A Sterkarm Tryst

by Price, Susan;

  “Cho, I trust thee, but no them. Speak for me, tell Daddy all that’s happened, tell him where I’ve gan and why.”

  “What if tha’rt hurt?” It was all too easy, in this wild country, to fall, break a bone, and be without help for days, if you were found at all.

  “I’ll take my chance.” Per slung the saddlebags over his shoulder, and put the horse’s reins into Joe’s hand. “See he’s looked after—ride him.” He gave his big, bright smile, knowing how much Joe disliked riding. Moving away, he turned and said, “Tell all to Daddy. I trust thee, Cho.”

  Cuddy came bounding down the path, as if she knew one of her Pers was leaving her. She danced around him, then rose to place her heavy paws on his shoulders, looking down at him with a huff of pleasure.

  “Oh, Cuddy!” Per dropped his saddlebags, put his arms around her warm, shaggy body and hugged her. Another loved and lost girl who’d come back to him—and who he had to leave! But, for sure, Cuddy was as safe, and as much loved, with Changeling Per as with him. Giving a final ruffle of her fur, he said, “Gan! Find Per!”

  For Cuddy, it was a pleasing and easily obeyed order. With a grunt, she bounded away, back to the head of the ride and Changeling Per.

  Per May picked up his saddlebags, nodded to Joe, and walked away from the narrow track.

  Joe, holding the horse’s reins, watched Per go, alone, into those trackless hills, hoping to find four people in all that emptiness. Joe knew he should go with him—but he’d been given his orders.

  When Per’s small figure vanished in a thicket of birch and scrub, Joe coaxed a reluctant, stamping horse up the path after the Changelings. His feet were sore, his backed ached, and he longed for the next stop.

  Andrea and Joan Grannam

  After an eternity of climbing and slithering through mud, through cold streams, Ecky and Sim agreed to stop. Andrea had no idea where they were and doubted Joan knew any better. It was a hollow on a hillside, where deeper soil had encouraged a small thicket to grow. The men considered it a hidden enough spot, and they’d come far enough for it to be safe to rest for a short while.

  The men opened the saddlebags they’d carried with them and shared lumps of cold porridge and hard cheese. Andrea accepted her share, but Joan was plainly sickened.

  Holding out the food, Sim said, “There’s nowt else.”

  Joan looked at Andrea, who nodded encouragingly. Holding out a small, narrow hand, Joan accepted the food. It was warm and greasy and, having been carried for days in a pouch, coated in bits of old crumb, dirt, and heather. Joan put the cheese to her nose and sharply drew back. It stank.

  Joan hid the food in a fold of her shift, wiping her greasy fingers on another fold. She couldn’t eat it, but it was all they had, and it would be rude to refuse the share she’d been offered. Perhaps, later, she could give the cheese back, saying she’d eaten all she wanted.

  She made herself nibble a little of the cold porridge. It steadied her, giving her enough strength to want to lie down and cry instead of merely huddling beside Andrea in a daze. But she wouldn’t lie down, and she wouldn’t cry. She was a Grannam among Sterkarms and had to behave well.

  Oh, her feet ached. And her legs. And her back. Never had she walked so far. Her skin smarted from hundreds of fine scratches. Her hands had suffered less since she’d put on her gloves, but the gloves were ruined—their fine leather stained, their embroidery torn.

  She shivered. Constant, strenuous movement had kept her warm, despite her thin, wet, sleeveless shift, but now they were still, she felt the chill.

  One of the men—she didn’t remember their names—stood suddenly, shrugging off his short, sheepskin cloak. Joan flinched from him. He said, “Nay, honey, nobody shall hurt thee.” He threw the cloak around her shoulders.

  “A thousand thanks, Eck,” the Elf-May said. She pulled the cloak closer around Joan’s shoulders.

  That made Joan remember her manners, and she muttered, “Thanks shalt thou have.” It irritated her that the Elf-Woman spoke for her, as if she didn’t know how to behave, when she was far better bred than any Elvish whore.

