Fox and Empire

**

Gerin laughed even more four days later, when Adiatunnus and a whole great whacking unruly lot of Trokmoi in chariots did show up at Fox Keep. He had all the relief off his face by the time the Trokm? chief swaggered over the drawbridge and into the courtyard.

Or so he thought, at any rate. After the bows and the handclasps were over, Adiatunnus tilted his head back to look down his long, thin nose at the Fox. He blew out a long breath through his luxuriant, drooping mustachios and said, "Sure and I'll wager you're not sorry to set eyes on me at all, at all."

"Well, if you're bright enough to see that, you're bright enough to see I'd be lying if I said anything else," Gerin answered. "You're not the sort of man I can take for granted, you know."

Adiatunnus preened. Like a lot of Trokmoi, he was vulnerable to flattery. But Gerin hadn't been lying, either. He would much sooner have had the woodsrunner under his eye than behind his back.

"So you're finally going after Aragis the Archer, are you now, lord king?" Adiatunnus said. "About time, says I. Past time, says I." His pale eyes gleamed in his knobby-cheekboned face. "For years I waited for the shindy 'twixt the two of you to start, so I could put paid to you once for all." He shook his big fist at Gerin in anger not altogether assumed. "And you, you kern-you wouldna fight him!"

"You were one of the reasons I never did," Gerin said, again truthfully. "I knew you'd land on my back if I got into it with Aragis-till you and I made peace with each other, that is." He said not a word about any worries he'd had on summoning Adiatunnus as a vassal this time. If the Trokm? chief didn't already have ideas in his head, the Fox had no intention of putting them there.

Adiatunnus, as it happened, already had them. "Oh, aye: I thought on doing it the now, but I held myself back, indeed and I did."

"That's… interesting." Gerin felt a drop of sweat slide down his back. "Why, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Not a bit," Adiatunnus answered. "Two reasons, in all. The first is, you came to my aid against the Gradi when you were right on the point o' going to war against me instead. What a blackhearted spalpeen I'd be to forget it."

"Well, by the gods!" the Fox exclaimed. "Gratitude's not dead after all." He bowed to Adiatunnus. "Now you've put me in your debt. But go on. Two reasons, you said, and you gave only one. What's the other?"

The Trokm? scuffed his foot against the ground, more like an abashed boy than a man who'd ably led his clan for more than twenty years. "Sure and I'm shamed to own it, but I'm shamed to lie, too. Here it is, Fox, and to the crows with you if you brag of it: I was after fearing that, did I hit you whilst you looked the other way, you'd still somehow or other make me sorry I ever was born. I say that, mind, and I reckon myself not the least tricksy man living these days, nor the weakest, either."

Gerin considered. "Mm, I don't know whether I could have or not. I tell you this, though: I would have tried."

He doubted he could have done much to Adiatunnus, not if he was embroiled against a foe as formidable as Aragis at the same time. Again, he did not mention his doubts to the Trokm?. Ideas about how dangerous he was were ones he wanted Adiatunnus to have.

"When do we move against Aragis?" Adiatunnus asked. "Whenever it is, my warriors will be ready."

"Likely tell!" Gerin gave him a saucy grin. "I'll set the day for you two days before the one I tell my Elabonians, so we can all set out at the same time."

Adiatunnus glared. "Is that a tongue you carry in your mouth, or a woodworker's rasp? We're not so slow as all that, indeed and we're not, for you'd fret over less an we were."

"Fair enough," Gerin said. "Come drink some ale with me now, and your warriors and mine can get drunk together and tell lies about all the different times they tried to kill each other."

"And some of the tales they tell won't be lies at all, Fox darling," Adiatunnus said. "Widin Simrin's son would be here, for instance, I'm thinking? He wasna in his own keep when I passed it by on the way hither."

"Yes, he's here," Gerin answered. "Remember, he and you are both my vassals now. You can't go having your own little wars for the fun of it."

"Indeed and I'd never think such a thing!" The sparkle in Adiatunnus' eyes said he didn't expect Gerin to believe a word of it. "But I do recall the days when we went after each other, and not a doubt have I got that they're in his memory as well. Hashing them out over some ale will be safer nor going through them ever was."

"Truth that," Gerin agreed, falling into the Trokm? tongue for a couple of words. Like a lot of Elabonians who'd grown up on the border, he used it almost as readily as his own language.

Adiatunnus held up a forefinger. "One more question, before I drink deep and forget I meant to ask it: have you had more of your books copied out, that I might buy them of you?"

"Yes," Gerin answered: "a chronicle and a poem."

"Ah, that's fine, that's fine indeed," the Trokm? chieftain said. "When you told me you'd teach me the art of reading, I bethought myself I'd learn it as I learned to use a tool or a weapon. The more such things you know, the better, after all. But, you omadhaun, you, why did you not tell me beforehand it'd be near as much fun as futtering?"

"Why?" Gerin's eyes were wide and innocent. "If I had told you that-beforehand, mind you-would you have believed me?"

"Nay, I wouldna," Adiatunnus admitted. He gave the Fox a sudden, suspicious stare. "Don't go thinking you're civilizing me the now, or whatever you're after calling it. A Trokm? I am and I remain, and proud of it."

"Of course," Gerin said, more innocently still.