10

21st Side: Joe Sterkarm

The Elves’ sick house was big. Per descended one staircase of two long flights and came upon another corridor just like the one above: brilliantly lit, lined with doors, the floor covered in cloth, and pictures hung on the walls. A thumping and twittering inhabited the very air about him, and was louder as he passed under boxes high on the walls, as if the boxes held yelling spirits. Elves, many Elves, came and went in both directions, with an incessant din of chattering voices and trampling feet. So many Elves, all swirling by, their mouths all working, their eyes all darting at him, bewildered him, made his heart beat faster, until it was hard to think. So many. More than leaves in the wood or stones in the stream, more than crowded Carloel on market day—and this was but one corridor in a sick house.

There were so many kinds of Elves. Some dressed all in white, some all in blue, some all in black. Some Elves had skins as brown as peat water, and dark, dark hair and eyes—those, he supposed, were the Black Elves he’d heard tell of, though he’d always thought the “black” had meant they had dark hair or wore dark clothes.

There were small Elves, children—and he had always heard that Elf-Children were few. Why else did the Elves steal mortal babies? But these children seemed healthy and were dressed in brilliant colors, as were the women. Yellows brighter than gorse, reds brighter than holly berries. Gold and gems dangled from their ears. The women all had their skirts hiked up to their knees, as if they were working in the fields; and all wore their hair uncovered, as if unmarried. So many of them had their hair cropped short that he supposed it must be an Elvish custom and not a punishment.

An Elf-Woman went by him, seated in a chair that moved along by itself, humming as it went. An Elf-Man walked by the other way, talking into a—a far-speak, but one that had no leash fastening it to the wall. Two Elf-Women each carried huge bunches of giant, fiercely colored Elvish flowers. And all the time the air twittered and beeped and hissed and buzzed.

On and on the corridor went, an endless straight line, and all the Elves stared at his bare chest and his bare feet. He opened one of the many doors, hoping to find some refuge where he could put on his clothes, perhaps even a way out of the building.

Behind the door was another brightly lit room, like the one he’d spent the past days in, but luckily empty of Elves. He closed the door after him, dropped his things on the bed and dressed, quickly pulling on his shirt, which hung loose almost to his knees. Its side was stained brown with his blood, and the linen had dried hard. The doublet was hard to put on because he had to thread his arms through the ribboned sleeves, and it, too, was ruined with bloodstains. His mother would not be pleased—but he’d welcome her displeasure, since he’d have to reach home before she could shout at him.

He put on the jakke, shrugging its weight onto his shoulders and fastening its large hooks and eyes. Wearing it, he felt safer, and a little more confident.

He threaded his pouch back onto his belt and would have slipped the belt through the loops of his dagger’s sheath too, but then thought it better not to let the Elves see that he was armed. Instead, he pushed the sheath inside his right sleeve, buckling one of the sheath’s straps around his wrist. It was difficult to push the dagger’s hilt past the narrow opening of his doublet’s cuff, and the blade was so long that the sheath’s point pressed out against the elbow of his shirt. But he was able to hold the pommel in his right hand, and keep the weapon both ready and hidden.

The room, like all Elf-Rooms, had big windows of great, flat, sheer sheets of glass, and even from close by the door he was able to see that he was still high above the ground. He went back into the corridor, where he drew fewer stares, and kept doggedly on past the closed doors until the passage opened out into a big room with such huge windows, stretching from floor to ceiling on either side, that he had to raise his hand to his eyes against the light. Here there were thickets—indoors, above ground—of lush green bushes, and crowds of Elves sitting on chairs that were all cushion. The cushions were of such violent colors—yellow, violet, scarlet, green—that to look at them was to feel needles in the eyes. And here again was all the din of Elf-Land redoubled: crashes, clangs, twitterings and the laughing of staring Elves.

He kept close by the wall, meaning to make his way around the edge of the room to the other side, but this brought him against one of the windows. He looked down to the ground below, and the view was so clear, he felt that he might fall. His back still to the wall, he edged away from the window.

To get to the other side of the room he would have to walk across the open space in the middle, leaving his back exposed to attack. He leaned against the wall, his heart thumping heavily, trying to find the nerve.

Opposite him, he saw an Elf-Man’s head come up through the floor. Per jumped and stood stiff against the wall, watching. An Elf-Woman’s head came into view beside the man’s—then their shoulders appeared, and the rest of them, sliding upward. They were inside a little room with walls of glass that slid up through the floor. Its door opened, and they stepped out and walked toward him. He watched them until they passed by him into the corridor. Then he looked back at the little room and saw more Elves get into it. The room slid down through the floor and disappeared.

It took him a few heavy beats of his heart to work out that the room was going through the ceiling to the floor below. Was that how he had to get to the ground? Rather than trust himself to Elf-Work in a box like that, he’d break a window and jump.

But he caught sight of Elves going up stairs beyond the little glass room. The only way he was going to reach the stairs was by crossing the open room. So he ran. He reached the other side feeling unsteady, as if a little drunk, and with the muscles of his wounded leg twanging. To feel so weak so soon dismayed him, but he refused to think of it. Leaning on the handrail, he went down the stairs, favoring his hurt leg.

At the bottom was yet another long corridor, with yet more doors. Per opened the nearest door. An Elf-Man, in a long robe, was sitting in a chair near the bed and stared at him. Per looked at the windows and saw that they were open, and that he was on ground level at last.

“Good day,” he said to the Elf-Man, with a slight bow, as he closed the door behind him. The Elf-Man continued to stare, watching Per as he crossed the room, turned his back to the window, set his hands on the sill and boosted himself up.

He was astonished at how much effort it took, used as he was to finding such things easy. He wondered if it was some Elf-Work, a spell laid on him to prevent his escape. If so, it failed, because he got onto the sill and swung his left leg over it, even though his arms shook.

He glanced back at the Elf-Man’s startled face, and raised a hand. “Fare you well.” The muscles complained in his hurt leg as he tried to lift it over the sill, and he had to help it with his hands—but he managed, and dropped to the grass.

Under his bare feet, the earth felt cool and the grass soft and damp, and it was a relief to be outdoors again, though it was a strange world. Nearby was a planting of the big, gaudy Elf-Flowers, redder than blood and glaring as gold as narange juice. The air drummed and roared.

But if he’d been blindfolded and his ears plugged with wax, he’d still have known he was far from Man’s-Home. The very air felt different as it touched his skin, as he breathed it in, though it was hard to say how. It smelled wrong, somehow.

He paused a second while he cast about in his mind for the direction of the room he’d lived in for the past days. From the window of that room Andrea had waved, saying, “Dilsmead Hall is that way …” And that was the way he had to go.

He reached the corner of the immense building and stopped, stooping forward to lean on his knees. He felt slightly giddy, and his leg was aching, not badly, but steadily. Still:

What can’t be cured

Must be endured.

In front of him was a gravel drive leading toward a gateway in a wall. As he approached it, a box on wheels—a box of a glaring, brilliant blue—a noisy, groaning box of metal on black wheels—moved toward him, its wheels thrashing in the gravel and throwing up stones. Its metal sides flashed in the sun, and it had windows of glass as sheer and flat as those of the building, and they too flashed. Per stopped short, alarmed, watching as the thing sped past him with weight and power.

