The Sterkarm Handshake (40 page)

While Per was trying to sweet-talk his father, he wouldn't be wondering where she was, so she had a little time.

And there was Joe … So many complications!

She looked in at the door of the hall. Joe was sitting on the end of a table near the door, a cup in his hand. His face was flushed and he looked thoughtful. She went over to him. “Joe? Joe, if you could go back to the 21st, would you?” He raised his eyes from his cup and gave her a long look. “Would you, Joe? I haven't time for a long discussion.”

But, for Joe, it was a hard question to answer. He thought of the men he'd seen murdered. He thought of Per knocking down the man who'd defied him. He also remembered the welcome he'd been given, the gifts, and Per's promises. “What should I go back for? A cardboard box?”

“They're going to kill the men in the lockup, Joe—our men.”

“‘Our' men?” Joe said. “They're bosses' lackeys. I'm a Sterkarm. I'm staying.”

She looked at him. “Okay. I hope you know what you're doing. I hope it works out for you. Listen: If Per should ask, you haven't seen me and you don't know where I am. Will you do that much for me?”

Joe looked at her doubtfully. “You be careful.”

“I will.” Looking around, she caught the arm of the nearest woman. “If Per looks for me, wilt tell him I be tired and—I've a head-pain.” The old lines were always the best. “Tell him I've gan to my bower to sleep it off.”

The woman grinned and said she would be sure to tell him. On her way to the hall door, Andrea gave the same message to three other people. It would be common knowledge that she'd been in her bower, asleep, all the time.

She ran down the stairs in the dark and heaved aside the heavy yett at the bottom. The horses shifted and snorted in the dark, and she could smell their sweet animal smell. Pushing through them, she reached the tower's heavy door and struggled with it, finally shoving it open to emerge in the fresh, damp, cold air of the yard.

Oh God! she thought. Do I want to do this? If it went wrong, she could end up hanging on the tower walls herself.

But she had Per to protect her, even if things did go wrong … If she didn't try, it was almost a certainty that the 21st men
would
hang.

If she did this, would she dare to keep her promise to Per, and stay to face the anger of Toorkild and Gobby—and Isobel? The very thought made her cringe with fright. Far safer and easier to run back through the Tube.

But that would mean breaking her promise to Per, and he was keeping his promise to her …

Oh, did she have to throw her whole life away?

Whatever she did, she was going to have to hurt and betray someone. And however much her betrayal hurt Per, he would still be alive. The 21st men wouldn't be.

She ran from the tower door into the muddy yard.

20

16th Side: Asking a Favor

The noise in the hall, the yelling that had startled Andrea, was the noise of a chanting game, with forfeits for those who couldn't remember the ever-lengthening list of words. Per made his way through the crush of people to the family table, where Toorkild lay back in his chair, a little drunk, red-faced and cheerful. If Per had been about to ask him for a horse, or for fleeces to sell to buy himself a helmet, or for anything in that way, he would have been certain of getting it.

Isobel was among the tables, serving more drink. That was good. She wouldn't overhear and make things more difficult. Gobby, though, was sitting in his place beside Toorkild.

Per leaned over the back of his father's chair, stooping down and putting his head close to Toorkild's. “Daddy?” He spoke quietly, but insistently, to be heard only by his father. Toorkild twisted in his chair and looked up. “Daddy, shalt thou hang Elven?”

Toorkild, who had thought this matter settled, pulled his son's head down, doubling him over the back of the chair. “Why art asking, eh?” Gripping the back of Per's jacket, he shook him. “What be it to thee?”

Per, struggling, slipped sideways and landed on his knees at Toorkild's side. Leaning on the chair's arm, he looked up, his face flushed and his hair on end. “Daddy, let them be.”

Toorkild threw himself back heavily in his seat and shouted, “It be kill no Elven! Then it be kill Elven! Now it be kill no Elven again!” Per raised his hands to hush him, but Gobby had already looked around. He saw Per and nodded to himself, as if everything were explained. “If I'd kenned how much cussed trouble Elven were,” Toorkild said, “I'd have burned Gate down meself at beginning!”

“What now?” Gobby asked.

Pulling Per's head against his shoulder, Toorkild shouted, “Now he wants to spare Elven!” His voice vibrated through his chest and through Per's skull.

Gobby, considering the matter already decided beyond question, turned away. “Pah!”

He never failed to irritate Per. Wrestling away from his father, and pitching his voice to carry, Per said, “It's by cause I'm nesh, like any son of Bella Hob's-daughter.”

Gobby turned and glared at him. Toorkild looked down at him, puzzled. From Isobel came a shout:
“What?”

Per got to his feet. Now that he'd spoken, he wished he hadn't. He never much minded vexing his uncle, but now he'd hurt his mother.

Isobel came close to the table and set both her fists, a jug grasped in one, on her hips. “What
about
Bella Hob's-daughter?”

