by Susan Price
But, Per wondered, did she want him to see his own world again? “I’m no hungry.”
“Per—”
“Be I here alone?”
“Tha’rt with me,” she said, sounding hurt.
“But Daddy?” he said. “Sweet Milk?”
“We could bring only thee through Gate, Per. They wanted to come, but they had to stay behind.”
He stiffened his muscles against the new fear that went through him, but the Elf-Working box gave him away, beeping faster. Again he made himself calm, and the beeping slowed. A whole world away from home and too weak to fight for himself—if he raised a cry of “Sterkarm!” here, who would answer him?
He couldn’t afford to be afraid. And he needed to know the worst.
He threw back the bedcovers—and was astonished to see nothing but a small strip of cloth around his leg. He had expected much stained padding and wrapping. This gauzy little strip seemed stuck to his leg. It didn’t even wrap all the way around it.
“Now, Per—” Andrea said.
He caught the corner of the gauzy strip and ripped it off.
“Per!”
There was no wound on his leg. Though it was sore, and hurt when he moved it, the flesh was whole. He looked up, startled, at Andrea. She had lied to him. And yet … He remembered something of being hurt, of the ride home, his uncle cursing because the bandage kept soaking through with blood, the endlessness of it …
But he had seen the wounds of others, and there had been red, inflamed flesh, weeping pus, and the puckered edges of the wound had been clumsily held together by big stitches of black twine, which had themselves inflamed the flesh around them.
Andrea, without actually touching the wound, pointed with her finger to a thin, bright-red line that ran across the side of his thigh. If a wound that had nearly killed him had healed to no more than that … “Tha said I’d been here but tyan days!”
“Tha’s been here no—”
“My leg’s whole!”
“Nay, Per—”
“It’s no gone bad-ways!” He stared at her.
He meant it hadn’t become infected. In his world almost every cut, however slight, became infected. The infection, rather than the wound itself, was often what killed. “It was cleaned,” she said. He looked blank. There was no connection in his mind between dirt and disease. “Elf-Work. We have Elf-Work to stop it going bad-ways.” He moved, and she saw that he was going to get up. “Per, no!”
He ignored her, of course—it was his biddability that made him so lovable. By holding on to the chrome stand beside the bed, he managed to get to his feet but then looked around, confused, as he felt the line from the other drip tug at his arm. The line stretched taut across the bed, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“Per.” Going close, Andrea put her arms around him. “Thy leg’s no as healed as it looks. Lie down again. Rest it—and tha must eat something.”
Per had no choice but to drop back onto the bed. The Elf-Box was beeping fast because just the effort of getting to his feet had made his heart beat hard. His muscles had felt like dough. They would hardly hold him up. He didn’t think they would have lifted his knees to let him take a step.
Andrea sat on the bed beside him. “I know thy leg looks healed, Per, but that be because of Elf-Work—”
Startled, Per looked at the smooth, closed flesh of his leg again. Was it all a glamor, made by Elf-Work, as the Elves could make dead leaves look like gold coin? Was his leg really stitched up with black twine, swollen and bad-ways?
Andrea put her hand on his knee. “It was a very deep gash, so they—Elven—have put some stitches deep inside to hold it together. Elf-Work stitches,” she added, as he looked up in alarm. “They won’t go bad-ways. They’ll melt away as if they’d never been there.”
“Inside my leg?” He whispered. She felt him shiver. “What be they made of? Where do they gan?”
“They …” She fluttered her hands, not knowing how to explain to him that the stitches would be absorbed by his body. “They’ll do thee no harm, Per. It be Elf-Work.” What a useful phrase that was, explaining everything while explaining nothing. Per accepted that “Elf-Work” could achieve almost anything but didn’t expect to understand it. “And rest they glued together!” she said. “They stuck edges of wound together, really neatly.”
“Glue?” Per said. He had laid himself down and seemed almost to be making himself small in the bed.
