The Merman's Children

by Poul Anderson

  Thus matters stood when the slavers found her.

  It was a day to keep fishers at home and merchants at wharfs. Ever strengthening, squalls blew from the west, whistle, white-caps, rain-spatters out of flying gray overhead. Vanimen tried to work clear of the lee shore, but recognized anon that there was no way. Forward of him, across a pair of riotous miles, he descried a substantial island, close in against the mainland. He gauged he could make the channel between, which would give shelter. Roofs warned of human habitation, but that couldn’t be helped and they were not many.

  He placed himself on the poop deck, where he could stand lookout and shout commands to a crew that had gained a little skill. Naked for action, they scampered about or poised taut for the next duty. Much larger was the tale of females and young whom he sent below to avoid their becoming a hindrance. Those could have joined the swimmers, as a few like them had done; but most mothers feared what riptides and undertows might do to snatch their infants from them, among the rocks of these unknown shoals.

  Another craft came over the vague horizon while the merfolk were making their preparations. She was a galley, lean, red-and-black painted, her sail furled and she spider-walking on oars. The figurehead glimmered gilt through spume, a winged lion. From this and her course, Vanimen guessed, out of his scanty infor-mation, that she was Venetian, homeward bound. Puzzlement creased his brow; she was no cargo carrier-and would have been in convoy were that the case-but seemed too capacious for a man-of-war.

  He cut off his wondering and gave himself to the rescue of his own vessel. It took experience and wit, as well as an inborn feeling for the elements, to guess what orders he should give helmsman and deckhands. Therefore, in the following hour, he paid the stranger small heed. . . until Meiiva, who had been on watch in the bows, breasted the wind and joined him.

  She tugged his elbow, pointed, and said above shrillness:

  “Look, will you? They’re veering to meet us.”

  He saw she spoke truth. “When we’ve naught for hiding our nature!” he exlaimed. After a moment wherein he stood braced against more than rolling and pitching, he decided: “If we scurried to don clothes, it might well seem odder than if we stay as we are. Let’s trust they’ll suppose we’ve simply chosen to be unen-cumbered; we’ve seen sailors naked ourselves, you recall, since we passed the straits out of the ocean. Likeliest the master only wants to ask who we are. He’ll hardly draw so close that he can tell we’re not his kind-too dangerous in this weather-and wet hair won’t unmistakably proclaim that it’s blue or green- Pass word among the deckhands to have a ~are how they act.”

  When Meiiva returned to him, the galley was straight upwind and Vanimen wrinkling his nose. “Phew!” he said. “Can you smell? She reeks of dirt, sweat, aye, of misery. What devilment does she bear?”

  She squinted. “I see a number who wear metal, and I see weapons,” she replied. “But who are those in rags, huddled amidships?”

  That became clear when the distance between had shortened. Men, women, children, dark-skinned, heavy-featured, were chained at wrists and ankles. They stood, sat, slumped, shuddered with cold, sought what tiny comfort was in each other’s nearness, beneath the pikes of lighter-complexioned guards. Unease gripped Vanimen. “I think I know,” he told Meiiva. “Slaves.”

  “What?” She had never met the human word.

  “Slaves. People taken captive, sold and bought and forced to

  toil, like the beasts you’ve watched drawing plow and cart. I’ve heard of the practice from men I’ve talked with. No doubt yonder vessel is returning from a raid on southerly foreigners.” Vanimen spat to leeward, wishing he could do it oppositely.

  Meiiva winced. “Is that true?”

  “Aye.”

  “And yet the Maker of Stars favors their breed above all else

  in this world?”

  “I cannot understand, either... .Hoy, they’re hailing us.”

  No real speech could cross the barriers of wind and language.

  A lean man, smooth-shaven, in corselet and wildly plumed helmet, peered until Vanimen’s skin crawled. At last, however, the galley fell off and the Liri king gusted a breath of relief.

  By now the island loomed dead ahead, with nasty surges at its foot. His whole attention was required to maneuver the hulk into the safety of the channel. Right rudder! Heave the yard about!

