The Merman's Children (11 page)

“Reef it,” Vanimen decided. “Run before the storm.”

“But that's from…northwest Haven't we had woe aplenty with foul winds, calms, and contrary currents since we left the Shetlands behind us, not to lose the distance we've made?”

“Better that than lose the ship. Oh, a human skipper might well broach a wiser scheme. We, though, we've gained a little seamanship in these over-many days, but indeed it is little. I can only guess at what might work to save us.”

He laid palm above brow to squint into the blast. “This I need not guess at,” he added. “I've known too many weathers through the centuries. That is no gale which will exhaust itself overnight. No, it's a monster out of Greenland and the boreal ice beyond. We'll be in its jaws for longer than I want to think of.”

“This is not the season for such…is it?”

“No, not commonly, though I've watched a gathering cold breed ever more bergs and floes and storms during the past few hundred years. Call this a freak, and us unlucky.”

Within himself, Vanimen wondered. The watchman he slew to gain his vessel, a man who deserved no such fate, had cursed him first…and called on the Most High and his own saint.…The king had never told anyone. He did not believe he ever would.

If they sank——His glance went to the main deck and lingered. Most of them would die, the lovely mermaids who gave and took so much joy, the children who had yet to learn what joy truly was. He himself might win to some alien shore, but what use in that?

Enough. Let him do whatever was in his might. No matter how long a life you might win for yourself, who in the end escaped the nets of Ran?

Vanimen sent a boy to summon the strongest males up the Jacob's ladder. Meanwhile he rehearsed in his mind what commands to give. At least his tribe had learned quick obedience to their captain, a thing altogether new in the history of the race. But they had not learned many mariner skills. His own were scarcely superior.

The call for help was none too soon. Shortening sail proved a wild battle in the swiftly rising wind. Cloth and lines flayed blood out of crew while the hulk staggered prey to surge after surge. No few passengers were washed overside. One babe perished, skull smashed against a bollard. While death was familiar to the merfolk, Vanimen would not soon forget that sight, or the mother's face as she gathered the ruin in her arms and plunged into a sea that might be kindlier.

That was a dangerous thing to suppose, Vanimen knew. The water embraced a person, gave shelter from sun and weather, brought forth nourishment; but it sucked warmth from the body that only huge eating could replace, and in its reaches laired killers untold. He caused lines to be trailed from the deck, to which swimmers might cling for a time of rest if they could not come aboard. This might also help prevent them getting lost from the ship.

By then, the full storm was almost upon her. Vanimen sought the aftercastle. In the stern below the poop, two mermen stood at the helm. That watch was less arduous now that they were simply letting the wind take them whither it listed. He gave them advice, promised relief in due course, and turned away. Built into either side were a pair of tiny cabins, starboard for the captain, larboard for his officers. On this voyage they were seldom used, for merfolk found them confining. He wanted a while away from the elements. He opened the door of the master's.

A lamp swung from a chain, guttered, cast dull light and troll-shaped shadows and rank smoke. Who had kindled it——? A moan brought his glance to the bunk. The girl Raxi and the youth Haiko were making love.

To interrupt would be bad manners. Vanimen waited, braced against the crazy lurching and swaying around him, frostily amused at what agility their act required of them here. Above the head of the bunk was a crucifix; above the foot, where a man could regard it as he lay, was a painting of the Virgin, crude, dimly seen, yet somehow infinitely tender. The images had not turned their backs—this was not the church he had dared enter, seeking for Agnete—but he felt anew his strangeness to everything they were. He felt his aloneness.

The rutting couple finished, with a shared cry. Presently they noticed Vanimen. Haiko grew abashed; Raxi grinned, waved, and eased out from beneath her partner.

“Why are you in my berth?” Vanimen demanded through wind-howl, thunder-crash, wave-roar, timber-groan.

“The others are full,” Raxi answered. “We knew not you'd come, nor thought you'd mind.”

Did Haiko flush? “It…it would be unwise to…do this in the water,” he mumbled. “We might lose sight of the hull. But we may soon be dead.”

Raxi sat up and reached out her arms. In the narrow space, she touched Vanimen. “Will you be next?” she invited. “I'd like that.”

