The Sterkarm Handshake (39 page)

Bryce tried not to remember that he'd warned Windsor, over and over, not to underestimate the Sterkarms. Gibing at Windsor wasn't going to be any help. Nor was anything else he could think of.

Putting the jug of ale down on the nearest table, Andrea edged and shoved her way through the people until she reached the family table too. Reaching between the bodies of others, she caught at Per's arm. He looked around, and his face took on an expression of wary surprise. Andrea pointed toward the door that led from the hall to the stairs, and then let go of his arm and pushed her way through the crowd.

Andrea reached the small landing outside the hall door first. The only light came from the hall's open door, and the stairs were dark She climbed a few steps toward the upper story and leaned against the plastered wall, waiting. The stone walls muffled the din from the hall and blocked the heat. Where she waited it was quiet, and chill.

Per came out onto the landing, with the noise and light of the hall at his back, and looked up to see her standing above him on the stone steps, melting into the darkness, only faintly touched by light. He thought she looked very beautiful, and he was afraid to speak in case he said the wrong thing. He didn't know how to hold his face: whether to look pleased, or sad, or indifferent. He was afraid that she'd called him out here to tell him that she was going to use some Elf-Work to leave him. Or that, although she would stay, she would never speak to him or look at him again.

Andrea, on her side, was ashamed to be asking for his help. She held out a hand to tell him to keep his distance: It would be unfair to let him think she wanted anything but help. “Per, what will they do with Elven in lockup?”

Per was stung by the disappointment. She was interested in her fellow Elves, then, not in him. He looked over his shoulder toward the hall, and the firelight shining through the doorway lit his face. He gave a slight shrug.

“They will kill them!” she said.

“There be talk of it.” His voice was hard. If she didn't care how she hurt him, then he didn't care for Elves.

She came down the steps, closer to him. “Per, be so good, let them no be killed. Be kind, let them gan.”

Immediately he felt that he'd been cruel, and his chest and throat tightened. He went toward her, meaning to cuddle her, but her outstretched hand still told him to keep away.

“Talk to thine father,” she said. “Ask him to let them gan.”

“It be Gobby wants them killed. It be Gobby who lost a man.”

“But they be in thine father's lockup. Be so kind, Per. I promised them they'd be ransomed. Be kind, do no make me a liar. I be one of them: They be my people. Be so good.”

“Oh, Entraya.” He climbed the steps to her and put his arms around her.

She tried to push him away, but he caught her wrists and folded her arms up against his chest. He was very strong. He hugged her to him tightly, enveloping her in his smell of sweat and sheep and leather—a blunt instrument of a smell, but one that was rich and musky and irresistibly comforting, since it meant Per, and ease and happiness. Instead of pushing him away, she leaned on him and burst into tears. “Oh Per, I be so scared. I do no want those men to be killed. Be so kind, let them not be killed.”

“Ssh! There be nowt for thee to fear, Honey.” He kissed her eye and held her tighter. She seemed so warmly alive and soft in his arms, so easily hurt. So human. “Nobody shall hurt thee—I will no let them.”

“But Elf-Men!” she said. Her face was all wet and caught the little light from the hall door. “They did no want to come here, Per. They had to come—and they have families—be so kind, be so good, do them no hurt.”

Tears came to his own eyes. He wanted to tell her anything that would make her happy. Now that she was in his arms again, looking up at him, asking for his help, he didn't want to fail her or make her angry again—but she asked him for something he couldn't give. If he promised it, he would only have to break his word, and that would make her angrier than ever. “They killed Gobby's man, Sweet.”

“Look how many of them you killed! Men who—” She was crying too hard to go on.

His hand went to the back of her head, stroking her hair. “But little bird, they attacked us. They'd come to take our land.”

She tucked her head hard under his chin, and sobbed, “Be kind, do no kill them, be kind be kind do no kill them, be so kind, Per, be so kind.”

Above her head, he grimaced, trying to blink his eyes free of tears. He couldn't refuse her, but he couldn't promise her anything either. It was a joke at the tower that his mother and father would give him anything he asked for, but he knew it wasn't true. If he asked for the lives of the Elves, he didn't think he would be granted them. Largely for his sake, Toorkild and Isobel wished it to be known that the price for taking a Sterkarm life was many other lives. Their slogan, “Come, Who Dares Meddle with Me!” must always be more than mere words.