  Pole out the starboard clew! Feel violence go through timbers-

  did the keel grate on something?-suddenly she finds calm, but

  that means loss of steerage way-

  Incredibly, the ship came to rest.

  Vanimen stared back and forth. They were in a strip of water

  which merely chopped. Shores rose on either hand like walls. The stonn hooted, but save for sparse, vicious raindrops was blocked off; air felt less raw here than outside. The mainland was wooded behind a strip of beach. Trees and ruggedness half hid a cluster of buildings on the island. No people or dogs were in sight. Nor was other bottom, whose presence he had awaited and planned against.

  He turned his mer-senses upon the water itself, and found its saltiness was thinned. A bit further north, a river must flow from the continent into the sea. No doubt the estuary contained a harbor, which he guessed was fair-sized; pieces of trash and globs of tar bobbed in his view. That would be where humans docked. The confonnation of land hid it from him, and him from it.

  He felt certain the blow would end before nightfall. Then the quest could continue. Meanwhile- He sagged back against the taffrail. Meanwhile, here was peace. Let there be sleep. The need for it took him like a billow.

  Meiiva screamed.

  Vanimen slammed awake. Around a cliff came the galley. Her

  oars churned a stonn of their own. She was upon the hulk ere the menfolk below were out of the hatches. Their king had an instant to remember that he captained a ship whereon a man he murdered had cursed him.

  Grapnels bit fast. A boarding bridge thunked down. Over it, armed and armored, boiled the Venetians. They had sent their merchandise to the hold and were after more.

  When they suddenly noticed the strangeness of these victims, web feet, hues of hair, eldritch features, several of them recoiled. They cried out, crossed themselves, made as if to stampede back. Tougher ones bellowed, swung swords on high, urged the attack onward. Their chief whipped a crucifix from about his neck and raised it next to his own blade. That gave courage. The prey were naked, nearly all unarmed, mostly female or small.

  Under bawled commands, the raiders deployed, fonned a line, advanced to box Vanimen’s followers in the stern. Weapons, helms, mail-no mere strength could stand before that. Nor did merfolk know aught of war. Those on deck retreated in horror; those who had not emerged ducked back down into the hold.

  Swimmers came to the surface and raged around. “Don’t!” the king shouted as they sought to climb the rope ladder. “It’s death or worse!”

  Easy would be to join them and escape. He saw the first pas-sengers jump from deck. But, leaped through him, but what of those who were trapped below? Already the enemy surrounded the hatches.

  He himself would embrace oncoming spearheads before he went into fetters, a market, the dust and dung, whippings and longings that would be his existence as a slave. Or he might be made a show. . . once when ashore he had seen a bear, weeping pus around the ring in its nose, dancing without hope at the end of a chain while onlookers laughed. . . . Did those who trusted him not have a right to the selfsame choice?

  And they bore too much of Liri; the sea-wives loose in the water were too few to keep the tribe alive.

  He was their king.

  “Forward!” he roared. Planks thundered beneath his charge.

  His trident lay in a cabin, but he had his thews. A pike thrust

  at him. He caught the shaft, wrenched it free, whirled the butt around, dashed a brain from the skull. Clubbing, stabbing, kick-ing, trampling, bellowing, he waded in among the foe. A man got behind him and lifted an ax to
cleave his spine. Meiiva arrived, knife in her grasp, hauled back the fellow’s chin and laid his throat open. Mermen who had been deckhands rallied, joined those twain, cast their might and deep-seated vitality against whetted steel. They cleared a space around one of the hatches. Vanimen called to the mermaids. They and their children poured forth, to the rails and overboard. For them, his little band stood off the humans.

  On the castle of the galley, crossbowmen took aim.

  The merfolk might well have won that battle-had war been

  in their tradition. They had no training, though, no skill at the slaughter of people they had never met before. Vanimen should not have bidden the swimme,rs stay. He realized that after the iron closed back in on him, and cried out for their help; but they heard him not through the din, and merely moved about, bewildered. Some took crossbow quarrels in their bodies, as the shooters no-ticed them.

  Two or three on board died likewise. The Venetians there recovered formation, counterattacked, made a melee that smeare the deck with blood. Most of those they slew were females and young on the way out, but they got every mennan on the hulk save for Vanimen.

