The Sterkarm Handshake (24 page)

There was more laughter. Bryce looked from face to face and concluded that none of them had stopped to consider what “taking it over” from the Sterkarms would really—
really
—entail. Perhaps they thought the Sterkarms would hand over their land with a smile.

“Ah, coffee!” Windsor said, as the urn was wheeled in on a cart. Shall we adjourn for a few minutes? After that, I'm sure marketing will be glad to enthrall us.”

The people were glad to rise, to stretch, to gather around the coffee urn and chat and laugh over what Windsor had said. Windsor quietly left the room. Just time to nip over to the Tube and check on whether Mitchell had reported, as instructed. If she had, his checking up in person would impress everyone. If she hadn't, he could make a note to have her guts for garters sometime in the immediate future, and that would make everybody else pull their socks up.

Slipping along the corridor, he took the stairs that would lead him down to reception. From there he could cut back through the house, and leave it by a back door almost directly opposite the Time Tube itself.

Andrea took the name badge from the receptionist and tried to clip it to Per's jakke. It was difficult, as the leather of the jakke, even where it wasn't full of old iron, was too thick for the little jaws of the grip to bite on. She was fiddling with it when a voice demanded, “What the
hell
is going on here?”

She jumped and almost dropped the badge. Windsor had just emerged from a hidden stair at the side of the reception hall. He stood there, very tall, the expanses of suiting across his chest and shoulders glowing with the dark, smooth beauty of the cloth, his dark hair brushed up into a peak above his forehead.

Annoyed as Windsor was, it was gratifying to see the way they all turned toward him with their mouths open—Andrea, young Sterkarm and the tramp they'd somehow acquired. Alarm and dismay: that was what he liked to see.

“What is he doing here?” Windsor demanded, waving toward young Sterkarm. He looked at Joe. “And who's he? Call security.”

“No, don't!” Andrea said. “Mr. Windsor, please don't call security.”

“Call security,” Windsor repeated. He pointed to the tramp. “I want this person removed now. How the hell has he been let in here in the first place?” He glowered at the receptionist, who began trying to explain. “Save it. Tell them at the Job Center.” Windsor beckoned to young Sterkarm. “You come with me.” Windsor didn't know what he was going to do with Per if he came, but certainly he had to be separated from his girlfriend. “Come. With. Me. Miss Mitchell, will you tell him, please?”

Double doors crashed open on the other side of the reception hall. Two security guards in green uniforms came through. Joe moved away from them, and backed toward Per. “Come on,” one of the guards said to Joe. “Time to leave. Easier if you just go quietly.”

“Vah sayer han?”
Per asked. He was standing with his back against the reception desk, trying to look in all directions at once.

Andrea said, “I think we'd better give up, Per. There are too many of them.”

“Come on now,” one of the guards said, beckoning to Joe invitingly. They seemed wary of actually starting a fight.

Per looked at the nervous guards, at Joe, and at the Elf-Laird, Windsor, who stood back, very sure of himself. One thing was clear in Per's mind: He wasn't going back to the Elves' sick house. That was a fact as simple and unchangeable as the stone floor under his feet. He wasn't leaving this building except through the Elf-Gate.

It was easy to see in the Elf-Laird's face what pleasure he had in having them cornered. Per remembered how the Windsor had spoken to Andrea, ordering her about. It made him want to turn things around, so that the Elf-Laird was the cornered one. It would make sense. Without needing to understand what was being said, he had no doubt that Elf-Windsor was the kingpin here. Remove him, and all the rest would fall.

As the green-coated guards edged a little closer, Per raised both his hands, palms outward and, looking across at Elf-Windsor, catching his eyes, said, “Stay an eye's blink, stay.”

No one except Andrea understood. Joe's eyes flickered nervously between Per and the guards. The guards looked to Windsor for instructions. Windsor said, “What's he say?”

Joe was thinking: I put my hands between your hands and my foot under your foot—I could end up in the cells for this. I'll guard you and guard yours until the day I die—for a house and land.

