Harry Turtledove - Wisdom of the Fox

Seeing her naked made the breath catch in his throat, as it always did. She was a splendid woman, and she knew it, which only made the impression stronger. Gerin undressed in a hurry. They got back down on the bed together.

They did their best to please each other. The Fox tried hard; he could tell Fand was doing the same thing. He rolled off her quickly afterwards, not wanting her to have to bear his weight any longer than she needed to. "I thank you," she said, and sat up.

Gerin lay on one side. He looked over to her and said, "It's no good any more, is it?"

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.