Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

Duren didn't fully follow that. Gerin hadn't expected that he would. Duren said, "I suppose I'll have to go on as best I can. I don't see what else I can do. Do you, Father?"

"I don't think there is anything else you can do," Gerin told him. "Nothing useful, anyhow: pining away over might-have-beens doesn't help." He clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Other thing I'll say is, you're Elise's son, aye, but you're my son, too, or you wouldn't think that way. Remember it."

"I always do," Duren answered. Not quite for the first time, Gerin thought that, whatever happened to his kingdom, he'd leave some good behind.

Dagref urged the horses up from a walk to a trot. The chariot swung around the curve in the road that brought Fox Keep into sight. "It's still there, and it's still mine," Gerin said.

"A lot of people have tried taking it away from you," Van said. "You've made 'em all sorry. They mostly know better now."

"I wish they did," Gerin said. "I wish they had for a long time. I'd have lived a more peaceable life if it were so." Van snorted, a wordless expression of his opinion about what a peaceable life was worth. Gerin ignored him.

The drawbridge swung down over the ditch around the palisade as soon as the folk inside Fox Keep recognized Gerin and the warriors who still accompanied him: those who did not dwell at his keep had already peeled off and headed for their own homes. As he had to Duren's keep, he'd sent riders ahead to his own, so people knew he was returning, if not in triumph, at least in something close to it.

Men and women-and Geroge and Tharma with them-came spilling out over the drawbridge. Van pointed. "There's Fand," he said gloomily. "Now I'm for it. She'll have to hear about every time I dropped my drawers for some hussy since I rode out of here, and she'll make me pay for all of 'em."

Sure enough, Fand charged out ahead of most of the rest of the people, so far ahead that Ferdulf, feeling mischievous, dove on her-and just missed spitting himself on a knife she pulled from her belt and thrust at him. He darted away, shouting abuse. Fand screeched back.

But, for once after an army returned from campaign, she did not screech at Van. Instead, she ran toward Rihwin's riders and screeched at Maeva for going off and fighting without letting her know she'd done it.

"Well, isn't this nice?" Van said, beaming. "I come home to peace and quiet, at least aimed at me." The smile slipped. "It won't last. It can't last. It never lasts-but I'll enjoy it while it does."

Maeva, plainly, did not enjoy it. "Mother," she said, "I'm home safe. I've killed a couple of men, and I'm home safe." Gerin noted she did not mention taking a wound of her own.

She did not impress Fand, either. "Och, you've killed, have you now? If that was all you wanted, you could have waited till some lustful young spalpeen tried putting his hands where they don't belong, then stuck a knife 'twixt his ribs whilst he was after trying to stick summat else 'twixt your legs."

"I have no trouble taking care of myself there, either," Maeva answered. "No one will ever do anything to me that I don't want."

Van rumbled something deep in his chest. In front of Gerin, Dagref's ears turned pink. And Fand, who though hot-tempered was far from a fool, exclaimed, "And who's been doing things to you that you do want, now?"

Maeva did not answer, not in front of everyone. But Gerin had no doubt she would before too long-and Van knew, and a good many others who could tell Fand. Maybe she would approve of the match. Maybe she wouldn't, too. Gerin would find out in due course.

"Ride on into the keep," he told Dagref. "Easier to sort everything out in there than out here."

"Aye, Father," Dagref said. As the chariot made its slow way forward through the crowd, he and Gerin both waved to Selatre, and to Clotild and Blestar as well. Van waved to Kor. His son looked furiously jealous of Maeva, who'd had the chance to go out and fight and kill. Maeva let her hand fall to the hilt of her sword, which only infuriated Kor even more. Gerin, who'd had his older sibling flaunt privileges, too, knew a certain amount of sympathy for the boy.

He jumped down from the chariot as it slowed to a halt. Not too far away, Fand was still shouting at Maeva: "Why couldn't you go saving yourself for a nice lad like that Dagref, say, instead of letting some rough soldier ha' his way with you? The shame of it, now!"

Dagref jumped down after Gerin, as soon as a stable boy had taken charge of the horses. "Well, we won't have too much trouble there, will we?" he murmured. "Not if she wishes Maeva had saved herself for me, I mean."

"There's always going to be trouble with Fand," Gerin answered, also quietly. "The only question is, how much? By the sound of that, there shouldn't be too much. Of course, when she finds out you and Maeva are already… well, something more than friends, there'll be a row over that, too, I expect."

Dagref sighed. "You're probably right-people get so excited over these things."

Before Gerin could respond to that, Selatre and Clotild flung themselves onto him, while Blestar was flinging himself onto Dagref. Gerin kissed his wife and daughter. Blestar didn't want kisses. He wanted every single solitary detail of Dagref's adventures, he wanted the details on the spot, and not even his older brother's astonishingly retentive memory looked likely to be good enough to satisfy him.

Clotild, having got her share of kisses and hugs from her father, tried to get some from Dagref, too, which put him off his stride in his narration, which made Blestar shout at Clotild. Gerin laughed. "It's so good to be home," he said.

Selatre laughed, too. Then she glanced at him sidelong. "I hope you'll say that tonight and sound more as if you mean it," she said, adding, "If we can find somewhere to be alone, that is."

"The library," Gerin whispered in her ear, "even if Ferdulf is liable to fly up and peek through the window, and even if Dagref is liable to figure out why we keep that rolled-up bolt of cloth in there. But the library, even so. Yes indeed." He slipped his arm around her waist. She molded herself to him.

"Dagref will figure that out, will he?" Selatre asked. Gerin nodded. His wife clicked her tongue between her teeth. "Time does go on, doesn't it?"

"Doesn't it, though?" Gerin said. He hesitated, then spoke of something he had not entrusted to the riders who'd come up to Fox Keep ahead of him: "I was passing through a village down in the land Aragis rules, and I happened to run into Elise there."

Just for a heartbeat, the name did not register with Selatre; it was not one the Fox had been in the habit of using often. Then it did, and her eyes widened. "Duren's mother," she said in a voice that showed nothing whatever.

"Aye, Duren's mother," Gerin said. "I don't know where she is now, or what she's doing." He explained how he'd told Elise of Ricolf's passing, how she'd spoken of going south over the High Kirs, and how she had not come back to the barony that had been her father's and now was her son's. "And if you think I'm sorry that she hasn't, you're very much mistaken."

"No, I don't think that." Selatre still held her voice under tight restraint. That restraint was revealing in itself. After a little while, she said, "I never thought you would see her again."

"Neither did I," Gerin answered, "and I would have been just as well pleased if I hadn't, believe me."

Something in Selatre eased. The Fox hadn't noticed how tensely she was holding herself-almost like a bow strung and drawn-till she stopped doing it. She said, "I'm sorry, but I can't help worrying about these things. You did find her before you found me, after all."

His hand still rested on the curve of her hip. He squeezed, just for a moment. "And do you want to know what she taught me?" he asked. Selatre's nod was wary. He said, "She taught me to know when I was well off, because she gave me a standard of comparison, you might say."