The Merman's Children

by Poul Anderson

  “God be praised!” Ivan jubilated. After a moment, warrior hardheadedness returned. “Are you sure? What did you do? What’s to happen next?”

  Vanimen folded arms across his mighty chest and laughed. “We could kill him, aye. But on this very night of his greatest strength, we could outswim him. Our weapons gave pain. None of us did he seize, the while we tormented him till it grew beyond bearing. Also, we showed him how we take fish. In that, he cannot match us either. We can snatch them before he does, scare them off, leave him famished.

  “At least we made him know, with the help of a spell for understanding, that we would do this as long as needful. Best he spare his own anguish and depart forthwith. We’ll escort him up the river, past your town, and let him go on thence, into unpeopled highlands. He’ll grieve you no more.”

  Ivan embraced him. Men cheered. Mermen responded lustily from the water. The vodianoi brooded.

  “Follow along the edge,” Vanimen advised. “We’ll keep in sight of you.” He turned to rejoin his folk.

  The white shape flitted down through withering leaves. Many came along when it sprang from a lower branch to earth. “Ah, no,” it sang, “would you drive the poor old ugly hence? This is his home. The lake will be lonely without him, a wonder will be gone, and who shall I play with?”

  Vanimen saw the form dance over glittery grass, the form of a naked maiden, lovely to behold but colorless, seeming almost transparent. No mist of breath left nostrils or lips. “Rousalka!” he bawled, and fled into the lake.

  The being stopped. “Who are you?” she asked the zhupan in her thin, sweet voice. “Should I remember you?”

  Sweat studded Ivan’s skin, he shuddered, yet it was with hatred and rage rather than fear that he advanced. “Demon, ghost, foul thief of souls!” he shrilled. “Begone! Back to your grave, back to your hell!”

  He slashed with his sword. Somehow it did not strike. The vilja lifted her hands. “Why are you angry? Be not angry,” she begged. “Stay. You are so warm, I am so alone.”

  Ivan dropped his blade and raised his cross. “In the name of the Holy Trinity, and St. Martin whose banner St. Stefan bore into battle, go.”

  The vilja whirled about and ran into the wood. She left less mark by far in the hoarfrost than a woman would have done. They heard her sobbing, then that turned into laughter, then there was no more trace of her.

  Bells pealed rejoicing till all Skradin rang. No person worked, save to prepare a festival that began in the afternoon and continued past sunset.

  The sight had been awesome for those who were awake before dawn, when the vodianoi passed by under guard of the mermen. It was as if, for a moment, the world—castle, church, town, houses, fields, ordered hours and the cycle that went measured from Easter to Easter-had parted like a veil, men glimpsed what it had hidden from them, and that was no snug Heaven but ancient, unending wildness.

  By early daylight, when Vanimen’s hunters returned with the zhupan and his band, fright was forgotten. Talk aroused of starting fishery. True, the deep forest was still a chancy place to enter, and would not be cleared away for generations. Yet logging pro-ceeded, year by year; plowland stretched outward, homes multi-plied; cultivation had tamed a sizeable arc of the lakeside. The monster gone, it should be safe to launch boats from that part, if one did not row too near the wooded marge.

  The zhupan confirmed the good news. He had seen the vodianoi leave his conquerors and make a slow way on upstream, panting, sometimes able to swim, sometimes groping over rocks that bruised, till lost from sight. The creature moved brokenly. Belike doom would overtake him long before Judgment; hopelessness might well make him lay down his bones to rest.

  Father Petar conducted a Mass of thanksgiving, with a some-what sour face. Thereafter, merriment began. Presently the nearest meadow surged with folk in their holiday garb, embroidered vests, flowing blouses, wide-sweeping skirts for the revealing of an ankle in the dance. An ox roasted over a bonfire, kettles steamed forth savory smells above lesser flames, barrels gurgled out beer, mead, wine. Bagpipes, flutes, horns, drums, single-stringed fiddles re-sounded through the babble.

  Freely among the peasants moved the Liri folk. Ivan Subitj had taken it on himself to release them. He had no fret about their breaking parole and fleeing. Friendship laved them today and their morrow looked full of hope. For decency’s sake he had arranged that they be clad, though this must for the most part be in borrowed clothes that were old and fitted poorly. That meant little to them, especially in their happiness at being back together. Anyhow, garments were readily shed when male and female had left the village and found a bush or a tree-screened riverbank.

