The Fox nodded as he straightened up. 'He has my coloring, certainly. I suppose his features are mostly mine, too.' Gently, he pulled off his sleeping son's shoes and tossed them by the side of the bed. 'After what happened, I hate to leave him alone, even for an instant.'
'I don't blame you,' Selatre said. 'But if he's not safe here in your bedchamber, where can he be safe?'
'The way the world wags now? Maybe nowhere,' Gerin said bleakly. ' None of us is really safe these days.' He took a couple of steps over to Selatre, put his arms around her, and kissed her. 'We just have to do the best we can, that's all.'
She nodded. 'Do you think you could leave him alone long enough to come with me to my little chamber?'
He paused in some surprise before he answered: she hadn't invited him to her chamber before. After he'd given it to her, he'd stayed out of it, not wanting to infringe on the privacy he knew she craved. On the other hand, the two of them would need privacy from Duren now. She'd grown up with everyone sleeping and doing everything else in one big bed, but he hadn't. He slipped an arm around her waist. 'I think I'll take that chance.'
Afterwards, though, he quickly dressed and returned to his own room. Wanting to make sure Duren was safe was only part of that. Selatre's chamber lay on the south side of the hall, and its window faced south. Light from the moons streamed into the chamber and cast multiple shifting shadows. With what lay ahead, Gerin wanted to think about the moons as little as he could.
Golden Math came full first. That night passed well enough: Tiwaz was two days before full, ruddy Elleb and Nothos both one day before. All three of them had risen earlier than Math, and so their rays did much to diminish the one full moon's effect.
From the werenight of five years before, Gerin knew which of his men were vulnerable to taking beast's shape. The two he worried most about were Widin Simrin's son-who'd been just a boy at the time of the werenight-and Parol Chickpea. He wondered how Parol was, down in the serf village. Widin he locked away in the cellar with the ale; the youngster came through that first night unchanged.
He fretted more over Aragis' men than over his own, for they were an unknown quantity to him. He asked the Archer which of his men had the were taint, but Aragis was vague: 'Lord prince, that's hard for me to answer, for my vassals were most of 'em at their own keeps the night of the werenight. The Trokmoi hadn't reached my lands yet, so we were still at ease. Afterwards, I had more urgent things to worry about than finding out which of my warriors had donned beast shape. I just didn't see the need.'
Gerin looked down his nose at the grand duke. 'Which means we're vulnerable now,' he said in reproof as mild as he could make it. No, Aragis wasn't forethoughtful enough; when something had gone, he assumed its like would return no more.
As the next evening approached, the one on which Elleb and pale Nothos would be full and swift-moving Tiwaz and Math but one day to either side of it, he sent all of Aragis' men save the Archer himself, Marlanz Raw-Meat, and Fabors Fabur's son out to the tented encampment they'd made. If trouble broke out, he wanted it well away from the keep. To his relief, the only comment Aragis made was, 'A sensible precaution, lord prince.'
The Fox sent Widin Simrin's son to his shelter and mewed him up, saying, 'If you don't change tonight, you probably won't tomorrow. But better safe-we'll enclose you then, too.' Widin just nodded; he knew necessity when he saw it.
Tiwaz came up over the eastern horizon first, a day before full and not far from round. Then, as the sun set, Elleb and Nothos rose side by side. Gerin watched them from the palisade. No cries of alarm rent the air the instant the two full moons appeared, for which he gave hearty thanks. Golden Math soon followed. Because she moved through her phases more slowly than Tiwaz, her bright disk was even closer to a perfect circle than his.
When all four moons were in the sky and no screams of horror had come from within the keep or from the tents where Aragis' men sheltered, the Fox decided he could safely descend and eat supper. He' d been sensible enough to have plenty of ale brought up before he closed Widin in the cellar, so washing down his meat would not be a problem.
Aragis, who was already gnawing on beef ribs basted with a spicy sauce, greeted him with a wave and something not far from a sneer. ' All quiet as the tomb here, lord prince. Seems to me you fretted over nothing.'
Gerin shrugged. 'Better to be ready for trouble and not have it than to have it and not be ready, as happened at the werenight of the four full moons.'
'Can't quarrel hard with that, I suppose,' Aragis admitted. He took another big bite from the rib he was holding; grease ran down his chin. 'Your cooks do a fine job indeed; I give you that without any argument.'
'Glad something here makes you happy,' Gerin answered. He waved to one of the kitchen servants for some ribs of his own.
'Only thing that bothers me about sitting here some days eating your good food is that we could have been out campaigning already, striking at the Trokmoi and the monsters,' Aragis said.
'They'll be there, grand duke, never fear,' Gerin said. The servant plopped a round of flatbread on the table in front of him, then set atop it several steaming ribs. He tried to pick one up, scorched his fingers, and stuck them in his mouth. Aragis hid a chuckle behind a swig of ale.
'I thought you were the patient sort, lord prince,' Fabors Fabur's son said slyly, a gibe enough to the point to make Gerin's ears heat.
'I don't know why everyone is praising the food to the skies,' Marlanz Raw-Meat grumbled. 'They've cooked it to death, and that after I told them and told them I like it with the juice still in it.'
Gerin stared over toward the gobbet of meat Marlanz was attacking. It might have been lightly singed on the outside, but juice and blood from it soaked the flatbread on which it lay. If Marlanz wanted it cooked less, he should have torn it off a cow as the beast ran by.
Before he could say as much, Gerin looked from the dripping chunk of meat to Marlanz himself. His beard seemed thicker and bushier than it had moments before, his teeth extraordinarily long and white and sharp. His eyes gave back the torchlight with red glints of their own.
'Meat!' he snarled. 'Rrraw meat!' The backs of his hands grew hairier by the heartbeat.
'Your pardon,' Fabors Fabur's son said, his voice rising to a frightened squeak as he slid down the bench away from his friend. Aragis' eyes were wide and staring. Van started to draw his sword, then slammed it back into its sheath. Gerin understood that; he'd stopped his own hand halfway to the hilt of his blade. Unless struck with silver, werebeasts knit as fast as they were cut. He'd seen that, to his horror and dismay, during the werenight.
'Rrrraw meat!' Marlanz said again, and growled deep in his throat. His voice was hardly a voice at all-more like an angry howl.
'Give him what he wants,' Gerin called quickly to the frightenedlooking cooks. 'Raw meat, and lots of it.'
The men used that as an excuse to flee the great hall. Gerin hoped one of them, at least, would be brave enough to come back with meat. If not, Marlanz was going to try getting it from the warriors and women with whom he'd sat down to supper.
A cook, staggering under the weight of the haunch he carried on a platter, came slowly out of the kitchens. He did not bring the meat out to Marlanz, but set it down between the hearth and Dyaus' altar and then retreated much faster than he'd advanced. Gerin found himself unable to complain. That the fellow had come back at all was enough.
The Fox rose and edged past Marlanz, whose tongue lolled from jaws that had stretched remarkably to accommodate the improved cutlery they now contained. 'Good wolf,' Gerin said in a friendly way, as if he were talking to one of the keep's dogs. He looked around for those dogs, and did not see them-they'd all run outside as Marlanz began to change. They wanted no part of him. Gerin didn't, either, but he had less choice.
Grunting, he picked up the platter and carried it over to Marlanz. He bowed over it as if he were an innkeeper serving up an elaborate repast at some splendid hostelry in the City of Elabon. Indeed, his concern for his client's satisfaction was even more pressing than such an innkeeper's: none of their guests was likely to devour them if displeased with his proffered supper.
