A Sterkarm Kiss (20 page)

Per was staring at Joan. “All here ken that Grannams bereaved us while we were sleeping and unarmed.”

Joan was bending her head even closer to her chest, trying to hide. More and more of the Sterkarms were staring at her. The men bared their teeth and straightened their shoulders. It seemed to Andrea that their hair rose.

“Time out of mind,” Per said, “Grannams have killed our men, reived our cattle, burned our houses, starved our bairns.” With a scraping hiss Per, with his left hand, drew his dagger from its scabbard at his belt. He held it up, the Sterkarm badge come to life, and the sunlight flashed on its blade. From the moor a peewit called, shrilly and sadly. “I swear this, I swear it by my father, and my father's brother, and my father's brother's son, that I shall never draw a blade but I redden it with Grannam blood. If I don't keep this vow, let any man here throw it in my teeth.”

Andrea was startled by a roar of approval, or agreement, from everyone in the graveyard. It was almost, but not quite, a cheer. And there was a great scraping of metal as daggers and swords were drawn, to flash in the sunlight. She looked at the cringing Joan and, afraid herself, could only imagine how the girl felt, alone among her enemies.

“Kill them!” came a shout.

“Kill them all!”

A hubbub of yells and shouts rose, from children, from women, and from men.

Per raised his voice again, and although his first words weren't heard, the crowd fell silent to hear him. “We shall kill them. We shall kill them until their country's empty, till the name Grannam is dead and forgotten. And I swear, I swear, that last Grannam will be sick and sad to heart for what their name did here. And sick and sorry they'll be that ever they heard of name of Sterkarm.”

Per reached across his mother, knocking her backward, grasped Joan by the neck of her dress, and yanked her toward him. She toppled on the edge of the grave, cried out, and clutched at Per to save herself. He pulled her to him, pinning her against his chest with his right arm. In his left he held his dagger.

“Leave her!” Andrea shouted, the force of the yell punching from her lungs and throat.

Joan, her back against Per and his arm hard and tight across her chest, saw the blade of his dagger in front of her face and froze, every muscle locked. The sharp edge of the dagger touched her neck. She felt its cold, slicing edge and closed her eyes. Her heart pounded frantically, painfully, and her thoughts scrabbled, scrambled, hunting for escape.

Birds called, the wind blew, but no one in the graveyard moved or made a sound. It was an eager silence. They were going to witness the first Grannam death and the fulfilment of Per's vow.

“Per! No!” Andrea made a convulsive step forward but stopped, her hands weakly, uselessly, in the air. She had neither the skill nor the strength to stop Per, and might provoke him. Where were Windsor's bodyguards—where was Patterson? She looked to her right and left, stretching her neck to see around people, and glimpsed them at the other end of the grave. They hadn't a chance, in such a crowd, of reaching Joan. But then—Per wouldn't do it. He wouldn't really do it—not to a girl. It was a joke. A threat. He wouldn't
do
it.

Per's hand, in the very act of pressing the knife home, weakened and couldn't find the strength to pierce the skin. It was a girl he held, and he had never killed a girl before. Cowards killed those smaller and weaker than themselves, who couldn't fight back.

But this was a
Grannam
girl—a treacherous, lying, backstabbing, murdering Grannam. A female rat was killed so it could breed no more vermin. The death of this female rat would be small payment—no payment—for his father, his uncle, his cousin. His hand regained its strength, moved, slashed with the dagger.

Dark blood spilled from Joan's throat. Her eyes glared, staring, wide. She put up her hands to her neck, gasped, bubbled, choked, and sagged in Per's hold. Contemptuously, he let her go and stepped back. She fell, with a thump, into the grave, on top of the other bodies. Her blood soaked into Toorkild's shroud.

There was, for Andrea, a long moment of suspension when she couldn't believe. In another world, this wasn't happening. Perhaps …?

The Sterkarms cheered. They waved knives and cheered and laughed.

“One less!”

“Kill 'em all! Kill 'em!”

A man's voice yelled out, “A Sterkarm kiss! A Sterkarm kiss for bride!”

A great shout of laughter rose from the graveside. People clapped their hands, repeated the joke, laughed again, cheered. They were laughing at, and cheering, the murder of a girl. Andrea felt she'd been punched. Then she was seized with the thought that Joan might still be alive. Her hands fluttered, calling people to help. “She might be alive! See if she be alive!” She teetered on the edge of the grave, actually dangling one foot over the edge, as if to jump down, but then withdrawing. Jump into a pit of corpses, among the flies and the stench? But the girl might be alive! Awkwardly she crouched at the edge, meaning to kneel and lower herself over the edge.

A hand took her arm, gripping hard, pulling her back. “She's dead,” a voice said.

Andrea looked up into the meaty face of Patterson, who had determinedly forced his way through the crowd. He didn't look cheerful or affable at that moment. “She's dead,” he repeated. “Come away.”