  The noisiest, cheeriest celebrant was Father Tomislav. He had come hither with Vanimen after Ivan approved the merman’s idea, and only with difficulty had he been restrained from joining the expedition. Now, when men linked hands around a cauldron to dance the kolo, his vigor sent whipcracks through their circle. “Hai, hop! Swing a leg! Leap like David before the Lord! Ah, there, my dears,”-to pretty girls as he whirled by them—“just you wait till we and you make a line!”

  Vanimen and Meiiva had repaid long separation. They entered the meadow when the kolo was ending. Luka, son of Ivan, pushed through the crowd to greet them. He was a slender lad, whose bright outfit was in scant accord with his thoughtful mien. From the beginning he had been greatly taken by the merfolk, eager to learn about them, ever arguing for their better treatment. After Vanimen’s exploit, he approached them with adoration.

  “Hail,” he said through the racket around. “You look somber.

  You should be joyous. Can I help you in any way?”

  “Thank you, but I think not,” The Liri king replied.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll speak of it later with your father. Let me not shadow your

  pleasure.”

  “No, I pray you, tell me. Maybe I can do something.”

  “Well-“ Vanimen decided. Meiiva, who spoke no Hrvat-

  skan as yet, slipped quietly into the background. “Well, since you’ll have it so, Luka. Have you heard that we met a rousalka by the lake?”

  The stripling blinked. “What said you?”

  “Rousalka. The revenant of a maiden that haunts the water

  where she drowned.”

  “Oh.” Luka’s eyes widened; he caught his breath. “The vilja. You saw her?” He paused. “No, I’ve not heard. It’s a thing that men would avoid talk of.”

  “Is ‘vilja’ your wordT’ Vanimen spoke stiffly. “I had to do with one of the kind once, afar in the North. Thus I recognized this for what it was. Terror overwhelmed me and I fled. The shame of that is a gnawing in my breast. Your father drove it off, but when afterward I sought to explain why courage had left me, he said he’d liefer not hear.”

  Luka nodded. “Yes, he has his reasons. However, I think he’ll yield if you press him. The matter’s no secret-woeful, but not disgraceful.”

  “Such a. . . vilja. . . mocks our triumph,” Vanimen said. “I hear men bleat about fishing, my tribe for helpers. Are they witless? The vodianoi could merely devour them. How can they fail to dread what the vilja will do?”

  “Why, what might that be?” Luka asked in surprise. “Minor mischief, as the Leshy inflict-a wind to blow somebody’s wash-ing off the grass, a nursling taken from its mother when she isn’t looking, but always soon given back-and a sprig of wormwood will keep her at a distance. No doubt a man who let her beguile him would be in mortal sin. But surely none will, nor does it seem she’s even tried. After all, a ghost is terrifying in itself. I know that, sir, I know it better than I wish I did.”

  The merman gave the lad a close look. “How?”

  Luka shivered in the sunlight, the noise and music and smoke.

  “I was with my brother on that hunt where she found him, two

  years agone. I too saw her face, the face of Nada who drowned

  herself the year before-“

  A hand grabbed h
im by the neck, flung him to the ground. “You lie!” Father Tomislav screamed. He had wandered up, un-noticed, and overheard. “Like the rest of them, you lie!”

  Standing over the sprawled boy, amidst a stillness that spread outward, amidst eyes that stared inward, the priest mastered his fit. “No, you don’t, I’ll believe you don’t,” he said thickly. “A chance likeness or a sleight of Satan deceived you. I’m sorry, Luka. Forgive my foul temper.” He looked from person to person. The tears broke out of him. “My daughter was not a suicide,” he croaked. “She is not a condemned shade. She rests in Shibenik, in holy earth. Her, her soul... in... Paradise-“ He stumbled off. The gathering parted to let him go.

  Rain dashed against castle walls, in a night that howled. Cold crept out of the stone, past the tapestries, and darkness laid siege to lamps. Ivan Subitj sat across a board from Vanimen of Liri. He had dismissed his servants, keeping his wife awake. She sat in a comer, warming herself as best she could at a brazier, till he signaled for more wine.

