The Sterkarm Handshake (32 page)

“Per!”
Andrea felt like a damsel in distress who, having been scooped up to safety by a shining knight, had been dropped on her backside with a thump.

“She'd be in way up there,” Toorkild said.

Per's nose almost touched Toorkild's. “Daddy—”

Toorkild cupped his hand to the back of Per's head. “Above stairs, then. But under lock and key! Up stairs with thee, Madam!”

“You can't lock me up,” Andrea said. Her voice shook.

“Can I no, Madam? Will you walk up stairs thysen, or will tha be helped?”

She looked at Toorkild, at Sweet Milk and Gobby, and saw that they would make her, even Sweet Milk. When she'd threatened to betray their plans to the enemy, she'd overstepped. She hugged herself, shrinking at the thought of the embarrassment of being dragged up the stairs, or of allowing herself to be locked up.

Per came over to her, his arms reaching out to hold her, his face sad. “I'll come up with thee, Entraya.”

She shoved him in the chest, pushing him away hard. “Oh, get away from me!” Turning, she walked up the stairs by herself.

15

16th Side: A Falling Out

Joe knew something was wrong—he wouldn't take any prizes for that. There'd been a lot of shouting and waving of arms, and then Andrea had gone away up the stairs, hugging herself and looking as if she might cry. Per's father and uncle and the big man they called Sertha Melk had followed her. They hadn't exactly been threatening—Joe didn't feel that Andrea was in any danger. But things weren't peachy keen either. He felt that he ought to follow them, but he might only make things worse and probably wouldn't be able to understand everything they said, and …

He looked around for Per. If the lad was going to guard Joe and guard Joe's until the day he died, he could start with a bit of explaining.

Per was standing close by the foot of the stairs, not looking happy. He moved as if to follow the others up the stone steps, then stopped. Just as Joe reached him, he changed his mind again and made a dart for the stairs. Catching at his arm, Joe pulled him up short.

“Is Andrea all right?” Joe asked.
“Olla rikti?
Andrea?”

“Ya,”
Per said, and turned for the stairs again. Joe held him back and Per, turning to him, frowned.

“Why have they taken her up there?” Joe asked, pointing. “What's going on?”

Per understood his meaning, more or less, but not his concern. “No one will harm her. She be my woman,” he added, in case Joe had forgotten. He pulled away from Joe and would have gone up the stairs, except that the other men, returning, blocked the way. Toorkild turned Per and moved him toward the high table, though Per looked back over his shoulder. Sweet Milk and Gobby brought Joe with them.

“We need someone to talk to Elven,” Toorkild said to Per.

All eyes moved to Joe. Warily, he said, “What?”

Toorkild shook Per. “Talk to him, tell him!”

Per had been looking at the stairs and turned sharply toward his father. “What?”

His cousins laughed. “He be above with his Elf-Woman!” Wat said. Per's face reddened, making them laugh more.

Leaning across the table toward Joe, Per said,
“Thu skal spak til Erlven foor oss.”

Here's my chance, Joe thought. He could repay the Sterkarms' kindness and begin to earn more favors. “Tell me what you want me to say.” Seeing only puzzlement in Per's face, he tried again. “Tell
migh vah thu
want
migh
to spak.”

Per's face brightened.
“Thu maun sye
…” But exactly what Joe must say was harder to follow. Per tried many different words, none of which Joe knew. Per tried mime, pulling a sad face and pretending to wipe away a tear.

Joe couldn't understand why the Sterkarms wanted him to tell the Elves that they were weeping. “Sad? Sorry?”

Now the Sterkarms were puzzled. Per, shaking his head and laughing, went down on his knees and raised his clasped hands to Joe. “Begging? Pleading?” Joe said.

Everyone laughed, even Gobby.

Joe went down on one knee to join Per. “Come on! Concentrate! We'll get it! How many words? Is it a film?”

“Thu maun sye til dem—”
Per was serious again, staring right into Joe's eyes.

“Yeah, I must say to them—?”

“—at vi vill spak meth dem—”

“That you will speak—that you want to speak with them, yeah.”

“Oh dey maun kommer til tur. Hayer. Tur.”

“Oh—here. The tower. They must come here to the tower. Gotcha!”

They grinned at each other.

Joe's mind was working on the problem of why the Sterkarms wanted the Elves to come to the tower. So they could speak with them, obviously and—Per's sad faces and begging suddenly made sense. The Sterkarms wanted to say they were sorry! For burning down the office place.

