Gerin shook his head in bemusement; he'd been on the other end of this same conversation with Van a few days before. "Except the trout aren't trying to gig you, too," he pointed out, his voice dry. "And except that you mostly won't be going up against men afoot. How will you do against chariotry?"

"We'll ride over them like?" Rihwin paused to catch an elusive simile and caught sight of Gerin drumming the fingers of one hand into the palm of the other. His flight of fancy came back to earth with a thud. "When we fight the battle, we'll know, lord prince. With luck, we'll come at them from directions they'll not expect."

Gerin thumped him on the shoulder. "Good. That's what I'm hoping you do. I don't ask miracles, you know: just that you do what you can."

"Ah, but, my fellow Fox, miracles are so much more dramatic?the stuff of which the minstrels sing for generations yet unborn."

"Aye, with formulas that should have died of old age but haven't," Gerin said, now picking up the discussion he'd just been having with Van as if it hadn't stopped. "Besides, the trouble with miracles is that, even if you do get 'em, you'd almost rather not: getting 'em is a sign of how bad you need 'em, as much as anything else."

He did not mention the couple he'd pulled off, though they went a long way toward proving his point. By the gleam in Rihwin's eye, he was about to bring them up, but he suddenly thought better of it; if it hadn't been for him, at least one and maybe both of them would have been unnecessary.

What he did say, after a few heartbeats' hesitation, was, "For a man who has accomplished as much as you have, lord prince, you've left the bards surprisingly little about which to sing."

The converse of that was, For a man who's accomplished as little as you, Rihwin, you've given the bards all too much fodder. Gerin did not say that. Rihwin was as he was, charm and flaws engagingly blended. You enjoyed him, admired his courage, and hoped he was seldom in a position to do you much harm. That hope, however, did not always work out.

"Let's go into the great hall," Gerin said, also a little more slowly than he should have. "We'll drink some ale and hash over how best we can make horses and chariots work together."

"I'm for that," Rihwin said. "I have several ideas we've yet to try, which, if they work as I hope, bid fair to make that cooperation easier to effect." Rihwin always had several ideas. Out of any given batch, some would work. The trouble was figuring out which ones before you tried them all, because those that failed had a way of failing spectacularly.

In the courtyard, Duren was patiently standing alongside Dagref, helping his half brother improve his form at archery. Under Duren's tutelage, Dagref let fly. He whooped in delight when he hit the target.

Watching them, Rihwin sighed. "There are times, my fellow Fox, when I envy you?oh, not so much your children, but having them all here so you can see them every moment as they grow. It's not like that with my brood of bastards."

Gerin exhaled through his nose. "If you'd wanted a wife, plenty of barons had daughters or sisters they'd have pledged to you. We both know that's so." He didn't come any closer to mentioning that Rihwin would have been betrothed to Elise, back before the werenight, if he hadn't gone and disgraced himself as the betrothal was about to be announced. Instead, he went on, "Plenty of barons would pledge you a daughter or sister even now. You have but to seek a bit."

Rihwin sighed again, on a different note. "You, my fellow Fox, are fortunate enough to enjoy waking in the same bed each morning, and to enjoy the company of the same lady?and an excellent lady she is; mistake me not?when not in that bed. In my opinion, the chances of finding a woman who both makes a pleasing bedmate and is interesting when vertical as well as horizontal are lamentably low. Were I wed, I fear I should be bored."

"You don't know till you look," Gerin said stubbornly. "If you're unhappy with your life as it is, wringing your hands and moaning won't make it better."

" `Unhappy' perhaps takes the point too far," Rihwin answered. "Say rather I recognize its imperfections, but also realize it would have other imperfections, likely worse ones, did I change it."

"And you the one who usually plunges ahead without the least thought of consequences," Gerin exclaimed. "You'd best have a care, or you'll get a name for prudence."

"Father Dyaus avert such a twisted fate!" Rihwin cried. Both men laughed.

In the great hall, the kitchen servants had set a big jar of ale in the middle of the floor, the pointed tip stabbed through the rushes strewn there and into the dirt below. Gerin and Rihwin got drinking jacks, filled them with the dipper, and joined a crowd of warriors at a table arguing over what they'd done and what still needed doing.

"A good strong spear thrust into a man from horseback, now?that'd do some damage," Schild Stoutstaff declared. He pointed to his own weapon hanging on the wall, which had given him his sobriquet. His thinking lived up to the ekename. He nodded to Gerin. "This time, lord prince, maybe we'll be rid of that cursed Trokm? for good."

"Aye, maybe," Gerin said. He suspected that, if Adiatunnus was beaten, Schild would promptly forget as many of his own feudal obligations as he could. He'd done that before. The only time he remembered he owed service was when he needed protection.

Well, he was here now. That would do. Gerin poured out a small libation to Baivers, then stuck his forefinger into the drinking jack and used ale to draw cryptic lines on the tabletop in front of him. "Here?these are the chariots," he told Rihwin, pointing. "And these are your horses. What you need to?"

He didn't get to finish explaining what Rihwin needed to do. The lookout's horn blew, a higher, clearer note than the one the village horn used to call the serfs back from the fields at close of day. Normally, the sentry up in the watchtower just called out when he spied someone. He saved the horn for times he really needed it.

After he sounded the warning note, he shouted something. Through the racket and chatter in the great hall, Gerin couldn't hear what he said. He got to his feet and started for the doorway. He hadn't gone more than a few steps when a man came running in, yelling, "Lord prince! Lord prince! There's boats in the Niffet?big boats?and they're heading this way!"

III

"Oh, a pestilence," Gerin said as men exclaimed and cried out all around him. Unlike his vassals, he was angry at himself. After Rihwin had told him of the galley his leman had seen on the Niffet, he'd intended to station riders along the river to bring word if more such came up it. As sometimes happens, what he'd intended to do didn't match what he'd actually done.

Too late for self-reproach now. He ran outside and hurried up onto the palisade. One of the warriors already up there pointed out to the Niffet. Gerin had to choke down sardonic thanks. The ships out there, all five of them, were quite easy enough to find without help.

He saw at first glance that they weren't Elabonian war galleys. Instead of the bronze-clad rams those carried, these ships had high prows carved into the shapes of snarling animals and painted to look more ferocious. Grainne might have mentioned that, he thought, absurdly aggrieved the woman had left out an important detail.

The galleys strode briskly up the Niffet, propelled against the current by a couple of dozen oars on either side. They turned sharply toward the riverbank as they drew nearest to Fox Keep, and grounded themselves on that muddy bank harder than Gerin would have liked to endure were he aboard one of them. As soon as they were aground, men started spilling out of them.