A Sterkarm Kiss

by Susan Price

  The curtain fell back into place behind him with a faint rustle. For a little while she heard him moving in the hall beyond the curtain, and then nothing more. He must have left the hall. Thank God, thank God. Let him never come back. Let him get into a fight and be killed. No one could blame her, and her family would still be paid her widow’s portion. She would be a happy widow.

  After the wedded couple had been put to bed, there was a little more drinking and dancing by the younger sort, but it was plain that everyone was tired. The 16th siders were people who rose in the morning as soon as it was light, or even before—at three or four in the summer, and only an hour or so later in the winter. They worked hard, most of them, all day, and fell into bed when it got dark, to save the waste of candles. This day of celebration had been, for them, a long, long day; and they were dozy with unaccustomed amounts of food, and fuddled with strong drink. They were ready for their beds, and most of the older people had already gone to them. Many were rounding up their sons and daughters and seeing them to bed too—and out of trouble, they hoped.

  Andrea was not eager to lie awake in her bed, thinking of Per with his new bride—but found that she was not eager to go into the darkness at the edges of the camp with Sweet Milk, either. Not yet, anyway. But that was what Sweet Milk had determinedly on his mind. So she made her excuses and went to bed. And lay awake just as she’d feared she would.

  She thought, from its direction, that the snoring she could hear came from Toorkild. Someone far off, near the hall door, was whispering and giggling. Otherwise all was quiet. From the wedding suite itself she heard nothing. Well, she didn’t want to.

  Why had she come? That ridiculous notion she’d had—that she could live over again her first meeting with Per. This was nothing like her first meeting with him—how could it be? Then she had been introduced into the daily life of the Bedesdale tower as an honored guest and had slowly come to know everyone. Per had courted her. The first she’d known of his interest had been when she’d found his sheepskin cap at her place at table, filled with fresh mushrooms. The Sterkarms valued such fresh food highly, and this meant he had risen early to gather them—and then had given them to her instead of eating them himself.

  But it was painful to remember such things here, now. This might be Per in everything—in looks, in temperament, in character, whatever that was—but everything else was different, and that difference changed them to each other. It had been a bad idea to come. She’d always known it. But still she’d come. Perhaps she could go to Windsor tomorrow and plead that she couldn’t hack it—say that she’d gone soft and no longer thrived on conditions 16th side. He’d have to understand.

  Yeah. Right.

  Probably she dozed—but woke again, thinking she hadn’t slept. The morning—even the 16th siders’ early morning—was hours away. Then someone was bending over her. It gave her a horrible shock. She hadn’t been aware that she’d been sleeping, and hadn’t heard this man’s approach. A little, strangled squeak of alarm burst out of her.

  “Whisht.” It was Per. “Meet me outside.” And he walked away, a tall, upright, dark shape in the dimness.

  She got out of bed, not even thinking about what she was doing. After all, she’d intended to do this, against all her better judgment, for five hundred years.

  She trod carefully as she made her way down the hall, eyes stretched wide in the dim light, careful not to step on any of the people lying wrapped in bedding on the floor, trying not to stumble on yielding mattresses. If anyone was awake to see her pass by, they kept it to themselves.

  She heard Per’s voice before she reached the door. He wasn’t speaking loudly—well, not for a Sterkarm—but he sounded annoyed.

  Outside, most of the lighting had been turned off, or dimmed, and it was very dark. And cold. She shivered quite violently at the first touch of the cold wind after the warm fug of the hall. The Elf-Lamp over the hall door still burned faintly, and by its light she saw Per talking to two men, while Swart and Cuddy strained at their leashes, trying to reach him.

  “And be wakeful!” Per said to the men as he reached out a hand to her. She put her hand into his, and without another word he led her away from the light into the darkness.

  “What was matter?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Guards!” he said in disgust. “Drunk!” Then he laughed. “Grannams’ guards will be drunk too!”

  They passed along the side of the dormitory hall, going toward the edge of the encampment. As the cold, damp wind touched her again, she became aware of the wide, empty moorland stretching away in the darkness—wild and dangerous country, with not a single metaled road anywhere. Nothing but sheep tracks and horse rides. Not a single telephone that worked. No policemen.

