Wisdom of the Fox gtf-1

by Harry Turtledove

  "Rihwin! What are you doing here?" Gerin exclaimed.

  "I? I am becoming preternaturally drunk, though if I can still say preter—pre—that word, I have not yet arrived. I shall be honored to stand you gentlemen a round: anyone filching so luscious a lass as Elise from Wolfar of the Axe deserves reward. Yet after she was gone, what point to my staying in the north—especially as my welcome had worn rather thin? So three days later, home I fared, and here I am."

  Considering it, Gerin decided it was quite possible; Rihwin would have taken no side-trips to delay his journey. With his load of cares, the Fox was glad to see any face he knew. He answered, "You can buy for us if we can buy for you."

  "Fair enough." Rihwin turned to the tapster. "A double measure of Siphnian for my comrades, and quickly! They have considerable overtaking to do."

  The wine the taverner brought had never seen Siphnos, and the amphora in which it came was a crude local imitation of Sithonian ware. At any other time, Gerin would have stalked out of the dive. Now he relished the warmth rising from his belly to his brain. When the vessel was empty he ordered another, then another.

  No amateur toper himself, Rihwin watched in disbelief as Van poured down mug after mug of wine. "Heaven above and hells below!" he exlaimed. "I toast your capacity." The three men drained their cups.

  "And I your fine company," Van said. The cups emptied again. Riwhin and Van looked expectantly at Gerin.

  He raised his mug. "A murrain take all magicians." He drank.

  Van drank.

  "All but me," Rihwin said. He drank too.

  "What's that?" Gerin was abruptly half sober.

  "What's—arp!—what? Excuse me, I pray, I am not well." Riwhin's head flopped onto his arms. He slept. Gerin shook, prodded, and nudged him, to no avail. The southerner muttered and whimpered, but would not wake.

  "We've got to get him out of here," the Fox told Van.

  Van stared owlishly. "Who out of where?"

  "Not you too!" Gerin snarled. "Before he flickered out, this candle said he was a wizard."

  "A murrain take all wizards!" Van shouted. He drank.

  The baron tried to whip his fuzzy wits into action. At last he smote fist into palm in satisfaction. "I'd wager you think you're quite the strong fellow," he said to Van.

  "I am that," the outlander allowed between swigs. "And sober, too."

  "I doubt it," Gerin said. "In fact, I'd bet you're too puny and too drunk even to carry this chap here"—he indicated the inert Rihwin—"out to the wagon."

  "Go howl, captain." Van slung Rihwin over his shoulder like an empty suit of clothes and headed for the door. Gerin paid the taverner and followed.

  Van slung Rihwin into the back of the wagon so hard Gerin hoped the noble was unhurt. "Will you own you were wrong?" he said.

  "It seems I have to," Gerin answered, smiling inside.

  "Pay up, then."

  "Tell you what: I'll race you back to Turgis', double or nothing. You take the wagon and I'll drive Rihwin's chariot."

  "Doesn't seem quite fair," Van complained.

  Privately, Gerin would have agreed. He loaded his voice with scorn. "Not game, eh?"

  "You'll see!" Van untied the wagon from the hitching rail, leaped aboard. He cracked his whip and was gone. Gerin was right behind him. Pedestrians fled every which way, tumbling back into shops and displays for their lives.

  Rihwin's team was as fine as it looked, but the Fox still had trouble gaining on Van. The outlander, with more weight behind him, bulled through holes Gerin had to avoid. He also drove with utter disregard for life and limb, his own or anyone else's.

  They were neck and neck when they reached the Alley. They stormed down it. And then, right outside the wheat emporium, they descended on a great flock of geese being driven to slaughter. Gerin doubted it was the flock which had delayed them on their way to the capital. That one still had to be on the road.

  Van never slowed down. He had time for one bellowed "Gangway!" before he was into the middle of the geese, Gerin still a length or two behind. The Fox glimpsed blank despair on the face of one goose-tender. Then the air was full of terrified honking, squealing, cackling, defecating big white birds.

  Some flew into the grain market. They promptly began to devour the wheat there. Swearing merchants tried to drive them back into the street, only to retreat in dismay as the birds fought back with buffeting wings and savage pecks and bites.

