A Sterkarm Kiss

by Susan Price

  “Aye,” his companion agreed. “And Jock’ll be going by way of Lang Stane.”

  “Urwin’s what?” Gareth asked, and got them to repeat the names several times. They were the names of ways and paths through the hills, they explained, some of the ways through to Sterkarm country. Not the easiest ways, or even the quickest, but the best ways when you wanted to go quietly, without much chance of being seen.

  “That be way Sterkarms’ll come, tha canst lay money.”

  “And when they do, Davy and Jock’ll be waiting.”

  When he thought he had the names, Gareth excused himself. He needed a piss, he said, and they laughed and sympathized.

  Gareth hurried down the steps into the yard, which wasn’t as busy as it had been, though there were women stooping over bundles and pulling knots tight. The Elves, they told him, were in the tower’s hall, so he had to climb the steps again. There were the drivers of the MPVs, next to the fire, drinking ale and eyeing the women.

  “Here’s the boss man,” one said. “What we doing, mate?”

  “We’re leaving,” Gareth said. “Where are the cars?”

  “Bottom of the hill, below the village.”

  “Village! Bloody dump,” said another Elf.

  “Yeah, well, lucky we’re leaving then, isn’t it?” Gareth said. “Come on.”

  They rose, draining their cups. One said, “Aren’t you going to say good-bye and thanks for having us to the old biddy?”

  “Is she here?” Gareth asked. “No. Come on, we’re in a hurry.”

  They followed him down the steps. “We going back 21st side?”

  “Not straightaway.” There were some disappointed groans.

  A couple of women seemed to be guarding the gates, which were locked. “I must away back to Elven,” Gareth said. “Tha mun open gates.”

  One of the women, arms folded, shook her head.

  He tried to get past her to open the gate himself, but she blocked him and yelled, “Fetch mistress!”

  They had to wait until Mistress Crosar came out into the yard, walking stiffly, almost limping, and looking very tired. A little crowd of women and children followed her and stood listening.

  “Tatty-bye and thanks for having us!” one of Gareth’s men said. Mistress Crosar glanced at him but ignored him and looked, instead, at Gareth.

  “I be so sad that you’ve been bothered, Mistress Crosar,” he said. “I mun gan to my Elf-Carts—I want to fetch help from Elven.”

  She looked at him seriously. “I can no send anybody with you, Master Elf.”

  “I have my own men, mistress, with Elf-Weapons.”

  “What if Sterkarms find you?”

  “We be Elven,” he said. “They’ll no touch us.”

  She pulled a wry face. “I’d no be so sure of that, Master Elf. They’ve shown you scant respect. But I can give you no orders: If you will go, you shall. Thanks shall you have if you bring us help.” She nodded to the people around her. “Open gate for him.”

  “Thank you, mistress.”

  “Give me no thanks,” she said. “You may live to rue this.”

  Turning her back, she limped away.

  Gareth led his small party of Elves through the gate and out into the deserted village. Behind him the gate was shut and barred.

  “No sign of them?” Per said. “Nothing?”

  Behind him, on the bed and never quite out of his thoughts, his father’s body lay, sewn into its shroud. It was the second day of the wake, and a faint smell hung in the room. Isobel sat on a chest beside the bed, breathing it in, showing no sign of discomfort. Several others stood near the bed. People had been coming all day, and the day before. Some had just found their way back, tired and bruised, from the wedding, having been scattered over the moors. They had been met with the terrible news that Old Toorkild was dead. Others had come riding in from other Bedesdale towers and bastle houses, either because messengers had reached them or to ask for whom the bell was tolling.

  “We be sad for this, Mistress Isobel,” one was saying. “Toorkild was no so old!”

  “He was a fine man,” someone else murmured. “Years of life left to him!”

  “It took Grannams to cut him short!”

  “They killed him because they’d none like him, and that’s truth!”

  “They’ll pay for it, Isobel,” someone else said, and a hum of agreement filled the room.

  “They’ll be sorry for this day, I promise thee.”

  “Thanks shall you have,” Isobel said. “Thanks, friends, thanks.”

