The Merman's Children (27 page)

Margrete, whose flesh had been Yria, came out into the cloister arcade and halted. Not yet a novice, she was attired in a gown and wimple that suggested the black Augustinian habit. While she had gained inches and the shapeless raiment could not entirely hide waxing fullness of breasts and hips, it was still as if a child stood there, huge-eyed in the delicate face, lips timidly parted.

Ingeborg advanced to take her hands, “Margrete, dear,” she greeted. “You know us not, but you know of us. We're your friends, come to help you.”

The girl shrank back. “They told me I must see you,” she whispered.

“Ha! What else have they told you about us?” Niels snorted. “You're a prize they'll not gladly yield. The pilgrim trade——”

Ingeborg frowned over her shoulder. “Hush,” she said. “This is no time for bickering.” To Margrete: “All we wish of you is that you listen to us, and ask whatever questions you like. It's in private because some persons might be harmed, did the tale go abroad. You must swear you'll breathe no word of it yourself, unless you hear something wicked that you'd sin if you kept hidden. You won't, I promise. The tale is of those who cared for your wellbeing enough to stake their lives in the cause—your brothers and sister, Margrete.”

“I haven't any,” the maiden stammered. “Not any more.”

“Would you disown them? Why, you'd be in the sea today, unless you'd died the way an animal dies, save that they brought you ashore. Sit down.” Ingeborg urged Margrete to a bench. “Pay heed.”

A flaw of wind swooped into the court, raw and boisterous. A cloud passed overhead like a white banner. Crows laughed.

The story of the merman's children was soon told, for Niels and Ingeborg softened it much. Margrete's pallor grew more deep at first, but later blood coursed visibly through her cheeks.

“The upshot is this,” Niels finished. “The lords temporal and spiritual who're concerned know only that I'd fain honor a pledge to a comrade, and that my confessor gives me leave. The bishop of Roskilde has supported me stoutly throughout; we've become friends of a sort. Besides, donations in my name, made in…hm…thankfulness to the saints…they bring more of the gold to the Church as a whole, without drawing dangerous remark. Also, he agrees it's right you should have an inheritance from your kin—for of course he's aware by now that they, the halflings, led that faring, though I've held back from letting out more to him.

“Well, a fortune awaits you in Copenhagen. Bishop Johan's found a family—the man's a rich merchant—who'll be glad to adopt you, see to your upbringing, make you a fine marriage. You're welcome to ride thither with us, if you want.”

“I've met the family,” Ingeborg added. “They're good, kindly, sensible; there's peace in that home.”

“Liveliness too,” Niels smiled. “You'll enjoy yourself.”

“Are they pious?” Margrete asked.

“The bishop picked them, didn't he?”

The girl sat mute for a spell, in the blustery day. “I had some forewarning of this,” she said finally, staring at the flagstones. “Mother Ellin was hard set against it——”

“Are you happy here?” Ingeborg inquired.

“What has become of…Tauno and Eyjan?”

Margrete did not see the pain that crossed the others. “We know not,” said Niels. “Since more than a year.”

Ingeborg laid an arm around the girl. “Are you happy here?” she repeated. “If you truly are, why, stay. You can deed your legacy to the convent, or do whatever else you want with it. We came just to give you your freedom, darling.”

Margrete drew a sharp breath. Her fingers clung to her knees. “The sisters…are…kind. I…am learning things——”

Ingeborg nodded. “But you share Tauno's blood.”

“I ought to stay. Mother Ellin says I ought!”

“Those who rank her say you needn't,” Niels reminded.

“Oh, I
would
like children——” The slight form bent over in weeping.

Ingeborg sought to embrace her. Margrete pulled away, rose, retreated to a pillar and hugged that while the sobs racked her. Man and woman waited.

Presently, still hiccoughing but with calm welling up from within, the maiden turned around to them and said:

“Yes, I must pray for guidance, but I do think I'll go. Best it not be with you, though. Could you get me a different escort for, oh, next week?”

“We can abide that long in Viborg,” Niels offered.