Andrea threw the covers over him. “A sort of glue. It holds edges of the wound together really strongly, it be better than stitches, but tha should no try to stand on it or walk about yet. Soon tha’ll be able to, soon. In a couple of days.” She saw his eyes widen, and stroked his hair. “Only a couple of days. That be no long.”
But two days in Elf-Land could be two, or twenty, or two hundred years in Man’s-Home.
Andrea got up from the bed and crossed the room to the shelves and cupboards along one wall. She brought a tray back to the bed and set it on the mattress beside him. “Tha’d get better quicker if thou et something.”
There was a smell of food from the tray, a milky, yeasty smell, and he pushed himself away from it. The sides of his stomach seemed to rub emptily together, and the ache reached up his gullet into his throat. It brought tears into his eyes because he dared not eat.
Andrea was moving plates on the tray, clattering them. Per reached out and touched the tray with the tip of one finger. It was of a hard, smooth, dazzlingly white material that he had never seen before. It didn’t feel like anything he knew, it was whiter than anything he knew and, when he scratched and tapped it, the sound was strange. Not wood, not metal, not horn.
The plates weren’t made of turned wood or earthenware or metal either, but of some other smooth, hard, white substance, even smoother and glassier to the touch than the tray. And there was a tall, straight-sided glass filled with … something Elvish. The glass itself was a wonder. So straight, so unflawed, so clear. Worth a fortune but, if he tried to carry it away, he would most likely break it—and how could he get even himself out of Elf-Land?
On the white surface of the tray lay … a thing. It was long, thick, curved and as yellow as a coltsfoot flower. He leaned to the left and right as he peered at it. He had no idea at all what it could be. It didn’t seem to have any use.
From a small white plate, Andrea had picked up something brownish and flaking. It looked like a large, fat grub with a ridged body, half curled up. Andrea broke it in half, releasing more of the yeasty smell, though it didn’t smell quite like anything he’d smelled before. Flakes fell from the thing onto the plate and tray.
“This be a croissant,” she said. He couldn’t have repeated the word. “It be like bread.” She put most of it back on the plate and broke off a smaller piece, which she put in her mouth. Another piece she held out to him. He snatched his head back before any crumb of it could get onto his face and so into his mouth. But his belly wanted it, and his mouth watered.
Andrea dusted her hands, sending flakes of croissant flying, and then picked up a cloth so white that Isobel would have been envious, and wiped her hands with it before picking up a little block from beside the plate and unwrapping it. Inside was something greasy and yellow. “Butter.”
Per kept his distance at the edge of the bed. The yellow stuff looked nothing like butter. Butter was white and hard, and came to table in big lumps inside a crock.
Andrea picked up a tiny round pot and peeled a covering from the top of it. She held it so that he could see the smooth, glassy red substance it held. It was pretty. He leaned forward and she held the pot so he could sniff at it. The smell was sweet but sickly. It mystified him.
He drew back, and Andrea sighed and picked up a blunt, clumsy, useless knife that was made all of metal, even its hilt. She stuck it into the little pot, and what had seemed smooth, glassy and hard
seemed to melt before the knife and turned into a soft goo. He saw the glass of the little pot flex in her hand and drew back further. Was the knife hot?
She daubed the red goo that had been hard on the flaky, yeasty thing, and bit off a little piece herself. “Jam,” she said. It was an Elvish word he didn’t know. She held the stuff out to him. “It be sweet. Nice. Tha’d like it.”
Careful not to touch the food, he pushed her hand away. Hungry as he was, though his head was beginning to ache with hunger, he would never, never eat anything that had been touched by that hard red stuff that turned to goo. And that strange, greasy, flaky bread … Some folk said that Elvish bread was made by grinding men’s bones to flour. What was that red goo then? He said; “Where be my pouch?”
“Never mind thy pouch. Eat something, be so good. It will no hurt thee, Per. Look.”
She pushed a small bowl to the edge of the tray. It was heaped full of small, whitish, rounded things, like a heap of large insect’s eggs. He didn’t know what they were, and they didn’t look edible.
“And this be milk to go on them.” She touched a small jug.
