Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

All Rihwin said, though, was, "Are you sure you are disinterested in this matter, lord king, or are you prejudiced against me because of events now past?"

"Honh!" Van said. "Who wouldn't be? Some of the things you've done would make the hair stand up on a bald man."

But Rihwin's question brought Gerin up short. He prided himself on viewing the world around him as disinterestedly as he could. Anyone who could be anything close to disinterested about Rihwin, though, needed divine detachment, not that afforded to mere mortal men. Slowly, Gerin said, "You're like the boy who says that, just because he's pushed his sister into the mud half a dozen times, there's no reason to think he'll do it again."

"Not so," Rihwin said. "Unlike that boy, whom some of my bastards assuredly resemble, I have learned my lesson. I urge you to summon Mavrix, regardless of whether I play any role whatever in the summoning, and also regardless of whether I get to drink wine then or afterwards." After a bow to Gerin, he strode off.

"Bugger me with a pine cone," Van said. "Now I've seen everything, too."

"If I thought you were wrong, I would argue with you," Gerin answered. He scratched his head. "Much to my own surprise, I'm willing to believe my fellow Fox means what he says. That brings me to the next question on the list: is what he says a good notion or a foolish one?"

"Having the help of a god is is better than not having the help of a god," Van said. "That's a general working rule. Of course, Mavrix is the sort of god who has a way of showing you that general working rules aren't all they're cracked up to be, isn't he?"

"That's putting it mildly," the Fox said. "And there's this foolish feud Ferdulf has chosen to pick with him, too. If Mavrix does come here, it's more likely to be to warm Ferdulf's backside than to give us a hand against the Empire."

"But if he did come to help us-" Van said.

"Aye," Gerin said. "If he did." He looked around again for Dagref. When he realized why he was doing that, he blinked in surprise. He admired the wits of few men enough to ask them for their views. Without his quite noticing it, his son had become one of that small, select group.

Dagref did come back to the fire. "Mavrix?" he said when Gerin asked him about trying to summon the Sithonian god. "Mavrix… hmm." It was almost as if he had never heard of the god of wine and fertility.

Gerin clicked his tongue between his teeth in annoyance. "Yes, Mavrix. You remember-fawnskins, thyrsus, tongue like a frog's."

"Oh, yes, of course I remember," Dagref said. But even that sounded absent-minded, nothing like the sharp comeback he would usually have given. He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and yawned again.

"Oh, by the gods!" Gerin snapped. "Did you go and jump into an alepot? Is that why you're acting as if you haven't got two sticks of sense to rub together?"

"I'm not drunk," Dagref said. Gerin eyed him. With some reluctance, he decided his son was telling the truth. After one more yawn, Dagref went on, "I am tired. Am I allowed to be tired?"

"You weren't acting that tired before you went off to wherever you went off to," the Fox grumbled. "Since you weren't, you can give me an answer to my question before you lie down on your blanket: should I seek Mavrix's aid or not?"

"I don't see why you shouldn't seek it," Dagref answered. "You might be better off if you don't get it, though. That's what the oracle Biton gave would seem to mean, wouldn't it?" He hesitated. "If, of course, Biton was talking about Mavrix and not some other god altogether."

Gerin grunted, then said, "All right, go to sleep. You've earned it. You've given me something new to think about, I admit."

Dagref unfolded his blanket, wrapped himself in it, and was snoring very shortly thereafter. Gerin eyed him and scratched his head. His son didn't reek of ale, and had spoken and thought clearly enough when he decided to put his mind to it. But that mind had been somewhere else, somewhere far away. The Fox let out a puzzled grunt. That wasn't like Dagref.

But his son, once he chose to pay attention-some attention-to what he was saying, had indeed given him something new to think about. The idea of summoning a god in the hope that he would ignore the summons hadn't occurred to the Fox. He doubted it would have occurred to him, either. Dagref had a sideways way of looking at the world that could come in handy sometimes, no doubt about it.

"Ah, but the next question is, what happens if we summon dear Mavrix and he does decide to lend a hand?" Gerin murmured. That could prove embarrassing. Biton had plainly said-as plainly as the god ever said anything, anyhow-he would be better off if he got no divine help when he asked for it. What would he do if Mavrix pitched in against the forces of the Elabonian Empire?

After some thought, Gerin smiled. If Mavrix did decide to aid him, he could summon some other god, so that his failure there would bring him into conformity with the oracle. He glanced over to Dagref. That had an underhanded quality to it his sleeping son would appreciate.

Then he glanced over at Dagref again, in sudden sharp suspicion. If a young man disappeared for a while and then came back tired and with his mind far away from whatever his father was talking about, one obvious explanation sprang to mind.

That it was obvious didn't make it true. Gerin looked this way and that to see if he could spy Maeva. He couldn't, which proved nothing one way or the other. The only ways to prove anything would be to catch the two of them in the act (if there was any act in which to catch them) or to have her belly start to swell-and even that wouldn't prove who the father was.

Van lay snoring a few feet from Dagref. For Dagref's sake, Gerin hoped Van's mind didn't work the way his own did.

Next evening, Rihwin's eyes got big and round. "Do you mean what you say, lord king?" he breathed.

"Of course not," Gerin snapped. "I'm lying to build your hopes up." He snorted in exasperation. "Yes, I mean what I say, curse it. I've thought things through, and I've decided you had a good idea there after all. We shall try to summon the lord of the sweet grape to our aid."

He wished he'd looked up before he spoke. Ferdulf, drifting overhead, had been close enough to hear. The demigod dove down to screech in his face: "You want my father here again? I forbid it!"

"You can't forbid it," Gerin said. "You can make my life difficult-the gods know you do make my life difficult-but you can't stop me. Ferdulf, I am going to do this. What you do afterwards is your affair and Mavrix's."

"He'll be sorry if he comes here," Ferdulf said darkly.

"You'll be sorry if he comes here and you try annoying him," Gerin answered. "He's stronger than you are, and you'd do well to remember it."

Ferdulf stuck out his tongue. "I'm not afraid of him. Bring him on. He'll regret it, he will."

Gerin shrugged and forbore to argue any more. People had an amazing ability to put unpleasant truths out of their minds. The Fox saw that also applied to demigods. For that matter, it probably applied to gods, too.

"Shall we now summon the lord of the sweet grape to the northlands without any further delay?" Rihwin said with a sidelong glance at Ferdulf.

Ferdulf sneered. "I'll delay you, all right. I'll turn all the wine you have left into vinegar, the same as I did with that wagonload you captured from the imperials."

"No, you won't," Gerin said, much as he might have told Blestar he wouldn't jump off the palisade walkway back at Fox Keep.

"And what's to stop me?" Ferdulf said, sticking out his tongue again.

"If you turn that wine to vinegar," Gerin said deliberately, "I will use the vinegar to call your father, it being the best I have for the purpose, and I will tell him why I could use nothing better. Then we can all find out what he chooses to do about that."