Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

The ale didn't make him stop worrying. Maybe he would do that when they flipped earth onto his shrouded body. On the other hand, he was liable to be thinking they weren't doing a proper job of burying him. That was a morbid thought, too. It made him laugh anyhow.

Authari, Wacho, and Hilmic took their men back to their castles the day after they acknowledged Duren as their overlord. Ratkis Bronzecaster, who was on better terms with his new suzerain, stayed a day longer. Then he too departed, leading his retainers off to the southwest. Ricrod looked visibly distressed when Gerin didn't leave the next morning.

"You think they're liable to come charging back as soon as they decide we've upped and gone?" Van asked.

"I don't know," Gerin answered. "I'm not what you call dead keen about finding out the hard way, either. And if the steward here wants to grumble about us eating the storerooms empty, let him." He lowered his voice so only Van could hear: "If I'm not crazy, I'd say Duren picks himself a new steward as soon as he has his feet on the ground."

"You are crazy, Fox, but nobody ever said you were stupid," Van answered. "Nobody ever said that about Duren, either, which means you're almost sure to be right."

None of the reluctant vassals tried anything untoward, so Gerin and his army rode north three days later. Duren stood on the wall of the keep now his, waving till a bend in the road took his father out of sight. The Fox was waving, too. When high ground hid Duren, he felt it had robbed him of a piece of himself, too. He wondered how long he would take to get over the feeling. He wondered if he ever would.

Up in the watchtower of Fox Keep, the sentry winded his trumpet. "A chariot approaches from the south, lord prince!" A moment later, sounding embarrassed, he corrected himself: "Lord king, I should say."

Still not being altogether used to his own royal title, Gerin did not take offense when those around him had trouble remembering it. He hurried up onto the palisade to see who had traveled almost to the Niffet to pay him a visit. A couple of the men up there shouted out a challenge to the newcomer.

From his chariot, he shouted back, at formidable volume: "I am Marlanz Raw-Meat, sent to treat with Gerin the Fox by my overlord, the grand duke Aragis the Archer."

That got complete and attentive silence from the men up on the wall, Gerin included. He'd been sure he would hear from Aragis about his assumption of the kingship. He hadn't expected to hear so soon. He called, "Marlanz, you're my guest-friend from ten years ago. Use my keep as your own for as long as you choose to stay here." Hearing that, the men at the gatehouse lowered the drawbridge so Marlanz could ride over the ditch and into the keep.

Aragis' envoy was much as the Fox remembered him: a big, strong, muscular fellow, smarter than he looked and now a bit thicker through the middle than he had been ten years earlier. Gerin also remembered he had a streak of wereblood in him, but the moons had not come full together in clumps of late, and so Marlanz remained wholly human in form.

He clasped Gerin's hand in a grip few warriors could have matched. "Good to see you again, Fox," he said. "It's been a long time. You look well."

"I was thinking the same of you," Gerin answered.

"That was your son heading up what was old Ricolf's holding?" Marlanz asked. "Word came down Ricolf had passed on."

"It's true, I'm sorry to say." Gerin looked sharply at Marlanz. Maybe he hadn't come about the title after all. "Has the Archer a quarrel with that? Unless I were going to claim Ricolf's barony for my own, which I've never wanted to do, it has no other heir but Duren. If you doubt me, go speak to the Sibyl at Ikos."

Aragis' envoy spread his hands and shook his head. "You haven't meddled in the grand duke's part of the northlands, so he has no business meddling up here. And, so far as he knows, what you say about your son's claim is true. But-"

Gerin realized his first guess had been right after all. "Go on," he said.

Marlanz Raw-Meat coughed, as if to advertise he spoke hesitantly. He'd gained in subtlety since his previous trip north. But the point of the visit could not be delayed: "Is it true, Fox, what the grand duke has heard, that you've taken the title of king for yourself?"

"Actually, I had it given to me," Gerin answered. "By Adiatunnus the Trokm-, of all people."

"We heard that, too, but had trouble crediting it," Marlanz said. "If you say it's so, though, I'll believe you. The question grand duke Aragis would have me put is this: what do you mean by it?"

"When Adiatunnus offered it to me, I kept it, because I think I've earned it," Gerin answered. "If Aragis disapproves-"

Marlanz broke in to repeat, "What do you mean by it? When you style yourself king of the north, do you lay claim to the whole of the northlands? Do you claim to be overlord to the grand duke? If you do, I am to tell you he rejects out of hand any such claim."

"Oh," Gerin said, and then, "Oh," again, because that let him make noise without obliging him to make sense. It also gave him a chance to think, and think he did. He felt as he had when light returned under the shrine of Ikos after he and the monsters' gods finished their strange parley: no longer altogether in the dark. "I see what troubles Aragis. Tell him no, Marlanz. In my own lands, my style is now king, not prince. But I do not claim any lands I did not claim before simply because of my new style. As far as I'm concerned, the grand duke Aragis is lord of his own lands, and is not obliged to me in any way for them."

"That is the question I was asking, yes," Marlanz said gratefully. "The grand duke will be pleased at the news I bring him. You and he have lived side by side with each other for a long time now. He may not be your closest friend, but he respects you."

"And I him," Gerin said truthfully. He was glad he had earned Aragis' respect. Aragis, from all he had seen, either respected you or fell on you like a landslide and crushed you. He was a man with no middle ground in him.

"He has always thought so, Fox," Marlanz replied. He did not call Gerin lord king , possibly because Aragis had told him not to. Gerin gave a mental shrug. He was not about to fret over trifles. Marlanz looked thoughtful, then went on, "You said you claimed no new lands because of your new style. Do you claim new lands for some other reason?"

Gerin eyed him with considerable respect. A decade earlier, he wouldn't have noticed such a subtle point. The Fox would have been just as well pleased if he hadn't noticed it now. But, since he had noticed it, he had to be answered: "Aye, I do. Most of the land between my former western border and the Orynian Ocean has passed into my hands by right of conquest over the Gradi."

"We've heard somewhat of this down in the south, but the tales are new and sound confused," Marlanz said. "What really happened?"

That was a dangerous question to ask a man who'd studied historical philosophy down in the City of Elabon. It was a particularly dangerous question to ask in this case, where the quarrels of the gods, which mortals could at best only partly understand, clouded (or, with Stribog's discomfiture, unclouded) the picture. But Gerin knew Marlanz didn't want the truth, or not all of it. What he wanted was a story: the truth set into an interesting framework. That the Fox could give him.

"Come into the great hall and drink a jack or two of ale with me," he said easily. "I'll tell you what happened."

In the hall sat Geroge and Tharma. Marlanz reached for his sword, then checked himself. "These are the two of whom I've heard, not so?"

"Yes," Gerin said. Marlanz Raw-Meat, when his were streak came out, hadn't looked much different from Geroge. The Fox decided mentioning that would be imperfectly tactful, and so kept quiet. He introduced the monsters and Marlanz to one another.