A Sterkarm Kiss

by Susan Price

  What must he do? Think! The Grannams had attacked—what would the Grannams be doing? Think! He rose abruptly from the chest. “I want men on watch!”

  Sweet Milk, standing at the bed’s foot with folded arms, said, “There be men on watch.”

  Per shook his head impatiently. “Not on tower only! I want men at passes. Grannams—”

  “I’ve sent men to passes,” Sweet Milk said. “I’ve sent men to other towers. If Grannams come, we’ll ken.”

  Per put his hands to Sweet Milk’s arms and lowered his head to his foster father’s shoulder. “I should have given those orders.”

  Sweet Milk put a hand on his back but said nothing.

  Per raised his head. “Get smithy going—get weapons out of store. Round up horses from pasture.”

  “It’ll be done,” Sweet Milk said. “Stay thee with tha daddy.” Sweet Milk’s own father had been killed by reivers long, long before, when he’d been younger than Per. He remembered the grief, but he hardly remembered his father.

  Isobel bowed forward over her knees and wept. “Oh my man, my poor, poor man, my mannie.”

  The sound of her weeping lit, in Per’s heart, a smarting pain like a small fire, and it burned and burned.

  13

  16th Side: A Burial and a Wake

  Gareth, cold, and wet with rain and sweat, huddled in his Elf-Coat as he stood beside Mistress Crosar and watched the straggling line of Grannams struggle past, clambering on up the hill, carrying children on their backs or in their arms, or hauling along exhausted elders. The Elf-Carts, loaded with the dead and wounded, or those still too drunk or infirm to walk, had gone by a lower, more negotiable track. Those on foot had, for hours, and at a brisk pace, been climbing steep, slippery hillside paths, jumping streams or splashing through the cold water, stumbling and sliding down steep banks, laboring in thickets.

  His feet ached, but it was good to be standing still for a moment. The spot was sheltered by a hill spur, and for once he was out of the blustery, damp, chill wind that buffeted his ears. He was as eager as any of them to reach the Grannam tower, though not because he wanted to go there. God knew, he didn’t. But at least this tedious hurrying over steep and difficult ground would be ended. And perhaps the worst part of his job would be over. Or nearly over.

  “Set one foot in front of other, and we’ll get there,” Mistress Crosar called. A little party of three youths came trudging by, obviously tired. “Will,” Mistress Crosar said, and one of them came to her, respectfully taking off his cap. The other two halted close behind him, taking off their caps too. “I have no seen Old Marie,” Mistress Crosar said. “Nor Cal, either. Tha kens how they be—too stubborn to ride in Elf-Carts.” Shyly the boys nodded and smiled, flattered to be invited to join in a little mockery of their elders. “They must have fallen behind.” She paused, waiting.

  The first lad seemed puzzled, then brightened suddenly. “Will I find ’em?”

  “If tha’d be so kind. Find ’em for me, and see they get home. Tell ’em I shall shut tower gates against ’em if they be not home afore me! That’ll keep ’em moving!”

  The boys grinned and turned back on their way, dodging the people trudging onward.

  “Master Elf!” Mistress Crosar said suddenly, making Gareth start. She turned and looked at him, her graying hair falling loose onto the dark cloak she hugged about her. “This be what comes of trusting Sterkarms.”

  Gareth sighed. “I think you may be right, mistress.”

  “They be celebrating now. Laughing, cheering, dancing, because they have Joan Grannam and murdered her father. What might they have done to her!”

  “Mistress—” Looking past her, Gareth saw Captain Davy approaching, leading a horse. He wished there was somewhere he could hide, out of Davy’s way. “It could be that Lady Joan is with Elven, and safe.”

  “Can you no ask Elf-Windsor with your far-hear?”

  “I’ve tried, mistress.” He pulled the little headphones from his inside pocket and, pointlessly, showed them to her. “I don’t get any answer.” He put the headphones away. “I think we might be too far away. But Elven will make sure your niece be safe, if they can.” He hoped that his words were true.

