A Sterkarm Tryst

by Price, Susan;

  The pain that had doubled him over when the flames belched from the Tube had been genuine. He’d undergone (and paid through the nose for) innumerable tests and scans. “Adhesions,” doctors had said. “Exploratory surgery.” Now they were saying, “Stress-related.”

  Translated, this meant, “There’s bugger-all wrong with you, but if you want to stay here, at these prices, fill your boots.”

  Between tests, he’d monitored FUP e-mails and posting boards, picking up news. He’d been tickled to find that the fire had been tackled by the genuine fire brigade, not FUP’s toy set. TV and radio simply said that they’d “attended the blaze.” It was from FUP’s posting boards that he’d learned the brigade had been refused entrance initially because “the fire was under control.” They’d come in anyway.

  It explained the flashing blue lights, running feet, and shouting as he’d waited in reception for his ambulance. The pretty receptionist had been so alarmed, she’d looked up from her cell phone three times.

  The posting boards showed him the press releases being prepared. Regrettable industrial accident. Tragedy. Our thoughts are with the families. Lives lost, bodies irrecoverable. Compensation will be paid to the sum stipulated in the contracts signed by late employees.

  FUP would be looking for a scapegoat. Windsor guessed it would be him. They wouldn’t blame Patterson or their own poorly trained security, or the Tube operators. No: His many enemies would seize their chance, unite, and blame him. Accounts would achieve what they’d aimed at from the start: The Tube would be closed for good.

  Damn the eyes of every Sterkarm, living and dead.

  The time had come, Windsor saw very clearly, to cut his losses and run. But he choked on the knowledge that Per Sterkarm had won.

  He’d given the Sterkarms something to think about: That was a small comfort. There were two Per Sterkarms 16th side now. That couldn’t turn out well. Fatty Mitchell could shack up with her bit of rough, squared. Literally in a shack. Windsor wished her decades of it.

  Patterson was stuck 16th side, too. He wouldn’t play nicely with the other children.

  Dozing, Windsor contemplated, behind closed eyes, a picture of Per Sterkarm riding over a mine planted by Patterson, riding into Patterson’s machine-gun fire, trapped in a tower that Patterson blew up with a round black bomb labeled bomb.

  Maybe he’d settled the score after all.

  21st Side:

  Carloel

  Mick

  Hunched on his bed, Mick drank from a bottle of cider. High on the wall, a small TV showed film of the Dilsmead Hall fire.

  He should phone Andrea’s parents, but what would he say? He didn’t know what had happened to her. He only had a deep dread that felt like the truth.

  It all churned drearily around in his head. The fire ballooning from the concrete pipe. The people running. The strange silence because, even when the din stopped, his hearing was dulled.

  He should have stayed calm, stayed on the phone to emergency services. Instead, he’d made a mess of trying to stop a man from burning by wrapping his parka around him and pushing him to the ground. “Get off me,” the man had screamed.

  It had been a relief to see the fire engines, however they’d found the place. They drove over the lawns and set up business. They took the man he’d knocked down away from him and Mick decided to vanish, quickly, before he was asked for a witness statement. He’d picked up his rather charred parka and thankfully found his wallet still in its pocket.

  He’d left, unnoticed, by the front gate, abandoning his rucksack. A bus had taken him back to town, where tourist information had fixed him up with a bed-and-breakfast and directed him to the police station. He said he’d just heard there was a fire where his girlfriend worked.

  The desk sergeant checked her computer. “Dilsmead Hall? We’re attending, sir. Do you have a number where we can reach you?” As soon as there was solid information, the family liaison officer would be in touch.

  His next stop was A & E, where he was treated for minor burns. Then he’d bought sandwiches, painkillers and cider and went along to his B & B.

  He drank cider and watched stupid telly about doing up houses and buying antiques. As idiots chirruped and pirouetted on the screen with their stupid paint shades and really interesting old industrial-style lamps, he thought, over and over: Was she in the fire? Was she? Was she in the fire?

