From 'The Sterkarm Handshake'

          Per, a sixteenth-century reiver, has been injured during a ride. He is taken to the 21st Century for treatment, and wakes up in a twenty-first century hospital room…

          Everything was wrong. Under his back was something firm, but soft --- it was neither a hillside, nor his thick, hard palliasse, prickly with straw and spread over wooden chests. Nor was there any musty, sweet smell of hay rising with his every slight movement; and no fug of old sweat, old smoke and wet Cuddy. Instead - he wrinkled his nose - the smells were stinging and sharp. And too much light. Even with the shutters open, there was not so much light in his bower, shadowed as it was with the tower walls and overhanging thatch. He was half minded to hunch on his pillow and go to sleep again, but the bip, bip, bip and the too-bright light was insistent, and he opened his eyes.

          The light dazzled him, and he squeezed his lids shut against it, and lifted his arm to shade his face. Something fine tugged at his elbow. Someone was in the light, blocking it. A voice that made him want to smile even before he knew it, said, "It gladdens me to see thee."

           From behind the shade of his hand, he saw Andrea. The sight of her gladdened him. Her heavy, shining hair was slipping out of its pins and falling in thick tresses over her shoulder. The light, behind her, made a golden halo round her head, so she shone and dazzled. His elf-may.

            Her face was all plump, smiling warm curves -  like the body beneath, all plump, warm curves. He felt her take his other hand, where it lay on the bedding, and she stroked its back while holding it in her warm, soft clasp. It made him feel peaceful, like a cat in the sun.
           "All is right, Per; all is good."

          For sure it was: why should it not be? He opened his mouth to tell her she was beautiful, and like the Queen of Elf-Land Herself, but found that even his face was weary. The arm he had raised to shade his eyes slumped back to the bed. He felt heavy and hazy, half numb and half-asleep. He smiled at Andrea, and she pressed his hand between both of hers and smiled back - but her smile was wobbly. Tears spilled from her eyes. "Oh Per, I'm so gladdened - to see some colour in thy face again."
           He was surprised. Had he been sick then? Some memory, too quick to be caught, shifted in the back of his head. But seeing her in tears made him forget all that. Something was wrong, something was upsetting her, and he should put it right. His own eyes filled in sympathy. "What?" he said. His voice was a whispering croak. "What's the matter?" Her tears pleased him too, giving him a little stab of pride that he couldn't help. It was said that Elves, like witches, couldn't cry, so she must care for him a great deal, if tears could run down her face like this. Maybe it wouldn't be so easy for her to leave him, without a look back, as the seal-mays and swan-mays did.
           "Per? Canst understand me, lover? Thou must harken to me now." She leaned further over him, so that she filled his sight. "I have to tell thee something..."

          He blinked at her, feeling drowsily warm and comfortable, and having no clear memory of his life ever having been in danger. It was like being told about someone else. His head, when he tried to lift it, felt extraordinarily heavy, like a cannon-ball; so he pushed his chin up towards her, hoping she would take the hint and kiss him.
           "Lie still and harken."
           "Entraya."
           "Hush. We saved thee. We, the Elves --- "
           "Who's thy prick?" He pulled one hand out of hers, meaning to catch at a dangling strand of her hair.
           "Per, thou'rt no harkening. I'm trying --- "
           One of his hands had fumbled up to her shoulder and her hair. "Is it me? Am I?"
           She kissed him. "Ssh. Thou'rt my brave prick." Another kiss. "And my bonny cock-horse. Now lie still, shut thy gob and harken. We saved thee from dying, Per. We put blood back into thee."
           "Aye," he said. The Elves were famous for healing. "Thou gavest me espirin."
           "Nay, no aspirin, something stronger. Per. Harken. I have a big thing to tell thee. But thee mustn't be feared."
           "I'm no feared."
           "Nay, never be. Per, we brought thee into Elf-Land."
           He blinked at her again, slowly.
           "If we'd left thee in Man's-Home, tha'd have died, lover, died. So we - I. I brought thee into Elf-Land. Thou'rt in Elf-Land. This is Elf-Land."