“Nothing, Mammy,” Per said, and Gobby looked grimly pleased, which only irritated Per again.

Toorkild pulled at his hand. “What?”

“It be only something Gobby Daddy's-brother said.”

Isobel turned and looked hard at Gobby, hands still on her hips. Toorkild looked at him too. The hall fell silent.

“I never said any such—” Gobby began.

“Tha did, Daddy,” Wat said. “When we were riding, before Per was slashed.”

Gobby, exasperated, looking to Toorkild for understanding, saw Toorkild looking bitter, and shouted, “If I said he's nesh, it be because he
be
nesh! Always arguing, will no be said! Always—”

“Oh!” Isobel said. “Oh! And I suppose
thy
sons—”

And they were away, Gobby and Isobel, both of them calling on Toorkild to support them. Gobby drew in Wat and Ingram, and Toorkild called in Sweet Milk. Every person in the hall packed closer around the family table to hear, and a few of the bolder spirits ventured to give their opinions. Within five minutes so much had been said that no one remembered the argument had started over the question of whether or not to kill the Elves.

Isobel, on hearing that she had given Toorkild only one nesh son while Gobby's Bertha had given him three good ones, screeched and banged down the jug she held.

Toorkild demanded, “Be I nesh? Be
I
nesh?” for no clear reason. Wat infuriated his father by refusing to take his side. Neither would Ingram, who often wished Per had been his big brother, in place of the two he was stuck with.

Ecky and Sim, at the tops of their voices, gave accounts of Per's courage and fortitude, to which no one listened. Sweet Milk stood by, pulling at his beard and looking unhappy.

Joe had come forward through the crowd to see what was happening, and now looked about bewildered, with no idea of what this quarrel was about, or what might come of it. He caught Per's eyes and was comforted when Per's nod seemed to tell him that there was nothing to worry about. Per was certainly at ease. He had seated himself in Toorkild's vacated chair and, with one leg slung over the wooden arm, was stroking Cuddy's head as the big dog leaned it against his shoulder.

Per was pleased to hear Toorkild declare that Gobby's three gowks all put together weren't worth his Per. In a little while more, when he asked again for the lives of the Elves, both his father and mother would take his side, to spite Gobby. He hadn't planned it that way. His repeating of Gobby's­ insult to himself and his mother had merely been in the ordinary way of Sterkarm quarrels. But once the row was started, he had suddenly seen how it would work out, and had decided to let it.

At some point well into the quarrel, Gobby shouted that “May” was a well-chosen nickname—“A may's face, a may's nature—runagate and flighty and not a gnat's turd of sense!” That stung, but Per bent his head to kiss Cuddy's nose instead of jumping up to join in the yelling. It would only go on longer if he did.

It was still going on when a woman crept up behind Per and whispered in his ear, under the noise of the shouting, that she was off to bed now, but first had to pass on a message from the Elf-May.

When he'd heard it, Per kissed the woman's cheek, thanked her, and settled back in the chair to consider that Andrea wanted him to know that she was lying down in her bower.

He looked up at the waving arms, the toing and froing, the gaping red faces above him, and wondered if he could somehow intervene and bring the row to a quick end.

But no, he wasn't much good as a peacemaker. If he stood up and spoke now, they would all turn on him and dress him down. Even his father was likely to ask him if he wasn't happy now he'd started this, and tell him to sit down and shut up. Better to keep low and wait it out.

It was dark in the yard and, in the narrow alleys between the buildings, pitch-black. Andrea knew the tower well enough to find her way, but she blundered into rubbish heaps, and tripped on uneven ground, and had to catch herself on walls. It made her think again about the distance between the tower and the Elf-Gate. It wouldn't be like walking down a city street at night, over smooth tarmac or paving stones, lit by streetlamps. This was wild, trackless country. By day, going by the shortest way, it was a walk of over ninety minutes. By night, what with the rocks and the tussocks, the harsh tangle of bilberries and heather underfoot, and the river to cross, it would take much longer. It was the kind of country that could break a leg. Or they might go astray in the dark, wander in the wrong direction and become completely lost, to be found and recaptured by the Sterkarms.

But what was the point of worrying? They had a simple choice. They could make the attempt to reach the Elf-Gate, or they could stay and rely on the Sterkarms' goodwill.

A lantern hung from a hook outside the lockup, casting a little faint candlelight into the dark alley. It showed her the ladder leaning in place, and she climbed it, calling out, “Halloo! You, up there!”

One of the men on guard came to the door and gave her a hand into the upper room. The two guards were using a chest as a bench and had set a couple of candles on the top of another. The candlelight showed the strings of vegetables and hard flatbread strung from the roof, and cast deep shadows among the rafters and the jumble of sacks and storage chests on the floor.

“Oh, my head aches,” Andrea said, as soon as she was in. She put a hand to her forehead. “I'm off to bed to try and get rid of it, but I just stopped by—Toorkild asked me to tell you to come on back to feast.”

