A Sterkarm Kiss (15 page)

“Why
are
you here?” Andrea asked him.

“Andrea. Neither the time nor the place. Do as I ask, please.”

Detestable man, Andrea thought. But she said, “Mistress Sterkarm, Elf-Windsor wishes to say how deeply sad he is for death of your husband. He is grieved for loss of so valuable and honorable an ally.”

“Thanks shall you have,” Isobel said to Windsor, with a nod of her head, and tried to pass him by.

“Tell her,” Windsor said, “that if there's anything I can do to help her or her family, I'll be happy to do it.”

Andrea, thinking it a conventional phrase, translated it.

“Thanks shall you have,” Isobel repeated. “Forgive me, Master Elf, but I have to follow my husband home.” And she walked past him to follow the stretcher, with Joan clinging close to her side. Andrea translated her words as quickly as she could, and followed. Windsor, she supposed, would now get back into his car and drive back to the Tube.

Andrea caught up with Isobel just as Isobel beckoned to Yanet, her housekeeper, and said, “Go on ahead. Build a bed in guest bower nearest tower.” Isobel spoke clearly and calmly. “Take best guest sheets and make it up.” She nodded toward the stretcher. “We'll lay him there.”

Yanet stared at her. “Best sheets, Isobel? They'll be ruined.”

“Do I care for ruined sheets?” Isobel said. “Do as I say.”

Yanet hurried away, followed by three others, striving to overtake the stretcher party and reach the tower before them.

It was a hard climb, made in silence and a little breathlessly.

Joan, looking ahead, saw the tower come into view. It was small compared to her home, a small, poor tower. To her, once inside its walls, it wouldn't be a shelter but a prison. Her unwillingly moving feet came to a halt, and she stood still, letting Isobel and the Elf-Maid get ahead of her. Other Sterkarms came up behind her and passed her by. They looked at her, and someone said, low, “Grannam bitch!” A shoulder hit her, staggering her. Someone blundered into her from the other side, almost knocking her over, so that she had to touch her fingers to the earth to keep her balance, dirtying her hand. Joan ran a few steps, hurrying up the path to Isobel's side again, regretting, despite herself, that she had strayed away from her mother-in-law. Even the company of that flaunting Elf-May would have given her a little protection. People laughed at her, jeeringly, as she went by.

They reached the tower and passed through its low, narrow gatehouse, where puddles of green water lay on the floor, and emerged into the muddy, mucky courtyard, shadowed by the crowding together of many buildings: storehouses with sleeping quarters above, a kitchen, a smithy, stables, kennels. It was a place of narrow, awkward, stinking muddy alleys with the tower, a squat, ugly building, in the midst of it all.

Andrea loved the place. When she'd lived there—in that other world—she'd often been annoyed and frustrated with its inconveniences; but when she'd returned to her own time, she'd missed it. And now, even though Toorkild was dead, there was a certain comfort in being there again.

The Sterkarms were gathered around the guest bower nearest the tower, where Isobel had ordered that Toorkild should be laid out. The guest bowers were small bastle houses—that is, they had a ground floor built of stone, with neither door nor windows. The upper story might also be of stone, but was more usually of wood. On this floor there were small windows and a small, narrow door with a ladder which could be pulled up into the room at night. This upper story might be furnished as a bedroom for a guest—which meant no more than a bed, some pegs to hang clothes against the wall, and perhaps a couple of chests. Or it might have been turned into something like a small bed-sitting-room for someone who lived at the tower. A trapdoor in the floor led down into the stone room below, which was almost always used for storage.

The crowd gathered around the bower was watching Toorkild's body being lifted to the upper story by ropes tied around the stretcher poles. Per and Sweet Milk, standing in the doorway above, hauled it up, while men underneath supported the weight and pushed.

Isobel, as she stood watching, gave a start, remembering her duties. Looking around, she saw her daughter-in-law and the Elf-May and, behind them, an even more important guest—Elf-Windsor, with his Elf-Guards.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I must make your sleeping places ready. I'll show you to a fire and see that you have meat and drink.”

“Do no worry—” Andrea began, and then saw Isobel's white, set face.

“Be so kind,” Isobel said. “Follow me.” She turned and led the way toward the tower. The crowd parted before her.

