9

21st Side: A Hospital Visit

The next morning Andrea breakfasted on a croissant and coffee and watched Per. He sat up in bed, the jakke discarded for the moment, and carefully rationed out the food he had left in his pouch. The tray of cereal and croissant meant for him was on the table beside Andrea’s chair. Per had refused to allow it near him.

The apple, most of the plums and the greater part of the cheese Per put back into the pouch; then he closed it. On the bedcover he arranged the last of the porridge, a small piece of the cheese, a plum and the leather bottle.

Andrea opened her mouth to speak, and then made herself be quiet. She didn’t want to begin another long, exhausting argument.

That morning, flattering herself that she could sweet-talk Per into anything, she’d set herself to coax him into agreeing to eat the hospital breakfast. “Nigh,” he’d said, which always sounded more emphatic than “no.”

So she’d pleaded and begged, looking close into his face and holding his hand, growing more shameless as his face showed that it did distress him to refuse her. She pelted him with endearments, swore on her life and love and honor that it was safe to eat, kissed him, made promises.

“Entraya! Yi seet nigh!” I said no!

It was not only disappointing but hurtful, to find that she couldn’t persuade him after all. She lost her temper and called him stupid, telling him that he was only delaying his own recovery and return home. What was he scared of? Was he a coward? She had shouted this, thinking that of all things she could say it was most likely to hurt him, and make him want to prove it untrue.

Per had grinned. He knew that he wasn’t a coward and, anyway, didn’t much value a woman’s opinion on what did and didn’t make a coward. Her anger was much easier to bear than her pleading. “Honning min, nigh.” Honey mine, no.

Andrea had knelt beside the bed and reverted to pleading. “Per, it be only because I love thee. I can no stand by and see thee make thysen sick.” She reached for his hands. “When thou wast hurt, I was so scared, and now I be scared again and—”

“Nigh! Yi seet nigh!” He turned on her so fast, his eyes making that silver flash, that she thought he was going to hit her. “Quiet, woman! Or I’ll close thy mouth!”

She’d withdrawn to a chair in the far corner of the room, picked up a magazine and pretended to read, though she’d been too angry and upset to follow a word. If he wanted quiet, he could have it. She’d never speak another word to him until he apologized.

“Entraya. I be sad for what I said.”

She’d lifted her chin and kept her eyes on the magazine, affecting not to have heard him.

“Be no angry, Entraya.”

It was an appeal not to be left alone in this strange, strange land. She’d thrown down the magazine, gone over to the bed, and hugged him.

Now, while Per nibbled at his bit of cheese, Andrea looked at her watch and put her tray aside. The office would be open. She went to the phone on the wall and dialed for an outside line.

“Vah air day?” Per asked. What’s that?

“It be a—a far-speak. No, sshh, Per! I be trying to talk.” She was dialing the number for FUP as she spoke. “Quiet, Per, please!” The switchboard answered. She asked for Windsor’s office, and was put through to his secretary. Windsor, of course, was in a meeting. She asked if she could leave a message for him, and started to explain why she thought it would be best to send Per home as soon as possible—tomorrow, or even today.

“Vorfar tala thu til ayn vegg?” Per asked. Why do you talk to a wall?

The secretary promised that she would pass the message on to Windsor the moment she saw him. “Ssh, Per! I’ll explain in an eye-blink.” She dialed again, this time for Dilsmead Hall and, when she got through, asked for Bryce.

“Hello, Andrea!” Bryce said, when he came on. “I’ve been meaning to come over and see you, but you know the way you get bogged down. How’s the lad?”

“Well enough to be awkward.” She explained why Per wouldn’t eat. It was a relief to be able to explain it to someone. “I wondered—is there any way you could get hold of some food from 16th side? If he could see it was—”

“Not before this afternoon. Would that be okay?”

“Yes! Thank you! Anything will do,” Andrea said. “Bread. Porridge. Whatever.”

“I’ll do my best. Dunno when I’ll be able to get it over to you, though. Look, leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Vah air day?” Per said. He was standing right by her, wearing nothing at all except the dressing on his leg, peering at the telephone. He’d brought the drip stand with him, using it as a sort of crutch.

“Per, I don’t think you should be standing—”

“Vem tola thu meth?” Who are you talking with?

“Is that the lad?” Bryce asked. “Put him on.”