  A shriek from the darkness made her start, gripping Per’s hand and pulling at his arm. She gasped with fright but then heard his soft laugh. “Owl,” he said, and yanked on her arm, bringing her stumbling forward to fall on the soft, springy turf. A second later he threw himself down beside her. She said, “Oh!” in surprise, and then he was kissing her, and his hand was on her breast, squeezing. She thought: Oh yes! All right! And put her arms around him, pressing his head to hers.

  9

  16th Side: The Wedding Fight

  Richard Grannam, Lord Brackenhill, had to be helped to his bed by three of his men, who found it hard to walk in a straight line themselves.

  His sister, Mistress Crosar, stood watching, her hands on her hips. She had taken drink herself, mostly wine, and was flushed in the face, perhaps even a little tipsy, but nothing more. Once Lord Brackenhill had been dumped on his bed, legs asprawl, she said, “Leave him, leave him. I’ll see to him.”

  The men wished her good night and reeled away to find their own beds. Mistress Crosar set about the task of pulling off her brother’s boots while he lay flat on the bed.

  “Well,” she said as, a little out of breath, she threw down the second boot. “Now it be done. I hope it was worth it.”

  He seemed to be dozing. Setting one knee on the bed beside him, she unbuttoned his doublet and unlaced his sleeves. She shook him hard. “I said I hope it was worth it.”

  “It was. Worth it. It was.”

  “Sit up—sit up.” He floundered and fought to sit up, and she helped him before wrenching the tight-fitting doublet from his shoulders. “Canst ever trust Sterkarms?”

  He made a bleating noise, struggling to put his thoughts in order. “’S much to lose. They got. ’S much to lose. Elven’s favor. All that.”

  “Huh. Treachery be breath to them. They can no help themselves.”

  “They say … they say same about us.”

  “Huh.” Mistress Crosar dragged his jacket off and folded it neatly in her lap. Since she was no longer holding him up, her brother fell back on the bed with a thump.

  “I shall miss her,” Mistress Crosar said.

  Toorkild didn’t think much of the bed the Elves had given them. It had no doors to shut him and Isobel in cozy privacy. There were curtains hung around it, but they were flimsy things—you could almost see through them. What was the use of that? Not thick enough to keep out light, or drafts, or prying eyes.

  And then the bed was too bouncy, too soft and wallowing. And didn’t smell right. He couldn’t sleep. More annoying still, his bladder was full. He couldn’t keep lying there, pretending it wasn’t. Sighing, he pushed aside a bit of flimsy curtaining and hung over the side of the bed, looking underneath.

  There was nothing under the bed but the strange Elvish matting. He cursed.

  “What matter?” Isobel asked, also sleepless, though her mind was full of training her new daughter-in-law—who couldn’t help being a Grannam, it shouldn’t be held against her—and the grandchildren to come.

  “There be no pot. Those damned Elves have no given us a pot!”

  Isobel sat up. “It be no their way.”
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  “What dost mean, no their way? They piss!”

  “Maybe no,” Isobel said. “How would I ken?”

  Toorkild, dressed only in his long shirt, threw back the covers and sat with his bare, hairy legs over the edge of the bed. He considered the problem. Did Elves piss? He couldn’t say that he had ever, personally, seen one in the act. Sighing, he stood.

  “Where art ganning?” Isobel asked.

  “Where dost think? To piss, woman!”

  Isobel leaned out of the bed. “No in here. Gan out doors!”

  “Ach, why would I gan all that way?” But, as he scanned around the hall, dimly lit by faintly burning Elf-Lights, Toorkild saw that it was crammed with other beds, and with bedding on the floor, and even with strange, two-tiered beds. There wasn’t a quiet, unoccupied corner where a man could piss in peace.

  There wasn’t even a fireplace, where he could piss up the chimney, out of the way.

  Isobel was now kneeling on the bed, her face flushing with annoyance. “Tha’ll shame me!” She punched her little fist on the bed. “What be good enough for home will no do here—gan out doors!”