“Entraya? If we spare Elven—if we let them gan back to their home—wilt thou stay?”

She stopped crying and froze, keeping her head down against his chest. What would life be like, if everyone else from the 21st went back through the Tube, and the Tube was shut down, and she was left here alone? She loved Per, despite everything—with his arms around her, she knew she loved him—but what if he was killed? What about the time she'd spend waiting for him to be hurt again, or killed, and dreading it?

With an uprush of feeling that choked her, she realized with what deep longing she wanted central heating and inner-spring mattresses, supermarkets and intensive care, microwave pizzas and noisy, crowded, polluted cities where you could go out alone for the day without needing a troop of friends, all armed to the teeth, to ensure that you got home again. She loved Per, but she didn't think she was strong enough to stay with him in the 16th.

“Stay, Entraya. Be so kind, stay. Tha've been happy here—tha said it was more green here, tha said people were more friendly than Elves, tha said tha never wanted to gan home!”

She had said these things, in her first flush of enthusiasm for all things Sterkarm, in the first drunkenness of finding that Per wanted her—but that was before things had become complicated. When she'd said those things, and meant them, she had always known, at the back of her mind, that it would be easy to return home to the 21st. Nothing was the same now.

“Entraya!” He bent his head down and sideways, trying to see her face. A kiss landed on the side of her nose. “If our folk fight, we no have to fall out! I ken tha'll be leaving thine own folk, but every may leaves her folk, and she be sad for a while …” The Sterkarm women sang laments about it on their wedding day. Andrea had written out some of the songs in her notebooks. “But she settles, and has bairns and is happy! And I'll
make
thee happy, Entraya! I'll do all to make thee happy. I'll buy thee writings.” Per was uncomfortably aware that Elf-Land was wealthier, more luxurious and comfortable than anything he had to offer. “I'll buy thee cloths for the floor, and a bed with a feather mattress. Tha shalt have thine own sheep and cow. And a pig—all thine alone. I'll—I'll—” His imagination couldn't stretch to anything else he could give her. “And I'll wed thee, Entraya. We'll jump broom—now, this night, if tha'll say ‘aye.'”

In the absence of any priest, jumping over a broom together before witnesses, followed by drinking from the same cup and an exchange of rings, was a binding marriage for the Sterkarms. She started shaking her head, feeling overwhelmed by his insistence. “Per—”

“I need a wife.” He tried to kiss her again, but she ducked her head. “I must have a wife, and tha'rt better than any! Tha'rt big and strong and clever and bonny. Tha'll be my wedded wife, Entraya, whatever comes.”

By which he meant that, big and strong and clever as she was, he would always grant her the respect and status due to his wife, no matter how many mistresses and bastard children he later acquired. “Per—”

“Our first son shall be called Toorkild—but if first be a girl, I'll no care. She'll be my second Elf-May. And after first son, tha canst name others as tha wilt, with Elf-Names.”

Tracey, Sharon and Wayne Sterkarm.

“Not thou or our bairns shall ever be hungry, I swear. I'll never let thee be hungry.”

No, he would ride instead, steal cattle, and leave someone else hungry behind him.

“There be nowt to fear. I'll look after thee. I'll kill anyone who hurts thee.”

“Per—” But it was useless trying to explain to him that she couldn't stay with him precisely because, when he said he would kill anyone who hurt her, he meant exactly that. “Per, be so kind, wilt ask thy father to spare Elven?”

“Wilt stay?”

“Per—” She started to cry again. “This be no fair!”

He held her tighter and rocked her a little. “Ssh, ssh!” He knew it wasn't fair, but many things weren't fair, and if this was what he had to do to make her promise to stay, then he'd do it. Better to get her to give her promise than to steal her swanskin so she couldn't leave.

She looked up at him and said, “Wouldst thee come and live in Elf-Land?”

In the faint light from the hall, she saw his aghast expression. Then she watched the pretty face that had earned him his nickname turn cold. He said, “They talk of hanging thine Elven from walls.”

