The Merman's Children

by Poul Anderson

  IV

  JOHAN Kvag, bishop of Roskilde, often had business in Copen-hagen, for he was its liege. In a private room of the house he kept there, he sat long silent while he considered, from his seat whereon were carved the Apostles, the young man in a plain chair before him. Ordinary clothes and Jutish brogue hardly accorded with the gold, given to Mother Church, that had persuaded his major-domo to arrange this audience.

  “You have told me less than you could, my son,” he finally said.

  Niels Jonsen nodded. His self-possession, at his age and station in life, was remarkable too. “Aye, my lord,” he admitted. “Some might suffer, did the whole tale come out. But I swear before God that I’ve spoken no lie to you, and won the treasure in no wrongful way.”

  “And now you would share it with my see. If your reckoning of its worth is correct, that would be a donation an emperor could scarcely match.”

  “I’ll leave the dividing to you, and trust in your fairness.”

  “You’ve small choice,” the bishop said dryly. “You’ll not stay

  alive, let alone grow wealthy, without protection.”

  “I know it well, reverend excellency.”

  Johan cupped his chin. “And still you bargain,” he murmured.

  “You forget the danger to your spirit that lies in worldly riches.”

  “My priest can steer me clear of that, I hope,” said Niels.

  “You are a cocky one, aren’t you?”

  “No disrespect, sir. But if naught else, I’ve people I’d like to

  help, beginning with my mother and her brood. Besides, the way the Hansa’s pushing in, meseems the kindgom should be glad of a big shipowner who’s Danish.”

  The bishop’s gravity broke in a laugh. “Well spoken!”

  Niels’ countenance lightened. “Then you’ll take me on?”

  “Not that fast, my son, not that fast. There are certain con-ditions to meet. First, though you keep a secret or two from me, you must tell all to a priest, that he may shrive you.” The sunburnt face drew downward. Johan smiled and added: “I’ll send you to Father Ebbe of St. Nicholas’. That’s your patron, and Ebbe is of seafaring stock himself, lenient about things that others might find overly peculiar.”

  “A thousand thanks, my lord.”

  “Next you must lead trusty men to the hoard, unbeknownst,

  for them to examine it.” The bishop bridged his fingers. “We must be careful. If it’s as great as you claim, we cannot bring it forth overnight. Wars would ensue for its possession, on whatever pre-text. Few years ago, this city was under Norwegian attack; and when I think of the German dukes—Yes, I suspect our wisest plan in the end will be to leave the major part buried.”

  “But you can do so much good with it,” Niels protested.

  “Gold cannot buy more in aid of the poor than the land can

  produce. Nor are clergy immune to temptations, of which the worst may be those of power.”

  Johan raised a reassuring palm. “Certainly we’ll have use for considerable amounts,” he went on. “They can be introduced in discreet fashion. Likewise for your career, my son. Not only dare you not burst flamelike into opulence; you’ve much to learn ere you can successfully lead a company.

  “We’ll explain that you’ve come into an inheritance, and that I have found you worthy of my favor. This should raise few questions. Folk will suppose you’re the bastard of a well-off man, perhaps kin of mine, who’s died.” At Niels’ scowl: “Nay, no reflection on your mother’s honor. It’s merely what they’ll take for granted, a common kind of event which occasions short-lived gossip, if any.

  “In due course, I’ll have you made a burgher, and you can get your licenses for trade. . .. Look less impatient, lad,” the bishop chuckled. “I’ve no intolerable length of time in mind.”

  “You’re generous, your reverence.” Niels clenched fist on knee. “But some matters can’t wait very long.”

  Johan nodded. “True. You bespoke your family. And doubtless you anticipate pleasures. No vast harm in that, if amidst them you still remember God. And maybe you’ve a venture or two you’d like to begin on at once, that’s within your present abilities? Well, none of these things is impossible, for you will admittedly have money. Your need is just to hold covered how large the sum is.” Joy blazed at him. “Go with my blessing. We’ll talk further to-morrow.”