  16th-Side B:

  The Elf-Gate

  Isobel

  When Gobby’s men brought her the word, Isobel called for a horse, kilted up her skirts, and rode away with them, astride. They brought her to the hillside near where the Grannams had murdered Toorkild. Now flamelight flared over the hillside and the air roared.

  Gobby met her horse and helped her down. Taking her hand, he led her past what little remained of the magical hall the Elves had raised for Per’s wedding: a few blocks of stone and deep ruts made by Elf-Carts. The fire’s heat, noise, and light grew louder.

  The Elf-Gate burned. Flames roared from its great round mouth, engulfing the Elf-House beside it. The air above it shook and roared.

  Isobel looked up at Gobby. “Who did this?”

  “Nobody kens. Nobody was near.”

  Isobel stood straighter. Her son was on the other side of those flames. When the Elf-Gate burned down, would a blackened doorframe be left, as in a burned house? Could Per ride home through it?

  Gobby suggested they ride to his home and return the next day. Isobel shook her head. She would stay until the flames burned out.

  Gobby and Isobel had not always been good friends, but he tried hard to persuade her to leave with him. He could not, he said, leave her on the hillside all night, even with armed men beside her.

  It was Gobby’s youngest son, Ingram, who persuaded her. He had been Per’s admirer since he could toddle. “Per would want me to take thee home. Be so good.”

  Ingram returned with her the next morning. The fire had burned out and the great round gate had cracked into pieces and fallen. There was no doorframe for Per to ride through and come home to them.

  They hugged each other and cried, but even as she wept, Isobel’s mind began, mercilessly, to work. Women at the Bedesdale Tower needed to know that their men would never come back. And the tower was Gobby’s now. It must be set in order for him.

  After that? She was a childless widow. “Gan home,” she told Ingram. “Tell Gobby I’ll send him word when his tower be ready. Tell him I shall take what be mine and gan to my own people.” She walked away from Ingram to her horse, where one of her Sterkarm men boosted her into the saddle. She rode away without waiting for them to mount.

  No living man I’ll love again,

  Since the dear one I loved is slain.

  With one lock, one lock of his dear hair,

  I’ll chain my heart for evermair.

  35

  16th-Side A:

  Wild Country Tower

  Sandy Yonstone • Joan Grannam • Per May

  Sandy Yonstone offered his hand to Joan. “Be so kind, Mistress. You shall ride pillion behind me.”

  They stood on the track below the wooded hillside, where the Grannams had left their horses. The men moved among them, checking saddle girths while the breeze ruffled the yellowing leaves and moved the thick clouds in the sky.

  Sandy’s hand remained in the air as Joan studied him, her manner that of a grand lady and her appearance that of a beggar’s child. A Grannam man had loaned her his spare shirt. It was of coarse wool, stained, and so large on her that it was almost a dress. Her face was scratched and splattered with mud and her hair hung in wet rats’ tails. Yet it was Sandy who blushed as she continued to stare.

  She said, “I shall no ride behind you nor any man. I shall ride by myself.”

  Sandy’s face reddened, his eyes flickering to the watching men—including the Sterkar
m, who no doubt laughed to himself despite his serious face. “Lady, it will be better if you ride behind me.”

  “My aunt would not wish me to ride behind a man,” Joan said.

  Sandy couldn’t answer. She ran about the hills half-naked with the Sterkarms, but was suddenly concerned with her aunt’s wishes? “Lady, I be sad to contradict you but, for sure, Mistress Crosar would want you to ride with me.” He knew the Grannam men, mounted and on foot, were enjoying the joke. They would tell the tale until everyone knew it, for miles around.

  Per May turned his face away, ignoring them all. He was mounted on a spare horse, its leading rein fastened to Aidan’s saddlebow. Per’s hands were tied behind him with a length of string that bit into his flesh. He was angry, humiliated, afraid, and very far from laughter. He watched glumly as his mount and Swart exchanged sniffs. Swart didn’t know what a mess they were in.

  Joan walked over to a brown-and-white horse. “I shall ride this one.”

  “Lady, he be no good horse for you,” Aidan said. “You’d no hold him.”

