The Merman's Children (18 page)

“Maybe you can guess how this clawed Sena's heart, which she could never harden. A few years after she bore her last child, she withdrew into silence, and scarcely moved…only lay there in bed, empty-eyed. Though I wept when she died, ten years ago. I knew it was God's mercy. And our little daughter was still alive then, still alive for her.”

Tomislav shook himself. He uttered a laugh. “You must think me sodden with self-pity,” he said as he came back to awareness of the evening. “Not at all, not at all. God gives me many consolations: Himself, the greenwood, music, merrymaking, fellowship, the trust of my flock, and, yes, the love of their small children——”

He stared into his bowl. “This is empty,” he announced. “Yours too. Let me go tap the keg. We've time before vespers.”

When he returned, Vanimen said with care: “I also have lost children.” He did not add that he had lost them forever. “Tell me, you bespoke a girl who came late. Did she likewise die?”

“Yes,” Tomislav told him, plumping back onto the bench. “She was a lovely maiden.”

“What happened?”

“No man knows. She drowned in the lake, where she had wandered. Maybe she stumbled, hit her head on a root. For once, it can't have been the vodianoi's doing, because after many days of search we did find her body afloat——”

——bloated and stinking, Vanimen knew.

“I, I did not have her buried with her mother and the rest,” Tomislav said. “I carted the casket to Shibenik.”

“Why?”

“Oh, my thought was—oh, maybe she'd lie easier—I was dazed, you understand. The zhupan helped me get permission.”

As if springing to an attack, Tomislav leaned close and went on: “I warned you, mine would not be a very stirring tale. Besides, you've yet to outlive your own woes.”

While Vanimen had more steadiness of mind than most merfolk, he could shift a topic or a mood as swiftly as seemed desirable. “Aye, for my whole tribe,” he said. “I meant to raise this matter with you.”

“You've done that”—Tomislav attempted a smile—“in words which got pungent.”

“Merely to complain that they're still kept penned; and with females and young apart from males, I hear.”

“Well, their conduct
was
unseemly. Talk about it became a threat to public morals, Petar claimed.”

“How long must this go on?” Vanimen smote his thigh. “I see before me—how sharply I see, feel, hear, smell, taste—their misery in unfreedom.”

“I've told you,” Tomislav said. “The Ban's decision is that they be held, properly cared for, till he's gotten full information about them. I think that time draws nigh. You and I between us, we've learned much. Now that you've got the Hrvatskan tongue, you can speak with him yourself. He desires that.”

The Liri king shook his head. “When? I gather he's busy, fares up and down the realm, may be gone for weeks at a stretch. Meanwhile, I say, my people are in quiet torment. Your baron may think he feeds them well, but my own belly tells me there's too much grain and milk, not enough fish. They'll sicken—from lack of water, too. Doubtless they get ample to drink, but when were they last swimming, when were they last down below, as nature meant for them? You let me refresh myself in the brook here, but even so, I sense how my flesh is slowly parching.”

Tomislav nodded. “I know, Vanimen, friend. Or what I don't know, I can guess. Yet what may be done?”

“I've thought on that,” the merman said with rising spirit. “A short ways hence is a lake. Set us free there. A part of us on any given day, no doubt; the rest will be hostages, abiding their turns. It won't be as good as the sea, but it will sustain us, it will bring us back from what's half death.

“Besides, I gather that nobody fishes the lake.
We
could and would. It must be aswarm. We'd fetch back plenty to share with you humans. It'll more than pay the cost of keeping us. Would that appeal to your baron?”

Tomislav frowned. “It might, were the lake not accursed.”

“How?”

“A vodianoi lairs there, a water monster. It plundered nets that fishermen cast forth. When they sent boats with armed men after it, their weapons would not wound. The boats got sunken, and brave lads who could not swim were drowned. Once folk wanted a mill here, that grain need not go clear to Skradin for grinding. When they'd well-nigh finished, the vodianoi came upstream and wallowed in the millpond. Such was the terror that men destroyed what they'd made, so that it'd go back to the lake.”

Vanimen forced himself to ask: “Why has a priest like you not banned it?”

