The Merman's Children

by Poul Anderson

When the weather first turned menacing, he had had a sea anchor built and cast out and the sail struck. To run before the blast could all too well mean piling into a reef or island of the many that ring northern Scotland... unless a following billow came over the stem and broke the vessel asunder. His device would keep her bow on, for the least possible damage, and he could ray for an end to the blow before she drifted to her doom. Meanwhile, he and his crew would not be idle. They must man the pumps for hours each day as seams opened, they must hasten to make repairs or make things fast afresh when the waters ham-mered and hauled, they must maintain what lookout they were able against the dread sight of breakers.

  Time had gone on, measureless as a nightmare.

  Ingeborg took hold of the tiller to steady herself against wild

  leaps and plunges. The gale struck inward, plastered the drenched garments to her skin, dragged at her like a river in spate. She was drowned in its clamor, in the earthquake rumble of waves and their roars when they burst, in cold that bit through her very numbness.

  Straining ahead, she saw the mast reel across murk, amidst hail and scud. Its top whipped. Though the yard was down, secured on deck, how long could wood and rope take that strain? Combers boomed ahead, onrushing mountains, black and iron-gray under the jaggedness of their crests. Spray she’eted when they passed the bow; the hull shuddered. Brawling onward, they loomed above the rails. Often and often Berning did not respond soon enough to her tether, and fury cataracted across her main deck. Hatch coarnings sprung, the hold had become swamp-wet.

  Through driving spindrift and ice, Ingeborg made out Tauno and Eyjan, shadowy at the forecastle. They seemed to be in con-verse. (How?) Abruptly Ingeborg choked on a scream. Tauno had vaulted overboard.

  But he is the son of a merman! she swore to herself. He can live in that. Yes, he’s spoken of a nether, eternal peace. .. . Mary, ward him. . . . .

  Eyjan came aft, which brought her into clearer view. Nude save for headband and knife belt, she seemed free of chill. Rather, her red locks, heavy with water, made the single touch of warmth inside a hidden horizon. The pitching of the craft did not trouble her panther gait.

  She entered the aftercastle. “Ah, Ingeborg,” she greeted, now sufficiently close to be heard. “I spied you clambering out-for a breath of air, however bitter, no?” She reached the woman and stopped. Through hands cupped between mouth and ear, her tones were more distinct. “Let me keep you company. It’s my watch, but I can as well sense danger from here-maybe better, without that cursed hail stinging me.”

  Ingeborg lifted a palm from the tiller to screen her own voice:

  “Tauno, where has he gone?”

  The cleanly molded visage starkened. “To ask the dolphins if they can find help for us.”

  Ingeborg gasped. “God have mercy! Do we need it that much?”

  Eyjan nodded. “We’re nigh to land. He and I have felt how

  the sea is shoaling when we’ve ventured into it. Its pulse-aye, we’ve caught the first echoes of surf. And the weather shows no sign of letting up.”

  Ingeborg stared into the gray eyes. “At least, if we’re wrecked, he can live-“ She realized she had whispered.

  Perhaps Eyjan guessed. “Oh, poor dear!” she cried. “Can I give you comfort?”

  Her tall form stepped between the woman and the wind. She held out her arms. Ingeborg released the helm and stumbled into that embrace. It upbore her against lunge and roll, heat flowed from softness of breasts and live play of muscles, she could cling as if to the mother she half remembered.

  Talk went easier, too. “Fear not, beloved friend,” Eyjan mur-mured. “If we see shipwreck before us, Tauno and I will take you and Niels on our backs, well clear of breakers. We’ll bring you ashore at a safe place, and afterward fetch aid from your own kind.”

  “But the gold will be lost.” Ingeborg felt the grasp around her

  tighten. “He couldn’t likely get another ship, could he? Everything

  he fared after and staked his life for; everything it means to him-

  and he could still die. Could he not? Eyjan, I beg you, don’t. . . you

  two. . . risk yourselves for us-“

  Agnete’s daughter held her close and crooned to her while she wept.

  Tauno came back with word that the dolphins were in search. They knew of a creature that might be able to help, could they find him. Little more had they said, because they themselves understood little. They were unsure whether the being would un-derstand them in his turn or be willing.