Keeping his hands raised, Per came forward a little from the desk, placing himself between Joe and the guards. Looking into Elf-Windsor's eyes, he said, “Be so kind, Master Elf, forgive me. I made Entraya bring me here, it be no fault—”

“Make no excuses for me!” Andrea said.

His hands still raised, Per turned to her, his eyes giving that silver flash of anger. “Tell him what I say!”

“Mister Windsor,” Andrea said, “Per asks you to forgive him.” She looked at Per sidelong, wondering why on earth he was saying this. They were caught, fair and square, in the act of defying Windsor, and it wasn't like Per to humbly beg for forgiveness.

The security guards had stopped their advance on Joe, hanging back until this conversation with their boss might be finished.

That was all Per wanted for the moment. Looking at Windsor, he said, “Be no angry with Entraya. It was my wrong, and I am sad for it.” He took another step forward, but his whole stance was so unthreatening that the security guards tensed only slightly, and Windsor merely folded his arms and stood watching. “Tell him, Entraya!”

Andrea began to speak. Per, though he averted his face slightly and looked up from the corners of his eyes, watched Windsor and knew by the man's reaction that Andrea was passing on his words. He let his head hang down, as if too shamed to look Windsor in the face.

Windsor wasn't sure what all this was about but didn't care much. If young Sterkarm thought he could make bargains, let him. It made it easier to string him along. Meanwhile, it was undeniably sweet to see this spoiled and arrogant sprig of an arrogant family hang his head and beg for forgiveness.

“Tell him,” Windsor said, “to come along with me now, and I'll consider how much you were to blame later.” He smiled at Andrea. The woman was a bigger fool even than he took her for, if she thought she had a job with FUP after this.

Per took the baseball cap from his head, scrunching it in his hands as he took another couple of steps toward Windsor. One of the guards even moved backward slightly, to make room for him. Per's hands were occupied by the harmless cap, his head hung meekly down, and he was going over to Windsor, as Windsor had ordered him to do. “I've no been a good guest, Master Elf, and I be sad for it.” He glanced up at Windsor, took another step closer, and hung his head again. “Be so kind, Master Elf, forgive me.” Sincere apologies were the only kind that gave Per trouble.

As Andrea translated, she saw Joe cast her a bemused look that asked: What's going on? In reply, she rolled her eyes and shrugged.

Windsor's smile was smug. A Sterkarm, one of the crew that carried severed heads at their saddlebows, was admitting that Windsor had beaten him. “Tell him that when he's back in the hospital, where he should be, then we'll think about forgiveness.”

Per paused while he listened to Andrea's translation, and then gave a small shrug, admitting his helplessness.
“Yi kommer.”
I'll come. Another couple of steps brought him to Windsor, and he turned to stand beside him with lowered head. The guards saw a boy, unarmed and humbled, trying hard to ingratiate himself with their boss by good behavior. Their attention shifted once more to Joe.

Per dropped the baseball cap and drew the dagger from his sleeve. He locked his right arm around Windsor's neck and, with his left hand, set the point of his dagger beneath Windsor's jaw. He jerked Windsor backward, choking him and dragging him farther from the guards.

The guards did a double take, their attention swinging between Joe and the scuffle. Joe said, “Bloody hell!” and seemed to dance in place, not knowing where to run. Andrea realized that she'd just seen the Sterkarm handshake in action, and felt simultaneously honored and horrified. You had to wonder about someone who could deceive that well.

Per took a deep breath, his chest swelling and his heart beating against Windsor's back. While he had Elf-Windsor, he was in charge—but the big Elf outweighed him, and his leg ached, his head ached and he could feel his own weakness in his grip on Windsor and his grip on the dagger. But now he'd drawn his dagger, he had to win or he was dead. His voice shook as he said,
“Naw, yi gaw hyemma, ya?”
Now I go home, yes?

Windsor gripped the arm that was choking him and pulled at it. Not right! To be grabbed and manhandled like this, to feel Per's body and legs against him—it was humiliation, insult! Holding Per's arm, he bent forward, even though he was choked, trying to wrestle free.

Per was lifted by Windsor's back and felt his feet leaving the floor. Desperate not to lose, he heaved back on his arm and jabbed at Windsor's neck with the knife.

