The Sterkarm Handshake (7 page)

“Have scouts had time enough to get up there?” Gobby asked.

Sweet Milk considered, nodded. “Time enough.”

Gobby lifted his arm high, signaled forward. “Then, on.”

The ride followed Gobby on into the valley. Sweet Milk brought his horse alongside Per's. Per looked the other way. He was stinging and smarting from the setdown his uncle had given him. In front of men who'd been following his orders, he'd been silenced like a boy who'd spoken out of turn. And Sweet Milk had gone along with it—so did Sweet Milk think he
had
been doing badly? Worse, Andrea would come to hear of it.

Their entrance into the valley was greeted by a gleam of moonlight and the waving of a longbow from high above on the hillside. No immediate danger of ambush then: a warning would have been yelled. They made their best speed up the valley, but it was a steep and narrow trail, winding among tumbled rocks, and often the best pace they could manage was a walk. They would do better when they reached the moors.

No ambush had been laid—perhaps the Grannams couldn't spare the men. As they reached the head of the steep valley, they disturbed a couple of sheep that went bounding away, black shapes in the darkness. They might be a couple the Grannams had lost during their climb. The Sterkarms scrambled, by the same steep sheep paths, up to the moor above. Per dismounted, hung his lance in its sling at the saddle, and led Fowl up. He reached the top panting and laughing.

Up there, in the moor wind, they were met by the scouts, and had to wait while the sleuthhounds cast about for the trail. The Grannams must have paused there too, to round up the sheep again after the climb.

“We'll catch them!” Per said to Sweet Milk, as he jumped up onto Fowl. Sweet Milk nodded and grinned. Per had already forgotten to sulk

Sheep roamed the moor constantly, which confused the scent trail. The hounds cast about, rose on their hind legs to sniff the air, and then led off through scrub and heather until they struck one of the wide tracks that ran across the moor. They sniffed the ground and air again, and ran fast along the tracks. It seemed the Grannams were driving the sheep along the track as openly as if they'd been their own.

The track, a broad strip of grassy turf running through darker heather, shone white in the moonlight, and they pounded along it at a fast trot, the riders rising and falling, even urging the mounts to a canter when the moonlight was strong and the path showed smooth. The wind fluted against their helmets and chilled their hands and faces. Rolled blankets and wrapped longbows thumped against their backs.

Per kicked Fowl on and on, intent on staying near the head of the ride, where he could be into the fight before his uncle or cousins. He scanned the black and silvered land ahead, knowing that Fowl's every stride must be carrying them nearer to the Grannam ride. If they'd come this way, there must be sight of them soon.

Ahead the track split, the main branch going on across the moor but a right-hand branch, little wider than a sheep track, making off through the heather. The dogs were casting wide about the place where the tracks met, sniffing the air, sniffing the ground, running a little way along the main path but then coming back.

The leading riders reined in, waiting for the others to come up, waiting for the dogs to find the scent. Fowl was breathing hard, snorting and shaking his mane. Per patted him as he backed and stamped and, breathing deep himself, looked down and saw how pounded and trodden was the turf of the narrow track, and the scrub on either side of it.

That was the way they'd gone! The track led down into a valley, where it would be easier to drive the sheep, and where they'd be hidden. What was more, the slant of the valley led toward the Grannam land. That was the way they'd gone! Waving his arm to call the others on, Per set Fowl at the narrow, right-hand track.

“Per! May!” It was a bellow that reached him above the noise of Fowl's hooves, of the creaking of his saddle, the metallic scratching of the overlapped plates sewn into his jakke. He reined in and turned Fowl, to see the dark mass of horsemen that had come up to the place where the tracks divided. Waving arms called him back.

He pointed on along the path, but saw the two horsemen who had begun to follow him walking away from him, returning to the ride.

“Per!” That was his uncle's voice. Gobby stood in his stirrups, beckoning him with an angry sweep of his whole arm.

Remembering how Gobby had silenced him earlier, Per kicked Fowl on along the path—but Gobby was his uncle. Disobeying him meant disobeying his father too. The ramifications of the quarrel would go on and on. “God's shit!” Per reined in and swung Fowl around in a circle, and had to spend a few moments fighting with Fowl, who disliked such indecisiveness.