  She patted the horse’s nose. “I’m a good rider. I can manage him.”

  The man holding the horse shook his head. Aidan said, “Lady, be so kind. He has no good temper, that beast.”

  “Then give me your best horse.”

  “Mistress Joan,” Sandy said, his teeth set. “These be no ladies’ horses. You would do better to come up behind me.”

  “Why have you no horse for me?” Joan demanded.

  Per stooped from his saddle and said, “For why you’ve no place here—for why this be no ride to a fair day!” Joan gawped at him, as did all the Grannam men. “Let her ride what horse she likes!” Per said. “Let her break her neck!”

  The men glowered, but he knew he was safe from them for now.

  “I shall no ride behind a man,” Joan said. “Find me a horse.”

  Aidan looked over the horses and chose a bay with black legs. He led it toward Joan while the man who had planned to ride it watched sullenly. Sandy took its head, and Aidan stooped beside it, cupping his hands.

  Joan set her booted foot into Aidan’s hands and was boosted into the saddle. Aidan immediately turned away, refusing to look at her bare legs. Most of the other men looked, either openly or sidelong.

  Aidan mounted his big black, and Sandy swung onto his horse. They waited for Joan to be in control of hers.

  For a few heart thumps, Joan thought the bay too much for her. It pranced, spun in a circle, threw its head up, and nearly unseated her. Sandy came alongside on his rough-coated little brown, gripped the bay’s bridle and guided it beside his horse. Once walking with its herd mates, the horse settled. “Let go!” Joan said. Sandy obeyed.

  Aidan led off with Per’s horse following his. Per’s big hound loped after them. Joan kicked up her horse, meaning to ride beside Per, but as she came up, Per shouted, “Stay back! Will you ride down my hound?”

  Joan reined in. She didn’t like being snapped at before her servingmen, and it seemed there was no pleasing Per. But she would win him around. If she watched for it, there would be a way.

  It came when Swart found.

  They rode by a narrow track among birch trees. Swart sometimes bounded ahead, vanishing into thickets, before loping back to Per’s horse. But then he threw up his head, sniffing the air, rose on his hind legs to the height of a man, and snuffed again. His tail thrashed. With a choked whimper, he ran ahead, ears pricked.

  Per, fearing for his hound, called, “Swart! Here!”

  Swart returned, but unhappily. He again ran ahead, looking back to see if Per would follow. He cocked his ears, listening to something they couldn’t hear. With a final look at Per, as if apologizing for his disobedience, the hound gathered himself and shot away through the trees.

  “Swart!” The horses jostled and snorted, as Per instinctively kneed his horse forward, only to have Aidan rein it in and block it with his own horse.

  “Hold thy gob,” Aidan said as Per drew breath to shout again.

  Per stood in his stirrups, trying to see any sign of the hound.

  “Tha should have left it behind,” Aidan said. “I be no kennel boy to run after hounds.”

  Joan watched Per turn his head this way and that, peering through the trees for the hound. No one watched her. All their attention was on the horses, Per, and the hound. She walked her horse around the others, drawing away from them—and then she kicked it, setting it at a narrow path that climbed the hillsides.

  A yell came from the men behind her—and then all her attention was on her wild ride, one wilder than she’d thought for. Rough ground blurred beneath her, the power of the horse jolted her, branches and mane whipped her face, and the sound of hooves and the horse’s breathing covered all other sound.

  It sped through her mind that the men had been right—she couldn’t hold this horse. But when it slowed, disliking the slope, she perversely kicked it again, and yelled in its ears as its scrambling plunge threatened to shake her loose. Pressing herself to its hard neck, she clung tight. The men would follow her, they dared not leave her. In following her, they would recapture Swart, and Per would be grateful.

  The horse reached the hilltop and slowed. It trampled in a circle. Joan, trembling with relief at still being on its back, straightened. The wind chilled her face and tossed her hair. Patting the horse’s neck, she thanked Saint Mary. This was a horse too difficult for her, was it?

  Behind her came the sound of angry men urging their horses up the hillside after her. Shakily, she laughed.

