by Susan Price
She missed the noise and jostle and chatter, but when she went to a pub in search of it, she couldn’t find it. The music was loud and persistent, but not the same. Her friends talked of boyfriends and television, lectures, essays, films, books—and it wasn’t at all the same.
Whenever she wanted clean water, she turned on a tap. She had oranges and bananas, and soft, fresh whole-wheat bread in a plastic wrapper. Everything she ate was tasty and hygienically prepared, but she missed the Sterkarm porridge, heavy bread and small beer.
Her bed was too soft, her room too warm. She didn’t sleep well. Awake, she thought of Per and missed him to the point of tears. Every man she met made her think of him, and miss him more.
Asleep, she often dreamed she was in her bower again, laughing with Per in the warm dark under the scratchy blankets, Per’s own musk mingling with the thick, sweet smell of old hay that rose from the mattress with their every move—and then she’d wake, snap on her electric lamp and lie, alone, between smooth cotton sheets that smelled of soap powder, on her inner-spring mattress. And she missed Per so much, so much …
… That she’d come here, to Bedesdale, to this ruin.
She knew she shouldn’t be there, mooning, with James Windsor still seriously ill in the hospital, with Bryce dead, but …
The sun shone down on the boulders, warming them, drawing the scent from grass and leaves. Silence lay heavy over the hills and seemed to throb gently against the ear, but was underlain by a persistent drone from the distant main road and the occasional closer passing of a car in the valley below. It wasn’t the deep, deep silence of the 16th. Per seemed even farther from her than he did in her dreams.
On Christmas Eve, the Sterkarms said, and on May Day, on Midsummer’s Eve and Halloween, the barriers between the worlds grew frail as mist and people foolish enough to leave their firesides in the darkling hours, when it was neither day nor night, might pass through the mist between one step and another and, without knowing, leave the mortal world for Elf-Land.
Perhaps if she came back here on Christmas Eve, or May Day, on Midsummer’s Eve or Halloween, in the darkling hours, she could stretch her hand out into the dusk, and Per’s hand would meet it.
In the same valley, on the other side of the air …
“Here!” Per called. He came back to Joe from among the bawling black sheep, hauling another sheep along by its horns. Swart followed behind him, occasionally sniffing at the sheep, but too well used to them to bite or chase.
“This be my best ewe,” Per said, though how he could pick her out from among all the others was more than Joe knew. Nor how Per had known that he’d find her on this particular hillside. Joe had a lot—well, everything—to learn about sheep. It was frightening how much he had to learn, but exhilarating too. He would learn. He’d be a mug not to put all his energy into learning whatever was needful. Here was his chance for all he’d ever wanted: his own home, a family. And more than he’d ever wanted: property, respect.
Per, still holding the ewe by one horn, rubbed his hand through the thick, greasy fleece. “She be a good mother, this one. Every year for last three years she’s had twins and both have lived. Whatever lambs she has this year are thine.”
He’d already promised Joe a young ram and a breeding ewe. Adding the as-yet-unborn lambs made a generous gift, and Per was silent for an eye’s blink as he considered the loss to his own flock. But better to be known for generosity than meanness. Every impulse toward meanness should be resisted. Per let the ewe go, looked up and said, “And I’ll give thee another breeding ewe besides.”
Per’s bruises had faded. Both his eyes were open again, and though one was still surrounded by yellow and brown marks, and the white blood-shot, they were, again, that silvery pale blue. He wasn’t quite as pretty as he had been—there was a slight bump in his nose now, and a small dent on one cheekbone—but he was recognizable again as Per May. He gave Joe his big, bright smile.
“Thanks,” Joe said. “It’s good of you. Thee. You.” He was never sure how he should address Per. Being a friend, and the younger, made Per “thou.” But being the master to whom Joe had sworn faith made him “you.”
“We be ‘thou’ to each other,” Per said. Letting go of the ewe, he came over to Joe and hugged him in the affectionate way of the Sterkarms, which Joe still hoped he’d get used to one day. “But for thee, I’d never have won out of Elf-Land.”