  That was all Tauno related, for he had barely returned when the forestay parted. The end of it, lashing back, passed an inch from Eyjan’s neck. Appalled, he chased after it, caught and fought it as if it were a bad beast, got it hitched to the mast: where he saw that that was beginning to crack. Eyjan resisted when he would bend on a new stay. He could fall down onto the deck, to death or the slower death of crippling. Let him pump instead, if he could not take a moment’s ease.

  Night fell, the short light night of Northern summer gone tomb-black and age-long.

  Morning brought dusk again. Spindrift hazed the world; a wrack flew low overhead. The seas were massive as before, but choppier, foam-white, turbulence waxing in them as they neared the shallows and the rocks beyond. Anchor or no, the cog reeled like a man who has taken a sledgehammer in his temple.

  Tauno and Eyjan had spent the darkest hours topside and we still on watch, a-strain after signs of ground. The gale had drained strength from them at last; they huddled in each other’s arms against its cold and violence. Once be wondered aloud if power remained for him to keep a mortal’s face above water.

  “Maybe we cannot,” Eyjan replied through shrieks and rum-bles. “If things come to swimming, do you take Ingeborg and I Niels.”

  “Why?” Tauno asked, dully surprised. “He weighs more than she does.”

  “That makes small difference afloat, you know,” she told him, “and if they must die, they would liefest it were thus.”

  He did not pursue the question; and presently they both forgot it.

  A shape had appeared alongside. Glimpsed among waves, whenever the cog dipped her larboard rail, it was that of a large gray seal. They had wondered why such an animal would accom-pany them. Afterward they believed that already they had snuffed an odor of strangeness, though the storm confused every sense too much for them to mark this at the time.

  Suddenly Herning stood well-nigh on her beam ends. A wave climbed aboard. Upon it, amidst it, rode the seal. The ship rolled back and forth toward a more even keel. Water torrented through her scuppers. The seal stayed behind. He raised himself on front flippers... change boiled through his flesh... a man” crouched there.

  He rose to confront the stupefied siblings. They saw he was huge, a head above Tauno, so broad and thick that he seemed squat. Hair and beard grew sleek over his head, gray in color, as was the woolliness which everywhere covered his otherwise naked form. The skin beneath was pale. He reeked of fish. His face was hideous, save for the eyes—Iow and cragged of brow, flat of nose, gape-mouthed, the heavy jaw chinless. Those eyes, though, shone between lashes a queen might envy: big, softly golden brown, without whites: unhuman. .

  Tauno had clapped hand to knife. Stiffly, he let go the hilt and raised his arm. “Welcome, if you come in friendship,” he said in the Liri tongue.

  The stranger answered with a deep, barking tone but with mortal words. “Dolphins tauld that wha’ drew me. Could be a woman here, to reck by their chatter. You’re no true woman or man, from your smell, nor true merfolk, from your looks. Wha’, then, and who?”

  The speech he used was intelligible, akin to Danish. Norse settlers had come to the islands off Scotland in Viking times; most of those places remained under the Norse crown; the tongue of the ancestors lived on in a western version, side by side with Gaelic.

  “We’re in sharp need,” Eyjan said. “Can you help us?”

  The reply cut straight through every storm-noise: “Maybe,
if

  I will. Small mercy ha’ I known for mysel’. Ha’ ye more aboard?”

  “Yes.” Tauno lifted the nearest hatch and shouted a summons to Niels and Ingeborg, who slept.

  They scrambled up within heartbeats, alarm stretching their countenances. When they saw the newcomer, they halted, drew breath, unthinkingly linked hands.

  The were-seal’s glance fell on Ingeborg and stayed. Step by step, he crossed the deck toward her. She and Niels stood fast, apart from their struggle not to fall. She paled and the youth stiffened as his hairy fingers, with nails like claws, reached forth to stroke her cheek. The mark of desire rose before them.

  And yet he was gentle, merely touched her, joined gazes only while his lips trembled upward in shyness. Thereupon he turned back to the siblings and said, “Aye, I’ll help, for her sake. Thank this lady, the three 0’ ye. Hoo could I let her droon?” Hauau, he named himself, and told that he dwelt on Sule Skerry. Few of his kind were left; maybe he was the last. (That was believable, since no one in Liri had ever heard of them.) From earliest days, men had hated the selkie race and hunted it down.

