The Sterkarm Handshake (11 page)

Windsor followed the Sterkarms into a small room and glimpsed something big as it reared up, blocking the light and seeming to attack Toorkild, who bellowed so loudly that Windsor jumped. The thing dropped to the floor again. It was a dog—a very big dog, a sort of Irish wolfhound thing. It had been taller than Toorkild when it had rested its front paws on his shoulders. Cowed by his yell, it slunk under the table.

The table took up most of the room. There was no cloth, and plates were set directly on the wood. At either end was a large, high-backed chair, and a bench was placed along the side farthest from the hearth.

The fire was made of peat, and a great deal of gray smoke coiled into the room despite the chimney's stone hood. A painted carving of the Sterkarm handshake decorated the hood, and Windsor, eyeing it and remembering the reason for this visit, thought of the warnings about shaking hands with Sterkarms.

As for the rest of the room, the walls were plastered but otherwise plain. A short flight of steps rose from a spot near the door to another door near the ceiling, which led out onto the tower's roof. The wooden floor was covered everywhere with straw and bits of dried twig and leaf, which made Windsor think of dirt and bugs—and that big flea farm had come prowling out from under the table again! Apart from the table, chairs and bench, the only other furnishings were a cupboard and three wooden chests along one wall.

Bryce started making a fuss of the dog, rubbing its ears and patting its back. It was one of those long, dangerous-looking dogs whose deep rib cages slope up steeply to high, narrow hips. Its shoulder blades and hipbones rose higher than its spine, and its tail lolloped noisily against its shaggy sides as it nuzzled Bryce's hand, and then reared up to put its paws on his shoulders and look down at him, its tongue hanging out between its teeth.

“Oh, don't encourage it, Bob,” Windsor said. He thought such a large dog in such a small room was going to be a nuisance while they were trying to talk—and besides, he could already feel his ankles itching.

Isobel, who was trying to usher Windsor to the guest chair, said, “Entraya, will I have Cuddy taken out? I can have her locked up somewhere.”

But when Andrea passed this on to Windsor, he patted Cuddy perfunctorily, saying, “No, no, let her stay.” He went to the chair Isobel was offering him and sat, putting his briefcase on the floor beside him. Isobel fetched cushions from a chest against the wall and packed them behind him. Windsor thought it rather pleasant to have her fussing around him, but the cushions only added lumps to what was already a fiercely hard and uncomfortable chair.

Toorkild had taken the chair at the other end of the table, and Bryce a seat on the bench. Isobel offered him a cushion, which he accepted.

“It's good to eat with friends,” Toorkild said, “and we'll eat well today! It's sad our bonny lad can't be here. He'd eat twice what any of us can eat and never notice it touching his sides.” He laughed and thumped his belly. “And I'm stuff enough to make three of him!”

“Let him come home safe,” Isobel said, touching the wood of the table.

Andrea quickly translated for Bryce and Windsor, who were looking slightly puzzled. She added that Toorkild and Isobel were talking about their son who, sadly, couldn't be with them today.

Windsor and Bryce glanced at each other. They had something to tell Toorkild about his precious son. Windsor tried to remember if he'd ever met Sterkarm Junior, but couldn't call him to mind.

Isobel poured ale from an earthenware jug into Windsor's cup, which was a beautiful little thing made of silver. Toorkild and Bryce had cups of pewter at their places, while Isobel and Andrea had cups of wood. The way the Sterkarms acquired things meant that they tended not to match.

As soon as his own cup was filled, Toorkild lifted it and said, “Long life and good health to you, a child every year to you, and may you never drink from a dry cup!”

Andrea hastened to translate the toast, and Bryce and Windsor laughed and agreed to it. They tasted their ale as Toorkild was urging them to do.

“Good stuff,” Windsor said. He thought it awful: thick, sticky and sweet. But he knew from his previous visits, when the Sterkarms had pressed snacks of ale and bread on him, he had to be careful with it. The “first-brew” ale they served to guests was far stronger than twenty-first-century beer.

Isobel stooped over the fire, preparing to serve the food. Toorkild sat in his chair, grinning at his guests. Windsor, struggling to make conversation, said, “Is their son away on business?” He was surprised when Andrea threw him a startled, even alarmed, glance.

