Harry Turtledove - Wisdom of the Fox

"There is that," Gerin observed. Fand hadn't said anything to him; one thing that had been plain to both of them was that whatever they'd had was dead. But when she looked from him to Selatre, I told you so gleamed in her green eyes. She had told him so, too, which only made the look on her face more irksome. On the other hand, Fand enjoyed getting people angry at her, so he refused to give her the satisfaction of showing his annoyance.

Van cut a chunk from the loaf of bread on one of the tables. The morning was cool; Gerin decided he'd rather dip up a bowl of barley porridge from the pot that sat above the fire on the hearth at the far end of the hall. He took a horn spoon, then set that and the bowl on the table while he got himself a jack of ale.

He'd just poured a little libation to Baivers when Selatre came downstairs. "Here, join us," he said. "Marlanz and Fabors have headed south to take Aragis word of the agreement."

"I thought it must be so when you made yourself wake so early," she answered, cutting herself a piece of bread as Van had done.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to wake you." He felt guilty; he hadn't slept the night through with a woman in his own bed for a long time, and probably hadn't been as quiet as he might have been. For that matter, he hadn't slept with anyone in his own bed since Duren disappeared, and that was . . . more than sixty days ago now, he realized with a small shock, reckoning up everything that had happened since.

"It's all right," she said. "The sun was up, so I would have been awake soon anyhow. That's how it always was in my village, and that's how it was at Ikos, too." She somehow managed not to make Gerin feel bad for preferring to sleep later when he could. After she'd poured ale for herself, she sat down right beside him.

Fand came into the great hall a little later. When she saw Gerin and Selatre together, she didn't bother with breakfast. She just walked over to Van and plopped herself down in his lap.

He'd been reaching for his ale. Instead, his arms went around her. "What do you think you're doing?" he spluttered.

Her arms went around his neck. "What do you think I'm doing, now?" she purred into his ear.

Van could resist anything except temptation. He did try: "So early in the morning?" he said incredulously. Fand leaned closer still, whispered something Gerin couldn't quite catch into the outlander's ear. Whatever it was, it seemed to have the desired effect. Van snorted like a stallion and then, still holding Fand, stood up and carried her upstairs.

Gerin and Selatre stared after them. A moment later, a door—presumably the one to Fand's chamber—slammed shut. When Gerin and Selatre looked from the stairway to each other, they both started to laugh. "Oh, my," Gerin said. "She has a hook in him like a man fishing for salmon."

"Did she always act like that?" Selatre asked in a small voice. She sounded half bemused, half awed.

The Fox shook his head. "When she was with us both, she didn't—usually—try to use one of us to make the other jealous." He chuckled. "Drop me into one of the hells if she's not trying to make me jealous now that we're apart." He took Selatre's hand. "She'll have no luck there."

"I'm glad." Selatre squeezed him. Not long ago , he thought, she'd have been mortally offended if I touched her at all . Then he realized with the front of his mind that that change had of course started some days after Duren disappeared. Somehow he felt he'd known Selatre longer.

Rihwin the Fox came into the great hall for breakfast. He nodded to Gerin and Selatre as he ambled over to the pot of porridge. Though he'd formally courted Elise, he'd never made any permanent attachments since returning to the northlands with Gerin and Van, contenting himself with tumbling the occasional servant woman or peasant girl.

Catching Gerin's eye, Rihwin tugged at his left ear and brayed like a donkey. He'd done that a couple of times before, and succeeded in embarrassing Gerin. This time Gerin was ready for him. He said, "You do that very well. You must have had a good deal of ass in you even before I worked that magic to restore your ear."

Rihwin staggered, as if pierced by an arrow. That made some of the hot porridge slop out of his bowl and onto the hand that was holding it. Now wounded literally as well as metaphorically, he sprang into the air with a yelp. "See what you made me do?" he shouted at Gerin.

"I'm sorry, but I can't take the blame for that one," Gerin said. "You were a showoff long before you met me, and you've got yourself in trouble for it a good many times before, too."

As was his way, Rihwin calmed as quickly as he'd heated. "I'd be more inclined to resent that if it weren't true." He got himself a jack of ale, then bowed to Gerin and said, "May I sit by you and your lady, your supreme awesomeness?"

"Sit, sit," Gerin said, valiantly resisting the urge to throw something at him. In a way, Rihwin was like Fand: he could be infuriating, but he was never dull. Fortunately, though, he lacked Fand's flammable temper.

He threw himself bonelessly down onto the bench next to Gerin. For all his seeming insouciance, he had a keen sense of what made others comfortable; Selatre still didn't care to be touched, even by accident, by anyone save Gerin.

He took a swig from his jack of ale, then leaned forward so he could look past Gerin to Selatre. "As you are Sibyl no more, lady, let me prophesy for you now: many years of happiness. I suppose that also means happiness for this lout here"—he nodded at Gerin—"but we'll just have to put up with what we can't help."

"One fine day, I will throttle you," Gerin muttered. Rihwin dipped his head, as at some extravagant compliment. Gerin threw his hands in the air.

Selatre said, "I thank you for the wish, and may a god prove to have spoken through you."

"I don't think foolishness has a god, unless it be Mavrix in his aspect as king of the drunkards," Gerin said. He'd meant that for a joke, but it brought him up short once he'd said it. All he wanted was to ignore Mavrix and hope the god would do the same with him, but suddenly that didn't seem easy.

He got up and poured himself another jack of ale. He wasn't thirsty any more, nor did he want to get drunk to start the day. Maybe, though, by showing his loyalty to Baivers he could persuade Mavrix to leave him alone. But even as he quaffed the apotropaic ale, he had his doubts.

* * *

Neither the Trokmoi nor the monsters were so considerate as to wait for Aragis' men to arrive and help drive them away. Gerin's raid into Adiatunnus' holding did make the woodsrunner thoughtful, but didn't stop him. And as for the creatures, who could say whether the ones that attacked Gerin's villagers were aligned with Adiatunnus or not? Either way, the work they did was dreadful.

Herders began to disappear, along with their flocks. The monsters slew more livestock than they could eat. Wolves or longtooths seldom behaved so, but men often did. As the reports came in to Castle Fox, Gerin grew ever grimmer.

He did what he could to help his serfs cope with the new menace skulking through the woods. He ordered herdsmen to go forth in pairs, and always to be armed either with bows or with hunting spears. He gave permission for all his smiths to make spearheads and arrowheads in large numbers. With more and more serfs at least somewhat armed, they'd have a better chance of holding off the monsters when no chariot-riding nobles could come to their aid.

Some of his more conservative vassals grumbled at that. Drago the Bear said, "Who's going to take all those spears away when the monsters are gone, lord Gerin? They'll use 'em on each other, aye, and on us nobles, too, if we don't watch 'em careful—and we can't watch 'em careful all the time."