Sweet Milk nodded, beckoned men to follow him, and walked away toward the tower.
Changeling Per leaned his head against the wall and watched his foster father stride away. Shivers of heat rose through him, foretelling fever. Ever since the Elf-Balls had hit him, he’d refused to look at his own wound. Despite the pain and stink, despite the weakness as blood had soaked his shirt and oozed through his fingers, he’d believed, determinedly, that the wound was slight and would heal.
But when Sweet Milk, his little daddy, had looked at the wound, his expressionless face told him that there would be no healing this time. The gamble was not only lost; there would be no more games.
Cristy knelt by him and heaved him up so Nikol could wind lengths of torn blanket around him. Changeling Per stared at the texture of a lime-washed wall for as long as he could—it might be the last wall he would ever see—until another mauling from Cristy tipped him into a white blaze …
Per May was quick to follow Sweet Milk. He didn’t turn at the shout of pain from behind. He’d lived his life knowing that his time might be short, that any day might be his last, but never had Death seemed so close, stinking of blood and shit and snickering in his ear.
Joan Grannam
Joan had stayed at the gatehouse as she’d been told. She was scared to explore the wreckage that was left of her home. Sandy Yonstone kept her company, leaning against a wall nearby. The two hounds, resigned to being without Per May, had lain down together as close to her as their tether would allow them to come.
Shadows had moved before men tramped back along the alleys, bringing a stronger stink of burning with them.
“Elven have left thee thine head, then?” said one of the gatehouse guards.
The returning men didn’t smile. One said, glumly, that “their May” had been found. “Hurt?” asked the guard. The others nodded.
Joan felt a jab at her heart. “Hurt? How? Elf-Shotten?” The men stared at her as if one of the steps had spoken. “Was he shot?” she demanded.
“Mistress Joan,” Sandy Yonstone began, in a lecturing tone.
“Sandy,” she said, “away with thee to Hell!”
Rising, she crossed the yard toward the alleys. Behind her, Sterkarm laughter mixed with yaps from the hounds. Joan laughed to herself. She’d never said such a thing to anyone before.
“Joan!” Sandy shouted, but when he addressed her so impolitely, even her aunt wouldn’t expect her to answer him.
“Away with thee to Hell, Sandy!”
41
16th-Side A:
The Captured Grannam Tower
Per May • Changeling Per • Sweet Milk • Joan Grannam • Sandy Yonstone
The tower’s door stood open, and with elaborate courtesy, Sweet Milk and Per May stood aside, inviting Aidan Grannam to enter first. The Sterkam men waiting across the yard laughed.
No harm came to Aidan. The tower’s ground floor was empty, except for dung, straw, and curious small black balls that lay everywhere. Many had rolled into the corners.
Per May, looking for distraction from the foreshadowing of his own death, picked one up. No bigger than a nut, the ball was hard, smooth and like nothing he’d ever seen or smelled. Seeing that Sweet Milk was already climbing the stairs, Per threw the ball aside. It rebounded hard from a wall, bouncing several times before skittering into the straw.
The first landing was empty, the door into the hall standing open. The walls on the far side were cracked, and bloodstained and little black balls were everywhere underfoot, but no living thing was there. The men stood still and the tower rang with silence.
“No much feasting here,” said one.
Per May led the way up the stairs to the family’s private room, his footsteps echoing in the stairwell. More black balls rolled about the landing up there, rebounding from walls.
The door to the private room was closed and locked. No key was in the door. Per leaned on the door, listening. No sound came from behind it.
Sweet Milk and Per May looked at each other. Changeling Per had told them that the Elves had paid their blood debt, but he was a sick man. Did they accept his word or make sure?
To the men behind him, Sweet Milk said, “Bring axes!”
Some men carried axes, which were quickly passed up the stairs, where Per May and Sweet Milk assaulted the door. In the small space, enclosed by stone walls, the din was terrific. Wood splintered and flew, but the door was of old oak, thick and nearly as hard as iron. It would not be a short job.