  She soon felt warmer within the fleece and admitted to herself that she did owe the man thanks—but the cloak’s stink of sheep, smoke, horse, and man was stronger than anything her aunt would have tolerated. She worried, too, about fleas and lice. And the man had addressed her as thou, as if he were her equal, and had called her honey with far too much familiarity. Perhaps she didn’t owe him thanks, after all.

  The fleece’s warmth made her drowsy and she lay down, resting her head on her hand. She heard the Elf-May’s soft voice: “How far be shieling now?”

  One of the men muttered in a deep, indistinct voice. She dreamed she lay in her wall bed in the tower’s upper chamber, listening to her father and aunt talking as she drifted into sleep.

  A shout jerked her from sleep. Men stood above her, blocking the light, waving arms. With a yowl of fear she started up. Her father’s men—they’d been caught by her father’s men. In a moment, the swords would hack and she had to get away.

  18

  16th-Side A:

  Wild Country

  Andrea • Per May • Joan Grannam

  “Joan! All is right! Come back!”

  Andrea’s voice broke through Joan’s panic, and she halted, crouching, in the ferns.

  “It’s Per,” Andrea said. “See—it’s Per May.”

  Joan, looking down, saw it was true. The man who had intruded on their hiding place now held up his hands, to show Ecky and Sim he was unarmed. His helmet was slung at his back, and his face, though shadowed instead of illuminated by light from a window, was still beautiful. It was Per May Sterkarm.

  A fountain of gladness rose in her heart. Per May had left the Sterkarm riders and come to make sure that she was safe. He must care for her. Immediately, she thought of how dirty and graceless she looked. She tried to pull the thin shift down over her legs.

  “A good way to get thasen killed,” Ecky said to Per.

  “What?—Should I have yelled ‘Sterkarm!’ so Grannams and Elven could hear?”

  “Tha could have given some sign,” Sim said.

  Joan slid back down the slope to rejoin them. Again, she pulled at her shift. She would greet Per May graciously, she decided. Her gown might have been stripped from her, her shift might be torn and filthy, her hair hanging wet around her shoulders, but she could still show him what a gracious lady she would be for his tower. Anxious to look as well as she could, she pushed her hair back from her face.

  Before she could take a step toward him, Per turned from Sim to Andrea. Joan watched his eyes fix on Andrea’s face and saw his smile. She knew, in that instant, that Per May had not thought of anyone but Andrea from the moment he’d reached them. While talking to the men, he’d been waiting for the moment he could turn to Andrea. It was in his face.

  If Per May had walked across country alone from concern for someone’s safety, it had never been Joan’s. The humiliation, the knowledge of her own foolishness, was as painful as a slap. Fascinated, she watched them together, and their every slight movement, their every fleeting expression, stung as if she rolled naked in nettles.

  As the men talked, Andrea had wondered, Which Per is this? But when he’d turned to her and his eyes fixed on hers with that huge, bright smile on his face, she’d known. She went into his arms, and they folded about her. Her arms clasped around his waist, her head fitted into his shoulder, his head was beside hers, and she heard him sigh. The grip of his arms, his smell, was balm. His warmth, even for a moment, seemed to soothe her weary and exhausted muscles.

  They drew back their heads at the same moment, so well were they attuned to each other, and kissed. Per squeezed her tight to him, his arm hard behind her neck and her waist.

  “Ne’er mind us!” Ecky said.

  As they broke the kiss, Andr
ea asked, “How didst find we?”

  “Ach,” Per said. “You crash about like cows in a thicket!” Behind him, Ecky and Sim protested, but Per only laughed, his eyes on Andrea. Her face, when she’d recognized him, had driven away doubts that she might favor Joe, or any other man.

  Joan picked up the sheepskin that she’d dropped in fright, wrapped herself in its warmth, and sat on the ground. She watched the smirking and ogling of Per Sterkarm and his Elf-Whore. If they’d turned together, pointed at her, and laughed, it could have hurt no less.

  A dirty Sterkarm, after all! A fit mate for the Elf-Whore, who stravaged about the country alone with men, staring everyone in the eye. What dirty, shameless, treacherous Sterkarm brats they would produce between them!

  Telling herself so didn’t lessen the pain in the least.