  The moats, walls, watchtowers that guarded Copenhagen were stately. Within them, however, most of the city was houses wooden and thatch-roofed, jammed together along narrow, crooked, mucky streets. The folk who crowded it were mainly laborers, their drabness relieved here and there by the flamboyant rags of a juggler or fiddler; traffic was mainly afoot, save for wagons forcing through with a bow wave of curses. Beggars and foreign seamen gave strangeness but hardly more color. A mounted knight, a rich merchant, a famous courtesan in her litter, would stand out as much by rarity as by finery. Swine, poultry, dogs, children wandered about. Noise went like surf, voices, feet, wheels, hammers. Raw beneath a low gray sky, the air reeked of smoke, dung, offal, graveyards.

  And yet, Niels thought, the saying was true: this was indeed free air. It bathed him with hope, made him drunk on dreams. Here was the womb of the future. He could almost set aside the longing for Eyjan that ever querned within him-almost-in this place so utterly sundered from everything of hers.

  He reached the inn where he was staying, hurried through the taproom with a bare wave to the landlord and the drinkers, thudded upstairs and along a hallway. The Blue Lion was for those who could afford the best that became a commoner: clean, safe, with a pair of bedroom for hire in addition to the general one. He knocked on a door of the former.

  Ingeborg let him in. She had bought an image of the Virgin and stood it on a shelf. He saw from wrinkles in her gown that she had been praying. Her gaze sought his, she trembled and parted her lips but could not speak.

  He closed the door. “Ingeborg,” he said, “we’ve won.”

  “O-o-oh. . . .” A hand went to her mouth.

  “The bishop agrees. He’s a fine fellow. Well, he does want

  to move slowly, but that’s all right, that’s wise. Our luck has turned.” Niels whooped. He danced where he stood, for the bed left scant floor space. “Our luck, Ingeborg! No more poverty, no more toil, no more whoredom-the world is ours!”

  She crossed herself. “Mary, I thank you,” she whispered.

  “Aye, me too, we’ll light many candles, but flfst let’s rejoice,”

  Niels babbled. “We’ll feast this eventide, I’ll have the kitchen get whatever you like and cook it for you, we’ll have wine and tapers and music—Oh, Ingeborg, be glad. You deserve gladness.”

  He clasped her waist. She regarded him through tears. “Teach me how to be happy,” she asked.

  He fell moveless, staring down at her. It came suddenly to him that she was fair to see, full figure, gentle features, luster of brown eyes and billowing hair. They had kissed before, but quickly, in simple friendliness. Now the whiplash need was off him-off them both. He’d wondered in fleeting moments how that would feel, being free to remember Eyjan all the time. Now he knew; but here was Ingeborg.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, amazed.

  “Niels, no,” She tried to draw back. He pulled her against him.

  Her mingled scents of woman were dizzying. The kiss went on and on.

  “Niels,” she breathed shakily into his bosom, “do you under-stand what you seek?”

  “Yes, Ingeborg, darling.” He lowered her to the bed.

  · Afterward, as they lay resting in embrace, she said, “I beg one thing of you, Niels.”

  “It’s yours.” He stroked the softness of her back.

  “Never call me ‘love,’ or ‘dearest,’ or any such word, as you

  were doing.”

  He lifted his head off the bolster, astonished. “What? Why not?”

  “We have only each other. Gold or no, it’ll be long before we’ve friends w
e can trust. Believe you me. Then let there be no lies between us.”

  “I care for you!”

  “And I for you. Very, very much.” Her lips brushed his cheek.

  “But you are too young for me, too good—“

  “No.”

  “And it’s Eyjan you yearn for.”

  He had no answer to that.

  She sighed. “It’s Tauno for me, of course,” she owned. “I fear

  we’ve neither of us any chance. Well, maybe I can guide your heart toward a mortal maiden.”

  “What of you?” he asked through her tresses.

  He felt her shrug. “I’m tough. Besides, whatever happens,

  while we stay honest, we have each other.”

  V

  A MARBLE fireplace made warm a chamber which maroon hangings and Persian rug softened. While window glass gave a view-hardly distorted at all-of an inner court where blooming had long since ended, roses from a solarium planter filled a crystal vase on an inlaid table. Books numbered a score, both Greek and Latin. Pavle Subitj, Ban of Hrvatska, was in his heart more a man of the West than of the East.