Andrea held out the phone to Per. He pulled his head back from it but then, his eyes widening, allowed her to hold it to his ear. She heard Bryce’s voice, sounding tinny, shout, “God dag, Per!”

Per’s eyes flew wider still and he stepped sharply back. He said, “Be that spirit?” He looked toward where the heart monitor had stood.

“He thinks you’re a spirit,” Andrea said into the phone. Bryce laughed and said that he’d do his best to get the food sent over.

Andrea put the phone back in its cradle. Per had retreated to the bed, where he was sitting, unable to take his eyes off the phone.

She went to sit beside him, her hand naturally slipping around his. His hands always felt hot to her—and big, thin, and very strong. “It was no a ghost. It was a man.”

“A man?” There was surprise in his voice.

“I mean an Elf. It be a far-speak. It be for talking to people who’re a long way off. The Elf we spoke to was about a mile away, maybe a bit farther, in a place called Dilsmead Hall.”

“Where Elf-Gate be,” he said.

Andrea was startled. She’d forgotten telling him that, and hadn’t expected him to remember it. She looked into his face, unthinkingly raising a hand to touch his cheek, and thought: I underestimate him. Because he was a few years younger than her, she thought of him as sweet and naive and rather silly—but was he, in fact, any of those things?

She was wondering whether to kiss him, or to wait for him to kiss her, when he got up from the bed and went over to the window, dragging the drip stand with him. “Per! I no think you should walk around so much …”

He approached the big window with caution, still not sure that it wasn’t a hole in the wall. As he came close to it, he saw that there was something filling the hole, something that caught the light like … ice? He put his hand out and touched a cold, hard surface. His fingers told him it was glass. Startled, he looked up at the top of the window, and to each side, seeing the glass shine here and there. Such an expanse of glass! Flat, thin, utterly clear.

“Per, come away from window. Per, thou’rt not fit to be seen.”

He allowed her to pull the lower end of the curtain across between him and the window. Stepping closer, he looked beyond the glass. He saw green: a stretch of neat lawn, with some widely spaced and spindly trees, surrounded by beds of bright flowers. It ended at a wall built of red bricks that were strikingly large and neat, all the same size and almost the same color. To Per, who had never known anything but the hills, and the one small city of Carloel, the sight was almost as alien as the sheet of glass he looked through.

It was all glamor, illusion, he decided. The grass was so even, so smooth, the flowers so large and garish, the trees so much the same and neatly spaced, that it was obvious they weren’t real, and the Elves had created them all by Elf-Work—just as they made those neat bricks.

Immediately below the window he could see a gray path, seemingly made of stone—a road such as the old giants used to make. Leaning close to the glass, he followed the gray road with his eyes and saw that it led into a wide area of grayness, very dispiriting to look at, even though it was full of Elf-Carts of every bright, shining color.

Andrea was saying, again, that he should lie down and rest. He said, “Which way be Dilsssmid Oll?”

“I no ken,” she said. “At least sit down.” He looked at her in exasperation. “I no ken, Per. I think it might be over that way …” She waved vaguely toward the wall, and where she thought the city center might be. “But I might be wrong.” He gave her another ill-tempered look. It was all right for him. He’d had a lifetime’s training in finding his way over almost trackless hills. She just got on a bus and never gave a thought to which way she was going.

Per was looking out the window again. “Can Elf-Work only be heard in Dilsssmid Oll?”

It took her a moment to understand what he was asking. “No. If thou had far-speaks, thou couldst talk to Gobby when he was in his bastle house, and thou wast in thy tower. Tha could speak to folk in Carloel and—London. And Ireland.”

Per turned to her, his mouth open. “Ireland?” He had never seen London, and had no idea of where it was except that it was somewhere to the south. Ireland, he knew, was even farther, because you crossed the sea to reach it.

“Per, come and sit, and rest thy leg.”

He was so struck by the thought of Elf-Worked voices shouting across the sea that he let her tow him to the bed. His leg did hurt, despite the fact that the wound could hardly be seen. He said, “It’d be better than a beacon.”

She’d gone over to the other side of the room, and had reached up to a glass-fronted box hung high on the wall. Looking over her shoulder, she said, “What?”

“Far-speak. Better than a beacon. Tha’d talk into it and say …” He gave some thought to what you would say. “Sterkarm!”