Margrete stood stiffly before them and forced the words forth: “No, please not. I should see you two no more than needful, ever. For I am a living sign of God's grace, and you—I've heard about your ways—oh, do mend them, do marry! Shun those halflings, too, for your salvation's sake, unless you can get them to take baptism. But I don't suppose you can, and—yes, they were very good to me, I'll pray for them if the priest says I may—but impurity and soulless things out of heathendom are not for Christian people to consort with, are they?”

Book Four

VILJA

I

P
ANIGPAK
said it was necessary to wait until snow had fallen and igloos could be built. That time soon came. For three days and the three nights in which they were but a glimmer, the angakok fasted. Thereafter he went alone into the mountains while men made a house of a size that would hold everybody. They lined it with tent hides, but over a ledge opposite the doorway they laid a bearskin.

When folk were gathered there after dark, Panigpak's name was called thrice before he entered. “Why are you here?” he said. “This person cannot help you. I am only an old fool and liar. Well, if you will have it so, I will try to bamboozle you with my silly little tricks.”

He went to the ledge and stripped himself naked. The others already were unclad to the waist, or altogether, for the heat in the igloo was stifling. Lamps made sweat sheen, eyes glisten; the sound of breath was like surf. He sat down, and a man called Ulugatok bound his arms and legs with thongs that cut into the flesh. Panigpak gasped for pain but otherwise uttered naught.

The helper laid a drum and a dried sealskin nearby, before he joined the crowdedness on the floor. “Put out the lamps,” he said. “Stay where you are, whatever happens. To go to him now is death.”

Blackness rolled in, save for one tiny flame which did not make the angakok visible. He began to sing, a high-pitched rhythmic chant, louder and louder. The drum beat, the dry skin rattled, sounds which came from elsewhere in the murk, sometimes here, sometimes there, sometimes overhead, sometimes below ground. Slowly the people started singing with him. It came to possess them, they lost themselves in it, swayed back and forth, writhed across each other, spoke in tongues, howled and screamed. The madness gripped Tauno and Eyjan as well, until even with Faerie sight they did not know when or how Panigpak departed.

He was gone. The song quavered onward, endless as winter night. The Inuit were beside themselves, out of themselves.

Now, said their belief, the angakok swam downward through the rock to the underworld, and out below the waters. He passed the country of the dead; he passed an abyss where whirled eternally a disc of ice and boiled a cauldron full of seals; he got by a guardian dog, greater than a bear, which bayed and snapped at him; he crossed a bottomless chasm on a bridge that was a knife blade; and thus at last he came before huge, one-eyed, hostile Sedna, whom some call the Mother of the Sea.

It was as if time had gone on to Doomsday Eve when finally Ulugatok called, “Quiet! Quiet! The shadow ripens.” He dared not give aught its true name here—a man must be a shadow, his approach must be its ripening—lest the spirits hear and strike. He quenched the single flame, for it would kill Panigpak did anyone see the angakok before he had put his skin back on, that he left behind when he went below.

Utter lightlessness brought a sense of spinning, falling, rushing helpless on a stormwind whose noise echoed off unseen heaven. Then the drum began anew, and the crackling sealskin. Ulugatok droned forth a long magical chant in words that nobody else knew. Perhaps its chief purpose was to bring calm. He did not stop until the only sound was the crying of frightened children.

Panigpak's voice came weary: “Two of us must die this winter. But we will find abundance of meat, the fish will swarm, spring and summer will be mild, the Neighbors will go away. I have also word for our guests, but must speak to them later, alone. It is done.”

A man groped through the dark, sought a nearby hut for fire, returned and kindled the lamps. Panigpak sat on the ledge, bound by the thongs. Ulugatok went to release him. He fell back and lay swooned for a while. When he opened his eyes, he saw Tauno and Eyjan among those beside him. He tried feebly to smile. “It was nothing,” he muttered. “Just lies and tomfoolery. I am an old swindler, and no wisdom is in me.”

The Inuit did not talk about such things once they had happened. It was with diffidence that Panigpak himself sought out the siblings, after he had had rest and nourishment. The three went off to the strand.

That was in weather clear and cold. After a glance at the world, the sun was slipping back down, afar in the south. Its rays made steely and blue the forms of two icebergs which plowed by through gray waters. Sheet ice was forming along the coast, though as yet too thin to venture forth upon. Fulmars went skimming above; their cries came faintly to those who stood on the snow-covered shingle.