  Toorkild reached out a fond hand and ruffled up her hair. “Tha’rt right, tha’rt right, little woman! To be kind to thee, I’ll gan out doors. I’m ganning, see thee, I’m ganning!” Grumbling and stumbling, barefoot, in his shirt, he made his way to the end of the bed.

  “Take a body with thee!” Isobel said. Toorkild groaned. “Place be thick with Grannams!”

  “Ach, I’m only stepping out doors!”

  “And it’d take one of they snakes nobbut a second to slit thy throat!”

  “Bella, Bella,” Toorkild said sadly. “They be family now.”

  “Aye! Family!” she said. “Guthrun had brothers—and sons!” Guthrun, in the old story, had arranged the deaths of her brothers, and had cooked her own children and served them to their father in a stew.

  There was a groan, and a movement in the dimness, as someone nearby climbed out of bed. It was Sweet Milk, who’d heard all their talk. “Toorkild, I’ll come wi’ thee.”

  “Good man!” Toorkild said. “We’ll see who pisses highest, eh?” To Isobel, he said, “Happy?”

  Settling down, she said, “Hurry back. My feet be cold!”

  In the cool dark, Andrea lay with her head on Per’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of earth and heather from the moors. His hand repeatedly stroked from her head down to her shoulder, giving her a sense of unutterable peace and lightness. It was, she supposed, happiness.

  For there’s sweeter rest

  On a truelove’s breast,

  Than any other where.

  Per’s eyes were closed, as he enjoyed the feeling of his heart and breathing slowing. Under his fingers was the smoothness of Andrea’s hair, and the soft roundness and warmth of her shoulder. An Elf-May in his arms. A beautiful, eager, willing Elf-May—she was all that the stories promised.

  A Grannam for his wife—for children and land and honor and all those necessary things. But an Elf-May for his lover. For love. And fame. He would be the Sterkarm who had an Elf-May for a mistress.

  “Now tha mun gan back to thine wife,” Andrea said. She didn’t want him to go back to his wife at all. With that statement she was asking a lot of questions.

  Per countered with a question of his own. “Now tha mun gan back to Elf-Land.”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I’ve work to do here.”

  He said nothing but hugged her tighter, pulling her closer to him. And then the night broke open.

  Noise. Bangs and cracks so loud and sudden, they made the flesh jump on her bones. Glaring lights, blue and white, that reeled through the night, swinging across the dark, momentarily, brilliantly, illuminating a tree, a distant rock, then veering away and leaving her blind, until the next flash. Blaring, shrilling, deafening noise—nah-nah nah-nah nah-nah … Sirens! In the 16th!

  She felt Per’s body stiffen as he froze in astonishment and fear. Then he scrambled to his feet, buttoning his jeans. Reaching a hand down to her, he pulled her to her feet and yelled, above the din, “Gan!” He shoved her in the direction of the dark moors, away from the camp that was suddenly full of flashing light and din.

  She ran, too startled and scared to think about why, though it did come to her that the border country, 16th side, was not a safe place to be. Her feet trod in damp grasses; her long skirt caught on bits of twig and shrub, hindering her. She dragged herself free and ran on, wildly, through the dark and flashes of light, arms, legs, and heart pumping, careless of falling.

  She found herself stumbling up a hillside, out of breath, her heart thumping and banging. And then she stepped into a cold little stream, throwing her off balance and bringing her to her knees and her senses. She stayed on her knees for a few moments, panting, with one hand to her heart, which bashed and jumped under her ribs. Then she stood, dragging in a deeper breath. She looked back down the hillside toward the camp just as all the floodlights came on, and she could see everything …

  A din, a cannonade, brought Mistress Crosar upright in her bed. Her thoughts, and fright, whirled in her head like disturbed birds in an old barn.

  A shrill wailing, like nothing she had ever heard, set her heart skipping and reminded her of the Elf-Woman who screamed in the night before a death. The Elf-Woman screaming before the deaths of Grannams?

  Flustered, she looked toward her brother’s bed. He was still sleeping! And snoring. But all around the hall people were starting up, faces afraid and alarmed. They looked to her.

