A Sterkarm Kiss

by Susan Price

  Tears of rage and hurt came into Joan’s eyes, but she fought to hold them back, and swallowed hard, to keep her voice steady. She was a Grannam woman, going into marriage as onto a battlefield. “That Elf insulted me.” She left it to him to understand how the Elf had insulted her, and to take her part as a husband should, at least on his wedding day.

  Per was faintly surprised. It seemed that his wife was not as quiet and meek as he’d feared. That was interesting, if not altogether pleasing. But he wasn’t going to quarrel then and there. “We should join dance,” he said, and led her into a place in one of the sets. But, she saw, he looked down the set, to where the Elf-Woman faced the big man the Sterkarms called Sweet Milk.

  The dancing was exhilarating and fast. The 16th siders were impressed by how well Andrea, an Elf, knew the steps, the turns and twists. They laughed their approval at her, whistled and cheered as she spun past them, clasping hands and whirling, her skirt and hair flying.

  The grasp of Sweet Milk’s hand was almost painful, and he lifted her off her feet at times, spinning her fast. They hardly spoke to each other during the dance, but then the noise was so much that they would have had to yell—and Andrea didn’t think she had the breath. Anyway, as she remembered, Sweet Milk had never been one for talking much.

  The dance ended, and some people made breathlessly for the benches at the side of the hall, while others came forward to dance. Toorkild came and took his daughter-in-law’s hand from his son and led her into the new dance that was forming. That was like Toorkild, Andrea thought—he had a lot of good nature, really. When he wasn’t raiding. But then she saw that Per, deprived of a partner, was making straight toward her. The room was full of Grannams, and his own in-laws. Nice one, Mr. Tact.

  Sweet Milk was still standing beside her, and he was saying—very politely and formally using “you”—“Will you sit, mistress?” when Per came up.

  “Will you dance, Lady?” Per asked. It was strange to hear him use “you”—but then, though she knew him so well, he hardly knew her.

  Still a little out of breath, she nodded and held out her hand to him. But she looked at Sweet Milk, smiled, and said, “Maybe we’ll dance again later.”

  Sweet Milk and Per looked at each other. Then Sweet Milk made her a slight, clumsy bow, stepped back, and walked away.

  Per led her to a place at the farthest end of the dance, nearest the door. She thought it odd but supposed that he wanted to be as far from his parents and new in-laws as he could be. Once the dance started, she learned otherwise. Holding both her hands, he whirled her right out of the dance altogether and then pulled her out of the door and into the open air.

  Two big, lean shapes sprang up from the grass outside the hall—Cuddy and Swart, Per’s gazehounds. They looked like enormous shaggy greyhounds, except that their heads were more square. The nearest thing she knew like them among dogs of her own time were wolfhounds or deerhounds. Per said to them, “Down! Stay!”

  Swart, the younger, male hound, named after his darker coat, immediately sank back to the ground; but Cuddy was more attached to Per. She had waited patiently for him outside the hall, and now she wanted to follow wherever he was going. “Stay, Cuddy! Stay!”

  Reluctantly she sank down beside Swart.

  With a yank on her arm, Per dragged Andrea on, giving her no chance to ask where they were going, towing her away from the Elf-Palace and into the small village of cooking shacks. A strong smell of smoke, burning turf, and roasting fat still hung thickly in the air. Andrea couldn’t help but feel a small thrill, as she was dragged along by a hard grip on her hand. This was no imitation: This was Per.

  They passed other couples who had left the dance and were now kissing, and almost fell over one couple lying full length on the ground, wrapped around each other. Per finally stopped where the shacks ended, and there was nothing beyond but open sky and moor. For a moment Andrea was struck, again, by the space and emptiness. Even the din of the amplified music behind them was now muffled by the sheer emptiness that surrounded this small encampment, by the deep silence that seeped from the hills.

  “I thought we were to dance!” she said.

  Per grinned. “We can dance here, Lady.”

  “So we could,” she said, and threw herself down in the grass and heather. Pointedly she left a little space between them. She was hot and there was a slight, cooling breeze, so she lifted her hair from her neck and saw his gaze shift downward from her face. “Will you not be missed?”

  Ignoring her question, he sat beside her. “What be you called, Lady?”

  “Andrea Mitchell.”

  “Entraya.” Another thrill went through her as she heard him pronounce her name as the other Per always had—but no, this Per and her Per were the same. She felt suddenly dizzy as she wondered how many Andreas there were, all of them identical but all of them unaware of her or one another. And how many of them knew a Per? She didn’t catch what Per said. “What?”

  “May I call you Entraya?”

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  He was leaning on his elbow beside her. “I am Per. Shall we be ‘thee’ to each other?”

  He meant Shall we drop formality and address each other as “thou,” as friends and equals? He was in a hurry. “I no think I ken you well enough,” she said, a little piqued. You’ll have to work a bit harder than that, mate. “Cuddy and Swart seem in good health,” she said.

  He sat up straight, astonished that she knew the names of his hounds. A wary look came into his eyes, but then he smiled and relaxed. “Elf-Work,” he said. “We must ken each other better. We could take Cuddy and Swart out onto moor and hunt for bonny black hare.”

  Andrea smiled, looking away at the outline of the hills against the sky. She knew the words of the song:

  I said, “Pretty fair maid, why dost wander so?

  And canst tell me where bonny black hare do go?”

  Oh, answer she gave me, her answer was, “No.

  But under me apron they say it do grow.”

  “That would keep you away from your wedding for too long.”

  “For a long, long time,” he agreed. She looked back at him to see him grinning even more widely.

  “Do you no care what people will think?” she asked.

  “We’ll be quick, then—and they will no miss us.”

  “I be no tempted. What about your wife? She be very beautiful.”

  Without a moment’s consideration, simply, flatly, he said, “No tits.” His eyes dropped thoughtfully to Andrea’s breasts. It was exactly what he thought, without calculation. His wife beautiful? No. No tits.

  Andrea didn’t know whether to laugh aloud, or be outraged, or be flattered. No! How could she be flattered? But she was—and delighted to be preferred above a skinny beauty like Mrs. Joan Sterkarm, when all her life she’d been called fat and overlooked. And yet a small part of her was outraged. A much larger part still wanted to laugh at the shameless honesty of Per’s answer.

  “Stay you here tonight?” he asked. “Or do you return?”

  Do I return? she thought. She could resign, go home, back to Mick … but it would be interesting to see the wedding customs. She told herself. “I stay here. To see you bedded with your wife.”

  Leaning toward her, smiling, he asked, “Where will you sleep?”

  He couldn’t be planning what she thought he was planning, surely? She found herself smiling back, even leaning toward him. “Why do you want to ken?”

  He grinned. “We must ken one another better, so we can be ‘thee’ to each other.”

  Andrea giggled. Why am I being coy? she thought. What did I come here for, if not for this? So what if he was married—it was an arranged marriage, made for land, money, and power. It didn’t count. He and his wife didn’t even know each other!

  He doesn’t know you, either, came a thought. You kno
w him. You love him. He doesn’t know or love you. Yet.

  One night. One last night. Get him out of her system. Then she’d go home to Mick. With knowledge of 16th-century wedding customs.

  She said, “I no ken where I’ll be. Somewhere in one of big halls. Your mother said she would find me a place in your hall.”

  “Aye. Sleep in Sterkarm hall. Sleep near door.” He sat up, ready to get up, and looked at her attentively.

  “All right,” she said, and gave him her hand. He got to his feet and pulled her up too.

  “I’ll go this way,” he said and, dropping her hand, made off into the cooking shacks at a run. She made her own way back, slowly, and went first to the feasting hall, where she helped herself to another glass of wine. When she went back to the dancing, Per was leading his wife into the figures of another dance.

  “Will you dance, Lady?” She looked up, and there was a stranger—possibly a Grannam. But why not? She smiled and gave him her hand.

  There had been a lot more dancing, and drinking and eating, and the evening light that came through the door and through the dome above had thickened into dusk before the fiddlers and the pipers began to play, once more, the tune called “Come to Wedding.” As they played, they bore down on Per and Joan, and people cheered and clapped and stamped. It was time that the wedded pair were put to bed.

  7

  16th Side: The Bedding Ceremony

  Mistress Crosar put her mouth so close to Joan’s ear that it tickled, and shouted, “Undo thy garters!”

  Joan froze. They were at the back of the dancing hall, near the benches. People were everywhere. How could she pull up her skirts and undo her garters? Only vulgar, low-born girls, like the kitchen maids, pulled up their skirts without caring who saw. Besides, everyone would laugh at how skinny and bony her legs were.

  “Oh, come here, lass!” her aunt said, and turned her around, tutting at how slow and clumsy Joan was in moving. Other women gathered around her. One of them was the Sterkarm woman, Isobel Allyot that was, whom she must now call mother. She could never do it. She’d choke. The women spread their skirts, blocking the view of other people, while her aunt pulled up Joan’s magnificent scarlet dress of Elf-Cloth with a flurrying and rustling, and reached underneath to undo the garter strings. It was necessary to undo them because, very soon, the newlywed couple would be put to bed, and the bride’s men would demand their right to take off her garters. It was better to have the garters already undone, and the strings dangling down where they could be easily reached.

  Mistress Crosar slapped at Joan’s leg, to turn her farther around, so she could reach the other garter. “There!” she said, throwing down the skirts and straightening.

  “She no wanted them undone, that be what,” said Isobel Sterkarm. “She wanted men to reach right up her skirt.” There was loud laughter from the Sterkarm women, either because they were really amused or because they curried favor with their mistress. The Grannam women, cocking an eye toward their own mistress, laughed less, and Mistress Crosar herself merely smiled. It wasn’t her style of humor, but what could you expect from the Sterkarms? And such remarks were customary at a wedding—they were supposed to be lucky.

  Joan told herself that if she could endure this, and the night to come, if she could only set her teeth and endure it all, it would pass, like everything else. Her new life as a married woman might not be a happy one, but habit would inure her to it, and in time it would be relatively calm. Even the dray horse became accustomed to the everyday rubbing of its harness, to its sores and aches. Only endure: All things pass.

  Someone had told tales about the garters being untied, because now the bride’s men came around Joan in an ebullient, noisy mob. She had known they would come, but still, their arrival was a shock. Men surrounded her: all beards and red, greasy faces, shining eyes and grinning teeth. They were drunk; shouting and laughing and shoving. She knew many of them—some by name, some by sight only. A few were uncles and cousins; many were neighbors. Not all were Grannams by name—if families lived in Grannam country and allied themselves to the Grannams, then they often called themselves Grannam.

  It was only a game—and yet when they caught at her arms with hard, gripping hands and pulled her this way and that, her body felt that it was being attacked, and her heart pounded so hard, she could hardly breathe. I am such a coward, she thought, but she hadn’t expected them to come at her so quickly, to look so fierce, to bray and laugh with such harsh, loud voices; nor had she thought they would jerk her and shove her about, with so little care for her, as if she was a puppet, of no worth. Hands scrabbled at her skirts, touching and scratching her legs.

  Sick and giddy, she struggled to pull down her skirts and fend them off. She’d forgotten that this was part of the ceremony—she could only think that she had to stop them pulling up her skirts and seeing her legs. They laughed all the more, and two of them held her arms. It was terrifying.

  Two of the men straightened, yelling with triumph and flourishing her garters in the air. From the rest of the hall came a cheer, so loud that to Joan it seemed like a blow. She remembered the ceremony then, and forced a smile to her face, though tears spilled over her lashes. She was ashamed of her cowardice. She had let the Grannams down. They all saw my legs too, she thought. They’ll laugh to one another about how bony they are, and tell everyone … If she hadn’t been on show, she would have wept. Because she was on show, her fierce smile stretched as wide and tight as a skull’s.

  The men were crowded away from her by women: all her bridesmaids, all the important women of both families, married and unmarried, all laughing and crowing and reaching out to grab at her and pull her along. They were going to take her to the wedding chamber. Trying hard to seem brave, Joan forced a laugh and went with them, but at heart she felt hopeless. She did not want to go to the wedding chamber at all, yet it was the only place she could go.

