The Merman's Children (31 page)

Eyjan saw and tried awkwardly to give comfort. “You've become better off than most, haven't you? Niels is pleasant to live with, and I've seen how he wants your counsel on different things; you're no mere pet of his.”

“True. Yet I'm his kept woman, whom no respectable housewife will have to do with if she can help it. Nor, of course, any respectable man. They greet me politely enough, those merchants and nobles and sea captains, but a greeting is where it stops. What they talk to Niels about, I may or may not hear from him afterward. And he's busy, must be much away from home. I can't bring down his standing by growing friendly with any of our servants. Oh, less lonely was that shack on the strand.” Ingeborg uttered a laugh. “I don't suppose it's in you to pray thanks for what you have, Eyjan, but be glad of it.”

“Have you no better hope, then?” the Liri princess asked low.

The woman shrugged. “Who can tell? I do know full well how lucky I am, and learned years ago how to keep an eye cocked for the next chance that flits by.”

“As Niels' wedded wife——”

Ingeborg shook her head, hard. “No. He offered me that, but I could see how relieved he was when I refused. What does he want with a former harlot who has no family connections and can't even give him sons? No, when he weds, out I go…oh, quietly, honorably, his protecting hand over me as long as we both live, and maybe a sleeping together now and then for old times' sake—nevertheless, out.”

She struggled with herself before she could say: “If ever he does wed. His passion for you may grow too strong in him. With me he can be frank about it; many's the time I've held him close while he wept for you; but another—Spare him that, Eyjan, if by any means you can.”

“How?” asked the other. “Your ways are not mine.” After a moment: “Is that immortal soul of yours truly worth a woman's having?”

Ingeborg shivered. “God forgive me,” she breathed, “I do not know.”

Spring ran wild with blossoms and birdsong, a season of love, a season of forgetfulness and farewells. The cog
Brynhild
raised sail, slipped her moorings, and departed on the tide. Until she was hull down, Ingeborg and Niels stood on the dock, waving.

Then: “Well,” she said, “we had them for that span.”

His fist was clenched as if to strike, his vision lost along the horizon. “She promised she'd come back,” he mumbled. “At least once, to tell me how she fares. If she can. If she lives.”

“In the meantime,” she told him sharply,
“you
have your work. I…should look wider about me than hitherto, I suppose.” She took his arm. “No use dawdling here. Come, let's go home.”

On deck, Tauno watched land, water, sails pass by, drank deep of the air, and said, “Finally we're out of that stinkhole! None too soon. I felt myself starting to rot.”

“Are we better off here?” Eyjan replied. “They cared for us, yon two.”

“Aye, they've been staunch.”

“More than that. What they spent of themselves on us—where else can we find it, ever?”

“Among our own kind.”

“If those are as we remember them. And even if they are——” Eyjan's voice trailed off. After a stillness, during which the ship bore onward until the last spire in Copenhagen was lost to sight, she finished: “This will be a long voyage, brother mine.”

As the days and weeks of it lengthened,
Brynhild's
men grew aware of something uncanny about their passengers. Not only were Herr Carolus and Lady Sigrid curt-spoken, downright moody, given to hours on end of gazing across the waves or up at the stars, or to staying latched in their cubicles, with the command that they desired no meat or drink brought them. No, a couple of mariners thought they had glimpsed one or the other slipping forth by night and overside. Nobody saw either of them climb back aboard; however, the owner had issued an odd standing order, that a rope ladder always be trailed aft for the sake of a hand who might fall into the sea—as if sailors could swim! Whether or not there was anything to this (Captain Asbern Riboldsen reminded his crew of what a notoriously superstitious and gullible lot their sort was), certainly the two never joined in common prayer, but said they would liefer perform their devotions in private. Devotions to whom? The mutter went that here were a sorcerer and a witch.

Still, sureness about it was lacking. Carolus and Sigrid gave no outward offense, nor did any grave trouble arise for the ship. At the same time, foul winds and dead calms showed that nobody was hexing the weather. Moreover, Niels Jonsen and his partner were known as fine fellows who'd surely not beguile poor seamen into trafficking with evil. He had let the crew be warned that this was a singular voyage, unlike any that they had heard tell of, venturesome as a cast of dice in a Visby tavern…but with good pay, good pay.