  “We will pray you are right.” Hearing the closeness of the horse, Mistress Crosar turned to greet Davy. The man gave Gareth a long, sharp look but spoke to his lady. “Mistress, you ken they’ll attack again, and soon.”

  Gareth edged closer to Mistress Crosar and ducked his head, listening closely. He wished the wind didn’t dunt against his ears with such a din—he might miss something.

  “Will they sell my niece back to us, thinkst?”

  Davy shook his head. Joan, he thought, was as good as dead. The Sterkarms would cut her throat before they returned her. It was time to forget Joan and prepare to defend what they could still defend. “They’ll no give us rest now. They dare not. We mun be ready for them.”

  Mistress Crosar, trudging on, nodded. “Th’art right,” she said, and swallowed. “Thou mun tell me what to do, Davy. I ken little of fighting.”

  “Fire beacon, ring bell. Drive kine behind walls. And I’ll take all men I can arm to meet Sterkarms.”

  Mistress Crosar looked at the tired people ahead of her and thought of those struggling along behind. “Tower will no hold us all.” The tower housed a sizeable community of kitchen maids and men-at-arms, but many of the Grannams who had come to the wedding had trudged there from the little farms and villages scattered about the Grannam country.

  “Women and bairns mun away into hills,” Davy said.

  “Oh, let them rest!” Mistress Crosar cried, herself eagerly anticipating lying down on her bed and letting the aches pass from her legs and hips and back.

  “If Sterkarms find ’em,” Davy said, “they’ll have a long rest.”

  Mistress Crosar, as she pushed her tired bones on, thought of the women and children trudging all the way to the tower, and beyond, and then going on, without pause, to climb into the cold, wet hills, carrying with them what food they could. She thought of herself, locked up in the tower, waiting for the arrival of murderous men, and her mind spun. Was there food enough in store? How long would the fighting last this time? Should she ration the food?

  “Davy,” she said, “lay thine ambushes well, and kill Sterkarms. Kill them all.”

  He grinned. “I mean to, Lady.” And he strode off ahead, threading through the straggling people.

  Gareth dropped back, letting Mistress Crosar go ahead. The path was sunken, and he scrambled to the top of the bank beside it and onto the moor. The noise of the people’s feet and murmuring voices, contained by the hollow of the path, hushed. He seemed alone in a wilderness of heather, blueberry, and sky.

  He didn’t have to go far. Everyone would think he’d gone to take a shit or a piss. They would have simply squatted down in full view of everyone, but they knew the Elves were shrinking and modest in their ways, and wouldn’t wonder at him.

  The sound of engines reached him, faint and thin in the open air, and he glimpsed the MPVs, making their slow, clumsy way across the moor below him. He squatted, on a guilty impulse, unwilling to be seen by the people in the cars. He took out his headphones and fitted them to his head. He pressed the button inside his jacket. “White Mouse to Eagle. White Mouse to Eagle.” The call signs had been Windsor’s idea, of course. “Eagle, come in. Eagle, come in?”

  He tried for several minutes, but what he’d told Mistress Crosar turned out to be true. Useless things, the walkie-­talkies. They only worked over distances you could shout anyway. Oh, for the 21st and cell phones. But there were no satellites orbiting the 16th’s skies, and no telephone poles. Sighing, he went back to the path and rejoined the weary people slogging toward the tower.

  The stone walls leaned over the corner where the grave was dug, sheltering them from the wind drumming against the
stone and roaring at the tower’s corners. Candlelight from the lanterns made small patches of golden light, flickering against the cold, wet darkness. Gareth hugged his hands in his armpits. Beside him was Mistress Crosar, and around them, almost the whole population of the tower, together with a few Elves, all crowding close, trying to see.

  “I shall not leave my brother to rot like a dead rat in a corner,” Mistress Crosar had said, as soon as they had labored into the tower’s yard. “Later, maybe, there will be time to give him proper rites.”