Andrea blinked at the vision of a ride of lancers in iron helmets and jakkes being summoned by mobile telephone. Then she couldn’t help but be impressed by the speed with which he’d grasped how useful a telephone would be. “Better than that. You could tell whoever you were calling exactly what was wrong, and how many men you needed and where you wanted them to go, by which way.”

She heard him gasp and looked back at him again to see him sitting on the bed, in the full light from the windows, his mouth open and his face delighted. The sunlight caught his fair hair, polished his skin and, she thought, made him look just beautiful. It was a shame to have to say, “FUP will never let you have far-speaks, Per.”

He turned and gave her a long stare. His eyes caught the light and turned silver. There was a lot of thought behind that stare.

“I’ll put far-see on,” she said, and reached up to switch on the television. Distraction was called for, she thought, for both of them.

Per looked up at the glass-fronted box, and watched it fill with colors. He didn’t understand why Andrea seemed to think so much of it. True, if you studied the ever-changing shapes and splotches of color carefully enough, a picture would suddenly form in them—but as soon as it was glimpsed, it would whirl away as the shapes melted and the colors changed. The thing was noisy too, blaring and yelling with sounds that made him jump.

Andrea was flipping through the channels, looking for something that might interest him. She happened on a news station, and the screen filled with angry, yelling people struggling against soldiers armed with shields and batons. There was no fancy camera work, and Per sat up straighter, exclaiming. He pointed as a mounted man leaned down from his horse and laid his baton hard across a man’s shoulder.

“Wherefore be it called a far-see? Be it like far-speak? Does it see this happening?”

“This is happening a long way away, Per.”

“What, London?”

“Farther than London. Over sea.”

“Farther than …” He fell silent as the picture changed. He didn’t know how or why the picture kept changing. The box hadn’t moved, so it wasn’t looking in another direction. Maybe there was a spirit in it, and the spirit was turning its head and looking at something else …

Big carts moved through a crowd of people, making them scatter. Some men on the carts held long—Per didn’t know what they were, but they flashed fire and made a clattering noise, and the people in the crowd ran away when they did. He guessed that the things were weapons. They seemed to be a little like pistols, though they could be fired faster and more often than any pistol he knew. But Elf-wrought things were always better.

The spirit looked at something else. This time it was seeing corpses, and seeming to turn its head slowly as it looked at more and more of them. Per knew they were corpses, because he recognized the peculiar broomstick stiffness of the dead. No one living lies as rigidly as that, even if senseless.

“Be they Elves?” he asked.

Andrea nodded, feeling ashamed. “It be a war.”

The spirit was looking at dead women and dead bairns, toppling backward from a heap. “Elven fight hard wars,” Per said. Women and bairns were always in danger if captured … but to deliberately seek out women and bairns in such numbers as this, and to kill them all and pile them up … “Tha means a feud,” he said. A bitter blood feud, one that had dragged on so long that the families were half ruined and desperate to finish it … But you would have to be desperate. He had good reason to hate the Grannams, but he wouldn’t have the stomach to stand and butcher even Grannam women and bairns in such numbers, not even if he was drunk on festival ale.

“No, a war,” Andrea said, changing the channel. “I no ken even which one.” She’d lost touch with who was killing who these days while she’d been in the 16th, and the commentary hadn’t given many clues. “Oh look, Per! A tiger!” A wildlife channel. That was more like it.

Per, looking up at the screen, saw only that it was a dazzle of black, gold and green, while new noise blared from it. But then the spirit stood back, and what it saw made sense—of a sort. Per sat up straight again and his mouth fell open. A big animal, more vividly striped than a ginger tabby, strode through greenery. Leaped into a river. “What be it?”

She sat beside him on the bed. “A big cat. It be cried a ‘tiger.’”

“How big be it?”

“Oh … big. As long as one of thine horses. And about half as high. Look at those teeth!” The spirit had moved close, and they saw the tiger open its mouth. It was the skin that Per admired, though. To go home with a skin like that!

“Be there any nearby?”

“There be none left anywhere, not anymore.” He looked at her blankly. “They be all dead.” Raising one hand, he pointed toward the television. “Well, that tiger was alive once, but it be dead now, like all others.”

He seemed puzzled. “Every one? Every last one?”

“It be what we call ‘extinct.’ It means that, aye, every last one is dead. There be no more tigers.”