Hugging him back, Joe shook him. “But for thee, I’d never have won out of Elf-Land.”
They laughed and sat down, side by side on the hillside. In the valley below, the river ran fast over rocks, and on the farther slope was the black, burned place where the Elf-Gate had stood. The fallen fences had all been cut up and dragged away, but some of the rubble of the broken Tube remained. Joe watched a couple of herdsmen on black horses, carrying long lances, ride at a gallop by the riverside, just for the hell of it. I’ll never be able to ride like that, Joe thought, but my son will. The idea both thrilled him and filled him with dread.
Per, beside him, stared and stared at the burned place.
Swart came over to them, sniffing, knocked Per flat on the slope and stood astride him, slapping his face with a long red tongue. Fending Swart off, Per said, “Chyo?”
“Joe. J-J-J. Joe.”
Per, struggling up, hugged Swart, who licked his ear. Nodding, concentrating, Per said, “Cho. What was it like in Elf-Land?”
Joe was dumbstruck by the vastness of the question. It was like being asked what it was like to be alive. “Tha kens what it was like. Tha was there.”
Per stared down the valley, toward where the Elf-Gate had been. “Tha lived there years, Chyo. Cho. Didst hate it?”
Joe considered, raised his brows, considered some more. “Some of it. I loved some of it. Most of it was no too bad. Was no too good. But … There was no place for me, tha kens?” Per stared at him attentively, but Joe doubted that he understood. “It was like music stopped and I’d no chair.” Per frowned, never having played that game. “But I reckon … Yeah, I still reckon I be better off here.”
Swart wandered off, and Per clasped his knees, rested his chin on them and withdrew from the bleating sheep, the damp hillside wind, the cloud shadows and the man beside him, as he gazed toward the hill of the Gate. A Gate he could never find, though he searched behind every blade of grass and every stone …
Staring, his eyes grew wide and unfocused, his mind drifted—and at his ear, so real he felt the puff of air against his skin, Andrea’s voice said, “Per …” The very note and timbre of her voice was in it. His head jerked up and he turned—and there was Swart, ears pricking and tail beating on the grass. No Andrea, but—Per turned his head, looking all about.
“What?” Joe asked.
“Nowt,” Per said, uncertainly, still looking around. “Nowt.”
Joe watched tears gather in Per’s eyes, sparkle, brim over his lashes and fall down his cheek, and he shook his head. If he lived with the Sterkarms for the rest of his life, he thought, he never was going to feel at home among them.
Maybe, Per was thinking, if he came here in the darkling hours, between night and day … If he came here in the darkling hours of Christmas Eve, when the year turned, and the borders between the worlds grew soft and weak as mist … could he touch her then, as well as hear her? Would the Gate stand open?
“Oh Chyo!”
“What?” Joe said.
“If I had but a swan’s wide wings
Far over hills and sea I’d fly—
To my true love’s arms I’d fall at last
And in her arms I’d gladly die.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Sterkarm Series
1
21st Side: Down at the Pub
“Per? Hite thee Per?”
The young man seated at the table looked up—and it was Per. From the bar she
’d doubted, but looking into that strikingly pretty face, with the large eyes, so pale a blue they were almost silver, there could be no doubt at all. Especially when the younger boy who sat beside him was so much like him, and could only be Per’s cousin Ingram. Except that it was impossible for either of them to be there.
Per stared at her, startled, and then his eyes gave that silver flash she remembered so well, as if a small bulb had lit behind them. He jumped up, still staring. “Yi hite Per Toorkildsson Sterkarm-oh vah air thou hite?”—I’m called Per Toorkildsson Sterkarm—and what art thou called?