  Half a dozen geese flapped their way through the second-story window of a bath-house. An instant later, four nude men leaped out the same window.

  A dun-colored hound contested the right of two geese to a cartload of peaches. When five more birds joined the fray, the dog ran off, tail between its legs. Squawking contentedly, the victors settled down to enjoy their spoils.

  Yet another goose seized a trollop's filmy skirt in its beak. The goose tore it from her legs and left her half naked in the roadway. Her curses only added to the turmoil.

  Somehow or other, the racers got through. Any pursuit was lost in the gallinaceous stampede. Gerin took the lead for a moment, then lost it when Van, quite by accident, found a shortcut. The baron was gaining at the end, but Van pulled into Turgis' forecourt a few seconds in front.

  Plucking a feather from his beard, he walked over to the Fox, broad palm out. "Pay up, if you please."

  "You know, we forgot to set a stake. I owe you twice nothing, which, the subtle Sithonians assure us, remains nothing."

  Van pondered this, nodded reluctantly. "Then we'll just have to race back," he declared. He took two steps toward the wagon and fell on his face.

  The pound of galloping hooves brought Turgis out his front door on the run. "What in the name of the gods is going on?" he shouted. "Oh, it's you, Gerin. I might have known."

  The baron lacked the patience to trade gibes with him. He boiled with urgency. "Do you have a potion to sober up these two right away?" He nodded toward Van and Rihwin, whom he had lain beside his friend. The noble had stayed unconscious all through the wild ride.

  "Aye, but they'll not be happier for it." Turgis vanished into the hostel. He returned a moment later with a small, tightly stoppered vial. He poured half its contents into Van, gave the rest to Rihwin.

  As the drug took effect, the two of them thrashed like broken-backed things, then spewed their guts on the ground. Sudden reason showed in Rihwin's eyes. Wiping his mouth, he asked, "What am I doing here? Where, for that matter, is here? Who do you think you are, my good man?" he added when Van, still in pain, rolled up against him. His voice showed much of his usual cheerful hauteur.

  The outlander groaned. "With any luck, I'll die before I remember. There's an earthquake in my brains."

  Rihwin rose gingerly. He looked from Van, who stayed on the ground with head in hands, to Gerin, none too steady on his feet himself. "I congratulate you, my friends: practice has made you a superior pair of kidnappers. Tell me, which of you has wed Elise, and which intends to marry me? I confess, I have given little thought to my dowry."

  "Go howl!" Gerin said. "Tell me at once: is it true you're a wizard?"

  "Where did you learn that, in that horrid dive? How drunk was I? It were better to say I am all but a mage. I completed the course at the Collegium but never graduated, nor was I linked to a familiar."

  "Why not?"

  "Of what interest is this to you, may I ask?"

  "Rihwin, you will have my story, I promise you," Gerin said. "Now tell me yours, before I throttle you."

  "Very well. The fault, I fear, was my own. I learned all the required lores, mastered the spells they set me, met every examination, completed each conjuration with adequate results—which is to say, no fiend swallowed me up. And all this I accomplished on my own, for he who nominally supervised my work was so concerned with his own goetic researches that he had scant moments to lavish on his pupils."

  "Not the wizard who styles himself Sosper?" Gerin asked.

  "Indeed yes. How could you know that?"
>
  "I've met the man. Go on, please."

  "Came the night before I was to be consecrated mage, and in my folly I resolved to repay my mentor for all his indifference. He is a man who likes the good life, is Sosper, for all his sorcerous craft, and he dwells near the Palace Imperial. At midnight I essayed a small summoning. When the demon I evoked appeared, I charged it to go to my master's bedchamber, give his couch a hearty shake, and vanish instanter once he awoke. What I ordained, the demon did."

  A reminiscent grin lit Rihwin's face. "Oh, it was a lovely jape! Even warlocks are muzzy when bounced from slumber, and Sosper, suspecting nothing other than a common earthquake, rushed in his nightshirt to the palace to inquire after the Emperor's safety. I would have given half my lands to see his face when he found the temblor his private property.