The screen showed a tigress rolling on her back, playing with her cubs. “How can far-see show us a tiger if there be no tiger for it to see?”

What a good question. She wasn’t sure that she would have thought of such a good question. Difficult to answer, though. If she spoke of “film,” Per would think of something thin and fine, something “filmy” like a cobweb or gauze. And “recording,” if it meant anything at all to him, would mean something written down. “It be like a memory. Far-see can show us memories as well as real things. There be no real, living tigers anymore, just these memories of them.”

He gnawed at the skin around his thumbnail and watched intently as, on the screen, a tiger reached high up a tree to sharpen its claws, tearing through the bark. “How come all tigers be dead? What could kill them all?”

“We did,” she said.

He looked at her. “Elven?”

She nodded. “We Elven did.”

“Wherefore?”

Was there a more disconcerting question than “why?” She began an explanation of jungles cleared for farmland, and the trade in tigers’ bones, flesh and skins. The more she explained, the more irritably guilty she felt. “Oh look! You killed all wolves in thine country, didst thee no?”

“Nay. There be wolves still.”

“But tha kills them, dost no? And sooner or later thou’ll have killed all wolves, just like we have all tigers, and there will no be any wolves left.”

He gave a long, considering stare, and then took the remote control from her hand. He handled it carefully, with many glances at her, to see if he was doing the right thing. He pressed one button after another. On the screen, a woman whipped eggs in a basin, a shark swam through a skein of blood, a water cannon was turned on a crowd, an actor pretended to shoot another actor who pretended to die, a car overturned at high speed, and then Per found the news channel which was showing, again, the heap of bodies.

Per dropped the remote on the floor and retreated to the headboard of the bed. Andrea got up and wheeled his drip stand after him. “What be wrong?”

He flicked the drip line away from his arm. “I want this taken away. I be no hound to be tethered to a post!”

“Be careful of it. They’ll take it away soon. They took other—”

“I want to gan home.”

“Per, I ken, but—” He held out his arms, and she sat beside him, still careful of the drip line, and put her arms around him. His back and sides felt hard and soft at the same time—stone covered with lambs’ wool—and his skin glowed with warmth. His smell of spiced musk rose around her as his arms squeezed her tight, and his cheek, almost as downy as her own, nuzzled her face. She was just sinking gratefully into the moment when he said, “Tha kens road, Entraya. Tha canst show me.”

Wary, she pressed her hands against his ribs, pushing herself back from him. “I ken road where?”

“To Elf-Gate, Honey. Tha canst—”

“Oh no. Forget that, Per.” She tried to get out of his arms and stand up, but he held on to her.

“Be so kind, Entraya, harken. Tha could—harken!”

Perhaps, after his time in hospital, where he’d eaten so little, she was as strong as he was, or stronger, but she could still only get away from him by hurting him—and she was worried about pulling the drip from his arm. So she didn’t fight him very hard. “No, Per! I am not going to be sweet-talked. We’d both get into trouble—”

“Tha’d be in no trouble, Sweet. I’d—”

“I would be in trouble! I will no do it!”

It was then that James Windsor breezed in, his arms full of shopping bags, to see her and Per sitting on the bed, Per naked with his arms around her and she struggling to get away from him.

“Oh dear! Am I interrupting something? Should I go out and come in again?”

Per, startled by the sudden entry of a stranger, let go of Andrea, and she was able to stand up, nervously pulling her skirt straight and touching her hair to check that it was tidy. “Mr. Windsor! Hello!”

He very obviously looked her over. “Well, Sexy! You’ve changed your look!” Instead of the frumpy jackets, skirts and big boots she usually wore, she was dressed in a calf-length, long-sleeved dress that flowed loosely over her large curves, with low-heeled pumps on her feet. She didn’t seem to have on any makeup, but her hair was pinned up, with only a tendril or two falling down. In a tall, imposing, matronly way, she was almost elegant, almost attractive. If you liked room darkeners.

There was no answer Andrea could make, so she tried to look as if she hadn’t heard.

“Vem air thu?” Per said, speaking to Windsor and addressing him as an inferior— “Who art thou?” not “Who are you?” He didn’t understand what Windsor had said but could tell that Andrea hadn’t liked it. And the man was dressed soberly, all in black and white, and was carrying parcels—a servingman who thought he could take advantage of Andrea’s gentle nature. Per didn’t like that. He didn’t like anything of the stranger’s manner toward Andrea at all. Getting up from the bed, the drip line trailing from his arm, he went to stand slightly in front of Andrea and reached behind him to take her hand. He stared at Windsor. “Entraya, vah sayer han?” What says he?