  Hauau thought that might be because its members raided the nets of fishers, like their kin the true seals but with human skill and cunning. He was not sure, for he had been alone since he was a pup, with just a dim recollection of his mother and what she sang to him. He had escaped after men arrived in a boat, cornered her, and cut her apart. It seemed to him he had heard them calling on Odin; be that as it may, the thing happened long ago.

  This came out in scattered words, as did the story of the trav-

  elers. Foremost was the toil of surviving. Herning could no more

  be let drift; lee shores were too close. Besides a stay snapped,

  with need for replacement, the mast was now badly cracked and

  must be reinforced. A pair of extra spars fetched from below,

  lashed tight, should serve. . . . ,

  Hauau’s strength was enormous. He held Tauno and Niels on his shoulders while they worked on the pole. Without him, worn as they were, belike they could never have raised the yard and its sodden sail, nor hauled hard enough on the sheets to keep mastery. Forsooth, were he not there to do a triple share of pumping, the hull would have filled.

  Still more astonishing was his seamanship. Having explained to his companions what each order he gave would mean, and drilled them in this, he took the helm when they saw surf rage upon clustered rocks. Battered, leaky, sluggish, the cog nonethe-less came alive in his hands. It was very near, but they did claw off that trap, and the next and the next. They stayed afloat, they even won back sea room.

  As if realizing it could not have them, the storm departed.

  III

  “AYE, well can I see ye harne,” Hauau growled. “But firSt we maun caulk, sprung as this old tub is, or she’ll nae last half the coorse.”

  Bast for that purpose was stowed aboard. Ordinarily the ship would have been careened, but Tauno’s crew lacked the needful manpower, besides not daring to lie ashore. Worse than the aI-ienness of Faerie folk, the gold would rouse murder against them. Siblings and selkie could work beneath the waterline, hammering fiber into manifold leaks. Best would have been to tar it on the outside. .Since this was impossible, Ingeborg s~ed fire. anew on the cooking hearth and kept hot a kettleful of pItch for NIels, who applied it inboard. After a pair of hard days, the task was done. Herning still required occasional pumping, her entire hull re-mained badly weakened, but Hauau deemed her close enough to seaworthy.

  When his fellows had enjoyed a long sleep and broken their fast, he gathered them on deck. It was a quiet morning above mirror-bright water. Gulls cruised air which was blue, with a few clouds as white as their wings, and growing warm. On the horizon off the starboard bow lay a streak of solidity, Ireland.

  Tauno and Eyjan sprawled their big fair bodies naked on the planks. Ingeborg was likewise unclad, her filthy raiment soaking overside at the end of a line. So was Niels’, but he kept a cloak tightly around himself, and would not sit. Whenever his glance touched the female forms, flame and snow chased each other through the down on his cheeks.

  Hauau hulked in front of them, his hugeness grotesque athwart the day. The hoarse tones coughed from him: “I think we’d be rash tae try beating back aroon’ Scotland and across the North ISea. The vessel wants nursing every fathom o’ the way. Best we pass doon through the Irish Sea, aroon’ through the English Chan nel, and thence past Friesland tae Denmark. ‘Tis nae doot a length-ier passage, but belike milder. Too, coasting, should worst come tae worst, we’ll know we can get the humans tae shore alive.”

  “Can you pilot?” Tauno asked. “We’re none of us familiar with these parts.”

  “Aye, that I can, and warn ye as well wha’ kinds 0’ ship tae steer clear 0’ when we spy their topmasts. The King 0’ England has captains wha’ be harder tae deal wi’ than pirates.”

  Eyjan stirred. Her gaze upon the selkie grew intent. “You’ve saved us from wreck, you’ll bring us to haven,” she said low.

  “What reward shall be yours?”

  Hauau’s chest swelled, he struggled to speak, it broke forth in a bellow: “Ingeborg!”

  “What?” the woman cried. She raised knees in front of breasts, clutched them with her left arm, traced the Cross with a right hand that shook.

  The were-seal half reached toward her. He also shivered.

  “Whilst we, we sail,” he stammered. “Only whilst we sail. I’ll

  be gentle, I promise. Och, ‘tis been lang alane-“

  She looked from him, to Tauno. The halfling’s face drew into bleak lines. “You’ve done too much for us that we should force you,” he said.

  Silence grew while she stared at him.