“Vill thu spak foor oss?”
Per asked.

“Oh, aye,
ya
. But wherefore is Andrea … up there?” He pointed to the ceiling. “Wherefore?”

Per's eyes flickered away from him, he half turned toward his father and uncle, but then gave Joe his big, bright smile and shrugged.
“Kvenna!”
Women!

The smile was so bright that Joe was grinning back before he realized that he didn't understand the answer—except that it was dismissive. He wished he could talk to Andrea. He looked over his shoulder toward the stairs, but the Sterkarms were gathering around the table again, and he was drawn into it.

Trying to follow their talk was a frustrating business, and his face was soon screwed up. Whole phrases would come to him easily but, just as he thought he was about to understand, the next several exchanges would be incomprehensible. Toorkild was to do something with something
vit
—white—and the Elf-Gate was mentioned often.

Per and the other two young men were singled out by their elders for something; that much was obvious by the way they drew together and grinned at each other and listened, nodding, to Toorkild and Gobby. Joe just couldn't fathom out what it was they were being told to do, though the Elf-Gate came into it somehow. They were to go—somewhere. They were to take—a lot of things. It was like trying to read a story where half of every page was missing.

The young men left the table, all together, all heading for the tower stairs, obviously intent on going somewhere and doing something. Joe felt a panic. He didn't know what was going on. He chased the cousins across the hall and caught Per just as he was starting down the stairs.

Per looked at him wildly and with a touch of irritation. This was the second time Joe had grabbed at his arm.
“Vah?”

His cousins pushed past him and went down the stairs. Wat said,
“Per! Kom!”

Joe didn't know how to put what he had to ask. He could see that Per was impatient to be gone. So he said,
“Hus? Lant?”

For an instant Per was confused, then he smiled brilliantly, hugged Joe and, before Joe could pull away, kissed his beard. As soon as Per released him, Joe backed off fast. His surprise stopped him from catching the first few words of Per's answer. The next few words he simply didn't understand, though Per, as he disappeared around the corner of the staircase, pointed toward his uncle and father at the other end of the hall.

Joe turned to look toward them. They were seated, deep in talk. He thought Per had gone but heard his voice again and, spinning around, saw him leaning in from the staircase.
“Thu skal har thine hus now olla air forby.”
His name was yelled from the staircase below, and he grinned and vanished again.

Toorkild and Gobby were still talking, and no one was looking his way. Joe crept out into the staircase and climbed it. Rounding the curve of the stairs, he came in view of the upper door. A man was leaning against it. He stared down at Joe.

Joe smiled apologetically, turned and went back down.

“Gan then, Per!” Wat said. “But hurry!” As Per made off, he shouted after him, “Leaving us to do work, idle hound! If tha'rt not back quick, we shall come and say farewell ourselves!”

Per ran from the kitchen, where Wat and Ingram were filling a sack with food, back to the tower and up its stone stairs from the bottom to the top, where Ecky sat on the landing, blocking the narrow passage.

“What a hurry to be in,” Ecky said, and made no attempt to move aside. Per clambered over him. Finding the door of his parents' room locked, Per wrenched at the handle and rattled it while Ecky, sighing, got to his feet. “Now tha daddy's in hall and tha mammy's about yard somewhere, so what canst tha want to gan in there for?”

Per saw the key lying on the ledge of the landing's tiny window, leaped for it and got it before Ecky could. Ecky, deprived of a chance to amuse himself by making Per fight for the key, sank down on the steps again. Per unlocked the door and went in.

Andrea was in Toorkild's armed chair by the fire, sitting very upright and staring at the door, braced for whoever was to come in. When she saw Per, she turned back to the fire, leaning her chin on her hand.

He could see she wasn't going to be friendly and stood by the door, wondering whether to leave her alone to wear her bad temper out by herself. If she had been merely a woman, he would have done, confident that he could coax her around later. But she was an Elf, and the Elves had been humbled. It was understandable that her pride was badly hurt, and it would be hard for her to turn to him again without seeming to betray her own people.

He went a step or two into the room, looking for an excuse to be there. The fire was burning well, and the hearth was stacked with peat and wood. On the table were a jug and a cup, and a plate of oatcakes. There was nothing she needed, then; nothing that he could do for her, or fetch. “I've come to say farewell.”

Without looking around, she said, “Farewell.”

He went right over to her and crouched beside the chair. “Oh, Entraya. Be no angry.”

“I be no angry. Farewell.”