  And there went Swart! He was casting around in the thickets on the further slope—and then he raced off, downhill.

  Joan kicked her horse and followed.

  16th-Side A:

  The Grannam Tower

  The Elves: Patterson, Gareth, and the Mercenaries • Changeling Per

  Patterson was glad to see Gareth leap like a landed fish. He stood there, Gareth, a cleaver in his hand and his mouth opening and shutting like a trout’s.

  And the table—that glorious long polished table, fit for a mess—was splintered, besmeared, and covered in yuck.

  Per Sterkarm—who had been ordered not to leave the bed—crouched at the hearth, in front of a fire. He rose, smiled, and spoke as if greeting an old friend. Patterson didn’t understand what he said and didn’t care. He pointed at the bed, with its disordered, muddied covers.

  Per looked at the bed, smiled again, and gestured to the mess on the ruined table. Patterson opened his mouth for another bellow but saw the knives lying among the hare bits. Gareth just stood there, looking stupid as usual. But unknifed and whole.

  Patterson looked more closely. A pot hung over the fire. Young Sterkarm had a meal well under way—which supported his claim that he only wanted to snuggle up to them again and be forgiven. Patterson couldn’t help wishing Sterkarm was under his command.

  Though it had to be said: nine out of ten for initiative, fucking zero for following orders. “What’s he say?”

  Gareth flinched. “He making a hare stew. Going to put wine in it and spices.” Gareth gestured toward the clutter on the table. “It’ll be good.”

  Patterson looked at Per. His fair hair shone in the light from the window. With the carved fireplace behind him, he looked like some fucking male model in some fucking magazine. Except for the bloodstains.

  Patterson tramped right into Per’s space, so they were nose to nose. Many would have backed off, but Per didn’t, though he leaned back slightly, smiling. “What’s your game, pal?”

  Still smiling, without looking away, Per said, “Vah sayer han?”

  “Han sayer, vah kernep lay thu?” Gareth translated Patterson’s game as trick.

  Per’s smiled broadened. “No trick.”

  Patterson leaned into him. “You’re going to eat a good bowl of that stew before anybody else
touches it.”

  When Gareth translated, Per laughed. “I shall eat more than one bowl!”

  The meaning was clear before Gareth translated. The kid’s confidence was undentable. His refusal to accept Patterson’s authority was galling, but there was a part of Patterson that couldn’t help but admire it.

  Patterson turned his glare on Gareth, who said, “I couldn’t stop him. He wouldn’t listen!”

  Patterson pointedly looked over the clutter on the table. If a prisoner disobeyed, you clobbered him, you didn’t play Master Chef with him. But he had to keep young Sterkarm alive, at least until his men returned. Issuing more orders for him to ignore would only lead to more loss of face.

  “You’ll be eating the stew as well,” Patterson said to Gareth. Per had returned to the fire, as if all been settled. With a final glare, Patterson left the hall. They heard him run up the stairs to the roof.

  Gareth was glad to see him go, but jumped when Per came up behind him. Per passed him a pan they’d taken from the kitchens. It was like a small, heavy frying pan, with three legs. “Put it in fire. In embers, at edge. When it be hot, we’ll melt fat in it.”

  Gareth took the pot over to the fire, feeling the heat increase as he got closer. Peat smoke coiled around him, with its harsh, earthy smell. He stood the pot on its legs in the golden, red-hot crumb at the fire’s edges.

  While Gareth’s back was turned, Per slid open the drawer in the table, reached in, and opened the pouch he’d hidden inside.

  “How didst learn to cook?” Gareth asked. Men in the 21st were constantly urged to find their feminine side, yet he couldn’t make a stew. Surely, Sterkarm men considered cooking women’s work.

  Per laughed. “I can cook a bonny hare!” His left hand buried the hazelnuts in the crock of rough-ground salt that stood on the table. “I’ve chased bonny black hare with many a bonny cook.”

  In truth, he hardly knew what he was doing. He’d seen women cook, he’d heard them talk of it, and he was following what he remembered with as much conviction as he could. If the stew only smelled good, he guessed, the men would eat it.