Andrea's next glances were to Isobel and Toorkild, to make sure they weren't wearing the wristwatches Per had given them. She'd had to be quite blunt, telling them that she knew perfectly well the watches had been stolen, and would only cause awkward questions to be asked if Elf-Windsor saw them. It had been difficult, even so, to get Isobel to leave off the watch, because it was such a pretty thing and Per had given it to her. Andrea had reminded her that only the Elves could provide them with aspirins. At that moment, the watches were wrapped in a towel in one of the chests on the other side of the room.

Toorkild was waiting to hear what Windsor had said. “Ah—Elf-Windsor wants to know—has Per gone away to work?” Isobel looked around from the fire, and Toorkild was momentarily startled by the notion that his son would perform menial tasks for pay, but then good manners made him smile again.

“Nay!” he said. “Killing Grannams is pleasure and sport!” It was a joke rather effortfully made, but he laughed at it himself, and Isobel did too, though she turned and gave Andrea a stricken look even as she laughed. “Keep him safe,” she said.

Windsor and Bryce were raising their brows, curious to know what the joke was. “He says, yes, Per's been called away,” Andrea told them. They looked baffled and glanced at each other again. Andrea could see them thinking that the joke must have lost a lot in translation, but couldn't imagine that they would be much amused by Toorkild's little quip either. I'm getting into boggy ground here, she thought. FUP paid her to report on the Sterkarms for them—but she was lying for the Sterkarms because—well, because she loved them. Should a personal loyalty be greater than a loyalty bought and paid for? Per wouldn't have had the slightest doubt. No payment, however high, could buy his loyalty, which was why you should never shake hands with a Sterkarm.

Isobel took the little silver-gilt bowl from in front of Windsor to fill it from the iron pot she'd been stirring over the fire. Andrea was glad to have an excuse for thinking of something else, and went around the table to the fire, where she passed the empty bowls to Isobel and set the filled bowls before the diners.

Windsor looked into his bowl with interest. Having been promised the very best of what the Sterkarms had, he was hoping for fresh oysters, salmon so recently caught it was still swimming, roast haunch of venison, wild strawberries with fresh cream straight from the dairy. The little bowl before him was filled with a smooth, thick paste. Pools and rivulets of a yellow liquid ran through it. He looked up at Andrea as she was setting another bowl before Bryce.

“Groats,” she said quietly. It meant nothing to him. “Oats ground very very fine—a lot of work—and cooked for hours, very slowly, with cream and butter. That's the butter, melting out of it.”

Isobel, smiling, passed an earthenware platter of pale, reddish-­brown slices of meat to Windsor.

“You eat the meat with the groats,” Andrea explained. “It's smoked mutton and smoked sheep's tongue—I think there might be some goat too. Raw, just smoked. Use your fingers to dip it in the groats.”

Windsor's expression was one of carefully controlled horror, but Bryce helped himself to a slice of meat, dipped it in his bowl, and said, “It's good!”

Toorkild and Isobel smiled widely. Windsor thought the goo looked repulsive, but he dipped a slice of tongue into it, wondering exactly how the meat had been smoked. With peat, or dung? But his hosts were watching him. He would have to trust twenty-first-century medicine to put him right.

Bryce hadn't been telling polite lies. The tang of the meat and the butteriness of the groats were tasty together, if rather rich for a starter. Still, the notion that he was swallowing aggressive sixteenth-century microbes wouldn't leave him.

A rather awkward silence fell while they ate the groats. Making light conversation was difficult when everything had to be translated. Windsor wondered how quickly they could get on to the real business.

Toorkild and Isobel emptied their bowls first, and Toorkild held Cuddy back by her collar while his wife escaped the room to order the next course. She didn't go far; they heard her yelling down the stairs to someone, and then she came back, smiling. She opened one of the big chests, and Toorkild helped her bring to the table some objects wrapped in cloth, one of which was very long.

Toorkild took this long thing to Windsor, pulling the wrappings away to reveal a sword with a graceful basket hilt to protect the hand. Toorkild cleared his throat and said, “This we give you in gratitude for your friendship, which we hope will long be ours. May it serve you well and protect you for many years.”