  “Yes,” he said, “I’d better give you the whole tale. Else you might shun the lake; and I do have hopes of your settling down amongst us, enriching us by your fisher skills. Besides, there’s no shame for my family in what happened-not really. Grief-“ He gusted a sigh. “No, disappointment; and I’m well aware I do wrong to feel thus.”

  He stroked the scar that puckered his countenance. “No shame to you either, Vanimen, that you recoiled from her: not if such beings are as fearsome in the North as you’ve related. I could tell you of horrors I’ll bear inside me to the grave, and I reckon myself a brave man. But-I know not why; maybe we’re different from the Rus in some way that endures after death itself-whatever the cause, a vilja is not the grisly sort of thing that you say a rousalka is. Oh, a man would be unwise to follow her. . . but he’d have a soul to lose. You-“ Ivan chopped his words off short.

  Vanimen flashed a hard smile.

  Ivan drank. Thereafter he said hastily: “My grudge against

  Nada is just that she caused my older son to forsake the world. Well, I think she did. I could be wrong. Who knows the well-springs of the heart, save God? But Mihajlo was such a lively youth; in him, I saw myself reborn. And now he’s in a monastery. I should not regret that, should I? It makes his salvation likelier. Luka seems more cut out for a monk than ever Mihajlo was; and it’s become Luka who inherits- No, he won’t, for a zhupan is elected by the peers of his clan, or appointed out of it by the Crown, and they’ll see he’s not a fighter.”

  Goblets went to mouths for a time in which the storm alone had voice. Finally Vanimen asked low, “Was the vilja indeed once the daughter of Tomislav?”

  “He cannot endure that thought;’ Ivan replied, “and those who care for him do not bespeak it in his hearing. I forgive what he did to my son this day. No real harm, and Luka should have been more alert.

  “Nevertheless-well, let me share with you what everybody hereabouts knows. Maybe you, who are of Faerie, can judge better than we’ve done, we humans.

  “You must understand that Sena, Tomislav’s wife, was a woman born to sorrow. Her father was a bastard of the zhupan before me, by a serf girl, whom they say was of rare beauty. He manumitted his son, who became a guslar-a wandering musician, a ne’er-do-well-and at last shocked people by bringing home a bride from the Tzigani, thos~ landless pagans who’ve lately been drifting in. She herself was Christian, of course, though it’s unsure how deep the conversion went.

  “Both died young, of sickness. Their daughter Sena was raised by kinfolk who-I must say-blamed every childish wrong she did on her heritage. I’ve often wondered if it was pity as much as her loveliness that made Tomislav seek her hand.

  “You’ve heard of their afflictions, A while after Nada was

  born, Sena sank into dumb, helpless mourning, and lay thus until

  she died, What memories of her mother did the girl afterward

  carry around? In haphazard fashion, Nada learned from neighbor

  women what she was supposed to know, more or less. Her father

  spent his whole love upon her, who was all he had left, but what

  good can a man do? He may have confided in her more than he

  should-a priest does carry the woes of many others—he may

  have made her see too early that this world is full of weeping. I

  know not, I’m only a soldier, Vanimen,”

  Ivan drank, summoned fresh wine, sat again mute before he went on:

  “I remember Nada well, myself. As zhupan, I travel much about in the hinterland, to keep abreast of what the knezi-judges over villages-and pastors and such are doing. Besides, Tomislav brought his family here whenever he could, as on market days. We’ve no proper marketplace here, but folk do meet to trade back and forth. I suppose in part he hoped to ease the restlessness of his older children.

  “Oh, Nada became fair! I heard, too, that she was quick-witted, and kinder-hearted, even toward animals, than is best for a peasant, Certainly I saw her laughterful and frolicsome. Yet already then, and seldom though we did meet, I would also see her withdrawn, silent, sad, for no clear cause.

