by Susan Price
A breeding woman lost a tooth with every child, it was said. Certainly, they lost their looks and much of their health and grew old quickly. What life was this?
But this was the courage that women had to have, instead of courage in battle. Joan was ashamed for being afraid. She was a Grannam. She should be braver.
Everyone at the tower had been astonished at the beauty of the Elvish cloth Elf-Windsor had given them to make her wedding dress. It was a shouting scarlet, more vivid even than rowanberries or rosehips, and though scarlet, it had the shine of polished silver or gold. Its weave was so tight, it could hardly be seen. People couldn’t stop themselves from stroking it again and again—it was as soft as thistledown and as smooth as oil. Even her aunt had said, “Well, Elven have done thee proud, my lass.”
Joan had touched it once and thought, “Red, like blood.” She’d had to help stitch the dress, and she’d had to stand still while it was measured against her and pinned and tacked. But she couldn’t make herself take an interest in what the dress looked like, or what it looked like on her. What did it matter? It would have been all the same if the dress had been made of gray sackcloth.
During the ride to the wedding, with the bagpiper playing, Joan saw little but her horse’s ears. Her thoughts, in a numb, miserable way, ran through, again and again, the misery of her future.
“Try to smile—try!” her aunt shouted at her. Joan hadn’t the spirit even to try.
Brought to the Elvish palace, made in moments by the magic of the Elves, she had given it one swift look before ducking her head again to avoid her aunt’s criticism. The palace had been silver, shining—but really, what did it matter if she was wed in a hut?
They stood now at the far end of the Elf-Palace, and everyone was crowded in behind them, trapping her. It was hot, and the board laced tightly to her breasts, to make her upright, dug into her. Her aunt gave her a sudden poke in the ribs, with so much force that she staggered slightly. She realized that the man beside her had spoken.
He said, “Wilt take my hand, honey?”
Wilt? Honey? She was shocked and angered to be addressed like a kitchen maid by a Sterkarm. Then she remembered that she had to get used to that. Once the wedding was made, the Sterkarms would be insulting her every moment of the day—and the night, too.
The Sterkarm was holding out his hand to her. A large, thin hand. Everyone was waiting.
She could refuse. She could walk away and say she would not, would never, marry a Sterkarm.
But people were standing almost at her back. She couldn’t get out of the Elf-Palace. There was nowhere she could go if she did. And everyone would be so angry with her, more angry than they’d ever been. She’d be beaten, locked up, and beaten again until she agreed to the wedding.
So she might as well do it now. She put her hand into the Sterkarm’s.
Per, seeing her reluctance, and feeling the chill dampness of the hand put into his, thought: God’s arse, what a stick to be burdened with! She hadn’t moved, or spoken, or looked at him, or even looked up from her feet. He had a terrible, itching desire to turn and see if he could spot the Elf-Maid in the crowd. But that would be unforgivable bad manners. There would be time later. For the time being, he had to think of the land and gold this Grannam stick would bring along with her.
“Place your hands on Book,” said the priest, “and make your vows.”
Andrea had fought her way to the front of the crowd with Gareth, and they stood, raising themselves on tiptoe and leaning from side to side, trying to see. Andrea watched Per place his hand on the Bible and heard him say, “I, Per Toorkildsson Sterkarm, of Bedesdale, take thee, Joan Grannam, of Brackenhill, for my wife.” His loud, hoarse voice effortlessly filled the hall, and every word hurt her like a slap.
Joan put her hand on the Bible, but her vow was inaudible except to those closest. While she spoke, Per fumbled at his waist, unbuckling a pouch. He then dropped the pouch onto the open pages of the Bible. It made an unmistakable sound: the chink of coins.
“You are now wed: man and wife,” the priest said.
