Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

"You value freedom even more than law, seems to me," Gerin replied, "and when you use the one to flout the other, soon you have neither."

"As may be." Authari drew himself up to his full height. "If you seek to install Duren by force of arms, I must tell you we shall fight."

At most times, that threat, if it could be so dignified, would have made Gerin laugh. Lands where the barons did acknowledge his suzerainty surrounded the holding of Ricolf the Red. The main reason Ricolf had never sworn fealty to him was that he'd been too embarrassed to ask it of the older man after Elise ran away with the horseleech. He could easily have summoned up the force to quash Ricolf's restive vassals… were he not facing war with Adiatunnus and a bigger war against the Gradi. He did not need distractions, not now.

And then Authari said, "If you seek to interfere with our freedom, I must tell you we have friends to the south."

"You'd call on Aragis the Archer, would you?" Gerin said. Authari nodded defiantly. "I ought to let you do it," the Fox told him. "It would serve you right. If you think you wouldn't fancy being my vassals, you deserve to be his. First time anyone stepped out of line, he'd crucify the fool. That would make the rest of you think-if anything could, which I doubt."

Authari's angry scowl showed the stump of his front tooth. He shook a finger in Gerin's face. "Now that's just the kind of thing we don't want in an overlord-showing off how much better than us he thinks he is. Aragis would respect us and respect our rights."

"Only goes to show how much you don't know about Aragis," Gerin answered with a derisive snort. But then he checked himself. The more he antagonized Authari, the more the loon and his fellow fools were liable to summon Aragis to their aid. Since the Archer's forces would have to pass through areas under Gerin's control, that would touch off the long-threatened war between them… at the worst possible time for the northlands as a whole.

"We may not know about Aragis, by Dyaus, but we know about you," Authari said. "And what we know, we don't trust."

"If you know me, you know my word is good," the Fox said. "Has anyone ever denied that, Authari? Answer yes or no." Reluctantly, Authari shook his head. When he did, Gerin went on, "Then maybe you'll hear out the proposal I put to you."

"I'll hear it," Authari said, "but I fear it may be another of your tricksy schemes."

Gerin thought seriously about taking Authari up onto the palisade and dropping him headfirst into the ditch around Fox Keep. But his head was so hard, the treatment probably would neither harm him nor knock in any sense. And so the Fox said, "Suppose we ask the Sibyl at Ikos who the rightful heir to Ricolf the Red is? If the oracle says it should be one of you people, I won't fight that. But if Duren should succeed his grandfather, you accept him without any quarrels. Is that just?"

"Maybe it is and maybe it's not," Authari answered. "The god speaks in mysterious ways. We're liable to get an answer that will just keep us squabbling."

"Some truth to that," Gerin said, not wanting to yield any points to Ricolf's vassal but unable to avoid it. "And, of course, people of bad will can deny the meaning of even the plainest verses. Will you and your fellows swear a binding oath by the gods that you'll do no such thing? I will-and I trust Biton's judgment, however he sees the future."

Authari gnawed at his underlip. "You're so cursed glib, lord prince. You always have a plan ready, and you don't give a man time to think about it."

As far as the Fox was concerned, planning came as naturally as breathing. If Authari hadn't thought he might suggest the Sibyl as a means of resolving their dispute, Authari hadn't looked very far ahead. Silently, Gerin sighed. People seldom did.

At last, much more slowly than he should have, Authari said, "I'll take that back to my fellows. It's worth thinking on, if nothing else."

"Don't spend too much time thinking about it," Gerin said in peremptory tones. "If I have to, I can ravage your countryside and maybe take several of your keeps before Aragis could hope to get far enough north to do you any good." With luck, Authari had no idea how reluctant he was to launch such a campaign. Still sharply, he went on, "You'll ride out tomorrow. Ten days after that, I'll follow, and meet you at Ricolf's keep to hear your answer. Don't think to waylay me, for I'll have plenty of men along to start the war on the spot if that's what you people decide you want."

He waited. Authari had the look of a man who'd just discovered his lady friend not only had a husband but that the fellow was twice his size and bad tempered to boot. He licked his lips, then said, "I'll take your word back with me, lord prince. Since you put it so, I expect we'll let the Sibyl and the god decide it, if that's their will."

"I hoped you'd see it that way," Gerin said, with irony that sailed past Authari. He sighed again. "Sup, drink, stay the night. I have to find my son and let him know what's happened."

"Grandfather dead?" Duren's face twisted in surprise. That startlement was all the more complete because, when Gerin tracked him down in a corridor back of the kitchen, death had been the last thing on his mind; exactly what he'd been about to do with a serving girl wasn't obvious, but that he'd been about to do something was.

"That's what I said," Gerin answered, and summarized what Authari had told him, finishing, "He lived a long life, and a pretty good one, taken all in all, and he died easy, as those things go. A man could do worse."

Duren nodded. Once over his initial surprise, he starting thinking soon enough to please his father. "I wish I'd known him better," he said.

"I always thought the same," Gerin said, "but he was never one to travel much, and I–I've had an active time, most of these years. And-" He hesitated, then brought it out: "And the matter of your mother clouded things between us."

He watched Duren's face fall into a set, still mask. That happened whenever the youth had to think of Elise, who'd given him birth and then abandoned him along with Gerin. He didn't remember her at all-for as long as his memory reached, Selatre had been his mother-but he knew of his past, and it pained him.

Then he made the mental connection he had to make: "With Grandfather dead, with my mother-gone-that leaves me heir to the holding."

"So it does," Gerin said. "What do you think about that?"

"I don't know what to think yet," Duren answered. "I hadn't thought to leave Fox Keep so soon." After a moment, he added, "I hadn't thought to leave Fox Keep at all."

"I always knew this was one of the things that might happen," his father said. "That it chose now to happen-complicates my life."

"It complicates my life, too," Duren exclaimed with justifiable indignation. "If I go down there-do you really think I can give orders to men so much older and stronger than I am?"

"You won't be a youth forever. You won't even be a youth for long, though I know it doesn't seem that way to you," the Fox said. "By the time you're eighteen at latest, you'll have a man's full strength. And take a look at Widin Simrin's son. He wasn't any older than you when he took over his vassal barony, and he's done a fine job of running it ever since."

"But he's your vassal," Duren said. "I wouldn't be. I'd be on my own." His eyes widened as he thought that through. "I'd have as much rank as you, Father, near enough. I wouldn't call myself prince or anything like that, but-"

Gerin nodded. "I understand what you're saying. You'd owe no one allegiance, not unless you wanted to. That's right. You could go to war with me if you chose to, and you'd break no oaths doing it."

"I wouldn't, Father!" Duren said. Then, proving he was indeed the Fox's son, he added, "Or rather, I don't see any reason to now."