Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

"We'll find out," the Fox said, and Selatre nodded. She had come along because of how useful she might be at Ikos, and she could be more useful than she'd dreamt if Biton did still pay attention to her and to what she did. Gerin hoped the god was paying attention. As he'd said, he'd find out before long.

The guards at the border between Bevander's holding and the one that had been Ricolf's looked to their weapons when Gerin and his companions bore down on them. Not so long before, they would have had those weapons ready to hand, for years of civil war among Bevander, his three brothers, and his father had wracked the holding north of them. Bevander had won with the Fox's help, and brought quiet to a stretch of land that had known only turmoil for too long.

"Who seeks to enter this holding?" the chief guard called, which kept him from having to worry about whether to name it the former holding of Ricolf the Red or the holding of Duren Gerin's son or to give it some other name altogether. Gerin approved of playing safe when you had the chance.

He named himself and Duren. That made the guards stir. Before they could say anything, he went on, "We make no claims on this holding now. All we are doing here today is passing through on the way to Ikos."

"But, lord prince," the leader of the guards said, "no one at the castle of-once of-Ricolf the Red will be ready to receive you. We had no word you were planning to come south."

That had not been accidental. "It's all right," the Fox answered easily. "As I said, we're only passing through. No need for anyone to go to any special pains over us." He knew that would fluster the guards more than anything else he could say, but no help for it.

One of the troopers spotted Geroge and Tharma. "Those things!" he exclaimed. "I thought we were rid of those things for good."

The monsters had drawn horrified looks ever since they left the vicinity of Fox Keep, where people were used to them. Gerin had warned them that would happen, in case the reactions of strangers coming to the keep hadn't been warning enough. Now Geroge said, "I am not a thing. Are you a thing?" The guard stared at him. The last thing he'd expect was for Geroge to talk.

Gerin didn't feel like discussing the monsters-or anything else-with the guards. Looking down his nose at their leader, he said, "Do we have your generous permission to pass through?"

They would pass through with or without the border guard's generous permission, and his face said he knew it. Ignoring Gerin's sardonic tone, he replied, "Aye, pass through in peace, and may you learn what you need at Ikos."

Duren spoke up: "Thank you. Give me your name, for I value good vassalage."

That pulled the guard up straighter. "Young lord, I'm Orbrin Darvan's son, and pleased to make your acquaintance." Now he waved the chariots and wagon through with a flourish.

At Van's order, Raffo steered his chariot up near Gerin's wagon. Van said, "I like that. The vassal barons will have a hard time raising any strife against your son if their men feel the way those guards do."

"You're right," the Fox replied, "and Duren handled him just right, too. I don't think we'll have any trouble on the way south, as a matter of fact-not least because Authari and the other leading vassals won't find out we've been here till we're already gone. What worries me is the trip back from Ikos. They'll have had time by then to ready whatever they aim to try."

"Aye, likely so," the outlander said. "Well, we deal with that when we come to it. Can't do anything else." Gerin could only nod; he'd been thinking the same thing himself.

Seeing the keep of Ricolf the Red, as he did late that afternoon, always made him feel strange, what with all the memories it brought to the surface. Seeing that keep with Selatre by his side felt stranger still. When he'd brought her up from Ikos, Ricolf had seen more between them than he had; he'd put the older man's remarks down to the short temper of a former father-in-law. But now Selatre was his wife of many years, and Ricolf gone from men. Things changed.

He found out how much they had changed when a lookout called the challenge: "Who comes to the castle to be Duren Gerin's son's?"

Gerin had been going to answer that challenge. When he heard how it was framed, he waved to his son instead. Duren said, "Duren Gerin's son comes to his own castle, not yet to live in it, but for a night's shelter."

That brought the drawbridge down in a hurry. The warriors who'd lowered it looked much less happy when they saw Geroge and Tharma in the chariot with Duren, but by then it was too late. Between them, Duren and Gerin managed to convince the soldiers the monsters were, if not harmless, at least unlikely to run wild unless provoked. A good look at their teeth gave an incentive against provoking them.

A lame old fellow name Ricrod Gondal's son was serving as steward for the castle in the absence of a lord in residence. He settled Gerin and his comrades in the great hall and fed them barley porridge, roast duck, and ale. When Gerin poured a libation, he wondered if Baivers would manifest himself in the hall. The god did nothing, though, as Elabonian gods were all too wont to do.

Ghosts crowded the hall for Gerin-not the night spirits, pacified by blood and held at a distance by fire, but ghosts from his own past: Rihwin, drunk and dancing obscenely; Wolfar of the Axe, an Elabonian as savage as any Gradi; Ricolf the Red himself, solid, steady, reliable; and Elise, of whom he still could not think without pangs of regret.

He glanced over to Selatre. She had no ghosts here, and could not sense his. She was the present, the reality, and better than he'd known in days gone by. He understood that. Understanding it, though, did not make his ghosts vanish. They would be with him till he died.

"Lord," Ricrod said, "what brings you back to this keep, your business in the north being unfinished?"

Gerin started to answer, but realized Ricrod had not directed the question at him. The steward had not said lord prince , and the Fox was not lord here. Duren was. He replied, "I'm bound for Ikos, with my father and my companions. If the gods are kind, it will help end the business in the north."

The gods Gerin sought under the Sibyl's shrine were unlikely to be kind. The less kind they were, in fact, the more likely they were to be useful to his cause. Ricrod, though, nodded and said, "I hope farseeing Biton gives you an answer you can unriddle fast enough for it to do you some good."

"I hope we can use what we learn, too," Duren said. He had not said a word about Biton. He'd let Ricrod draw his own conclusions, then encouraged him to believe they were right, all without telling a lie as he did it. Gerin was impressed. He couldn't have handled it any more neatly himself.

Selatre had seen the same thing. That night, in the chamber the steward had given them, she said to Gerin, "He'll do well here. He handles himself like a man: more so here, away from Fox Keep, where he's your son first. He's ready to rule."

"Yes, I think so, too," Gerin answered, "and so do… some of the vassal barons here. If we win, if Duren comes down here to take up his grandfather's barony, it will feel very strange at Fox Keep, not having him around. I'll have to start training up Dagref, see how he shapes."

Selatre laughed quietly. "It won't be a matter of his not knowing enough to lead men. The question will be whether they want to follow him or to wring his neck."

"That is one of the questions," the Fox agreed, laughing. Then he fell into a thoughtful silence. If Dagref did shape as a leader of men, was Gerin to leave his title to his son by Selatre and have Duren, as baron of one small holding, overshadowed by his younger half brother? Or was he to name Duren his heir in all matters and leave Dagref frustrated and resentful? Either path could lead to war between them.