Andrea watched Per stoop to kiss his bride. The girl didn’t lift her face to his. After a moment he had to stoop lower, and then touch her face to guide it toward his. He kissed her—and everyone in the hall broke into a loud, raucous, rolling cheer. The fiddlers and pipers started playing, in a cacophony of conflicting tunes—and balloons of every color fell from the roof, causing a slight panic until the 16th siders realized that they were harmless. Then there was much batting of balloons about, and shrieking and cheering, and such bedlam that Andrea couldn’t imagine how enough order was going to be restored for the wedding feast to be served. In the end, it was only because Lord Brackenhill and Toorkild Sterkarm climbed on chairs and roared for order that any kind of quiet was achieved. But when the assembled Grannams and Sterkarms understood that food was to be served, there was a scramble for places at the tables.
Andrea wished that she had a glass of wine. Per—her Per—was married. To a girl far more beautiful than she.
But she couldn’t look unhappy. She couldn’t let Windsor see her misery. Lifting her head, she made herself look around the tent with a smile—and her eye fell on Sweet Milk, who was standing nearby, looking at her. He hadn’t yet gone to claim a seat.
She gave him a big smile and shook a lock of her hair back over her shoulder. Sweet Milk gave a slow smile before lumbering off to table.
He was a fine big strapping broth of a lad, was Sweet Milk. A girl could do far worse.
6
16th Side: The Wedding Dance
Andrea got into bed, but she didn’t undress and she didn’t sleep.
She wasn’t having to make do with a sleeping bag or a mattress because Isobel Sterkarm felt that, as an Elf and a guest, she ought to have the best they had to offer. So Isobel had assigned her a bed at the back of the dormitory, close to her own bed, and also near the entrance to the wedding suite.
She lay on her back, one hand under her head. The great silence of the moors at night leaned on the walls of the inflatable. There were none of the night noises of the 21st: no passing cars, no aircraft, no late homecomers slamming car doors. Around her the hall was quiet, lit dimly by one or two widely spaced Elf-Lamps, their light so faint that it was barely candlepower. One or two people were whispering, and one or two snoring, and there was the occasional rustle as someone turned over; but otherwise, it seemed, the whole Sterkarm clan was away with the fairies.
Of course, in that other hall a few yards away, in that big flouncy bed with the gauzy curtains and the heart-shaped pillows, there probably wasn’t much sleeping going on. There were kisses and cuddles being exchanged that by rights …
Don’t be a jealous bitch, she told herself, trying to stifle the pang she felt. After all, who was it lying here, hoping a cheating husband was going to come creeping out to join her?
Despite everything, it was pleasant lying there, in the almost dark and the almost silence, after the heat and noise and smell of the celebrations earlier. In the dancing hall the sound of fiddles playing a reel, super-amplified, had boomed and shrilled from the Elvish boxes at the back of the room; while 16th-sider fiddlers, pipers, and drummers, both Sterkarm and Grannam, had played with and against the phantom Elvish musicians. The bedlam of noise had been thickened by the din of feet pounding on the wooden floor, and laughter and shouting. It must have disturbed snoozing curlew and hunting foxes for miles around.
Whirling dancers, arms linked, had skipped the length of the hall, come together, parted, changed partners, whirled again, in a thick, foxy reek of sweat—horse sweat from their long ride as well as the dancers’ own. Sterkarms danced on one side of the room, with other Sterkarms, and Grannams danced on the other, with Grannam partners.
It had been the same earlier still, at the wedding feast. Sterkarms had filled the tables on one side of the room,
and Grannams the tables on the other. Sterkarm servants had gone among the Sterkarm tables with little wooden buckets of ale, ladling the drink into glasses, or had carried around wooden troughs piled with bread and sliced meat. Grannam servants had brought food and drink to the Grannams.
Only at the head table, where the bride and groom were seated with their parents, were the two sides together, and even there it was hardly friendly. Joan sat to Per’s left, with her father and aunt beside her. Toorkild and Isobel sat beside Per. Between the bride and groom was a distinct gap, which was caused not only by their armed chairs. They leaned away from each other.
Toorkild Sterkarm and Richie Grannam had each risen, at different times, and called for toasts to the newlywed couple and to the alliance of two such great families. Everyone in the hall had responded—made happy by drink and food in unaccustomed amounts—and had yelled and cheered deafeningly, stamping their feet and pounding on the tables, so that the cutlery and glassware jingled. But no one had crossed the floor to sit, eat, and drink with the other side. It was a happy, excited company, but not a united one.