He stood still, on the verge of turning back to the sick house. Never had he missed Sweet Milk so much, or so much wanted the company of his cousins.

But he either went back to be Elf-Windsor’s hostage or he went on, no matter how hard his heart beat. He clenched his hand around the pommel of his dagger and went on, walking on the grass beside the graveled path, moving as quickly as he could because he was more likely to be seen leaving by the gate—but, that day, he didn’t think he had the strength to climb the wall.

The gate had no guards, though the sick house was walled. But from beyond the gate came such a din, such a savage roaring and screeching and whirring, that Per came to a halt again. The din struck him about the head and made him shake. He had never heard the like of such noise. Even the sounds of battle, of yells and shrieks, and swords banging on shields and clanging on helmets, was nothing like this.

He came to a stop. He couldn’t go on, into that din. He couldn’t go back. Maybe this was his fate, in Elf-Land, to stand frozen in that spot forever.

Andrea, her face red, her blood pumping fast, hurried back along the corridor to Per’s room. Windsor was the big boss; what he said was law. At three o’clock sharp she was going to be at Dilsmead Hall, ready to go back 16th side. What Windsor didn’t know was that Per was going with her.

What happened after that—well, there was no point in thinking about it or worrying about what would happen. She just flat out wasn’t going to abandon Per, whatever Windsor or anyone else said. Or did. When she asked herself what was more important—her job, FUP’s dealings 16th side, or Per—then she felt no doubt at all. She was scared when she thought of the trouble she would be in, but being scared didn’t alter what was important. When the balloon went up, she would just have to cope.

She barged into the room, saying, “Per!” Not seeing him in the bed, she looked around at the armchairs, the corners. He wasn’t there.

Going over to the door of the bathroom, she tapped, and then opened it. The bathroom, too, was empty.

For a moment she was dizzy with fright and anger, and thought: Windsor! He’d had Per moved somewhere. Then her mind started to work, and she asked herself how he’d have had the time. She saw the drip stand still beside the bed, the line from it now dripping healing accelerant onto the carpet. The bedcover was stained with blood. The line hadn’t been removed by a doctor. Per had pulled it out himself, as he’d been threatening he’d do.

The big bouquet of flowers and the basket of fruit were still on the bed, but the jeans and baseball cap and jakke were gone. Andrea turned from the bed and opened the closets. Per’s doublet, shirt and belt were gone too. Standing, she threw back the bedcovers, letting the flowers and fruit fall on the floor. She pulled aside the pillows. Per’s pouch and his dagger were missing. Per had done a runner.

He hadn’t waited for her. He hadn’t trusted her at all, but had gone haring off. What was he going to do in Elf-Land? He’d only the faintest idea of where he was going, and no idea at all of the dangers he would meet on the way. The ring road, the railway lines, muggers.

She clutched at her head with both hands, trying to hold together the panic and half-formed plans that filled it. Hospital security—if she got them to search the hospital building and grounds, Per might still be on the premises somewhere. Or would that make it official that Per was missing? Would Windsor be alerted?

How long a start did he have? That was the important thing to decide. She tried to estimate how long she’d been arguing with Windsor. Ten, fifteen minutes? Certainly no longer, and probably less. She knew the general direction Per was heading in. If she hurried, she’d catch up to him.

She got her coat from the closet, putting it on as she left the room, and ran down the corridor to the elevators.

Per stood on the grass at the edge of the gravel drive, peering out through the hospital gates. He glimpsed a dashing blur of bright colors, blinding flashes. The noise was the noise of an immense river rushing by in high spate, mingled with the rasp of a grindstone, the tumbling crash of falling barrels and shrieking, roaring.

Though his heart still beat strongly, and he was breathing fast, Per could make sense of the din and the blur. It was a race of Elf-Carts, more and bigger Elf-Carts than he had thought there could be, moving at great speed, faster than a storm wind, faster than witches, their glass and metal catching the light.

He knew the longer he stood there, the more likely he’d be caught. He knew that he had to go forward, through the gate, closer to all that hurtling weight and noise. His legs shook under him, but gripping his dagger’s hilt, he followed the grass right up to the brick pillar of the gate. He put his hand on the bricks and could feel them vibrating with the power of the Elf-Carts passing.

He stepped into the gravel, which was sharp to his bare feet, and looked around the gatepost. Flung grit, dirt and fumes hit him in the face. He pulled his head back, grimacing, but looked out again. Beside the Elf-Carts’ racetrack was a clear path, seemingly made to walk on, since there were Elves walking coolly along it as if the Elf-Carts weren’t roaring and snarling a foot from them.

Seeing that, Per stepped out from behind the gatepost and walked on the footpath himself, following it uphill toward the bright sky that was more like the sky of Man’s-Home than of Elf-Land. He moved awkwardly—not only did his hurt leg ache, but his every muscle was tensed with fear—and he kept close by the sick-house wall, as far as he could from the Elf-Carts. The dust and grime they flung up got into his mouth and up his nose, and his eyes smarted and ran with tears.

The stories had always said that the Elves were rich and powerful, that they lived for three hundred years in palaces lit by gems, wore colored clothes every day and never went hungry—but as he leaned against the wall and felt it thrum while a great wagon crashed by, he realized that the power and wealth of the Elves went far, far beyond anything he had heard or imagined.

The path beneath his feet wasn’t of dirt or grass, but of large flat paving stones, or a dimpled black stuff he didn’t know, or a gray stuff. He stooped to touch it, and it felt like stone but it looked like stone melted. There were seams and patches of paving stones, and black stuff, and gray stuff, all pitted with puddles, in which gaily colored scraps floated. Scraps blew all about. There were pieces of valuable metal, oblongs of flat, crinkled metal that would make an arrowhead, just lying abandoned on the ground, thrown away. He picked one up and was able to bend it in his hands, it was beaten so thin—but he didn’t think it was iron. Elves feared iron, so it was said, and it didn’t have the feel of iron. Still, he was half minded to take it with him for the tower smith, but maybe such Elvish gear would be unlucky. He dropped it again.

He stopped to spit dirt from his mouth, and to wipe at his eyes with his shirtsleeve. With freshly dried eyes, he looked up into the blue sky and saw a tiny dot speeding over the sky’s bowl, drawing behind it a double white line—of smoke? His heart beat faster again as he watched the dragon pass overhead. Lucky for him, it was flying high and heading far off.

And then he came in view of the castle.

It was a castle. There was nothing else it could be. And something about the way it hugged the ground of its low hill and held its towers against the sky plucked at his memory. Yet it was nothing like a castle.

It was hard to study it because the Elf-Carts still raced and roared beside him, and Elves were passing by, and they were walking down a ramp into a hole under the Elf-Carts’ track But he saw that, instead of stone, the castle was built of brick, and was surrounded by smooth green lawns, cropped short as if grazed by sheep. The castle’s ditch was all grass-grown, and was filled with neither water nor stakes, and a brick bridge was built across it. A castle without defenses.

