A Sterkarm Tryst
Page 41
Mistress Crosar accepted Toorkild’s good wishes with a slight inclination of the head. Sandy beamed but looked terrified. Joan left her hands in Sandy’s but lowered her eyes.
From the shieling’s other end came a chord drawn from a fiddle. “They dance,” Mistress Crosar said.
“Lady—” Sandy said. He coughed. “Joan, shall we dance?”
Joan nodded, and he led her away, grinning wildly over his shoulder at Mistress Crosar, who sighed. At least the girl was safely married into a good family. The Sterkarms had more lances though.
Her face lost its smile as she turned to her brother. His minders had lowered him to a bench and he slumped there, giving no sign that he knew where he was or that his daughter was married. Did he even remember that the Elves had come back?
“Put him back on his bed,” she said to the minders. “Then to dancing.” With the fiddle music calling, they were quick to carry Richie away.
Dear Lord God, let Richie recover his senses quickly. For a short while, she could act in Richie’s name, while assuring everyone that she only passed on his orders and he would soon be well enough to give them himself. But it was a short game. Sim of Longknowe would soon claim the Brackenhill Tower. Richie would become, at best, his pensioner. The Lord only knew what would happen to her.
“Mistress,” Toorkild Sterkarm said. “I mun dance at my son’s wedding. Shall you dance?”
She looked at him. A Sterkarm. Who could summon a great many lances. If he held the Brackenhill Tower … But no: unthinkable. If Joan had not flung herself at the Sterkarms and begun calling one her husband, no such wedding would ever have been considered. It would always have meant war with the other Grannam Towers, who would never tolerate Brackenhill being in Sterkarm hands.
“Thanks shall you have, but no, Master Sterkarm. I be too old for dancing. But I thank you for your welcome here. If this winter should be hard … perhaps my brother can help. And if Elven should come again …”
“Mistress,” he said, and bowed before hurrying away, leaving her alone in the firelight. The tune drifting on the night air was “Jenny Pluck Pears.” Her foot tapped to it.
“Mistress.”
The voice and throat-clearing was so close behind her and so sudden, she started, her hand going to her heart. “Davy!”
“Wed me. I’ll keep your tower.”
So odd an idea could not insult her. “Tha’rt kind, Davy. But the tower be Richie’s, no mine. And Joan—” She stopped, frowning, because he nodded as if it was too obvious to need saying.
“Brackenhill men follow me,” he said. His hands moved as if trying to shape clumsy words around what he knew. “You speak for Laird, Mistress. Men will follow me. Wed me.”
“Davy, when Longknowe learns—”
“Longknowe”—Davy all but spat—“will know what be good for him. Brackenhill men follow me. And, Mistress …” He touched her hand with one thick finger. “I do as you bid.”
Mistress Crosar was charmed despite herself. “Tha’ll do as I bid, Davy? Truly? I think before day was done, tha’d be telling me what I ought to do, and should do, and must do—aye, and what I should have done ten years past.”
He smiled. “Mistress, that be too much talk for me. But your tower. That I’ll keep.”
Three couples linked hands and whirled in a circle. Loosing hands, they linked arms with their partners and whirled around. Per, grinning, took a delight in whirling Andrea until her toes barely touched the ground and she was dizzy. When the music ended, they fell against each other, breathlessly laughing.
People called for the next dance: “Hunt Fox!”
“Bear’s Dance!”
Per closed his teeth around Andrea’s ear, sending shivers right to her feet. “An empty bothy for us!”
She laughed up at him, and they moved away from the dancing. Where the last faint firelight merged into darkness, they met Sandy Yonstone, with Joan Grannam on his arm. Her eyes were lowered.
“Bear’s Dance!” Per said, gesturing them toward the dance as the music began. Andrea laughed at the idea of Sandy and Joan dancing like bears.
“We wish you well,” Sandy said, “my wife and I.”
“Your wife?” Andrea said. “Oh! We wish you many long years!”
“Long years?” Per said. “Then ate and drink nowt she gives thee!”
