The Merman's Children

by Poul Anderson

  Lead bull:-All that is life did come out of the tides

  That follow the moon, as in hollowness yonder

  It circles this world, and the wake of its coursing

  Lays hold on the seas, draws them upward in surges

  More strong than the sun can arouse from remote

  ness---

  The sun and the moon and this globe in a ring-dance Through measureless deeps and a spindrift of stars.

  Old cows: Yes, they circle, they circle,

  Like the memory held

  Of a calf that has died

  When its mother cannot

  Bring herself to the weaning

  And release it to swim

  From her side into strangeness.

  Young bulls: Heavy under heaven

  Heaves the main in winter;

  Warm are yet the wishes

  Wakened by that rushing.

  Summer also sees us

  Seeking for each other.

  Lustily may love go.

  Laugh in your aliveness!”

  Young cows: Be you the quickening light,

  Be you the wind and the rain

  Begetting billows,

  We are the ocean and moon,

  We are the tides that for aye

  Renew your mother.

  Calves: Brightness of salt scud,

  Wings overhead, scales beneath,

  Milk-white foam—new, new!

  Old bulls: The seasons come and the seasons go, From the depths above to the depths below, And time will crumble our pride and grief As the waves wear even the hardest reef. We cruise where grazing is found far-flung And the orcas lurk to rip loose a tongue. Though we are they whom the waters bless, Our bones will sink into sunlessness. The race is old, but the world more so, And a day must come when the whales must go. The world forever cannot abide, But a day must come of the final tide. Old cows: Yet we have lived.

  Young bulls: Yet we do live.

  Calves: Yet we will live.

  Young cows: Yet we make live.

  Old bulls: It is enough.

  Lead bull: Fare onward.

  Through Pentland Firth go monstrous currents, and there are places where violence grows worse; one must pass by the Merry Men of Mey, and between the Swalchie and the Wells of Swona, and around the Bores of Duncansbay. Before daring these, the merman’s children found a lee on the Caithness coast, where they could mend their sea-weary kayaks and rest their sea-weary selves.

  Cliffs stood ruddy on either side of an inlet which was hardly more than cleft in them. At its end was a strip of sand with a border of turf behind, boggy but soft. Thence a V -shaped slope led upward. A footpath wound through its boulders and sparse worts, but clear was to see that this site got few visitors, surely none in winter.

  It was less cold here than might have been looked for, and to the travelers felt almost balmy after what they had known in the past weeks. Sunlight did not enter, so that the wavelets lapped dim silver in shadow; but reflections, of it off the strait which churned beyond gave some warmth to the cliffs, that glowed downward in turn. Winds were only a whistling past their heights. Tauno and Eyjan brought the kayaks above high-water mark. