Fox and Empire

**

Riders went out of Fox Keep the next morning to summon Gerin's vassals to bring their retainers to his holding for the likely campaign against Aragis. "So many men climbing up on horses' backs," Balser said, as bemused by the show of equitation as by what had gone on in the great hall the night before (which, to the Fox's way of thinking, had been on the mild side). "Always something new here, eh, lord king?"

"I hope so," Gerin answered. That, he saw, startled Balser anew. He went on, "Don't you think life would get dull if we kept doing the same things the same old way forever, the more so as a lot of those old ways don't work as well as they might?"

Balser plainly hadn't thought about it at all. As plainly, he would have been quite happy to go on not thinking about it at all, and to see the same old ways go on forever if he could. Most people were like that, as Gerin had discovered to his continued disappointment.

"About this business of horseriding," Balser said, "we don't hardly see it down in my part of the northlands."

He'd steered clear of openly arguing with his new overlord, and was turning the conversation back toward the comment he'd made first: not a bad performance, Gerin thought. Aloud, he said, "It's been more than twenty years now since one of my vassals, Duin the Bold, came up with those footmounts-stirrups, we call 'em-that let a man stay mounted while he uses both hands for archery, and let him charge home with a spear without having to worry about going back over the horse's tail the instant he strikes home. We had good luck using mounted men against the Gradi; I think the chariot is on the way out."

"For traveling, I can see that it might be," Balser said. "Easier to ride than to harness up a car every day, and you don't have to worry about your axle or your wheels breaking, either." Suddenly seeming to realize what he'd said, he scratched his head. "I've just spoken well of the new, haven't I?"

"I'll not tell if you don't," Gerin said solemnly.

"That's a bargain." Balser laughed, but then held up a hand. "I don't speak well of everything new, mind you. Are you saying riders will take the place of chariots in war, too? I have trouble believing that. A man on horseback isn't nearly so frightening to his foes as a chariot thundering down on them."

"Maybe not," Gerin said, "but riders can go places chariots can't, and can fight on ground that would have chariots tipping over. And with chariots, remember, your driver has to tend to the horses. He can't do much fighting. With men on horseback, you're not wasting one in three."

"But every rider has to tend to his horse," Balser returned. "I don't see that the gain's worth it."

"One way or the other, we'll find out," Gerin said. "There will be a lot of chariotry in the force I bring down to defend your landthere'll have to be, because a lot of my vassals don't like the idea of riding any better than you do. I'll have a good many horsemen along, too, though, and we'll see how they fare against Aragis' chariots. They gave the Gradi plenty of trouble, as I've said, but the Gradi fight on foot. This will be a different test."

"A… test?" Balser Debo's son tasted the words: a fitting comparison, for he went on, "You sound as if you're trying out different ways of brewing ale."

"As a matter of fact, Adiatunnus the Trokm? gave me one, not so long ago," Gerin answered. "His people have taken to roasting the barley malt almost to the point where it's burnt. I'd lay long odds they did it by accident the first time, but it makes a pretty good brew: black as rich earth and full of flavor."

Balser threw his hands in the air. "I might have known you'd have something of the sort to tell me," he exclaimed, and then looked at the Fox from under lowered eyelids. "You haven't given me any of this funny black ale."

"I don't like to spring it on people as a surprise," Gerin said. " It does take a bit of getting used to, or so most folk find. But if you're game for something new, I have a few jars down in the cellar."

Balser was more willing to contemplate novelty in ale than he was in ways of fighting. After he'd downed a jack of the Trokm?-style brew, he smacked his lips a couple of times and said, "That's not too bad. I don't think I'd care to drink it all the time, but for now and again it'd be fine. It'd go right well with blood sausage, I'd say."

"Now that you mention it, it does," Gerin said, and called for some to prove the point. While they were eating, he went on, "You ask me, the more choices you have in anything, the better. If you're bedding a woman, for instance, you don't want to just climb on top and pound away all the time."