“We don't know,” she said. “We don't know. People have survived—”

He tugged her away from the grave, so that she had to bunny-hop and scramble to keep her footing, dragging her between people who were pushing forward to get a better look into the grave. “Trust me,” Patterson said. “She's dead.” He pulled her clear of the crowd, and she found herself among the bodyguard, all of them looking edgy and alarmed. She stumbled against someone and saw it was Windsor, looking white and sick.

“Make sure,” Andrea said. “We have to make sure. Please.”

Patterson looked exasperated, but he let go of her arm and dived into the crowd again. When he reached the edge of the grave, he saw that some of the Sterkarm men had jumped down into it and were heaving Joan's body out. They tossed it onto the ground, among the feet of the people, who hastily stepped back and then came forward again to kick the body.

Andrea heard Per's voice—always loud and carrying, “—no­ be buried with my family. Cast it over wall.”

Between the crowd of shifting bodies, Andrea glimpsed people bending to take Joan's arms and feet, to carry her away. No, she thought. You can't. You can't just throw a body over the wall and leave it. To rot. Where anyone might come on it. Children. Anyone. That's not—it's not-civilized.

“She's dead.” Patterson was at her side again.

“Are you sure? Do you—?” Perhaps, Andrea was thinking, perhaps, when everyone had gone, they could go and find where Joan had been thrown, and—

Patterson was bending to look into her face. “D'you think these characters don't know how to cut a throat? She's dead.”

“We don't
know
,” Andrea said. Per wouldn't do that. Per wouldn't murder an innocent girl. He wouldn't.

Patterson leaned even closer. “He nearly cut her. Fucking. Head. Off. D'you want to see?” He took her arm, as if he would drag her over to the body.

Andrea pulled away. “No! No.” She put her hands to her face.

The Sterkarms were filling in the grave. Everyone was helping. Per, Little Toorkild, and Wat were shoveling in earth. Those who had no spades used their hands. Per worked with such fury that he could have done it alone.

Andrea turned her back on the grave and walked toward the gate in the wall.

“Where are you going?” Windsor called after her.

Without turning, she said, “Away from here!”

16

16th Side: A Tiny Hole

Gareth was a pretty good driver—well, he couldn't see much about his driving that he needed to improve—but he let McKean drive. He was tired, and driving 16th side was no fun. If someone was going to overturn an MPV, or get it stuck in a bog, or break an axle on a boulder, let it be McKean.­ Even sitting in the passenger seat on the journey from the Grannams' Brackenhill Tower to the Tube was nervewracking. Bands of armed and angry Grannams or Sterkarms might appear at any moment, and if they did, they hadn't a chance of speeding away from them because the “roads” were nothing more than sheep tracks and horse rides. They climbed or descended with terrifying steepness, or clung to hillsides at a slope, and Gareth gripped the edges of his seat with both hands. They didn't talk much. McKean had to give all his concentration to driving.

He had to guide the vehicle slowly through narrow spaces between boulders—drive it at an extreme slant down slippery, grassy slopes—skirt boggy and marshy hollows, while Gareth held his breath, foreseeing that a wheel would get stuck—and drive through rocky streams and rivers. It had been a huge relief to reach the deserted wedding camp and, a little beyond it, the Tube. The MPVs had all drawn up in the compound, and everyone had piled out, laughing and stretching, and strolled into the office, for coffee and Coke in plastic cups.

“Has Mr. Windsor been through?” Gareth asked the man on duty.

“Still out at the Sterkarm tower, far as I know.”

“What?” Gareth said, and the men stopped chatting and started listening. “I've got information for him.”

“Better start driving, then,” the guard said. This wasn't the reply Gareth had been hoping for.

“Isn't there any other way—?”

“Sure!” said the guard. “Phone him on your cell. Post him a letter. E-mail him, why don't you?”

“You're not being helpful,” Gareth said.

“I'm a bugger like that,” said the guard, who had no ambition.

Gareth turned to other men. “I need a volunteer.” They all looked at the floor and into corners. “Fine,” he said. “You go through. I'll drive myself.”

The men cheered up immediately. With waves and nods they went out to their MPVs—leaving one for Gareth—and drove up onto the ramp and through the Tube. Back to the blessed 21st. Ah well, Gareth reflected, he was the one with the career instead of a dead-end driving job; he was the one who was going to earn the Brownie points.

He drank a cup of coffee and snatched a nap on the office sofa. When he did get back 21st side, he promised himself, he would fire off loads of memos, reminding his bosses of how bloody useful he'd been, and make it count when his assessment came around. Onward and upward!

