Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

"Aye, well, there is that." Van looked around. "Falling back toward land Aragis rules, if we're not on that land already. Don't know how happy he'll be if we take everything that isn't tied down and cut the lashings off what is tied down so we can take that, too."

Gerin looked around. "To the five hells with me if I know where Aragis' southern border is. Maybe we'll find boundary stones, maybe we won't. To the five hells with me if I care, either. If Aragis thinks I'm going to starve to death to keep from bothering his serfs' precious crops, to the five hells with him, too."

Over his shoulder, Dagref said, "If the threat lay by the Niffet, he'd eat you out of house and home without a second thought."

"Well, the gods know that's true," Gerin said. Now he looked straight ahead, north and a little east, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Ikos is just on the other side of Aragis' holdings, too. I've never had cause to go to the Sibyl by the southern route, but maybe I will." He nodded, more decisively than he'd thought he would. "Yes, indeed. Maybe I will."

Dagref said, "In the learned genealogies, they say Biton is a son of Dyaus Allfather, but-"

Gerin held up his hand. "But that's Elabonians writing for Elabonians below the High Kirs," he finished. "Biton is truly a god of this land here, and everyone who lives in the northlands knows it."

"Even so," Dagref said. "Compared to the gods of the Gradi, Baivers, god of brewing and barley, is a god of this land, even though we Elabonians brought him here a couple of hundred years ago when we conquered this province. Because he is a god of this land, you were able to use him against the gods of the Gradi. From that, it would follow logically-"

"— that I might use Biton against the Elabonian Empire." Gerin interrupted once more. "Yes."

"I thought you might not have seen it," Dagref said, a little sulkily.

"Well, I did." Gerin clapped his son on the back. "Don't let it worry you. The two of us think a lot alike-"

"You're both sneaky," Van put in.

"Thank you," Gerin and Dagref said in the same breath, which made the outlander stare from one of them to the other. Gerin continued, "As I was saying before we were disturbed by a breath of wind there-"

"Honh!" Van said.

"— the two of us think a lot alike, but I've been doing it longer, so it's likely I'll come up with a lot of the same notions you do," Gerin went on imperturbably. "That shouldn't disappoint you, and it shouldn't stop you from telling me what's on your beady little mind-"

"Honh!" Now Dagref interrupted, doing a surprisingly good impression of Van.

Gerin talked through him as he'd talked through the outlander: "-because you never can tell, you might come up with something I've missed." He took a deep breath, triumphant at finally managing to complete his thought.

"Fair enough, Father." Dagref heaved his shoulders up and down in a sigh. "Hard sometimes, being a smaller, less detailed copy of the man you've already become. It makes me feel rather like an abridged manuscript."

"No, not an abridged one," Gerin said. "You just have a lot more blank parchment left at the end of your scroll than I do, that's all."

"Hmm." Dagref contemplated that. "Well, all right-maybe so." He flicked the reins and urged the horses up to a better pace.

"By the things you've said, Fox, I know what the difference between you and him is," Van remarked.

"Tell me," Gerin urged. Dagref's back expressed mute interest.

"I will," Van said. "The difference is, Fox, that your father had no more idea what to do with you than a crow would with a chick that came out of the egg with white feathers instead of black. Is that so, or am I lying?"

"It's so, sure enough," Gerin agreed. "My brother was a warrior born, everything my father could have wanted. My father hadn't the slightest notion what to make of me. I might be the first real live scholar spawned in the northlands in better than a hundred years."

"And yet you're a king, while your father died a baron, so you never can tell," Van said. "But my point is, Dagref's the second real live scholar spawned in the northlands. You have a notion of what you've got there, while your father had never a clue with you."

"Ah," Gerin said. "Well, there's some truth in that, sure enough. How about it, Dagref? Do you like it better that I can guess along with you some of the time, or would you rather I had never a clue?"

Dagref looked back over his shoulder at the Fox again. "I can guess along with you some of the time, Father. What in the world makes you think you can guess along with me?" Van guffawed. Gerin felt his ears heat.

Riders and charioteers fanned out through the countryside around the village by which Gerin had chosen to camp for the night. They brought back cattle and sheep and ducks and chickens. "Had to let the air out of a shepherd before he'd cough up his beasts," one rider said, patting his bow so as to leave no possible doubt about what he meant.

Under other circumstances, Gerin would have been angry at him for alienating the peasantry. As things were, the Fox hardly noticed the comment. He had his sword in his left hand, and was wondering if he'd have to start carving chunks off the village headman, who was doing his best to act like an idiot from birth.

"No," the fellow said, "we don't have no grain stored in pits. We don't have no beans in pits, neither."

"That's very interesting," Gerin said, "very interesting indeed. I suppose you get through every winter by not eating during most of it."

"Seems that way, a lot of the time," the headman answered sullenly.

"Well, all right." Gerin's voice was light and blithe. "I suppose we'll just have to burn this place down so all these houses here don't get in our way while we're searching."

The headman sent him a look full of loathing and led him over to the storage pits, which had been concealed by grass growing over them. "I thought you had a name for being soft alongside Aragis," the peasant grumbled.

"Only goes to show you can't always trust what you hear, doesn't it?" the Fox returned with a smile. The village headman's glare held even more hate than it had before. Having got what he wanted, Gerin generously affected not to notice. Keeping his army fed was at the moment more important than keeping Aragis' peasants happy.

That was his opinion, at any rate. He discovered the next day that Aragis had a different one. A chariot bearing the Archer's son, Aranast, came jouncing over a side road toward Gerin's army. When Aranast had made his way up alongside the Fox, he spoke without preamble: "Lord king, my father forbids you from foraging on the countryside while in lands whose overlord he is."

"Does he?" Gerin answered. "That's nice."

Aranast took off his bronze, potlike helm and scratched his head. "Does that mean you will obey this prohibition?"

"Of course not," Gerin replied. "If he can teach me how to subsist on no food while I cross his lands, I might try it. Otherwise, though, I'll do what I have to do to get through them."

"You dare go against my father's stated will?" Aranast's eyes went round and wide and staring. No one in Aragis' lands had dared go against his stated will for many years. Though Aranast gave signs of being a fairly formidable fellow in his own right, he seemed astonished anyone might imagine going against his father's stated will.

"I just said so. Weren't you listening?" Gerin asked politely. "He's not my suzerain, so I'm under no obligation to obey him, and he's told me to do something impossible, which means I'd be an idiot to obey him. Do I look like an idiot to you, young fellow?"

Aranast didn't answer that, which might have been just as well. His frown did its best to be severe to the point of threatening. People were no doubt much more in the habit of calling him things like prince and heir and maybe your highness than young fellow . Taking a deep breath, he said, "My father entered into alliance with you in good faith. He did not enter into it to give you leave to plunder his holdings."