“Mr. Windsor, keep still, please!” Andrea shouted. “He's got a knife—you're bleeding!”

Windsor hadn't seen the knife; it had been drawn behind his back, and he'd been most conscious of the hard bar of Per's arm across his throat. Now he squinted down at himself. He couldn't see much except Per's arm, but from the corner of his eye he glimpsed something of Per's other hand, blurred, clenched in a fist, holding something. Then the pricking pain at his neck, and the warmth there, made sense. A knife. Oh God. He was bleeding. A cold, like cold water, rushed over his scalp, ruffling through his hair. He caught his breath, his heart swelled, his belly and buttocks clenched, and he saw, in his mind, a clear image of the severed head, all stained with blood. Panic began to mix with his anger. “For God's sake!” he said.

Blood trickled down Windsor's neck through the dark stubble, staining the collar of his shirt. The security guards looked at each other. They knew they ought to rush Per and disarm him—but how, exactly, without getting Windsor killed? They hadn't been trained to deal with knifemen. They weren't
paid
to deal with knifemen.

Per, his feet back on the ground, shouted,
“Yett!”
The Gate!

The question Andrea asked herself was: Would Per
really
hurt Windsor? The answer, little though she liked it, was: In this mood, yes. She darted over to the doors at the back of the reception hall and pushed them open. “Through here!”

Joe went over to her and took the door, holding it open. “Go on!” he said to her. She went through the door into the corridor beyond.

Per dragged Windsor backward toward the door, keeping the point of the dagger at his neck. The one security guard in his way, finding Per's eyes fixed on him, got out of the way.

Windsor's feet stammered at the floor as he stumbled backward, his legs bumping into Per's, while Per's arm dragged at his throat. Ridiculously, even as he worried about what would happen with the knife if he tripped, he found himself trying to help Per by keeping up with him. At the same time he was thinking about grabbing Per's knife hand and twisting it, about using his greater weight to slam the boy back into a wall, about— But all these plans ended with the thought that if he didn't quite get it right, he'd have a knife through the neck

Per dragged Windsor backward through the door, and Joe quickly followed, pulling the door so it swung shut, hiding the reception hall and the staring guards from sight. He ran down the corridor, passing Per and Windsor and joining Andrea. He was aware that he might have just made the worst decision of his whole life.

Per was finding it awkward to go backward down the corridor while keeping a tight hold on Windsor and pointing the dagger at his neck. He wasn't trembling yet, but he could feel the weakness in his muscles that would soon become trembling. He had to keep glancing backward over his shoulder to see where he was going, and he was afraid that while he was turning to look, Windsor would break free. Then Joe came close and set his hand on Per's back, guiding him, so that Per no longer had to look behind.

The doors from reception opened and the security guards came through, speaking into radios. Slowly, they followed them into the corridor.

“Those things they're talking to,” Andrea said, “they're like far-speaks, Per. They're going to tell people to lay for us.” She was thinking, I should
do
something before someone gets hurt. Or say something. But she couldn't think of anything she could say that Per would listen to, or of anything she could do that would stop him.

The corridor divided into three, going straight ahead, to the left and to the right. As they arrived at the junction, security guards arrived at the ends of the side corridors almost at the same time.

“We go straight ahead anyway!” Andrea said. Joe pulled at Per's shoulder to urge him on, Per dragged at Windsor and, together, a six-legged monster, they lurched across the junction of the corridors.

With a clatter of boots, another couple of security guards appeared at the end of the corridor they were following, blocking it. Joe came to a halt, stopping Per, who jolted Windsor and jabbed his neck with the dagger. Andrea looked around wildly, wiping hair from her eyes.

One of the security guards said, “Come on now. Stop playing games.”

“Stilla!”
Quiet! Per said.

Andrea made little “keep it down” gestures with her hands and said, “I think it'd be best—”

Per pulled Windsor back harder, choking him.
“Yi skyera han nakka!”

“He says he'll shear—I mean”—Andrea clutched at her own head—“cut—he says he'll cut his neck—throat! Please be careful!”