Andrea laughed. She was in so giddy a mood, she would have laughed at almost anything, but stopped when Joan raised her head. Her stare had the still intensity of a hunting cat’s.
Per pulled her on past Sandy and Joan. “An empty bothy, Entraya!”
Joan’s stare followed them. It started another song in Andrea’s head.
If you take another may
Another may instead of me,
Her life is but of three day’s lease—
Of that you have my surety.
Afterword
21st Side:
Bedesdale
Mick
The day was sunny, and Mick was glad of the strong breeze that cooled his face and dried his sweat. He’d walked uphill faster than was comfortable, but aching muscles and sore lungs were preferable to other pain.
When he’d thought about it at all, he’d always imagined she’d be the one mourning him.
Walk faster. …
On the hilltop, the wind stung his ears. The land fell away below him into Bedesdale. He looked out, panting, over green hills as swift cloud shadows flew over them. Between clouds, the sky was as blue as harebells.
The sight usually brought peace. Now it started a gnawing under his breastbone. This had been one of her favorite walks.
He said hello to a couple who came along the path with their two greyhounds and went on.
The tower stood on a craggy rock pile left by a glacier. He climbed up to it and, thumbs hooked through his rucksack straps, looked at the stark black hole that was the tower’s doorway. “The Bedesdale Tower,” he said aloud, because it was what Andrea usually said. “Belonged to the Sterkarm family.”
He sat on the crag outside the tower, in a warm spot sheltered from the wind, drinking water and watching a kestrel hover over the valley. In the days just past, he’d phoned the police every couple of hours and almost camped out at the station. Eventually, the liaison officer had taken him into a small, bleak room and told him what he already knew. There’d been a fire at Dilsmead Hall. Andrea’s name was on the list of missing employees.
“So she might still be alive?” Mick had said. No, the policewoman had said. “Missing” meant her body hadn’t been found, not that she was alive. He shouldn’t get his hopes up.
FUP issued a statement. The loss of life in the incident at its headquarters was a terrible tragedy. Condolences were offered to the families and everyone’s thoughts were with them.
Mick had phoned Andrea’s parents from his bed-and-breakfast. It had been horrible. They’d all cried.
After that, Mick had wanted to run away, like a dog with a firework tied to its tail. He’d phoned his work and told them he wouldn’t be in for a while because of a sudden bereavement. At that moment, he didn’t care whether he kept the job or not.
He’d hired a car and driven further north, to walk the Bedesdale trail, her favorite walk.
He put away his water bottle, wiped his mouth, and looked up at the ruined tower. The sun warmed his back and the kestrel hovered while the tears poured down his face.
He’d hoped she would finish this job and come home. They’d go on with their happy routine. Cuddling on the sofa, laughing at “stupid telly.” Sunday mornings in bed. Walks like this one. He’d missed her every step of the way. Behind his eyes he could see her, in her jeans and boots, her hair blowing—
“Mick.”
He wrenched his neck, he turned his head so fast. His heart lifted like a freed balloon. Her voice, say
ing his name, quite gently and sadly. She’d survived. She’d found out where he’d gone and come after him—
Behind him was sky, hill and empty air. His eyes searched for her, where he knew she wasn’t.
I looked over my left shoulder
To see what I might see,
Longing to see my own true love,
Long time I’d wished to see.
I wish, I wish, but all in vain,
What I long for cannot be,
Until that ice turns fire to burn
And strawberries grow in cold salt sea.
About the Author
Susan Price is the author of the Sterkarm series. Born in Dudley, West Midlands, in England, she went on to write the Guardian Fiction Prize–winning The Sterkarm Handshake after visiting reiver country on the borders of Scotland. To help her imagine the Sterkarm’s world, she drew on lifelong interests in history, folklore, and old ballads, as well as her hobbies of shooting with a longbow and traveling to the Scottish hills. Price continued the series with A Sterkarm Kiss and A Sterkarm Tryst (2017). Her other works include the novel The Ghost Drum, which won the prestigious Carnegie Medal. Price lives in the Black Country, in West Midlands, England.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Susan Price
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
978-1-5040-2174-6
Published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
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