“No!” he heard himself snap. “Get out! Both of you!”

They did, with hurt looks. The door closed behind them, leaving him altogether solitary. Through foul gloom he stared into the eyes of the Holy Mother and wondered why he had been angered. What had those two done that was wrong…in her very sight? They were soulless; they could not sin, any more than an animal could. Nor could he.

“Is that not true?” he asked aloud. There was no answer.

Day and night, day and night, day and night, until counting drowned in weariness, the storm drove the ship before it.

Afterward hardly any of that span abode in memory. It was nothing but chaos, struggle, half-perceived pain, and loss. Sharpest in Vanimen's heart was that his orca disappeared. Maybe it got stunned into bewilderment and drifted elsewhere, as several merfolk did. He saw it no more.

Somehow he and his people kept their vessel afloat, though in the end she was leaking so badly that the pumps could never stop. Somehow they outlived the tempest. In all else it had its will of them——

——until it was finished.

The hulk lay outside the Gates of Hercules. Vanimen recognized those dim blue masses on the world-rim, Spain and Africa, from a time past when he had adventured south. The seas still ran heavy, but azure and green beneath a sky washed utterly pure; glitter danced along every movement. Warmth spilled from the sun, calling forth odors of tar to mingle with salt and flavor the breeze. A throb and a murmur went through planks, ears, bones: a song of peace.

No craft had thus far ventured out of port. Insatiably curious, dolphins flocked about this one. Vanimen left on deck a crowd as gaunt and shaky as himself. He dived, struck, went below, rose anew to continue breathing air. His flesh felt each ripple through the cleanliness that upbore him. He addressed the dolphins.

What could they tell him of the Midworld Sea? On his earlier faring he had not swum much beyond a great lionlike rock in the straits. Christendom had prevailed hereabouts for long and long; little or naught of Faerie seemed to remain. Today was different for him. His ship would never cross the ocean. He would be lucky if she made another thousand leagues before foundering, and that would have to be through waters more mild than stretched westward. Did any refuge exist to which she might bring the Liri folk?

The dolphins chattered among themselves. They sent messengers off, a-leap in prismatic spray, to seek additional counsel. It took time. Meanwhile the people rested, hunted, regained strength. By fortune, a dead calm fell and lasted a considerable period; hence no humans sailed near to inquire who this might be.

An answer of sorts emerged. Most lands inside the Gates doubtless would be inhospitable. Fishermen were too plentiful and, the Church aside, would not welcome fish hunters. The African coast might be better, save that mankind there was of a faith which kindled still more zeal against Faerie than Christendom generally did.

But…a certain shore on the eastern marge of a narrow sea was otherwise. The dolphins had trouble explaining. They knew merely that nothing like merfolk dwelt yonder, yet Faerie was not wiped out as it had been in, say, Spain. No, to judge from glimpses and encounters the dolphins had had, that country teemed with nonhuman beings. Were the mortals more tolerant than elsewhere? Who knew?

Much shipping went back and forth in those parts, as well as trawling. Nevertheless, food ought to be ample for a few score settlers. The coast was rugged, too, often heavily wooded, rich in islands; surely someplace was a site for New Liri.

Vanimen's pulse thudded. He made himself be patient, asking and asking. The dolphins could describe more or less what the men looked like that they had observed, how they dressed, what kind of sacred or magical objects they carried. (Many had come to grief at sea; the dolphins occasionally helped swimmers reach land, and always studied the drowned with interest.) It was hard to understand the accounts. These creatures did not think or even see quite like him. Slowly, he puzzled out a portion. More helpful was their relation of what mortals
said
. They had a range and keenness of hearing, an exact memory for what they heard, such as were given to no life elsewhere.

Vanimen joined what he got from them to what he had garnered on his travels or from men he had known. A few of the latter—decades or centuries down in dust—were educated, eager both to learn and to teach, willing to take him for what he was if word about it did not get around…King Svein Estridsen, Bishop Absalon.…

That seaboard, on the far side of Italy, was called Dalmatia. Nowadays it was part of a realm called Hrvatska, or Croatia in the Latin tongue. The folk were akin to the Rus, but of Catholic belief. Nor did the dolphins know of anything among them like the northern rousalkai. That was as much as Vanimen could piece together.

