Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

Is that how I want to be remembered? Gerin wondered. He tasted the words in his mind. He always found a way . It wasn't the sort of memorial a hero in a minstrel's song would have chosen for himself. Or was it? Gerin was himself the hero of more than one song cycle, though the Fox of whom the minstrels sang bore scant resemblance to the one who dwelt inside Gerin's body. He always found a way . Aye, you could do worse than that.

"When we get back to Fox Keep, my mother will be so proud," Duren said.

He was, without a doubt, right. He meant Selatre, of course. He knew she hadn't given him birth, but he hardly ever seemed to think about that; as best Gerin could tell, he didn't remember Elise any more. The Fox did. He wondered if she was still alive. If she was, he wondered what she would think, to hear him called king of the north. His mouth twisted. No point to thinking about it. He'd never know.

Knowing he'd never know, he forced his thoughts toward more immediate concerns, saying, "I'm not much worried about what Selatre will think of me. She's fond of me whether people call me king or not. When we get back to Adiatunnus' holding, though, I do want to see how the rest of the Trokmoi take to the title."

"What will you do if they reject it?" Duren asked.

"I don't know." Gerin looked sidelong at his son. "Maybe we'll have a war."

"I've seen enough of war for a while," Duren burst out.

"You're learning, lad," Gerin told him. "You're learning."

"You leave everything to me, now," Adiatunnus said as they were about to go back east over the Venien River.

Gerin laughed out loud. "I didn't get this old by leaving everything to anybody-except me."

"I named you king once now," the Trokm- chief said in some exasperation. "Am I likely to go back on that naming with your own southron warriors all around me, the ugly kerns?"

"Truth to tell, I don't know what you're likely to do," Gerin answered. As he'd hoped, Adiatunnus took that for a compliment, a tribute to his deviousness. The woodsrunner slapped his driver on the back. The driver urged the team ahead. They splashed through the Venien's ford at a gallop, their hooves and the chariot's wheels kicking up spray that sparkled in the sun.

"You don't want to let him get too far ahead, or who knows which way his mouth is liable to start running?" Van said. Even before he'd spoken, though, Duren had sped up, crossing the Venien right behind Adiatunnus and in the same style. Van rumbled approval, down deep in his chest. "That's a fine lad you have there."

"I'd noticed," Gerin remarked, which made the outlander laugh and Duren, standing there in front of both of them, fidget noticeably.

Trokmoi working in the fields called questions to the returning warriors. The shouts of victory they got back started them whooping in turn. Adiatunnus added, whenever he got the chance, "Come back to the keep, now, and I'll give you summat even more worth the hearing of it."

He didn't actually go into the keep, but gathered with his own people and the returned Elabonian warriors in the square of the large village in front of the castle. With the sense of drama any good chief had, he waited for the crowd to build-and to buzz. Serving women brought ale out of the keep and poured out dippersful to whoever looked thirsty.

When the Trokm- judged the moment right, he clambered up onto a big stump and shouted, "The Gradi are ruined for fair, sure and they are, their nasty gods still locked in a shindy and themselves pushed all the way back to the ocean." That unleashed an ocean in the village, an ocean of cheers. Adiatunnus reached down and hauled Gerin up onto the stump with him. He went on, "The southron here, he had summat to do with it-a wee bit, you might say."

Gerin was used to both the excesses and understatements of Trokm- oratory. So were Adiatunnus' listeners, who cheered the Fox. Adiatunnus warmed to his theme: "And I'll have you know I'm vassal no more to the prince of the north." That brought cheers, too, but cheers of a different sort-the cheers of Trokmoi bayingly eager to break free of any feudal obligations. The Fox wondered if Adiatunnus was about to betray him after all. Then the Trokm- shouted, "Nay, for now I'm vassal to Gerin the Fox, king o' the north, and so named out of my very own mouth."

Silence slammed down for a moment as the Trokmoi took that in and worked out what it meant. Then they and Gerin's Elabonian retainers all cheered louder than ever. Adiatunnus gave the Fox an elbow in the ribs. Taking half a step forward-any more and he would have fallen off the stump-Gerin said, "I'll try to be a good king, a fair king, for everyone, Elabonian or Trokm-. And if anyone, Elabonian or Trokm-, tries to take advantage of me, he'll think a tree trunk fell on him. Is it a bargain?"

"Aye!" they roared. He suspected they were cheering deliverance from the Gradi more than they were cheering him, but he didn't mind that. Without him, they wouldn't have had the deliverance. He was glad they had sense enough to realize that-for a little while.

He hopped down off the stump. A very pretty Trokm- girl with red-gold hair handed him a dipper of ale. He poured it down. When he gave the dipper back, he noticed how bright a blue her eyes were, what moist, inviting lips she had, just how snugly her linen tunic fit over firm young breasts. He was meant to notice; in what seemed more a purr than a voice, she said, "A king, is it? What might it be like, to sleep with a king?"

"If you ever come to Fox Keep, you can ask my wife," he told her. She stared at him. Those blue, blue eyes went hard as stone, cold as ice. She flounced off. He counted himself lucky she hadn't crowned him with the dipper.

"You're a wasteful man, Fox," Van said. "The gods don't make 'em that good-looking every day."

"I'll survive," Gerin said, "and I won't have any crockery thrown at me when I get home, which is more than I can say for you."

"You mean Fand?" Van said. Gerin nodded. The outlander rolled his eyes. "She'd throw things at me whether I futtered other women on the road or not, so the way I see it is, I might as well."

That sort of reasoning would have sent a Sithonian sophist running for cover. It sent Gerin looking for another dipper of ale, with luck one from a serving girl not quite so anxious to try him on for size just because he was wearing a fancy new title. He sighed, a little. Van was right: she had been very pretty.

A sentry up on the palisade peered out at the approaching force of chariotry. "Who comes to Fox Keep?" he called.

He knew the answer to that question. Gerin had sent messengers ahead with news of what he'd done. Nevertheless, he answered, loudly and proudly: "Gerin the Fox, king of the north."

"Enter your keep, lord king!" the sentry shouted. The rest of the men on the palisade erupted in cheers, cheers that soon echoed from within the keep as well. The drawbridge thudded down. Gerin tapped Duren on the shoulder. His son drove him over the drawbridge and into the courtyard.

He hopped out of the chariot then, and embraced Selatre. She said, "I hoped this would happen one day. I'm so glad it has, and so proud of you."

"I thought it might happen one day," Gerin answered, "though I never expected Adiatunnus to be the one to proclaim my rank. Up until the Gradi grew to be serious trouble, I thought killing him would likely be what made folk style me king."

Rihwin the Fox came over and set his hands on his hips. "For your information," he said loftily, "I find this ever-swelling titulature of yours in questionable taste." Then, grinning, he clasped Gerin's hand.

"You're impossible," Gerin told his fellow Fox. Rihwin's mouth opened. Gerin beat him to the punch line: "Bloody implausible, anyhow."