Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

After the tale had been briefly told, Duren said, "Ricrod, send messengers at once to Authari and Hilmic, Wacho and Ratkis. Order them to report here to my keep at once, that they may give me homage and fealty." The look he gave the steward was less than warm. "I know you can get messages to them quickly."

"Er-yes," Ricrod said. To Gerin, he sounded nervous. In Ricrod's boots, the Fox would have been nervous, too. The messages he'd sent the last time Duren had been through this holding had almost ended up getting its rightful overlord killed. Ricrod coughed a couple of times, then bowed low. "It shall be as you say, lord, in all things. With dawn tomorrow, the messengers go forth."

"That will do," Duren said grudgingly. He still stared through the steward. "Did you wait till the next morning to send them out when I left this keep on the way to Ikos?"

"Lord, I did," Ricrod said. He nodded toward the altar that smoked close by the hearth. "In Dyaus All-father's name I swear it."

"Very well," Duren said, mollified by the answer. Gerin thought his acceptance wise unless he planned to remove Ricrod, in which case it didn't matter. But if he was going to keep the steward and work with him, he needed to show he trusted him. Otherwise, even if Ricrod hadn't been inclined toward plots, he was liable to acquire that inclination in a hurry.

The Fox's eyes went to the altar dedicated to Dyaus. He wondered if the head of the Elabonian pantheon noticed when someone swore an oath in his name. From what Baivers had said, Dyaus was even further removed from the material plane than the rest of the Elabonian gods. Voldar, now- Gerin didn't want to think what the Gradi goddess might have done to one of her people who falsely swore by her (except, perhaps, one who swore falsely to gain advantage over her foes). But Dyaus seemed to ignore such transgressions. Would Ricrod know that, or feel it somehow? Gerin studied the steward. He had trouble deciding.

He shook his head. It wasn't properly his concern, or wouldn't be for long. This was Duren's holding. Duren would choose whom to believe here, whom to doubt. If he chose wrong, he'd pay for it.

To Duren, Ricrod said, "Er, lord, with the lord prince your father now become the lord king your father, do you hold this keep as a free and independent baron, or as his vassal?"

Gerin's respect for Ricrod's wit, till then low, rose sharply. That was a good question, and one whose answer every petty baron in the holding would want.

"I am my own man here," Duren answered. "I have sworn vassalage to no one for this keep, nor has anyone asked me to swear it. If you think I will deny I am my father's son, though, you are making a mistake."

He'd said much the same thing here shortly after his grandfather's death. It had seemed theoretical then. Now it mattered, and mattered a great deal. Ricrod smacked his lips, tasting the reply. "I could not ask you to speak fairer, lord," he said at last, and sounded as if he meant it.

Several of the soldiers at the keep also nodded. "Well said," came from one of them. Gerin grinned to himself. Duren was starting off here as well as anyone could hope. What would happen after Authari and the other leading vassals arrived was liable to be a different story, though.

Up on the wall of Duren's keep, Ricrod looked away toward the southwest. "Why don't they come?" he muttered fretfully, glancing over to Gerin, who stood beside him. "They should have begun appearing a couple of days ago."

"If they don't come soon-Authari Broken-Tooth especially-I'll go pay them a visit, and we'll see how they like that," Gerin said.

"It would keep your men from eating this keep out of food," Ricrod muttered. Gerin didn't think he was supposed to hear that, so he politely pretended he hadn't.

The first of Ricolf's leading vassals came in that afternoon. Gerin would have bet on Ratkis Bronzecaster's arriving before any of the others, and would have won that bet had he made it with anyone. Ratkis wasted no time in going to one knee before Duren and saying, "Good to have a lord again in this holding."

"Good to be here," Duren said. "I'm sure I still have a lot to learn. Some of that, I expect, I'll learn from you."

Ratkis got to his feet and turned to Gerin. "He's already learned a good deal from you, sounds like." He raised an eyebrow. "And did the messenger have it right that you're calling yourself king these days?"

"He had it right," Gerin answered, and waited to see how Ricolf's vassal-now Duren's vassal-would respond to that.

"I hope you get away with it, lord king," was all Ratkis said. Considering that Gerin hoped he would get away with it, too, he didn't see how he could complain about Ratkis' answer.

Authari Broken-Tooth, Wacho Fidus' son, and Hilmic Barrelstaves all arrived within a couple of hours of one another on the following day. Each of them came with a large force of chariotry, no doubt as large as he could muster; in his mind's eye, Gerin saw messengers hurrying from one keep to another. The sum of their three little armies, though, was about half the size of his, as they were crestfallen to discover.

"Got their line nibbled by a bigger fish than they expected," Van said gleefully. "Instead of pulling him up onto the bank, they find that they're going out into the creek."

"So they do," Gerin said. "And do you know what? I'm not the least bit sorry for them. Maybe now, seeing what I can do if I like, they'll realize they aren't big enough to quarrel with me, and they'll settle down and be good-or at least not impossible-vassals for my son."

If that was what the three vassal barons had in mind, they didn't show it right away. Authari stomped up to Ricrod and, all politesse forgotten, demanded, "Has your messenger gone daft? What's this nonsense about kings he was babbling?"

Glancing nervously toward Gerin, the steward cleared his throat and answered, "Ah, lord Authari, no nonsense to it. There stands the king of the north."

Authari clapped a hand to his forehead. "You haven't had enough of lording it over men who are by rights your peers?" he snapped at Gerin. "Who named you king, anyhow? Did you do it yourself?"

As the Fox had more than once already, he took considerable pleasure in answering, "No, the first man to use the title was my vassal, Adiatunnus the Trokm-."

Authari's jaw dropped. Hilmic and Wacho both gaped at Gerin. All three of them must have known how much trouble Adiatunnus had given him over the years, and had probably hoped to match his thorny independence. Authari found his voice first: "What did he go and do that for?" He sounded not just disbelieving but outraged.

"For driving the Gradi back to the edge of the ocean and for embroiling their gods with others so we could pin 'em back there," Gerin answered calmly.

"If you'll think back," Van added, "you'll recall the Fox here was the one who put paid to the monsters a few years back, and to the wizard Balamung a few years before that. So he's done a thing or three to deserve being called a king. What in the five hells have you done to deserve to say he doesn't?"

Several of Authari's men nodded when they heard that, which made Gerin work hard to keep a stiff face. He said, "What I've done doesn't matter, not here, not now. This trip isn't about me. It's about my son here, and about the oaths you swore after you heard what the Sibyl had to say about him."

"I said I had to serve my father before I came and ruled this barony on my own," Duren put in. "Now I've done that, and now I'm ready to take up my rule here. Does any man in this keep say I have not the right?"

There it was, a challenge set out with more blunt force, perhaps, than Gerin would have used, but with undeniable power. The crowded great hall in the castle that had been Ricolf's and was now passing to his grandson grew very still. Men leaned forward to hear if any of Ricolf's vassals would challenge that succession.