  When he’d done kissing his whore, the Sterkarm found time for Joan, though still with his arm around his drab. “Tha’rt dressed for kirk, Lady!” A sneer at her filthy appearance. “Didst enjoy stroll?”

  “She’s done well,” Andrea said. She sat and pulled Per down beside her. “Not a word of complaint.”

  “She should no complain,” Per said. “But for her, we’d be safe at shieling now.”

  The men grinned at Joan, who stared at the trees, fighting to prevent her mouth twisting into the squall of an unhappy toddler.

  “Oh, Per,” said the hateful Elf-May. “It was not all her fault. Someone took her onto his horse and wouldn’t part with her.”

  “Not my doing,” Per May said.

  “Nor Joan’s. What’s done is done. Leave her be.” Per May hugged her for saying it. God, Joan hated the whore and wished her dead.

  “Well, now.” Per looked at Ecky and Sim. “Be we here for night?”

  “We could do worse,” Ecky said.

  “I’m for sleep, then.” Per set down his saddlebags and dragged a blanket and cloak from one. He gathered ferns, spread the cloak over them, and lay down. The shamless Elf-Whore joined him and he covered them both. From beneath the blanket came whispers and giggles.

  “Them two’ll no feel cold,” Sim said. “We’d better find something to burn.” The men rose and moved away through the trees, leaving Joan to hug her knees and pretend that she couldn’t see the blanket moving or hear the sounds from beneath it. Her very heart scalded.

  19

  16th-Side A:

  The Sterkarm Shieling

  The Changelings

  It was a gray early morning as the Changelings approached a Sterkarm shieling.

  They could not be sure that this was where they’d find the Sterkarms of this world, but if they were there, then it was certain that they knew the Changelings approached.

  Confusion clamored in Changeling Per’s head and he closed his eyes briefly in an attempt to shut it out. Ahead of him, in the shieling, his father might be alive, never having been killed in this world. Or, maybe, it was his dead father who waited, in this Land of the Dead. Or it was an Elf, hiding behind his father’s face. Everything that had happened since his father’s murder blurred and shimmered in his memory until he was sure he slept and this was a nightmare.

  Opening his eyes, he looked at the gray sky and hills again. Standing here, waiting, thinking, would change nothing. Either he went forward, or he did not. So, he would go. Even if he’d been certain that a den of ghosts or Elves lay ahead, he would go forward if there was a chance of meeting his father again.

  He leaned from his saddle, setting his lance on the ground before slipping from Fowl. Cuddy, who’d been sitting nearby, scratching herself with a back leg, leaped up and bounded to him, rearing to put her paws on his shoulders and shove her whiskery face into his. “Sit!”

  Grabbing a handful of grass, Per rubbed down Fowl, shushing to him. Sweet Milk watched from his horse, trusting that Per would tell him what was in his head when he was ready.

  Changeling Per could feel that they were being watched. Somewhere on the path ahead, very likely, an ambush was laid. If he led his men into it, arrows would punch down, the riders would hamper one another, and men would be trapped under fallen horses. All of them would die.

  Finishing the rub down, Per looked around for Joe, the man who had come to their camp with the Elf-May. Taking a leash from his pouch, Per fastened it to Cuddy’s collar, and gave the lead to him. “Let her no follow me.”

  Sweet Milk nudged his horse closer to Per, who looked up and said, “I gan alone.” Alone, he might gain a hearing and win safe passage for them all. Even if he failed, he might see his father, or the image of him, once more.

  The day of his death and the manner of his dying had been fated long ago. If it was today, then he’d die, there was no escape. If it was not, then he’d live if he threw himself from a tower. Hesitating, worrying, trying to avoid the danger—none of that would help.

  If he was killed—well, his troubles would end, and nothing would matter.

  Or maybe he’d travel the hard road to the true Land of the Dead, where he’d meet his father, and go on as the dead did in their own land.

  Here, in this world, his single death would warn those behind him and give them a chance to run.

  Sweet Milk looked ahead to where the track vanished among thickets. He barely nodded, then leaned down and put his lance on the ground.

  “Stay,” Per said, but Sweet Milk dismounted and gave his horse’s reins to Dand, who nudged his horse forward to take them.

  Per tugged off his steel bonnet and hung it at Fowl’s saddlebow so any lying in ambush could clearly see his face. It also made it easier to put an arrow through that face. “Stay,” he said to Sweet Milk. He nodded to the men. “They’ll need leading.”

  Sweet Milk tugged off his own helmet then glanced behind and said, “Dand.” Having appointed a leader, he waited for Per to lead the way.

  Per wasted no further time on trying to dissuade him. As they walked up the track, Per’s eyes caught a flicker of movement high on one slope. Something dodged from one gorse bush to another and ducked from sight. A herdsboy, running to tell where they were.

  Their men, mounted and on foot, watched them go. Looking around, Joe saw the tension in their bodies as they stared after Changelings Per and Sweet Milk. Beside him, Cuddy quivered from head to tail, all her attention on Per. “Come on then, lass,” Joe said and led her after her master.

  Joe’s flesh flinched on his bones as he imagined being hit by an arrow or lead ball—but he preferred to take the dog for a walk rather than stand there waiting to be killed.

  The other men made no attempt to stop him. Joe wasn’t one of them.

  The Native Sterkarms

  As Toorkild and Sweet Milk dismounted, a boy sprang up from the ferns nearby. They gave their reins into his keeping. Another boy, eagerly waving, led them scrambling up a steep hillside.

  Word of the Changelings’ approach had been brought to the bothies before the Changelings had left Yonstone country, long before they’d entered Sterkarm land. A double-ganner in Sweet Milk’s shape rides with them, was the word. The others were harder to recognize.

  The reports of the Changelings’ progress had made it easy to guess where they headed and by which direction. Now they were close. Toorkild and Sweet Milk had come to view them.

  They reached a spot, well hidden by bushes, where they could look down on the track. Below was a cluster of horsemen, lances resting on their boots. They turned their heads constantly, on watch.

  “If they were hounds,” Toorkild said, “their ears would be pricked. And their tails down.” Sweet Milk, as was his habit, said nothing.

  The horsemen moved, coming on a little farther. One man rode ahead of them. “That’s my laddie!” Toorkild said.

  The leader’s face was shadowed by his helmet, but Toorkild knew his figure and style in the saddle. He knew the horse. He would have known horse and rider o
n a dark night. It was Per riding Fowl. Then he added, “And that be thee!” Sweet Milk looked at him curiously. “The big bugger just by Per. That be thee!”

  Sweet Milk watched himself consideringly. He saw a big man riding a horse that seemed too small for him, a horse that was very like his favorite mare, Blossom. But he felt no recognition. “Truly?”

  Toorkild nodded. Since Sweet Milk lay at his side, the Sweet Milk down there must be a Changeling. Could he trust his own eyes when he recognized his son? “There be Elfie-Cho!” Per May had last been seen with Andrea and Elfie-Joe, so maybe the Per down there was his Per, Per May Toorkildsson.

  “Entraya?” said Sweet Milk. And it was true. The Elf-May was not in the company below. Where was she?

  They watched Changelings Per and Sweet Milk dismount—and then a big hound bounded up to Per.

  “Cuddy!” Toorkild said. “Nay! It can no be.” Cuddy was dead.

  They watched Elfie-Joe take charge of the hound that couldn’t be Cuddy. Changeling Per pulled off his helmet. And then Per and the double-ganning Sweet Milk started up the track toward them. Changeling Per stopped, drew his knife, and cut a long fern—a green branch. Carrying it signaled that, whether Changeling or Elf, he wanted to talk, not fight.

  They watched him come on. He looked around him, he looked right at where Toorkild and Sweet Milk lay, though he didn’t see them.

  “That be no Changeling,” Toorkild said, with certainty. “That be my laddie.”

  Sweet Milk looked at him, but didn’t speak.

  Toorkild shook his head, trying to shake away the conviction that gripped him. Elves could glamour themselves into the very image of someone you knew. But it was an outward seeming. It wouldn’t alter the inner self. In the figure carrying the green branch, Toorkild saw courage and a determination to spare his men by risking himself instead. In that, he recognized his son. No shape-shifter in hiding, but Per May.