  Per was near the guest room’s door with Sweet Milk and the men who had come back from watch on the hills. “Tha saw no sign, no sign at all?”

  “These be good men,” Sweet Milk said. “They kept good watch.”

  “I kept my eyes open for my wife and children’s sake,” one of the men said. “I missed nothing.”

  “Where be they?” Per said. The Grannams had attacked, treacherously, in the middle of the night and had been thwarted, but they wouldn’t leave it at that. They couldn’t. When you’ve aroused and angered an enemy, you have to finish him. “Why do they no come?” He was thinking: Have I remembered everything? Is there something I should have ordered done that I haven’t? Are the Grannams getting the better of me?

  Sweet Milk, his arms folded, shrugged.

  “They be crafty,” one of the watchmen said. “They want you to think they’re no coming, and then they’ll come.”

  “They want you to be burying your daddy and no thinking o’ them—and then they’ll come,” said another. Sweet Milk grunted, not agreeing nor disagreeing.

  “Where will they come?” Per said. “By Clow’s Top? Mossy Fell? Where else? Where else?”

  Sweet Milk and the watchmen thought it over, sucking on their cheeks and pulling their lips. An angry voice from near the bed cried, “We ought to kill ’em all, wipe ’em out like rats!” Grumbling voices agreed.

  “I’d ken thee’d be watching Clow’s Top and Mossy Fell,” Sweet Milk said slowly. “So I might try and come fast by—”

  “By Scarshopsfoot!” Per said.

  Sweet Milk nodded. “I sent men there. On watch.”

  Per sighed and put up his hand to rub at his hair. “Thou be’st laird of this tower, I think.”

  Sweet Milk made a contemptuous sound. One of the other men said, “He be no burying his daddy.”

  “Buried him long since!” said another.

  Per reached out and touched Sweet Milk’s arm. “Thanks shalt thou have. And you,” he said to the other men. “You must be wanting food and your beds. There’ll be food in kitchens.”

  The men, who knew a dismissal when they heard it, took themselves off, dropping down the ladder to squelch in the muddy alley below. Per drew Sweet Milk farther into the room, into a corner, away from the door and away from the people gathered around the bed. Quietly Per said, “Be grave dug?”

  Sweet Milk nodded.

  Per looked past him, toward the bed, but could see only the backs of those standing around it. Sweet Milk knew, from his face, what he was thinking. Instead of waking the body for another day and then spending a day in burying it—while at any moment during those days the Grannams might come in force—they could bury the body now and be ready to fight.

  It would be seen by many—perhaps even by Isobel—as disrespectful. They would speak of “throwing Toorkild into his grave,” and of sons who were overeager to snatch their inheritance from their father’s still-warm hands. Per knew that, which was why he was reluctant to put his thoughts into words—and yet no one who had known Per and Toorkild could doubt that they had loved each other. And that Per loved his father still. It was anxiety to fill his father’s place well, to make no mistakes, that pushed him to think of burying Toorkild after only two days of watching. There was, after all, no
doubt that Toorkild was dead. As Sweet Milk breathed, he could smell the body. The death sweat could be seen, soaking into the shroud and sheets.

  Per’s gaze returned to Sweet Milk’s face.

  “They’ll no take us unaware,” Sweet Milk promised. He heard some more people climbing the ladder from the alley, clumping onto the floorboards of the room and interrupting the light from the door, but he didn’t look to see who it was. “Wake thy daddy for another day. Thy mammy’ll like that well.”

  Per nodded and relaxed a little. He turned toward the bed as a man’s angry voice repeated, “We should kill them all, kill them all!” An angry muttering of agreement followed, and then a man’s voice rose above it—but this time, it spoke in Elvish. The last people who had climbed into the room, Sweet Milk saw, were Elves: the Elvish laird, Windsor, and some of his men, and the bonny Elf-May.

  It was the Elf-May who spoke next, in English. “If you would be so kind, Mistress Sterkarm, Elf-Windsor wishes to speak to you and your son about Grannams.”

  “Thanks shall you have for your courtesy, Mistress Elf,” Isobel said, “but it’s my son you must speak with.”