“Nie ting, Per. Olla air rikti.” Nothing. All is right.

Windsor looked at Per, shook the shopping bag from one of his parcels, and slapped a pair of folded blue jeans against Per’s chest. “Maybe you can find a use for them.” Leaning past Per, he gave Andrea a large box of chocolates. “And I’m sure you’ll know what to do with them.”

Andrea took the chocolates and dropped them onto the seat of a chair behind her without looking at them. It was like Windsor to generously buy presents and then insult you as he gave them to you. Perhaps he was just paying for the right to insult you.

“Vah sayer han?” Per asked again. She hushed him, patting his back so he wouldn’t take offense.

“Fraternizing with the natives?” Windsor said.

It had been written into Andrea’s contract that she wouldn’t “fraternize” 16th side. She’d signed it without a thought, thinking it would never be a problem. “We were just talking.”

“Talking?” Windsor said. “Not what my mother would have called it. Your lucky day, eh, Andrea?”

“Vah sayer han? Vent air deyn karl?” Who is this man?

Windsor was tossing the other things he’d bought onto the bed: a large bouquet of flowers, crackling in its cellophane wrappings and tied with a wide yellow ribbon, and a big basket of fruit, decorated with a blue ribbon. The gigantic blooms with their garish colors held Per’s attention. There was nothing like them in Man’s-Home.

He was still looking at them when Windsor slapped a scarlet baseball cap onto Per’s head. Startled, Per fended it off and knocked it to the floor. “Texas Longhorns” it said across the front, in white letters. Windsor stuck his right hand out at Per. “James Windsor. I’m glad to see you looking a lot better than the last time we met!”

Andrea translated, and added, “This be Elf-Windsor, Elf who came to see thy father. He brought thee through Gate—he saved thy life,” she added generously.

Per turned a long, considering stare on Windsor. He had no clear memory of his life ever having been in danger, so he wasn’t filled with gratitude. This, he thought, was the Elf who had trapped him in Elf-Land. This was the Elf who gave his father orders, forbidding the Sterkarms to ride or hunt in their own country—and had the impertinence to think he would be obeyed.

But Per knew his manners. In Elf-Land he was a guest, even if an unwilling one. He offered Windsor his right hand and turned his left cheek toward him, so that the older man could give him the greeting kiss. Windsor took his hand and tried to crush it, but made no attempt to kiss him. Per half turned his head toward Andrea in surprise. Plainly, this Windsor was a boor, with no idea of how to behave. But it wasn’t Per’s place, as by far the younger man, to offer the kiss first, or to correct Windsor’s manners.

“No mistaking whose son you are!” Windsor said. “If his mother grew a bit of bum-fluff round her chin, they’d be twins!”

“Mr. Windsor says tha looks very like thine mother,” Andrea told Per, who merely nodded, while continuing to stare at Windsor.

“His mother can smile, though,” Windsor said. There was no good humor in the boy’s face. His eyes were just as big and striking as his mother’s, their blue as silver-pale, but Per’s straight stare translated into something like “Get lost.” A sulky teenager—who’d have thought it?

The boy’s obvious hostility rather amused Windsor—at least, while the boy was alone, here in this 21st hospital room, it was amusing. Impossible to imagine this boy tying a man’s head to his saddle. He would be more credible in the Upper Sixth, well scrubbed and demure on Parents’ Day and afterward smashed and sick on cider. It wasn’t going to be as hard to keep young Sterkarm on a leash as he’d feared. A few shiny toys and a good bawling out if he overstepped the line should be enough.

Thinking of toys made him remember a present he’d forgotten, and he slapped himself to find which pocket he’d put it in. From his hip pocket he brought a folding leather wallet, and opened it to show, a wad of notes inside. “It’s unlucky to give an empty wallet, I was always told, so I went to the cash machine. Here.” He held it out to Per. “Maybe you can buy some clothes. Get him to put something on, Andrea. Even if you like the view, we should spare the nurses’ blushes.”

Per had taken the wallet, out of curiosity, and was rubbing his finger on the paper inside it. He pulled out a slip of it and admired the beautiful patterning.