  She threw back her covers and ran to her brother’s bed, where she shook and shook him. “Joan!” she shouted. “Joan!” She could not help thinking of Joan, alone among the Sterkarms—who knew what was going on or what they’d done to her?

  Her brother roused, grunting and coughing. But then—before he could even realize what the strange noises were—in raced Sterkarms, armed and laying about them. Loud, panicked cries added to the din: shrieks, terrified wails from children, cries of pain.

  One of the Sterkarms ran at Mistress Crosar. He loomed at her, huge, terrifying, and swinging—a sword, an axe—above his head. She screeched and raised her arms to protect herself, but down the blow came—

  Toorkild and Sweet Milk, barefoot and in their shirts, peaceably emptied their bladders in the dark at the side of the Elf-Hall. They shook off the drops.

  “Good feast,” Sweet Milk said, thinking of the beautiful Elf-May. She wouldn’t go with him because she wanted Per—well, Per was prettier. But he was more patient.

  “Aye. Good feast,” Toorkild agreed, thinking of nothing much but his full belly and general satisfaction.

  From the darkness at the edge of camp, carrying over the roofs of the Elf-Hall, cutting through the cool damp air, came the cry of: “Sterk-arm!”

  Both Toorkild and Sweet Milk jerked as if stabbed, then reached for their daggers and started through the dark toward the shout. Sweet Milk threw back his head and loosed his own yell—but it was lost in the sudden crack and bang of explosions, so close and loud that they ducked, expecting pistol balls or cannon shot to come hurtling at them. And then the lights, flashing across the sky. And the weird, wild, unearthly wailing.

  The two men stopped and half turned back toward the dorm full of women and children … but then looked toward the darkness where the rallying cry had been raised. Not to answer a rallying cry was unthinkable. As unthinkable as leaving your women and children to face an attack.

  Toorkild turned back for the hall, and Sweet Milk followed. Whoever had shouted for help would have to take his chance. Barefoot, in their shirts, armed with daggers, they rounded the corner of the hall and came in sight of its entrance as all the Elf-Lights came on, lighting everything as bright as day. By that light they saw a troop of men—not Elves, but men—Grannams!—armed Grannams!—running into the hall, yelli
ng murder.

  Toorkild and Sweet Milk, together, yelled, “Sterkarm! Sterkarm!” and charged in after them.

  Joan sprang up in bed at the first outburst of noise. Cannon? Gunpowder?

  The Sterkarms were attacking her family!

  She jumped naked from the bed and then halted, hugging herself, realizing that she was alone among enemies, unarmed, and weak. What could she do?

  She could find out what was going on. Drawing back the curtain, she crept across the outer room toward the door that opened into the dorm. From outside came an enormous, cracking crash that made her freeze and crouch low, like a frightened partridge. When the hall didn’t fall in, she crawled frantically for the door.

  Gently she parted the strings of beads, trying not to let them rattle, and peeped through.

  Isobel, roused and frightened by the din, was out of bed and scrambling along its side, yelling for everyone to rise and arm, when the Grannams ran in. Some Sterkarms, mostly women and children, tumbled from their blankets, half dressed, half asleep, and three parts drunk. The men, who had drunk more, were harder to wake, though some blearily stared about.

  A man, big and angry, grabbed Isobel by her long, loosened hair, yanking her sidelong. She screamed with the pain of hair roots tearing from her scalp. He shoved her back and swiped at her, catching her a blow with something that made her head resound with noise and pain. On the man ran.

  Toorkild, running in at the door, was in time to see his wife struck with a club, saw her fall. His vision narrowed to that man with the club, who he would kill.

  The Grannams ran around the dorm. They punched women. They kicked children out of the way. Where a man drunkenly tried to rise, they clubbed him on the head and shoved him down again. They leaped over beds and trod on the half-awake to evade Sweet Milk and Toorkild. All the while the night outside was ripped with bangs and crashes and wailing. When half a dozen Sterkarm men had staggered to their feet and groped around for weapons; and when several women had taken up lamps and swords and axes—why then all the Grannams ran out in a troop, just as they’d run in. They ran out laughing.