  Tall in a silken robe, white hair and beard neatly trimmed, he seemed no less than the Liri king, though Vanimen, likewise attired in what was his gift, did loom above him. Both had grown too intense in their discourse to remain seated.

  “Yes, I hope your tribe will stay in this realm,” he was saying.

  “Perhaps I’ve not made sufficiently clear how much I want it. Your unique abilities-as fishermen, sailors, pilots you’ll be val-uable. But a new war is brewing with Venice. In that, you could be priceless.” He studied the other. “Of course, I’d reward such service as best as I was able.”

  Vanimen scowled. “Why should we enter a quarrel that’s none of ours?” he retorted.

  “It will be yours, for you will be our countrymen.”

  “Indeed? That was not what we came in search of.”

  “I know. You wanted to rebuild a Faerie life, which impinged

  little on mortal mankind. Well, you’ve found what is better. High-est is salvation, immortal souls and the fatherhood of God. How-ever, scoff not at material gains, which themselves comfort the spirit. For instance, you’ve related, in these past days of your visit, how hard and perilous it actually was undersea, how often you knew bereavement. Would you deny your people-your chil-dren-liberation from the shark?”

  The merman began pacing, back and forth, hands gripped together behind him. “We’d readily be your friends,” he said. “Grant us an islet where we can remain ourselves, and you’ll find us stout partners in work, trade, seafaring... yes, even in war, if that is inescapable. But you demand more. You’d make us into something altogether alien. Why do you require we be christened?”

  “Because I must,” Pavle told him. “It would ruin me, before Church and throne and populace alike, if I let a colony of halfworld creatures take root; and who then would be your protector? As it is, I’ve worked harder than you imagine, to contain the news of you. Outside the Skradin vicinage, there go naught but rumors. In that wise I gained peace for everyone to become acquainted.

  It cannot last.

  “Even when you join us, I’ll strive that that happen quietly. No public tidings, no dispatches to King or Pope. Most of you will stay where you now are, or move to the coast nearby if you prefer nautical trades. Those who travel farther, with naval com-manders or merchant adventurers, they’ll go one or a few at a time-remarkable, yes, but in human company of limited size.

  “That’s for your good as well as mine, Vanimen. Did your story spread wide, excitement might easily take a dangerous turn. Fear of the unknown could link you in ignorant minds with the Devil. It could end with your being hunted down, the fortunate among you butchered, the unfortunate burnt at the stake.”

  “Aye,” the merman growled, “you’re right. . . and nonetheless you’d have us become like your kind?”

  He halted, straightened to his full height, and said, “No. We’ll return to the waters and our quest. You’ll be rid of us.”

  “Suppose I forbid your departure,” the Ban said quietly.

  “We’ll elude your troops, or break through them, or die in our

  freedom.” Vanimen’s tone was as soft.

  Pavle smiled sadly. “Peace. I won’t. If indeed you would go, you have my leave. Yet where will you seek, and how? You must needs be barred from this kingdom, and likeliest no Mediterranean coast will have you. If you win back to the ocean, well, you can swim south along Africa, .though the toll as you fare will be dreadful. But can you endure the tropics, you breed of the North?”

  Vanimen stood mute.

  After a minute, Pavle went on: “Let’s imagine you do in some

  way find a home. What will you have gained? At best, a few centuries. Then Faerie must depart existence, and you with it.”

  “Think you so?” Vanimen asked. “Why?”

  Pavle clapped his shoulder and said, most gently, “I wish I did not. Too much beauty and wonder will perish with the halfworld, and I’ve a feeling that whatever replaces them will have less in common with humanity than it did.”

  Faint through walls came the sound of cathedral bells. “Hark,” Pavle said. “The time of yon ringing was ordered not by sun, moon, or stars. A clock has taken that part, a hard, artificial thing, devoid of mystery.

  “In my own lifespan I have seen wax the power of bombard, rocket, sapper. In them is the doom of knighthood, which-Ar-thur, Orlando, Ogier, Huon-ever linked warriors to the Other-world.