  The women dragged her into the middle of the dance hall and there, clumsily, they hoisted her in their arms and carried her, chanting and yelling, out of the light and heat of the hall and into the chill evening dusk.

  Out in the air, the shrill of the fiddle and the laughter and shouting of the women seemed suddenly thin and weak. Bumped and jostled and breathless in their arms, Joan was carried along in a spangle of darkness and lantern light and into the Sterkarm dormitory. There it was light again, and she was carried the length of the hall, between the beds and bedding and decorations, and through the door at the back of the hall into the wedding suite.

  In the white, pink, and gold anteroom, the air was stiflingly scented: expensive Elvish candles were burning, filling the air with perfumed smoke and a gauzy yellow light. Among the pretty couches and garlands, the panting women set Joan on her feet and then dragged her excitedly toward the curtain at the back of the hall. Someone snatched the curtain back, revealing the big bed.

  Joan was thrown onto the bed, among the soft, heart-shaped pillows and rose petals. A scent of lavender and spices rose up—not a hint of straw from the mattress. And she bounced, the Elvish bed was so soft and springy.

  “Th’art ever so lucky,” someone said. “He be so handsome!”

  “He be,” Isobel Sterkarm agreed complacently. “He be handsome, my Per.”

  “A fine-looking young man,” Mistress Crosar allowed politely. “But do you no think our Joan a beautiful lass, Mistress Sterkarm?”

  “Oh, that she is, that she is,” Isobel said. “No one could say she was not.” Andrea, who had pressed in among the crowd of women, to see and hear as much of this ceremony as she could, tried not to smile. Isobel’s tone lacked conviction. She guessed that Isobel was thinking: It’ll be a long time before that skinny may gives me a grandson. Once she had the girl at the Bedesdale tower, Isobel would probably fatten her like a pig for Hogmanay.

  A girl plumped herself beside Joan and began undoing the laces that held on her sleeve. A
ndrea, finding herself pushed close to the bed, knelt on it at Joan’s other side and unlaced the other sleeve. Another young woman climbed onto the bed behind Joan, to unpin the wreath of flowers and ribbons from her hair. Leaning over Joan’s shoulder, this woman said, “They call him May—he be pretty as a may!”

  Isobel laughed and said, “He be no may! Not my Per!”

  “Let’s hope not!” a Grannam girl said daringly, and there was a tiny pause, the tiniest of gasps, as everyone feared that Isobel would take offense—but Isobel only laughed. Everyone else burst into loud, relieved laughter, and they all beamed around at one another, exhilarated to find themselves all getting on so well, Grannams and Sterkarms together.

  Joan, looking around, found that the woman close beside her, pulling the lace from her sleeve, was the Elf-May, the beautiful one her new husband had been making eyes at. As Andrea pulled the lace free, Joan said, “Keep that! Tie it around your arm, and you’ll marry in a twelve-month.”

  Andrea looked up and met the girl’s eyes. She thought again how very beautiful she was, but her cold glare was pure Grannam. “Thanks shall you have,” she said, and rolling up the ribbon, moved away.

  Mistress Sterkarm herself bent to unfasten Joan’s bodice. It was a relief to have it loosened, so that the board didn’t press so hard against her breasts, but then she remembered why it was being removed, and felt sick. Behind her, she heard someone whisper what she herself was thinking: “He be a Sterkarm.”

  Mistress Sterkarm must have heard, but she went on calmly pulling at the bodice laces and didn’t show it by as much as a flicker of an eyelid.

  “So?” said a whisper behind Joan. “He be a good-looking Sterkarm!”

  “Careful!” Mistress Sterkarm said to the girls who were pulling off Joan’s sleeves—perhaps she spoke more sharply because of what she’d overheard. “No pull off her gloves.” The gloves had to be left on, by custom, for the bride’s husband to remove. So when the sleeves were fully pulled off, the women anxiously tugged up the gloves again.