Balser looked as astonished as he had at the idea of fighting from horseback rather than in a chariot. "What other way is there?" he demanded.

Gerin spent a moment silently pitying his new vassal's wife, if Balser had one. But then, the Fox, while a student down in the City of Elabon, had become acquainted with a scroll that got copied and recopied as it passed from hand to hand and from generation to generation. The text had been educational, the illustrations even more so.

He didn't go into great detail. The more he talked, though, the wider Balser's eyes got. Balser could see possibilities if you pointed them out to him. "Lord king," he burst out, "I'd've become your vassal for this all by its lonesome-to the five hells with anything else."

"I never thought of getting vassals like that," the Fox said with a laugh. "More flies end up stuck in honey than in vinegar, though, don't they? I wonder if Adiatunnus would have given me less trouble over the years if he'd spent more time figuring out all the different postures he could bend the Trokm? girls into."

Balser ran his tongue over his lips. "I'm from far enough south that I haven't had much dealing with the Trokmoi-or their women. Are the wenches as loose as I hear?"

"Well, no," Gerin answered, and Balser looked disappointed. The Fox went on, "Their ways are freer than ours. You'll never find a Trokm? who's shy about telling you what he-or she, very much or shethinks. If they like you, you'll know about it. And if they don't like you, you'll know about that, too."

"Ah," Balser said. "Well, that's not too bad, I suppose." He was young enough, and of rank high enough, to assume that women would like him. Maybe he was even right. On the other hand, given how much he'd shown he didn't know, maybe he wasn't.

On the other hand… Gerin sighed. "On the other hand," he said, "there's Adiatunnus. He's as good at hiding what he thinks as any Elabonian ever born. He's learned from us, too, since he brought his band of woodsrunners south over the Niffet. If he hadn't had me for a neighbor, he might be the one styling himself king of the north these days."

"He sounds like trouble," Balser said. "You should have killed him."

"He is trouble," Gerin answered. "He was trouble, anyhow. I did try to kill him. It didn't work. If it hadn't been for the Gradi, I'd have tried again, and that probably wouldn't have worked, either. The past five years, he's been as good a vassal as a man could want. He even came to Fox Keep so I could teach him his letters."

"A woodsrunner?" Both Balser's eyebrows shot up. "Why on earth did he want to do that? I never felt the need myself."

"He's always thought we Elabonians were more civilized than his people, and so aped us, though he'd never own as much out loud," Gerin said. "I'll teach anyone who wants to learn. I don't mind having serfs able to read and write. For one thing, it makes keeping track of what they have and what they owe easier. For another, some of them are sharp-my steward used to be a serf, for instance."

"I've heard some things about that." Balser didn't say whether he thought those things good or bad.

Gerin didn't much care, one way or the other. He also wasn't quite ready to change the subject. "But I was talking about Adiatunnus. Trokm? or not, he never shows ahead of time how he'll jump. He's my biggest worry in going to war against Aragis, as a matter of fact."

"How's that, lord king?" Balser asked. "Afraid he'll jump you from behind?"

"That's just what I'm afraid of." The Fox looked at Balser with somber approval. The baron from the south might not think much of reading, but he was not a fool. "And that's why I'll be waiting and watching to see what he does now that I've asked him for men. If he gives me all I've asked for, well and good. If he comes himself at their head, better than well and good. If he sends me excuses instead of men… in that case, I have to leave more men behind myself."

"But then you won't be able to do a proper job of defending me!" Balser exclaimed.

"I won't be able to do a proper job of defending you if I'm fighting a big war up here, either," Gerin pointed out. He held out his hands as if they were the pans of a scale and moved them slowly up and down. "It's not a matter of doing all one thing or all the other. It's finding a proper balance between them."

Balser didn't say anything. The noise he made in the back of his throat, though, did not sound like agreement.

"Of course, we may be fretting over shadows," Gerin said. "It depends on Adiatunnus."

Balser made the same noise, rather louder.