It was afternoon. The bar was almost empty and almost silent. Per’s throaty yell shocked a couple on the other side of the room, and they looked around. The Sterkarms had always shouted where other people murmured—it came from habitually conversing across valleys. That loud voice, and its bronchial hoarseness, would have made her absolutely sure, even if she hadn’t been before. Besides, who else in this entire world could have understood what she said, and answered her in the same thick dialect? Who else would stare at her—big fat Andy—with such obvious admiration and place such flirting stress on “thou”? It was Per, it could only be Per. But as certainly as she knew it was him, she knew it couldn’t be. I am going mad, she thought. She’d read somewhere that hallucinations always seemed perfectly real to those who experienced them.
It was the start of her afternoon shift, and she’d been checking that there were plenty of crisps and peanuts, when she’d felt her attention pulled to the seat in the corner by the door. Something she’d glimpsed there, subliminally, was hammering for her fuller attention. She’d looked, and had seen Per.
The shock had jolted her. She’d thought she was over the phase of seeing him everywhere, had done with following tall, fair-haired young men through the streets convinced, against all sense, that it was Per. Don’t say it was starting again. Take a better look, she ordered herself. You’ll see that it’s not him.
She’d leaned over the bar to get a good look, to make it plain to herself that it wasn’t Per and couldn’t be him. He was dressed in jeans and sneakers, for God’s sake, with a zip-up jacket and a baseball cap. Sitting beside him was a thin young man with close-cropped hair, dressed in a gray suit and wearing spectacles with fine gold frames.
Ah—but sitting on the other side of the table, also dressed in jeans and sneakers, was a slightly smaller, younger version of Per, a boy of about fourteen. Ingram Gobbyson, the cousin who admired and ran after Per, and wished they could be brothers.
It could not be Per and Ingram. Could not be.
But the way they sat, the way their hair grew—it was them.
Andrea felt scared and sick. To hallucinate so vividly, while stone sober, in the daylit afternoon—it couldn’t be good.
There was only one way to settle it. She had to go right up to the man, look into his face at close quarters, speak to him … Her heart had thumped wildly as she’d approached him. Now he stood looking down at her, smiling. Her heart hammered and raced, half stifling her. Heat flushed her face, her vision blurred, and she thought that she would faint. Turning, she ran for the quiet room behind the bar.
Near the bar she collided with someone. A big man. An expanse of smooth dark suit filled her blurring vision. Looking up, she saw a rather pink and fleshy but still handsome face. It smirked at her with full red lips from beneath a quiff of very dark hair. She gaped at the man in confusion, recognizing the face and feeling dread at recognizing it, but unable to remember, at that distracted moment, where she had seen it before.
“Andrea!” said the smirking lips, and the whole face creased into what was meant to be a winning smile, though it retained much of its habitual sneer. “You don’t look a day older or a pound lighter!”
James Windsor. Meeting James Windsor, under any circumstances, would have spoiled her day. To meet him seconds after meeting Per where Per could not possibly be was sinister and frightening. She couldn’t breathe; her knees shook. The edges of her vision were brightening to white—“Let me by!” She shoved past him and hurried, as best she could, through the open gate of the bar and into the little stockroom.
There, among dingy cartons of crisps and peanuts, she collapsed onto a stool, gasped in a deep breath, and leaned forward, putting her head between her knees.
It had been a normal, settled day in what had become her normal, settled life. A casual glance across the bar had torn all that to pieces and thrown it into a wind, to whirl about her. To see Per again, when she had just been recovering from—
And it was not possible! The Tube had been closed down. Per was in his own world, he was five hundred years dead. He could not be here in the 21st, hanging out in pubs with James Windsor.
And Windsor. Per had put a lance through him, and he’d ended up in a hospital bed with half his guts missing. Even if it was possible—which it was not—why would he be in company with—?
She realized something else, which made her sit up straight, something almost as surprising as seeing Per at all. Per hadn’t known who she was. She’d spoken to him, she’d stood right in front of him, and he’d looked at her without knowing her and had asked what her name was.
That was impossible. She’d known his shock of roughly cut fair hair, the slope of his shoulders, the slant of his neck. She’d have known his voice, instantly. At a distance she’d have known his walk. She’d have known him in the dark. But to him she’d been a stranger.
