Toorkild braced himself to rise. “I’ll gan to him.”
Sweet Milk stretched out a long arm in warning. “Isobel did that.”
Toorkild paused, one knee under him. But still he watched the lad with the green branch. Every slight movement, and every thump of his own heart, told him that it was his son.
The lad stopped and flourished the green branch. He gave a hunting call. “Hey-lo! Sterkarm!”
Toorkild rose and started down the slope. Sweet Milk cursed, rose, and followed.
Changeling Per
Changeling Per stopped when he saw the man—if it was a man—rise up and hurry down the slope toward him. He dropped the green branch.
A hand gripped his right shoulder. He knew it was Sweet Milk, reassuring him that his back was guarded.
The thing coming downhill looked so like his father it was frightening. He had a clear memory of lifting his injured father’s head a world away. Toorkild’s brains had spilled into his hand. The Elf-Woman might tell him a thousand times that this was another world where his father still lived, but he could not shake that memory.
As the thing came on, he searched its face, studied its walk, its clothes, looking for some proof that it was, or was not, his father.
The gray flecks in the beard and hair, the way it stood when it stopped suddenly to study the two men waiting for it—no, he. It was Toorkild, unmistakably. In every last detail that Per had never consciously noticed, this was his father. Could even an Elvish glamour be so complete?
And yet, behind this Toorkild came Sweet Milk, equally unmistakable. The same Sweet Milk whose hand Per felt on his shoulder. The same Sweet Milk he heard draw a deep, shocked breath.
The sight shook Per’s heart. Long shudders ran through him, from head to foot.
Toorkild
Toorkild saw, with pain, that this was not Per.
Per’s nose had been slightly misshapen ever since he’d been taken hostage by the Elves and beaten. Yet, in every little movement, in every expression, this was Per—but Per as he had once been, his face unmarked, not Per as he was now. The Elves had been careless.
Changeling Per thrust out his right hand, warding Toorkild off. His left hand was behind his back, on his dagger. “Be you dead?”
Toorkild drew back, both wary and offended. A much-loved son did not address his father as “you.” He looked at the Sweet Milk who stood beside this uncanny twin of his son. “Sweet Milk,” Toorkild said, over his shoulder to the man coming up behind him, “here’s thy Fetch.”
The two Sweet Milks eyed each other but kept their thoughts to themselves.
“Be this Land of Dead?” Changeling Per said.
“Do dead die?” Toorkild asked. “I never heard they did—but my bonny lass died. She was shot in face by a one.”
The feeling that rose in Per at those words shook him where he stood. His breath came in gasps. If this was not the Land of the Dead and not Elf-Land—if it was instead the world the Elf-May had spoken of—why, then, he had killed his mother. To look well before his men, for bravado, from fear, he had smashed his mother’s face and killed her. The shuddering bent him double.
Changeling Sweet Milk glowered at his other self and at Toorkild. His stance and face plainly said: Take advantage of his weakness and I’ll kill you.
Shaken and sobbing, the Changeling first crouched and then went to its knees. Its left hand moved from its dagger to join the right in covering its face. Toorkild watched coolly. It wasn’t his son, after all: It had spoken to him as to a stranger.
But as his heartbeats counted the passing time, Toorkild found the thing’s eldritch doubling of his son was like a strong hand clenching his heart in its fist and dragging him, by the heart, toward the weeping boy.
He took a step or two but stopped. It was a trick—and now the likeness sent cold crawling through his hair. The thing’s hope was that he would draw near, would bend over it—and then it would stab him. He was too cunning an old fox to be caught like that.
The Changeling lifted its head, and Toorkild saw his son’s face, distorted with pain. He saw his son, grieving for his mother. He took the few steps between him and Per, went down on his knees—clumsily, because his knees were stiff these days—and clasped his son to him. “I miss her, too.” He and Per rocked together. “I see her everywhere.”
Changeling Sweet Milk saw Per in danger. Sweet Milk saw Toorkild in danger. Both drew their daggers and started forward.
From behind the Changelings, Joe had been watching and listening. Now he loosed Cuddy’s leash.
