Fox and Empire

**

Aragis proved not to be in the castle. "Oh, no, lord king," said the steward, a pudgy fellow named Wellas Therthas' son. "He went south in pursuit of Arpulo when the imperials broke off their encirclement yesterday."

"Sounds like him," Gerin agreed. He eyed Wellas. "You could have stayed besieged a lot longer before they starved you out, couldn't you?"

"Oh, aye, lord king," Wellas answered. "But how could you have known that, to bring it out so sure and certain?" He eyed the Fox, too, with a mixture of respect and wonder.

"Call it a good guess, if you like," Gerin said. If Wellas was still plump after a good many days shut away from the outside, the siege couldn't have caused the defenders too much in the way of hardship. Gerin didn't want to come right out and say that, though, having no reason to hurt the steward's feelings.

The Fox rode after his fellow king. Wellas thoughtfully helped supply the army with journeybread, sausage, and smoked meat from the castle storerooms, proving the keep had indeed been far from running out of supplies. Gerin was quickly glad to have the extra food: the imperials had set more fires behind their line of march, and he could have done little in the way of foraging.

For that very reason, he met Aragis coming back up the Elabon Way. The Archer looked disgusted. "Good to see you, Fox," he growled, though good was not a word that would have fit his humor. "We can do this better together than I could by myself-I haven't the men for a proper pursuit, and I just went after that bastard of an Arpulo as soon as he pulled out: didn't realize he'd burn everything behind him as he went." His lean face-not much leaner than when Gerin had seen him last-was streaked with soot and smoke.

"He does seem to be doing that," Gerin said, nodding. "A farewell present since he can't stay, you might say."

"So I gather." Aragis looked more disgusted than ever. "I've been penned up in there, away from everything that looks like news. What in the five hells happened? Did Crebbig I, his ever so illustrious majesty, have the generosity to drop dead?"

"No such luck, I'm afraid," Gerin answered. "The Sithonians are revolting again, and he's called his men back over the mountains."

"Ah, is that what it is? So we'll be rid of Swerilas as well as Arpulo, eh?" Aragis nodded, too. "I won't miss either of them a bit, and that's the truth." His gaze suddenly sharpened. "What are you doing here, Fox? I mean here in particular. Why aren't you chasing Swerilas' men instead of Arpulo's? For that matter, where are Swerilas' men? Why didn't they come down and join their friends?"

"They were chasing me," Gerin answered. "They tried chasing me through the wood west of Biton's shrine in the valley of Ikos. Do you know that wood?" Aragis' eyes widened in his filthy face. Gerin took that for agreement. He went on, "They rode into the wood. They didn't ride out." He explained the oracular response he'd had from Biton's Sibyl, and how he interpreted it.

" `Bronze and wood,' " Aragis repeated. "I would have taken that to mean swords and chariots, or maybe spearheads and spearshafts. That the wood might be a wood… I doubt I'd have thought of that."

"I almost didn't, either," Gerin said. "Even when I did think of it, I was a long way from sure I was right-but I was in so much trouble, I had nothing to lose by finding out."

Aragis pointed at him. "Did I not say that, when the time came, you would have some sorcery ready to wreck the foe?"

"You said it," Gerin agreed. "That you said it doesn't make it true. Rihwin summoned Mavrix, except that Mavrix didn't feel like being summoned. Biton gave his oracular response-all I did was hear it. When Dagref and Ferdulf went off to see Swerilas, I didn't know anything about it. If I had known anything about it, I would have stopped it if I could. I don't know exactly what happened in the haunted wood, and I don't think I ever will know. By the gods, I don't think I want to know, either. The only thing I did in all of that was ask Biton for the oracular response, and I didn't know what I'd get when I did."

"Everything you say is true-taken one thing at a time." Aragis let out a long, angry breath. "But it's only true taken one thing at a time. Put it all together and you were at the center of it, the way a spider sits at the center of its web. Tell me that, when Rihwin summoned Mavrix, you weren't hoping he would fail. Go ahead and tell me-I want to see how good a liar you are."

"Not good enough, evidently," Gerin said. "If you already know the answers, why ask the questions?"

"Because I wanted to find out if what I thought was true: that you were in the middle, taking advantage of everything that happened around you." He glared at the Fox like an angry wolf. "And you were, and I curse you for it."

Calmly, Gerin folded his arms across his chest. "I haven't taken advantage of every tiny thing that happens around me. I hope I am on my way toward doing that, though. In aid of which, shall we discuss the matter of suzerainty over the holding of Balser Debo's son?"

Aragis looked around. Had more of his men been close by than Gerin's, the Fox thought he would have ordered them to attack on the instant. But more of Gerin's troopers stood near the two kings, and they looked alert. Aragis' earlier glare had been mild to the point of benignity compared to the one he gave Gerin now. "You see what the imperials have done to my lands," the Archer ground out.

"Yes, I see that," Gerin said.

"You see they've hurt my fighting force worse than yours," Aragis persisted.

"Yes, I see that, too," Gerin said, nodding.

"And so, because I am weakened, you think to gain at my expense," Aragis said.

"Of course I do," Gerin said. "I'm not gaining anything I didn't think was rightfully mine beforehand, though. How hard would you have squeezed me if things were the other way round? You know the answer to that as well as I do: you'd take as much as you could get away with. I've said it before, Aragis: unless you make yourself so, you're not my enemy. You've spend twenty years not believing me. Will you believe me now?"

"Because I am hurt here, you think to drop the hammer on me," Aragis said, as if the Fox had not spoken.

"You're repeating yourself," Gerin said. "The words are different; the meaning is the same. You ought to try listening to me instead. If you don't want to listen to me, by the gods, I'm tempted to drop the hammer on you just to get you to pay attention for once in your life."