She stared into his face, and he looked steadily back. Though his hand stroked her hair at the back of her head, his expression didn't change. If she didn't agree to stay with him, he would give her no help in saving the 21st men.

She ducked her head and pressed her face against his chest, hiding from him. She felt him kiss her head. He said, “It will be all right, little bird, all right …”

She was thinking: How had she got into this, and how could she get out of it? She couldn't seem to untangle the events that had brought her to this moment. At what point could she have turned back, or done otherwise? She could hardly bear to look at what the future held. Was she to watch men, who were guilty of nothing much more than trying to earn a little money, strangling from the tower walls? Was the rest of her life going to be discomfort, squalor and drudgery, without even the consolation of having chosen it for herself?

These couldn't be her Sterkarms, it couldn't be her Per, forcing her into this. These must be those murderous, frightening Sterkarms whom she'd always sensed hiding behind the ones she loved.

“Birdie?” Per spoke with difficulty, through a narrowed, painful throat. He knew that what he was doing was wrong, and it made him afraid, but he had to do it. If he didn't, then his whole life would be spoiled. Everyone at the tower knew he had his eye on the Elf-May, and if he didn't wed her, then everyone would see him snubbed … He would wed some other may, but she wouldn't be an Elf-May, she wouldn't be as beautiful and glamorous, and their children wouldn't be half Elves. He would spend all the rest of his life in regret, and he had no intention of wasting his energy in doing that. “All will be right, honey cake; I'll
make
it right …” He would. If he hurt her now, then he would make it right later. He'd succeed, because he'd try so hard.

She thought: He is so naive. Lifting her head, she said, “If I stay … if I wed thee … dost promise tha'll get thine father to free Elven?”

He drew a breath and held it. “Entraya, if tha'll stay, I'll do my all, but—Daddy might say, ‘Nay.'”

She slid her arms up and around his neck. “Not if thou asks him.”

“Mammy'll be for killing 'em.”

Andrea knew that was true. For all Isobel's charm and gentleness within the tower, she was fiercely in favor of killing enemies. And Toorkild, if asked for one thing by the son he doted on, and its opposite by the wife he dearly loved for all his infidelities … Andrea felt almost sorry for him.

She kissed Per's cheek. “Promise to do thine best, to try thine hardest, and I'll stay even if Toorkild says nay.”

He let out a long breath and gave his brightest smile, while tears spilled from his eyes, catching the faint light. “I give thee my word I'll do my all to save Elven. By oak, ash and thorn, by my mother's heart, I swear it.”

It was the nearest to a binding promise that anyone was ever going to get from a Sterkarm. Even so, would he keep it? “Then I'll stay.” She didn't know if she meant it. She didn't know if she could go through with it.

His arms squeezed tight around her, pulling her up onto her toes, pressing breath out of her. He kissed her cheek, his scanty beard and mustache scratching her skin as he tried to find her mouth. She turned her head, and his tongue slipped between her lips.

It was a roar from the hall that made her jump and bang heads with him. He drew back, his hand to his nose, grinning wryly. She breathlessly clutched at her thumping heart and wondered, was that yell from a lynching party setting off for the lockup?

Per leaned close again, and she smacked her hand against his chest. “Nay!” She had to think of the frightened men in the lockup, and their families back in the 21st.

Oh, the 21st! Hot showers. Sliced white bread. A happy absence of fleas and lice, and a general use of deodorants. And, despite the tabloid headlines, a tendency not to hack strangers to death right outside your own front door. “Go and talk to thine father, be so kind.”

“Entraya—”

“We've plenty of time,” she said, and smiled.

His big, bright smile came back. He kissed her cheek. “I'll talk him round!” He ran down the steps and back into the hall, looking back at her over his shoulder, smiling.

Andrea was left in the cool darkness of the stairway, her heart beating uncomfortably fast, her body shaking slightly. She believed that Per would now do his best to persuade his father to free the Elves, but she had far less faith that Toorkild would agree. So what was she to do? Simply wait until Per failed, and then stand by as the 21st men were murdered anyway, and bleat, “I did my best”? After all, she was in no danger of having a noose tied around her neck and being thrown over the tower's wall.