“Milk?” He leaned forward. The jug was full of a white liquid that looked very like milk. He put his nose down close to it, and for a moment Andrea thought she was going to get him to drink some milk at least.
Then he reared back, wrinkling his nose and saying, “Milk?”
“Cow’s milk, Per.”
He had drunk cow’s milk very rarely. Goat’s milk, and sheep’s milk, often straight from the tit, were what he’d been raised on. He watched her pour the cow’s milk over the insect’s eggs. They bobbed and shifted, making popping, snapping noises, as if hatching. Per pulled a face and drew further back. Did the Elves really eat such scrapings?
He looked about the room, with all its brightness, the silver-framed bed, its glass boxes and cloth on the floor. Was it all a glamor, fooling his eyes, while all the time he was lying on a heap of rags in a muddy cave? Some accounts of Elf-Land said that all the riches were nothing but glamor, and their feasts nothing but dry leaves and dung—and insect’s eggs floating in cow’s milk.
Andrea pushed the tall glass of orange juice toward him. “Try it. It be sweet. Tha’ll like it.”
Per shook his head. The filled glass was beautiful. There was an old story about a beautiful woman whose tears were liquid gold, and it was as if she’d caught her tears in a glass. Never had he seen any liquid that color before. In the bright light that came in through the hole in the wall, it glowed. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever seen anything of such a bright and glaring color.
“It be juice from …” He wouldn’t recognize the word “orange.” She remembered an older form. “From a narange.”
He went on turning the glass with his finger and admiring its color in the play of light but showed no understanding of what she’d said. She’d thought that he might possibly have seen an orange—a small, hard, wrinkled, long-traveled specimen—strung on a ribbon and stuck with cloves for use as a pomander. But it seemed not. She looked at the glass herself and was struck by the thick, smooth, almost creamy appearance of the drink and its artificially colored brilliance. For a moment it looked so weird, even to her, that she put her hand to her forehead as her mind seemed to rock.
“Where be my pouch?” Per asked.
“It be safe. Don’t worry about it.”
“I want it.”
“What tha wants be to eat.”
He shook his head and frowned. It was annoying to have food pressed on him when he was hungry but couldn’t eat. “Give me my pouch.”
“This food does no hurt me, Per.”
“Tha’rt an Elf.”
“But when I was in Man’s-Home, I ate thy food. I trusted thee. Thy food did no—”
“Tha’rt an Elf,” he said. “Give me my pouch.”
“A banana!” Andrea picked up the yellow thing.
Curiosity silenced Per. He watched as she pulled at the thing’s top. The yellow came away in a long strip, white on the inner side. Long, sprawling white and yellow legs fell over her hand, leaving a white, curved stem standing up. It was like a dead man’s …
“Thou ates it,” she said, offering it to him. He recoiled sharply, and she smiled and shook her head.
She broke off the pointed tip. He was surprised to see how easily it broke. Before his eyes, she put the tip into her mouth and ate it. She pushed it at him again. “Try some. Tha’ll like it.”
He shook his head.
“It be good. It be fruit.”
Unco Elvish fruit. He shook his head.
“Oh Per!” In his world, she had made no fuss about eating a boiled sheep’s stomach stuffed with oatmeal and the sheep’s own heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. “Tha’ve got to eat something!”
“Then bring me my pouch!”
“Wherefore? I’ll bring thee thy pouch when tha’ve eaten croissant!”
Per sat up. His blue eyes turned silver, just as if two tiny lights had turned on behind them. He put his hand under the tray and flipped it. The tray rose in the air, turned over, and crashed onto the carpet. Streams of milk ran from the jug, cutlery clattered, orange juice spread from the broken glass, Rice Krispies rolled everywhere.
“Now mice shall eat it!”
Andrea stood, hands on hips, looking at the mess on the floor. Her teeth were set, keeping back all the angry things she wanted to say. Per wasn’t well yet, she had to remember that. He was in a strange place and scared. “I’d better get this up, hadn’t I?” She rang for an orderly and, crouching, gingerly picked up shards of glass.