Andrea had been seated with the other Elves at a table near the head table, and her glass had been filled with wine from a clumsy green-glass bottle. She’d drunk it while watching Per and Joan. Per laughed, shouted responses to shouts and toasts from the body of the hall, and once stood to throw a bone at someone who taunted him. He often looked in her direction, whereupon she looked away and pretended she hadn’t even noticed him. Joan Grannam—no, Joan Sterkarm—kept her head lowered and her eyes on the tablecloth. Occasionally she took a sip from her glass or ate something from her plate—usually when prompted by her father. Andrea had tried not to be glad that the newlyweds didn’t seem to get along. It meant little. The following morning they might be the best of friends. She didn’t want to think of that, either.
At the next table down, Sweet Milk was seated. Glancing around, Andrea caught him looking at her. He didn’t look away but continued to stare. So she lifted one hand to brush back her hair, and smiled. His expression hardly changed, but as soon as they left the tables and started the dancing, she knew, Sweet Milk would come to her.
People were slow to leave the tables. Few people there, even the richest, got the opportunity to eat so much, and many had never drunk from clear, shining glasses or eaten from shining white-china plates laid on a white cloth. Seated like lords and ladies in their chairs, they chewed on greasy lamb while staring at the twinkling lights twined through the wreaths and garlands. They swigged beer and filled their mouths with cake—a great rarity and delicacy—while raising their eyes high to the silvery domes above them. Every shepherd felt himself a king, every kitchen maid felt herself a queen, and they were in no hurry to become mere shepherds and kitchen maids again.
So it had been midafternoon before Per rose and, taking his bride’s hand, led her down the length of the hall to the door. Their families followed, and Windsor fell in behind them. Andrea and Gareth hurried to leave their seats and join the line behind him. Gradually everyone else followed, though even after the dancing had begun, there were still people hanging around the feast hall or drifting back there, snatching a little more meat, another glass of ale, another cake.
The dancing didn’t start immediately. Almost everyone had stuffed themselves with food until they groaned, and even the slower, more stately dances didn’t, at first, appeal. Windsor spoke to the DJ—Andrea supposed that he had to be called a DJ, since he was in charge of the sound system—and music started playing through the speakers: a selection of madrigals and other such courtly music. The 16th siders had been startled, at first, by the music suddenly sounding from the air, and a disturbance ran through the company. For a moment Andrea wondered if there was going to be a panic, but the people seemed to reconcile themselves to this Elf-Work and calmed down. “What can you expect, with Elves around,” they seemed to say to themselves, “but music played by invisible spirits?” Not that there was much appreciation of the music. Fashionable court music—some of it decades later than the date it was being played here, at this wedding—was not to the taste of this remote, backward area. Edging through the crowd to Windsor, Andrea explained this and suggested that the 16th-side musicians be asked to play.
Windsor looked around the hall and saw the people’s mood for himself. “See to it, then,” he said.
She hunted out the musicians, who were drinking in the feast hall and sulking at being superseded by the Elves’ phantoms. Once she’d promised them a bonus from the Elves—she was sure Windsor would agree to that, because they’d be thrilled with a few packets of cheap aspirins—they were happy to troop back to the dance hall—with a couple of buckets of ale—and play. She was amazed to see that Sterkarm musicians and Grannam musicians were willing to play together. Perhaps this alliance would work after all. Or maybe that was just musicians.
Once the jigs and reels were sounding through the hall, she thought she would earn herself a few Brownie points by congratulating the families on their new alliance. She was a little tipsy but still sober enough to approach the Grannams first. They considered themselves the superiors of everyone there, so it would flatter them if she seemed to agree. Lord Brackenhill and his sister were sitting on benches at the back of the dancing hall, under swags and wreaths of artificial flowers that glittered with white lights. “Lord Brackenhill, Mistress Crosar, please forgive me for coming to you like this,” Andrea began. Richard Grannam declined his head graciously and almost smiled—he had been drinking too, and had mellowed. Mistress Crosar cocked her head with a rather grim expression, as if to say that she would decide whether she minded or not when she’d heard what else Andrea had to say.
