tunic. His face, which had been pasty, gained color. Another one who’s glad I’m not looking into his affairs, Gerin thought. He wondered just how many village headmen had little schemes of their own in play. One of these days, he’d have to try to find out.
Not today, though. Tervagant ducked into his hut, came out with a ram’s-horn trumpet. He glanced at Gerin for permission before he raised it to his lips. The Fox nodded. Tervagant blew a long, unmusical blast. Some of the peasants looked up from their work in surprise: the sun was low in the west, but not yet brushing the horizon. The men came in happily enough, though.
“Shall we ki
ll a pig, lord prince?” the headman asked.
“Aye, if you can without hurting yourselves,” Gerin answered. The thought of fat-rich pork made spit rush into his mouth. He added, “The blood from the beast will give the ghosts what they, want, too.”
“Some of the blood,” Tervagant corrected thriftily. “The rest we’ll make into blood pudding.” In good times, serfs lived close to the edge. In bad times, they—and the nobles they supported—fell over it. They could afford to waste nothing.
The pig, like any other, was half wild, with a ridge of hair down its back. Tervagant lured it to him with a turnip, then cut its throat. He had to spring back to keep it from tearing him with its tushes. Blood sprayed every which way as the beast ran through the village until it fell over and lay kicking.
“That’ll keep the ghosts happier than if the blood went into a nice, neat trench,” Van said.
The fire the villagers made was big enough to hold a fair number of ghosts away by itself. They butchered the pig, baked some of it in clay, and roasted the rest. Living up to his ekename, Tervagant went into his hut, came out with a pot full of honey, and glazed some of the cooking meat with it. The delicious aroma made Gerin hungrier than he had been before.
Along with bread, ale, and berries preserved in more of Tervagant’s honey, the pork proved as good as it smelled. A sizable pile of rib bones lay in front of Gerin when he thumped his belly and pronounced himself full. Van had found a pointed rock and was cracking a leg bone to get at the marrow.
“More ale, lord prince?” one of the peasant women asked.
“Thank you.” He held out the cup they’d given him. She smiled as she filled it for him. She was, he noticed, not bad-looking, with light eyes that told of a Trokmê or two in the woodpile. She wore her hair long and unbraided, which meant she was unmarried, yet she was no giggling maid.
When he asked her about that, her face clouded. “I had a husband, lord prince, you’re right, I did, but he died of lockjaw year before last.”
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