He turned away, meaning to look again at this hole in the ground, but his eye was caught and drawn upward. The Elf-Carts careering by had seemed so fearsome that he had hardly looked beyond them to the other side of the broad road. The more Elvish buildings, even now, he scarcely saw except as blocks. But there rose above them, into the sky, a square tower of reddish, grayish stone.

He looked over his shoulder at the castle, his heart skipping with alarm, and again turned to look at the tower.

It was the tower of Carloel Cathedral. He’d seen it against the sky many, many times, and he had good reason to remember it. Beneath that tower, a bishop had cursed all Sterkarms living, dead and as yet unbegotten … Nothing had come of it, and they had laughed and said, “Not even God dares meddle with us!”

Carloel Cathedral, where his family had been cursed, stood almost at the gates of Carloel Castle, where they imprisoned any Sterkarm found within the city walls after sunset. The defenseless Elf-Castle behind him stood just where Carloel Castle would be if the tower was the cathedral. And the tower was just where the cathedral would be if the castle was Carloel Castle. But in Carloel there was no racing track of Elf-Carts between the cathedral and the castle. There were no dragons flying overhead. And the castle wasn’t built of brick, defenseless and unguarded.

Per stood by the ring road and the underpass, looking from the castle to the cathedral, thinking “Elf-Land,” thinking “Carloel,” and unable to think anything else.

At the hospital gate, Andrea turned uphill, trusting Per’s sense of direction to have taken him that way. Shading her eyes, she looked up the road ahead of her—and saw him! He was well ahead of her, almost at the limit of the road she could see, before it topped the hill and disappeared down the other side. She cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted his name, but she’d never been much good at shouting, and he didn’t hear her above the traffic. She wasn’t sure that he would have stopped if he had.

She ran to catch him up, but everything was against her: She was no runner, the road was uphill, and she had on pumps which, even if low-heeled, were not designed for running. After hopping on one foot to recover a shoe that had slipped off, she settled for walking as briskly as she could, even though out of breath.

Per had disappeared over the brow of the hill. She knew what lay beyond it. There was the castle, which was still in use as an army barracks and bore little resemblance to the castle Per had known; and there was an underpass that led under the road and allowed pedestrians to reach the city center. If Per wandered through there, and got among the crowds, she’d never find him. “Oh hell!” She took off her shoes and, carrying them in her hands, began to run again, dodging the flattened tin cans, puddles and broken glass as well as she could.

On a piece of cardboard torn from a carton, Joe had written “Homeless. Please help.” It lay on the wet tiles of the underpass floor in front of him, beside a plastic cup holding a few coins. People gave more readily if they could see that others already had, but if there was too much money in the cup, they thought he’d already got all he deserved and wouldn’t give him any more. Whenever the cup held about a pound, Joe put all but a few coins into his pocket.

He hated it, sitting there on his arse, asking people to give him money. He used to be the one with a job and plenty of money in his pocket, dropping money into charity boxes. When people passed him by without giving him anything, and gave him a look, he could see them thinking, “Why isn’t a big lump like you working for his money?” It made him feel sick. But he’d tried being proud. Pride went hungry.

His sneakers were still wet from a heavy rainstorm the day before, and his feet were sticky and damp inside them. The floor was hard and cold under his bum, and he couldn’t get his back comfortable against the wall—but the underpass sheltered him from rain squalls and, for a while, it had been a good place to catch office workers on their way to the city center for lunch, and tourists on their way to and from the castle. Things had gone quiet, though. Joe was trying to decide whether to stick around and see if the office workers who hadn’t given him anything were in a better mood on their way back after lunch, or whether to just go and get something to eat himself. He probably had enough for a hamburger. He was sick of hamburgers. He never had liked them much.

Sausage sandwiches were what he’d like. He’d like to fry the sausages himself until they were almost black and splitting, and then halve them lengthwise and arrange them on the bread, and dribble brown sauce along them. And to go with it he’d like a big mug of tea that he’d made himself, the way he liked it, and not cat’s piss in a squeezy plastic cup.

But to eat like that, you had to have a place of your own, with a kitchen cupboard you could keep a package of tea and a loaf of bread in, and a little gas ring to cook it on. A bedsit would do. He liked to keep his daydreams realistic—then there was more chance of their coming true.

Not that he could see much hope of getting even a bedsit anytime soon. He could make twenty, thirty pounds a day, begging—and then, every day, he had to spend it all. The money soon went when you had to buy your breakfast, dinner and tea at fast-food joints. He could buy cheaper food in a supermarket, but he had nowhere to cook it and nowhere to keep it. At the end of every day, there wasn’t anything left to save up for rent.

A front door with a lock and his own key. And a bed. And a kitchen cupboard and a gas ring. That’s all he’d need, to start with. He could sit on the bed.

No more sleeping on concrete and cardboard. No more being cold all night, and having wet feet for days on end. No more drunks pissing on him, or giving him a kick, because they had a job and a house and he didn’t, and somehow that was good reason to kick him.

And when he had the studio, he’d get himself a lady friend to share it all with him. Snuggle up in the bed together. Get up and make her a cup of tea. And a sausage sandwich. A woman with some meat on her bones, one who’d enjoy a sausage sandwich. Heaven on bloody earth!

Voices shouted near him, sharp and angry. He tipped his head forward and opened his eyes. At the bottom of the ramp leading down into the underpass from the pavement above, a young couple were squabbling. Joe was about to close his eyes again when he noticed that both of them had bare feet.

The man was backing away from the woman into the underpass, but then gave a sort of cringing upward look at the underpass roof, swung around, and backed out again. He had a bright-red baseball cap on his head, a sort of sleeveless, quilted body warmer worn over a long, loose shirt that hung to his knees, a pair of blue jeans and nothing on his feet at all.

The young woman, who was alternately snapping and pleading at him, was a nice big buxom lass, a bit older than the lad. If she was going to break up with him, it was a pity Joe hadn’t managed to get that studio yet. Her face was all pink, and her long brown hair, which had been pinned up on top of her head, was falling down in long strands. She wore one of those long, loose dresses that always looked so womanly, with a light coat over it, and had a nice shapely pair of calves in dark stockings—but her feet were bare because, for some reason, she was carrying her shoes in her hand, and her stockings’ feet were shredded.

Joe felt like some entertainment. He linked his hands around his knees and watched.

“It be only me,” Andrea said. “There be no one with me, tha canst see there be nobody with me. I’m going to take thee home, Per.”

“Nay,” Per said, pulling away from her.

“I’m going to try anyway. It be all we can do. If we go quickly—”

“Gan back to thy Master,” Per said.

“Per, come on!” She tried to pull him into the underpass, but he twisted his wrist against her thumb’s hold and easily broke her grasp.

“Nay,” he said, stepping back from under the overhanging shelf of the underpass, with an apprehensive upward glance.

“What dost mean, nay?” For the first time since she’d caught up with him, she began to listen to what he was saying. “We be ganning to Elf-Gate! That be what tha wants, is it no? Now come on!”