Joan Grannam • Sandy Yonstone
As Joan reached the alley, Sandy tried to take her arm. “Mistress Joan! You should—”
She snatched her arm from him. “This tower is mine. You’ll no tell me what to do in my own home.” She hurried on, under the tower’s outer wall, where there was less debris, moving quickly and lightly in her borrowed breeches and shirt.
The damage done by the fire was dreadful. People had slept in these bowers; food had been stored in them. How was that food to be replaced? Where were the people to sleep? And Sandy Yonstone wanted to pester her about what a lady should and should not do!
She turned into the alley leading to the tower. It had been touched lightly by the fire, its damp thatch charred but surviving. At the other end, closer to the tower, was her aunt’s stillroom. She was dismayed to see shouting men gathered outside it. Many were Sterkarms. Her thin shirt and the breeches that left her legs bare below the knee would bring unpleasant comment from them.
As she wondered whether to creep away, something made a noise at her feet. She drew back, in a horror of rats, looked down, and was shocked to see a man lying close by the wall, beneath the overhanging eave.
She took in the thick, fair hair, knotted with more blood, and the bloodstained strips of cloth tied around him. Stooping, she looked past the streaks of fresh and dried blood on his face and recognized Per Sterkarm.
There was nothing but a thin blanket between him and the muck of the alley. “Saints have mercy!” she said. “Be this how they treat their own?”
Sandy, coming to her side, looked down at the man. Any pity he felt shrank when he saw who it was.
As they watched, Changeling Per started shaking. His legs, his arms, juddered against the blanket and ground.
Ague, Joan thought, and said, “We must move him indoors.” The buildings of the alley had no doors at ground level.
“He be fine there,” Sandy said.
Joan made a contemptuous noise. A sick body, her aunt had taught her, always needs rest, quiet, warmth, and good food … Her questing mind saw the only place Per could easily be taken, but even so, men would be needed to move him … And there were men, climbing the ladder to her aunt’s stillroom and crowding the alley beneath it.
She remembered her unsuitable clothing and looked at Sandy before deciding that he was as little use as a waxen cooking pot. Which was more important: her dignity or Per Sterkarm’s pain and sickness? The answer was simple. She strode toward the shouting men. “Mistress Joan!” Sandy said, starting after her.
The nearer she came to the men, the bigger, louder, and more numerous they seemed to become. And they were Sterkarms. From her aunt’s stillroom came crashes, bangs, and laughter.
Joan stopped and the words she’d meant to speak dried in her throat. Then a man at the back of the crowd turned, and she knew him for one of her father’s men, a Grannam. He said, “Lady, do you—”
She was furious that a Grannam looted the stillroom. “Be silent! Out of my way!”
He flattened himself against the wall to let her pass, and she did, surprised at her own ferocity. She shoved at men’s backs until they looked around. Seeing her, they fell back in surprise, letting her through. As she set her foot on the ladder there came from above the sound of glass smashing. Her aunt’s expensive, treasured glass!
Enlivening an
ger caught her up again. She would not creep away quietly! She’d spent her life creeping about, being good, being quiet, and what had it gained her? She didn’t care how much leg she showed, she didn’t care for the men’s stares—mounting the ladder, she pushed past a startled man in the doorway. Behind her, Sandy shouted.
The stillroom, always so quiet and orderly, scented with honey and herbs, was now crowded with burly bodies, stinking of sweat, horses, and leather. Broken glass was being crunched underfoot and men yanked open drawers, throwing their contents to the floor. Jars were being opened, boxes thrown down from shelves, as these thieves hunted for spices and alcohol. Most of the men were Sterkarms, but she knew two for Grannams. She screamed with outrage.
“How dare you come in here! This be my tower! Out! Gan!”
Most of the men turned toward her, staring stupidly, or glaring. One, intent on reaching to the back of a cupboard, only turned when pounded on the back by another. Some smirked as they looked her over, the fine Grannam lady standing there in a man’s dirty shirt and breeches.
She shouted, “Take your dirty thieving hands—put that back! I saw you take that box. Put it back! Gan! Gan away out, all of you!”
