A strong stone keep sat by the ocean, not far south of the Niffet. The Fox had driven the Gradi from most of the northlands. Their remnant lingered here. He did not think he could storm this keep. He could not properly besiege it, either, not with its back to the Orynian Ocean: the Gradi from the north could keep it supplied by a road he did not control.
Duren climbed to the top of the hillock. He looked out at the ocean for a while; he found it endlessly fascinating. Then he pointed toward the keep the Gradi still held. "What will you do about them, Father?" he asked, confident the Fox would come up with something even if he couldn't see for himself what it was.
Gerin gave him the only answer he could: "This year, nothing. We've done all we could. We've done more than I ever expected. As long as the Gradi gods are at war on their own plane, the Gradi themselves we can beat, or at least meet on even terms, which is good enough."
"What if they sally after we go away, though?" Duren said.
"I'll leave men behind-my vassals, Elabonians and Trokmoi both. The Gradi killed most of the local lords; their claims have lapsed. We'll restore some keeps, maybe build some new ones, and make this a harder land for them to overrun than it used to be. Before, all the lords were rivals to all the others. Now, they'll be able to call on one another against the Gradi-and on me, too."
"Aye," Duren said. "They can call on their king."
On his own, Gerin would not have claimed the title. Aragis the Archer, who styled himself grand duke, had stayed quiet this summer, probably hoping Gerin and the Gradi would wreck each other, leaving him to pick up the pieces-and the rank that went with picking up the pieces. What he would do when he found out Gerin was wearing the rank… remained to be seen.
But Adiatunnus had been a rival almost as dangerous as Aragis, and Adiatunnus had been the one to call him king. "Almost makes me think there is such a thing as gratitude," Gerin murmured.
"Father?" Duren asked.
"Never mind," the Fox answered. The Trokmoi had been as willing as his own men to acknowledge his kingship. How long that willingness would last also remained to be seen.
While it did, he would make the most of it. You could push people further if you moved them in the direction they were already going. And fear of a Gradi revival would make them want to pay attention to the man who had stopped the raiders the first time.
"We have to have ships of our own," he said. He knew he'd said that before. Without ships of his own, the Gradi would be able to rebuild their strength and assail the northlands again at a time of their choosing.
Duren had another thought: "What do we do if the Gradi gods end up overcoming Baivers and the underground powers?"
Gerin set a hand on his son's shoulder. "I'm less worried about that now than I was before I saw how potent Baivers could be when he chose. Even if Voldar beats him, she won't rout him. If she could do that, she would have done it already. And if she does beat him, well, we may be able to stir up other sleepy Elabonian gods against her and her friends. Baivers will let them know the fight is one they need to make."
"That will put the gods more in the world, if you know what I mean, than they have been since time out of mind," Duren said.
"I've thought the same thing," the Fox agreed. "I don't like the notion-in the face of the gods' powers, the ones we have look pretty small. But if that's what happens, then it is, that's all. We'll have to make the best of it we can. One way or another, I expect we'll manage."
"You will," Duren said. Remembering himself at the age when his beard had begun to sprout, Gerin knew how rare and precious his son's unalloyed approval was. Duren went on, "You always find a way."
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."
"The king!" Geroge shouted. The monster, still short a fang, held up a jack of ale in salute. "The king!"
One more feast, Gerin thought. One more big feast and I can send my vassals back to their own keeps and let them eat their own food. The fields past which he'd ridden on the way back to Fox Keep looked to have good crops coming in. He hoped they would; that would let him begin to rebuild his stores, which were painfully low. If his vassals had good harvests, too, they might even be able to send grain west to the lands across the Venien, which had had such a dose of Gradi-style weather that their fields were unlikely to yield much this year.
Then the Fox stopped worrying so much about the fields and the harvest. Dagref, Clotild, and Blestar came rushing out of the great hall and swarmed over him and Duren. "I want to hear everything that happened after you left," Dagref said. "I want you to tell it to me now, in order, so I don't get anything mixed up."
"I'm sure you want that," Gerin said, hugging his eldest by Selatre. He was also sure that, having heard everything once, Dagref would be able to correct him on details for years afterwards. And the boy would be right, too, almost every time: Dagref could be quite alarming. Gerin went on, "I'll tell you everything soon, maybe even tomorrow. Right now I want to-I need to-spend time with my vassals."
"It's not fair," Dagref protested. "You'll start to forget things."
"It'll be all right," Clotild told him. "Papa has a pretty good memory-most of the time," she added with a small sniff.
"Papa!" Blestar said happily. "Papa!" Gerin hugged him, too. He wasn't finding fault with his father: probably, though, for no better reason than that he was too young.