  "But it takes a mighty wizard to befool such a man for long, and I, alas, had nowhere near the skill to maintain my appearance of innocence 'gainst his inquiry. Which leaves me here . . . almost a mage, and glad, I suppose, my punishment was no worse than expulsion."

  Rihwin's tale was in keeping with the judgment Gerin had formed of him at Ricolf's holding: a man who would dare anything on the impulse of a moment, never stopping to consider the consequences—but one who would then jauntily bear those consequences, whatever they were.

  Banking on that mercurial nature, Gerin plunged into his own tale. "And so," he finished, "I found I could get no proper mage, and was in despair, not knowing what to do. Meeting you in the tavern seems nothing less than the intervention of the gods—and on my behalf, for once. Fare north with me, to be my aid against the Trokmoi."

  Rihwin studied him, wearing his usual expression of amused cynicism like a gambler's stiff face. "You know, I suppose, that I have every right to bear you ill-will for winning the love of a girl for whose hand I struggled over the course of a year?"

  "So you do," Gerin said stonily.

  "And you know I find your northern province uncouth, unmannered, and violent, nothing at all like this soft, smiling land?"

  "Rihwin, if you mean no, say no and stop twisting the knife!"

  "But my dear fellow Fox, I am trying to say yes!"

  "What?" Gerin stared at him.

  "Why do you think I traveled north a year ago, if not for the adventure of it, and the change? I was stifled by the insipid life I led here; were it not that I am in a bad odor up there, I doubt I should have returned at all."

  Van struggled to his feet. "Good for you! Keep the same ground under your feet too long and you grow roots like a radish."

  "But—what you said of Elise . . ." Gerin was floundering now.

  "What of it? That I lost her was my own foolish fault, and none other's. I was not in love with her, nor she with me. Aye, she's a comely maid, but I've found there are a good many of those, and most of them like me well. I entered Ricolf's contest much more to measure myself against the other suitors than for her sake."

  The last of his foppish mask slipped away, and he spoke with a seriousness the baron had never heard from him: "Lord Gerin, if you truly want my aid, I will meet you here in three days' time, ready to travel. I pray your pardon for not being quicker, but as I'm here, I should set my affairs in order before faring north again. Does it please you?"

  Dumbfounded, Gerin could only nod. Rihwin sketched a salute, climbed into his chariot, and departed. His horses whickered happily at the familiar feel of his hands on the reins.

  "What do you know?" Van said. "More to that fellow than he lets on."

  Gerin was thinking much the same thing. It occurred to him that he had seen Rihwin only on a couple of the worst days of his life; now he began to understand why Ricolf, with longer acquaintance, had thought the southerner a fit match for Elise.

  * * *

  More than once over those three days, the Fox wondered if Rihwin would have second thoughts, but he was too busy readying his own return to waste much time on worry. Van acquired a stout ash spear ("A little light, but what can you do?") and four examples of another weapon Gerin had not seen before: flat rings of bronze with sharp outer edges. Their central holes were sized so they fit snugly onto the outlander's forearms.

  "They're called chakrams," Van explained. "I learned the use of them in Mabalal. They're easier to throw straight than knives, and if I just leave them where they are, they make a forearm smash unpleasant for whoever's in the way."

  When the baron paid Turgis, the innkeeper put an arm round his shoulder. "You're a good friend, Fox. I'm sorry to see you go. You remind me of the days when I still had hair on my pate. Please note, however, you brigand, I am not so sorry as to make you any rash promises. The last one cost me dear enough."

  Rihwin arrived on the morning he had set, and as ready as he had vowed. Gone was his thin toga; he wore a leather tunic and baggy woolen trousers. A sword swung at his hip, armor and a quiver of javelins were stowed behind him, and he had set a battered bronze helm on his curls.

  His left ear, though, still sported a golden ring. "It's possible to ask too much of me, you know," he said sheepishly when Gerin pointed at it.

  "Rihwin, for all I care, you can wear the damned thing in your nose. Let's be off."