As Andrea translated, she watched Windsor's face. He took the sword awkwardly—it was a little long for him to handle easily as he sat in his chair. He drew the bright, sharp blade partly from the scabbard and seemed startled by the harsh scraping sound it made. His expression was slightly stunned, as if Toorkild had hit him.

Andrea thought she knew how he felt. The Sterkarms had been shocked to discover that she had no weapon of her own, and had given her a dagger. She'd felt very odd about it, touched by their concern that she should be able to protect herself, but at the same time the heaviness, sharpness and obvious
practicality
of the weapon had dismayed her. She felt the gift was making a demand she couldn't meet. Of course, she'd known that the Sterkarms' way of life was often violent, but her own life had always been safe and peaceful, and however hard she tried to come to terms with the feuding and riding, the brute reality of it always came as a shock.

She saw the same shock in Windsor's face. The sword he'd been given was in no way symbolic or ceremonial. It wasn't a theatrical prop, or a quaint antique, but an everyday tool for killing people. It had come to vicious life in his hand, and had thrown him a little.

Isobel was giving Bryce a dagger with an elaborate hilt that suggested it had been made to match the sword given to Windsor. Expensive and generous gifts. Andrea wondered who had owned them before they'd come into the Sterkarms' possession.

“Thank you!” Windsor said. “I'm sure I speak both for myself and Mr. Bryce when I say I'm delighted to do business with people so charming and hospitable, and we look forward to a long continuing connection in the future. We shall treasure these gifts.”

Bryce was nodding emphatically as he admired his dagger.

To Andrea, Windsor went on, “Can you add anything that's proper?” He wondered how much the sword would be worth 21st side. Once FUP's project really got moving, the bottom was going to fall right out of the market for sixteenth-century antiques, so if he was going to sell, he'd better sell quick.

Andrea translated his speech. She added, “Elf-Windsor says that this beautiful sword will always remind him of Sterkarms' friendship and generosity. He feels himself honored to be trading with a family as renowned for their courage and pride, for their weapon skill and vindictiveness as Sterkarms.”

Toorkild and Isobel beamed, and Andrea felt quite proud of herself. The Sterkarms loved to be called proud and vindictive. It was nothing more than the truth: They did value themselves highly, above others, and they were prone and quick to seek revenge. They considered both to be excellent qualities.

Toorkild was so pleased by what he believed Windsor to have said that he pulled Windsor up from his chair to hug and kiss him again, and then, while Isobel was kissing Windsor, he pulled Bryce up from the bench to embrace him. Both 21st men were startled but carried it off. Cuddy became excited and jumped about, flailing them with her tail, and making the strangled whining noise that was the closest she could get to a bark. Toorkild gave a shattering roar of “Down, Cuddy!”

“I have presents too!” Windsor said, and stooped for his briefcase. He took from it two whole packs of aspirin, each containing twenty-four tablets, one for Toorkild and one for Isobel. As an afterthought, he tossed another pack onto the table. “And one for their son.”

The Sterkarms had never seen so many aspirins before. Isobel cooed over the pretty neatness and bright, clear colors of the little cardboard boxes, and held one up for Toorkild to admire. “Elven be greatest of our friends!” Toorkild said, as someone knocked at the door. “My brother will envy me—he has a wife and three sons and a daughter too.”

Isobel had gone to open the door, while struggling to hold Cuddy. Two kitchen girls came in, carrying a pot between them on a wooden bar. As Andrea was translating, Isobel caught her eye. She never liked to hear talk of her brother-in-law's bevy of children, especially not when her only living child was out of her sight.

Windsor, taking the hint, found two more packs of aspirin in his briefcase and dropped them on the table. “I don't have any more with me, but perhaps I could get some more.” He met Toorkild's eye as Andrea translated this and thought they understood each other.

Isobel had shooed away the kitchen girls and now served the main part of the meal: a sort of meat pudding. Andrea went to help her. In honor of the guests they were using plates instead of trenchers, silver gilt for Windsor and Bryce, pewter for Toorkild and Andrea, wood for Isobel. They slopped lumps of the meat pudding onto the plates, together with its gravy, while Andrea translated Windsor's remarks about how good it smelled and how hungry he was.