A Sterkarm Tryst

by Price, Susan;

  Wild Country

  Changeling Per • Joe Sterkarm • Kaitlin

  “God’s Teeth!” Joe said. “Wilt listen!”

  It was true that he was out of temper. He’d fallen asleep in his bothy back at the shieling and had been confused and irritable when Kaitlin shook him awake at dusk. After that, it had been a rush to gobble down some porridge before riding out on fresh horses with Cuddy trotting beside Changeling Per’s mount.

  Joe, who had hardly seen a living horse until he’d joined the Sterkarms, was never happy riding, so he shared a mount with Kaitlin. She drove, perched in front of him. The Changelings all thought it hilarious that Joe rode pillion behind his woman and kept looking at them and laughing.

  They’d traveled through most of the night, and Joe had been enormously thankful when, toward dawn, they’d stopped and made camp on a sheltered hillside. They were even allowed a small fire. One of the men, Anders, fired brushwood with the smoldering embers he carried in a cow’s horn.

  Joe had gratefully sunk down onto turf that was much softer than the horse his bones had been jounced on for hours. Kaitlin sat beside him and he pulled her warmth to his side. He had been happy with these small mercies—until the Changelings’ talk made it clear they had plans of their own. Burning down the Elf-Gate, Joe soon realized, was not their only intention. Before burning it, they planned to return through it to their own world.

  “Gate will no open for you,” Joe said.

  “Gates open,” Changeling Per said. “And we shall gan through.”

  “It’s only cried a gate.” Joe had lost count of the number of times and ways he’d tried to explain this. “It’s no a gate like thou thinks of a gate.” He searched for an explanation they would understand. “Elven have locked it against thee! With spells.”

  Per grimaced dismissively. The Sterkarms believed in spells, elves, ghosts, and witches as much as they believed in rain, but didn’t let rain or the supernatural bother them much. Life was full of nuisances. “Locked gates can be broken,” Per said. “Or climbed.” Sweet Milk nodded agreement.

  “Tha saw it,” Joe said. “Tha ken fine well it’s no a gate!”

  “It be a gate,” Per repeated with maddening stubbornness. “A way through.”

  Joe paused with his mouth open. Gate could mean “a lockable barrier.” But in the dialect he and the Sterkarms shared, gate—gata—was also a place where you ganned, a street, a way. Was that Per’s understanding? “Elven will no let thee through!”

  Changeling Per grinned. “We shall no ask them.”

  22

  16th-Side A:

  The Sterkarm Shieling

  Toorkild Sterkarm • Yanet

  The women rose at first light, crawling from the bothies into the damp, chilly air. They coaxed the smoldering fires back to life and sent children to fetch water and find firewood. As they started a breakfast of porridge, they were surprised to see Toorkild emerge from his bothy, dressed in nothing but his long shirt, his hair and beard tangled. His big, bare feet kicked up water from the soaking grass.

  The women looked at one another. It wasn’t like Toorkild to be about early, but Isabel’s death had changed him. He stood looking toward the meadow where they’d buried her.

  He moved to the nearest fire and, seeing Yanet, asked, “Be Per about?”

  Yanet straightened from the pot she stirred. “Thine Per or Changeling Per? Changeling rode out last night.”

  “My Per! He’s no come in, still?”

  Yanet glanced at the other women, who shook their heads. “If he comes,” Yanet said, “we’ll be sure—”

  “He should be here.” Toorkild strode about the fires, his shirt flapping, kicking up dew from the grass as he looked in every direction. “How long takes it to come from Yonstone Tower?”

  Yanet felt for him. To have lost his wife and now to be in fear that their only living child was lost, too … “Per can well take care of himself, Toorkild.”

  A woman nearby said, quietly, “Tha’ve a spare Per now.” Others sniggered while Yanet glared.

  “I’ll find him,” Toorkild said. He went around the bothies, kicking at doors and walls. “Up! Where be these men I feed?”

  Men crawled from the huts, groaning, half-dressed, and thickheaded.