“I ken,” he said to her. “I ken tha brought me here to be a hostage for thy Master! If I gan—”

“I brought thee here to save thy life!”

“—thou’lt lead me into ambush!”

“Per! I never heard such … How canst think that?”

“I’ll no gan with thee,” he said, and looked past her, at the way she’d come, as if he still expected to see people following her.

“Oh? And where be thee going?” She went to take his arm again.

He stepped back, lifting his arms out of her reach. “I’ll find my way.”

“How? How? Per, don’t be such a sheep’s head—”

Angered, he pushed her away. She stumbled back a step or two, and hurt her foot by treading on a flattened tin can. Looking down, she saw her white feet sticking out of her ruined black stockings and remembered that she had her shoes in her hand. “Oh, Per!”

He had backed out from under the underpass again and stood at its entrance, looking up at the pavement above. It was plain that he hadn’t an idea what to do but still wasn’t going to do what she wanted him to do.

Andrea dropped her shoes to the ground, put them on, and marched over to him. She grabbed his wrist in both hands. “Come on! Stop—playing—silly—” She dragged at him with all her strength and weight, and because he was still weak—and because, she had an awful suspicion, he was lighter than she was—she managed to drag him forward a few steps, even though he leaned back and braced his heels against the tiles.

Then he stopped leaning back, and came toward her, closing the arm’s-length gap between them. She started to lose her balance and stumble backward, and he used her grip on his arm to swing her around, and then she was tripping over something—his foot—and thumping down on her backside on the cold, hard, damp tiles of the underpass floor. She gave a squeal more of surprise than hurt, and then another of exasperation when Per wrenched his wrist out of her hold and drew back from her again.

“Hey!” Joe said. Both Per and Andrea turned to him. Joe got to his feet. “Hey, have a care!” Even as he spoke, he knew he’d made a mistake, but too late now. Anyway, he couldn’t just sit there and watch a girl get roughed up when calling out might stop it. He walked over to her, to offer her a hand up. The lad pulled a knife on him.

Joe didn’t see where the knife came from. It was just there, all of a sudden, in the lad’s fist, pointing up at him. It was black and wicked, its triangular blade damn near as long as Joe’s forearm and narrowing abruptly to a needle point. It was such a vicious-looking knife that Joe was half afraid it might attack him of its own accord, whatever its owner decided. My big mouth, he thought, raising his hands, and backing off. “Okay, okay. Forget I spoke.”

Oh my God! Andrea thought, and floundered to her hands and knees, scrambling to her feet. “Per! Put up! Don’t!”

“Quiet!” Per said. “Stay back!” His eyes were on Joe. He’d seen the big Elf-Man sitting against the wall when he’d first looked into the underpass, but he hadn’t seemed to offer any threat. Now he wondered—was he part of an ambush? Had Andrea used a far-speak and behind his back quickly arranged an ambush, here in this defile under the road? He glanced quickly over his shoulder, to see if anyone was coming up behind him, and down the length of the underpass, to see if anyone was waiting there.

“Love,” Joe said to the girl, “you clear off out of it, quick, go on!” As soon as she was clear, he’d leg it himself, and forget the few coins still in his plastic cup. He wasn’t shy of getting into a fight if he had to, but he had a policy about knives: Run away!

The knife remained steady, pointing up from the lad’s fist, but the lad raised his right hand and knocked his cap back, to get a clearer view of Joe. The face under the cap was so disconcertingly pretty that, for a moment, Joe wondered if it was a tall, strong girl he was facing, not a boy at all. That bulky body warmer and baggy shirt hid a lot—there was a nasty stain on the shirt.

The kid yelled, making Joe jump, rocked back on his heels by a bellow like a sergeant-major’s. The voice was certainly male, but it was hard to understand what it said. Something that sounded like “Stairrick-arram!”

“Eh?” Joe said. Maybe he should have been running, but the girl was still standing there—and besides, after the first shock of seeing the knife drawn, the sense of threat lessened. The lad seemed more wary and concerned with holding Joe off than with attacking him. Joe kept his hands raised to assure the kid that he wasn’t going to mess with him. To the girl, he said, “You all right, love?”

“Oh, I’m all right, I’m fine,” she said, in perfectly clear English, not at all like she’d been speaking earlier.

“I’d get out of here, if I was you,” he said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “It’s all right; he won’t hurt me. But thank you. For your help. Pair,” she said to the lad, and added something that Joe didn’t catch.

Joe began to back off toward his sign and his money, thinking that he might as well collect them before leaving the girl to the thumping he was pretty sure she’d get as soon as he was out of sight. He’d heard that one about “he won’t hurt me” before. But it was none of his business. He should have known better than to get involved in the first place.

The lad came after him, and for a moment Joe’s heart skipped. But though the lad kept the knife steady, he was pointing at Joe’s chest with his other hand. “Stairrk-arram,” he repeated, at a shout.

Joe looked down at himself. His oversize T-shirt had been given him by the landlord of a big city-center pub, The Sterkarm Arms. It was printed, in black on white, with a picture of the pub’s sign: an upraised arm brandishing a dagger. All the bar staff had worn them. “That’s my coat of arms,” Joe had said. “I never said you could use it.” The landlord had laughed and given him a spare shirt from behind the bar.

It dawned on Joe that the kid was trying to say “Sterkarm,”­ but had got the pronunciation a bit off, and was rolling all the Rs.

“That’s me,” Joe yelled, as a bus passed overhead. He pointed at himself. “That’s me name. I’m Sterkarm.”

“Thu air Sterkarm?” Per looked again at what he’d taken for an Elf. Certainly, the man wore Elf-Clothes, but Per himself was wearing Elf-Clothes. And all the Elf-Men he’d seen had been clean-shaven, with short hair, but this man had a thick beard and long hair falling to his shoulders. And on his chest he wore the Sterkarms’ badge. “Art thee Sterkarm? Did they bring thee here, into Elf-Land? How long hast been here? Didst come through Elf-Gate? Dost ken where it be?”

“Per,” Andrea said, “he’s no one of thine. Come away.” He ignored her, and she didn’t quite dare to drag at his arm again. He’d been gentle about putting her on the floor the last time; he might not be the next.

Joe could feel his own face knotting into a frown as he listened to them. They were speaking in foreign again, and yet he kept catching at meaning in the words. Thu air Sterkarm? Kommer thu av Erlf-Yett? Listening to the kid was like tuning a radio through the different frequencies. Among incomprehensible foreign speech there were sudden bursts of words you could understand. Not all of them made much sense though. Elf-Gate?

Per saw the expression of puzzlement on Joe’s face and realized that he’d been too eager to believe this stranger was one of his own. “Vem ridder thu meth?” Who ride you with? “Vem air thine yarl?” Who is your lord? “Fra vilken tur air thu?” From which tower are you?

Joe shook his head. He couldn’t understand, but had the troublesome feeling that if, somehow, he could adjust his hearing slightly, he would. There was something about the kid’s speech that, weirdly, reminded him of his Granddad Sterkarm. It was the sound of it, the throatiness, the rolled Rs, the rhythms. “Where do you come from?” Joe asked.

