Tale of the Fox

Dagref and Duren both thought that over. Duren said, "What do you expect from Aragis after this?"

"I hope he'll lick his wounds for a while," Gerin answered. "He has plenty of them. He also has plenty of vassals who've seen me, which means they've seen that a man doesn't have to be a bronze-arsed son of a whore to make a proper ruler. If some of them rise up, or if the serfs on Aragis' land decide they've had enough of being squeezed to bits, then Aragis will find he has the same sorts of troubles as Crebbig."

"You'd weep and wail over that, wouldn't you?" Van said, setting a finger by the side of his nose.

"So I would," Gerin said dryly. "I'd weep till my eyes were all red and swollen." He let out an exaggerated sob. Everyone laughed.

Some time later, after roasted mutton and fresh-baked bread and berry tarts and a good many jacks of ale, Duren waved for Gerin to walk out from the great hall into the court between the outer wall and the castle itself. Darkness had fallen. Tiwaz, a medium-fat crescent, hung low in the southwest; ruddy Elleb, just past first quarter, shone in the south; pale Nothos, nearly full, climbed above the eastern wall. Math would not rise for another hour or two.

Duren said, "I wish you'd found out more about my mother-either more, or nothing at all."

"I understand," Gerin said, setting a hand on his shoulder. "But we do what we can do, not what we wish we could do. I didn't expect to find out anything at all. I didn't even know her till she spoke, nor she me." He started to add, Maybe she'll turn up one day, but decided that would do more harm than good. Duren was no doubt thinking it, too, but the gulf between thinking something and saying it yawned wide and deep.

"Now I wish I'd come along with you," Duren said.

"Maybe it's just as well you weren't there. We've all changed a good deal, these past twenty years. Last time your mother saw you, you were making messes on the floor." That was not his principal concern. His principal concern was how much damage Elise might do if she turned Duren against him. He still didn't know whether she could, but he still didn't want to find out, either.

"I've changed," Duren said. "My mother must have changed, or she wouldn't have gone away from you."

"Honh!" Gerin said, borrowing the useful not-quite-word from Van.

Before he could add anything to it, Duren went on, "But you, Father, you've hardly changed at all."

"You only say that because you're watching me with a son's eyes," Gerin answered. "I'm like anybody else. I'm soup in a pot, and the years boil away more and more of the water, so my flavor gets stronger and saltier, the same way my beard keeps right on getting grayer. The longer you live, the more you go about the business of turning into yourself."

Duren didn't fully follow that. Gerin hadn't expected that he would. Duren said, "I suppose I'll have to go on as best I can. I don't see what else I can do. Do you, Father?"

"I don't think there is anything else you can do," Gerin told him. "Nothing useful, anyhow: pining away over might-have-beens doesn't help." He clicked his tongue between his teeth. "Other thing I'll say is, you're Elise's son, aye, but you're my son, too, or you wouldn't think that way. Remember it."

"I always do," Duren answered. Not quite for the first time, Gerin thought that, whatever happened to his kingdom, he'd leave some good behind.

Dagref urged the horses up from a walk to a trot. The chariot swung around the curve in the road that brought Fox Keep into sight. "It's still there, and it's still mine," Gerin said.

"A lot of people have tried taking it away from you," Van said. "You've made 'em all sorry. They mostly know better now."

"I wish they did," Gerin said. "I wish they had for a long time. I'd have lived a more peaceable life if it were so." Van snorted, a wordless expression of his opinion about what a peaceable life was worth. Gerin ignored him.

The drawbridge swung down over the ditch around the palisade as soon as the folk inside Fox Keep recognized Gerin and the warriors who still accompanied him: those who did not dwell at his keep had already peeled off and headed for their own homes. As he had to Duren's keep, he'd sent riders ahead to his own, so people knew he was returning, if not in triumph, at least in something close to it.

Men and women-and Geroge and Tharma with them-came spilling out over the drawbridge. Van pointed. "There's Fand," he said gloomily. "Now I'm for it. She'll have to hear about every time I dropped my drawers for some hussy since I rode out of here, and she'll make me pay for all of 'em."

Sure enough, Fand charged out ahead of most of the rest of the people, so far ahead that Ferdulf, feeling mischievous, dove on her-and just missed spitting himself on a knife she pulled from her belt and thrust at him. He darted away, shouting abuse. Fand screeched back.

But, for once after an army returned from campaign, she did not screech at Van. Instead, she ran toward Rihwin's riders and screeched at Maeva for going off and fighting without letting her know she'd done it.

"Well, isn't this nice?" Van said, beaming. "I come home to peace and quiet, at least aimed at me." The smile slipped. "It won't last. It can't last. It never lasts-but I'll enjoy it while it does."

Maeva, plainly, did not enjoy it. "Mother," she said, "I'm home safe. I've killed a couple of men, and I'm home safe." Gerin noted she did not mention taking a wound of her own.

She did not impress Fand, either. "Och, you've killed, have you now? If that was all you wanted, you could have waited till some lustful young spalpeen tried putting his hands where they don't belong, then stuck a knife 'twixt his ribs whilst he was after trying to stick summat else 'twixt your legs."

"I have no trouble taking care of myself there, either," Maeva answered. "No one will ever do anything to me that I don't want."

Van rumbled something deep in his chest. In front of Gerin, Dagref's ears turned pink. And Fand, who though hot-tempered was far from a fool, exclaimed, "And who's been doing things to you that you do want, now?"

Maeva did not answer, not in front of everyone. But Gerin had no doubt she would before too long-and Van knew, and a good many others who could tell Fand. Maybe she would approve of the match. Maybe she wouldn't, too. Gerin would find out in due course.

"Ride on into the keep," he told Dagref. "Easier to sort everything out in there than out here."

"Aye, Father," Dagref said. As the chariot made its slow way forward through the crowd, he and Gerin both waved to Selatre, and to Clotild and Blestar as well. Van waved to Kor. His son looked furiously jealous of Maeva, who'd had the chance to go out and fight and kill. Maeva let her hand fall to the hilt of her sword, which only infuriated Kor even more. Gerin, who'd had his older sibling flaunt privileges, too, knew a certain amount of sympathy for the boy.

He jumped down from the chariot as it slowed to a halt. Not too far away, Fand was still shouting at Maeva: "Why couldn't you go saving yourself for a nice lad like that Dagref, say, instead of letting some rough soldier ha' his way with you? The shame of it, now!"

Dagref jumped down after Gerin, as soon as a stable boy had taken charge of the horses. "Well, we won't have too much trouble there, will we?" he murmured. "Not if she wishes Maeva had saved herself for me, I mean."

"There's always going to be trouble with Fand," Gerin answered, also quietly. "The only question is, how much? By the sound of that, there shouldn't be too much. Of course, when she finds out you and Maeva are already… well, something more than friends, there'll be a row over that, too, I expect."

Dagref sighed. "You're probably right-people get so excited over these things."