  Dimly, he felt himself pierced and slashed. Somehow-Meiiva beside him, striking out like an angry cat-he forced a path. Together they reached the side and sprang.

  Salt water took him as once his mother had. He sank into cool green depths, his friends swanned close, none but their dead were left behind, he had saved them from slavery, his task was done and now he could rest. . . .

  No. The blood streamed out of him, dark to see, bitter to taste. Those were great wounds; he must go ashore where they could be properly stanched, or else join the slain. Likewise others, he saw through tides of murk. Female after female, child after child, had suffered hurt.

  “Come,” he did or did not tell them.

  They reached the mainland, coughed their lungs clear, and

  crept from their sea.

  No doubt the Venetians too were shaken by the encounter. They kept to galley and hulk for an hour or more. Meanwhile, in their sight, the fugitives cared as best might be for the injured, with moss, cobwebs, woven grass that bound a gash tight.

  Once more their lack of soldierliness betrayed that folk. They should have swum off as soon as treatment was done, despite certain loss of the most badly lacerated. Vanimen would have made them do so. But he lay half in a swoon and there was no proper second in command. The rest crouched where they were, frightened, desultorily talking, never agreeing to a single action.

  The slavers observed and plucked up resolution. Weird though yonder beings were, they could be overcome, to sell for a much higher price than any Saracens or Circassians would fetch. The master of the galley was a bold man. He reached his decision and issued his orders.

  Carefully but swiftly, he rowed toward land. Alanned, a num-ber of Liri people ran right and left, where they might re-enter the channel. Crossbow volleys sent them scuttling back, save for a couple who were killed. With detennined leadership, the whole group could have won past. However, Vanimen was barely re-turning to wakefulness. It was patent that he could not swim any distance. Meiiva laid his arm across her shoulders, upheld his weight, and took him lurching inland, where forest offered con-cealment. For lack of any better example, the tribe milled after them. It was exactly what the Venetian had hoped for. If they scattered into the brush, many would elude him, but he would take many others. Ducats danced before his eyes.

  The ground sloped sharply. Guided by his leadsman, he cast anchor just within the galley’s draught and dropped the boarding bridge to a point higher up. Men who ran down it found themselves in water only to their stomachs, and hurried ashore. The prizes were vanishing under trees, among brakes and soughing shade. The hunters followed.

  They might well have seized some of their quarry, to sell into mills or circuses or peculiar brothels or, maybe, fisher servitude like a falcon’s in air. The rest would have escaped them and gone on to the fate that awaited. However, bad luck struck down on misjudgment-unless everything was the will of Heaven-and thwarted them.

  Dwellers on the island had been watching. What those saw from afar was enough to alarm; they remembered piracy and war too well, too well. Word had flown on nimble feet and a hard-driven rowboat, to the Ban’s harbor outpost and thence, on horse-back, to his garrison in Shibenik. A warcraft glided forth; a troop quickstepped along shore.

  When he saw that metal gleam into view, the slaver captain knew he had overreached himself. He had had no business in territorial waters of the Croatian kingdom. Since it was presently at peace with the Republic, he would never have gone against one of its ships. A clearly foreign vessel, clearly in distress, had been too big a temptation. Now he had better make off, and trust the Signory’s embassy to deny that any Venetian could by any stretch of the imagination have transgressed in such wise.

  A trumpet brought his m~n back. The Croatians for their part made no haste, after it grew evident that the stranger did not want a fight. They let him go. Their officers were curious as to what had attracted him in the first place. They set squads to beating the bush.

  All this Vanimen learned much later, mostly from Father Tom-islav, who in his turn deduced a good deal of it on the basis of what he heard. At the time Vanimen knew simply pain, faintness, and an uproar which sent his band groping ever further inland.

  Water was their first need, more terrible for each hour that passed. Yet they dared not return at once to the sea, when armed humans ramped along its edge and blundered in their wake. Through leafy distances they smelled a river, but also a town upon it. That they must give a wide berth.