She was angry. He tipped his head sidelong, trying to look up into her face. If he could get her to look at him, he could probably get her to smile. “Dost want to know where I gan?” His mother always wanted to know where he was going.

“You gan to be killed. Farewell.”

The harshness surprised him into silence, until he decided to ignore it. “Better give me a kiss for luck then!”

She turned a hard, angry face to him and looked at him with Elf-Eyes, like stone. “Your luck's run out. You will be killed.”

Even so close to the fire, a cold struck through him, and he rose, moving away from her. When he looked around, she was staring at the fire again and he couldn't see her face. Her being angry with him made him physically uncomfortable, as if he needed to work his shoulders and fidget. And for her to say such things—it was ill-starred. “We're ‘thou' to each other, Entraya.”

She stared into the fire and said nothing.

“I gan with Wat and Ingram to watch for Elf-Gate opening.”

“You'll be first killed then.”

He went back to the hearth and knelt in front of her. “Don't
say
that, Entraya! Touch wood! Good Old Man's listening.” He nodded to the fire. A sort of hobgoblin lived in chimneys, so it was said, and took a malicious pleasure in making such carelessly spoken words come true.

Andrea pulled irritably at her skirt. He would go to fight, no matter what she said. She tried not to care, she tried to think, To hell with him! But she didn't want him to be hurt, and she didn't want him to leave feeling fated. She struggled to make herself say something comforting, but she was too angry. “You've said ‘farewell.' Now gan your way.”

Per heard the note of doubt in her voice. He tilted his head to look into her face and pouted, big eyed. “Ah, be not angry, be kind, Entraya. Say ‘thou' to me.”

“Just
gan
, Per.”

His pout became sadder, his eyes wider. “Ah, Honey, be kind, be sweet, Honey-mine.”

She turned her face so she couldn't see him, and he leaned farther over. “Ah, Entraya, white flower—”

She was unable to resist looking at him—looked away again instantly—as instantly looked back. His pout began to dimple into a smile, his silver-blue eyes to glint with laughter.

He had brought her out of bad tempers like this before, going on and on until his persistence and shameless insincerity made her laugh. But now she was so far from amusement that she felt like a lump of the Sterkarms' cold porridge. “May I leave room?”

“Sweet flower—”

“Am I free to gan? If I be no, then gan away yourself. Do you gan to ambush and murder my friends and get yourself killed too? Then stop simpering at me and clear off and do it!”

He jumped to his feet, embarrassed and hurt. He didn't like the way she used the word “murder.” “Women!”

He sounded just like Toorkild, and even Gobby. “Oh quick—run to Daddy! He's got something for you to do, I bet.”

The gibe went by him entirely, only puzzling him. He saw nothing shameful in doing as his father told him, so long as he agreed with it, and in this case, what else could he have done but agree with his father?

He went to the door but, with his hand on the jamb, turned back. To leave her on such bad terms was bad luck and made his heart uneasy. He turned back and knelt again, bringing his head on a level with hers as she sat in the chair. “I be …” It was always hard to apologize when it was meant. “I be sad for locking thee in, Entraya. But when all this has gone by, I'll make it up to thee, my word on it.”

She looked at him, and was even more astonished when she saw that he believed what he said. He'd burned down the Elf-Gate and trapped her here. He'd stood by and let his father lock her up. But when this little matter of ambush and murder was over, he was going to make it up to her. “And how do you plan to do that?”

Challenged, he looked away, blinking faster, then looked at her sidelong. “When we're wed—”

“When we're
wed
?”

“I'll—I'll get—I'll
buy
you some writings, and—”

She had to laugh. She leaned back in her chair and laughed while Per watched her uncertainly. He started to smile, hoping that her laughter meant she was in a good mood again. Catching sight of him, she said, “Oh,
go away
!”

His smile disappeared. “Entraya—”

She got up. “Go away go away go away!”

He started getting to his feet, talking, so she used the worst insults she'd learned among the Sterkarms. “Cod's head, sheep's head, gan! Sheep's son! Dog's bone! Run away to your daddy-sheep!”

Per's fists clenched and his face flushed scarlet. There were tears in his eyes, he breathed in gasps, his mouth worked and his face was so childishly angry, she almost laughed again. He snorted.
“Yi gaw!”
I go! He crossed the little room in a couple of strides, snatched open the door and caught at the doorpost with one hand as he swung out and on down the stairs. Ecky was left to shut the door again and lock it.