The girl interrupted. “We should be going,” she said, and added something to the lad, in words that sounded like a slightly twisted version of what she’d just said in English. The lad continued to stare at Joe, with something of Joe’s puzzlement.

Joe had an idea. Instead of trying to speak clearly, he spoke as much like his granddad as he could. “Whor thee come fro’?”

Per leaned toward him, his whole face brightening. He understood! The words were a little strange, but—“Yi?” He pointed to himself. “Fra vor kommer yi?”

“Aye.” Joe leaned forward too, even took a small step closer, just as the kid lowered the knife slightly. “Fra whor come-a thee?” He pointed at the kid.

Per was filled with relief and happiness that warmed him all through and made him dizzy, like mulled festival ale. Holding the knife so that Joe could see it clearly, Per shoved it back into its sheath and then jumped at Joe, crashing into him and throwing his arms round him in a tight hug. “Day glayder migh a finner thu!” It gladdens me to find thee!

The girl cried out, and Joe squawked and staggered back, grabbing at Per and trying to shove him away, afraid he was being attacked. Per only clung to him the tighter. The man could be no Elf—he wore the badge, he was bearded and longhaired, and he spoke English! True, he was a little hard to understand, but the more distant Sterkarms often spoke oddly.

“Hey, all right, okay,” Joe said, still trying to push the kid away, even when he’d realized he wasn’t being mugged. “Steady on. What the hell’s this you’re wearing?” What he’d taken for a body warmer, instead of being soft, seemed to be full of bits of old scrap. As he pushed the kid away, he could feel the hardness and hear the metallic scratching and clinking.

The kid let him go but still kept close as Joe backed away. The kid’s pretty, girlish face had turned pink and was bright with a huge, delighted smile. Joe was surprised to see that the blue eyes were shimmering with tears. The girl had come close to them, and was saying something urgently, but the lad had the more carrying voice, and he spoke intensely, excitedly.

“Vor kommer yi? Fra Bed-des-dahla, fra tur.” From Bedesdale, from the tower. “Yi air Sterkarm, yi hite Per.” I’m called Per. “Min far air Stoor Toorkild, oh min fars-bror air Gobby Per.” My father is Big Toorkild and my uncle is Gobby Per. Per searched his new friend’s face for any sign of recognition. “Yi air Stoor Toorkilds Per—Per Toorkildsson, av tur, av Bed-des-dahla. Yunker Per. Lilla Per. Per May.”

Still Joe showed no sign of recognizing the names or places. But maybe he’d been in Elf-Land a hundred years or more. Maybe he’d forgotten his own speech. Per turned to Andrea, who was pulling at his sleeve and telling him that they should go. “Ask him how long he’s been here—ask him! Has he eaten Elf-Meat?” If he had, he would be trapped here forever. Tears pricked behind Per’s eyes at the terrible sadness of it. “Ask him!”

Joe’s face was screwed up in bafflement. Again, he’d caught odd words. “Stoor” … was that “big”? It sounded like the local word for “big.” And “yunker”—his granddad had called him “yunker.” It meant “young,” “a youth.”

And “Pair,” which seemed to be the kid’s name. It sounded a bit like “Peter,” said with a local accent, with the T swallowed. “Lilla Per”? “Little Peter?” Joe asked, signing “little” with his fingers and pointing at the kid.

“Ya, ya.” The kid turned from the girl and went all serious, looking at Joe with something like concern. “Vah air thu namma?”

“What’s my name?” Joe pointed at himself. “Joe. I’m Joe Sterkarm. Joe.”

“Chyo.”

“No. Joe.”

Per nodded, and tried harder. “Shyo. How long hast been in Elf-Land, Shyo? Hast eaten Elf-Meat?”

“Elf?” Joe said. “Elf-Meat?”

Andrea had refused to believe it at first, but the longer she listened, the more obvious it was that this Joe Sterkarm understood Per—at least to some extent. To a greater extent than she liked. This could be trouble.

“Didst come by Elf-Gate?” Per raised both his hands and made a circle with his fingers.

“Elf-Gate?” Joe said. His granddad had called a gate a “yett,” but he still wasn’t sure about this “Elf” business. He made one hand into a gatepost, and the other into the gate, and opened and closed it. “Yett?”

“Aye! Came thee by Elf-Gate? Dost ken where it be? Tilsmid Oll!”

Andrea gasped. She took hold of Per’s upper arm and pulled at him. “Per, I’m going to take thee through Elf-Gate. I told thee I would—come on!”

“Deelssmeed Holl,” Per said to Joe, and then turned on her, shaking her off. “Stop it! I’ll no gan with thee! Th’art an Elf.”

“Per! He’s an Elf!”

“I’m an Elf?” Joe said.

“Oh, shut up! Keep out of this. Per, I promise—”

“He be one of my own,” Per said.

“He be no, Per, he be—”

“Dealsmaid Hole,” Per said to Joe.

“Dilsmead Hall?” Joe said.

“Ya!” The kid tried to hug him again, and Joe had to fend him off. “Kenna thu vor day air?”

“Aye. I ken whor it are.”

Andrea put a hand to her head and turned away from them.

Joe said, “Be that whor thee come from? Near there?” Dilsmead Hall itself was a big building on the outskirts of the town, a big stately-home sort of place that had been built by some rich bloke years ago. Now it was owned by some firm from down south, who’d turned it into offices. They were supposed to be developing all sorts of technological wonders, and there’d been articles in the local papers about how many jobs they were creating. There hadn’t been one for Joe.

The kid grabbed two fistfuls of Joe’s waterproof and stared at him so hard Joe couldn’t see anything but blue eyes. “Tar migh der, Chyo!”

“Take you there?” Joe said. He didn’t fancy the idea much. Dilsmead Hall wasn’t on his beat.

Then the girl grabbed at his arm. Joe felt things were getting out of hand. “Joe, don’t. Don’t take him, don’t.”

Joe immediately liked the idea more—but still, it was out of his way.

“Kommer hyemma, Chyo—kommer hyemma meth migh oh yi skal giffer thee ayn hus oh lant.”

“What?” Joe said, stooping his head toward those blue eyes. He knew he’d heard, knew he’d understood, but couldn’t believe it.

“Don’t listen, Joe,” the girl said, and pulled hard at the lad’s arm. “Per, come with me! I’ll take thee. Joe, he’s talking rubbish, don’t listen.”

Joe would have thought so too, except he was struck by the girl’s anxiety to convince him that the lad was talking rubbish. The lad turned on the girl, gripped her arms with both his hands, shook her and said something angrily that Joe couldn’t catch. Then he turned back to Joe and repeated what he’d said before.

“If I go home with him,” Joe said, glancing at the girl, “he’ll give me a house and land?” And home was Dilsmead Hall? “Yeah, right, sure.”

Andrea had retreated a little from Per after the shaking. She said, “He can no gan with thee. He’s eaten Elf-Meat—he can no gan back through Gate. Come with me—if I meant to trick thee, I’d have brought men with me—oh!” Per wasn’t listening to her at all. He was staring at Joe.

