by Susan Price
Gareth, with the slightest nod of the head toward this man and woman, whispered, “Lord Brackenhill. Mistress Crosar.”
There was, Andrea saw, a sword hanging at Lord Brackenhill’s side. And several more swords to be seen among his followers. At the back of the crowd men were leaning lances together, like wigwam frames. She said to Windsor, “You’re not going to let them in armed?”
He raised his brows. “Why not?”
“They’d be insulted,” Gareth said irritably, “if we asked them to hand over their weapons.” He resented her implication that he’d organized things badly.
“The Sterkarms and the Grannams?” Andrea said. “Armed? Drinking? There’ll be murder done.”
“They’re big boys,” Windsor said. “They can look after themselves.”
And now the Grannam party was advancing toward the door. They walked slowly, with dignity, but even so could not prevent their eyes from darting about when they entered the building and saw the abundance of flowers and the twinkling white lights. There was astonishment on many faces, though those at the head of the procession suppressed it quickly.
Richard Grannam, Lord Brackenhill himself, was a tall, lean, and expensively dressed man. His long horse face, weathered to a dark brown with roughened, reddened cheeks, was set in a grim expression, with deep grooves making a permanent frown on his forehead. He had a neatly trimmed gray beard, but the hair on his head was hidden by a floppy blue beret, trimmed with a feather. A cloak of thick green cloth was thrown back on his shoulders to show its fur lining, and his russet jacket had ornamental slashes on the chest and sleeves, to show the quality of the linen shirt he wore underneath. His breeches, also russet, were loose and baggy, to show how much material he could afford to use, and below them he wore wide, black leather riding boots. He was one who rode, not one who walked. His sword hung from an embroidered baldric slung across his shoulder. The men immediately behind him, his private guard, all wore weapons.
Windsor, smiling blandly, held out his hand in greeting. Fortunately, the piper, finding himself in disharmonious competition with the squalling soprano, stopped playing, so people were able to hear themselves speak. Lord Brackenhill clasped hands with Windsor without removing his embroidered gauntlets. Nor did he smile. “Dey glayder migh a sae thu,” he said.
“It gladdens me to see you,” Andrea translated automatically, as if she’d never left 16th side and never stopped doing her job. Richard Grannam, Lord Brackenhill, didn’t make any attempt to look glad, though he had used the respectful “you” rather than the familiar “thee,” so he at least acknowledged Windsor as an equal, if not a superior.
“Dey glayder migh,” Windsor said, and Andrea was surprised that he had bothered to learn even so much of the 16th-side dialect.
Mistress Crosar, who stood beside her brother, was almost as tall, but a little heavier set. Her hair was hidden completely under a cap. Beneath it her face was also long and horsy, but though it was a little touched by the sun, it was neither as brown nor as weathered as his. Her cloak was blue, and as she made a slight curtsey to Windsor, it parted and showed a black dress beneath. She glanced at Andrea disapprovingly, looked Windsor right in the eye, and spoke to him. She didn’t smile.
“She says that she is delighted to meet you again, and that they owe you thanks,” Andrea said. Mistress Crosar seemed neither delighted nor thankful.
Windsor repeated his “Dey glayder migh,” and Andrea thought it was time to offer gifts. So she held out a shiny gold bag to Lord Brackenhill and, hastily snatching a shiny red bag from the table, offered it to Mistress Crosar with a big smile. “You are well come,” she said. “We hope you will no gan early away, and this will make sure that you gan no empty-handed.”
Brackenhill and Mistress Crosar turned their eyes on her. With unsmiling faces they stared at her as she spoke. They seemed to be wondering who she was, and why she thought she had any right to speak to them. What did I say that was so bad? Andrea wondered. If these were the Grannams, no wonder the Sterkarms didn’t like them.
When she finished speaking, Brackenhill deliberately shifted his eyes from her to Windsor, while Mistress Crosar continued to stare at her, as if unable to believe quite how lowly she was. Neither of them attempted to take the gift bags. Reaching a hand behind him, Brackenhill said, “May I present my daughter?”
Oh no! Andrea thought as her face flushed. She had jumped in and rudely interrupted the introductions. Hastily she translated what Brackenhill had said and watched as he drew forward one of the girls whom she’d taken for a maid. It’s understandable, she thought—the girl was wrapped in a black, hooded cloak and hung her head as if trying to disappear.