Selatre gave Gerin a jack of ale. He poured a small libation down onto the ground and said, "Thank you, lord Baivers." As with the battle cries there in the woods not far from the ocean, he had no idea whether the god of barley and brewing heard or was still too busy fighting the Gradi gods to pay any attention to mere mortals. He didn't care. He was grateful, and willing-no, eager-to show it.
He went through the keep-into the great hall, back out to the courtyard-several times, drinking, eating, clapping his vassals and their vassals on the back and telling them how splendidly they had fought, something which, in most cases, had the virtue of being true. They were doing much the same thing themselves, though less systematic in their mingling. He got called "lord king" often enough to begin to get used to the new title, even if he still wondered what Aragis the Archer would do in response to his wearing it.
Night fell. So many torches burned, people hardly seemed to notice. And then, here and there-on benches in the great hall, in quiet corners of the courtyard-the warriors who had returned to Fox Keep with him began falling asleep. Gerin remembered wishing he could sleep for three days after that fight in the woods. He was still far, far behind, and likely would be for… oh, the next twenty years, if he lived so long.
Not far away from him, Fand demanded of Van, "And how many wenches were you after sleeping with this time?" She sounded half-drunk and more than half-dangerous.
To Gerin's horror, Van, who had drunk a good deal himself, began counting on his fingers to make sure he got things right. "Seven, it was," he announced at last, as proud of his precision as Dagref might have been.
"It's an old man you're turning into," Fand told him. "You said a dozen the last time." Her voice rose to a screech: "Keep your breeches on, curse you!" She dashed her jack of ale into his face. Dripping and sputtering, he roared at her. She roared back, even louder.
Gerin's head started to ache. He looked around for his children. The younger ones, along with Van's son and daughter, were curled up on the rushes not far from the doorway to the great hall, but well away from the path people used to go in and out. Someone had spread a couple of wool blankets over them. They were fine where they were; he saw no point to waking them up and taking them to their bed. They might not fall asleep again for half the night.
He didn't see Duren at all. That probably meant his eldest was finding a way to celebrate his return that would have made his wife shout as Fand was shouting at Van. Since he didn't have a wife, though…
The Fox did see Selatre. With Dagref, Clotild, and Blestar conveniently asleep, he also saw an opportunity. He caught her eye, then glanced toward the stairway that led up to their bedchamber. She smiled and nodded.
With only the two of them in it, the bed seemed uncommonly large, uncommonly luxurious. Making love without having to hurry or to worry about the children waking up at an inconvenient moment seemed uncommonly luxurious, too.
Afterwards, Gerin thought of the pretty Trokm- girl who hadn't managed to tempt him into imitating Van. Chuckling, he told Selatre the story, then asked her, "What might it be like, to sleep with a king?"
"I," she said, "like it."
* * *
Geroge looke
d dubious as Gerin walked up to him carrying a small bowl filled with fine, moist clay. The monster's thin lips skinned back from his teeth. Those teeth looked so extremely formidable, Gerin wondered whether he wanted to go through with what he had planned.
He decided he did. "Open your mouth," he told the monster.
"You're going to have me eat clay?" Geroge protested. "You didn't tell me I'd have to eat clay."
"You don't have to eat it," Gerin told him. "You just have to let me press it up against your teeth so I can get the shape of the fang you have left. I'll use the mold you're giving me to make a gold tooth like it to put on the other side, to take the place of the one the gods under Ikos took."
"It'll taste horrible," Geroge said. "I don't think I want to do it."
"It's only dirt," Gerin said. "It's not even very dirty dirt, if you know what I mean: it's the fine clay they use for baking pots." When Geroge still shook his massive head, the Fox sighed and said, "When we're done, I'll give you a jack of ale to wash away whatever taste there is."
"Oh, all right." Geroge still sounded reluctant even after Gerin's promise, which showed how unwilling he had been before.
"Open your mouth," Gerin said again.
Eyes rolling, Gerin did. The Fox brought the lump of clay up to it with more than a little trepidation: if Geroge chose to bite down now, he'd spend the rest of his days one-handed. Geroge grunted as Gerin made the impression of his fang and the teeth near it. He went from grunt to growl, but held still.
"Splendid," Gerin said, gently freeing the clay. "If you'd wiggled there, I would have had to do this all over again." Oh, what a liar I'm getting to be, he thought. Doing it once had been hard. Doing it twice… He didn't care to contemplate doing it twice.
Geroge peered down with interest at the marks his teeth had made in the clay. "They're big, aren't they?" he remarked. "I didn't know they were that big. I thought they were more like yours."
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