Half an hour later he climbed behind the wheel of the MPV and started for the Sterkarm tower. The drive was exasperating and difficult—merely a strain while driving over the high moors, but the steep, rugged descent into Bedesdale, in first gear, was frightening. He seemed to have his jaws clenched tight for hours, and his whole skull ached, but at last, at long last, he was bumping and jolting along the valley floor toward the tower. The Sterkarms had cleared some of the boulder litter, after Windsor had encouraged them to the work with gifts of aspirin, cloth, and Wellington boots.

Gareth didn't attempt to drive the car up the steep path to the tower, though Windsor had once boasted to him that he had. Enough was enough, Gareth thought. It was easier to get out and walk.

A strong wind blew past his ears as, out of breath, he reached the gatehouse. He was surprised to see that the gate was open. There was a guard closely watching his approach, but even so, he'd have thought the Sterkarms would be on red alert, given the circumstances. Before he could approach the gate, he heard voices and footsteps from beside the tower. He looked in that direction and saw Andrea Mitchell come hurrying around the curve of the tower's fifteen-foot wall.

She was half running, her hair flying, and she swiped her hands at her eyes as she came. Gareth got the impression that she wasn't happy. “Hi!” he said, and raised his hand in greeting.

She stopped short and stared at him.

“James Windsor about?” he asked.

She came on toward him. Drawing near, she said, “You liked Joan Grannam, didn't you?”

An odd question, he thought. What had it got to do with anything?

“I know you did, I know you liked her,” Andrea said. “Well, she's dead.”

“Dead?” Gareth said, blankly. How could she be dead? There was a higher mortality rate 16th side, yes, but even so, Joan Grannam was only fifteen or sixteen, and in good health the last time he'd seen her, which was only—he couldn't remember the exact time. A couple of days. Three days. Something like that.

“They nearly cut her fucking head off!” Andrea said.

“What? Are you all right?”

Andrea raised her clenched fists on either side of her head. “
I'm
all right! Joan Grannam's dead!” Her hair flew out about her head.

She's mad, Gareth thought, and was relieved to see Windsor coming up behind her with several other 21st siders. He half waved at Windsor, and would have gone to meet him, except he felt vaguely guilty about leaving Andrea when she was so obviously upset about something.

“Gareth!” Windsor said as he came closer. “I'm certainly glad to see you!”

“I've got some—” Gareth began, but Windsor cut him short.

“I'm out of here, leaving straightaway. You're in charge.”

Gareth tried to take this in. Windsor, he realized, wasn't looking quite well. He was pale, and there was a jumpiness about all his movements, a slight shake in his voice.

“I'm coming with you,” Andrea said.

Windsor looked at her and calmed a little. “You? No, Andrea. We can't spare you.”

“I resign,” she said.

“Fine. As soon as I receive your formal, typed letter of resignation on my desk, 21st side, your month's notice will begin.”

As Gareth, bemused, looked on, Andrea gave Windsor a long look of pure hatred. “You can't stop me from leaving.”

“Who's stopping you?” Windsor said. “But Patterson here needs the vehicles. Can't spare one to be your taxi. Of course, you can walk—if you want to walk from here to the Tube with the Grannams on the warpath.”

Andrea looked at Patterson, who stood stolidly beside Windsor. She looked at the other men beside him, and at Gareth, but though scared and angry, she wasn't yet quite desperate enough to ask them for help—especially when she strongly doubted that they would help her.

“Andrea,” Windsor said, in a reasonable, soothing tone, “I need you here. Gareth will be off into the hills with Patterson and the Sterkarms.”

Gareth was startled to hear this.

“So I need you here, at the tower,” Windsor went on, to Andrea. “And you're not in any danger. You're an Elf. Nobody here is going to cut your throat.” His voice wavered again.

“I don't
think
they're going to—to kill me!” Andrea said.

“Then what is the matter?” Windsor asked. “Why do you want to leave suddenly? Oh—” He smiled. “Is Per Sterkarm not so cuddly as you thought he was? What a pity. Personally, I wasn't under any misapprehension there.” His hand briefly rubbed his stomach.

Voices and footfalls made them look around. The rest of the funeral party was returning from the graveyard. Per Sterkarm, ahead of the rest, raised his arm and called to someone among them—it might have been any of them.

Andrea, knowing it was her, was seized with a sort of panic. She couldn't face Per, couldn't speak to him. Being near him would be like being smeared with blood. Abruptly turning away, she hurried up the rough steps to the tower's gatehouse. If she went inside, she could go to her bower, pull up her ladder, hide.

“Who's my driver?” Windsor asked. “Gareth, make my excuses—lay it on with a trowel.”

And Windsor, too, ran away, with his driver, down the steep path that led to the valley below, where the Elf-Carts were parked.

Gareth, exasperated and afraid, was left to greet the Sterkarms. “Mistress Sterkarm—I am sad for your husband's death—er—Master Windsor has been called away. On important, urgent business. He wished to stay longer”—Gareth was half aware of Per Sterkarm leaving the funeral party and running up the steps toward the gatehouse—“but truly he could not. He is needed—in Elf-Land—could not stay.”