The Tube was up and working again.
It was the only explanation. They’d said they were closing it, but it must be up again, it must be. And they’d gone back to a time before contact had been made with the Sterkarms. So Per had never met her and didn’t know her.
Per hadn’t looked any younger, though.
Of course, if the Tube had gone back to a time ten minutes before contact had been made with the Sterkarms previously …
She put her face into her hands again, her head aching as her brain tied itself in knots. She didn’t understand. She knew only that if James Windsor was involved, it had to be bad news.
A clump of heavy shoes made her look up. Her boss, the landlord, was intruding on her hidey-hole. “Aren’t you supposed to be—?” He broke off. “You all right, Petal?”
Andrea opened her mouth to say, automatically, like the good sort she was, that she was fine—but then changed her mind. “I’ve had a bit of a shock.” Her voice wavered convincingly.
“Oh.” Her boss stood awkwardly, just inside the door. “Well. Sit there for a bit, if you like. We ain’t what you could call busy. Have a cup of coffee.”
“Thanks. I’ll be okay in a minute.”
“Bloke gave me this for you anyway.” He held out a small card to her. “Posh sort.” Andrea looked at the card but made no attempt to take it. “Go on then—I don’t want it.”
She took the card. It gave Windsor’s name, his telephone number, his cell number, his fax, and his e-mail. On the back he’d written: Want a better job? Call me.
She knew immediately that calling him would be a big mistake, and that she would do it the first chance she had.
At the table in the corner by the door, there was some consternation.
“She spoke English!” Per said to both Gareth and Ingram.
“She did,” Gareth agreed, and stared across the bar. James Windsor was speaking to the broad-beamed barmaid. A barmaid who could speak an obscure 16th-century northern dialect of English, so thick it was almost another language—and a language, moreover, not even from this dimension. It was, to say the least, surprising.
“She was beautiful!” young Ingram said enthusiastically.
“Aye,” Per agreed, and cupped his hands. “Lovely big tits!”
They both laughed, and Gareth sighed, feeling depressed. The Sterkarms often had that effect on him. They were as unthinking and crude as any 21st-century yobs. Somehow he had exp
ected better from the 16th century. They didn’t even have good taste. The woman wasn’t beautiful. She was fat.
“She came right up and asked thy name!” Ingram said. “Looked thee right in face and asked thy name!”
Leaning back, adopting a knowing air for his young cousin’s benefit, Per said, “Elf-Mayen be like that—forward and free.”
Giggling, Ingram leaned across the table and poked his cousin. “She wants thee for her prick!”
Per glanced across the bar, in time to see the Elf-May push past Elf-Windsor and run away into a back room. “Nay,” he said, to hide his disappointment. “She’s frit it be too big for her!” They both laughed again. Inwardly, Gareth groaned. Soon he would be back 16th side, hemmed in on all sides by people like this.
James Windsor came up, smiling. “Shall we go?” It was an order, framed as a question.
“Elf-Windsor wishes to leave now,” Gareth said to Per and Ingram.
Per hesitated for no more than an eye’s blink. He would have liked to stay longer—the alehouse was palatial, with thick cloth on the floor and glass in the windows and polished wood and brass everywhere. And then there was the serving may. He would have liked another look at her, and a chance to see if Ingram was right—but this wasn’t the tower, where any woman was fair game for him. He was a guest in Elf-Land, and if Elf-Windsor wished to leave, then as a polite guest he had to leave. So he said to Ingram, “Another ride in cart!” Ingram rose readily at that, a smile on his face, and both of them made for the doors.
Falling in beside James Windsor, Gareth said, “That barmaid. She spoke to Per—in Sterkarm.”
“She used to work for me,” Windsor said. “She was rather good.” He omitted to mention that the rough dictionary and tapes from which Gareth had initially learned his “Sterkarm” had been made by Andrea. “I’m thinking of asking her to come back to her old job. You didn’t think we’d come all this way just to give the Merc a run?”
