No. He'd made them into more or less human children. He still had no proof their true essence would stay hidden as they matured. He still had no idea what to do with them as they did mature, either. The just thing would be to let them grow up as if they were people, and to treat them as such unless and until they gave him some reason to do otherwise. The safe thing would be to put them out of the way before he had to do it.

He took his piece of roasted heart off the fire, blew on it, and took a bite. The meat was tough and chewy, and he lacked the teeth to slice effortlessly through it as Geroge and Tharma had. He sighed. The safest thing would have been to put them out of the way as soon as they came into his hands. He hadn't done that then, fearing the hands of the gods, not his own, had true control over their fate. He still feared that now. He'd do nothing-except worry.

Van's teeth were merely human, but he made short work of his chunk of deer heart. He licked his fingers and wiped them clean on the grass, then dug around with a fingernail to rout out a piece of meat stuck somewhere in the back of his mouth. "That hit the spot," he said. "Enough to make my belly happy, not so much that I won't be able to enjoy myself come supper."

"The way you eat, the only thing that amazes me is that you're not as wide as you are tall," Gerin said.

Van looked down at himself. "I am thicker through the middle than I used to be, I think. If I get too much thicker, I won't be able to fit into my corselet, and then what will I do?"

"Save it for Kor," Gerin answered, "unless Maeva takes it before he has the chance."

"You had that thought run through your head too, eh?" Van started to laugh, but quickly swallowed his mirth. "It could happen, I suppose. There's not a boy her age can match her, and she's wild for weapons, too. Whether that'll still be so once she sprouts breasts and hips-the gods may know, but I don't. She'll not be one of the common herd of women any which way; so much I'll say already."

"No," the Fox agreed. In musing tones, he went on, "I wonder, now: is there any such thing as `the common herd of women, once you come to know 'em? Selatre wouldn't fit there, nor Fand, the gods know" — he and Van both chuckled, each a little nervously- "nor Elise, either, thinking back."

"You seldom speak of her," Van said. He scratched at his beard. "To a shepherd, I suppose, each of his sheep is special, even if they're nothing but bleating balls of wool to the likes of you or me."

"I know that's so," Gerin said, warming to the discussion. "I've seen it with my own eyes. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? The better you know the members of a class, the less typical of the class they seem. Does that mean there really isn't any such thing as `the common herd of women'?"

"Don't know if I'd go so far," Van answered. "Next thing, you'll be saying there's no such thing as a common grain of sand or a common stalk of wheat, when any fool can see there is."

"A lot of times, the things any fool can see are the things only a fool would believe," Gerin said. "If you looked hard enough, I daresay you could find differences between grains of sand or stalks of wheat."

"Oh, you could, maybe," Van allowed, "but why would you bother?"

A question like that, intended to dismiss a subject, often started Gerin thinking harder. So here; he said, "I can't tell you why you might want to know one grain of sand from another, but if you could tell which stalk of wheat would yield twice as much as the others, wouldn't you want to do that?"

"You have me, Fox," his friend said. "If I could do that, I would. I can't, not by looking. Can you?"

"No, though I wish I could." Gerin paused. "I wonder if I could make a magic to see that. Maybe with barley, not wheat: Baivers god of barley knows I've never scanted him, and he might lend me aid. That would be a sorcery worth taking risks for, if I could bring it off."

He wondered if he knew enough, or could learn enough here in the northlands, even to plan such a spell. Or rather, he started to wonder; Geroge's formidable yawn distracted him. The monster said, "I'm bored, sitting around here. Can we go back to the keep now?"

"Aye, we can." Gerin climbed to his feet. "In fact, we'd better, so we're there before sunset. With the deer, we have enough for a decent offering for the ghosts, but you don't want to use such things if you don't have to."

They tied the carcass to a sapling, which they took turns shouldering by pairs as they carried it to the chariot waiting at the edge of the woods. The car had been crowded for four, and was all the more crowded for four plus a gutted deer, but Fox Keep wasn't far.

When they got back, a stranger waited in the courtyard. No, not quite a stranger; after a moment, Gerin identified him: "You're Authari Broken-Tooth, aren't you? One of Ricolf the Red's vassals?"

"Your memory is good, lord prince," the newcomer said, bowing. "I am Authari." When he opened his mouth to speak, you could see the front tooth that gave him his sobriquet. "But I am not Ricolf the Red's vassal. I came here to tell you, Ricolf has died."

IV

"But he can't have done that," Gerin exclaimed: looking back on it, surely one of the more foolish things he'd ever said. Authari was polite enough not to point that out; Authari, whatever else he was, was usually polite. Gerin recovered his wits and went on, "I am in your debt for bringing me the news. You will, of course, stay the night and sup with me."

"I will, lord prince, and thank you," Authari said, bowing again. "It happened four days ago now. He was drinking a cup of ale when he said he had a headache. The cup fell out of his hand and he slid off the bench. He never woke up again, and half a day later he was dead."

"Worse ways to go," the Fox remarked, and Authari nodded. Like most men, both of them had seen a great many worse ways. But that was not the point of this visit, and Gerin knew it. "The succession to his barony-"

Authari coughed. "Just so, lord prince: the succession to his barony. Several of Ricolf's vassals banded together and bade me tell you-"

"Tell me what?" Gerin said, his voice deceptively mild. "What have you and your fellow vassals of Ricolf's to tell me? In law, his heir is surely my son Duren, as he has no sons of his own living."

"Were you still wed to his daughter Elise, lord prince, no one would contest Duren's right of succession," Authari replied. The Fox did not believe that for an instant, but waited for the minor noble to go on. After a moment, Authari did: "By her own actions, though, if tales be true, Elise severed her connection with you. And Duren has been raised here, not in the holding of Ricolf the Red. But for the thin tie of blood, we keepholders have no reason to feel any special loyalty toward your son, and would sooner see one of our own number installed in Ricolf's place."

"Of course you would," Gerin said, mildly still. "That way, when, a year and a half down the line, the rest of you decide you don't care for whichever of your number you've chosen, you can go to war against him with a clear conscience and make his holding as much a mess as Bevon's ever was."

"You misunderstand," Authari said in hurt tones. "That is not our concern at all. Our fear is having foisted upon us a youth who does not know the holding."

Gerin felt his patience leaking away like grains of sand-whether individually identifiable or not-between his fingers. "Your concern is, if Duren takes over Ricolf's holding, you'll all have to become my vassals as well as his. There-now it's out in the open."

"So it is." Authari sounded relieved-he hadn't had to come right out and say it himself. "No one denies you're a good man, lord prince, but we who served Ricolf value our freedom, as true men must."