Andrea, catching Windsor's eye, followed her. Hospitality was important to the Sterkarms. Guests should always be warmed and offered dry clothes, if they were needed, and food and drink before they were asked a single question. A guest should always be given the best. Nothing excused a hostess from this duty, not even the violent death of her husband. Isobel must be feeling ashamed that she had so far forgotten herself and, Andrea guessed, would be happier if they allowed her to be hospitable now.

Joan hurried to walk a little behind Isobel and a little before Andrea, because she could feel—and see—Sterkarms staring at her with contempt and hatred from all sides. She felt safer when she was close by the Elves.

As they approached the tower, they passed a single-story building of mud walls and overhanging thatch. Heat breathed from its door, and a smell of cooking. Metallic bangs and clatters came from within. A woman came to the door to throw out a bowl of water—catching sight of Isobel just in time to stop herself flinging the water all over her. She gaped at the sight of her mistress in little more than her shift, and stood still, hugging her bowl and listening to Isobel's rapid orders. Warm water and towels were to be brought to the hall right away; and bread and ale, the best they had. Butter, too, and cheese—“It be for guests,” Isobel added significantly. The cook would know, from that, the kind of effort he was to make.

The tower had no windows in its ground story, but there was a small, squat door of thick wood, with a grid of iron behind it. Andrea followed Isobel eagerly through the door, into the dim, barrel-vaulted ground room. As always, it stank of the horses and cattle that had been penned there.

A narrow, winding stair, guarded by another iron grid, led up within the thickness of the wall, and Isobel started up it. Andrea, close behind her, found her feet and fingers remembering every little hollow of the steps and wall, and the way the light fell through the slit windows. She loved it.

Joan, behind Andrea, was longing for her own home as she had never longed for it before.

Isobel led them into the tower's hall, which took up most of the second floor. It was a large, high room. Smoke hung thickly in the air—thick, harsh, throat-catching smoke—and had blackened the upper walls and the great wooden beams of the ceiling, from which hung hams, strings of flatbread, smoked and dried fish, onions. Drafts from the unglazed windows pierced and shifted the smoke and chilled the backs of their necks.

The hall was almost empty of furniture and, at that hour, of people. One old woman crouched on a stool by the hearth. The trestle tables had been cleared and stacked against the walls, and on the hearth there were only a couple of settles.

The hearth was huge. A fire burned in it, and on the hood above was carved the Sterkarms' badge, a black shield bearing a red, upraised arm holding a dagger. Their enemies called it “The Sterkarm Handshake,” and Joan's father had always said that the Sterkarms, being mere farmers and thieves, had no right to any badge. The sight of it was particularly bitter to Joan at that moment, seeming to boast of the Sterkarms' murderous treachery. But she dared not say anything or even let her feelings show on her face.

“Be so kind, sit,” Isobel said, leading them to the settle. As she watched them seating themselves, she went over in her mind what she had ordered and wondered if there was anything else she needed to do. She realized, suddenly, that her daughter-in-law was wearing nothing but muddy nightclothes—as she was herself. A dart of hatred went through her, and her first thought was: Good. Let her freeze. But the girl was her guest—and her other guests, the Elves, were witnesses to the Sterkarms' manners.

“Daughter-in-law,” Isobel said, “come with me. I shall find you clothes.” Beckoning, she turned to leave the hall.

Joan jumped up from the settle where she had sat but looked terrified.

“I'll come with you,” Andrea said, rising. “I can help you dress.”

This Elf-May was a pushy madam, considering the putdown Joan had given her earlier, but this time Joan smiled weakly, though despising herself. She felt safer with Andrea's company. Isobel led them out of the hall and up the staircase to the floor above, which was the private room she had shared with Toorkild. There was a small fireplace, a bed, a settle, a stool, a big chest, and a cupboard that also served as a table. Isobel froze for a moment, looking at the bed. No longer would it be hers. No longer would she be kept warm in bed by Toorkild snoring beside her.

She turned away from the bed, went to the chest, and knelt before it, leaving Andrea and Joan standing in the middle of the room. Unlocking the chest with a key from her belt, Isobel sorted through the things inside, occasionally tossing some item of clothing toward the bed. Andrea picked up those things that fell short.