  Yanet sidled over to the woman who had joked about the spare Per, seized the flesh of her arm between finger and thumb, and twisted. The woman cried out and Yanet, leaning close, said, “That be how tender he is—lost his wife and feared for his son. So hold tha tongue, tha limmer.”

  21st Side:

  Oaken

  Mick

  “Sir, I don’t appreciate your attempts to obtain Mr. Windsor’s private number. In the future, I shall block your calls.”

  Caught bang to rights, Mick could only say, “What?”

  “I recognize your voice, sir. And your phone number. If you genuinely have a package to deliver, address it to this office and it will be forwarded.”

  “Wait! Please. I’m so worried. …” The line was still open. “Andrea is my partner. I haven’t heard from her in days. Total silence. Please understand: I’m worried.”

  A pause. “I appreciate your concern. But if Ms. Mitchell chooses not to contact you, there is nothing this office can do.”

  “Please! I just want to know that she’s all right.”

  “Good-bye, sir.” The call disconnected.

  Mick put his phone beside his cup on the café table and rubbed his eyes. Despite being cut off, he felt less cold and hopeless than when he’d first sat down. The full English breakfast he’d engulfed had revived him.

  The night before, the unease he’d suffered for days had reached critical mass. Why go to bed when he knew he would only lie awake? He’d done all he could in a routine, sensible way. Phoned all Andrea’s friends, phoned her work.

  The police would say she was an adult woman. She could go missing if she chose. It would be useless to tell them he knew something was wrong. They would say they needed evidence.

  Okay, he’d thought, I’ll get evidence.

  He’d crammed a few things in a rucksack, got a taxi to the station, and bought a ticket for the last train heading north. As he clattered through darkness, he’d felt relief, like cold water applied to a burn. Doing something, even something daft, always felt better than sitting around.

  He reached Carloel at midnight and spent a few uncomfortable hours in a waiting room. At about five, finding the station café still closed, he’d taken a cab to Andrea’s address.

  It was so early that almost all the neighboring houses had drawn curtains and cars still parked in the driveways. The curtains of Andrea’s house were open. Asking the driver to wait, Mike had gone to the door, where he knocked and rang the bell.

  “Nobody home, eh?” The taxi driver had followed him up the path.

  The man had probably thought him a stalker. “One minute,” Mick had said as he headed to the back of the house. Finding a tall, locked gate, he’d climbed in. The windows at the back of the house had undrawn curtains, too. He couldn’t see anyone inside, and the rooms were very neat for a place where Andrea had been living.

  He’d opened the gate and asked the taxi driver to take him somewhere he could get breakfast.

  The driver had brought him to a huge twenty-four-hour supermarket. Its warm café had provided the full English: bacon, eggs, sausage, black pudding, beans, mushrooms, fried slice, tea, and toast. The business.

  He considered his next move. One: Buy an A-Z, find this Dilsmead Hall. Walk there, if within a reasonable distance. If not, catch a bus or even another cab.

  And then, when he got there?

  Walking into reception and asking for Andrea wouldn’t get him any further than phone calls had. A better idea would be to just walk in and search for her.

  There’d be secu
rity. Barriers on the gate, ID checks, coded locks …

  He realized he’d have to blend in. His jeans, sneakers, and sweatshirt wouldn’t cut it. He needed a smart-looking suit. A folder or clipboard to carry. And something that might look like a pass if flashed briefly.

  Luckily, he was in this huge supermarket where he could probably buy a pink left-handed oorah bird if he found the right aisle. …

  16th-Side A:

  Wild Country

  Per May • Andrea • Joan Grannam

  “Canst gan no faster?” Per barked.

  “Per,” Andrea said, “be kinder.”

  “She holds back us all. We’d do better to slit her throat.”

  “Per!”

  He looked at her, surprised, and she realized that, of course, this was not the Per who had cut another Joan’s throat in another world. To this Per, the shocking threat had been no more than an expression of impatience.

  Joan toiled up the hill toward them, her hair flying loose, her bedraggled shift hampering her as it clung to her legs. She clutched two heavy leather water bottles. As they watched, one slipped from her hold and was lost in the scrub. She stopped and looked around for it.

