The Sterkarm Handshake (13 page)

Toorkild showed no concern at the possibility of armed guards. He was probably surprised to learn that the teams his people had robbed
hadn't
been armed.

“I'm glad we've been able to settle this amicably,” Windsor said. He looked down into his briefcase. “Oh look. Here's another pack of aspirins I hadn't noticed.” He tossed them onto the table with the others.

As far as any expression at all could be read on Toorkild's bearded face, he looked sulky—but he straightened himself in his chair, as if about to say something. Before he could, from outside came a long, soaring shout.

Toorkild's heavy chair skidded back, so forcefully did he rise. He stood still, listening. Through the tower's narrow windows came shouts from the yard, more and more voices joining in. They were yelling, “May! May!”

Toorkild went straight to the door, threw it open, and dashed down the stairs, leaving Windsor and Bryce staring.

7

16th Side: Per Bairt Hyemma

Up on the top floor of the tower, the windows had tiny panes of thick, puddled glass set in black iron frames. Andrea struggled with the catch of one and forced it open, letting in damp, chill air. She could see nothing of the yard except the thatched roofs of the outbuildings, but the sounds doubled in volume: feet running in mud, alarmed clucking of chickens, shutters being thrown open and buckets being thrown down. People yelled as they passed, and what they yelled was “May! May!”

Andrea made for the door.

“Would you mind telling me what's going on?” Windsor was annoyed. Toorkild had dashed out the door and away down the stairs without even giving him a look, and now Andrea was following.

“The May!” she said. She clung to the stone jamb of the door, as if holding herself back from running down the stairs.
“Han venda tilbacka!”
They stared at her. “I mean—Per Sterkarm. He's come back.”

Bryce got to his feet and seemed ready to go with her, but Windsor still sat in his chair.

“We ought to go out too,” she said. Windsor still didn't move. Oh, stay there if you want to, she thought, and ran down the stairs. She could hear Bryce coming after her.

There was no sound in the tower except the thump and scuffle of their feet on the steps, and the drag of their hands on the plastered wall. The hall, when they passed its door, was empty. Through the windows came fainter and fainter sounds of shouting.

At the bottom of the stairs Andrea pushed aside the heavy gate of iron gridwork. The tower door stood open to the yard, letting in light. Pattens were scattered on the floor among the dirty straw. The people had rushed out into the mud without a thought for their shoes or clothes. Andrea would have done the same, but Bryce stopped and began hunting for a pair of pattens that would fit him.

Andrea fidgeted, waiting for him, wanting to say, Oh, come on—but Bryce was wearing a smart suit and highly polished shoes, so she couldn't blame him for delaying. More echoing steps within the wall of the tower told her that Windsor was coming down the stairs after them. From outside distant shouting greeting the ride's return. Per would be looking for her and wondering where she was. Bryce was just beginning to strap one patten to his foot. “Oh—catch up to me!” Andrea said, and ran out the door.

The yard, and the alleys between the outbuildings, were all empty and silent, except for a cat and a few chickens. She ran toward the gate, trying to miss the worst of the mud, jumping a puddle, all the time hearing whistles and calls from beyond the walls. Her footsteps and her panting breath echoed as she went through the narrow stone tunnel of the gatehouse, and then she had a view, from the tower's rocky crag, of the tower's people gathered together just below. They were waving, jumping, calling, shrieking, so happy to see their own coming home that they ignored the big, scarlet, shining Elf-Cart parked near them.

Andrea could see the first of the ride climbing the path, some men riding and some leading their horses—and there were Cuddy and Swart, swiftly moving long shapes, coursing around the horses as if herding them home. It was a beautiful scene. The clear, clean air sharpened every detail: the opposite slopes of the valley bright with bronze bracken, purple heather and dark bilberries; the scores of white streams jumping down the hillside to join Bedes Water. The day was fine, if chilly, and the sky above was a clear harebell blue. A small, damp breeze touched her face, and catching the mood of the cheering people, she felt exhilarated. Shielding her eyes and squinting, she tried to pick out Per among the horsemen but couldn't. Which was odd, because he would be in the lead, for sure, and she had come to know his every movement so well, his every tilt of the head and shift of the shoulders.

She began looking for anyone she knew—for Sweet Milk, for Sim or Ecky. Sim was one of the horsemen. He kept turning in his saddle and looking back.