Joan Grannam, keeping her face lowered and her hood over her head, curtseyed to Windsor, who bowed slightly in return. As the girl curtseyed, her cloak parted—it was velvet, Andrea now saw—and there was a glimpse of the splendid dress beneath, of a shining metallic scarlet, glittering with sequins. Twenty-first-century cloth and 21st-century, machine-made sequins, obviously a gift from Windsor. A gaudy frock by 21st-century taste, perhaps, but here, 16th side, there was nothing like it. People would walk twenty miles across moorland in the rain just to see that dress. It would be woven into fireside tales. Catskins, a local Cinderella, would from now on go to church in a dress like that.
As the girl rose from her curtsey, Mistress Crosar reached out and brushed the hood of the black cloak from the girl’s head, in what might have been an affectionate gesture. The girl’s hair was long and primrose fair, partly bound into plaits and partly loose, to signify that she was still unmarried. For a moment Joan raised her head, glancing toward her aunt, and Andrea saw that she was tall, and very beautiful indeed. No wonder Gareth was smitten.
Joan’s small round head perched, with lovely poise, on a long, graceful neck. Her face was an oval, with high cheekbones, large eyes, and a soft, naturally red mouth. She could have been no older than fifteen, at most, and her skin was absolutely unlined, unblemished, moist and shining.
“I be honored to meet you, Mistress Grannam,” Andrea said, trying to make good her mistake. “May I congratulate you and wish you every good tiding for this day?”
Joan looked at her directly for a moment. Her eyes were clear, huge and white and blue. “Thanks shall you have,” she murmured, before her cheeks turned a delicate foxglove pink, and she lowered her face again. With her height, her slenderness, and that lovely face, Andrea thought, the editors of 21st-side magazines would have fist fought for the right to put her on their covers.
“Be so kind,” Andrea pressed. “Take a bag. There be gifts inside. Take red one—to match your beautiful dress.”
Joan Grannam looked up momentarily, took the offered bag, and looked at the floor again. But then Mistress Crosar took the other bag.
While Andrea turned to Gareth for more bags, Brackenhill turned to a man who stood beside him: a small, stocky man with a close-trimmed beard, dressed all in black except for a small frill of white shirt at his neck. “This,” said Brackenhill, “is Father Nicholas, my priest.”
Andrea quickly translated what Brackenhill had said for Windsor.
“It gladdens me, Father Nicholas,” Windsor said, holding out his hand.
The priest ignored the proffered hand. Instead, he crossed himself and glowered. “I am here,” he said, “to wed couple, not to consort with Elven.”
Andrea glanced at Lord Brackenhill and his sister, but they were blandly staring about at the tables and flowers, apparently content for their priest to be so blatantly rude to their hosts. Windsor was looking at her questioningly, and she saw no choice except to translate what the priest had said.
“Please yourself, God Botherer,” Windsor said in his own language. Andrea offered a gift bag to the priest, who pointedly looked away. Lord Brackenhill, perhaps as a sign of graciousness to make up for his priest’s boorishness, took the bag hi
mself.
“Be so kind,” Andrea said, “gan your way in and—be at home. This be all for your comfort. Be so good.”
Without another word, or a look, Brackenhill, his sister, his daughter, and his priest went on into the hall, looking about them at the long tables, the flowers and lights.
The Grannams who came behind them were not so reserved. They happily accepted their gift bags and peered into them, exclaiming in pleasure at the little gifts they found inside. They gaped at the tables, at the high roof, at the massed flowers. Whispering to one another, they felt the flowers and argued about whether they were real or not. Others fingered the glittery beads that made up the curtain. Andrea wondered how many of the decorations would be left when the guests departed.
She heard Gareth’s headset crackle again. “The Sterkarms,” he said to Windsor.
Andrea’s heartbeat quickened. Per was here. She looked around and saw that the Grannam party was well into the hall, admiring the glass and china on the tables. Obviously, they were going to take no part in greeting the Sterkarms.
“Well then, Andrea,” Windsor said. “Try not to screw it up this time.”