A gray shape hurled itself against Per and Toorkild, and capered around them. Finding them unreceptive, the hound bounded to Sweet Milk, leaping at him, making him fall back.
Changeling Sweet Milk laughed, lowering his dagger, and the hound ran to him, leaping up to put her paws on his shoulders. He stroked her flanks, while she licked his face. When he pushed her down, she turned and ran to Sweet Milk, rising up to lick his face, smelling of heather and dog.
Sweet Milk patted her without thinking. Plainly, she knew him. Sight hounds were only so friendly to people they knew well: To most, they were indifferent.
Dropping to all fours, Cuddy ran back to Changeling Sweet Milk, allowed him to pat her, and ran to Changeling Per and Toorkild, who were helping each other to their feet.
Sweet Milk watched the hound thrust her big head into their hands and dance around them. Clearly, she knew Toorkild as well as the Changeling Per. She ran back to Elfie-Joe, to include him, and then returned to Sweet Milk.
Changeling Per wiped his knuckles across his eyes and watched a Sweet Milk—not his Sweet Milk—scratch Cuddy’s belly. If these Sterkarms at this shieling were dead, or somehow uncanny, then Cuddy didn’t sense it.
Toorkild’s Sweet Milk sheathed his dagger and held out his right hand to himself, who stood still.
Never shake hands with a Sterkarm. Sweet Milk held out his other hand, too.
Changeling Sweet Milk sheathed his own dagger and held out both of his own hands.
16th-Side A:
Grannam Country
Richard Grannam • Laird Brackenhill
Holy Virgin and All the Holy Saints: Have Joan safe in your keeping.
Richie Grannam, Laird Brackenhill, had not yet heard if his daughter and sister were safe with the Yonstones. He could only hope. His life had taught him that there was no certain safety anywhere on this earth, for anyone.
He was tired. He was too old to spend all day in the saddle, with cramped hips and feet cramped in stirrups. And then to lie awake all night on hard, damp ground, fretting, and rise at dawn, cold, stiff and in pain, to heave into the saddle again.
Tired and sickened. They’d seen the Elves, in their big square Elf-Carts, creeping along moorland tracks. They’d seen the cracked, tumbled bastle houses they left behind, the storehouses burned. The pulverized bodies, dead animals, burned field …
His men were eager to fight, talking of ambushes even though they’d seen what the Elf-Weapons had done. “Thanks shall you have for your advice,” he’d said, “but I shall return you whole to your wives.” Now they thought him an old man and a coward.
He had never wanted to be Laird Brackenhill, but he couldn’t escape it. At university, he’d wanted to stop the clocks, so he would never have to become the laird. But the days had passed. His sister had married. His own marriage had been arranged. His father had died. …
Now he sat in one of his mountain meadows, on his saddle, sheltered from the wind by the half-tumbled walls of a bothy. Taking oatcakes from his pouch, he shared them between the bothy children—wild-haired, dirty, barefoot little creatures.
Their mother was nearby, kneeling, bent over the torn body of their brother. She wailed and coughed and whooped for breath and hacked out more sobs, rocking and rocking, lost in an ecstasy of sobbing that she couldn’t stop.
Her voice rose in a shrill thread, shriller and shriller until it broke, but then, with a gasp like a tearing sheet, it coughed on again.
The Elves had burned this croft. The crofters had hidden nearby, but the Elves had searched for them, so they’d run. The Elves had fired and the slowest child had been ripped open.
Brackenhill’s men rubbed down the horses while they waited for his orders. I have none to give, he thought. There is nothing I can do.
He was still at the croft when the herd boys came running in, leading a party of riders who raised their lances and cried, “A Grannam!” Richie rose to his feet and recognized the woman riding with them. Christina, his sister.
His eyes searched for Joan, but she wasn’t there.
My little Joan, he thought. Hold her in your keeping, Holy Virgin.
20
16th-Side A:
The Sterkarm Shieling
Toorkild Sterkarm • Changeling Per
There were always people gathered around the fires outside the bothies. Some tended the fire or the food cooking over it. Some ate, rested, or talked. When the cry of “Sterkarm!” came from the meadow, they all scattered.
They met Toorkild as he walked up—and were delighted to see his arm around the shoulders of Per, safely returned. Then all turned to consternation.