Some men were climbing the path on foot. Sweet Milk was one of them. The man walking in step with him was Gobby Per, Toorkild's brother. With a shock, she realized they were supporting stretcher poles on their shoulders. As the path twisted, she caught sight of the men walking behind, carrying the other end of the poles. The nearer man was familiar. Her hands went to her mouth as she realized it was one of Per's cousins. There was a likeness …

The people of the tower started forward, their line bulging like a swelling wave and then breaking. Isobel and Toorkild, she saw, were among the leaders. She heard Windsor and Bryce behind her, coming to join her, clumping along in their pattens, but she didn't turn.

The people surrounded the riders and passed by them, gathering in a crowd about the stretcher bearers. The stretcher was brought on some way closer to the tower, with many hands helping to support it, and then it vanished in the crowd as it was lowered to the grass.

Cuddy and Swart cast backward and forward, up and down the slope, trying to push through the people. They whined, the sound rising at times almost to a howl.

Andrea ran. She heard Bryce call out behind her, asking her to wait, but she wouldn't have stopped for anyone. She had to find out who had been brought back on the stretcher—although the tight, clutched feeling at her heart told her that she already knew.

She was met by a solid wall of backs. Somewhere near the front, a woman's voice rose in a wail. As the cry sank in a sob, other voices rose: an eerie, hopeless sound that seemed to quiver through her. It was so frail and lonely on the open hillside. Keening. Keening was for a death.

It made Andrea angry. Such a fuss to make before she even knew what was going on! She ran around the crowd, looking for a way through, and found Cuddy running with her. No use being polite, obviously. Andrea took a man by the arm and hauled him aside. She wormed into the crowd, pushing, saying, “Shift!” Cuddy's weight pressed against her legs, and then, with a strong shove, Cuddy was past her and clearing the way, thrusting people aside with her big head and powerful shoulders.

Stumbling to the front of the crowd, Andrea saw blood. Per and blood. Per lay on the ground, between the lances that were the stretcher poles. All the brightness had gone out of his face. It was clay white, clay damp, streaked and smeared with blood, fresh red blood and darkening, drying blood. Even his lips were white, and the blue shadows under his eyes might have been daubed on with ink, they were so prominent. His head was raised a little on a bundle, and turned from side to side as he muttered and licked his lips. Andrea could hear his noisy breathing, a sound like tearing or rasping.

The right thigh of his breeches was black with blood. His long boot, his jakke and the clothes that made the stretcher beneath him were all stained with blood. All that blood, so much blood, smeared everywhere, spread everywhere. He couldn't have any left in him.

Cuddy went nosing at the wound and Toorkild slapped her away. Toorkild was kneeling at Per's side. He looked up at Andrea, his face wild and marked with Per's blood.

At Per's other side, Sweet Milk was kneeling, holding one of Per's hands—and Sweet Milk's hands, and face, and jakke were all streaked, spattered, marked with Per's blood.

At Per's head knelt Isobel, her hand inside his jakke. Her face and hands and dress were stained with Per's blood, but she was intent and silent. It was the women behind her, bending over her, who keened for a death.

With the chill wind about her ears, and those eerie, despairing wails, Andrea was overwhelmed for a moment by helplessness and panic. Then she thought: No! and was filled with angry energy. She pushed Cuddy out of her way and stepped over Per's legs. Inside her head she was screaming at herself: Do something!

She put her hands over her ears, trying to shut out the keening and give herself a few moments in which to think. Come on, remember. Basic first aid. She'd learned it at college, not that long ago. Dark blood, not spurting … Venous bleeding then, not arterial. Thank God for that!
Apply local pressure to stop bleeding
… Toorkild was doing that, tears running down his face.

What else, what else?
With any major wound or blood loss, expect to find shock and treat accordingly
. What did that mean? Slowly, infuriatingly slowly, her memory told her. Keep the patient warm. Give reassurance. If conscious, give a hot, sweet drink.

But it was hard even to get close to Per. Isobel was at his head, Sweet Milk and Toorkild kneeling on either side of him, and none of them would move. Cuddy stood astride him, licking his face and neck with a long red tongue, and many other people were crowding around. Gobby was stooping over Toorkild, saying, “We did all we could … I drowned the prisoners, had 'em trodden down in Bedes Water … He's a brave lad, a brave lad … If he was one of my own …”

Another man was brandishing a sword over Isobel's shoulder. “This is what did it. Salve it good.”

“Toorkild—” Andrea began, and then someone else was shouting her name above the heads of the crowd. An English voice, not a Sterkarm. Some sort of scuffle seemed to be going on in the crowd.