But all Andrea could think was: I’ll soon be seeing Per!
4
16th Side: The Wedding Ride
“Oh, birds were a-singing in bushes and trees,
And song that they sang was ‘She’s easy to please!’”
“Tha’d better hope she will be, Per!”
“Best not drink too much!”
Standing in his stirrups for a moment, Per called back, “Ach, she’s nobbut a Grannam! She’ll think hersen lucky to get a Sterkarm man!”
There was laughter, and hooting. “Think thasen a man?”
In the first bright morning light the Sterkarm wedding ride trotted along a high moorland track, through bright-green pads of moss and grass, and pink-and-purple heather. On either side of the long column, at its head, and behind, rode armed men wearing helmets blackened with soot and carrying eight-foot lances. A wedding party, with guests dressed in their finest, was a good target for an attack. But brightly colored ribbons fluttered from the lances, and red cockades were bright on the helmets.
Behind the armed men rode two bagpipers, pumping their elbows and playing as they rode along. Toorkild Sterkarm rode behind the pipers, with his wife, Isobel, pillion behind him. Per rode beside him. Behind them came Toorkild’s brother, Gobby Per, and riding beside him his eldest son, Little Toorkild, with his young wife pillion. Next came Gobby’s youngest sons, Wat and Ingram, and then, behind them, various guests from other Sterkarm towers and bastle houses, some of them carrying children on their saddlebows, while others had youngsters riding beside them on ponies.
After them rode such officials of their households as had horses to ride: blacksmiths, head shepherds and cattlemen, and Sweet Milk, Toorkild’s right-hand man. In a long raggle-taggle at the back came all those who hadn’t horses: small farmers and their wives, maids, shepherds, some carrying children in their arms, or on their shoulders, or leading them by the hand. Gangs of children ran alongside the procession or chased one another through the ferns beside the paths.
The ride was itself a sight worth walking a few miles to see, and people stood waiting along the way. They pointed out Per Sterkarm, the May, not only because he was the bridegroom, but because of the Elvish clothes he wore. “He’s been into Elf-Land, him—and come back to tell tale.”
Every horse was decked with ribbons and flowers, while the guests were dressed in their brightest colors. Gold and amber jewelry flashed. Per’s two big gazehounds, Swart and Cuddy, loped beside his horse, with wreaths of leaves and flowers twisted around their collars.
The pipers shifted into another tune:
“Oh, canst tha find cuckoo’s nest
That’s hidden in prickly bush, prickly bush?
Oh, canst tha find cuckoo’s nest
That be hidden there?”
With cheers and laughter the ride took up the song and bellowed it out, though the sound was quickly lost in the vast moorland.
“Canst find cuckoo’s nest, Per?”
“Scared to put thy hand in that prickly bush?”
Per put back his head and laughed aloud, not because the ancient jokes were good, but because he was in a high mood. He turned his horse out of the procession and rode back along it. No sooner had he done so than Ingram, his youngest cousin, maneuvered his own horse out of the crowd and rode after him. His brothers, Wat and Little Toorkild, looked at each other and smiled. Whatever Per did, Ingram had to do.
Per called out to the procession, “I’ve put a few cuckoos in a few nests! Shall I name my cuckoos?”
Clods were thrown at him. He kicked up Fowl, his thickset black hob, and rode all the way around the procession, with Ingram, laughing, close behind him, and back to his place at the ride’s head. People cheered him as they went by, waving and—if they were women—blowing kisses. Everyone was in a good mood. Because of Per and his wedding day, they were all to enjoy a whole day of eating and drinking, and dancing and music, without work. Much of the food would be Grannam food, too. It would add extra relish to know they were emptying the Grannam larders.
Per could hardly keep a grin from his face. Marriage was not something he’d hankered for, but every man had to marry sooner or later—and this marriage brought with it such wealth and land that it would be worth it. The favor of the Elves, too, was part of the bargain—he would be famous as the Sterkarm who went into Elf-Land and married a Grannam! And, at the day’s end, he’d be put to bed with the Grannam girl. Then he could truly show the Grannams who came on top.