Behind Toorkild and Per walked Sweet Milk leading two horses. Behind Sweet Milk was another Sweet Milk.
Then came Elfie-Joe, using a leash to lead a great hound that many recognized—Per May’s hound, Cuddy. The hound he’d mourned when the Elves had killed her.
And behind this ghostly hound, there was Rane, leading his horse—but Rane was napping in that bothy over there. There was Nikol—but Nikol still stood at a bothy fire. And there was … The welcome died to silence.
Toorkild made for the bothies, and the people turned and walked, warily, with him and those who followed him. Joe heard the whispering around him: Two Sweet Milks! Elf-Work! A ghost hound!
Cuddy struggled at the end of her leash, whining. Joe tried to soothe her, stroking her head as he looked for Kaitlin. He was disappointed that she hadn’t already come to him.
As they reached the bothies, he saw her standing with her mother, Yanet. Both saw him, and Yanet drew Kaitlin away by the arm—and Kaitlin went, which hurt Joe. Maybe it was because he kept bad company: dead dogs and Changelings.
They threaded between bothies and fires, through smoke, sparks, and gusts of heat. At one fire, Nikol—the double of the Nikol among the Changelings—struggled to hold Swart’s collar. The big hound’s ears were up, his tail thrashing as he whined and lunged to escape.
Cuddy almost pulled Joe over as she sprang to join Swart, and Joe remembered that Swart was Cuddy’s pup. But Cuddy belonged to Changeling Per, who Joe could see looking over his shoulder for her. Joe dragged her on. It wasn’t easy.
As Toorkild and Changeling Per reached the central fire, a man stepped from a cloud of smoke, blocking Toorkild’s way. Joe, squinting through the smoke as he wrestled with Cuddy, recognized him as Toorkild’s nephew, Wat Gobbysson.
Wat looked from Changeling Per to both the Sweet Milks and then at Cuddy with a face as sour as if someone had spat in his porridge. He was about to speak when Yanet stepped in front of him, holding a small wooden tub, a rough towel hanging over her arm, as if she was greeting guests at the tower. Kaitlin came behind her with a platter of bread.
Yanet didn’t look at Wat, but it was to him she spoke. “A guest must have water to wash, and food and drink, before they answer a single question.”
“Well said, Yanet!” Toorkild took the tub from her, holding it while Changeling Per washed his hands and face. Per then moved aside for Sweet Milk to take his place. The other Sweet Milk watched—which made the people stare in silence, their eyes big.
Gobby Sterkarm, Toorkild’s brother, pushed through the onlookers, his loose shirt and rumpled hair suggesting that he’d been sleeping. People stood straighter. Now that Gobby had arrived, there would be some fun.
Joe handed Cuddy’s leash to Sweet Milk and went to help Kaitlin hand out flatbread.
Wat Sterkarm played to the crowd, leaning in to stare at Changeling Per, then moving to view him from another angle. “Father’s Brother, tha’ve two Sweet Milks, but only one Per. Wrong Per. Where be our Per?”
“He comes by another way,” Toorkild said. “They split their party to shake off Grannams.”
“Aye. Or maybe our Per lies somewhere with his throat cut?”
Changeling Per caught Joe by the shoulder as he passed. “Here be thine Elfie-Cho. If I killed thine Per, would I let him live?”
Joe found himself stared at. “Per May was fine when last I saw him,” he told them. “This one”—he nodded to Changeling Per—“sent two of his men with Joan Grannam and Andrea—”
“Joan Grannam!” Wat said, and Gobby looked no less astonished.
Joe tried to explain how they’d come to be running from the Grannams in Joan Grannam’s company, but so many people started talking, growing louder as everyone—including the hounds—joined in, that no one could hear anything.
Toorkild walloped a ladle on a pot and roared for silence.
“Joan Grannam! Truly?” Wat said. “Richie’ll pay us well for her.”
Gobby shook his head. “A fine slut! He’ll want paying to take her back.”
As quiet fell, Joe explained how, bucked up by their success in persuading the Changelings to join them, they’d decided to call on the Yonstones and ask for their help, too. “But Grannams were already at the Yonstones.” There was a general groan and hubbub when he told them what Mistress Crosar had said of them. “But we got safe passage—until Joan Grannam ran after us, begging to come with us.”