“Where wert gadding?” Gobby demanded, when he trotted back to the main party.

“After—”

“Quiet!” Gobby had not wanted or expected an answer. His own sons would have known that. He kicked his horse forward, to lead the ride down the broader track.

“Grannams went that way!” Per pointed down the narrow path with his lance. A rider near him—his cousin Wat—murmured his name warningly.

Gobby turned in his saddle. “Tha'st a better nose than hounds, hast tha?”

“My eyes tell me! That way's all trodden down. That's where they went!”

Young Toorkild, the eldest of Gobby's sons, pointed to the main track and said, “That's best trodden. Odds on they went that way.”

Young Toorkild was almost three years older than Per, and since infancy had tormented his younger cousin by claiming always to be right because he was older, and he often
wasn't
. To see Gobby nod solemnly at Young Toorkild's words was infuriating.

“That track's
always
worn,” Per said. “It be used
all
time. This one be no.
Look
at it, Clod-head! It be—”

“God's arse!” Gobby said, astonished. He swung his lance around in his hand so it came butt upward. “Will I shut tha mouth for thee?” He glared at Per, expecting the boy to look away.

Per held his uncle's stare, trying to think of something that would convince him, but Gobby's face grew angrier, and the lance was still raised in threat. Gobby would do no more than tap him with it, but it would be shaming in front of everyone. Per looked aside.

Gobby lowered his lance and said, “Tha'rt nesh. Nesh! Like any son of Bella Hob's-daughter.”

Per's head came up again, his eyes wide and his mouth opening. Nesh!—soft, like overripe fruit. Someone would tell Andrea about that.

From Gobby's other side, Sweet Milk's voice came through the dark. “Forgive me, Master Sterkarm, but lad be right. About path.”

There was a low grumble of agreement from all the tower men that took Per by surprise and soothed him a little.

Gobby was ill pleased. “Two men,” he said, “to take little path.”

Per walked Fowl onto the narrow, right-hand path, silently offering to be one of the men who rode that way. He wondered if he dared call his own men, the tower men, after him. Would they obey him if he did? He couldn't believe that Sweet Milk would disobey Gobby and follow him, and if Sweet Milk wouldn't, none of the others would.

Gobby saw that Per was again on the narrow path and called out, “By God, that boy tries my patience! Per! Get back here.”

“Why?” Per said.

Gobby rose in his stirrups. “Bring thine 'oss here by me.” As Per's mouth opened, he said, “
Do no argue
!” Sitting in his saddle again, he glowered as Per walked Fowl back to his uncle. Others pulled their horses aside to make way for him. As Per reined in, his face furious, Gobby said, “This be no childer's game.”

“Nay,” Per said. “But that—” Gobby raised his gloved hand, threatening a cuff. Per broke off and sat his horse with lowered head. Not sulking, Sweet Milk guessed, but seething.

Gobby, grinning through his beard with irritation, called out the names of the men who were to ride along the narrower path and return to the main party if they saw the Grannams.

Per watched the two horsemen trot away into the dark and again looked around for his own men—but he didn't dare, he didn't dare! If he called his men to follow him, and they didn't, he could never lead them again.

Gobby motioned the ride forward along the main path, glancing aside to make sure Per was staying with him. Sweet Milk, following, wondered if Gobby had noticed that his ride was dividing into two. The men of the tower were all behind or beside Per. He was himself riding close beside the lad.

The horses trotted, walked, trotted again. Per loved the rise and fall of the trot but now resented every stride that carried them farther along the track and farther from the Grannams. Every time they reined in for a breather, he stood in his stirrups, peering into the dark, trying to see if the two scouts were returning.

The Grannams hadn't been so far ahead, and they'd been driving slow sheep. The Sterkarms had been riding fast. It was getting on for the middle of the night. Per wanted to ask his uncle: So where are the Grannams? He kept quiet, not wanting to sound like a whining child, but he struck his clenched fist on his own thigh, thinking: They'll get away, they'll get
away
!