          "Per, my own prick, be no feared."
            "I'm no feared." His eyes were straining sideways as he spoke, trying to see more of the room, and he looked so bewildered and so scared, that she would have cried for him if she hadn't felt like laughing.
           She stroked his hair. "All's right. Would I do owt to hurt thee? Would I? Lots of folk have come into Elf-Land, thou'rt not only one. Tam Lin came --- "
           Aye. Tam Lin had fallen asleep while out hunting and the Elf- Queen had found him, fancied him, and had taken him into Elf-Land. But the tax to Hel fell due and, the Queen's love for him having cooled, Tam feared he would be part of the payment. Tam escaped, but barely, and the Elf-Queen cried after him:

          "Thou shalt. Thou shalt, as soon as thy leg's healed. Lie still, keep still. Look, let me show thee - there's nowt to fear."
           With her fingers she was gently moving a black thread that seemed to be dangling from somewhere overhead. As she moved it, he felt something brush against his arm, and the odd little pulse jumped at his elbow again.
           He looked up, following the black thread with his eyes, but was distracted by the pole that stood beside the bed, shining like polished silver in the sunlight - there were bars at the edge of the bed too, and they were silver. So much silver! Worth a fortune. The Elves were truly as rich as was said. But it would be hard to carry the silver away.
           "Per."
           He looked up again and saw that, at the top of the silver pole, hung a - he didn't know what to call it. A soft bag that sagged with the weight of its contents, like a sheep's stomach filled with meal or water. But this bag was so thin that its contents could be seen through it. The great mass of the stuff was dark and thick, not quite black, but almost so.
           Some of it had smeared thinly and greasily over the inner surface of the bag, and here, where the light shone through it, the colour was a dark red. It looked like blood. What was blood doing in a soft bag at the top of a silver pole above his bed?
           The thin black thread was attached to the bag. It led down to his arm, to his elbow, where the pulse jumped. At the end of the thread was a little - he didn't know what it was, but it was sticking into his arm. Into his arm -
           He gasped for breath and pushed himself up in the bed -

          She showed him the drip-line that led from the stand on his other side, from the bag of saline solution. "This one has elf-work in it to make thy leg heal faster." The doctor had explained to her that it held one of the healing-accelerants that had recently been approved for use. "And this - " She pointed to the electrode stuck to his chest. "This is elf-work to count thy heart- beats. Listen!"
           Raising a finger, she wagged it in time to the beeping of the machine. "The faster thy heart beats, the faster it beeps. Now calm down - " She stroked his arm. "Calm down, and it'll beep more slowly. Listen."
           He pushed himself up further until he was sitting. He still breathed fast, and his heart beat fast, but he didn't know what to do, or say, or where to look.
           "All's right," Andrea kept saying, and her hand stroked on the bare skin of his arm, and her voice and touch held his fear in check - but she had brought him into Elf-land -
           "How long have I been here?" He hated the pipes in his arms, but they must have been there when he woke, and didn't seem to have done him any harm - and the beeping of the box did keep time with his heart -
          "Only a day, Per. Well, getting on for two. But - "
           "Why do they count my heart-beats?"
           Andrea wasn't exactly sure herself. She kept her hands on his shoulders, stroking, soothing. "It's just so they know thy heart's still beating... It's elf-work. It's - "
           "How. How long's passed? In Man's-Home?"
           A year True Thomas had spent in Elf-Land, but when he reached home, he'd been seven years away.
           "Per, Per." She put her arms round him, hugged him carefully. "I promise, I promise thee, time is passing the same there as here. Thou shalt not turn to dust when tha goes back, I promise. How canst think I'd do owt to hurt my own prick, my only prick?"

          Andrea saw his eyes take on that scared glitter again. "I promise thee, Per, the food I give thee'll do thee no harm."
           But, Per wondered, did she want him to see his own world again? "I'm no hungry."
           "Per - "
           "Be I here alone?"
           "Tha'rt with me," she said, sounding hurt.
           "But Daddy?" he said. "Sweet Milk?"
           "We could only bring thee through the gate, Per. They wanted to come, but they had to stay behind."
           He stiffened his muscles against the new fear that went through him, but the elf-working box gave him away, beeping faster. Again, he made himself calm, and the beeping slowed. A whole world away from home and too weak to fight for himself - if he raised a cry of 'Sterkarm!' here, who would answer him?
           He couldn't afford to be afraid. And he needed to know the worst. He threw back the bedcovers - and was astonished to see nothing but a small strip of cloth round his leg. He had expected much stained padding and wrapping. This gauzy little strip seemed stuck to his leg. It didn't even wrap all the way round it.
           "Now, Per - " Andrea said.
          He caught the corner of the gauzy strip and ripped it off.
           "Per!"
           There was no wound on his leg. Though it was sore, and hurt when he moved it, the flesh was whole. He looked up, startled, at Andrea. She had lied to him. And yet... He remembered something of being hurt, of the ride home, his uncle cursing because the bandage kept soaking through with blood, the endlessness of it... but he had seen the wounds of others, and there had been red, inflamed flesh, weeping pus, and the puckered edges of the wound had been clumsily held together by big stitches of black twine, which had themselves inflamed the flesh around them.
           Andrea, without actually touching the wound, pointed to a thin, bright red line that ran across the side of his thigh. If a wound that had nearly killed him had healed to no more than that -
           "Tha said I'd been here but tyan days!"
           "Tha's been here no - "
           "My leg's whole!"
           "Nay, Per - "
           "It's no gone bad-ways!" He stared at her. He meant, it hadn't become infected. In his world almost every cut, however slight, became infected. The infection, rather than the wound itself, was often what killed.
           "It was cleaned," she said. He looked blank. There was no connection in his mind between dirt and disease. "Elf-work: we have elf-work to stop it going bad-ways." He moved, and she saw that he was going to get up. "Per, no!"
           He ignored her of course - it was his biddability that made him so loveable. By holding on to the chrome stand beside the bed, he managed to get to his feet but then looked round, confused, as he felt the line from the other drip tug at his arm. The line stretched taut across the bed, and he didn't know what to do about it.

          Andrea was moving plates on the tray, clattering them. Per reached out and touched the tray with the tip of one finger. It was of a hard, smooth, dazzlingly white material that he had never seen before. It didn't feel like anything he knew, it was whiter than anything he knew and, when he scratched and tapped it, the sound was strange. Not wood, not metal, not horn.The plates weren't made of turned wood or earthenware or metal either, but of some other smooth, hard, white substance, even smoother and glassier to the touch than the tray. And there was a tall, straight-sided glass filled with - something elvish.
           The glass itself was a wonder. So straight, so unflawed, so clear. Worth a fortune but, if he tried to carry it away, he would most likely break it - and how could he get even himself out of Elf-Land?
           On the white surface of the tray lay - a thing. It was long, thick, curved and as yellow as a coltsfoot flower. He leaned to the left and right as he peered at it. He had no idea at all what it could be. It didn't seem to have any use. From a small white plate, Andrea had picked up something brownish and flaking. It looked like a large, fat grub with a ridged body, half curled up. Andrea broke it in half, releasing more of the yeasty smell, though it didn't smell quite like anything he'd smelt before. Flakes fell from the thing onto the plate and tray.
           "This is a croissant," she said. He couldn't have repeated the word. "It's like bread." She put most of it back on the plate and broke off a smaller piece, which she put in her mouth. Another piece she held out to him. He snatched his head back before any crumb of it could get onto his face and so into his mouth. But his belly wanted it, and his mouth watered. Andrea dusted her hands, sending flakes of croissant flying, and then picked up a cloth so white that Isabel would have been envious, and wiped her hands with it before picking up a little block from beside the plate and unwrapping it. Inside was something greasy and yellow. "Butter."
           Per kept his distance at the edge of the bed. The yellow stuff looked nothing like butter. Butter was white and hard, and came to table in big lumps inside a crock.
           Andrea picked up a tiny round pot and peeled a covering from the top of it. She held it so that he could see the smooth, glassy red substance it held. It was pretty. He leaned forward and she held the pot so he could sniff at it. The smell was sweet but sickly. It mystified him.
           He drew back and Andrea sighed, and picked up a blunt, clumsy, useless knife that was made all of metal, even its hilt. She stuck it into the little pot, and what had seemed smooth, glassy and hard seemed to melt before the knife and turned into a soft goo. He saw the glass of the little pot flex in her hand, and drew back further. Was the knife hot?

          Per shook his head. The filled glass was beautiful. There was an old story about a beautiful woman whose tears were liquid gold, and it was as if she'd caught her tears in a glass. Never had he seen any liquid that colour before. In the bright light that came in through the hole in the wall, it glowed. He wasn't sure that he'd ever seen anything of such a bright and glaring colour.
           "It's the juice from - " He wouldn't recognise the word, 'orange'. She remembered an older form. "From a narange."
           He went on turning the glass with his finger and admiring its colour in the play of light, but showed no understanding of what she'd said. She'd thought that he might possibly have seen an orange - a small, hard, wrinkled, long-travelled specimen - strung on a ribbon and stuck with cloves for use as a pomander. But, it seemed, not. She looked at the glass herself and was struck by the thick, smooth, almost creamy appearance of the drink and its artificially coloured brilliance. For a moment it looked so weird, even to her, that she put her hand to her forehead as her mind seemed to rock.
           "Where's my pouch?" Per asked.
           "It's safe. Don't worry about it."
           "I want it."
           "What tha wants is something to eat."
           He shook his head and frowned. It was annoying to have food pressed on him when he was hungry but couldn't eat. "Give me my pouch."
           "The food doesn't hurt me, Per."
           "Tha'rt an elf."
           "But when I was in Man's-Home, I ate thy food. I trusted thee. Thy food didn't - "
           "Tha'rt an elf," he said. "Give me my pouch."
           "A banana!" Andrea picked up the yellow thing.