Catching Changeling Per’s eye, Joe judged it wise not to mention that it had been at his insistence that they’d taken Joan.
“We kenned they’d miss her and follow, so we split and sent her another way, with Ecky and Sim. And Entraya,” said Changeling Per.
People turned to look at their Ecky and Sim.
“So where be our Per?” Wat Gobbysson demanded of Joe.
“He left we. On foot. Went to find Andrea.”
“Alone?” Gobby said.
As they glared at him, Joe protested, “I wanted to gan along! He said nay—told me to bring word to thee!”
The glowers shifted to the Changelings. “Elf-Work!” Wat said.
Toorkild put his arm about Changeling Per’s shoulders. “This be my son as—”
There were yells from the Sterkarms. “It be no our Per,” Wat said. “Our Per’s nose be broken—Elven forgot that when making this one, for all they broke it! We should tread them down.” He meant they should hold the Changelings’ heads under the water of the nearest stream until they drowned. Trees big enough for a hanging were few.
In the silence following the threat, Sweet Milk spoke to Nikol, who strained to hold Swart by the collar. “Let him go.” Sweet Milk released Cuddy, who leaped forward. People pressed back from her and she ran straight to Swart.
Nikol let him go and the two great hounds, one gray, one black, greeted each other, circling and nuzzling. The crowd watched in wonder. Cuddy was dead. Swart should have run from her in terror.
Cuddy moved on to greet Gobby and Wat with Swart trotting contentedly beside her. Sweet Milk, standing beside his own double, asked, “Be that Elf-Glamour?”
Wat said, “That thing be no my sib!” From a tub carried by a servingmaid, he snatched an apple, left-handed, and threw it at Changeling Per’s face.
Changeling Per caught it, left-handed. “I be corrie-fisted as thee, Wat. But thy big brother, now he be right-handed.”
A murmur of something like appreciation ran through those watching.
Changeling Per continued. “Wat, first lassie ever thee pricked was Jinnie-
Annie’s daughter, at our tower. Tha did it in old kirk, whiles I kept watch.”
Wat’s shocked face told Changeling Per that he’d won his gamble: Their two worlds were that much alike. People leaned to see Wat’s expression and there were quiet titters.
“Trickery,” Gobby said.
“And thee, Father’s Brother,” Changeling Per said. “Tha dinged my ear for sticking turnips on thine old bull’s horn.” Now the laughter was open. “And when thy mare’s mane and tail was cropped short next day? I did it.”
“I kenned it!” Gobby turned away, realizing what he admitted. He folded his arms tightly and scowled. Reknowned for his quickness and cunning, Gobby didn’t like being bested.
“So before treading me down,” Changeling Per said, “harken, and I’ll tell thee”—He looked at the Sweet Milk who stood beside him and laughed—“I’ll tell you all something you dinna ken.”
He left that hanging and waited. Wat pretended he didn’t care. Gobby refused to look at him. Toorkild grinned. It always pleased him when his quick-witted younger brother was equaled by his quick-witted son.
Changeling Per said, “Kengahrrrew.”
The Sterkarms frowned, thought they’d misheard, and looked at one another.
Leaning toward Wat, Changeling Per repeated, “Kengahrrrew. Say it, if tha can. Ken-gah-rrrew. Kenngah-rrrew.” He laughed in Wat’s baffled face.
16th-Side A:
Grannam Land
Richard Grannam • Mistress Crosar • Davy Grannam
I shall build me a bower by the clear crystal fountain
And around it there shall sing all the small fowl of the mountain.
Davy Grannam, the captain of Laird Brackenhill’s men, returned from a fruitless foraging expedition to find that Mistress Crosar had joined them with the young Yonstone lad. They sat together on a turf wall watching as the laird, helped by his unwilling men, piled up turfs. He had no interest in Davy’s report of more burned crofts.
“Mistress,” Sandy said, “what does Laird Brackenhill think to do?”
“He will have his reasons,” she said to quieten him.
A Sterkarm Tryst Page 18