  “I be here,” Per said. People made way for him, to let him come and stand beside the bed. Sweet Milk followed, at his shoulder. The Elf-May stood at the foot of the bed, her Elf-Laird behind her, and Sweet Milk saw her face when she looked at Per. It was full of pity, full of warmth. What it was, Sweet Milk thought, to be young and pretty, not old and with a face that had been used as a grindstone.

  “Elf-Windsor be sad for your loss, and sad, unco sad that he made this match. He had no thought Grannams were so treacherous.”

  That struck the right note, and the room was filled with outcry against the Grannams. While she waited for it to die down, Andrea glanced up at Windsor to see how he was doing. He looked a little sick, and was struggling to keep his face from showing how he felt about the smell in the room. She felt queasy herself. It wasn’t that the smell was so bad, as yet, though it was pervasive. It was knowing the source of the smell—and having known Toorkild—that made it hard to bear. She had to fight with herself to keep her hands from her nose.

  “It be odd,” Isobel said, when the muttering had died away, “that Elven trusted Grannams, when we told them plain, many times, that they were no to be trusted.” The mutter of agreement rose again.

  “What you say is true, Mistress Sterkarm,” Andrea said. “We, Elven, were trusting and foolish. But we have gained wisdom. Elf-Windsor kens now that you be in danger, and blames himself.” She paused, but the Sterkarms stared back at her and made no polite denial. “He offers you help of Elven.”

  Per looked across the bed at his mother, and turned to Sweet Milk. All around the room, Sterkarms looked at one another. The general reaction seemed to be: That’s more like it!

  The offer had puzzled Andrea. Earlier, in the tower, when Windsor had outlined to her roughly what he wanted her to say, she’d asked him, “What help, exactly, are you offering?” He hadn’t given her a clear answer—“Oh, you know, accurate maps, tracking devices, walkie-talkies, that sort of thing.”

  She’d never known the Sterkarms to need maps—they knew their country in the dark—and she wasn’t sure how tracking devices would work in a world without satellites, but Windsor had said, “Oh, you’re a technological genius all of a sudden, are you?” She’d had to admit she didn’t know that much about the technology. And Windsor had been giving her a chance to see Per, and speak to him. Joan, she’d figured, was fairly safe on the top floor of the tower, the family’s room. She didn’t think anyone would actually hurt her. “Elf-Windsor asks that you come outside and let him show you the help Elven will give.”

  The thought of leaving his father’s body was painful to Per. It showed disrespect. But he also showed respect for his father by filling his place. Looking at Elf-Windsor, he said, “You will help us to break Grannams, to finish them?”

  Andrea quickly translated this for Windsor, and then said, “Grannams have broken faith with Elven, as well as with Sterkarms. Elven want peace. We thought to get it by making a peace between Grannams and Sterkarms. But if Grannams will no keep their word, then we must get peace by breaking Grannams.” She didn’t feel happy about saying this, though somehow it had seemed more reasonable when Windsor had explained it in the tower. Now the words she spoke seemed to bounce about inside her head, as if she was a hollow pottery figure through which the words were being broadcast. How were the Grannams to be broken? In the tower it had seemed to mean something to do with hard bargaining and diplomatic pressure. Now she wasn’t sure.

  “Mammy?” Per said, and then made his way around the bed to her. People shuffled out of his way. Reaching his mother, he knelt and bowed his head toward her lap. “I mun gan and see what Elven will show me. Forgive me.”

  She bent down and kissed his head. “There be nowt to forgive. Tha mun gan. I’ll watch thy daddy. Bring me back ten Grannam heads.”

  He looked up at her. “I will.” He rose and made for the door, looking and beckoning for Sweet Milk. “Come one, come all. Let’s see what Elven can show us.”

  14

  16th Side: So Braw a Man

  Per and Sweet Milk crouched to examine the hole at the base of the dry-stone wall. The shell, or bomb, or missile, or whatever it was called—Andrea really didn’t know—had struck at the wall’s base, digging into the earth and partially undermining it. Some stones had been smashed, some cracked and chipped, some displaced. Others were falling into the hole. The wall was still standing, but toppling.