          Curiosity silenced Per. He watched as she pulled at the thing's top. The yellow came away in a long strip, white on the inner side. Long, sprawling white and yellow legs fell over her hand, leaving a white, curved stem standing up. It was like a dead man's -
           "Thou ates it," she said, offering it to him. He recoiled sharply, and she smiled and shook her head. She broke off the pointed tip. He was surprised to see how easily it broke.
           Before his eyes, she put the tip into her mouth and ate it. She pushed it at him again. "Try some. Tha'll like it."
           He shook his head."It's good. It's fruit." Unco elvish fruit. He shook his head. "Oh, Per!" In his world, she had made no fuss about eating a boiled sheep's stomach stuffed with oatmeal and the sheep's own heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. "Tha've got to eat something!"
           "Then bring me my pouch!"
           "Wherefor? I'll bring thee thy pouch when tha've eaten the croissant!"
           Per sat up. His blue eyes turned silver, just as if two tiny lights had turned on behind them. He put his hand under the tray and flipped it. The tray rose in the air, turned over, and crashed onto the carpet. Streams of milk ran from the jug, cutlery clattered, orange-juice spread from the broken glass, rice-krispies rolled everywhere.
           "Now the mice shall eat it!"
           Andrea stood, hands on hips, looking at the mess on the floor. Her teeth were set, keeping back all of the angry things she wanted to say. Per wasn't well yet, she had to remember that. He was in a strange place and scared. "I'd better get this up. Hadn't I?" She rang the bell for a nurse and, crouching, gingerly picked up shards of glass.
           “Call a may," Per said. He could tell he'd made Andrea angry, and he was sad for that. Throwing the things on the floor, too, was unmannerly behaviour in a guest - even an unwilling guest. His mother would have said, "Have I taught thee no better than that!" and given a slap to his face that would have rung his ears. But... If he'd let Andrea go on and on arguing, while he got hungrier and hungrier, she would have talked him into eating that bone-bread sooner or later. He'd had to throw it on the floor.
           "I have called a may," Andrea said, still angry. The door opened and the 'may' - a nurse - came in.

          "Tha'rt in no danger here, lover."
           Per knew better. He ate the plums, thinking of his mother, and spat the stones out into his palm. Not knowing what to do with them, he put them back into his pouch. At home, he would have thrown them on the floor for the mays to sweep up but here, having already thrown the tray on the floor, he didn't want to offend again.
           "Dost feel better now?" Andrea asked.
           He nodded, and lay down, the jakke over him. He felt his eyes closing. The excitements of the day, the effort to stand, had exhausted him again. Watching him struggle against drowsiness, Andrea said, "I'll try and get some food from Man's-Home for thee," He said nothing, and she leaned over to see his face, to see if perhaps he'd gone to sleep.
           "Came I through the Elf-Gate?" he asked. She nodded. "Where is the Elf-Gate?"
           "If I told thee, thou'd no understand."
           "But which way is it?"
            "When thou'rt well, thou'll be sent back through it. Art sleepy? Sleep, then. It'll be good for thee, to sleep."
            "But where is it, the Elf-Gate?"
            She thought he would relax and go to sleep quicker, if she gave him some sort of answer. "At a place called Dilsmead Hall, Per. Now sleep."
           "Dilsssmid Oll. Dilsssmid Oll." He settled himself on the pillow and placed his dagger carefully in his hand. It took her by surprise when his face twisted. "I want to be home." He turned his face into his hand and wept.
           "Oh Per, Per. Oh." She crawled onto the bed, close to tears herself. The drip-lines were in her way, but she carefully, gently lifted them and moved them aside until she could get under them and lie next to him, easing her arm under his head. "I'm sad for it, lover, I'm sad, but we had to bring thee, we had to, thee'd have died else." She kissed his face. "I promise, I promise, all shall be right." She kissed him again. "I'm here, I shan't go away. My own prick, thou knows I love thee, I wouldn't let owt hurt thee."
            But so must the Elf-Queen have assured Tam Lin. And how could she prevent anything hurting him? Was she a man, could she fight with sword or axe? But her soft warmth, so close, and her kisses and assurances calmed him. And he was very tired. The Elves had let him live so far: why would they not let him live until he woke? Dilsssmid Oll. That was what he had to remember. He drifted into sleep, his head against Andrea's shoulder.