Title: Late Introductions
Fandom: Eagle of the Ninth
Rating: G
Length: ~2000
Content notes: bad history invaded by were-creatures
Summary: that one where Cottia is actually a vixen


The last of the money from the Eagle's ransom ran out as the snowdrops began to bloom at the head of their little valley, somewhere in the freezing wet muddle of late winter and early spring just before the equinox. For a while, it didn't matter; between Esca's woodscraft and the thin remnants of the harvest, they ate well enough - there was a bit of grain still, and plenty of boar and deer that had 'til only recently been fat from a season of raiding Marcus's carefully planned fields.

Some days Esca cooked and some days Marcus did, though the results were much the same either way; and if there were times when Marcus missed Sassticca and thought of small sweet cakes forced into his hands, he said nothing; and if there were times when Esca tired of milium-and-boar and thought of oats and salt and fish, he said nothing either.

And so it went, their first winter under their own roof, and doubtless they would have held out until the first spring crops if Esca had not broken his leg slipping on ice while boar-hunting. It was a simple break, at least, and not so bad that he had not been able to get home with Cub's support.

Marcus had subdued the queasy, ill feeling that looking at it gave him long enough to get Esca's leg splinted, his own long-healed thigh aching sharply in sympathy. He was no surgeon, but he knew enough to do this.

"I think it should heal well," he said to Esca when it was done: not like mine went without voice. "Cleanly."

Esca was looking slightly paler than usual, his face pinched from the pain, but he nodded. "I left the spears," he said, voice slightly scratchy. Marcus passed him the wine; he drank gratefully, took a shivery breath. "And the boar."

And we'll need both, Marcus thought, returning the nod. "I will find them."

With only him hunting, without Esca's talent for tracking, it seemed likely they'd need to apply for a loan against the harvest - but there would be time to work out the numbers later. He settled Esca with wineskin and furs, leaving him looking like some Briton lord ensconced in his riches, and whistled for Cub as he went out.

He nearly tripped over the dead boar on the doorstep.

It was definitely Esca's boar - Marcus had learned to recognize the precise, careful killing blow his friend favored after these long months hunting alongside him - but it had most definitely not been there when Esca had staggered in before. And it was very definitely dead, though he thought he could probably be excused, in this situation, for prodding it with his toe first to be certain: stiff as a board and already field dressed. Behind it lay their hunting spears, stacked neatly into a pile. There was no sign of anyone else.

Marcus stood there for a long moment, door hanging open behind him, looking down at the inexplicable boar, until Esca called his name in concern.

He shook his head, trying to dislodge the disquieting feeling creeping up on him, leaned out into the snow which had begun to fall again in thick wet clumps, and called "Hello!"

When not even an echo answered him, he laid hold of the boar and dragged it inside, bringing the spears in after.

"Well," he said, looking at Esca, then back at the boar. "If we have neighbors, they might have helped you."

"They did," Esca said practically.



Between the two of them - Esca had seen it done before, and Marcus, for once, had better use of his legs - they managed to smoke most of the boar and eat the rest, stew by stew and roast by roast. The day the last of it was gone, Marcus came back from walking the fence line to find a very large hare, neatly gutted but with the fur still on, waiting for him in the snow by the door. He bent to look at it and nearly tripped in his haste to spin around as a flash of red caught his eye: a fox, backing around the corner of the house tail-first.

He watched in confusion as it cleared the edge of the house, the second hare it was dragging along - with its teeth clamped around a hind leg - now clearly visible. Behind him, Cub whimpered quietly, pressing himself against Marcus's calf more like a scared pup than the grown wolf he was.

The fox jumped at the noise, dropping the hare and spinning around in place to look up at him, coppery hackles rising. He stared back, speechless, both of them frozen in place. After a long moment, it - no, she: from this close he could tell she was no dog-fox - sniffed audibly, patted the carcass delicately with one coal-tipped forepaw, and whisked away around the corner again.



They were delicious.



"Esca," he said, as he tried to convince Cub (who had been rather nervous ever since that encounter) to eat the scraps, "what do you know about... foxes?" This was going to be an odd conversation, he felt, but a necessary one; that long-ago conversation with Hilarion swam at the back of his mind, reinforced by Esca's steady support through all the time they had spent north beyond the Wall. Perhaps they were not in Esca's home lands, but it was still Britain, and Esca was more like to know about the strangeness of the place than he was.

"Foxes?" Esca said from the couch where he spent most of his time lately, as besides the bed it was the only thing they had that was long enough to support his leg. "Too gamy and too bony to be worth hunting."

He had hoped Esca wasn't thinking of money and food, of the trouble that might be to come, but of course he was. Marcus poked a bit of congealed meat into Cub's mouth, ignoring the mournful, accusing stare he got for his troubles. "Could they be trained?" he asked. "Caught young and taught to hunt and retrieve - like a wolf pup?"