  “Wilderness melts away before ax and plow. Meanwhile every-thing that matters is forgathering in the cities, where all is man-made and the smallest hob-sprite can find no home.

  “Yearly farther, in yearly greater numbers, ships ply the seas, guided by compass and astrolabe rather than birdflight, landmarks, a mariner’s sense of oneness with the billows. They will round the earth someday, and Christian steeples rise above the last places where Faerie had refuge.

  “For the earth is a globe, you may know, of measurable size. The very tracks of the stars are being measured, closer than the ancients could, and learned men are calculating the architecture of the universe. Their schemes have no room for awe or magic.

  “Look here.” Pavle sought the table and picked up two lenses in a wire frame. ‘This is something I heard was newly invented in Italy, and sent for. As I’ve aged, my eyesight has been failing me at short range, till I could scarcely read or write. Today I slip this thing over the bridge of my nose, and it’s almost like being young again.” He handed them to Vanimen. “A beginning,” he foretold. ‘The progenitor of instruments which make vision keener than an eagle’s, closer than a mole’s. My descendants will turn them outward on the heavens, inward on themselves. Perhaps God will then terminate the world, lest men question His ways too closely. Or perhaps not. But sure I am that they will have ques-tioned Faerie out of it.” .

  The mennan stared at the spectacles. He held them in his palm as if they were freezing cold.

  “Therefore,” Pavle finished, “are you not well advised to accept your fate, gratefully, and seek your home in Paradise? “I won’t press you, save that I must have your decision within a few more months. Think. Go back to Skradin and tell your folk. Speak, too, with that priest in the zadruga whom Ivan esteems.

  Ask him to pray for you.” ‘

  Alone, Father Tomislav knelt. Winter night engulfed him, still and bitter, making the clay floor gnaw at his knees. He could barely glimpse Christ on the Cross, above the altar, by the light of a candle he had lit to the saint whose name his church bore, and whose effigy he beseeched.

  “Holy Andrei,” he said, his voice as lost as the flame, “you were a fisherman when Our Lord called you to come follow Him. Did you ever afterward long back to the sea. . . just the least bit, maybe? Waves alive around you, a salt wind, a gull gliding-oh, you know what I mean. You didn’t regret your ministry. Nothing like that. But you remembered, sometimes—didn’t y
ou? I myself miss the water shiny at the foot of Zadar, and going out in a boat-what a romp, what bigness and freshness!-and me a land-lubber born.

  “You should understand how the merfolk feel. It isn’t their fault they have no souls, and so can’t properly crave salvation. The paynim among humans don’t crave it either, do they? God made the merfolk for His seas. If they forget the nature He gave them, well, I suppose they could still breathe down below, that kind of thing, but what use would it be? Like a man forgetting how to walk. They’d never learn again aright, I think.

  “Mostly, though, the sea’s been their life, their love. Yes, love. Even a dog can love, and the merfolk have minds as good as any man’s. Would I choose to forget my Sena? No. The mem-ories hurt, but I cherish them. You know that, as many Masses as I’ve offered for her soul’s repose.

  “Holy Andrei, seafarer, speak to God on behalf of the poor merfolk. Explain how they’ll accept baptism if it doesn’t cost them their memories. They. aren’t being defiant of Him or any-thing. It’s simply their way. When they have souls, they’ll be different. But why take away from them what they were before? Instead, leave them able to tell men of the wonders He’s created in the deeps, that we may worship Him the more. Isn’t that rea-sonable?

  “Holy Andrei, grant me a sign.”

  The crude wooden image stirred. Lips curved in a smile, hand reached out in the gesture of benediction.

  For a moment Tomislav gaped. Then he fell prostrate, weeping.

  “Glory be to God, glory be to God!”

  When at last he got back on his knees, all was as erstwhile. The candle guttered low, the cold ascended, stars above the roof marched on toward midnight.

  “Thank you, Andrei,” Tomislav said humbly. “You’re a true friend.”

  After a minute, in sudden shock: “I’ve been vouchsafed a miracle! Me!” He folded his hands. “Lord, I am not worthy.”

  He would keep vigil till dawn. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven,