The Sterkarm Handshake Read Online Free PDF Page A

the suspicions of Scotland and England were overcome, and the Great Seals of both countries fastened to the contract. But it had been managed.
    The Scots and English wardens, relieved of their duties, had departed with a mixture of relief and sorrow that Bryce understood. It’s often the hardest, most unforgiving posts that create the greatest commitment in the unfortunates who have to fill them.
    â€œBorder men!” said the Scot. “They rob and thieve and murder but have a hundred smiles and a thousand honeyed words to save their necks when caught. Remember that. And never shake hands with a Sterkarm.”
    The English warden, who had been owned for almost the whole of his service by the Grannam family, had said, “They’re ill to tame, the border men. May Christ preserve your soul! And beware of shaking hands with a Sterkarm.”
    But it seemed that all the research, all the planning, all the painstaking negotiation and diplomacy needed to persuade England and Scotland to FUP’s way of thinking was as nothing compared to dealing with the Sterkarms.
    â€œCan I leave it to you to arrange our visit 16th side?” Windsor said. “Make it soon. The Sterkarms have got to learn that we Elves control the borders now.”

3
    16th Side: At Home with
the Sterkarms
    I’m so lucky, Andrea thought.
    The hall occupied almost the whole second floor of the tower, and in the early evening, as the night meal ended, it was noisily crowded with men, women and children. Some were still gathered around the two long trestle tables that ran the room’s length, standing as they ate. Others, after a day spent out on windy hillsides, were pressing around the fire, bringing bread and beer with them. The sound of laughter and chatter resounded from the plastered stone of the walls.
    The light came from a few candles placed on the tables—they smoked and stank of mutton fat as they burned—and from the large fire of peat and dung built in the stone fireplace. The red-and-gold firelight constantly faded and brightened as the flames rose and fell or were swayed by drafts. It seemed to provide as much darkness as illumination. Someone leaning over a table to reach for a piece of bread threw a big, dark shadow over half the room; and darkness jumped and shifted among the rafters. In the farthest corners, and in the doorway leading to the stairs, the darkness was deep.
    The peat smoke from the fire smelled of leaves and earth, though with a harsh catch that bit at the lining of the nose and throat. The smoke hung in the air, thick, gray and drifting, often obscuring the rafters and sometimes even the faces of people standing. It reddened eyes and set people coughing, though the Sterkarms were so used to it, they hardly noticed that they coughed.
    Andrea could have filled a page with notes about the various whiffs and stinks that drifted about: the fruity tang of beer, a gust of stale old sweat every time someone passed or moved, and someone nearby had very cheesy feet. Other people smelled of sheep and of horses. It wasn’t that the Sterkarms themselves were especially dirty—it was early in the autumn, the weather was mild, and many of them still swam in the river every day. But their clothes, being mostly of wool, were difficult to wash without spoiling and harder still to dry, so they tended to stink from weeks of wear.
    I am lucky, Andrea thought. Her feet rustled in the thick strewing of straw and herbs that covered the hall’s stone flags. Overhead, the whitewash on the beams and planking of the ceiling was almost hidden under layer after layer of soot deposited by the smoke. From the rafters hung many, many rounds of flatbread, all strung on the same length of twine through the hole in the center of each piece. So lucky to have the chance to see this and, yes, even to smell it. So lucky to be able to listen to the stories.
    The family table, the only one provided with chairs and stools