Thus, however much folk puzzled, things went peacefully on the whole: down the North Sea, through the English Channel, around Britanny, down the Bay of Biscay and along the Iberian shores—with a wary lookout for Moorish cruisers from Africa—and through the Gates of Hercules. Thereabouts Captain Asbern engaged a pilot to show the way onward. It helped much that Herr Carolus knew the language of that Majorcan adventurer (how?). And so, toward midsummer, the cog reached Dalmatia, and worked her way up that coast.

VI

W
ITH
horses and servants engaged in Shibenik, Herr Carolus and Lady Sigrid took the road to Skradin. The satnik had sent a message ahead from town to castle, and the zhupan had dispatched a military escort for his distinguished visitors. The party made a brave sight as it wound into the mountains, metal agleam, plumes and cloaks tossing in many colors, hoofs plopping, harness jingling, beneath cloudless heaven. Warmth baked strong, sweet odors out of the beasts, ripening fields of grain and hay on the right, greenwood tall on the left.

Nonetheless Tauno wrinkled his nose. “Faugh, the dust!” he said in Danish, which lent itself better than the Liri tongue to such matters. “My insides are turned to a…a brickyard. Can you believe merfolk would freely settle down ashore?”

Her palfrey beside his gelding, Eyjan gave him a stiff look out of the wimple that concealed her mane. “It may not have been freely,” she replied. “What
did
you find out?” As the man of them, he had necessarily done the talking, Panigpak's gift hung inside his shirt. Eager to converse with such a stranger, the Croatians had left him no time until now for any real speech with her.

“Little,” he admitted. “I dared not press the question hard, you know, when it's not our ostensible business. And I'm not skilled at slyly sucking his knowledge out of anybody. I could but remark in passing that I'd heard rumors and was curious. Folk shied away from the subject. That seemed to be less because they thought it uncanny than because those above them have discouraged mention of it.”

“But you did confirm that merfolk are living there where we are bound?”

“Aye, and also that sometimes they come down to the coast by two or threes, and swim about. That would be needful for their health, of course, but it's said they do useful tasks like charting shoals and finding out where fishing is best. Lately, as well, a number of males have departed on ships, in the service of the duke or whatever his title is here. A war is starting up; I'm not clear as to why or who the enemy is.” Tauno shrugged. “Our host to be can doubtless tell us more.”

Eyjan regarded him closely. “Under that sour mien, brother,” she murmured, “you're a-tremble to meet them again.”

“Are you not?” he asked, surprised. “It's been a weary search”—voice and eyes dropped—“and this latest voyage the loneliest part of it all.”

Her own gaze grew troubled and she averted it. “Yes. On
Herning
, and later in Denmark, we had two who loved us.”

“But our own people——”

“Wait and see.” She would say no more. Tauno felt downright relieved when the captain of the guards drew close and engaged him in respectfully fascinated colloquy.

Though the birdflight distance between Shibenik and Skradin was not great, the road twisted far to avoid the woods, and departure had been somewhat belated. Thus the sun was low when folk reached the village, its rays golden through cool air, shadows huge before it. Riding along a street toward the castle, the merman's children glanced about with heart-quickened interest. Houses were wooden, roofed with turf or thatch, as in the North; but the style of them, and the gaudy paint on most, was foreign, as was the onion-domed church at one end. Humans who paused to stare at the procession were often tall and blond, but mainly round of skull and high of cheekbones, their garb of a cut and ornamentation never seen at home. They appeared well fed, and they did not cringe from the soldiers but their men offered cheerful hails. As elsewhere in Dalmatia, women kept meek in the background, several of them more heavily burdened than was common in
Brynhild's
country.

Abruptly Tauno stiffened in the saddle. His stare went from a shawl-wrapped face, across whose brow stole a greenish curl, to bare, webbed feet below the skirt. “Raxi!” he bawled, and jerked on the reins.

“Tauno, is it you, Tauno?” the person cried in their olden language. Then she shrank back, crossing herself over and over as the Hrvatskan words poured from her: “No, God have mercy, Jesus have mercy, I mustn't, Mary help me——” She whirled about and ran stumblingly around a corner, out of his view.

Tauno made as if to leap down after her. Eyjan seized him by the wrist. “Hold, you fool,” she snapped.