Better still, Elf-Windsor might keep his promise and bring along the beautiful Elf-Maid. There was bound to be some time—either before or after he was bedded with his bride—when he could try for the Elf-Maid. She’d liked him when he’d met her in Elf-Land. Courting her on his wedding day would be difficult, but then, that would make it more fun. The Grannams wouldn’t see the joke—but that was Grannams for you.
The ride wound its way down a hillside, and the Elf-Palace came into view. The ride slowed as people stared, and those on foot came crowding forward, to stand and jostle as they pointed and exclaimed. Two days before, there had been nothing there except empty hillside. Now, great, domed, bulbous, silvery buildings glittered against the soft greens and tawnies of the moor. Eerie, shimmering, they were like nothing anyone had ever seen before: so strange and beautiful, they even drew attention away from the Elf-Gate that stood near them behind its steel fence.
“Per! Per!” his mother called from her seat behind his father. “Be all buildings like that in Elf-Land?”
Per shook his head. The buildings in Elf-Land had been massive, of expensive stone and brick, the work of giants. Their windows had been huge, with sheets of glass so large and pure and clear, they were like nothing, like air. They hadn’t been anything like these. But the works of the Elves were beyond anything. He was struck with wonder that he should be lucky enough to live in the time when the Elves came.
Toorkild filled his big lungs and roared in a bellow that could have been heard on the other side of the valley. “Harken! When we get down there”—he threw out an arm and pointed to the silvery Elf-Buildings below—“there’ll be Grannams! I want nobody messing with Grannams!”
There was a silence from his people.
“No jeers, no starting fights! And keep away from their women!”
A great cough of laughter went up from the gathered people.
“Hear that, Per?”
“Keep away from Grannam women!”
Toorkild cursed their stupidity and waved them all forward again. Armed riders and the pipers led the way down the hill with all the crowd of people on foot following. The pipers started a new tune:
“My hob is surefooted and swift,
My sword h
angs down at my knee:
I never held back from a fight—
Come who dares and meddle with me!”
It was the Sterkarms’ song, and the whole party took it up, shouting out its refrain, clapping its rhythm and cheering, announcing their coming as they rode down toward the Elves’ camp. The armed men drew their pistols and fired their one shot into the air, with deafening, startling bangs that made the horses skip, the children cry, and the women squeal.
As they drew near the Elf-Palace, they came among the straggle of small kitchen huts built by the Sterkarm cooks, into the harsh smoke from the turf fires and the smell of cooking. Women and children came from the fires, clapping and cheering as the ride went by—and, ahead, they saw more people gathering before the largest of the glittering palaces. Elves, with their strange hairstyles and stranger clothes, stood among Sterkarms and Grannams too, and all laughed and cheered to see the ride come in.
The leaders of the ride reined their horses in. “No whiff of Richie Grannam!” Toorkild called out, and those near enough to hear him laughed. Richie Grannam would sell his daughter to a Sterkarm, in return for enough Elvish gold, but thought himself too good to greet the Sterkarms as they arrived.
A bustle of dismounting, and horses were given over to servants. Toorkild and Isobel took off their cloaks, handing them to servants, in order to display their best clothes to advantage, and Isobel shook out her skirts before going to Per, to comb his hair again with the comb from her belt. She made him bend his head down for the grooming and checked that his face wasn’t smutched.
“Leave him, woman, leave him!” Toorkild said, offering her his arm. “Let’s be doing!”
Isobel linked her arm through his, and they marched toward the entrance of the Elf-Palace, followed by Per. Their people, massed behind them, seeing them stroll forward so grandly, raised a cheer of pride, and cheered again when Per looked back at them over his shoulder and grinned.
As they drew nearer to the door—which was arched, like a church door, and decorated all around with fantastically whirling, delicate white-and-gold filigree—Per saw the beautiful Elf-May. She was standing close beside Elf-Windsor, holding a small, shining bag in either hand. In the slightly dimmed light just inside the doorway, she seemed to glow, more beautiful than ever. Her large eyes shone, her red lips were parted, her cheeks were flushed, and her pale-brown hair fell down over her shoulders in long waves. The tight Elvish top she wore, the color of harebells, showed the fine, full curves of her figure and became her well. At the sight of her, Per smiled. He couldn’t help it. Life was good, life was fine. He would be Per the May who had a Grannam for a wife and an Elf-May for a mistress.