  The Sterkarms looked at each other, awe on their faces. To achieve a similar result they would have needed heavy, cumbersome cannon, with teams of horses to drag them into position, and more horse teams and carts to bring up the barrels of gunpowder and the heavy iron balls. In the Sterkarms’ hilly, broken, almost trackless country, where everything was carried on the backs of pack ponies, this wasn’t possible. Indeed, if the kings of England and Scotland had been able to drag cannon over the hills to ding down their towers, their homes would have been rubble long before.

  But they had just watched one Elf-Man hold something like a tube on his shoulder and, with a shocking, cracking boom, fire from it a small object that had dug a hole in the earth and all but brought down a wall.

  The man who had fired the missile was named Patterson: a thick-set man with a red face that seemed made of slabs of meat. His dark hair was shaved close to his skull, its dark shadow matching the shadow around his jaws. With a smile he said to Andrea, “Another shot and I’d have that wall down.” His manner was affable. How could he, she thought, be affable and yet be willing to do what he was doing?

  She told the Sterkarms what he’d said. Per sprang upright, his face alight with enthusiasm. Her heart ached to see his eagerness.

  Patterson swung around and pointed up the hill to the tower. “That’d take longer. It’s solid stone, well built. But a couple of us—give us an hour—we could take that gatehouse out.”

  Andrea, feeling like a machine, listlessly translated what he’d said while asking herself how she could have been so stupid. Accurate maps and walkie-talkies! What other help would Windsor offer against the Grannams except weaponry? Now, surrounded by excited Sterkarms, she could hardly refuse to translate.

  Per was grinning, his eyes shining. With the Elves’ help revenge for his father was a sure thing. Sweet Milk’s expression, as ever, was harder to read. He stood by, his arms folded. Windsor had his hands in his pockets, watching them all like an indulgent father who was giving everyone a treat.

  “Show us grenates!” Per said, and they walked off together, the Sterkarms and the Elf-Men, walking along the side of Bedes Water.

  A small sheepfold had been built, of dry-stone walls, at a distance from the river. In one corner of the fold, withy hurdles had penned a sheep. It wasn’t the fat, white, woolly thing that the 21st siders w
ould have called a sheep but a small, skinny creature, about the size of a middling dog, covered in long, straight strands of something more like hair than wool, and blackish brown in color. On its head was a starburst of four curving horns, but it might have been a ram or a ewe. Both sexes had horns. Being a far wilder and even more nervous animal than its 21st-century counterpart, it was already turning, twitching, and bawling inside its tight pen.

  “Olla rigti, “Patterson said. “Stand back a bit. Bit more.” Stooping, he took a grenade from a box at his feet. Twisting out the pin, he lobbed it toward the sheep.

  Andrea, sick and almost in tears, turned her back and looked up at the tower on its crag. She knew they would listen to nothing she said, so there was little point in wasting her breath.

  There was an explosion—not as loud as she’d expected, though she still jumped—and the sheep screamed. The Sterkarms—Per too—cheered. The sheep bawled on and on, a horrible sound that Andrea would never have guessed could go on so long.

  “There’s hundreds of razors inside,” Patterson said to her in his affable way. “You want to make strawberry Jell-O? Chuck one into a crowd.” He laughed at her face.

  Per came to her, his face bright and alive. “Vah sayer han?”—What says he?

  As best she could, with the sheep screaming, she told him. They would have no idea of what Jell-O was, so she said, “It will cut them into ribbons.”

  Sweet Milk, who had been watching her, left her side suddenly. A moment later the sheep was silent. She turned to see Sweet Milk stepping over the fold’s wall, holding a bloodied knife that he wiped on the grass. While the others enthused over the sheep’s injuries, he had cut its throat, to spare it further suffering. In a grim sort of way, Sweet Milk was a kind man. As she watched, he straightened and beckoned to some men—16th siders—who came forward eagerly, clambering into the fold. It seemed they’d been promised what was left of the sheep. If it was any use to them, full of shrapnel.