“Penya,” Andrea said. Money.

Per looked at her and laughed. Money was coin, copper, silver and gold. Not worthless paper.

“Sootha, Per. Truly. It be a present from Master Windsor. So thou canst buy things while tha’rt here.”

Per looked at Windsor sidelong. “Tahk shkal thu har.” Thanks shalt thou have. “Herr Erlf, nor gaw yi hyemma?”

“What’s he say?” Windsor asked.

“He says, Thank you, and he wants to know when he’s going home.”

“Ah,” Windsor said. He put two fingers on Per’s arm and pushed him toward the bed, leaning past him and pulling the bedcovers back. “Why don’t you hop back into bed, old son? Rest up as much as you can.” Per looked over his shoulder at Andrea, and she nodded to him, so he got onto the bed. Windsor threw the covers over him, put the baseball cap back on his head, and passed him the basket of fruit. “Get stuck into that.” He looked around for the chocolates, picked them up and passed them to Per as well. “There. Enjoy yourself.”

Per didn’t understand what Windsor said, but he read his face and manner easily enough. Windsor didn’t wish to answer him—that told him a lot. It was also quite clear that Windsor had no respect for him. He tossed the wallet and its Elf-Money to the end of the bed.

To Andrea, Windsor said, “I hope you’ve got your bags packed?”

Her face brightened. “Most of my stuff is still 16th side, so—”

“Well, the Tube’s going to be up again this afternoon, and I want you on the other side as soon—”

“Oh great!” She looked past Windsor to the bed. “Per! Harken—” Per was watching her attentively, but she broke off as Windsor waved his hand before her face.

“You, I said. I didn’t say anything about him. He stays here.”

“Oh, but his leg’s as good as healed and—I don’t know if your secretary told you about his not eating.” She saw no understanding in Windsor’s face. “I explained it to her.”

“Andrea, Andrea. Watch my lips. He’s not going back. He’s more use to me here. And you—you’re more use to me 16th side, earning your pay.”

“Vah sayer han?” Per asked.

“Nie ting, Per. Sssh!” To Windsor, she said, “You can’t!”

“I can’t? What can’t I?”

“You can’t just— He’s not eating! He won’t eat our food. He’ll starve.”

“Oh, he’ll get over that soon enough.”

She wanted to clench her fists in the air and yell. He hadn’t watched Per refusing the hospital meals and rationing out his tiny supply of food, and yet he could complacently brush her fears aside. “What if he doesn’t? What if he makes himself ill?”

“Get a grip,” Windsor said. “The day a big healthy teenager starves himself to death, pigs’ll fly.”

“But you can’t keep him here by himself.”

Per could see that they were quarreling, and he got out of bed again, bringing the drip stand with him. “Entraya?” He edged himself slightly between her and Windsor, looking at Windsor with a frown.

Windsor gave him a look from the corner of his eye. “Should I be worried? Look, Andrea. You’re employed as—” He raised his hand to wag a forefinger at her. Per put his own hand over Windsor’s and pushed it down. Per thought pointing was rude. Pausing, Windsor tutted, and said, “Can we talk about this outside? Without Sunny Jim?”

“Per.” Andrea turned to him, pushing him to the bed with both hands. “Lie down and rest thy leg, love. I have to talk with Mr. Windsor.” The back of his knee struck the bed and he sat down heavily. She kissed his cheek. “I will no be long.”

He caught her wrists. “I’ll come with thee.”

“Nay. I have no time to tell thee everything that be said. Best if tha stays here. I’ll be back in an eye’s blink, truly. Per, let go.”

“What be he to thee?”

She looked over her shoulder at Windsor, who was standing with his arms folded, amused by Per’s glower. “I work for him. He be my … master.” She couldn’t think of another word that Per would understand, but it was all wrong, suggesting that she was bound in service to Windsor as the Sterkarms’ hired men and kitchen maids were bound in service to them.

Per had been letting her go, but now his grip tightened again and he pulled her back, his frown deepening. “What work?”

She was stuck for an answer. She cupped her hands about his face, her wrists still gripped by his fingers, and kissed him. “Per, let me go. I’ll be back in a couple of heartbeats—”

Behind her, Windsor said, “How sweet.”

“—and I’ll explain everything then, I promise.”

Per looked from her to Windsor. “When gan I home? Ask him!”

