He hopped down off the stump. A very pretty Trokm- girl with red-gold hair handed him a dipper of ale. He poured it down. When he gave the dipper back, he noticed how bright a blue her eyes were, what moist, inviting lips she had, just how snugly her linen tunic fit over firm young breasts. He was meant to notice; in what seemed more a purr than a voice, she said, "A king, is it? What might it be like, to sleep with a king?"

"If you ever come to Fox Keep, you can ask my wife," he told her. She stared at him. Those blue, blue eyes went hard as stone, cold as ice. She flounced off. He counted himself lucky she hadn't crowned him with the dipper.

"You're a wasteful man, Fox," Van said. "The gods don't make 'em that good-looking every day."

"I'll survive," Gerin said, "and I won't have any crockery thrown at me when I get home, which is more than I can say for you."

"You mean Fand?" Van said. Gerin nodded. The outlander rolled his eyes. "She'd throw things at me whether I futtered other women on the road or not, so the way I see it is, I might as well."

That sort of reasoning would have sent a Sithonian sophist running for cover. It sent Gerin looking for another dipper of ale, with luck one from a serving girl not quite so anxious to try him on for size just because he was wearing a fancy new title. He sighed, a little. Van was right: she had been very pretty.

A sentry up on the palisade peered out at the approaching force of chariotry. "Who comes to Fox Keep?" he called.

He knew the answer to that question. Gerin had sent messengers ahead with news of what he'd done. Nevertheless, he answered, loudly and proudly: "Gerin the Fox, king of the north."

"Enter your keep, lord king!" the sentry shouted. The rest of the men on the palisade erupted in cheers, cheers that soon echoed from within the keep as well. The drawbridge thudded down. Gerin tapped Duren on the shoulder. His son drove him over the drawbridge and into the courtyard.

He hopped out of the chariot then, and embraced Selatre. She said, "I hoped this would happen one day. I'm so glad it has, and so proud of you."

"I thought it might happen one day," Gerin answered, "though I never expected Adiatunnus to be the one to proclaim my rank. Up until the Gradi grew to be serious trouble, I thought killing him would likely be what made folk style me king."

Rihwin the Fox came over and set his hands on his hips. "For your information," he said loftily, "I find this ever-swelling titulature of yours in questionable taste." Then, grinning, he clasped Gerin's hand.

"You're impossible," Gerin told his fellow Fox. Rihwin's mouth opened. Gerin beat him to the punch line: "Bloody implausible, anyhow."

"The king!" Geroge shouted. The monster, still short a fang, held up a jack of ale in salute. "The king!"

One more feast, Gerin thought. One more big feast and I can send my vassals back to their own keeps and let them eat their own food. The fields past which he'd ridden on the way back to Fox Keep looked to have good crops coming in. He hoped they would; that would let him begin to rebuild his stores, which were painfully low. If his vassals had good harvests, too, they might even be able to send grain west to the lands across the Venien, which had had such a dose of Gradi-style weather that their fields were unlikely to yield much this year.

Then the Fox stopped worrying so much about the fields and the harvest. Dagref, Clotild, and Blestar came rushing out of the great hall and swarmed over him and Duren. "I want to hear everything that happened after you left," Dagref said. "I want you to tell it to me now, in order, so I don't get anything mixed up."

"I'm sure you want that," Gerin said, hugging his eldest by Selatre. He was also sure that, having heard everything once, Dagref would be able to correct him on details for years afterwards. And the boy would be right, too, almost every time: Dagref could be quite alarming. Gerin went on, "I'll tell you everything soon, maybe even tomorrow. Right now I want to-I need to-spend time with my vassals."

"It's not fair," Dagref protested. "You'll start to forget things."

"It'll be all right," Clotild told him. "Papa has a pretty good memory-most of the time," she added with a small sniff.

"Papa!" Blestar said happily. "Papa!" Gerin hugged him, too. He wasn't finding fault with his father: probably, though, for no better reason than that he was too young.

Selatre gave Gerin a jack of ale. He poured a small libation down onto the ground and said, "Thank you, lord Baivers." As with the battle cries there in the woods not far from the ocean, he had no idea whether the god of barley and brewing heard or was still too busy fighting the Gradi gods to pay any attention to mere mortals. He didn't care. He was grateful, and willing-no, eager-to show it.

He went through the keep-into the great hall, back out to the courtyard-several times, drinking, eating, clapping his vassals and their vassals on the back and telling them how splendidly they had fought, something which, in most cases, had the virtue of being true. They were doing much the same thing themselves, though less systematic in their mingling. He got called "lord king" often enough to begin to get used to the new title, even if he still wondered what Aragis the Archer would do in response to his wearing it.

Night fell. So many torches burned, people hardly seemed to notice. And then, here and there-on benches in the great hall, in quiet corners of the courtyard-the warriors who had returned to Fox Keep with him began falling asleep. Gerin remembered wishing he could sleep for three days after that fight in the woods. He was still far, far behind, and likely would be for… oh, the next twenty years, if he lived so long.

Not far away from him, Fand demanded of Van, "And how many wenches were you after sleeping with this time?" She sounded half-drunk and more than half-dangerous.

To Gerin's horror, Van, who had drunk a good deal himself, began counting on his fingers to make sure he got things right. "Seven, it was," he announced at last, as proud of his precision as Dagref might have been.

"It's an old man you're turning into," Fand told him. "You said a dozen the last time." Her voice rose to a screech: "Keep your breeches on, curse you!" She dashed her jack of ale into his face. Dripping and sputtering, he roared at her. She roared back, even louder.

Gerin's head started to ache. He looked around for his children. The younger ones, along with Van's son and daughter, were curled up on the rushes not far from the doorway to the great hall, but well away from the path people used to go in and out. Someone had spread a couple of wool blankets over them. They were fine where they were; he saw no point to waking them up and taking them to their bed. They might not fall asleep again for half the night.

He didn't see Duren at all. That probably meant his eldest was finding a way to celebrate his return that would have made his wife shout as Fand was shouting at Van. Since he didn't have a wife, though…

The Fox did see Selatre. With Dagref, Clotild, and Blestar conveniently asleep, he also saw an opportunity. He caught her eye, then glanced toward the stairway that led up to their bedchamber. She smiled and nodded.

With only the two of them in it, the bed seemed uncommonly large, uncommonly luxurious. Making love without having to hurry or to worry about the children waking up at an inconvenient moment seemed uncommonly luxurious, too.

Afterwards, Gerin thought of the pretty Trokm- girl who hadn't managed to tempt him into imitating Van. Chuckling, he told Selatre the story, then asked her, "What might it be like, to sleep with a king?"

"I," she said, "like it."