  The baron drove the wagon up the Alley. Van stayed in the rear compartment, out of sight. Gerin did not want to be stopped by some irate merchant who'd had his goods smashed or scattered in the wild ride and now recognized one of its perpetrators. He was confident he was immune from being identified so; save for his northern dress, he looked like just another Elabonian. Thus it came as a small shock when someone waved frantically and called his name.

  "Elise!" he said. "Great Dyaus above, what now?"

  IX

  Elise's story was simple enough, if unpleasing. Valdabrun's delight at guesting his unknown niece had faded. The fading quickened when he realized how cordially Elise and Namarra despised each other.

  "It all blew up at dawn this morning in a glorious fight," Elise said. She reached into a pocket of her traveling coat and brought out a lock of Namarra's fiery hair. "Black at the roots, you'll notice."

  "May I be of service, my lady?" Rihwin asked. "A spell for an enemy's ruin is easy when one has a lock of hair with which to work."

  "I know enough magic for that myself," Gerin said, not wanting Rihwin to help Elise in any way at all.

  "The hussy hardly merits being blasted from the face of the earth simply because she and I don't get along," Elise said. She asked Rihwin, "How is it you are in the city, and in Gerin's company?"

  He briefly explained. She said, "When last I saw you—and more of you than I wanted to, I'll have you know—I would have thought you'd never want to go back to the northlands again."

  He flinched at that, but answered, "They hold no terror for me, so long as I am not required to face your father."

  "Where shall I take you now?" Gerin asked Elise. "You must have other kin here."

  "I do, but I know none of them by name. Nor would it do me much good if I did. My uncle is not a man to use half-measures. He swore he'd make sure I was no more welcome in any of their houses than in his. That leaves me little choice but to travel north with you."

  Gerin realized she was right.

  "Get moving, will you, and talk later," Van said from his comfortless perch in the back of the wagon. "I feel like an ostrich in a robin's egg."

  Once they were out of the city, he emerged from confinement and stretched till his joints creaked. "Let me ride with you a while, Rihwin," he said. "I like the bounce of a chariot under my feet."

  "Do you indeed?" Rihwin said. He flicked the whip over his matched dapples. They leaped forward, sending the light car bounding into the air whenever its bronze-shod wheels struck a stone set an inch or two higher in the roadbed than its fellows. Van was unruffled. He shifted his weight with marvelous quickness, not deigning to clutch at the chariot's handrail.

  Rihwin gave up after a wild quarter of a mile, slowing his horses to a walk. As Gerin caught up, he asked El
ise, "Does he always act so?"

  "I've rarely seen him otherwise. The day he came to court me, he stepped down from his car, kissed me, then kissed my father twice as hard! But he has such charm and nonchalance that the outrageous things he does don't grate as they would from someone else."

  "What, ah, do you think of him?" Gerin asked carefully.

  "As a possible husband, you mean? I could have done much worse." She laid a hand on his arm. "But I could do much better, too, and I think I have."

  Guard duty was easier to bear with three men to carry the load. Golden Math, a waning crescent, had been in the sky when Rihwin woke Gerin to stand the third watch. Elleb, three days past full, was nearing the meridian; Tiwaz had just set.

  "Tell me, how is it you know sorcery?" Rihwin asked. To Gerin, he seemed to be saying, How could a backwoodsman like you hope to master such a subtle art?

  The baron had met that attitude from southerners too often during his first stay in the capital. Touched on an old sore spot, he said shortly, "Surprising as it may seem, I spent two years studying in the city, including a turn at the Collegium, though a short one."

  "Did you really? What did you study besides magecraft?" Far from being condescending, Riwhin showed eager interest.

  "Natural philosophy, mostly, and history."

  "History? Great Dyaus above, man, did you ever hear Maleinos lecture?"

  "Yes, often. He interested me."

  "What do you think of his cyclical notion of historical development? I was so impressed by the peroration he always used that I memorized it: 'Peoples and cities now have great success, now are so totally defeated as no longer to exist. And the changing circuit revealed such things before our time, and will reveal them again, and the revelations will not cease, so long as there be men and battles.' And he would stalk off, like an angry god."

  "Yes, and do you know where he'd go?" Gerin said: "To a little tavern close by, to drink resinated wine—how do Sithonians stand the stuff?—for hours on end."