"You will, with that way of looking at them," Gerin told him. He studied his son's back as the chariot rattled along. Duren was starting to do his own thinking, not coming to the Fox for every answer. He's becoming a man, Gerin thought, bemused, but he took it for a good sign.

They came to the keep that had for so many years been Ricolf's as the sun was sliding down the western sky. Elleb had grown to a plump waxing crescent, while Nothos, at first quarter, hung like half a coin a little east of south. Tiwaz had swelled in the past three days to halfway between quarter and full, and was climbing toward the southeastern part of the sky.

"Who comes to this castle?" the watchman called, and Gerin felt a jar inside him at hearing Ricolf's name omitted from the challenge. Approaching Ricolf's keep gave him an odd feeling these days anyhow: old memories twisted and stirred and muttered in his ear like the night spirits, fighting to be understood once more in the world of the living. Here he had met Elise, here he had spirited her away south of the High Kirs, here on returning he had bedded her, here after beating Balamung he had returned and claimed her for his wife.

And she was gone now, and had been gone for most of the time since then, and taken a piece of his spirit with her when she went. And so, for all the happiness he'd found since with Selatre, coming here was like poking at a scar that, while it had healed on the surface, remained sore down below. It probably would be, so long as he lived.

But change came along with memory. He answered the watchman: "I am Gerin, called the Fox, come with my son Duren who is also the grandson of Ricolf the Red to discuss the succession to this holding with Authari Broken-Tooth and whichever of Ricolf's vassal barons he may have summoned hither."

"You are welcome here, lord Gerin," the sentry said. He could hardly have failed to know who the Fox was, but the forms had to be observed. With a rattle of chains, the drawbridge lowered so Gerin and his companions could cross over the moat and enter the keep. Unlike Gerin's, Ricolf's ditch had water in it, making it a better ward for the castle.

Ricolf's men stared down from the walls at Gerin and the small chariot army he'd brought with him. In the failing light, he had trouble reading their faces. Did they think him ally or usurper? Even if he could not tell now, he'd find out soon enough.

Authari came out of the great hall along with several other men who wore authority like a cloak. Authari bowed, well-mannered as usual. "I greet you, lord prince." His eyes swung to Duren. "And you as well, grandson of the lord who held my homage and fealty."

He conceded Duren nothing. Gerin had expected as much. Duren said, "Dyaus and the other gods grant you give me vassalage as good as my grandfather got from you."

Gerin admired his son's self-possession. It seemed to startle Authari, but he quickly rallied, saying, "That is what we have gathered here to decide." He gave his attention back to Gerin. "Lord prince, I present to you Hilmic Barrelstaves, Wacho Fidus' son, and Ratkis Bronzecaster, who with me are-were-Ricolf's chiefest vassals."

Hilmic Barrelstaves was short and stocky, with bowed legs that had probably given him his ekename. A streak of white ran through his black hair, almost like a horse's blaze. The end of a scar that must have seamed his scalp just showed on his forehead. Gerin had seen cases like that before, where hair grew in pale along the length of a healed wound.

Wacho, by contrast, could have been a Trokm- from his looks; he was tall and blond and ruddy, with pale eyes above knobby cheekbones and a long, thin nose. Ratkis seemed an ordinary Elabonian till you noticed his hands, which were callused and scarred, probably from the craft from which he derived his sobriquet.

As with Authari, Gerin knew them, but not well. They greeted him as equal to equal, which was technically correct-till Ricolf had a successor they acknowledged, they were their own men-but struck the Fox as arrogant all the same. He let it go. Power still lay with him.

"Shall we start the wrangle now, or wait till after supper?" Authari asked once the greetings were done.

"No wrangle," Gerin answered. "Two things can happen. First, you can accept Duren as your baron straightaway-"

"We won't," Wacho said, and Hilmic nodded emphatic agreement. Neither Authari nor Ratkis backed Wacho by word or gesture. That disconcerted him; he choked down whatever he might have been about to add and instead asked, "What's the other thing?"

"We wait to see what the Sibyl at Ikos says," Gerin told him. "If Biton says Duren is to rule here, rule he will, and nothing you try to do about it will change things a bit. And if the god says he's not meant to be your baron, he'll go back to Fox Keep with me. Where's the wrangle in any of that? Or don't you agree to the terms Authari and I settled on?" Without changing his voice in any easily describable way, he let Wacho know disagreeing with those terms would not be a good idea.

Ratkis spoke for the first time: "The terms are fair, lord prince. More than fair: you could have brought a real army with you, not a guard, and installed the lad in this keep by force. But sometimes, when Biton speaks through the Sibyl, what he means isn't clear till long afterwards. Life's not always simple. What do we do if it's complicated here?"

Gerin almost grabbed him by the hand and swore friendship with him for life for nothing more than recognizing that ambiguity could exist. To most men in the northlands, something was either good, in which case it was perfection, or bad, in which case it was abomination. The Fox supposed that made keeping track of things simple, but simplicity was not always a virtue.

"Here's what I have in mind," he said. "If anyone thinks the Sibyl's verse can have more than one meaning, even if interpreted with all possible goodwill, then we put it to the four of you on the one hand and Duren, Van, the lady Selatre, and me on the other. Whoever has the most backers among those eight will see his view prevail."

"And if the eight of us divide evenly?" Authari asked.

"The four of you against the four of us, you mean?" Gerin said.

"That seems likeliest," Authari answered.

The Fox was about to reply, but Duren spoke first, his voice for once man-deep, not cracking at all: "Then we go to war, and edged bronze will tell who has the better right."

"I was about to say the same thing," Gerin said, "but my son-Ricolf's grandson, I remind you once more-put it better than I could hope to do." He didn't add that he wanted a war with Ricolf's vassals about as much as he wanted an outbreak of pestilence in the village by Fox Keep.

"If we go to war, Aragis the Archer will-" Wacho began.

"No, Aragis the Archer won't," Gerin interrupted. "Oh, Aragis may choose to fight me over Ricolf's holding here, but he won't be doing it for you and he won't do you any good. I'll have beaten you before his men get this far north, I promise you that. A bear and a longtooth may quarrel over the carcass of a deer, but it doesn't matter to the deer any more, because it's already dead."

Hilmic Barrelstaves scowled at him. "I knew it was going to be like this. You come down here and threaten us-"

"By all the gods, I've gone out of my way not to threaten you," Gerin shouted, clapping a hand to his forehead. When he lost his temper, he usually did it for effect. Now he was perilously close to losing it in truth. "We could overrun this holding: Ratkis said as much. You know it, I know it, any half-witted one-eyed dog sniffing through rubbish down by the shore of the Orynian Ocean knows it, too. Instead of that, I proposed letting Biton decide. If that didn't satisfy you, I proposed a way to solve the difficulty. And if you won't heed the god and you won't heed men, sirrah, you deserve to have your thick head knocked in."