They glowered. She feared they would return to their looting, leaving her looking foolish, and a flush of heat rose into her face. But slowly, unwillingly, they put down jars and boxes and pressed to the door. She had to move into the room to allow them to reach the ladder, and she knew the men who passed her, with ill-tempered looks, were stealing, carrying things out in hands, pouches, even the tops of boots. But they left.
Shaken, she leaned on the table. Sandy, appearing at the top of the ladder, said, “Mistress, that was foolish and dangerous. They obeyed you only because they saw me and—”
“Gan away!” She refused to dwell on how she had scolded several armed, murderous Sterkarms—refused to think what might have happened if even one had defied her. She had to think of Per and his pain.
She leaned from the door of the stillroom, looking past Sandy. Two Grannam men were below. “A man lies on ground up there,” she told them. “I want you to find a palliasse—”
“Where will we—”
“Art thou more stupid than thou wast born? Find a palliasse and put it in tower’s byre. Carry that man there and put him on it. Try hard, both of you, and I’m sure you can do it.” The two men still stared. “What?”
“It be The Sterkarm—”
“And I be The Grannam! I speak for my father and, God save us, when I meet my father again, I shall speak to him of you!” Finally, they moved to obey her. With an angry whistle of breath, Joan spun from the door and back into the stillroom.
She knew what she needed, and hoped the men hadn’t stolen it. In one corner, tall cupboards stored her aunt’s most expensive and treasured medicines: ambergris, saffron, and a small piece of unicorn’s horn. Joan used the set of small steps to climb up and peered inside. The small earthenware bottle was still there, at the very back. She dragged it out.
The bottle had a wooden stopper with a piece of oiled cloth wrapped around it to make it fit more tightly. Seating herself in her aunt’s chair, she worried out the stopper, releasing the sweet, smoky scent of poppy syrup. It was excellent, her aunt said, for easing pain and bringing sleep, but must be used sparingly because of its cost. It had been carried half across the world, every stage of its journey adding to its price. So it wasn’t, said her aunt, for a kitchen maid’s head pain or a cow man’s trodden foot.
But for Per, Joan thought, for Per—
As with foxglove and wolfsdeath, her aunt warned, the difference between the dose that eased pain and the dose that killed was small and differed greatly for each patient. The amount that brought a man sleep would kill a child.
And the amount that brought a healthy man sleep could kill a hurt, weakened man.
With sudden fervor, Joan wished her aunt was there, that her aunt would take command and decide the dosage … But her aunt would never waste her poppy syrup on Per Sterkarm.
There were other things she needed. Opening drawers, she found soft cloths, a horn spoon, and a strong linen bag to put it all in. She carried it to the door and found that Sandy had gone back to the foot of the ladder. “Master Yonstone! Catch this!” She lowered the bag to him, and he exclaimed at its weight. “Carry it to tower for me.”
Several other men stood about in the alley as Joan climbed down the ladder, clutching the loose shirt about her. One said to Sandy, “Tha’ve a dog’s life in front of thee, friend!”
Joan, jumping down into the mud, turned on him. “I ken fine why you hang about here, waiting your thieving chance! That place above—have you sense to listen?—is where my aunt makes her potions. Some of them are deadly poisonous. And if you get drunk, Sweet Milk and Per will be angry. So mind! If any of you have sense of a sheep!”
They laughed, but although they backed off from her fierceness, they still loitered, waiting for her to leave.
Joan led Sandy to the tower. A din came from high inside its stone walls, muffled, but growing louder as they approached it. Sandy added to the noise by saying “you ought” and “you ought not” a dozen times in a breath.
“Oh, be quiet!” Joan said. “You rattle like a pebble in an empty pot!” He fell back a step, angered, but Joan cared only that she was rid of his prosing. She tried to identify the noise from the tower. There was crashing and splintering. Were the Sterkarms using an ax on her father’s furniture? She thought of climbing the stairs and demanding that they stop, but Per’s needs were more important.