“Kom, kom,” he said to Joe. “Sitta.” Leaning against the wall of the tunnel, he slid down it until he was sitting on the floor. It would be only a few minutes, but it would be a chance to rest his hurt leg, which, though he ignored it, was steadily aching. Curious, Joe crouched beside him, watching as Per pulled his pouch to the front of his belt and opened it.

The only food left inside it was a small plum that was getting overripe, and about a quarter of an apple, going dry and brown. Looking at them made Per’s own belly tighten in a knot, and he couldn’t resist taking a small bite of the apple. The rest he held out to Joe. “Have it. Eat it.”

Was there a loony bin near Dilsmead Hall? Joe wondered. The kid was as daft as a brush. The bit of apple was fit for nothing but throwing away. He looked over at the girl, who stood with her hands on her hips. Her hair was falling down and her tattered stockings were in frills about her ankles. The pair of ’em must have escaped from somewhere.

“It be no Elf-Meat,” Per said, when Joe was hesitant about taking the apple. “It be from home, last I have. It’ll break spell. Maybe.” In all the stories Per knew, it was said that eating Elf-Food trapped you in Elf-Land, but none of the people in the stories had ever been able to get their hands on food from home. Maybe eating men’s-food would break the spell and let Joe go home. It was worth trying.

The kid was looking at him so earnestly, and plainly wanted him so much to take the apple, that Joe couldn’t find a way to refuse it. You never knew how Looney Tunes the kid was anyway. He might turn nasty, and he had that yard and a half of knife. So Joe sat down beside him, leaning against the wall, took the bit of apple and put it in his mouth, grinning at the lass as he did so. The apple was tart, and he could taste the brownness, but his eating it seemed to please the kid no end. He watched Joe closely as he chewed, with a smile and shining eyes.

Per took a bite at the plum in his hand and bit half of it away, letting a dribble of plum pulp run down his chin. He handed the other half of the plum, the stone exposed, to Joe. Taking the soft, oozing bit of fruit, wet with the kid’s spit, Joe said, “Oh, thanks.” He put it into his mouth, chewed, and spat the stone as far as he could across the underpass. It rattled on the tiles, and the kid laughed.

Andrea said, “Per, if tha’d come with me, we could be through Elf-Gate by now.”

“Quiet, woman,” he said, sounding just like his father. From his pouch he took the leather bottle and pulled at the stopper. His fingers didn’t have their usual strength, and he couldn’t get a grip on it.

Joe reached across and took the bottle from him. Holding it, he turned it, puzzled by what the material might be. He’d never seen a bottle made from leather before. He pulled the stopper free.

“Tahk,” Per said.

“You’re welcome.” Joe swirled the contents of the bottle, and sniffed at its neck. There was the unmistakable whiff of alcohol. He passed the bottle back to the kid.

“Per,” Andrea said, “trust me! There be nobody looking for us. If we gan—”

Per raised the bottle, said, “Sterkarm!” and took a sip from it, wetting his mouth, leaving most of what little was left for Joe, though his belly squeaked for it. He held out the bottle.

Joe took it. “Sterkarm!” He put the bottle to his mouth and drank. Whatever was in it was … more like cider than anything else, though it wasn’t cider. Quite sweet. Alcoholic, but weak. “Good stuff,” he said, handing it back. He wasn’t really keen on it, but the kid seemed pleased that he liked it.

“Good?” Per said, as he put the bottle back in his pouch. His eye fell on a zipper in the sleeve of Joe’s waterproof jacket. He touched it with his fingertip.

“What’s up?” Joe twisted his head around to see what had taken the kid’s interest.

Per caught hold of the zipper’s tab and gave it a pull. He made a small sound of surprise when the zipper’s teeth began to part.

Andrea, seeing another source of trouble, said, “Per, we really, really—”

“Quiet!” he said. He was studying the zipper as Joe pulled it open and shut. As soon as he released it, Per took the tab and pulled it open again. Joe could see by the kid’s face that he was truly astonished. “Haven’t you never seen a zipper before?” The kid looked at him questioningly. “A zipper. Zipper.”

“Sssip.” The kid got awkwardly to his knees, pulling a slight face, as if it were painful, and pulled up his shirt, revealing that his jeans were fastened only at the top, by the button, and that he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. After a bit of trouble in finding the zipper’s tab, he slowly pulled up the zipper, and looked at Joe with a big, bright smile.

Joe grinned back, nodding. “Well done,” he said. “Congratulations.” He looked up at the girl who was standing by and said, “Where’s he escaped from?”

“What?” she said crossly.

“Where is he from?” Joe asked.

Startled, Andrea tried to control her face while she thought of an answer. It would be suspicious not to answer readily, and just as suspicious to say she didn’t know, or to be rude and tell him to mind his own business. “Denmark!” she said, feeling that she’d left too long a pause. Per’s distant ancestors had certainly come from Denmark.

“Oh, right,” Joe said. “I’d have thought they’d have had zippers in Denmark.” Where on the face of the planet, he thought, could you find someone else who’d never seen a zipper? In the rain forests, in the Australian desert, in the wastes of Siberia, people wore clothes with zippers.

Per started to get up, but as his weight came onto his hurt leg, the part-healed muscles gave a strong twang and, in moving suddenly to ease it, he fell back to the tiles.

Joe said, “You okay? Want a hand?” He got up and offered a hand. Per reached for it, and Joe took him by the hand and elbow, bringing him to his feet with one strong pull. “Something wrong with your leg?”

Per kept hold of Joe’s hand and put his other hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Naw vi gaw hyemma.”

Joe laughed. The meaning of the words came straight to him, as if there’d been some magic in the ciderish drink. “Now we go home, do we?” He shook his head. “Sorry.” Tempted though he was to annoy the glowering young woman, he just couldn’t be bothered to go all the way out to Dilsmead Hall for nothing. “Go with her. Her wants to take you.”

“Nigh, Chyo, nigh. Thu maun kommer. Thu skal!”

“I don’t think so,” Joe said. “Not even for a house and land.”

“Yi sverer, Chyo, pa min fars hodda, yi skal giffer thu ayn hus oh lant.”

Joe hissed through his teeth and shook his head. Loopy lad! He really believed that he had houses and land to give away. “You’re two or three short of a six-pack, you are, son.”

Per frowned at him, not understanding, and wondering desperately what else he could do to get Joe’s help. If he wouldn’t help one of his own from fellowship … If the promise of land when they reached home couldn’t move him … Per thought of drawing his dagger on Joe again, but alone as he was, he would rather have a friend than an enemy and anyway, Joe was a big, heavy man. Per wasn’t sure, in his present state, that Joe wouldn’t take the dagger off him and use it against him.

He had only one thing that he was willing to give away and that Joe, having been so long in Elf-Land, might think of value. He moved out of Joe’s reach and, from his pouch, took the small leather case Elf-Windsor had given him. Unbuttoning it, he pulled the paper money halfway out, so that Joe could see it. Watching Joe’s face, he could tell he’d done the right thing. Joe wanted the Elf-Money.

