Harry Turtledove - Fox and Empire

He peered south and kicked at the dirt. He also hoped Rihwin's chase after Lengyel would work out all right, but he had no particular reason to believe it would. Rihwin could perform far better than anyone who knew him only slightly might imagine. He could also perform far worse. Until he did whatever he did on any given day, no one could guess what that would be.

Trees blocked Gerin's view; he couldn't see as far as he would have liked. He couldn't see Ferdulf in the air any more, either. What was happening, out there where he couldn't see? How foolish had it been to let Rihwin and Ferdulf, each erratic by himself, go off together? How sorry would he be when he found out how foolish he'd been?

Was that a bird in the sky, down there to the south? No-no bird had ever flown with such a smooth, effortless motion. That was Ferdulf. (And what did the birds think of the little demigod who invaded their domain? Gerin would have bet they found him as annoying as everyone else did.) He was coming this way. And, out from behind those trees, here came horsemen.

They had people on foot with them. Gerin took that for a good sign. Also promising was the way Ferdulf kept flying down and darting into the faces of the men on foot, as if they were chariot horses of the soldiery of the Elabonian Empire. The Fox wondered if Ferdulf was doing anything disgusting to them from on high. That didn't seem the best way to treat… prisoners, he supposed they were.

Gerin trotted toward the returning horsemen. So did Aragis. So did a good many ordinary soldiers. A lot of people were still curious to learn what the riders could do.

A horseman detached himself from the rest and approached the Fox at a rapid trot. After a moment, Gerin saw it was Rihwin. "We have him!" Rihwin shouted as soon as he was close enough for his voice to carry.

The soldiers cheered. Gerin clapped his hands together. Aragis looked astonished, and didn't bother hiding it. Gerin called, "Who are all the others you have there?"

"A round dozen of the fanciest whores off the streets of the City of Elabon," Rihwin answered. Gerin blinked. The soldiers burst into louder cheers. Rihwin waved them down. "Would it were so, but alas, it isn't. They're imperial troopers at whose forward camp Lengyel was staying. They offered no resistance, for we not only outnumbered them two to one but also came on them by surprise, thanks going almost entirely to the aid Ferdulf furnished."

"You probably wouldn't have been able to do it in chariots, would you?" Gerin asked, and Rihwin shook his head.

Aragis said, "I never denied horsemen had their uses, Fox. I even said this was one of them. Don't twit me here." He didn't sound so angry as he might have; he couldn't have expected Rihwin to succeed as fully as he had.

Here came Lengyel, looking even more dejected than he had when the men of the northlands captured him the first time. "Hello again," Gerin greeted him. "Aren't you glad we're barbarians and don't know what we're doing?"

"Delighted, I'm sure," Lengyel said sourly, which made Gerin respect him for the first time as a man rather than simply as a dangerous sorcerer.

Rihwin said, "And, lord king-lord kings-we have booty that may prove as valuable and delightful as our victory itself has been." He pointed to the mounts of some of his riders; the animals had skins tied on behind the horsemen. Grinning, he went on, "Here we find precious treasure scarcely seen in the northlands for a generation of men."

"Rihwin, you didn't-" Gerin began.

"Oh, but lord king, my fellow Fox, I did," Rihwin broke in. "Did you think that, after so long, I could resist the allure of so much splendid, glorious, magnificent wine?"

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"You idiot," Gerin said to Rihwin. "You clodpoll. You jackanapes. You bungler. You cretin. You jobbernowl. You madman. You fool. You loon. You twit. You lout. "You-"

"Thank you, lord king; I have by now some notion of your opinion, so you need not elaborate further," Rihwin said.

"Oh, but I was just warming up," Gerin said. "I hadn't even begun to discuss your ancestry, if any, your habits, and how lovingly the demons of the five hells will roast you after you die-which may be far sooner than you think, for I'm bloody tempted to murder you myself."

"Be reasonable, my fellow Fox," Rihwin said, a request to which Gerin might usually be expected to respond well. "Could you imagine I would pour the blood of the sweet grape out onto the uncaring ground rather than bringing it home in triumph?"

"And what about the lord of the sweet grape, Rihwin?" Gerin shouted, too furious for reason to hold any appeal. "What about Mavrix? Do you want to deal with Mavrix? Do you want Mavrix to deal with you? What happens when Mavrix and Ferdulf make each other's acquaintance? How far away would you like to be when that happens? Can you get to a place so far away?"

"I don't know," Rihwin said, an answer more inclusive than specific.

"Why didn't you bother thinking about any of those things ahead of time?" Gerin demanded, though he knew the answer only too well: at the sight of wine, anything resembling thought had fled from Rihwin's head.

Rihwin said, "Lord king, imagine if you'd been without a woman for most of the last twenty years and then found not one but half a dozen beautiful maids, all of them not only willing but eager. Would you leave them behind? Would you spill their blood out on the ground instead of enjoying them?"

"It's not the same, and don't you try to distract me," Gerin said. "You haven't exactly been pining away; you've made do quite well with ale."

"A man who wants women can, without them, make do with boys," Rihwin replied. "He can even, if his temper runs that way, make do with sheep. Making do, though, will not stop him from wanting women."

"I ought to spill this wine right now," Gerin grated.

He'd meant that to alarm Rihwin. Instead, it made the transplanted southerner brighten. "You mean you shan't spill it out?"

"Not right now," Gerin answered reluctantly. "Not till I think it through, which is a cursed lot more than you ever bothered doing."

"Blessings upon you, lord king!" Rihwin cried in fervent tones. He seized Gerin's hand, which alarmed his overlord. Then he kissed it, which alarmed Gerin even more. "Have no fear," Rihwin said, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "I am not one of those who, wanting boys, make do with women, of that you may rest assured." He changed notes yet again: "Er, lord king-why aren't you going to spill the wine out on the ground?"

Gerin let out a weary sigh. "Because I've seen, more often than it suits me-much more often than it suits me-that you and wine and the will of the gods are somehow all tied together. The only reason I can think of to make it so is that your head is altogether empty inside, which means they have no trouble filling it with their desires."

"I loved the blood of the sweet grape long before I made Mavrix's acquaintance," Rihwin said. "I should have been as glad not to make that acquaintance, and I should have gone on loving wine had I not made it."

"All of that is no doubt true," Gerin replied. "None of it has anything to do with how many pits of wheat are buried around the village by Fox Keep, and none of it, I fear, has anything to do with why you found that wine and why you decided to bring it back here to our camp."

"This may be so, lord king," Rihwin said. "Let us assume it is so. If it be so, if I act at the will of the gods rather than pursuant to my own will, how is it you are furious with me, when I was but the empty-headed conduit through which they manifested their will?"

"Because-" Gerin stood there with his mouth hanging open, realizing he had no good answer. At last, he said, "Because you're handy, curse it," adding a moment later, "and because you'd have brought back that wine even without a god whispering in your ear, and you bloody well know it."