Isobel closed the chest again and locked it. “Help me dress, daughter-in-law. And then I'll help you dress.”

Joan was shocked. She had never helped anyone dress. Her maid had helped her. But remembering that it would be safer for her to please her new mother, she hastily went forward.

Andrea offered her help, too, in lacing skirts at the back, lacing up bodices, lacing on sleeves. Isobel didn't want to accept her help, because she was a guest, but soon found that Andrea was handier than Joan. “I am shamed to put you to this trouble, Mistress Elf. Thanks shall you have.”

“It gladdens me to be of help,” Andrea said. It saddened her to hear Isobel speak to her so formally.

Once dressed, Isobel was eager to be gone. “Be so kind, Mistress Elf—help my daughter-in-law to dress. I would not ask, but—”

“Today be a troubled day,” Andrea said, and moved behind Joan to lace up the skirt the girl had already pulled on.

“Forgive me,” Isobel said, and ran away down the stairs.

Joan was silent as they worked together to dress her, and Andrea couldn't think of anything to say. As soon as Joan was dressed, she sat on the bed, clasped her hands in her lap, and looked at the floor.

“I think we should go down,” Andrea said. “There'll be food. You must be hungry.”

The girl didn't move or speak.

“Did you ken about attack?” Andrea asked.

Joan lifted her head and stared her in the face. “Sterkarms attacked us! Did my—my
husband
ken it would happen?”

Andrea sat beside her, at a little distance. “Sterkarms attacked?”

The girl gave her another angry look. “My father would never be so treacherous!”

Andrea said nothing. She knew that the Sterkarms never considered themselves treacherous either, even when, to anyone else's way of thinking, they plainly were. “Let's gan down and eat. I ken you be scared, but—”

“I be no scared!” Another glare.

Andrea paused before saying, “We—Elven—will help. I think you should gan home as soon as—”

“Stupid Elf!” Joan said. “I can never gan home!”

Andrea sat silent for a moment. The girl might be right. She had been married to Per, and her relatives and neighbors would assume that the marriage had been consummated, even if it hadn't. And it probably had. There was no divorce in the 16th. To her own family she would be a disgrace and an unmarriageable burden. To the Sterkarms she was one of the people who had murdered Toorkild. Andrea didn't envy her.

“I shall gan down,” Andrea said, and left the girl sitting on the bed. She supposed that, if Joan hadn't come down after a short while, she would be foolish enough to take some food up to her.

In the hall downstairs Windsor sat alone on one settle, and his drivers and bodyguard were sitting or standing around the other. They were all hungry, and there didn't seem to be much left of the food and drink for either Joan or Andrea.

There was nowhere for Andrea to sit except on Windsor's settle. She sat at the other end from him and took a slice of bread. Looking at him, she said, “What are you doing here?”

“Andrea, you haven't been paying attention. You see, there's this company called FUP, and—”

“Okay, you stopped the fight. Thanks a bunch. Now why haven't you gone back to the Tube? Why are you still here?”

“I wanted to see that everyone was safe, and to offer my condolences. Where's the little beauty? Gone to bed?”

“Do you mean Joan Sterkarm? Do you realize how much danger she's in? She should be got out of here quickly.”

“Oh, you do fuss,” Windsor said. “But don't you worry. I'll look after little Miss Joan. We can't have her coming to any harm. In fact, next time you're having a girlie talk, you might put in a word for me. Tell her that I'm looking out for her.”

Andrea turned her shoulder to him. “Don't speak to me,” she said, “unless you have to. I can't stand the sight or sound of you.”

“Oh, Andrea,” he said. “Don't be jealous.” Several of his men sniggered. Could he be any more hateful? Andrea gathered up what little was left of the food and drink and carried it up the stairs to Joan, infinitely preferring Joan's bad-tempered company to Windsor's.

A bed, brought in pieces from the storeroom below, had been knocked together in the upper room, or bower. A mattress, thickly stuffed with straw, was placed on the heather ropes tightly stretched across the bed's frame, and covered with one of Isobel's best linen sheets. Then four men lifted the rigid corpse like a log of wood and placed it on the bed.