Harry Turtledove - Wisdom of the Fox

She hesitated with her hands at the neck of her tunic. "Do you want me to blow out the lamp after all?" he asked.

Selatre shook her head, perhaps as much at herself as toward Gerin. Almost defiantly, she pulled the tunic up over her head, then kicked off her sandals and got out of her long wool skirt and the linen drawers she wore beneath it. Gerin had known she was well made, but hadn't realized how well. If he stared too much, he might fluster her. The only way to keep from staring was to undress himself. He did that, quickly, and lay down on the bed.

Selatre hesitated again before joining him there. The soft straw of the mattress rustled as her weight came down on it. "Forgive me," she said. "I am—nervous."

"No reason you shouldn't be, and every reason you should," he said. "First times come only once."

She nodded. "What did your book say we're supposed to do next?"

"Not any one thing in particular," he answered. "If I remember aright, it says I'm supposed to kiss you and caress you for a long time to make you easy in your mind and to help make your body ready for what we'll do after that." He smiled at her. "I'd want to do that anyhow."

He embraced her, drew her to him. She started to pull back when their bare bodies met—that was touching of a different sort from what she'd known before. But she checked herself, managed a smile in return. When he kissed her, she kissed him back.

"That tickles," she said as his tongue slid down the smooth, soft skin of her neck. Then it found the tip of her right breast. "Ah," she murmured, a syllable all breath and no voice.

After some time, he let his mouth stray lower. The sound she made was half surprise, half pleasure. He'd forgotten about the book; he enjoyed what he was doing for its own sake.

"Oh, my," she said a little while later. "I'd expected one surprise, but two? Is that something you brought back with you from south of the High Kirs?"

"As a matter of fact, no," he answered. But then, who could guess what would be done in a peasant village outside of Ikos?

"Well, wherever you learned it, it's—" She didn't go on in words, but the pause and the delighted expression on her face said enough. After a moment, she added, "Could I do the same for you?"

"You could, but probably not for very long right now," Gerin said. "Let's try something else instead." He sat up on the bed. "Here, why don't you get onto my lap?"

She straddled him, which he hadn't expected quite yet; she did know the theory of what they were going to do. He took himself in hand. She lowered herself onto him, slowly and cautiously. "It doesn't hurt," she said, and then, a heartbeat later, "Wait. There."

"Yes," Gerin said. "Do you want to stop? No rush here." She shook her head. "All right, then," he said, and took hold of her buttocks, easing her down until he was fleshed to the root—that was what the racily illustrated scroll in the City of Elabon had recommended, and it seemed to work well. "Is it all right?" he asked.

"It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would," she said, nodding. "You were gentle. Thank you."

He kissed her and ran his hands over her body. When he was sure she'd meant what she said, he began to move inside her, slowly, a little at a time, not hurrying at all. His left hand slid down between her legs to add to her pleasure—or perhaps to create it, as few women were likely to find full joy from coupling itself their first time.

His own pleasure built slowly. He let that happen, rather than straining to quicken it. When at last it reached its peak, it was all the more intense because of the long, unhurried climb to get there. He closed his eyes and squeezed Selatre hard against him.

There was a little blood when she slid off him, but not much. He wondered what she'd thought. Not looking at him, she said, more than half to herself, "I'm so sorry for all the Sibyls who died without ever knowing this."

He set a hand on her bare shoulder. Instead of pulling away, she snuggled against him. He said, "I made two alliances today. This is the better one."

"Oh yes," she said. "Oh yes."

IX

Aragis' envoys rode out at dawn two days later. Gerin cordially loathed getting up with the sun, but made a point of seeing them off. He glanced up into the sky and pointed to golden Math, which, three days past full, was sliding toward the western horizon. "Lords, she makes her turn in nine-and-twenty days," he said to Marlanz and Fabors. "By the next time she reaches that phase, I hope to have the Grand Duke's chariots fighting alongside mine."

"We shall do everything in our power to make it so," Fabors Fabur's son said.

"Aye, that should give us time for travel and for gathering the men and cars," Marlanz Raw-Meat added. "I hope the Archer orders me north again. Fighting the monsters and the Trokmoi at the same time would be worth the candle, I think."

Gerin had seen a good many men, Trokmoi and Elabonians both (to say nothing of Van), who loved war for its own sake. He recognized that, but it baffled him every time he ran into it. He said, "I'd sooner not be fighting at all, but sometimes you have no choice."

Marlanz sent him a curious look. "Your hand's not cold in war, lord prince. You may not care for it, but you do it well."

He probably had as much trouble understanding the Fox as Gerin did with him—maybe more, if he didn't make a practice of trying to see into the minds of people different from him. Explaining seemed an unprofitable use of time to Gerin, who contented himself with answering, "If you don't do what needs doing, before long you won't have the chance to do anything at all." Marlanz weighed that—as Gerin had guessed on first meeting him, he was smarter than he looked—and finally nodded.

The drawbridge thumped down. Aragis' ambassadors and the warriors who had come north to protect them rolled across it and off toward the Elabon Way. The gate crew hauled the bridge back up. Visitors to Fox Keep were few in these days of disordered commerce, and who could say what lurked in the not too distant woods? For legitimate travelers, the bridge would come down again. Meanwhile, Castle Fox was fortress first.

Van came out of the keep, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "So they're on their way south, are they?" he said through a yawn. "We can use all the help we can find, and that's a fact."

"I know," Gerin answered. "I didn't like the way Adiatunnus mocked me at the fight in that clearing. We'll see how he laughs when he finds Aragis' chariots ranged beside mine."

"Aye, that'll be a good thing, no doubt about it." Van yawned again. "I want some bread and ale. Maybe they'll make my wits start working."

"The Urfa nomads in the deserts south of Elabon brew some sort of bitter drink that's supposed to keep a man awake if he's tired and wake him up if he's all fuzzy the way you are," Gerin said. He sighed. "Time was when Urfa came up to Ikos to talk with the Sibyl. We might have bought some of the berries from them. Now the oracle at Ikos is no more, and even if it were still there, the Urfa couldn't come up through Elabon to get to it."

" 'The oracle at Ikos is no more,' " Van repeated as he and the Fox walked back toward the great hall. He glanced over to Gerin. "The lady Selatre's still very much here, though."

"So she is," Gerin said. He and Selatre hadn't tried to keep their becoming lovers a secret—not that they could have even if they did try. Castle Fox had too many pairs of eyes, too many wagging tongues, for that. If he could, Gerin would have looked down his nose at Van. The outlander being considerably taller, he looked up it instead. "So what?"

"So nothing, Captain," Van said hastily. "May you and she have joy of it." He paused, then went on in a low-voiced mumble, "And may the gods grant that I keep up with Fand and don't decide to throttle her."