Harry Turtledove - Fox and Empire

Up in the watchtower, the lookout winded his horn: a long, unmelodious blast. "Two chariots approach from the south, lord king!" he bellowed.

From the courtyard far below, Gerin the Fox, king of the north, cupped a hand to his mouth and replied: "Thanks, Andiver. We'll see who they are when they get here."

"Aren't you going to go up on the palisade and have a look?" the sentry demanded indignantly.

"In a word, no," Gerin answered. "If two chariots' worth of warriors can conquer Fox Keep, either they're gods, in which case looking at them won't do me any good, or else we're all such cowards that the men who are on the palisade now would be running away, and that's not happening, either. So I'll wait for them down here, thanks very much."

Andiver said something the height of his perch kept Gerin from understanding. The Fox decided it was probably just as well.

His son Dagref smiled at him. "That was very logical," he said. Dagref, at fourteen, was as remorselessly logical as the most terrifying Sithonian philosopher who'd ever made a living lecturing in the Elabonian Empire. Up until twenty years before, Gerin's kingdom, as well as the rest of the land north from the High Kirs to the River Niffet, had been a frontier province of the Empire. Elabon, though, had abandoned the land north of the mountains in the face of the devastating werenight caused by all four moons' coming full at the same time and, almost incidentally, the barbarous Trokmoi swarming south over the Niffet.

"It was indeed," Gerin said. "So what?"

Dagref stared at him. Man and youth shared a long face, long nose, and swarthy complexion. Dagref, though, had only fine down on his cheeks and chin, and his hair was a brown almost black. Gerin's neat beard and his hair were gray, and getting grayer by the year: he was past fifty now, and often knew it by the creaking in his bones.

"Logic is the greatest tool, the greatest weapon, in the world," Dagref declared.

"That depends on what you're doing," Gerin replied. "If you're in the middle of a brawl, you can't slay a Gradi or a Trokm? or one of Aragis the Archer's jolly henchmen with a well-aimed syllogism. That's why we carry these things every now and then."

He hefted his sword. The sun glinted, red as blood, from the polished edge of the bronze blade. Dagref held a sword, too. He enjoyed fencing with it much less than fencing with his wits. He was very dangerous with the latter, only somewhat so with the former.

"Come on." Gerin made as if to attack him. "If some big ugly lug carves chunks off you, it doesn't matter that he's never heard of the law of the excluded middle. You won't be around to instruct him afterwards."

Dagref parried the slash. His answering cut made Gerin give back a pace. They did not work against each other as often as Gerin would have done had he not been left-handed: learning how to fight him went only so far in teaching Dagref how to fight others. His son was lefthanded, too, which gave Gerin the rare chance to see what others faced when they met him.

"Keep the blade up!" the Fox cautioned. "You don't keep the blade up, I can do something like this-" He snapped a cut at Dagref's head, so quick and sharp that his son had to stagger back. "Or even this." The Fox feinted another head cut; if he hadn't stopped his thrust, he would have put it into Dagref's chest.

"Yes, I see." Dagref nodded. And he did see, too. He had the makings of a good swordsman; he had long arms and quick feet and didn' t do the same thing wrong over and over again. But he didn't automatically do the right thing, either, and, when he did do it, he didn't do it fast enough. Only years of patient practice would give him the speed he needed. Intellectually, he realized that (he was very good at realizing things intellectually). "Let's try it again, Father."

Those were the words Gerin wanted to hear. Before he could go through the passage again, though, one of his men up on the palisade called a challenge to the approaching chariots: "Who comes to Castle Fox?"

The answer made Gerin forget about swordplay and hurry up onto the palisade after all: "I am Marlanz Raw-Meat, emissary of King Aragis the Archer, come to have speech with King Gerin."

"Hello, Marlanz," Gerin called once he reached the walkway and could peer over the tops of the palisade timbers. "Come in and be welcome. I'll listen to whatever Aragis has to say, though I don't promise I'll do anything about it."

At his command, the gate crew let down the drawbridge over the ditch around the palisade. Marlanz's chariot rattled into Fox Keep. King Aragis' representative was a big, burly man in his late thirties; from previous encounters with him, Gerin knew he was smarter than he looked. "Hello, lord king," Marlanz said as the Fox came down to greet him.

When Gerin clasped hands with him, Marlanz's big paw (a word that came naturally to Gerin's mind, as Marlanz had a were streak in him) almost engulfed his own. "What brings you north this time?" the Fox asked, though he had the bad feeling he already knew.

And sure enough, Marlanz said, "Lord king, Aragis bids me tell you that he is not going to stand idly by if Balser Debo's son swears homage and fealty to you. He warns you not to pursue that further."

The Fox looked down his nose at Aragis' ambassador, no mean feat since Marlanz was three or four digits' width taller than he. "Aragis has no business telling either Balser or me what sort of relationship we can have. Balser was never Aragis' vassal, nor was his father before him. Balser styles himself baron, nothing more, but he's as free a man and as independent a lord as I am-or as Aragis is."

"Yes, and Aragis intends that he remain free, and not come under your influence," Marlanz said.

"If, of his own free will, he wants to declare himself my vassal, Aragis has not the right to forbid it."

Marlanz Raw-Meat folded thick arms across his broad chest. "Lord king, King Aragis is strong enough to enforce his will on Balser-and on you."

In the end, it came down to strength, Gerin thought. Adiatunnus the Trokm?, a rival now a vassal, had first declared the Fox king of the north after he'd beaten the Gradi pirates back to a single keep on the edge of the Orynian Ocean. Aragis had started calling himself king a little later, his claim springing from his being the only noble left in the northlands with strength enough to stand against Gerin.

"If Aragis tries that, he will get the war he's been saying he doesn't want ever since the days right after the werenight," Gerin answered. "Tell him that, Marlanz. Make sure he understands it. And tell him that, if he does try it, I believe he'll end up being the sorriest man ever born."

Marlanz scowled. He'd known Gerin long enough to know the Fox did not casually make such boasts. In Marlanz's younger days, he'd been more a bruiser than a diplomat. He'd gained skill with years. These days, Aragis probably trusted him further than anyone else-not that Aragis trusted anyone very far. Trying to strike a conciliatory tone, Marlanz said, "You have to see how things are, lord king. Balser's holding points like a knife straight at the heart of the lands that acknowledge King Aragis' suzerainty. If it comes under your control, you're halfway to invading his domain right there."

Gerin scowled back. In Aragis' sandals, his acquisition would look that way. "I don't want to use the holding as a knife. I want to use it as a shield against Aragis," the Fox said. "It's hardly less dangerous to me in his hands than it is to him in mine. You might remind him that he was the one who paraded chariots past Balser's border to frighten him into yielding. I can't help it if Balser started talking to me instead."

"It might be best if we could keep Balser neutral between you and Aragis, inclining neither to the one nor the other," Marlanz said.