“Toorkild—” Andrea said again. She reached over Per, almost overbalancing, snatching at the thick, fur-lined robe Toorkild wore, and which she wanted to wrap Per in.

“Andrea!” It was Bryce's voice. “They won't let me through!”

She could glimpse Bryce's balding head now, his pink face even more flushed than usual as he struggled with several of the Sterkarm men, who were blocking his way and shoving him back.

Andrea jumped back over Per's legs. “Let him through, let him through!” She grabbed at the collar of Toorkild's robe and began dragging it down his arms. To Bryce she called, “Do you know more first aid than I do? He be Elf!” she yelled at the Sterkarms. “He kens things! He'll help! Let him through! I want robe for Per, Toorkild! Give it me! Tell them to let Elf-Man through—be so kind! He might ken things that could help!”

Toorkild shrugged out of the robe, stripping himself to his shirt and leggings. He looked over his shoulder and yelled at the men struggling behind him, and Bryce came plunging through the crowd.

“Christ on a bike!” he said, when he saw the blood. He elbowed Toorkild out of the way and knelt beside Per. Isobel looked at him in alarm and raised a hand as if to fend him off, but then made no further protest as Bryce shoved his hand into Per's jakke and felt for the pulse in his throat. Per tried to push him away, and Cuddy growled at him, but Sweet Milk held the hound by the collar, and Isobel caught Per's hands and murmured to him.

Andrea threw Toorkild's heavy robe over Per. It fell over Cuddy too, where she had pressed her whole length against his side. Well, the big hound's body heat would help to keep him warm. To Bryce she said, “Shock?”

Bryce nodded, keeping his face controlled in a way she didn't like. “And a half! His heart's dingdonging away like the clappers.”

Andrea crouched beside Sweet Milk, staring at Bryce across Per's body. “Is there anything we can do?”

Bryce obviously didn't want to answer. Isobel looked from Andrea to him and back again, her expression intense.

Bryce put his hand under Per's head and gently eased the rolled blanket from under him, supporting his head until he could lower it to the stretcher. The roll of blanket Bryce tossed to Andrea. “Prop his feet up. Keep him warm, get him inside.” Bryce lifted his brows a little, and moved his head slightly to the side, in what was almost a shake of the head. “Make him comfortable.”

Isobel couldn't understand what they said, but she understood the expressions on their faces. For the first time she let loose a long, rising wail that set other women keening again.

As Andrea lifted the robe and pushed the blanket roll under Per's feet, she felt a cry rising in her own throat, and tears springing in her eyes. She held both wail and tears back. Neither would do any good. “Stay there!” She got to her feet and looked around. “Don't move him, not yet! Stay! Wait!” She pushed aside a man wearing jakke and helmet and ran off.

Windsor had descended the rocky path from the tower's gatehouse, but he kept well clear of the excited crowd, going instead to stand by his car. He was a little curious about what was going on, but not eager to be caught up in that jostling, stinking mob. Someone would tell him what all the noise was about sooner or later. In the meantime, he was glad to see that he still had his hubcaps.

Becoming bored, he left his car and skirted the edge of the crowd, picking his way around the horses and the youngsters who held them. Glancing at one horse as he passed, he saw something hanging from the saddlebow. He stopped, stared.

Two objects. One round and furry, the other …

Both things were bloody, covered with lumps of clotting and blackening blood. He went on staring in a strange calm, long after he had recognized what they were, as if he didn't have to react until he admitted to himself what he was seeing.

A kind of toy, surely? A sort of joke? But what were they made of? In his own time they would have been plastic, but …

He couldn't keep up the pretense. The texture and substance of the things had no similarity to plastic. They were flesh, hair, real blood.

He was looking at a man's severed head tied to the saddlebow. Beside it, lashed to the bow with twine, was a severed hand. He swallowed and went on staring as his heart thumped somewhere in his throat. It was hard to believe that the things could look so much like—well, what they were. So complete. Undamaged. So hand-shaped, with thumb and fingers and nails. So normal a head, apart from the blood and the fact that it ended at the neck. The eyes were still there, behind sagging lids, the teeth visible behind the drooping lips.

His legs wobbled beneath him and he felt shocked, sick. Having always prided himself on being stronger than others, he was surprised at the strength of his repulsion. Okay, okay, he said to himself, it's just a head. No worse than seeing a pig's head in a butcher's window. They're both just dead pieces of meat.