“Call a may,” Per said. He could tell he’d made Andrea angry, and he was sad for that. Throwing the things on the floor, too, was unmannerly behavior in a guest—even an unwilling guest. His mother would have said, “Have I taught thee no better than that!” and given a slap to his face that would have rung his ears. But … if he’d let Andrea go on and on arguing, while he got hungrier and hungrier, she would have talked him into eating that bone-bread sooner or later. He’d had to throw it on the floor.
“I have called a may,” Andrea said, still angry.
The door opened and the “may”—an orderly—came in. “What’s been going on here then?” she said, walking across the room.
Andrea saw Per abruptly lie down and cover himself with the blanket, hiding even his head. She almost forgave him for throwing the things on the floor. He’d always seemed so brash in his own world, and she’d often wished that she had some of his self-confidence. To see him fluster and hide from a stranger was laughable.
But then, everything must seem so alien to him, and he was so far from home. Poor kid, you had to feel sorry for him. To show that she forgave him, she went to the closet and found the pouch he’d asked for. It was a soft leather bag that hung from his belt on loops and held … anything he might want to carry. A tinderbox, money, dice. Now it was heavy and she could feel, through the leather, the shape of a bottle. Slipping it from the belt, she took it over to the bed. “Here. Art happy now?”
The orderly came out of the bathroom with mop, bucket, dustpan and brush, and began clearing up the mess. Per wouldn’t come out from beneath the covers while she was there, but lying on his side, he fumbled with the buckled flap that closed the pouch. Reaching inside, he pulled out the remains of the rations he’d carried with him on the ride. Andrea stared. So that was why he’d wanted it.
There was a big lump of cold porridge, partly eaten. It was a meal that the Sterkarms commonly carried with them when they traveled, or were working in the hills and fields. Oats were stirred into water, or skimmed milk, until they made a thick mess. A little salt might be added, to lend savor. Then it was poured into a flat wooden tray, or a drawer, and left until it was cold and set, when it was cut into squares.
The pouch also held a lump of hard cheese, a leather bottl
e of small beer and, because Per was Isobel’s treasure, an apple and a handful of small red plums.
Per lifted the bottle and shook it, listening to the sound and judging how much it held. Then he carefully tore the sticky lump of porridge in half, and put half back inside the pouch, together with the cheese, the apple, and all but two of the plums.
“Per. That will no last thee long.”
He began to eat the porridge. It was rubbery and sticky, and took a lot of hard chewing, but he obviously enjoyed it. Andrea shook her head. She couldn’t think of anything less appetizing than a greasy lump of cold, salted porridge.
But at least he was eating something. She sat on the bed beside him and wondered if she could get some food sent from the 16th for him. Would he believe her when she said it had come from the 16th?
She nodded and smiled at the orderly as the woman left. The best thing, she thought, was for Per to be sent home as soon as possible. She’d be with him, to make sure he didn’t use his leg too much too soon. She’d have to phone Windsor’s office and ask him about it.
“Where be my things?” Per asked. He took a sip from his leather bottle.
“In closet over there. I’m sad for it, but they ruined thy boots and britches. Cut them to pieces.”
He stopped eating. “Cut my boots to pieces?” Money, real hard money had been paid for those boots in Carloel. They were part of his riding gear.
“They would have hurt thy leg more if they’d tried pulling them off, so they cut them off. Never mind—”
“Wherefore did they not fetch off me boots with Elf-Work, and not cut them?”
“I’m not sure there is an Elf-Work for taking off boots, Per.”
“Where be my sword?”
“It was left behind, Per. But—”
“My dagger then? My jakke?”
“They’re all safe.”
“Bring them to me.”
“Oh, Per, thou hast no—”
“I want them. Bring them here.”
“Per, tha canna wear a jakke in bed, and …” She remembered the tray falling to the carpet and wondered why she was arguing. Why distress him again? If he wanted the dagger and jakke, let him have them.
