Gerin plucked distractedly at his beard. He'd reckoned Adiatunnus' embrace of the monsters a hideous aberration. If more and more lords proved willing to use the creatures to further their own ends, they would gain a permanent place in the northlands. He wondered which lord who favored them they'd first end up devouring.

"What will you do, lord Gerin?" the soldier answered.

"Do about what, Captain?" Van called from the stairway. He and Fand were coming down into the great hall hand in hand. By the foolish grins on their faces, Gerin had no trouble imagining what they'd been doing up on the second floor. Fand smirked at him, just in case he had had trouble. She wanted to make him jealous—her door stayed closed to him these days.

He knew a certain amount of annoyance at the way she flaunted what she was up to, but jealousy stayed dormant. He wondered what that was telling him. To keep from having to think about it, he turned to the trooper and said, "Tell him what you just told me."

The trooper obeyed. Van scowled and rubbed at the scar that creased his nose. Fand poked him in the ribs, indignant at being forgotten. He let go of her hand and slipped his arm around her waist. She molded herself against him, but most of his attention was still on what he'd just heard. "Good question," he said. "What will you do, Fox?"

"I don't know yet," Gerin answered. "I begin to think I need allies myself. I wonder if the monsters have got to Schild's lands yet. If they have, he may be more likely to remember he's my vassal. And Ricolf will fight on my side, even if he isn't fond of me anymore."

"The Trokmoi south of the Niffet will range themselves with Adiatunnus, sure and they will," Fand said.

Gerin couldn't tell whether she was trying to be helpful or to goad him further. He gave her the benefit of the doubt. "I wouldn't be surprised if you're right. All the more reason for me to look for those who will help me struggle against them." He puckered his lips, as if at a sour taste. He hated having to rely on any power but his own. It left him too vulnerable by half. But he was already vulnerable, in a different way.

"Hagop son of Hovan—" Van began.

"—Is hardly worth having on my side, for he brings little force with him," Gerin interrupted. "I want to win this fight, not have it drag on forever." As he spoke, one way to do that came to mind. "If Grand Duke Aragis would make common cause with me, now—"

Van, Fand, and the trooper all stared at him. He didn't suppose he could blame them. Ever since Elabon abandoned the northlands and the Trokmoi entered them, he and Aragis had been most successful at building from the ruins of empire. He'd taken for granted that they would clash one day, and assumed Aragis had done the same—a notion their meeting at Ikos had only reinforced. But the monsters and the lords who would use them to augment their own power were a danger to Aragis no less than to Gerin.

At last Van said, "You don't think small, Captain. That much I give you."

The more Gerin looked at the idea, the more he liked it himself. "I see two problems," he said. "One is making sure we stay allies with Aragis and don't end up his vassals. He'll have the same concern about us, no doubt. It could make working together ticklish."

"Aye, I can see that one," Van said with a sage nod. "This setup of vassalage you Elabonians have makes you so sticky about rank and honor that it's a wonder you ever get anything done. What's the second?"

Gerin made a wry face. "Simply getting a messenger from Fox Keep to the Castle of the Archer. With all the monsters loose on the land between what I hold and what belongs to Aragis, I really should send a good-sized fighting force just to see to it that he hears my offer and I hear his answer. But I can't afford to do that, not now, not with the monsters and the Trokmoi and now Bevon and his sons ganging together against me."

"Send Rihwin," Van suggested. "Ever since you got him that one ear back, he's been talking both of mine off about—what does he call it?—your natural talent as a mage, that's right."

Remembering the near fiasco in the shack, the Fox said, "That only proves he's not as smart as he thinks he is." He plucked at his beard again. "I need to ponder this a bit more before I go and do it. It's not something I can just set in motion before I try to look at the places it may lead."

"Rihwin would," Van said. "But then, you already said what needs saying about him. Not that he's stupid, mind, but that he thinks he has your Dyaus' view of things, and he doesn't."

"I don't what?" Rihwin asked, coming into the great hall from the courtyard.

"Know your backside from a longtooth turd," Fand said. Gerin and Van hadn't put it so pungently, but it did a fair job of summing up their opinion.

Rihwin looked down over his shoulder at the part of him cited. "That's what I thought I had there," he said, as if in relief. "Trying to sit down on a longtooth turd strikes me as unaesthetic."

"As what, now?" Fand said. Her Elabonian was fluent, but that was not a word used every day in a frontier castle of a former frontier province of the decaying Empire of Elabon.

"Messy and smelly," Gerin translated for her. "He's making a joke."

"Is he? Then why doesn't he up and do it?" Fand said.

"I take a certain amount of pleasure at being insulted by so fair a lady," Rihwin said, bowing, "but only a certain amount." He turned on his heel and strode out.

"A pity you gave him back his missing ear," Fand said to Gerin. "Better you should have torn off the other one." She bared her teeth and looked every bit as savage as she sounded. The Fox was sure she meant to be taken literally.

He said, "What good would that do? Rihwin didn't listen with two ears and didn't with one, so why do you think he would with none?"

Fand stared at him, then gurgled laughter. "It's not just that y'are lefthanded, Fox, but sure and you think that way as well. How am I to stay angry at you, now, when you go sneaking round my temper with such silliness as that?"

Gerin didn't answer. As far as he was concerned, he hadn't done anything to deserve Fand's anger. His thoughts were another matter, but if men—and women, too—were scourged for their thoughts, every back in the northlands—no, every back in the world—would bear stripes.

Van said, "Will you send to Aragis, then, Captain?"

"I think so," Gerin answered. "But as I said, I'll weigh it a bit more before I make up my mind. I grudge the strength I'd have to send to make sure my embassy got through."

"Fair enough, I suppose," the outlander said, "but don't go weighing overlong. My gut warns me we haven't much time to squander."

If Van was worried, the situation could not be good; Van generally saw fighting as sport. Gerin had already thought matters bleak. Seeing his friend's concern, he wondered if he hadn't been too optimistic.

* * *

Rap, rap. Knocking on Fand's door, Gerin realized he hadn't been so nervous approaching a woman since he'd gone off into the woods with a serf girl at about the age of fourteen. If she told him no again, he vowed he'd have nothing more to do with her.

The door opened. Fand eyed Gerin with the same irresolution he felt. At last, with the hint of a smile, she said, "You're not one to give up easy, are you, now?"

"If I were, I'd either be dead or living in the southlands," Gerin answered. "May I come in?"

"Sure and you'd do better with more sweet talk, not just throwing it out so, like a sausage, splash! into the soup pot." Fand sounded a trifle irked. She didn't close the door in his face, though, as she had so many times lately. After a moment, she stepped aside and motioned for him to join her. She closed the door behind him, barred it.