“Oh—no!” Andrea said. “Per, no. Joe, no!”

Per glanced at her, more certain than ever that he was going to get his own way, and more certain that he’d been right not to trust her.

Joe stared at the money. Tenners. Making a quick count up, he guessed the wallet held at least fifty pounds.

“Kommer til Dilsmaid Hole oh yi giffer thu deyn.”

Fifty quid. I could open a bank account with that, Joe thought. Nowhere near a week’s rent, not even for a tiny little bedsit, but it’s a start.

“Kommer meth migh,” Per said.

“Per, no!” The girl went to him and tried to take the money. He pushed her away, held her off with one hand, and held the wallet high in the air with the other. “Joe, don’t, you mustn’t go there, you’ll be in trouble!”

Even without the girl’s protests, Joe knew that taking the money would be wrong. Where did a loopy kid, with no shoes and socks on his feet, get fifty quid in a nice leather wallet? He’d either nicked it, or … If it belonged to the kid, taking it from him was even worse, in a way. He took a step forward. “Now, where did—”

The kid moved back fast, from both him and the girl. He stuck the wallet between his teeth and brought his hands together again—only Joe knew what that movement meant now. The kid’s hand was on the hilt of his knife, ready to draw it.

Joe lifted both his hands. “All right! Calm down. I’m not going to try and take it from you. Tell you what, give me half.”

“Halv?”

The young woman darted at him. “Joe! No, you can’t!”

“Half now.” Joe pointed to the ground at his feet. “Half when we get to Dilsmead Hall. Fair?”

“Joe, don’t.”

Per backed off a little further, took the wallet from his mouth, then hesitated. If the money had been in coins, he could have thrown it to Joe, but if he tried to throw these bits of paper, they would drift in the air. He pulled all but two sheets of the paper from the wallet, put the folded paper between his teeth, and then tossed the wallet to Joe. It landed on the tiles at his feet, and Andrea stooped, grabbing at it. Joe caught her wrist and Per stiffened, his hand going to his dagger’s hilt again. But Joe, though he held her wrist tightly, only twisted the wallet from her hand—he couldn’t be blamed for that—and then let her go.

“Joe,” Andrea said. “Don’t take him there. Don’t. I don’t mean to be rude, but … why don’t you just take what you’ve got there and go away?”

Joe opened the wallet and saw the twenty pounds inside. He looked at her. “I want the rest.”

“Quit while you’re ahead—easy money. If you go to Dilsmead Hall, you’re only going to get into trouble.”

It was true that, even if he cut out now, he was still twenty quid ahead, but … Well, Dilsmead Hall wasn’t that far away, and he had nothing better to do, and all these hints and threats made him bloody curious. Besides, fifty quid was a lot better than twenty. Trying to sound like a tough guy from a film, he said, “Happen I like trouble.”

Per had come closer again and said, impatiently, “Gaw vi?”

“Aye,” Joe said, and beckoned. “Come on.”

Per grinned, darted over to Joe and took his hand. Joe, startled, tried to pull away, but Per held on. “Let go,” Joe said, and began prying his fingers loose. Per, to whom it was natural to hold hands with a friend, was puzzled and hurt, and looked to Andrea for an explanation.

Oh, don’t look at me, she thought. I’m an Elf and not to be trusted. Why should I help? She was trying to think ahead to what would happen when Per and Joe reached Dilsmead Hall. Of course, if Joe collected his money at the gates and went off, nothing much, probably. Especially if she could keep up with them. She could join up with Per again and try to get him through the Elf-Gate with her.

But the thought of the security guards worried her. Some of them had guns, and she couldn’t predict what Per and Joe would do once they reached the Hall. People were always doing stupid things. Per, convinced he was close to the way home, would draw his dagger and fight … “Joe, you don’t know what you’re getting into. Please don’t go. You’re going to get hurt.”

“We can look after oursen,” Joe said.

“Oh, Joe!” Macho men who could look after themselves! She’d like to line them all up and slap their silly faces. “Listen, Joe, listen!” She shouldn’t say this, but … “You’re not going to believe this …” She was trying to think of any other way she could dissuade Joe from going to Dilsmead Hall, but nothing came to her. “You’re going to think I’m mad, but I don’t want you to get hurt, and—”

Joe stopped moving away, and looked at her, Per standing beside him. “Well?” he said. “What aren’t I going to believe?”

“What Per calls the Elf-Gate …” Why am I saying this? she thought. I signed an agreement to say I wouldn’t tell anyone, and he’s just going to laugh anyway. “It’s a time machine.”

Joe looked from her to Per and back again. He looked about at the dingy, muddied tube of the underpass. “A time machine.”

“Kom, Chyo,” Per said.

Joe held up a hand. “Hang on.”

“We call it the Time Tube,” Andrea said, “because it’s a tube.” And she formed her fingers into a circle, just as the lad had done when trying to describe an Elf-Gate.

Joe came back toward her and then stopped, feeling that he was never going to move again. It was bats, what she’d just said, it was alien abductions and talking with fairies, but it made sense. He’d seen pieces in the newspapers about time-travel research. In one, some scientist would be saying that in fifty years’ time there’d be practical, working time machines and we’d all be taking vacations with the dinosaurs. In another, a different scientist would be saying that time travel was impossible, and that no reputable scientists believed it could ever be achieved. “You telling me that somebody’s done it? Built a time machine? A real one, that works?”

“Here,” she said. “In the labs at Dilsmead Hall. FUP’s done it.”

Per came to stand beside Joe, looking curiously at them. He’d caught the mention of Dilsmead Hall.

FUP, Joe thought. Dilsmead Hall. There’d been stories doing the rounds about what had been going on in Dilsmead Hall. Gruesome animal experiments, new forms of nuclear power that would poison everybody, the building of genetic monsters … Joe had never taken much notice, and nobody, that he could remember, had ever said the project was a time machine.

But things came together in Joe’s mind, making sense with such speed he couldn’t keep up with his own thoughts. He looked at Per, who stared back at him and said, “Vi gaw?”

Joe pointed at him. “You mean—?”

“Five hundred years ago,” Andrea said.

The peculiar, clinking jacket and the thick, broad speech, often more impenetrable than that of Joe’s granddad. The puzzled air with which the kid handled money. The funny-­looking knife. The odd bottle made of leather, and the unfamiliar drink it held. The ignorance of zippers.

Joe felt as if a bright, bright light had turned on inside his head. It must, he thought, be shining out of his eyes and ears. So much made sense if you just accepted that the lad standing beside him was five hundred years old.

“Chyo?” Per said.

Joe shook his head. It was hard to look at that bright young face and think that it was—or should be—or was?—nothing but a skull in a forgotten and unmarked grave.

“Chyo? Vordan staw day?” How stands it? Per was puzzled by the stunned look on Joe’s face as he stared at him.

Joe said, “He’s one of them Sterkarms!”

The old-time Sterkarms were a local legend, forever galloping about at full tilt, up to no good. Always being arrested and locked up in the castle dungeons, and then the rest of the ferocious family would swarm over the walls and rescue them. Joe had often been teased about his surname.