“The folk would not have that. Church and nobility think it best to heed their wish. An exorcism would drive off all beings of the halfworld from these parts, and some are believed to bring good luck. Better be denied use of the lake, and in the wildwood sometimes be tricked by Leshy—better that than have no polevik to keep blight from the crops, no domovoi to embody a household and its well-being, no Kikimora that may get the whim to aid a wife overwhelmed by work.…” Tomislav sighed. “Pagan, yes, but a harmless paganism. It touches not the true faith of the people, and it helps them endure lives that are often charged with sorrow. The Bogomils have expelled every such olden survival, wherever their sect prevails; but the Bogomils are joyless, they hate this world that God made beautiful for us.”

After a breath of two, Tomislav added in a near whisper, “Yes, that which haunts the waters and the wildwood can also be beautiful. …”

Vanimen scarcely heard. His words blazed forth, as he sprang to his feet and lifted a fist against the evening star:

“Why, this is just where we can help you, we merfolk! A chance to prove our goodwill! I myself will lead the troop that drives the monster away!”

II

T
HERE
was a man in Hadsund called Aksel Hedebo, a well-to-do dealer in the horses that were a Danish export. Ingeborg had often been with him. However, it was a surprise when she appeared at his establishment, accompanied by a straightforward-looking young fellow, and requested a confidential meeting. “We have a favor to ask,” she said, “and would make you a small gift to win your kindness.”

The finger ring she revealed, cupped in her palm to be hidden from his apprentices, was no trinket. He guessed its worth at five silver marks. “Follow me, then,” he replied, mask-faced, and led the visitors from the working part of the house to the residential, and through a door which he closed.

The room beyond was darkly wainscotted, massively furnished, with excellent glass in the windows. Aksel curtained these, which brought a dusk suitable for secrets. Taking the ring, he seated himself at a table and regarded the curious figures in the gold. “Sit down, you two,” he ordered rather than invited.

They sank to the edges of chairs. Their gaze sought him, anxious. He was fat, blue-jowled, heavy-mouthed, clad in rich garb which gave off a stronger than common smell of stale sweat. After a while he looked up. “Who are you?” he addressed Niels.

The latter stated his name, birthplace, and seafaring trade. The merchant's eyes probed and probed. They saw him, like the woman, clean, well-groomed, attired in new clothes. But the marks of sun, wind, hardship were as yet little softened upon either of them.

“What will you of me?” Aksel queried.

Ingeborg spoke: “It's a long tale. As a trader yourself, you'll understand if we hold much of it back. The short of the business is that we've come into some fortune and need help placing it. Niels, here, thinks we might best buy our way into shipping. You deal with captains, you have outland connections—surely with the…the Hanseatic League, is that right, Niels? If you can send us to a suitable man, with your own persuasion that he hearken”—she flashed the smile she had used in the marketplace—“you'll not find us niggards.”

Aksel tugged at a lock of black hair. “A queer offer, from such as you,” he said presently. “I must know more. How big is this fortune, and how did you win it?”

His glance went to the purse which hung plump at Niels' belt. Within that leather were coins of the realm, which should excite no remark. Ingeborg had gotten them from a goldsmith in town whom she likewise knew, a man ready to run his risk of the law finding him out when she would sell him a lump of precious metal at well below its true value. She and her companion bore far more wealth on them in the form of pieces sewn into their garments, but this was against unforseen need in the near future.

Her tone remained cool: “What the sum truly comes to, that'll depend on what we can do with it—wherefore we seek your counsel. It's treasure trove, you see.”

Aksel stiffened. “Then it's the Crown's! Do you want to be hanged?”

“No, no, naught like that. Let me tell. You must remember Herr Ranild and his cog, how he left earlier in the year on a voyage that he was close-mouthed about, and has not been heard of since. Niels was a crewman, and Ranild brought me along.”

“Hoy?” The dealer recovered from his surprise. “Hm, well, folk hereabouts did wonder what had become of Cod-Ingeborg. But a woman at sea, she's bad luck.”

“No,” Niels denied in quick anger.

Ingeborg gestured him to keep still and went on: “He was shorthanded and in haste. I could be useful.”

“Yes,” Aksel snickered. Niels glared at him.

