enjoyed it less than you might have done. I'd say, both as your friend and as your king, that you have no complaint coming.'
Rihwin wiped his mouth on his sleeve, which couldn't have done much good. 'And I'd say, both as your friend-for some indecipherable reason or other-and as your subject, that you haven't the faintest notion of what you're talking about.' He wiped his mouth again.
'Maybe you should go drink some ale,' Dagref suggested. 'That would get rid of some of the taste.'
'Aye, maybe I should go and-' Rihwin gave Gerin's son a horrible look. 'You take altogether too much after your father.' He strode away, his back as stiff as an offended cat's.
'Thank you,' Dagref called after him, which only made his back grow stiffer-it wasn't what he'd wanted to hear. Dagref turned to Gerin. 'He'll be a while getting over that.'
'So he will,' Gerin agreed. 'So he ought to be.' He scowled at the wagon, then let out a long sigh. 'We can pickle all the cabbages and cucumbers we like, but we're not going to be drinking wine.'
'That's so,' Dagref agreed. 'I wonder why Mavrix hasn't descended on us in a cloud of fury. He's not usually one to ignore insults, is he?'
'No, he's usually one to pay them back,' Gerin answered. 'That's why my heart fell into my sandals when Ferdulf decided to take his petty revenge.'
'Well, why isn't Mavrix here, then?' Dagref demanded, as if his father were somehow responsible for the absence of the Sithonian god of wine and fertility.
'If I knew, I would tell you,' Gerin answered. 'Maybe he's finally decided he doesn't care what happens here in the northlands any more. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Or maybe he's raising a rebellion down in Sithonia, and doesn't have time to fret about this part of the world for a while.'
'But didn't you say he told you he didn't think the Sithonians could successfully rise against the Elabonian Empire?' Gerin asked.
'Yes, I did say he told me he didn't think they could,' Gerin answered, and stuck out his tongue at his son. 'Doesn't mean he wouldn't try to raise one anyhow. The Sithonians have revolted against the Empire a good many times over the years, even if they've always lost.'
'If the Sithonians are revolting,' Dagref said, both thoughtfully and with malice aforethought, 'that could be very convenient for us.'
'We're guessing, you know,' Gerin said. Dagref nodded. Gerin went on, 'We're guessing with our hearts, not our heads.' He sighed. 'It would be nice, but we don't dare believe it. It's like believing a pretty girl you've never seen will come looking for you. It happens every once in a while, maybe, but not often enough that you can expect it for even a heartbeat.'
'I understand,' Dagref said. 'What happens anywhere else doesn't matter anyhow, not unless we beat the imperials here.'
'That's also true,' Gerin said. 'In fact, that's the truth about this war. And we were on the point of doing it, too, till they threw another army into the fight. Nasty and rude of them, if anyone wants to know what I think. They want to win, too, worse luck. Very inconsiderate.'
'Can't trust anyone any more, can you?' Dagref asked.
'Who said I ever did?' the Fox returned.
**
The next morning, Ferdulf was loud and triumphant and obnoxious: in other words, not far removed from his usual self. 'I gave my father a proper black eye,' he boasted, 'and he hasn't had the nerve to come do anything to me. I guess he sees who's boss in the northlands now.'
'You've done better guessing,' Gerin told him.
Ferdulf stuck his nose in the air. Following that nose, the rest of him floated off the ground. 'I do not have to stay here to listen to myself being insulted,' he said haughtily, and drifted away like an indignant dandelion puff.
'He hasn't the faintest notion how big a fool he is,' Van said.
'Fools never do,' Gerin answered. 'That's what makes them fools.'
'Strange, thinking of a half-god as a fool,' the outlander said, ' but Ferdulf gives us plenty of chances to do it.'
'So he does,' Gerin said. He could easily think of a few gods he'd met whom he considered fools, but he didn't mention that. Whether gods were fools or not, they were vastly stronger than mortals. A man insulted a god, even a god as cowardly as Mavrix, at his peril. A demigod insulted a god, even a god who was his father, at his peril. Ferdulf hadn't figured that out-another proof Ferdulf was a fool.
'What now?' Van asked.
'I don't know what we can do but keep on with what we've been doing,' Gerin answered. 'If we can keep riders moving along the Elabon way, the imperials are going to have a harder time supplying their armies up here. And if we can keep pushing back the outposts of that force that was dogging us, maybe we'll be able to join hands with Aragis.'
'Aye, maybe we will,' Van said. 'And maybe, once we do, we ought to count the fingers on the hand we join with his, too.'
Gerin, once more, would have argued with his friend more had he agreed with him less. The men from the northlands did drive in a couple of more imperial positions, which gave them new land from which to forage. The men from the Elabonian Empire hadn't been on the land long enough to pick it bare, nor were they as good at the job as Gerin and his followers. Combining what they took from the land with what they captured from the imperial supply column, the warriors from the northlands were for the moment comfortable.
He ate sausages and gnawed on chunks of journeybread and tried to decide what to do next: probably about the same thing as his imperial opposite number was doing.
He could do one thing his opposite number couldn't: he could send riders west to slide around the imperial forces between him and Aragis. Men on horseback could go at least as fast as men in chariots, and could go crosscountry on tracks and through fields and woods chariotry couldn't use.
Maeva was not one of the riders he sent toward Aragis. As she had before when she wasn't chosen for a duty, she complained. He did his best to look down his nose at her; it wasn't easy, not when they were very much of a height. 'You're right,' he said. 'I didn't pick you. So what?'
'It's not fair,' she insisted. 'I deserve to go into danger the same as any other rider.'
'You deserve to have your backside walloped,' the Fox said, now truly starting to get annoyed. 'And `It's not fair!' is the battle cry children use. I'm tired of it from you. If you want to be a warrior, act like one when you're not in the middle of a fight, not just when you are.'
'You're holding me back because I'm a woman,' Maeva said.
'No, I'm holding you back because you're a girl,' Gerin said. She stared at him, astonished and furious at the same time. He went on, ' This is your first campaign, remember? Take a look at the riders I sent west. What do you notice about them, pray tell?'
'They're all men,' Maeva said angrily.
'That's right,' Gerin agreed. 'They're all men. There isn't a boy among them. They've all been riding horses as long as you've been alive; a couple of them have been riding horses as long as anyone in the northlands has been doing it. They've all done a lot of fighting, and a lot of fighting from horseback. If you're still in the army ten or twelve years from now' -if I'm still alive ten or twelve years from now- 'you'll have a real chance of getting sent on a ride like this.'
He wondered how Maeva would take that kind of dressing-down. Fand would have flown into a fury at him. Van would have been angry, too, but not with the same sort of deadly rage. But Gerin had a great many years on Maeva, which made her take him more seriously than either of her parents would have done. 'Very well, lord king,' was all she said before going off disappointed but not obviously irate.
Watching her go, the Fox nodded in reluctant approval. He almost wished she had thrown a tantrum; that would have given him the excuse he needed to send her home. But she offered him no such excuse, however