“He’s only a bit of a kid,” Joe said. All the stories gave the idea that the old Sterkarms were about seven feet tall, four feet wide, scarred, armed to the teeth, and had beards you could lose a horse in.

Andrea shrugged.

“Bloody hell,” Joe said. “I mean—bloody hell! He could be me great-great—ever-so-many-greats-great-granddad!”

Andrea laughed. “If he’s not, it’s not for want of trying.”

Per stepped away from Joe and toward her. “Vah?”

Joe said, “Elf-Land?”

“He thinks he’s in Elf-Land. He thinks we’re—he thinks I’m an Elf. He thinks you’re one of his own, lost in Elf-Land, like him. When he says ‘Elf-Gate,’ he means the Time Tube.”

“Bloody hell!” Joe said. “And this home he wants to go back to, this—”

“He means his own time.”

“So. He really could give me land and a house. No kidding.” Not just a bedsit, from which he could be evicted. Not just some low-paid job, where he’d be turned off as soon as it suited his boss. But a house and land, as a gift, a reward, his forever. Freedom.

“Joe!” Andrea said. He never heard her. He grabbed Per by the arm and jerked him backward, never noticing that Per reached for his dagger. “If I take you—to the Elf-Gate—if I go home with you—you’ll give me a house?”

Per relaxed, realizing that Joe meant him no harm. He frowned as he listened, watching Joe’s face, and caught enough of the words to more or less understand. “Ya. Oh lant.”

“You mean it?” Joe asked. “You really mean it?” He didn’t want to go back five hundred years for nothing.

“Joe!” Andrea said. “Think! You don’t want to do this!”

“I do!” Joe said.

“We’re talking about five hundred years ago! And in a very remote, backward part of the country. Think what that means! So he’ll give you a house! It’ll be a drafty hut with the rain coming in and no furniture at all! You’ll sleep on the floor! You’ll be hungry most of the time, and cold, and wet, and there’ll be no medical care, and it’ll be dangerous—”

“You mean just like now?” Joe said. He stared at her, and she hadn’t a thing to say. Joe turned back to Per. “D’you mean it? About the house and land. Can you really do it? Do you mean it?”

Per understood, and his face lit with a smile. Taking Joe’s arm, he tugged at him until they were squarely facing each other. Joe, moving obediently into place, noticed some passersby glancing at them and saw that the kid was at least half a head taller than he was. He’d thought that people in the past were all short. He stood as tall as he could and straightened his own shoulders, to make his heavier build obvious.

Per took both of Joe’s hands, pressed them together as if in prayer, and placed both of his own around them. His left foot he placed on top of Joe’s right foot, bare toes on soggy old sneaker. He looked into Joe’s eyes, his own wide with the seriousness of what he was about to do, and the anxiety to get it right. “Yi, Per Toorkildsson Sterkarm, tar thine hander—”

Joe lost him after that, but Per sang the words out in such fine style that, looking into the boy’s intent face, Joe felt his hair prickle. The clasped hands, the foot on the foot … This was no joke or game. The lad was nervous but serious. Joe had never seen a clergyman perform a wedding or funeral with as much conviction. Without taking his eyes from the boy’s face, he said to the girl, “What’s he say?”

She didn’t answer. Per went on, speaking with emphasis and swing, until he ran out of words and finished with a solemn, wide-eyed nod.

“What’s he say?” Joe demanded.

Andrea didn’t want to answer, but refusing to translate was as hard as ignoring a ringing phone. “He said, ‘I, Per Toorkildsson Sterkarm, take your hands between my hands and place my foot on your foot, and swear to be your lord, to guard you and guard yours until the day I die.’ Happy?”

“Now thu,” Per said, and shook Joe’s hands between his own. “Yi—” He nodded to Joe.

Joe, his hands still between Per’s, and his foot under Per’s foot, said, “I, Joseph Sterkarm, put my hands between your hands—”

My hands are between his, he thought, because I’m giving them and their use to him.

Half guessing, half prompted by Per, he stumbled on, “—and my foot under your foot—”

My foot’s under his foot because he’s top dog, that’s what I’m agreeing to. What the hell am I getting into?

“—and swear to be your man, to guard you and to guard yours, until the day I die.”

The words seemed to take on such vivid meaning, they were like solid, heavy objects, taking up space and pressing in on him.

Swear to be your man. Like a belonging, a useful tool.

To guard you and guard yours. But now more like a dog. He felt the hackles rising on the back of his neck and his teeth baring, like faithful Gelert standing over the fallen cradle of the little prince.

Until the day I die. God, that had a long, distant and doomy ring!

Andrea said, “He believes every word of it, Joe. How about you?”

Joe could see the belief in Per’s face. He thought: But he swore to guard me and mine too—if I ever have anything to call mine. And he means every word of that as well.

Per took his foot from Joe’s foot, dropped his hands and, stepping closer, put his arms around Joe’s shoulders and hugged him.

Joe’s muscles stiffened and, without actually rebuffing the hug, he tried to hold himself away from it. More people were walking through the underpass—the office workers were returning to work—and they looked at the kid hugging him and hurriedly looked away, some of them smirking. To hell with them! Joe thought. This ceremony was more important than what some crowd of house livers thought. He even half raised his arms, meaning to hug the kid in return, but wasn’t sure that he was supposed to. He stood there, awkward, his arms held up.

Per kissed Joe, first on one cheek, then on the other. He did it bashfully. It was the first time he’d taken a man into service, and though he knew it was his place, as the master, to offer the kiss, he felt shy at presuming to kiss a man as old as his father.

Joe felt the shyness and thought it funny that his new lord and master was shy of him. As Per drew back from him, he put his hands on the lad’s shoulders.

“Lant,” Per said. “Oh ayn hus. Yi giffer thu min urd.”

Joe had worked for other masters, schoolmasters, who’d promised that if he worked hard and got qualifications, he’d get a good job. He’d known they were lying at the time. He’d left school, been unemployed, and joined the Army. He’d done a couple of years, left and got a job in the building trade. Work two weeks, off for six.

He’d worked for another master, a building contractor, and he’d been known as a good worker. In return he’d been laid off at the first sign of a slump in trade. Good workers came expensive.

He’d paid taxes to his masters in the government, paid tax on everything he’d bought. In return he’d got to sleep in all the cardboard boxes he could beg, and a police force to move him on at three in the morning.

None of those masters had held his hands, looked into his eyes, and solemnly sworn to guard him and guard his until the day they died. Joe squeezed Per’s shoulders between his hands, then whacked him on one shoulder and pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes. “I’ll take you to Dilsmead Hall. And if there’s any such thing as an Elf-Gate there, we’ll find it!” He started off along the underpass and when Per, coming after him, took his hand again, he didn’t pull away.

Andrea ran after them. She said, “All right, all right, you win. Why don’t we take a taxi? I’ll pay.”

Joe stopped and looked from her to Per. “Okay. Sure. Why not?” It had been a long time since he’d ridden in a taxi. All in all, this was turning out to be an interesting day.