  “God’s arse!” Per said. “If Grannams catch us with her, tha’ll wish we’d slit her weasand.”

  The Changeling men grumbled in agreement. Ecky had scrambled down to the burn, filled two bottles, and nimbly climbed back up. Joan had insisted on filling the other bottles, ordering Sim to give them to her with such a grand manner that he’d meekly obeyed. She’d then fussed her way to the brook, trying to avoid thorns, large stones, patches of mud, fallen branches … On finally reaching the water’s edge, she’d teetered for another age, afraid to lean too far over, afraid to get wet, afraid of a big spiderweb … The men found her maddening.

  She dipped and filled a bottle at last—then sat down and all but drained it. So she’d had to fill it again, but for some reason, she had wandered on a good distance along the stream to do it, vanishing behind bushes and taking her time about appearing again. Now she’d lost one of the bottles.

  “She but tries to help,” Andrea said. “She’s no sulking any longer. Be a little kind.”

  Per merely pulled a face.

  Joan spotted the bottle, snatched it up, and rejoined them, out of breath. She avoided Per, which wasn’t surprising since he glowered at her. Instead, she went to Andrea and, smiling, offered her one of the bottles. Andrea smiled back and drank.

  When she handed the bottle back, Joan took it to Ecky and Sim. She pointedly did not offer it Per.

  On they trudged. At every rise, they climbed; at every twist in the path, Andrea longed fiercely for the walk to be over. It never was. The landscape went on and on, unspooling ahead of them on an endless loop. Maybe they’d slipped into yet another world, which consisted of nothing but walking, a scraping wind, and the sound of water and whooping birds.

  In this blur, it was hard to say exactly when she first started feeling unwell—not merely tired and sore, but unwell. At first, she dismissed even the idea. She was big, strapping, fat Andy, never missing a day of school or work—and her good health couldn’t let her down now. That queasiness wasn’t what it seemed. Ignore it and she’d soon forget it.

  She ignored it determinedly: ignored it as she scrambled up hillsides; ignored it as she slithered down them. The nausea worsened. Some near-scalding liquid bubbled in her stomach. Vomit gathered below her breastbone. I can’t be ill, she thought. It will be so … inconvenient.

  The water must have been bad. But it had been running water, falling down the hillside in a quick stream. They were nowhere near buildings, where sewage might have contaminated it. If you had no choice but to drink water, in the absence of ale or milk, then running water was safest—that was what the Sterkarms had taught her. Per had been happy enough to drink it.

  But then, Per had survived several childhood diseases and made it to adulthood despite all the germs and viruses of his world could do. His immune system could bend iron bars with its teeth while hers, coddled by the 21st century, had obviously fainted.

  Her stomach heaved, forcing hot liquid into her throat. She gulped it down—and felt worse. The scalding liquid in her stomach tossed like a choppy sea. She had to ignore it. When they were safely at the shieling, there would be time to complain.

  An odd feeling started in her mouth. A tingling, like pins and needles. How strange. She’d never had pins and needles in her mouth before. It spread to her lips, made her nose numb, and then tingled across her cheeks. A few more shaky steps, and she sat down heavily on the hillside.

  For a few breaths, she stayed where she was from sheer surprise at finding herself on her bum. When she tried to rise, her head whirled giddily and she felt so sick that she had to choke down more vomit. Her heart hammered. She gasped and panted.

  She saw Ecky, lower down the slope, on hands and knees. He vomited. The sight made her own churning innards lurch. Thrusting her face forward, she was wrenchingly sick, spewing scalding water.

  Joan came to crouch beside her, peering at her. “Master Sterkarm!” Joan called. “Elf-May be ill!”

  Chapter 23

  16th-Side A:

  Inside FUP’s Compound

  Strong and Chitra • Changeling Per • Joe Sterkarm • Kaitlin

  “Bandits at four o’ clock,” Strong said.

  Chitra came and looked over Strong’s shoulder at the screen. It showed the wide track approaching the compound gates. A troop of riders had appeared on it. “Shit! They’re a sight.”