From the dark mass of riders behind them, a voice called out, “Which road was it they went again?” There was laughter, mainly from Toorkild's men. Per knew the voice for Davy's. Gobby pretended not to have heard.

The ride was moving forward at a fast walk when a cry came carrying across the moor: “
Sterk
arm!” The soft, rhythmic thump of hooves followed, and Per caught sight of movement in the dark

Their two scouts were returning to them with enough urgency to risk crossing the rough, open moor instead of keeping to the safer tracks. Per rose in his stirrups and sat, rose and sat, grinning without knowing he was. Fowl, thinking that Per had something interesting in mind, paced with his front feet and skittered half in a circle, crowding other horses. That drew a glare from Gobby, and Per reined Fowl in, patting his neck.

Gobby rode forward to meet the scouts, and Per kicked Fowl after him, needing no prompting now to stay at his uncle's side. Pointing behind him, the first rider called out, “Grannams!” The sheep had, indeed, been driven along the narrower path, and the path led down into another valley, and there were the Grannams with the reived flock, getting farther away all the time.

Gobby turned and saw that it was Per beside him. Per stared into his uncle's eyes, refusing to look away.

Gobby stood in his stirrups and waved, signaling the whole ride to follow him, and then he struck across the moor, leaving the track behind. He set a dangerous pace too, a trot over rough and ill-lit ground, thickly grown with heather and bilberry that concealed holes and dips, but it was either risk the horses' legs and the men's necks, or lose the Grannams.

All around was the rolling thud and thump of the hooves, the clattering of the jakkes, the grunting of the men, the whisk of the brush as the horses moved through it. Per's knees jolted into Fowl's hard shoulders every time Fowl's haunches threw him up, his own breathing was loud to his ears, and he was dizzy with squinting into the blurred and moving dark. And then they were on the heights above the valley. The wind, moaning past them, blew down the slope. Moonlight silvered the hills opposite, touching rock faces and falling streams.

From below came the din of the driven sheep: a harsh, frantic baaing, never stopping. It came from a little behind them. Gobby signaled the ride to halt, beckoned to Sweet Milk, and dismounted.

Per slid down from Fowl and gave the reins to Ecky, who said, “Thou'll catch it.” Per followed his uncle—he had, after all, been ordered to stay at Gobby's side. Gobby swung around and saw him, and Per stood still, waiting to be told to go back. But Gobby ignored him, and went on edging his way forward over the awkward ground.

A face of broken rock leaned out over the valley. They went out onto it, careful of where they put their feet in the tricky black-and-gray light, and crouched among the corners of rock, the ferns and rock-rooted bushes, peering down into the valley.

There was little to see except darkness and shadows. Even where the moonlight fell, it showed nothing of which they could be certain. The helmets of the Grannams, like their own, had been darkened with sheep's fat and soot and gave hardly a gleam. Their horses were mostly black, and so were the sheep, all disappearing into the dark.

But the sheep could be heard, as could the occasional shout. The Grannams were down there, sauntering coolly through Sterkarm country, driving Sterkarm sheep. Per, lying flat on his belly and peering down, caught sight of movement and clenched his fists.

Gobby slapped a hand on Per's shoulder. “Thou wert right all along.”

Per was startled by the apology. Immediately, he loved Gobby again.

“No easy to get down there,” Sweet Milk said. He was looking up and down the valley, at the way the hills folded. “But can be done.”

“Take thine and get down behind 'em,” Gobby said. The din of the sheep, filling the Grannams' ears, should cover the noise of their approach, and if the darkness wasn't enough cover, then the folds in the hills would hide them. “We'll get down in front of 'em.”

They talked of signals. A man of Sweet Milk's party was to sit his horse where he could see both bands. When both were in position to start descending the slopes, he would raise his lance and then ride to join Sweet Milk again. On reaching the valley floor, the first party to find itself ready to attack would do so, raising the cry of “Sterkarm!” The other party would attack as soon after that as it could, in silence.

Sweet Milk turned, half crouching, to go back to the ride and call together the men of his party. Per, thinking all forgiven, made to follow. Gobby stopped him. “Stay.”