  Unsuccessful and unprepared for a real effort, the pursuers soon gave up. It was but a tiny consolation to the merfolk. Led by Meiiva, since the king could do no more than stumble along if he had someone to lean on, they battled the woods, the always rising hills, their own thirst, hunger, exhaustion, dread, the burden of the wounded among them, the sobbing of their children. Stones, twigs, thorns cut tender webs; branches clutched; crows gibed. As wind died out, warmth and quiet lifted from the earth-heat and deafness, to these beings out of another world. Here were no tides or currents, waves or fresh breezes, food to catch or deeps to shelter in; here was just a directionless maze, the same and the same and the same. Barely could they pick a way onward.

  Infinite though it seemed, the forest was a patch, whose verge the wanderers reached about nightfall. That was a fortunate time, letting them strike across farmland to find the stream. Vanimen mumbled that they should stay on paths, which hurt feet that were already bleeding but would not leave a trail like grainfields. Oth-erwise, the trek went easier than heretofore, in cool air under kindly stars. No buildings were near. The terrain climbed and climbed.

  By midnight they sensed that more than a river lay ahead; there was a lake. Withered gullets contracted when trees appeared like black battlements over a ridge they mounted. Wildwood barred off the water. Strengthless as they now were, few of them could face another struggle through thickets: certainly not at night, when beings that wished them no good were likely a-prowl. Unnutar, whose nose was the keenest in the tribe, said that he snuffed wrongness in the lake itself; something huge lurked there.

  “We must soon drink, or we die,” Rinna whimpered.

  “Be still,” snarled a mother whose babe lay fainted in her arms.

  “Food also,” Meiiva said. Though her race needed much less,

  nourishment on land than at home, none were used to going this many hours hungry. Scores of the group were reeling in weakness; children had drained away their tears pleading for any mouthful.

  Vanimen strove to clear his mind. “Farmstead,” he croaked.

  “A well. Larder, granary, cows, pigs. We . . . outnumber the own-

  ers . . . scare them off. . . help ourselves, and quickly double back

  to the coast-“

  “Aye!” rang Meiiva’s voice. “Think, all of you. If we’ve seen no homes, then these acres belong
to a large household, rich, well-fed; it can’t be much farther off.” She took them on around the forest border.

  After a couple of hours, they did smell water closer by, plus man and cattle. They had rounded the lake and reached the upper river that empti~d into it. Indeed, two streams were flowing to-gether, with settlement near that point. The merfolk broke into a shambling run. Eastward, false dawn tinged the sky.

  Again ignorance ruined their cause. They knew so little of humankind, and that only in a corner of the North. Theyiook it for given that cultivation would center on a single estate or, at most, a hamlet-not a sizeable village of serfs guarded by a cas-tleful of men-at-arms. Some among them noticed, but had no chance to warn before madness laid hold of the rest. Like lem-mings, the Liri people sought to the water and cast themselves in.

  Dogs did not clamor, but showed instant fear. Soldiers yawning away the tail end of a night watch, came alert and shouted for comrades who were beginning to grumble out of the blankets. Even this early, it was possible to see what a wild gang were at the ford-but unclad and mostly unarmed. Ivan Subitj, zhupan at Skradin, kept his forces always on the ready. In minutes they were out of the gates. Pulsebeats later, horsemen had crossed a bridge, surrounded the strangers, urged back at lance point those who attempted flight. The riders were not many, but foot were on the way too.

  Vanimen raised both hands. “Do likewise,” he told his folk, with the last remnants of intelligence that he could summon. “Yield. We are taken.”

  V

  NOT far north of Als, forest gave way to marsh. This ran for two or three leagues behind a road that was a mere track along the strand and little used, as much from fear of halfworld creatures as because habitation was sparse between here and the Skaw. Archdeacon Magnus had not been afraid to ride past with his entourage, but he was a crusader whom God made invincible against demons. Common folk had no such comfort.

  There Herning dropped anchor, one chilly eventide. Eastward the Kattegat glimmered away till it lost itself in dusk. Westward the shore lay darkling. A last smear of sunset cast red across the water, broken by reeds, hummocks, gnarly willows. The land breeze smelled of mire and damp. A bittern boomed, a lapwing shrieked, an owl hooted, lonesome noises.