Aragis turned the color of molten copper. "No one has presumed to speak to me in that fashion for a very long time," he growled.

"Oh, I believe that," Gerin said. "You're the sort who hands a fellow his head if he has the nerve to tell you something to your face. That will make your vassals shut up around you, I must say. But it'll also make you miss things you ought to hear. You're not strong enough to hand me my head if I tell you something to your face, so you can bloody well listen to me instead."

He wondered if he oughtn't to hurt Aragis as badly as he could, to keep the Archer from trying for revenge as soon as he saw the chance. The only sure way of doing that, though, was killing Aragis now. He didn't have the stomach for it. Murder was not a political tool he kept in his chest.

Just for a moment, Aragis' hand dropped down toward the hilt of his sword. He checked the movement before he touched the hilt. Like a bear bothered by bees, he shook his head. "Slaughtering you might solve the problem, but you haven't-quite-done anything to deserve it," he said.

"For which polite qualification I do thank you," Gerin said. "I thought about stretching you out bleeding on the ground, too." He grimaced. "This being a king is a nasty business sometimes."

"So is being a baron. So is anything above being a serf," Aragis said, "and being a serf is a nasty business, too, in a different way. It's a nasty business all the time, with no letup ever. If I have a choice between taking orders and giving them, I know which one's for me."

"If I had a choice, I'd sooner do neither," the Fox replied. Aragis stared at him in blank incomprehension. He'd been sure Aragis would do something like that: as the Archer himself admitted, he liked giving orders. With a sigh, Gerin went on, "Since I don't have a choice, I'd sooner be on the top than on the bottom. I won't say different."

"You'd better not," Aragis said. "And I'll tell you one other reason I didn't try to let the air out of you there."

"You'd answer to Dagref," Gerin said.

He'd meant it for a joke, or mostly for a joke. Aragis, however, gave him a very odd look, a look as nearly frightened as the Fox had ever seen on his face. "How did you know that?" Aragis whispered. "How could you know that? To you, he'd be only a youth."

"Oh, Dagref is a youth, all right," Gerin answered, "but it's been a long time since I thought of him as only an anything. If I don't strangle him in the next two or three years, he'll go far, that one will."

He scratched his head. Did that mean he'd made up his mind about the succession? Maybe he had. Duren was doing a perfectly fine job as baron of the holding that had been his grandfather's, but how much did he look beyond it? Dagref had a wider view. But Dagref was also much younger, and had never actually ruled a barony or anything else. Who could tell what he'd be like when he was seventeen? So maybe Gerin hadn't made up his mind about the succession after all. Maybe.

"Back to matters at hand," he said, as much to himself as to Aragis. "Balser Debo's son wants me as his overlord. I have accepted him as my vassal. I don't want a war, but I was ready to fight to keep that holding as part of my domain before the imperials came, and I am still ready. So." He turned away, picked up a long, thin broken branch that had fallen out of a load of firewood, and used it to draw a circle in the dirt around Aragis' feet. "Shall we have peace, or shall we fight? Answer me one way or the other before you step out of that circle."

Aragis' eyes looked about ready to bug out of his head. "Of all the high-handed-" he spluttered. "You have not the right to use me so. No one has the right to use me so."

He started to stride out of the circle, but stopped when Gerin held up a hand and said, "I have the right, and it's one even you understand."

"What is it?" Aragis demanded.

"Simple-I'm stronger than you are," Gerin answered. "Now-peace or war? If you step out of the circle without naming one or the other, we shall have war right now, I promise."

To some degree, he was running a bluff. He was far from sure that, if he suddenly shouted for his men to attack the Archer's, they would obey him. But he was also far from sure how many of Aragis' men would fight hard for their overlord.

Aragis must have been making the same calculations, and coming up with answers not far removed from his own. "You are an arrogant son of a whore," he ground out, to which the Fox bowed as at a compliment. " May you toast your toes in the hottest of the five hells forever." Gerin bowed again. Aragis bared his teeth in another wolf's smile before going on, "But you are stronger than I am, curse you. Take the holding of Balser Debo's son. Keep it. I hope you choke on it, but I will not fight you for it." He stepped out of the circle.

Gerin wondered if he was lying. If he was, he would be made to pay for it, that was all. He had done as the Fox required. Trying to hold him to more-even trying to get an oath from him-would be too much in the way of arrogance.

"We've beaten the imperials," Gerin said. "Now, if the time does come, we can settle things that have to do with the northlands between ourselves-and, if the Empire puts down the revolt in Sithonia and decides to have another go at us, we can still fight side by side. Remember, I am not taking anything that was yours; you weren't Balser' s suzerain. You wanted him to become your vassal, aye, but he never did."

"Hmp." If Aragis was mollified, he wasn't about to let Gerin know it. Had the sandal been on the other foot, Gerin wouldn't have let him know it, either. But the Archer had got a better deal from him than he would have got from from the Elabonian Empire, and he had to know as much. If Crebbig I sent another army north, the Archer was unlikely to be inclined to throw in with it.

"We aren't friends-we've never been friends," Gerin said, "but we' ve had our borders march for a lot of years without going to war against each other, and that's something a good many friends can't say. I'd sooner see it go on than end."

"Hmp," Aragis said again. He turned and walked away. He'd said he wouldn't fight the Fox over Balser's holding. If he meant that, everything would be fine. If he didn't… Gerin sighed. If he didn' t, there would be another war, that was all.

Another war. Gerin was mildly amazed at how little the prospect bothered him. After so many wars, what would one more be? And maybe Aragis would live up to his word after all. Stranger things had happened. "Not many," Gerin muttered, "but a few. They really have." He might even have meant it. He hoped with all his heart that he did mean it.