She looked over her shoulder. “He still wants to know when he’s going home.”

Per watched Windsor as Andrea spoke, his wide stare taking in the man’s whole figure, his face, his movements. He saw Windsor tilt back his head, as he stood with folded arms, and smile a tight-lipped smile.

“Soon,” Windsor said. “Tell him very soon.”

Per went on watching Windsor as Andrea translated his words. He saw the man look aside and grin. Watch a cat, and you can tell when it’s going to jump, and which way. Per knew Windsor was lying.

“Gan with him and talk, then,” Per said to Andrea. He kissed her cheek, but she pulled back and looked at him, puzzled by the hurt tone in his voice. He ducked his head forward and kissed her on the mouth, startling her, and then, when she thought he was going to release her, hugged her hard.

“Per! I shall only be gone an eye’s blink.”

“Gan then.”

She gave his cheek a kiss, got up and followed Windsor.

As soon as the door closed on them, Per took hold of the drip feed in his arm and pulled it out. Bright red blood welled up in the crook of his elbow, and he stanched it with the sheet, bending his arm over it. The needle made a fine, sharp pain as it left the vein, but he’d felt worse a great many times, and it balanced the pain under his ribs. His Elf-May did not love him so much as she sought the favor of her Elf-Master. She had brought him into Elf-Land to please her Master.

The pain swelled under his ribs. It felt as if his heart would burst, filled as it was not only with the grief of losing his Elf-May, his wife, his future, but with the humiliation of having been tricked, of having loved and trusted her when she hadn’t loved him. All the kisses she’d given him, all the assurances and promises, the accounts of his having been near death—the wound on his leg looked as if it had never been more than a scratch—all lies told for her Master!

It was clear to Per why Elf-Windsor wanted him. He hardly had to think about it. As a child, he’d played at riding with his cousins and the other children of the tower, games that had taken days to play out, as they’d fought battles with wooden swords and lances, driven off real or imaginary sheep and taken prisoners. They’d held long ransom negotiations, with hard-driven terms, the ransoms paid in pebbles, buttons and shells.

And then hostages had been exchanged, to make sure the terms would be kept. Haggling over the hostages had been fiercer still. Your enemies always demanded as their hostage the person you were known to love most dearly—and even in play, it was hard to give that person into a captivity that was likely to be harsher than that of a real hostage.

The next stage of the game, inevitably, was the breaking of the terms, the renewing of hostilities, and the vengeful killing of the hostages.

Per was surprised that it had taken Elf-Windsor so long to see the only way to make Toorkild obey his orders.

The duty of a hostage was to escape if he could. And for every day he stayed a hostage in Elf-Land, a year or ten years or a hundred years might pass in Man’s-Home.

When he thought of leaving Andrea, and perhaps never seeing her again, he knew he should feel glad and angry—well rid of her! But it felt as if another long needle were being withdrawn from his heart, and he had to keep touching his eyes to take away the blurring of tears.

Free of the drip line’s tether, he got up and looked at the britches the Elf-Man had tossed at him. They were of good, strong, tightly woven material—would be good for riding—but went all the way down to the ankle in Elvish style. Still, he would be noticed less in Elvish clothes. He pulled them on, but had difficulty with the fastening.

The button at the waist was simple enough, but you had to be an Elf to fasten them below that.

In the closet where Andrea had fetched his dagger, he found his shirt, doublet, and belt. From the bed he took the jakke, with its layers of leather, cloth and iron plates. It slumped weightily from his hand. He didn’t waste time putting on the clothes but slung them over his shoulder. From beneath his pillow he took his dagger, and his pouch with the very last of his food and beer.

The wallet Windsor had given him was lying on the floor at the foot of the bed, where it had fallen. He picked it up and put it in his pouch. Money was always useful in his own world. He supposed that Elf-Money would be useful in Elf-Land. He reached back to the bed for the baseball cap too, and put it on. The more he dressed like an Elf, the better.

He was at the door of the room, ready to go, but still it was hard. He thought of Andrea, coming back and finding him gone. She’d think he’d gone without caring, without thinking of her—well, serve her right, and what would she care? But though he tried to be angry, a hope persisted that he’d misunderstood, that she hadn’t, after all, betrayed him.

He turned back to the bed, to the big bunch of flowers the Elf had brought. They were wrapped in some Elvish stuff, as transparent as water, that crackled like flames on wood. He didn’t want to touch it, though the Elf had held it without harm.