  The people on foot, surprisingly—well, it had surprised Gareth—reached the tower first. They’d trudged through the small village of turf and sod huts, shouting and hammering on doors, to give the alarm. The people had scrambled to pack what food, warm clothes, and bedding they had—little enough. The Elves might stifle the Sterkarm attack with magic, and drive the Sterkarms away in Elf-Carts, but the Grannams had known the Sterkarms for centuries, and knew that wouldn’t be an end of it. The Sterkarms, having begun such a treacherous attack, had to finish it before the Grannams could rally and retaliate. The Elves might watch them, but there were many Sterkarm towers and bastle houses, and miles of hills for Sterkarm rides to hide in. The Sterkarms were, even now, riding, and the Grannams would be safer in the hills, as far from the tower as they could get.

  Even before the Elf-Carts had ground their way as close to the tower as they could come, Davy had sent men from the garrison to round up as many of the cattle as they could find and bring them within the tower gates. He ordered the beacon lit and the bell sounded. Soon there could be no one in the valley unaware that they were in danger. Armed men would come riding from the other Grannam towers and bastles.

  There was little rest for anyone, despite the fact that they’d had no sleep and had spent the day walking over the hills from the Elf-Palace. Mistress Crosar ordered the fires built up in the kitchens. Porridge was to be prepared for all. They would eat it when they could. A couple of men must be found—old men, of no use to Davy—who could dig a grave for Lord Brackenhill, and the lord’s body must be carried upstairs to his hall, where it was laid out on a table. “Bring me water,” Mistress Crosar said. “I shall wash him and dress him. He has a long way to gan.”

  The people from the Elf-Carts arrived, struggling the last distance from where the carts had been left, and Gareth earned Brownie points by volunteering a couple of the Elves for the grave digging. The tower was filled with the din of hammering and grinding. The smithy was working, sharpening weapons taken out of store and repairing old ones. Gareth thought that he should be at work too. He searched through the tower for Davy. Don’t let him intimidate you, he told himself. He’s just an ignorant, dirty, 16th-side thug. You’re a thousand times smarter. And you know what soap is for.

  The tower wasn’t that big a place, but its small area was crowded with buildings—kitchens, stables, armories, kennels, and all the many storerooms that had sleeping quarters above. Between them were narrow, muddy little alleys that were, that night, busy places, lit by shifting candlelight from the lanterns people carried. The clamor of the smithy resounded over all. Men led horses, or ran, carrying several jakkes.

  The ladders were in place against every building, blocking the ways, and men and women were hard at it, scrambling up and down, heaving sacks, lowering strings of dried fish and flatbread, throwing bundled blankets.

  In the courtyard before the tower, women harnessed ponies and packed panniers. Men flung down clashing bags of pistol balls and stacked lances like wigwam poles. Everywhere Gareth turned, he was in someone’s way.

  He found Davy in the open-sided smithy, talking to a filthy, sweating blacksmith. They realized he was there within seconds but pretended they hadn’t noticed him, as they talked about iron in store and lance heads. Stubbornly, Gareth stood at Davy’s side, determined to stay there until the man had to notice him.

  “Master Elf?” Davy said eventually, in a tone that meant: Go away.

  “I’m here to offer any help I can,” Gareth said. “I can no fight. I’ve never been trained to it. But whatever I can do—” He spread his hands in a shrug.

  Davy studied him a moment. “Gan away home to Elven, Master Elf. Or help women. You be of no use to me.”

  Gareth had known he was no use—had been glad to know that he couldn’t really be asked to fight, up close, with the equivalent of heavy razors—but it was still a little bruising to be told so bluntly that he wasn’t wanted. “There must be something I can do. I can hold horses.”

  It had been meant as a small joke. Neither man laughed. Davy gazed at him with calm contempt. “Can you ride?”

  “Ah. No,” Gareth admitted, and the blacksmith laughed. To these people a grown man who couldn’t ride was laughable.

  “You be of no use to me,” Davy repeated. “Stay here with women. Though I doubt they have any use for you either.” The blacksmith laughed again.

  Gareth felt his face flush slightly, and quickly pressed down his temper. Don’t get mad, get even, Windsor always said. “Where do you gan?”