“It was such a lovely ceremony,” Andrea twittered. “And such a beautiful bride!”
They both graciously nodded this time, and Mistress Crosar even smiled a little.
Unable to think of anything else to say, even after frantically searching her brains for several silent seconds, Andrea cried, “Enjoy rest of day!” and escaped. Where were the Sterkarms? It was the Sterkarms she really wanted to talk with.
Toorkild and Isobel were sitting together on a bench at the other side of the hall, holding hands. “Good day, Master Sterkarm, Mistress Sterkarm. My name be Andrea Mitchell—I be Master Windsor’s helper. What a lovely ceremony! And your son made such a handsome groom!” Didn’t he just? she thought. Praise of their only son, she knew, was the way to Toorkild’s and Isobel’s hearts. She made a few other fatuous comments while watching their faces. It was strange, when she knew them so well, to see their faces reflect so little knowledge of her. They studied her carefully, a little wary, and much wondering, because she was an Elf.
“Where be you sleeping this night, Mistress Elf?” Isobel asked. That was so like Isobel in its concern—and so unlike the Isobel she knew in that she used the formal “you.”
“I be not sure,” Andrea admitted. “But I shall find somewhere!”
“Ach!” Isobel said and, leaning forward, gripped Andrea’s hand. “You must come to me at our hall, and I’ll see you have somewhere!” She shook Andrea’s arm in emphasis. “Come to me, now! I mean it!”
“I’ll be sure to—thanks shall you have!” Andrea left them and, bracing herself, marched over to where Per and his new wife sat, side by side, but with a space between them. Per saw her approaching, and his face became alert. Joan was looking at the floor.
“All best wishes on your wedding!” Andrea said. She meant to say it to them both, but with Joan staring at the floor, it was difficult. Raising the glass in her hand, Andrea said, “Good health and good cheer to you! A child every year to you!” She watched Per’s eyes drop from her face to her breasts, and lift again to her face, with a spark in them. For God’s sake, she wanted to say, why did you have to go and get married?
Joan Grannam raised her head with a sort of flinch. A child every year? That was exactly what she dreaded
. She looked at the person who wished it on her and saw the beautiful Elf-Woman who had greeted them on their arrival. Her rosy face was flushed, with more than heat; her large eyes were bright, her hair fell about her shoulders, and she was smiling at Per Sterkarm.
Joan glanced sideways at her husband—one of the few looks she had given him that day—and was held by the way he stared at the Elf-Woman.
“A thousand thanks shall you have, Lady, for your good wishes,” he said, and smiled, and something in the smile, and the note of his voice, and the way he looked at her, hinted what form the thanks would take.
A little hot fire of insult and anger jumped up in Joan. Sterkarms! A faithful husband was far beyond her expectations, but it was only common courtesy to refrain from flirting with other women until the wedding day was over.
Andrea took another drink from her glass and smiled at Joan, who, to Andrea’s surprise, didn’t lower her eyes timidly but glared back at her.
“Thanks shall you have, Mistress Elf,” Joan said. “But dancing has begun and we keep you from men.”
Andrea’s eyes widened in surprise. Blimey! she thought. The little bitch bites! After all that simpering and looking at the ground, too! Lifting her glass in farewell, she said gaily, “I’ll see you around!” She spoke to them both but couldn’t resist a quirk of the eyebrow in Per’s direction. She twirled away, a little unsteadily, and thought: I’m drunk!
The music was persuading people to get up and dance. People were coming together to form sets. Per, watching, saw Sweet Milk go to Andrea and speak to her. Sweet Milk! Much as he loved his foster father, he’d like him to keep his big paws off his Elf-May. Turning to Joan, Per said, “Why didst say that? Thou insulted a guest.” He wasn’t going to address his wife as “you,” however brief the wedlock.