Ingeborg kept her head aloft. “Besides,” she said, “word had come to me, as word of this or that often does. Put together with what Ranild heard in different wise, it pointed at a treasure to be gotten, out of a heathen burial in a midocean place. Thus, no robbery, no sacrilege, no withholding of anybody's due.

“Gold awakened greed, though, and led to killing. You recall what ruffians those were, save for Niels. Afterward a terrible storm smote. The upshot was that only we two are left alive of the souls who fared forth upon
Herning
, and the ship is lost. But we brought certain metal ashore, and now we mean to have the good of it.”

Silence fell, until Aksel snapped. “Is this true?”

“I'll swear to you by every saint, or whatever oath you wish, that each last word is true,” Ingeborg said. “So will Niels.”

The youth nodded violently.

“Hm, hm.” Again Aksel tugged his greasy hair. “You've spun me half a thread of your yarn.”

“I told you we would. The reasons why need not trouble you.” Ingeborg grinned. “What did you ever tell your wife about me?”

She grew earnest again, tautened still more, and urged, “You stand to gain much for slight effort and no hazard. We seek not to overstep the law. Rather, we want guidance to keep us within it. At the same time, it'd be foolish to blab, when a mighty man can always find some pretext to strip us bare.”

“Ye-e-es,” Aksel agreed. “you're clever to see from the outset that you need a patron, who'll shield you and get you into a trade where you can prosper quietly.” He frowned at the ring, which he turned over and over on the table before him.

“The Hansa,” Niels blurted. “Their ships carry most cargoes throughout the North, don't they? I hear how the cities of the League grow ever greater—kings fear them——Could I become a shipowner of theirs——”

Aksel shook his head. “Scant hope there, lad. I know them well. They're grasping devils, jealous of what they have, unfriendly to outsiders, chary of aught that might upset by the least bit the power of a magnate or a guild. For instance, Visby on the island of Gotland, Visby grants broad freedoms to merchants, but only if they're Gotlander born. I think if you went to one of those uncrowned princes, he'd just lead you on till he saw how to get you wrung dry, and belike me into the bargain.”

Niels flinched. Ingeborg laid a hand over his. “There must be somewhere to go!” he protested.

“Maybe, maybe,” Aksel said. “You've caught me off guard. Let me think——” He set the ring twirling on the table. Its whirr seemed unnaturally loud. “Um-m-m…Copenhagen…big seaport, enfeoffed to the bishop of Roskilde, who lets no guilds take root there….aye, each burgher pursues his trade under license of his own from the city authorities….Maybe. I know hardly anything more, for little of my stock goes that way.”

“You see,” Ingeborg said, “if you allow yourself to, you can help us. Take time to think onward. First, if I know you, you'll dicker about your price.”

Aksel lifted his face. They saw it harden. “Why are you sure I will?” he demanded.

“What mean you?” Ingeborg replied. Niels stared in dismay.

“You've told me well-nigh naught, and what you did tell is doubtless lies.”

“Remember, we'll both swear before God to the truth of it.”

“Perjury would be petty among your sins, Cod-Ingeborg.” Aksel thrust forward his jaw. “Your story strains belief. Far likelier is that you twain unearthed a hoard in Denmark—unless you committed murder on the high seas; and the gallows punishes that too. Would you drag me down with you? Wariness beseems me.”

The woman considered him. “You act the coward, then.”

“I'm a law-abiding man who has a household to support.”

“Shit! I said you
act
the coward, like a strolling player. I know you, I know your kind,” Ingeborg avowed in huge scorn. “You've decided, all at once, you'll rob us yourself. Well, you can't do it. Dismiss us to try elsewhere, or bargain like a decent scoundrel.”

Niels shifted about and laid hand to the sailor's knife he wore.

Aksel made a smile. “Ah, now, my dear. It's only that I've no wish either to flirt with the hangman. I need assurance—to start with, a look at that hoard.”

Ingeborg rose. “Come, Niels. Here is nothing for us.”

“Wait.” Aksel's tone stayed calm. “Sit down. Let's talk further.”

Ingeborg shook her head. “The years have given me a nose for treachery. Come, Niels.”