He shook himself, caught his breath, fell still, clucked his horse back into motion. “Aye, they are a startling sight,” the guards captain said. “But fear them not, my lord. They're good Christians now, good neighbors, loyal subjects of the King. Why, I'm thinking I might marry a daughter of my own to some young fellow among them.”

Beside Ivan Subitj to welcome his guests was a priest, not the zhupan's chaplain but a robust, rough-clad graybeard introduced as Father Tomislav. While a repast was being prepared, and Lady Sigrid resting in the chamber lent her, these two discoursed privately with Herr Carolus.

That was high in the watchtower, where a room commanded a splendid overlook across the countryside. Westward the sun had dropped under the forest which hid the lake. Light still tinged wings of swallows and bats which darted around a violet sky. Thin mists were rising to sheen across the fields. Closer gleamed the conjoining rivers, farther to northward and eastward the Svilaja peaks. It had grown very quiet outside.

Dusk softened Ivan's mutilated face, but there was iron in his voice as he stiffened on his bench and ended a time of amenities: “I sent for Tomislav, Gospodar Carolus, because he of everyone knows most about the merfolk—maybe more than they do themselves—and I understood from reports brought me that you were inquiring about them.”

“That was kind of you, sir,” Tauno replied uneasily. He wet his lips with a sip of wine. “You needn't have gone to so much trouble or, or keep so close a watch on me; but thank you.”

“Naught is too much for a nobleman from abroad who may be establishing connections among us. Maybe, though, you'd like to tell me, Gospodar—since it doesn't seem nigh your purpose—why you are this interested in the merfolk?” Like a whipcrack: “I can't imagine why else you'd have come to this offside place.”

Tauno's free hand found comfort in the hilt of his knife. “Well, we do have a race of the same kind in Northern waters.”

“Bah!” burst from Tomislav. “Stop that nonsense, both of you. Ivan, your manners are abominable. If you suspect this wight is a Venetian spy, say it forth like an honest man.”

“Oh, no, oh, no,” protested the zhupan hastily. “However, we do have a new war, and in the past couple of years we've met such weirdness——My duty is to be careful, Gospodar Carolus. And truth to tell, you haven't sounded as if you knew these Hrvatskan kin of yours as well as you might, considering how perfectly you speak their language.”

“Does that make him hostile?” snorted the priest. “Look here, not only have the merfolk worked no evil, they do vital service. And surely the coming of that many pure Christian souls makes God smile on our land.” His tone changed, fell to a near whisper beneath which lay a sob. Tauno saw tears start forth. Yet joy welled up from the depths: “If you want a sign on that, Ivan, why, remember the vilja is gone. This spring she came not out of the waters to haunt the woods. Nobody has found one trace of her. If…if she really was the phantom of…a suicide…under judgment…then God must have pardoned her and taken her home to Paradise—and why else but that He was pleased at the salvation of the merfolk?”

His heart a lump within him, Tauno asked slowly, “So it's true what people seem to believe, that they were baptized and lost all memory of what they had been?”

“Not quite,” Tomislav answered. “By rare grace, they keep their past lives, their knowledge and skills in aid of our poor countrymen. It's a long story, but marvelous.”

“I…would like to hear.”

The humans considered Tauno for a silent while, wherein darkness thickened. Ivan's gaze grew less distrustful, Tomislav's ever more kind.

At last the zhupan said, “Well, I suppose there's no reason why you shouldn't. I make a guess you've surmised most of it already. I think, too, that you've your own reasons for being here, which you've not let out; but I dare hope they're innocent.”

“Better than innocent,” Tomislav added. “Andrei—Vanimen that was—he told me about certain children of his who were left behind.…You needn't say more till you feel safe in doing it, Carolus. Let me help you understand that you're among friends. Listen to the tale, ask whatever questions you will.”

Even ashore, Tauno could move snake-softly when he chose. None saw him glide from his room, down a corridor and a stairway, forth into the shadow and mist of the court, through an open gate where a pair of sentries nodded at their pikes. Once out among the villager homes, he stalked upright, for nobody was awake and no dog would dare bark. The sky was clear, amply starful. Evening chill had quenched the stenches of habitation enough for his nostrils to pick out the odors he sought: a hint of waters more deep and broad than any baptismal font.