Poul Anderson - The Merman's Children

Herning plowed through day and night, squall and breeze, until she raised what Tauno and Ranild agreed were the southern Orkney Islands. That was toward evening: mild weather, fair wind, cleat: summer night and a full moon due. They saw no reason not to push on through the narrows after sunset, the more so when the brothers offered to swim ahead as waterline lookouts. Eyjan wanted to do the same, but Tauno said one must stay back against possible disaster like a sudden onslaught of sharks; and when they drew lots, hers was the short straw. She cursed for minutes without repeating herself before she calmed down.

Thus it happened that she stood alone on the main deck, near the forecastle. Another lookout was perched aloft, screened from her by the bellying sail, and a helmsman was under the poop, hidden in its shadow. The rest, who had leamed to trust the halflings in watery matters, snored below.

Save for Niels, who came back and found Eyjan there. The moonlight sparkled on her tunic, sheened on her face and breast and limbs, lost itself in her hair. It washed the deck clean, it built a shivering road from the horizon to the laciness of foam on small waves. They slapped very gently on the hull, those waves, and Niels, who was barefoot, could feel it, because the ship was heeled just enough that he became aware of standing. The sail, dull brown with leather crisscrossing by day, loomed overhead like a snowc peak. The rigging creaked, the wind lulled, the sea murmured. It was almost warm. Far, far above, in a dreamy half-darkness, glinted stars.

“Good evening,” he said awkwardly.

She smiled at the tall, frightened boy. “Welcome,” she said.

“Have you...may I...may I join you?”

“I wish you would.” Eyjan pointed to where the luminance picked out a couple of widely spaced roilings on the port and starboard quarters. “I long to be with them. Take my mind off it, Niels.”

“You-you-you do love your sea, no?”

“What better thing to love? Tauno made a poem once—I cannot put it well into Danish-let me try: Above, she dances, clad in sun, in moon, in rain, in wind, strewing gulls and spindrift kisses. Below, she is green and gold, calm, all-caressing, she whose children are reckoned by shoals and herds and pods and flocks beyond knowing, giver and shelterer of the world. But farthest down she keeps what she will not ever let the light see, mystery and terror, the womb wherein she bears herself. Maiden, Mother, and Mistress of Mysteries, enfold at the end my weary bones!. . . No.” Eyjan shook her head. “That is not right. Maybe if you thought of your earth, the great wheel of its year, and that... Mary? . . . who wears a cloak colored like the sky, maybe then you could—I know not what I am trying to say.”

“I can’t believe you’re soulless!” Niels cried softly.

Eyjan shrugged. Her mood had shifted. “They tell me our kind was friendly with the old gods, and with older gods before them. Yet never have we made offering or worship. I’ve tried and failed to understand such things. Does a god need flesh or gold? Does it matter to him how you live? Does it swerve him if you grovel and whimper? Does he care whether you care about him? “I can’t bear to think you’ll someday be nothing. I beg you, get christened.”

“Ho! Likelier would you come undersea. Not that I could bring you myself, My father knows the magic for that; we three don’t.” She laid a hand over his, where he gripped the rail till his fingers hurt: “Yet I would fain take you, Niels,” she said low, “Only for a while, only to share what I love with you,”

“You are too, . . too kind,” He started to go. She drew him back.

“Come,” she smiled, “Under the foredeck are darkness and my bed,”

“What?” He could not at once comprehend, “But you but—”

Her chuckle cuddled him, “Fear not, We sea-wives do know the spell that keeps us from conceiving unless we wish it,”

“But—only for sport—with you—”

“For sharing of more than pleasure, Niels,” However gentle, the pull of her hand on his arm became overwhelming,

Tauno and Kennin did not swim watch for naught. They called up warning of a rock, and alter of a drifting boat, perhaps broken loose from a ship that was towing it, These were trafficked waters this time of year, Ranild felt cordial toward the brothers when they came aboard at dawn,

“God’s stones!” he bawled, laying hand on Kennin’s shoulder. “Your breed could turn a pretty penny in royal fleet or merchant marine,”

The boy slipped free. “I fear the penny must be prettier than any they own,” he laughed, “to make me stand in an outhouse breath like yours,”

Ranild cuffed after him, Tauno stepped between. “No more,” the oldest halfling rapped, “We know what work is to be done and how the gains are to be shared. Best not overtread-from either side,”

Ranild stamped from them with a spit and an oath, His men growled,

Soon afterward Niels found himself circled by four off watch, up on the poop, They cackled and nudged him, and when he would not answer them they drew knives and spoke of cutting him till he did. Later they were to say it was not really meant, But that was then. At the time, Niels broke through, tumbled down the ladder, and ran forward.

The merman’s children lay asleep beneath the forecastle. It was a blue day of blithe winds; a couple of sails were on the horizon, and gull wings betokened the nearness of land.

The slumberers woke with animal quickness. “What’s wrong now?” asked Eyjan, placing herself beside the human youth. She drew the steel dagger that, like her brothers, she had gotten Ingeborg to buy for her with a bit of Liri gold. Tauno and Kennin flanked them, harpoons in hand.

“They-oh—they—” Red and white flew over Niels’ cheeks. The tongue locked in his mouth.

Oluv Ovesen shambled ahead of Torben, Faile, and Tyge. (Ranild and Ingeborg slept below; Lave was at the helm, Sivard on lookout in the crow’s nest; these last watched with drool and catcalls.) The mate kept blinking his white lashes and peeling lips back from his yellow teeth. “Well, well,” he hailed, “who’s next, good slut?”

Eyjan’s eyes were flint gray, storm gray. “What mean you,” she answered, “if ever a yapping cur means anything?”

Oluv stopped two ells short of those threatening spears. Angrily, he said: “Tyge was at the tiller last night and Torben at the masthead. They saw you go beneath the foredeck with this milksop boy. They heard you two whispering, thrashing, thumping, and moaning.”

“And what has my sister to do with you?” Kennin bristled.

Oluv wagged a finger. “This,” he said: “that we went along as honest men with leaving her alone; but if she spreads her legs for one, she does for all.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because we’re all in this together, you. And anyway, what right has a sea cow to give herself airs and pick and choose?” Oluv sniggered. “Me first, Eyjan. You’ll have more fun with a real man, I promise you.”

“Go away,” said the girl, shaking with fury.

“There’s three of them,” Oluv told his crewfolk. “I don’t count little Niels. Lave, lash the tiller. Hallohoi, Sivard, come on down!”

“What do you intend?” Tauno asked in a level voice.

Oluv picked his teeth with a fingernail. “Oh, nothing much, fish-man, if you and your brother are sensible. We’ll hogtie you for a while, no more. Else-Easy with that lance. We’ve pikes and crossbows we can fetch, remember, and we’re six against you.” He laughed. “Six! Your sister’ II soon be thanking us.”

Eyjan yelled like a cat. Kennin snarled, “I’ll see you in the Black Ooze first!” Niels groaned, tears breaking loose; one hand drew his knife, the other reached for Eyjan. Tauno waved them back. His mer-face was quite still within the wind-blown locks.