The tower’s narrow doorway stood open. Inside, it was dark, except for the light from the door, and it reeked of dung, piss, blood, and earth. Still, it was the best lodging the injured man would find for a while.
As Joan’s eyes grew used to the dimness, she saw something long and dark lying near one wall. A moan came from it. “More light!” Sandy pulled back the door, and the gray wedge of light advanced across the floor. The injured Per Sterkarm lay on a palliasse. He twisted, bringing up his knees, then gasped and twisted to the other side, lay straight again, groaned. Joan dropped to her knees beside him. “Master Sterkarm?”
He twisted again and grunted as if with effort. His constant shifting reminded her of an earthworm writhing in the sun. “I’ve something that will take away pain.” She took the horn spoon from the bag and tried to lift the stone bottle, but it was too heavy for one hand. She looked up at Sandy, appealing for help. He said, “Mistress, what do you do?”
Confused, she looked from him to Per Sterkarm. Wasn’t it plain what she was about?
Sandy crouched. “Mistress, he be gut shot.” He searched her face for understanding. “Did your aunt no teach you about belly wounds?”
“Can you no see his pain?” Since Sandy wouldn’t help, she put the horn spoon between her teeth while she struggled with the bottle’s stopper. Sandy rose and went to the door, partly blocking her light.
The stopper came free, but it was impossible to hold stopper and spoon in one hand while filling the spoon from the heavy bottle. “Master Yonstone!” Sandy stared into the yard, apparently become deaf.
The stopper’s inner end had a spoon’s bowl carved into it. Joan dropped the spoon and replaced the stopper in the bottle. All the time, Per Sterkarm ceaselessly twisted, trying to find some way to lie that eased his pain.
Using both hands, resting the bottle on the ground, she tipped it far over. When she withdrew the stopper, syrup pooled on its end. Some dripped to the floor, releasing a sweet, earthy scent. Her aunt would have been furious.
Carefully, eyes almost crossing, Joan moved the stopper through the air toward Per. “This will take away pain.” She meant to lower the stopper to his mouth and trickle the syrup between his lips. The dose was a worry. Would a few drops be as lethal as wolfsdeath?
As the stopper neared his mouth, he turned his fa
ce away. The syrup dribbled down his face. Looking at her, he said, “Sweet Milk.”
Bewildered, Joan said, “Milk? I have no—”
Sandy stepped close to her. “He asks for Sweet Milk.”
“This be opium syrup,” Joan said. “Excellent for—”
Per rolled to one side, drawing up his knees. “Fetch …”—he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes—“Sweet … Milk.”
The din, from abovestairs, of ax on wood and men cheering stopped. Silence filled the tower, and in the silence came the sound of Per Sterkarm whining through clenched teeth as he once more twisted onto his back.
“You can do nothing for him,” Sandy said.
Joan set down the bottle and rose to her feet. She crossed to the stairs and climbed.
As she rounded the first twist of the stair, the din began again. When she reached the top, the noise was dreadful, making her wince each time an ax struck the door. The landing was blocked by men’s bodies. Sandy, following her, reached over her shoulder and shoved one of the men, who turned angrily, saw Joan, and hastily removed himself from her way.
She saw Per—the other Per—hacking at the door with an ax, his face red and sweaty. Sweet Milk stood by, breathing heavily, as he rested. Her father’s door of old, polished oak was splintered but was so thick and hard that they still hadn’t broken through. Joan called out, “Master Sweet Milk!” No one even looked her way.
Per May braced his foot against the door, wrenched his ax free and, as he fell back, breathless, Sweet Milk renewed the attack. A long splinter of wood flew high.
“Daylight!” someone shouted, and Sweet Milk hacked harder and faster. When he paused, Per kicked at the door, near the lock. A third man went at it with an ax—and then the door swung inward and a deafening cheer went up, echoing around the small, stony space.
As the cheer died away, Joan shouted Sweet Milk’s name, but her voice was lost in a general groan of disgust. The smell released from the opened room was strong and nauseating. Joan turned from it, her hand over her nose and mouth.
A Sterkarm Tryst Page 37