The Sterkarm Handshake (36 page)

Per, shamefaced, began hauling Swart away up the hill, and calling Cuddy to follow. “Bad hounds! Bad!”

Wat, following him, said, “Good hounds, good.” Per looked at him. “They did what tha told 'em to do.”

“Good hounds!” Per said, to annoy Wat. “Good girl, good boy!” Cuddy began to bound around him, hanging out her long pink tongue.

They came up by the fallen chain-link fences, picking their way through all the weapons thrown down by Toorkild's men. There, lonely and alien, stood the Elf-Cart, the strangest thing in the whole landscape. Not far from it were the bundles of clothes with arrows sticking from them that were the dead Elves.

Per stood over the bodies and felt the high spirits of the shooting and the chase collapse. His blood chilled, and he shivered. He had turned a living thing to a lump of dead meat, and this was his own death, foretold in these slumped carcasses. This was how he was going to die, perhaps soon: choking, struggling, humbled. And that night the ghosts would gather to his candle's shadows, to remind him.

“You should have stayed in Elf-Land,” he told the bodies. This hill would be haunted for years to come. That night, he'd get drunk and share his bed.

Ingram was ranging over the slope and, stooping, pulled an arrow from the grass and brandished it. Per drew his knife and crouched, to cut the arrows from the bodies.

“Leave 'em,” Wat said, waving to call Ingram. “Get horses.”

“Leave
all
of 'em?” Per asked.

Wat tapped him with his bow stave. “Get horses.”

Per shrugged, dropped his bow and quiver and ran to help Ingram catch the wandering horses. Wat, as the eldest, was in command. If he chose to waste arrows, well, he was the one who'd be blamed when they got back to the tower.

18

16th Side: Windsor to the Dark Tower Came

The two Land Rovers came to a halt on the slope below the tower's crag. Out of the tower's gate, and down the crag's steep path, came a crowd of women and children, led by Isobel, who held out her hands to Windsor, smiling and chattering at him.

“She's sorry for everything,” Joe said. “She hopes you're going to enjoy the meal.” He hadn't caught everything Isobel had said, but he supposed it would be something like that. She'd certainly said something about
“maht,”
which he'd at first taken to mean “meat” but had since learned meant any kind of food.

Bryce was looking from his men, climbing out of the Land Rovers with their rifles, to the Sterkarm women and children milling about them. Some of the girls were very pretty, as his men were noticing. The girls, smiling, were reaching out to touch the camouflage sleeves and even touching the rifles, confident that they would be allowed to. Others lifted up small children to see the Land Rovers.

Bryce didn't know whether or not to be reassured. He didn't trust the Sterkarms—but he knew them to be protective of their children and women, as most peoples were anywhere, anytime. The fact that he and his men had been invited here, to the tower, into the midst of the women and children, seemed to suggest that the Sterkarms were, for once, acting in good faith. It might be a bluff—but it was a pretty foolhardy bluff if it got your children killed. And Old Man Sterkarm had been keen on aspirin … On the whole, and while trying to stay wary, Bryce believed the Sterkarms when they said they only wanted to talk and make friends again.

He could see Old Toorkild Sterkarm, his head close to the head of the man in the 21st waterproof, the one who spoke such suspiciously good English. Waterproof came over to them, pushing his way through the curious women and children. “If you'll all come inside,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the tower, “there's a feast set in the hall—a friendship feast. You're all invited.”

The 21st men at the Land Rovers started grinning. “A party!” one of them called out, and Bryce said, “Quiet!”

“A friendship feast!” Windsor said, and nodded and smiled at Mrs. Sterkarm. “That sounds splendid!” It was the kind of thing you had to say, even though he had clear memories of how terrible Sterkarm food was. Still, the Sterkarms' eagerness to make amends was going to make the food a lot tastier this time around. It was gratifying to see them realize that they'd gone too far. If young Sterkarm could be made to apologize too, it'd be better than a meal at a four-star restaurant. “We accept.”

Bryce was startled to hear that but, before he could speak, Joe said, “Don't mind me saying so, but we'd like it—well, it'd look friendlier if you left your guns outside. We laid—”

“Wait a minute,” Bryce said. “Where are my men? Where is Andrea Mitchell?”

“Inside,” Joe said.

“Let's see them out here,” Bryce said. “Let's see that they're alive and unhurt, and then we'll talk about going inside.”

Joe's mind was working harder and faster than he'd needed it to work for years. The strain made his heart beat faster. “They're hurt.” He saw Bryce and Windsor look alarmed. “Not Andrea. She's—helping get the food ready. But the men, they got a bit hurt.”

“How much is ‘a bit'?” Bryce said.