“We be sad for it, Master Elf,” Isobel Sterkarm said. Her face was stiff and rather grim, but she was composed. “Shall you be staying with us?”

“Er—I shall.”

“Then I will make you a place to sleep,” Isobel said, and went on toward the tower. Most people followed her, though some were peeling off and going to their business in the fields. Gareth fell in with Patterson and the other 21st men.

“What's this about me going with you into the hills?”

They grinned at him.

Per caught up with Andrea as she reached the narrow alleyway that led to her bower. “Wait! I've been calling thee! I—”

“Get away from me!” Andrea said, almost in a panic. She tried to go on.

He darted in front of her, blocking her way. “How stands it with thee? What be wrong?”

“What be—?” Andrea's voice croaked into silence. She could only look at him. There he was, tall, strongly made, good-looking. His sleeve stained with fresh blood, his face flushed and lively, his spirits high. That, she thought, is a killer.

“I be ganning soon,” Per said. “I wanted to see thee afore I gan.”

“I thought you understood!” she said to him. “I thought you did. I thought you got it. But no— You have no even tried, you have no even thought about it!”

He was baffled. And she was calling him “you” when he'd thought they were “thou” to each other.

“Joan,” she said. “You murdered Joan.”

He frowned, annoyed. He didn't like being called a murderer. It had been revenge, not murder. “Grannams killed my daddy.”

“Joan did no!” she yelled at him. “Joan never hurt anyone! Joan was—was—just a little lass.”

“Ach! She was a Grannam!”

“And that's reason enough, be it?”

Per looked angrier. He didn't like being shouted at by a woman, not even an Elf-Woman. Still less did he like being shouted at by a woman he'd lain with, and from whom he'd expected kisses and cuddles and kind words.

“And now what will you do? Kill more Grannams—whether or no they had anything to do with killing your father. And they'll kill some of you. And you'll kill some more of them. And they'll kill some more of you—and on and on it'll go!”

“Tha'rt an Elf,” Per said. “Tha dinna—”

“Why be it that when you kill Grannams, that be right and fair—but when they kill you, that be wicked and wrong? How do you tell difference between a good murder and a bad murder?”

Per scowled, looking angrier than she'd ever seen him, in this world or the other. His blue eyes flashed silver, as if a light had lit up behind them. He seized her by both shoulders and shook her. Though she always thought of him as slender, he was tall, and he was very strong. His fingers gripped her arms painfully and, big hefty girl as she was, he shook her until her head bobbed and her teeth clattered. She was dreadfully scared: Her heart pounded, her face flushed, and her breath seemed to be lost somewhere in the shaking. It flashed through her mind that he was going to kill her, as he'd killed Joan—what was to stop him? He could do anything he liked. The Sterkarms would always back him. And so would FUP, because he was worth more to them than she was. They would tell her parents, “Dreadfully sorry—your daughter was killed in an industrial accident. Here's some money.” She tried to say, “Be so—kind—” but couldn't form the words for the shaking.

“You ken nowt!” Per said. “Nowt!” He shoved her aside, and she stumbled into the stone wall of a storehouse. “Elven may forgive and forget and live in peace—but this be no Elf-Land! If we dinna kill Grannams, they will kill us!” He strode away from her and then turned. “And I
shall
kill them!” With a couple more strides he had turned the corner of the alley and was out of her sight.

Andrea huddled against the wall, shaking, for some minutes before she felt able to climb the ladder to her bower. She felt wobbly as she did it and didn't think she had the strength to pull the ladder up after her, but she did and then felt safer.

She lay on the bed, huddling in the smell of old hay, and cried, from shock and humiliation, because she'd thought she could influence Per, and she couldn't—and perhaps from grief—for Joan, for Per, for everyone who was going to be killed and hurt … She didn't know for sure why she cried.

As the sobbing eased and her brain began to work again, she asked herself what she'd expected. Had she really thought that one short pillow talk would reverse the whole conditioning of Per's life? Behind Per lay centuries of blood feud. He thought murder a lesser crime than leaving his father unavenged.

But he'd killed Joan. She hadn't liked Joan—the girl had been prickly, touchy, and hard to love … But she'd been a girl. A fifteen-year-old girl.

Andrea realized that she wouldn't have been so appalled if Per had cut the throat of a Grannam man in front of her. Shocked, yes. Scared. But—she wouldn't have felt such a personal affront. She wouldn't have been so scared when Per had lost his temper and shaken her. At the bottom of her grief was the fear that if Per could kill Joan so pitilessly, then he might also harm her.

And that knowledge grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and shoved her face into the fact that she'd managed to forget again, the fact that she always managed to duck, no matter how often it was brought to her notice. Per was a killer.