The men looked at each other and then at her again. She could see them thinking that, nice may though she was, she was still an Elf.

“Isobel's idea,” she said. “She said it was a shame you were stuck out here on your own. ‘What will happen?' she said. ‘They be in lockup, gate be barred, there be a watchman on tower—why can they no come in and have a drink?'” She saw them glance at each other again as they relaxed. She might be an Elf, but didn't Toorkild trust her enough to let her run around loose? Wasn't she the May's may? “So go on and enjoy yourselves,” she said. “Me, I'm off to bed.” She turned back to the ladder, as if she had nothing in her mind except her pillow.

“You got no candle?” one of the men said. “Here, have one of our candles.” They were studying her closely, but with kindness.

“Give her lantern,” said the other and, coming forward, took the lantern down from the hook.

Andrea thanked him and started down the ladder with the lantern in one hand. Watching her go, the man who had unhooked the lantern said, “You get your head down in dark and quiet, my love—you'll soon feel better.”

“Thanks shall you have,” Andrea said. She stood at the bottom of the ladder long enough to see that they were following her down, and then called, “Good night,” and went off with her lantern into the dark alleys.

She turned a corner and waited there, hiding the lantern light and peering back the way she'd come. She glimpsed the dark, moving shapes of the men coming down the ladder before she ducked back out of sight. To her disappointment, they lifted the ladder down and set it along the side of the building. She heard them talking as they moved away. One said to the other, “Poor lass, Elf though she be. May'll lead her a hound's life.”

Andrea winced, but it was probably that pity that had saved her from closer questioning.

When the men were out of hearing, she went back to the lockup as quickly as she could without making too much noise in the mud. Setting the lantern down, she lifted the ladder, relieved to find that it wasn't as difficult to manage as she had feared, being neither very long nor very heavy. But as she put it in place, she was keenly aware of danger. “Yes, the guards had believed her—probably because they were bored and cold and wanted to—but what if, when they reached the hall, they were asked why they'd left their post?

She hurried to climb the ladder, the lantern in her hand. A gang of Sterkarms, angry and vengeful, could arrive at any moment, gathering around the foot of the ladder, shaking it, yelling … She put her finger into the hole in the door and lifted the iron latch. The door swung inward and let her into the storeroom.

She set the lantern down on the chest, beside the snuffed candles, and didn't bother about being quiet. The bolt on the trapdoor was a little stiff, but she wrenched it back, skinning one finger, and heaved up the trapdoor. From below came a scuffling sound of movement, and then stillness and silence.

She took the lantern from the chest and held it over the darkness of the trap. A little of its light filtered down, showing her nothing much but rafters. “Mr. Windsor?”

The men in the stone room below started to their feet, their hearts beating faster. The light above them was the first they'd seen for hours. But a woman's voice asking for Windsor was not what they'd been either hoping for or fearing.

“Andrea?” Bryce said.

The woman's voice said, in English, “Hang on, I'll get the other ladder.” From above came the sound of footsteps and something being banged and dragged on the wooden floor. The light went on shining at the edge of the trap, so she must have set the lantern down there. The end of the ladder appeared in the light, and slid down, racketing on the trap's edge.

Bryce caught the ladder by one of its rungs and took its weight, helping to lower it down. But even when it rested on the earth floor, they hesitated. Bryce called, “Are you alone?”

“Oh, hurry up!” Andrea's face appeared above them, framed in the trap. “I sent the guards away, but I don't know how long we've got.”

“Well done, girl!” Windsor called. “I didn't think you had it in you!”

Bryce swarmed up the ladder. At its foot the men crowded to follow. Windsor pushed in among them, and succeeded in being the third to climb.

“We heard gunfire,” Bryce said. They had a few seconds while the rest of the men climbed the ladder. “We thought the men with the Land Rovers—”

“They were all killed,” Andrea said, as more and more of the men clambered out of the trapdoor. “They”—she tried to keep her voice steady—“hacked them to pieces. It was the Sterkarms letting off guns, but they're all locked up now, the guns I mean. And the Land Rovers. They rolled them down the hill. One exploded. The other's upside down and wrecked.”

All the men had climbed out of the room below and were standing around her. They were struck into stillness and silence by her news.

“No Land Rovers?” Bryce said. “Do you know where the guns are?”

She shook her head. “We've got to hurry up—I don't know where the guns are!” she added, as she saw him about to repeat his question. “There are dozens of storerooms—I don't know which one they were put in.”

Bryce was thinking: Was it worth trying to escape across this country, barefoot, in the dark? How long did they have before the Sterkarms, coming to feed them, discovered they'd gone and came after them? When the Sterkarms came after them, armed and on horseback, they would catch them barefoot, unarmed, exhausted and half frozen. Better to take their chances of ransom here.

“They're going to hang you,” Andrea said.

“Hang us!”

“The men by the Land Rovers killed one of them—”