“One got bashed on the head.” Joe remembered the axe bashing down. “They all got knocked about a bit. You know how it is. Things got out of hand. People got overexcited. Toorkild's very sorry. He wasn't there, or he'd have stopped it.” At the back of Joe's mind, he knew that these lies were going to get more men hurt but were going to keep Sterkarms from being hurt. He hadn't time to think about which was more right, or more wrong. “They're being cared for. Toorkild's very sorry about it. But if you want to see 'em, you're going to have to come inside.”

Bryce looked at Windsor. “I don't like this.”

Windsor tucked his swagger stick under his arm. He saw the risk but hated appearing to be under Bryce's command.

“We ain't going to hurt you,” Joe said. “Not with all the women and bairns running about. This is our home. What would we hurt you with, anyway? We left most of our weapons up there, on the hill.”

There was a small child standing right at Windsor's feet, peering up at him. And the Sterkarms had seen the power of the Elves. They'd seen the Tube made operational again after they'd destroyed it. “We're going to get nowhere standing out here, pulling faces at each other,” Windsor said. It was undignified, this bickering on the hillside. But strolling into the Sterkarms' den and making yourself comfortable—well, as comfortable as you could make yourself on Sterkarm furniture—that had a certain panache. To Bryce, he said, “We'll go in.”

“And leave the guns outside?” Joe said. “To show good feeling. We laid down our weapons.” He felt he was pushing his luck too far, but he couldn't do the Sterkarms a greater service than getting those rifles laid down.

Bryce held himself back from refusing outright. That would only antagonize Windsor as well as the Sterkarms. “I'd strongly advise against it, Mr. Windsor. They outnumber us. The safety catches are on.”

“But better safe than sorry,” Joe said. “It's all these little kids I'm thinking of. This is someone's home you're going into. I'm not asking you to give your guns up—leave 'em here, put a guard on 'em. Just for while you're in the tower. Just to show friendly.”

Bryce went close to Windsor. “It's too risky.”

Windsor could see Toorkild watching them. He didn't want to give the old savage the satisfaction of knowing that he could intimidate them. He didn't want to give Bryce the satisfaction of nannying him. “Sometimes you just have to take a risk.”

You're telling
me?
Bryce thought. “Mr. Windsor, they're taking you in there.”

Bryce pointed, and Windsor looked up at the square gray-red tower rising against the sky. It threw a qualm into Windsor, and at once made him still more determined to prove he was right by going ahead. He refused to behave like a coward. The bloodied severed head flashed into his memory again—but it hadn't been the head of an
Elf
. “We're going in,” he said, “and we're leaving the rifles out here.”

“James—”

“I'm in charge!”

“Shit!” Bryce couldn't let Windsor go in there alone. Nor could he leave the guns out here with no better guard over them than a few security guards and an ex-corporal. But he had to do one or the other.

He went over to the nearest Land Rover, unslung his rifle from his shoulder and dropped it onto the Land Rover's metal floor. “You, you, you!” Bryce rapidly counted out nine men. “Guns down here.” Only one or two of them began unslinging their rifles. The others looked at each other, spoke, muttering. Either they all shared his fears or they just didn't want to give up their toys. Bryce was infuriated by their insubordination. “Do it! I didn't ask for a discussion!” He watched them as, with sour faces, they put their rifles, one by one, on the floor of the Land Rover. “Skipton!”

“Sir!”

Skipton was one of the ex-soldiers, and one of the ten men left still holding rifles. “I'm leaving you in charge here. You guard the guns and the Land Rovers, okay?” Skipton nodded.

Bryce turned to Windsor. “Let's go.” Under Bryce's camouflage jacket, in a shoulder holster, he had an old Browning pistol, thirteen shots in its mag. Could be enough if things got outrageous.

Andrea had heard the sound of the Land Rovers' engines, and then the sound of the horses being led through the tower's lanes to their stables. She'd gone to the window but hadn't been able to see anything. The windows on the top story, in Toorkild and Isobel's private rooms, were the largest in the tower, but they were still small. If you looked straight out, they gave a good view of the surrounding hills and the valley below, but it was all but impossible to look down from them and see what was happening in the tower's yard, or just outside its walls. The roofs, the wall, got in the way.

She could shout, of course. Take a big breath and yell, as loud as she could: “They're going to ambush you!” Her heart started beating faster at the thought of it, and she felt breathless and ill.

It was what she'd said she would do.

It was easy to talk.

She didn't know who was out there—she couldn't see. If there were car engines, then there must be people from the 21st, but had they come armed, as she'd feared, or did they just have briefcases and five-year business forecasts?