There was an opening at the top, and he reached through that and pulled out a large red flower, gaudy and blowsy. Its thick stem was thorned, and it reeked. He carried it over to the chair where Andrea usually sat and left it on the seat, hoping she would see it and guess he had left it there as a good-bye. He only wished he had a rose to leave for her, like the ones that grew in the woods near the tower.

Going back to the door of the room, he opened it and looked out into the wide corridor. The walls out there were smooth, without plaster or beams, and in color something like dried grass. Though only a corridor, it was brightly lit, as Elvish places always were. There were many doors, and many Elves walking here and there—he saw Andrea, her back toward him, and Elf-Windsor standing several yards away. People passed them by, but they were paying attention only to each other. Andrea was all eyes for her Master, the Elf-Man. The sight held Per by the door a moment longer than he should have stayed.

He stepped out into the corridor, bare chested and barefoot, carrying his clothes over his shoulder, walking away in the opposite direction from where Andrea and Windsor stood. People passed him and glanced at him, but no one tried to stop him, as he’d feared they might. Within a few feet he came to a staircase and paused for a moment, awed.

Huge windows filled the stairwell with light, so the pale walls shone. The stairs were covered with cloth, and had delicate handrails of polished wood and polished silver. In its beauty and wealth, the stair was truly Elvish.

Then he remembered that the important thing about the stair was that it went down, toward the ground, and he started down.

“It’s illegal!” Andrea said. “It’s kidnapping!”

“What a stroke of luck I’ve got you to advise me. Since young Sterkarm doesn’t officially exist 21st side, tell me, exactly what law am I breaking by putting him up in the lap of luxury and making sure he has everything he could possibly want?”

“He hates it here! He won’t eat! And you expect me to go back and carry on while Per stays here! Didn’t you hear what Toorkild said?”

“I think you should keep your voice down, young lady. We are in a hospital.”

“‘Bring him back alive, or don’t come back!’ That’s what he said! How do you think he’s going to welcome me if I go back without Per?”

“Now you listen to me, Miss. I’ve got billions of pounds’ worth of technology lying idle, and personnel drawing wages for sitting on their arses. And why? Because the bloody Sterkarms are camped around our office, 16th side, like a picket line, and my survey teams won’t go out past them!”

“Yes, but—”

Windsor raised his voice slightly and easily shouted her down.

“So what are you paid for? FUP is filling up your bank account every month, and in return you’re supposed to liaise for us 16th side, isn’t that right? And you have them eating out of your hand, don’t you? So I’m told. Did you think it was all going to be a walk in the country, writing your little book on our time and snogging your toy-boy back there? Well, sorry to tear you away from him, but we’d quite like you to actually earn your money now, please. I want you back there this afternoon, squaring it with the Sterkarms. And if that’s too much to ask of you, there’re always the Job Centers, dear.”

Windsor’s closeness, his loud voice, his height and sheer bulk, were intimidating. She wanted to stand up to him but could feel herself shaking with anger and nerves. If she tried to speak, her voice would squeak. And his accusations that she’d coasted along on FUP’s time, his assertion that he only wanted her to earn her wages, were hard to argue against … But even while she hung her head in silence, she knew that keeping Per 21st side was wrong. She tried to think of something to say but couldn’t. She needed a notepad, a pen and a few hours to draft and redraft her arguments.

Windsor, seeing that she’d fallen quiet, said, “We could rig up a video in the office, I suppose. Let them in a few at a time to see—I don’t know—film of young Sterkarm looking happy and wearing a party hat.”

Andrea let a moment pass in silence, and then said, “You can’t keep Per here by himself. He’ll go crazy. He’ll be so lonely. It would be cruel.”

“He’ll have the time of his life,” Windsor said.

“Mr. Windsor … you don’t even begin to understand, do you?”

“I understand very well that while young Sterkarm is here, old Sterkarm will do exactly what I tell him, how I tell him, when I tell him, for as long as I tell him—and that will make a refreshing change.”

“And if he doesn’t, what then?” Andrea said.

Windsor looked at her as if she’d made some incomprehensible noise.

“Mr. Windsor, if Toorkild calls your bluff about Per, what will you do?”

“Well,” Windsor said, “I doubt if he’s really going to want to find that out, is he? Be at the Tube at three.”