Poul Anderson - The Merman's Children

“But oh, Tauno, Tauno!” Eyjan wept. “He was so young!”

He held her close. The low waves rocked them. “Stark are the Noms,” Tauno said. “He made a good departure.”

A dolphin came to them and asked in dolphin wise what more help they wished. It would not be hard to keep the ship hereabouts, as by smashing the rudder. Presently thirst would wreak justice.

Tauno glanced at the cog, becalmed on the horizon, sail furled. “No,” he said, “they hold hostages. Nevertheless, something must be done.”

“I’ll cut open Herr Ranild’s belly,” Eyjan said, “And tie the end of his gut to the mast, and chase him around the mast till he’s lashed to it.”

“I hardly think him worth that much trouble,” Tauno replied. “Dangerous is he, though. To attack the ship herself, with the dolphins or by swimming beneath and prying strake from strake, is no trick. To seize her, on the other hand, may be impossible. Yet must we try, for Yria, Ingeborg, and Niels. Come, we’d better take food—our cousins will catch us some—and rest. Our strength has been spent.”

—A while after midnight he awoke refreshed. Grief had not drained from him; however, the keenness for rescue and revenge filled most of his being.

Eyjan slept on, awash in a cloud of her hair. Strange how innocent, almost childlike her face had become, lips half parted and long lashes down over cheekbones. Around her were the guardian dolphins. Tauno kissed her in the hollow where throat met breast, and swam softly away.

It was a light night of Northern summer. Overhead, heaven stood aglow, a twilight wherein the stars looked small and tender. The waters glimmered, barely moving, a lap-lap-lap of wavelets above the deeper half-heard march of the tide. The air was hushed, cool, and damp.

Tauno came to Berning. He circled her with the stealthiness of a shark. Nobody seemed to be at the helm, but a man stood at either side of the main deck, pike agleam, and a third was in the crow’s nest. Lanthorns were left dark so as not to dazzle their eyes. That meant three below. They were standing watch and watch. Ranild was taking no chances with his foes.

Or was he? The rail amidships lay scarcely more than a fathom above the water. One might find means to climb—And maybe kill a man or two before the racket fetched everybody else. Useless, that. Vanimen’s children had beaten the whole crew erenow; but that had been when no sailor carried more than a knife, and none really looked for a battle, and anyhow—once

Oluv was out of the way-it had been no death-fight. Also, Kennin was gone.

With naught save his upper countenance raised forth, Tauno waited for whatever might happen.

At length he heard a footfall, and the man who blotted the starboard sky called, “Well, well, do you pant for us already?”

“You’re on watch, remember,” came Ingeborg’s voice—how dragging, how utterly empty! “I could grit my teeth and seduce you if I thought the skipper would flog you for leaving your post; but so such luck. No, I left that sty in the hold for a breath of air, forgetting that here also are horrible swine.”

“Have a care, harlot. You know we can’t risk you alive for a witness, but there are ways and ways to die.”

“And if you get too saucy, we may not keep you till the last night out,” said the man on the larboard side. “That gold’ll buy me more whores than I can handle, so why bother with Cod-Ingeborg?”

“Aye, piss on her,” said the man aloft, and tried to. She fled weeping under the poop. Laughter bayed at her heels.

Tauno stiffened for a moment. Then, ducking silently below, he swam to the rudder. Its barnacles were rough and its weeds were slimy in his grasp. He lifted himself with more slowness and care than he had used in scouting the kraken’s den. Because of sheer the tiller was about eight feet overhead, in that cavern made by the upper deck. Tauno caught the post with both hands, curved his chine, and got toes in between post and hull, resting on a bracket. In a smooth motion, not stopping to wince as the bronze dug into his flesh, he rose to where he could crook fingers on the after rail; and thus he chinned himself up.

“What was that?” cried a sailor on the twilit main deck.

Tauno waited. The water dripped off him no louder than wavelets patted the hull. It felt cold.

“Ah, a damned dolphin or something,” said another man. “Beard of Christ, I’ll be glad to leave this creepy spot!”

“What’s the second thing you’ll do ashore?” A coarse threeway gabbing began. Tauno reached Ingeborg. She had drawn one breath when she saw him athwart silvery-dark heaven. Afterward she stood most quiet, save for the wild flutterings of her heart.

He caught her to him in the lightlessness under the poop. Even then he marked the rounded firmness of her, the warm fragrance, the hair that tickled his lips laid close to her ear. But he whispered merely: “How goes it on board? Is Niels alive?”

“Until tomorrow.” She could not respond with quite the steadiness that Eyjan would have shown; but she did well. “They tied and gagged us both, you know. Me they’ll keep a while-did you hear? They’re not so vile that Niels has any use for them. He lies bound yet, of course. They talked about what to do with him while he listened. Finally they decided the best sport would be to watch him sprattle from the yardarm tomorrow morning.” Her nails dug into his arm. “Were I not a Christian woman, how good to spring overboard into your sea!”

He missed her meaning. “Don’t. I couldn’t help you; if naught else, you’d die of chill. . . . Let me think, let me think. . . . Ah.”

“What?” He could sense how she warned herself not to hope.

“Can you pass a word to Njels?”

“Maybe when he’s hilled forth. They’ll surely make me come along.”

“Well. . . if you can without being overheard, tell him to lift his heart and be ready to fight.” Tauno pondered a minute. “We need to pull eyes away from the water. When they’re about to put the rope around Niels’ neck, let him struggle as much as he’s able. And you too: rush in, scratch, bite, kick, scream.”

“Do you think-do you believe-really-Anything, I’ll do anything. God is merciful, that He. . . He lets me die in battle at your side, Tauno.”

“Not that! Don’t risk yourself. If a knife is drawn at you, yield, beg to be spared. And take shelter from the fighting. I don’t need your corpse, Ingeborg. I need you.”

“Tauno, Tauno.” Her mouth sought his.

“I must go,” he breathed in her ear. “Until tomorrow.”

He went back to the sea as cautiously as he had left it. Because his embrace had wet her ragged gown, Ingeborg thought best to stay where she was while it dried. She wouldn’t be getting to sleep anyway. She fell on her knees. “Glory to God in the highest,” she stammered. “Hail, Mary, full of grace—oh, you’re a woman, you’ll understand—the Lord is with you—”

“Hey, in there!” a sailor shouted. “Stow that jabber! Think you’re a nun?”

“How’d you like me for a divine bridegroom?” called the masthead lookout.

Ingeborg’s voice fell silent; her soul did not. And erelong the watchers’ heed went elsewhere. Dolphins came to the ship, a couple of dozen, and circled and circled. In the pale night their wake boiled after them, eerily quiet; their backfins stood forth like sharp weapons; the beaks grinned, the little eyes rolled with a wicked mirth.