  Hauau stirred at last. His shoulders slumped. “Aye, grumly

  am I,” he mumbled. “I’d stay on anyhoo, but I couldna stand tae see-Farewell. I think ye can mak’ hame wi’oot me. Fare ever well.” He moved toward the rail.

  Ingeborg sprang up. “No, wait,” she called, and ran to him. He stopped, agape. She took the great clawed hand in hers. “I’m sorry,” she said; her voice wavered and tears stood in her eyes.

  “I was just startled, do you understand? Of course I-“

  He barked wild laughter and caught her in a bear hug. She wailed for pain. He let go. “Forgi’ me,” he begged. “I forgot. I’ll be gentle, I will.” .

  Niels stepped forward, bleached about the nostrils. “No, In-

  geborg, don’t,” he said. “We’ve sin aplenty on our souls-and

  you-“

  Her own laughter clattered. “Why, you know what I am,” she retorted. “Here is naught really new. . . is there?”

  Eyjan rose, took Niels by the shoulder, whispered into the tangled blond locks that hid his ears. He gasped. Tauno found his feet. He and Hauau locked eyes. “You will treat her kindly,” he said, fingers on the haft of his knife.

  Nights were lengthening and darkening as summer wore on, but this one was clear, countlessly starry, ample light for Faerie vision. Herning sailed before a breeze that made the channel blink with wavelets. It rustled and gurgled along the bows; now and then an edge of sail flapped, a block rattled, a timber creaked-small sounds, lost in the hush-until Hauau roared in the forepeak.

  Later he came forth beside Ingeborg, to stand looking outward. Tauno had the helm, Eyjan was in the crow’s nest, but neither paid them any open heed. “I thank ye, lass,” the selkie said hum-bly.

  “You did that already,” the woman replied, with a nod at the darkness under the foredeck.

  “I canna do it again?”

  “No need. A bargain is a bargain.”

  He continued to gaze across the water. His grip closed hard on the rail. “Ye dinna like me at all?”

  “I meant not that,” she protested. Inch by inch, she moved a hand until it lay across his. “You’re our rescuer and, yes, you are better to me than many I remember. But we are of, well, sundered kin, mortal and, a
nd other. What closeness can ever be between us?”

  “I’ve watched your een upon Tauno.”

  In haste, Ingeborg asked, “Why didn’t you try Eyjan? She’s

  beautiful where I’m plain, she’s of your halfworld, and I think she might enjoy-not that I regret, Hauau, sweet.”

  “Ye’ll grow used tae the smell,” he promised bitterly.

  “But why will you have me?”

  He stood long mute. Finally he turned to her, fists clenched,

  and said: “Because ye be in truth a woman and nae fay.”

  She raised her glance toward his. The stiffness began to leave her body. “My folk slew yours,” she said as if in confessional.

  “That was hundreds 0’ years agone. We’re well-nigh forgotten on land, and the auld grudge wi’ us. I dwell in peace, afar on Sule Skerry-wind, waves, gulls the ainly speakers, limpets and barnacles the ainly neighbors-at peace, save for storm and shark, whilst winter follows winter-but sometimes it grows dreegh, d’ye ken?”

  “Bare rock, bare sea, sky without Heaven. . . . Oh, Hauau!” Ingeborg laid her cheek on his breast. He stroked her with clumsy care.

  “But why have you not sought elsewhere?” she wondered after his heart had tolled threescore slow beats.

  “I did when younger, wide aboot, and many’s the kittle thing I did see. But by and large, wha’ Faerie people I met wad ha’ small part 0’ me. They saw me as ugly and looked na deeper, for tae them, naught lies below the skin.”

  Ingeborg lifted her head. “That’s not true. Not of every half-

  worlder, at least. Tauno- Tauno and Eyjan-“

  “Aye, so it do seem. ‘Tis good 0’ them tae provide for their sister. Natheless. . . in humans like you is more. I canna name it. A warmth, a, a way 0’ loving. . . is it that ye know ye maun dee and therefore cleave tegither the wee span ye hae, or is it a spark 0’ eternity. . . a soul? I dinna ken. I know nobbut that in some men, and in more women, I hae felt it, like a fire on a cauld night. . . . Ye hae it, Ingeborg, bright and strong as e’er I cheered mysel’ by. Reckon yoursel’ lucky in your sorrows, for that ye can love as much as ye do.”