“Nothing in the sea is hidden from her beneath it,” Panigpak said, more gravely than was his wont. “Well did she know of your people, Tauno and Eyjan. Somebody had to compel her to disgorge a word, as he must compel her—if he can—to release the seals in a season when they are few for our hunting. She is not friendly, Sedna.”

Tauno clasped the angakok's shoulder. Silence lengthened.

Eyjan lost patience, tossed her ruddy locks, and demanded, “Well, where are they?”

Wrinkles tightened in Panigpak's face. He stared outward and said low, “It is hard to understand. Something has happened that vexes even her. You must help this lackwit speak, for you will grasp much that he cannot. Thus, while dry land is beyond Sedna's ken, she does have names for many parts along the coasts. She got them from drowned sailors, I think. I remember the sound of them—one does not forget anything out of that place—but they mean nothing to my ignorant self, though doubtless they will to you.”

Given what he related, his interrogators could piece together much of the tale. The Liri folk had taken a ship, belike seized by them, from Norway. They were bound for Markland or Vinland—the Norse hereabouts no longer knew just which of the reports west of them lay where—when a tempest smote. That must have been the same whose edge battered
Herning
. The other vessel suffered its full might and duration. She was driven clear back to Europe. From their father's teaching, Tauno and Eyjan were sufficiently well versed in that geography to recognize that he had then steered into the Mediterranean. The spot where he ended his voyage was in no part of their information, but Panigpak did give them names—the island of Zlarin, the mainland of Dalmatia—which they could inquire about later. It seemed the merfolk had there been attacked, and had fled afoot.

What followed was perturbing, baffling. They must be in the same vicinity, those who lived, for they still appeared offshore: one or a few at a time, for short spans. Otherwise Sedna marked them no longer. And something had changed them, they were different from erstwhile, in a way she could not speak of but which filled her, the very Mother of the Sea, with foreboding.

——Tauno scowled. “Ill is this,” he said.

“Maybe not,” Eyjan replied. “Maybe they've found a charm that lets them enjoy a new home inland.”

“We must seek them out and learn. We'll need human help for that.”

“Aye. Well, we were going to Denmark anyhow, on Yria's account.”

Panigpak studied the twain with eyes that had seen a lifetime's worth of grief. “Perhaps,” he said quietly, “someone can give you a little help of another sort.”

On a calm night, stars filled the jet bowl above until it was well-nigh hidden, save for the silver band across it. Their light, cast back off snow, let Bengta Haakonsdatter, who was now Atitak, walk easily along a slope above the dale. Breath wafted white as she spoke, though it did not frost the wolfskin fur of her parka hood. Footfalls crunched; else her voice alone broke the silence.

“Must you leave this soon? We would be happy to keep you among us—and not really because of the fish and seal you take in such plenty. Because of yourselves.”

Beside her, Tauno sighed: “We've kindred of our own yonder, who may be in sore plight, and whom we miss. In spite of the kayaks promised us—they should indeed let us travel faster than by swimming—the journey will take weeks upon weeks. We must hunt along the way, remember, and sleep, and often buck foul winds. We're well rested, after the tupilak business. Truth to tell, we've lingered more time by far than was needful. Soon the Inuit will be rambling about. If we went along, we could hardly start home before spring.”

The woman gazed at his starlit nakedness, took his hand in her glove, and dared ask, “Why have you stayed at all, then? Eyjan is restless, I know. It's been you who counseled waiting.”

He stopped; she did; he faced her, reached into the hood to stroke her cheek, and answered, “Because of you, Bengta.”

He had been living as part of Minik's household, and Minik was glad to lend her to him. They were only apart when it seemed, mutely, that she should join her husband for a sleep, and Tauno the first wife Kuyapikasit, lest feelings be hurt. (Eyjan bore herself not like a female, but like a hunter who shifted from family to family as the whim took her. She had enjoyed every man in the camp.)

Bengta stood quiescent. He could barely hear her: “Yes, it's been wonderful. If you must go, will you return afterward?”