There was a soft hiss as Esca shifted position and jarred his leg; Marcus didn't press, gave him his space. "They might," he said eventually. "I once knew a man who had trained a weasel to chase rabbits down through their burrows. But why choose a fox when wolves are stronger and have less scent to scare the game?"

"I don't know," Marcus said, slapping Cub's shoulder affectionately as the wolf finally began to eat in earnest. "But someone brought your boar back, and the spears; and someone sent a fox to deliver the hares."

"You don't sound certain of that," Esca observed.

Marcus sighed, running a hand through his slightly winter-shaggy hair. "It was a fox - but..." Esca was watching him patiently, calmly, but it felt strange to discuss this out loud, in their close, warm house, to the everyday, ordinary sounds of Cub eating and the fire snapping. They had rarely even spoken of Esca's gods before, but there was nothing else to be done for it. "It seemed to know what it was doing. Esca, what if there is no neighbor? Can the druids change form as the Gods can?"

"I have never seen it," Esca said, which seemed to Marcus to be as close as his friend wished to get to saying that some mysteries were for initiates only. After a moment, though, he went on: "Is there any porridge left?"

"Some," Marcus said, a bit surprised.

"Leave a bowl out," Esca said, "tonight. By the door."



When they woke the next morning the porridge was gone and the bowl filled instead by a rather large pheasant, so freshly dead it was still floppy and warm when Marcus picked it up. And, when he looked, there was a pawprint in the hard-packed snow by the door - so clear and unmistakable that it must have been left on purpose.

He brought the pheasant in and let Cub out, conscious of Esca's eyes on him. The wolf skirted the fox print in the snow rather ostentatiously as he went out; Marcus shut the door behind him and carried the pheasant over to Esca. "Is it safe to eat?" They had already, of course, eaten the hares, but at the time he had not quite thought...

"Fairly traded for," Esca said, reaching out to gently stroke the feathers as if reassuring himself the bird was real. "But - Marcus - do you take a spear or my hunting-knife if you go out today."

Marcus's grip tightened. "Will I need to fight?"

Esca looked sideways at him, light eyes gone mysterious. "You should have iron with you," he said, and Marcus had to be content to leave it at that.



With such a mystery dangled in front of him and the answer possibly lurking just outside, there was no question of not going out. When he did, he took both knife and spear, but left Cub at home with Esca.

He was a soldier - or a farmer - not a woodsman or a tracker, but the pawprints in the snow were clear enough for even him to follow them, especially once he left the yard and ventured into untouched snow. Soon enough they led him into the woods and eventually to a thicket, forcing him to his knees to follow through a tunnel of bracken. It wasn't the first time he'd crawled along a fox track; though he couldn't say it was more desperate, it was definitely less comfortable. By the time he came through the brush into a small clearing in the woods on the other side, his thigh ached from the cold and wet and his braccae were soaked through with snowmelt.

At the end of the run, the fox's tracks were blotted out by a snapped branch and the load of snow that had fallen from it. Marcus cursed under his breath, straightening and looking around. There was a small, mostly-frozen creek at the far edge, the babble of water muted by ice. He brushed the snow from his clothes and hair as he crossed towards it: he might be able to pick up the tracks again by the water. If there were none, he could set out for home, but it was worth a look.

He had not thought to look up, though perhaps he should have. When a whistle sounded from above him, he stumbled in surprise, nearly tripping, and might have fallen headlong into the ice if he hadn't caught himself on a nearby tree. He looked up, saw a familiar flash of color between dark needles, had just enough time to think, surprised, a fox climbing trees?

Then a girl was standing before him, having swung quite carelessly out of the pine, barefoot and in a simple tunic despite the snow thick on the ground. Her hair was a brilliant, unmistakable red, but she did not give him much time to stare. "I thought you'd never look up," she said. "I have waited a long time for you."

"You have?" Marcus asked, feeling the control of the situation rather slipping away from him.

She smiled suddenly, and there was no denying the vixen in her face, either. "I have," she said. "Marcus Aquila. You prefer it to Demetrius?"

They had lived there long enough that anyone might have overheard Esca calling him by his own name - but the other? "How..." he began, only to be interrupted.

The girl flicked her hair over her shoulder, meeting his eyes boldly, fearlessly. "I told you - I have waited a long time." His confusion must have been obvious, as she clarified without asking: "Since Calleva."

Had Esca known? Marcus wondered. Had they followed her through that furze?

If they had, surely they owed her a greater debt - whatever she was - than had been repaid by a simple bowl of milium. "Well," he said. "Will you come back with me now...?"

She grinned again, widely, her teeth too sharp, too pointed - but to his eyes it looked like all mischief and no real harm. "I will."