  Davy continued to stare at him without any change of expression, but Gareth could almost feel his boots smoldering. The look said: Do you honestly imagine I’m going to tell you? Finally Davy said, “To kill Sterkarms.”

  “I suppose,” Gareth said, “you’re going to lay ambushes?”

  Davy stared silently and then turned his shoulder to Gareth with finality. The Elves might call themselves friends and hand out magic pills that took away pain, but it would take many more years of solid, faithful friendship before Davy told them where he was going to lay his ambushes. The blacksmith laughed and hefted a huge hammer. “Ask no questions, Master Elf—be told no lies.”

  And then the priest went by, carrying his Bible and ringing a hand bell. Davy said, “They be burying laird.” The blacksmith laid down his hammer, and he and Davy followed the priest. Gareth trailed after them. At every corner, in every alley, they gathered more followers.

  The grave, not deep, had been scraped in the trodden, hardened earth in a corner of the tower yard. The walls of outbuildings crowded close—there was hardly room. Richard Grannam’s body, wrapped in a sheet, a miserable bundle by the lanterns’ light, was laid in the scraping by stooping men. The priest stood at the grave’s edge, the long scarf around his neck shining silkily in the candlelight, its gold embroidery glittering. He held a small, thick, leather-bound Bible and read words in Latin, his voice resounding from the walls. People peered from the mouths of narrow alleyways or crowded in the small yard, standing very still, even the children, listening in silence. Gareth didn’t understand a word. He wondered if any of them did.

  The priest closed his book, stooped, and took up a handful of earth. He scattered it, and it rattled as it fell on the sheeted body. Mistress Crosar stepped forward, took up earth, and sprinkled it the length of her brother’s body. “I be sad for this, Richie. If we live, I’ll do better by thee. But now I mun look to thy people.”

  Davy threw a handful of earth onto the corpse, and people pressed forward to do the same, but Mistress Crosar clapped her hands. “To work! Laird will forgive us—he kens we mun work now.” And back everyone went to their work, while two men shoveled earth over the body.

  Gareth, still looking for something to do, attached himself to a party of men who were carrying oil and peat up the tower’s steep, narrow stairs. Taking up one of the baskets of turfs, he followed them, up and up, around and around, all the way to the roof. It was for the beacon fire, the man in front of him on the narrow stairs told him. The fire had to be kept burning until all fear of attack had passed.

  “How long will that be?” Gareth asked.

  The man laughed. “Davy’ll have a few words with Sterkarms, and they’ll all gan home.”

  From farther up the steps another man called, “They’ll slit tha weasand soon as look at thee, but a sheep’s got more wit.”


  They ducked through the low door onto the roof. The wind was strong, damp, and cold up there, and even though the beacon fire was sheltered, in its iron bowl, the flames were tossed by the wind, and flared, hissed, crackled, and threw off showers of red and golden sparks. The light flared and glowed across the peaked slates of the roof, on the stone pathway around it, and on the walls. Outside the reach of the flames’ light, the darkness seemed deep.

  As they stacked the fuel in the corners of the roof, Gareth said, “I’ve heard they’re clever at laying ambushes.”

  The men scoffed and, as they worked, told him tales of ambushes laid by the Grannams—many of them against the Sterkarms. Gareth expressed amazement and pleasure at the Grannams’ wit, and they told him more.

  One of the men, looking down from the tower, said, “There they go! Davy! Davy!”

  The other men joined him, and cheered. Below them, Grannam riders were leaving the tower, faintly lit from above by the beacon’s fire, each man with a rolled blanket slung at his back and carrying a lance. The sound of the horses’ clopping hooves and rattling harnesses rose to them, but the horsemen were vague, indistinct shapes in the near darkness. Their helmets and lance points had been blackened with soot or covered with sheepskin, so they reflected no gleam of light.

  The men stayed at watch on top of the tower, and Gareth stayed with them. It was bloody cold away from the fire, and too hot near it, but at least these men were talking to him. Slowly light came, and color seeped into the landscape. One of the men pointed, with a thick brown forefinger, at a small movement on a distant hillside. “There they go. They’ve split. Davy’s going for Urwin’s Gap.”