What if she shouted, and alarmed the Sterkarms into turning on the 21st men and killing them?

What if the 21st men
had
come armed, and her shout made them open fire on the Sterkarms and gun them down, women, children and all?

Either way, it would be her fault.

She went back to the hearth and sat in Toorkild's chair. A fire burned in the hearth, and she had a box of fuel to feed it. There was meat, bread and ale on the table. Both Toorkild and Isobel were angry with her, but she was still a guest under their roof. And still thought of, she feared, by some, as their son's future wife.

She got up again. She couldn't sit there, warm, by a fire, while murder might be going on outside. She listened at the window again, and heard voices but not what they were saying. She could see tiny sheep moving distantly, in the valley, but not the people a few feet below.

She walked around the table, around and around. People were going to be hurt. Had Per been hurt? He'd been up on the hill when the Elves had come through.

This whole project must have seemed such a good idea on paper. Go in, get the gold, the oil, the gas, make a profit. It was always people who loused things up.

Joe's heart was swollen and tight in his chest, and yet it was rattling away in there with a painful rapidity and force. The soldiers had given up their rifles, but he didn't suppose they'd given up every weapon. In a couple of minutes, he could be dead.

They'd come through the tower gate and were getting close to the tower itself. Toorkild was on one side of him, slightly ahead; and Windsor on the other, slightly behind. Bryce was behind Windsor, and behind him came the soldiers and the Sterkarms. Joe, remembering that he should be seeming happy and relaxed, tried to smile at Windsor but felt his face freeze into a grimace.

As they reached the tower door, Bryce called out, “Wait!”

Toorkild stopped in the act of opening the door.

“I'll go in first,” Bryce said. Behind him the rabble of Sterkarms and 21st men filled the yard in front of the tower, and crowded the alleys leading to it.

Toorkild must have guessed his meaning, because he grinned through his beard, stood aside and waved for Bryce to go into the tower before him.

Bryce edged to the door, leaning against its doorpost and keeping well back from the opening while he peered into the shadows inside. His hand was inside his jacket, on the grip of his pistol. With his free hand, he beckoned to one of his men. “Go in.”

“Me?” the man said.

“Go in,” Bryce said. The man looked around at his colleagues, and then at Bryce again. “That's an order,” Bryce said. “Were you expecting a walk in the park?”

Slowly, as if his boots were filled with concrete, the man came forward to the tower's door. He hesitated, and looked at Bryce, but then fear of his colleagues' contempt, or fear of losing his job, or both, overcame his fear of what was in the tower. He leaped in through the door.

The Sterkarms standing in the yard laughed genially. Inside the tower, the security guard was walking about, kicking up the straw on the floor. He started laughing himself. “Nothing in here but shit.”

Bryce leaned in at the door to check for himself. The ground floor of the tower was dark, lit only by the light from the low, narrow door, which was blocked by Bryce himself. Fragments of light played on the upper walls, and over the curved barrel vault of the ceiling. There was a sweet, rank smell of horse dung.

“Check the stairs,” Bryce said. He watched the man come toward him, to the foot of the stairs that rose from just inside the left-hand side of the door. It was a job he should be doing himself. He didn't like sending this poor dim herbert into danger, but if he did the brave thing and got killed, who'd watch Windsor's stupid back?

The stairs were guarded by a heavy iron grid, which the man pulled back with a sound of metal scraping on stone. He peered into the dark, narrow stairway. “Nobody here.”

Toorkild, leaning at the other side of the door with his arms folded, grinned indulgently at Bryce and asked him—as far as Bryce understood—whether he was gladdened now. “Not yet,” Bryce said. He moved into the cool shadows of the tower's ground floor and took up a position at the foot of the stairs. “Go on up,” he said to the guard. “Have a look around the corner.”

The man looked at him, swallowed hard but started to climb, moving his hand up the plaster. As he got closer to the turn in the stairs, he moved slower and slower, looking around the bend at the few stairs ahead with nothing but the corner of one eye. Half of him disappeared, and Bryce beckoned another man forward. “Stand here. Yell if anybody moves.”

Bryce climbed the stairs after the first man. The first few steps were lit by light from the doorway, but then they curved and became dark, until they turned another curve of the spiral—and then light appeared again, through a narrow slit in the wall. Looking up, Bryce saw light spilling down from the landing, partly shadowed by the man ahead of him. “What d'you see?”

“Nothing,” the man said.

Bryce moved up alongside him. Together, they blocked the stairs. Ahead was the small square landing, grayly lit by one slit window. The door into the hall was standing open, letting through a little more light. Beyond the open door, on the other side of the landing, the dark stairs continued up.