  “I suppose that’s a reason she had no suitors, however gladly

  the young men would dance and jest with her when she was in

  the mood. Besides, her dowry would be very small. And she was

  overly slender; how well could she bear babe after babe, to keep

  a household alive? Fathers must have weighed these things on

  behalf of their sons,”

  Ivan swallowed, put his goblet down, stared at a shuttered

  window as if to look beyond and lose himself in the rain. “Well,”

  he said, “here comes the part that’s hard for me to tell, Let me

  go fast,

  “She had broken into bloom when Mihajlo, my older son, came visiting and saw her here in Skradin, At once he began paying her court. He’d ride through the woods to her zadruga, and how could Tomislav refuse hospitality? He’d arrange that she come to Skradin for this or that celebration—oh, everything quite proper, but he wanted her and meant to have her, “Mihajlo was. . . is . . . a charming fellow. Nada’ s two broth-ers and her sister had flown the nest, and doubtless she’d heard somewhat herself of a wider realm outside, a realm where maybe her choices were not merely to become a drudge or a nun. . . I know not. I know only that her father, Tomislav, sought me and asked if Mihajlo intended marriage.

  “What could I say? I knew my boy. When he wedded, it would be for gain; meanwhile he’d have his sport, also afterward. Tom-islav thanked me for my frankness, and said those two must stop seeing each other. Because I think well of him, I agreed. Mihajlo wrangled with me, but in the end gave his promise. She was not that much to him.”

  “But he to her-“ the merman said, half under his breath.

  “And her father-she must have loved him too. The melancholy

  caught her when she was torn asunder-“

  “She was found floating in the lake,” Ivan interrupted roughly. “Since then, it seems, she haunts it. You’ve naught to fear from her, though, you merfolk. Need we carry this sad little story onward?” He lifted his vessel. “Come, let’s get drunk together.”

  Tomislav went home in the morning. First he met with Van-imen to bid farewell.

  That was in a dawn which the rain had washed pure. The two of them stood at the edge of woods. Above, the sky was white in the east, blue overhead, violet enough in the west to hold a planet which trailed the sunken moon. Trees had come all bronze and brass and blood, while fallen leaves crunched underfoot. Stub-blefields lay misty. Cocks crowed afar, the single sound in the chill.

  Tornislav leaned his staff against a bole and clasped Vanimen’s right hand in both of his. “We’ll meet again, often,” he vowed.

  “I would like that,” the merman answered. “Be sure, at least, I will not leave these parts without calling on you.”

  The man raised brows. :’Why should you ever go? Here
you are loved, you and your whole tribe.”

  “As a dog is loved. We were free in Liri. Should we become tame animals, no matter how kindly our owners?”

  “Oh, you’d never be serfs, if that’s what troubles you. Your skills are too valuable.” Tomislav paused. “True, you’d better become Christians.” It kindled in him; suddenly his face was not homely. “Vanimen, take baptism! Then God will give you a soul that outlives the stars, in the glory of His presence.”

  The merman shook his head. “No, good friend. Over the cen-turies, I’ve witnessed, thrice, the rate of those folk of mine who did that.”

  “And-?” the priest asked after a silence.

  “I daresay they gained what they yearned for, immortality in

  Heaven. But here on earth, they forgot the lives they had had. Everything they were went a-glimmering, as if it had never been-dreams, joys, facings, everything that was them. There remained meek lowlings whose feet were deformed.” The sea king sighed.

  “Tomislav, I do not hate oblivion that much. My kindred feel likewise.”

  The man stood undaunted; his beard bristled gray at the earliest whisper of a breeze. “Vanimen,” he urged, “I’ve thought about such things, thought hard”-for an instant, his mouth twisted-“and it seems to me that God makes nothing in vain. Nothing that is from Him shall perish for aye. Yes, this may be heresy of mine. Nonetheless, I can hope that on the Last Day, whatever you forsake will be restored to you.”

  “You mayor may not be right,” Vanimen said. “If you are, I still disdain it, I who’ve hunted narwhals under the boreal ice and had lemans that were like northlights”-his voice sank-“I who lived with Agnete- He took his hand free. “No, I’ll not trade that for your thin eternity.”

  “But you don’t understand,” Father Tomislav responded. “Oh, I’ve read legends; I know what commonly happens when Faerie folk are received into Christendom. But this needen’t always be. It’s simply for their own protection, I believe. Chronicles tell of a few halfworld beings that got baptism and kept full memory.” He cast his arms around the merman. “I’ll pray for a sign that you will be given this grace.”