  The thickset horses plodded on, hooves thumping down, their long manes and tails brushing the ground or blowing in the breeze. A dog, nearly as big as the horses, bounded along with them.

  The riders were as rough and ill-matched. Some wore cloaks, which were more like rough old blankets than anything called up by the romantic word cloak. All wore helmets, but not one was like another. Some were covered in sheepskin and looked like Russian hats, others had peaks or face guards. None of them shone.

  Some riders had chains wound around their arms and legs, some had longbows. All wore thigh-length leather boots, and all—except one—carried an eight-foot lance.

  “Theirs or ours?” Strong asked.

  Chitra ducked to take a better look at the rider in front, the one without a lance. The rider instantly vanished from the screen. “Get ’em back.”

  Strong switched to another camera and they saw that the first horse had two riders. “There was no woman with ’em when they left.”

  Strong was amused. “Blokes have been known to pick up a skirt.”

  “Suppose so.” Chitra flicked a switch. “Gate. Ride coming in.”

  The radio fizzed and then: “We seen ’em.”

  Chitra straightened. “I’ll go over.” He could leave it to the guards, but if they ballsed-up, he’d be on the end of an eight-foot lance, too.

  “Shall I let 21st side know?”

  Chitra paused in the doorway. “Yeah. Better.” He hopped down the office’s steps to its concrete base. From his right, he felt the loom of the great concrete pipe housing the Tube. He hurried across the stretch of mud, churned by tires and feet and surrounded by the steel fence. Beyond that were the moors, the hills, the soft depth of gray sky: miles and miles and miles of wildness and space. He didn’t like it much—too empty, too muddy, too inconvenient.

  The riders were nearing the gate. He heard the soft thump of hooves, the rustle of shaken manes. The guards shifted their rifles to the ready. “Halt!”

  The riders reined in with more whuffing of horse breath and much creaking of leather.

  “Kengahrrrew!”

  Chitra ran the last few paces to the gate, demanding, “Who said that?”

  The nearest guard, steadying his rifle on his hip, pointed to one of th
e scarier riders, a man wearing a blackened, peaked helmet, and holding, left-handed, an eight-foot lance. His horse, its mane dragging on the ground, sniffed at the big gray dog beside it. The rider, looking at Chitra from his helmet’s shadow, repeated, “Ken-gah-rrrew.”

  “Passes,” Chitra said. None of the riders responded until he held up his own pass, on its belt tether. Then the wild looking characters felt in their belt pouches and brought out 21st-century, scannable plastic passes on bright red lanyards.

  The man in 21st clothes slipped down from behind the woman and stiffly limped from horse to horse, collecting the passes. Limping over to the gate, he made to poke the passes through a gap, but drew back. “Not electrified, is it?” He spoke English.

  A guard shook his head, and the English speaker pushed the passes through the gate. Chitra stepped forward and took them, shuffling them. They were the real thing—of course they were. Where would the enemy Sterkarms get plastic cards with embedded IDs?

  Well, from the dead bodies of FUP’s Sterkarms. …

  “Oh, come on, mate,” the man in 21st clothes said in English, in exactly the matey, honest, hearty tones that raised all Chitra’s worst suspicions. “I’ve had enough of these characters to last me a lifetime and I’m gagging for a decent cup of tea. Let us in.”

  Chitra studied the man. He was tall and well built, if bony. His chin was stubbly rather than bearded, and his blue eyes looked steadily back at Chitra with that suspicious openness. His voice and accent were his best pass—North Country English.

  “Stand there.” Chitra pointed to the exact spot and the Englishman shuffled to the spot. Chitra watched the screen beside the gate as it compared the man’s face with all the FUP men who’d gone out from the compound.

  “I won’t be on there, mate,” the man said.

  A mounted man, the one who’d given the password, tugged off his helmet, revealing sweaty, spiky fair hair. Chitra knew him immediately: Per Sterkarm. That bastard was memorable, being prettier than most girls Chitra had dated. And he knew the password, so there was a strong possibility he was FUP’s Per Sterkarm, not the enemy’s.