The angry Elabonian whirled. "And what do you know about it, you interfering old polecat's twat?" he snarled, apparently not caring how many enemies he made.
The newcomer strode toward him. He was a tall, lean man of perhaps forty, with a forward-thrusting face, a proud beak of a nose, and dark, chilly eyes that put Gerin in mind of a hunting hawk's. He said, "I'd be the fool if I didn't make it my business to learn all I could of Gerin the Fox. I am Grand Duke Aragis, also called the Archer."
The angry color drained from the face of the impatient warrior as he realized he'd caught himself between the two strongest men in the northlands. With a last muttered curse, he stomped out of the temple, though he took care to step wide around Aragis.
"Well met," Gerin said. He and Aragis were rivals, but not open enemies.
"Well met," Aragis answered. He turned his intent gaze on the Fox. "I should have thought I might find you here. After word of your son, are you?"
"Aye," Gerin said stonily. "And you?"
"On business of my own," Aragis said.
"Which is none of my business," Gerin suggested. Aragis nodded—once; he was not a man given to excess. Gerin said, "Have it as you wish. Whatever your question is, you may not be able to put it to the Sibyl, any more than that big-mouthed ruffian was."
"Why not?" Aragis asked suspiciously. The idea that Gerin should know something he didn't seemed to offend him.
Before the Fox could answer, the two priests who had gone down to see how the Sibyl fared came back up into the temple. They carried her between them, her face white and her arms dangling limply toward the ground. "Does she live?" Gerin called to them in some alarm.
"Good sir, she does," one of the eunuchs answered. "But since her senses do not return to her, we'll take her to her own dwelling"—he nodded his head to show in which direction from the shrine that lay—"and minister to her there. At the very least, she can rest more comfortably in her bed than in the underground chamber. Surely, though, the lord Biton will aid in her recovery." That would have come out better had it sounded more like assertion and less like prayer.
"Why should the lord Biton care?" Van asked, blunt as always. "Down below there, he sounded like he was getting out of the prophecy game."
"You rave, good sir, and tread the edge of blasphemy as well," the priest answered. He looked for support to Kinifor, who had heard the Sibyl's last prophecy.
The eunuch who had accompanied Gerin and Van made a strange snuffling sound, almost one a horse would produce, as he blew air out through his lips. Slowly, he said, "The verses may lend themselves to the interpretation proposed. Other interpretations, however, must be more probable."
Even such a halfhearted admission was enough to shock the other two priests. Clucking to themselves, they carried the unconscious Sibyl away.
Kinifor said, "I begin to fear there will be no further communing with the lord Biton this day. Perhaps everyone here would be well advised to return to his inn, there to await the Sibyl's return to health. We shall send word directly that occurs, and shall seek no further fee for your inquiries."
"You'd better not." Aragis put as much menace into three words as Gerin had ever heard. "And if the wench ups and dies, I expect my silver back."
The eunuch twisted his hand in a gesture to turn aside the evil omen. "The lord Biton would not summon two Sibyls to himself in such a short span of time," he said, but his words, like the other priest's, lacked confidence.
People filed out of the shrine, muttering and grumbling to themselves. Kinifor went out to let those who waited in the courtyard know they would be disappointed in their hope for an oracular response. Their replies, like those in the temple, ranged from curious to furious.
With rough humor, Aragis turned to Gerin. "What did you ask her, anyway, to put her in such a swivet? To marry you?"
Gerin growled down deep in his throat and took a step toward the Archer. Unlike the fellow who'd started to move on him, though, he mastered himself. "I ought to just tell you it's none of your cursed business," he said, "but since you already know why I'm here, what's the point? I asked after my son, as you've figured out for yourself."
"That's a bad business," Aragis answered. "The whoreson who did it may come to me, seeking advantage from it. By Dyaus, if he does, I'll run up a cross for him, and you'll have the boy back fast as horses can run. I swear it."
"If it happens so, I'll be in your debt," the Fox said. "I'd be lying if I told you the idea that you had something to do with it was never in my mind."
Aragis scowled. "Because we're the two biggest, we circle round each other like a couple of angry dogs—I don't trust you, either, as you know full well. But I did not have my hand in this, and I will not seek to profit from it, come what may. Would you, were it my lad?"
"I hope not," Gerin said. Aragis chewed on that, then slowly nodded. He looked sincere, but his face, as Gerin had already seen, showed what he willed it to, not necessarily what he felt. That was useful for a ruler, as Gerin knew—his own features were similarly schooled.
Van said, "All right, Archer, if you don't care to circle and watch and not trust, suppose you do tell us why you came up to Ikos, so long as it's not life or death for your holding that we know."
For a moment, Aragis was nonplussed. Gerin hadn't been sure he could be. Then his usual watchful expression returned as he considered the outlander's words. At last he said, "Fair enough, I suppose. I rode here because I've had bad dreams; I hoped—I hope still—the Sibyl could put meaning to them."
"What sort of dreams?" Gerin's curiosity was as dependable as the changing phases of the moons.
Aragis hesitated again, perhaps not caring to show a rival any weakness. But after another pause for thought, he murmured, "If I can't understand them, you bloody well won't, either." He raised his voice to answer the Fox: "They've been filled with horrid things, monsters, call them what you will, overrunning my lands—overrunning the rest of the northlands, too, for all I could tell." He grimaced and shook his head, as if talking about the visions made him see them again.
"I too have had this dream," Gerin said slowly.
"And I," Van agreed.
"And the innkeeper from whom we've taken rooms," Gerin said. "I did not like the omen when it was Van and I alone. Now with four—" He checked himself. "Four I know of, I should say—I like it even less."
"Wherever else we rub, Fox, I'll not argue with you there." Aragis ran a hand down to the point of his graying beard. "Did the Sibyl say anything to you of this before she had her fit? What verse did she speak?"
"Why don't you ask him how big his is, as long as you're snooping?" Van said.
Like most men, Aragis seemed a stripling when set against the burly outlander. But he had no retreat in him. He reached for the sword that hung on his belt. Before Van could grab any of the lethal hardware he carried, Gerin held up a hand. "Hold, both of you," he said. "Aragis, you know what the question was. The answer has nothing to do with you, so I can give it without fear you'll gain from it." He repeated the oracular response.
Aragis listened intently, still rubbing his chin and now and then plucking at his beard. When Gerin was done, the other noble gave a grudging nod. "Aye, that's nought to do with me, and might even hold good news about Duren mixed in there. But what of the rest? I've never heard—or heard of—a reply so filled with doom. No wonder the Sibyl wouldn't wake up after she delivered it."
"I wonder if it's got summat to do with the dreams we've had," Van said.