Perhaps what waited yonder was the final working out of a curse. But perhaps not. And had the merfolk much to choose from?

II

T
HE
storm overtook the cog
Herning
on her journey back to Denmark. That had already been a hard passage through hostile winds. She could tack, awkwardly and never pointing close, but this was a matter of straining at sheets and braces to reset, while tightly keeping the helm lest she lose steerage way or go worse out of control. In these airs, it must be done again and again, day or night, with scant warning or none.

Ingeborg could just cook and keep house, work amply rough. Eyjan had the strength to stand watches and help at lines and tiller; she brought fresh fish aboard, aided by several dolphins whose curiosity kept them nearby; she navigated in mermaid wise. Mainly the undermanned craft depended on Tauno's muscles. Yet he—regretting now that none of the original crew had been spared, dangerous though that would have been afloat and at home—could not have been the sole deckhand. He needed the lesser might of Niels, as well as the boy's redes.

It was not that Niels was experienced, even as much as a fisher lad his age. He had only been on a few short trips before this one. But he was quick to learn, eager to ask; he dreamed of a berth on a better vessel and maybe, maybe, in a far tomorrow, if God willed, a captaincy of his own. What shipmates could or would not explain, he got from other men when in port, his friendly manner making them glad to oblige him. In this present peril, he observed more keenly than ever, and from this he also learned, fast.

Thus, too busy to notice it, he found himself skipper. If he had any thoughts to spare before tumbling into what little sleep offered itself, they were of Eyjan. She readily smiled at him. A few times she gave him a quick hug or kiss, when something had gone well, and his spirit soared on gull wings to the sun. But there had been no further lovemaking—scant moments for it, and belike the merman's children with no heart for it, so soon after their brother's death.

Early on, Niels decided to work north. In the neighborhood of Iceland they should get a favoring current, and improve the chance of a wind fair for their goal. Indeed, erelong they were making good speed. Cheer lightened weariness.

Then the tempest smote.

Darkness raved. Ingeborg knew day must be aloft—in Heaven, if no place else, where the Lord sat in judgment on sinners—for she was not altogether blind. Nonetheless, vision barely reached the length of the hull.

She had no duties left on deck; any fire in the clay hearth upon it was doused at once and food became a swallow of salt flesh, dry cheese, stockfish, sodden flatbread, wormy biscuit. At last, however, the gloom and stench of the hold grew unendurable, and she groped her way topside. Wind and hail harried her into what shelter was beneath the poop. There she waited alone, since the helm was lashed and Niels slumbered exhausted below.

When the weather first turned menacing, he had had a sea anchor built and cast out and the sail struck. To run before the blast could all too well mean piling into a reef or island of the many that ring northern Scotland…unless a following billow came over the stern and broke the vessel asunder. His device would keep her bow on, for the least possible damage, and he could ray for an end to the blow before she drifted to her doom. Meanwhile, he and his crew would not be idle. They must man the pumps for hours each day as seams opened, they must hasten to make repairs or make things fast afresh when the waters hammered and hauled, they must maintain what lookout they were able against the dread sight of breakers.

Time had gone on, measureless as a nightmare.

Ingeborg took hold of the tiller to steady herself against wild leaps and plunges. The gale struck inward, plastered the drenched garments to her skin, dragged at her like a river in spate. She was drowned in its clamor, in the earthquake rumble of waves and their roars when they burst, in cold that bit through her very numbness.

Straining ahead, she saw the mast reel across murk, amidst hail and scud. Its top whipped. Though the yard was down, secured on deck, how long could wood and rope take that strain? Combers boomed ahead, onrushing mountains, black and iron-gray under the jaggedness of their crests. Spray sheeted when they passed the bow; the hull shuddered. Brawling onward, they loomed above the rails. Often and often
Herning
did not respond soon enough to her tether, and fury cataracted across her main deck. Hatch coamings sprung, the hold had become swamp-wet.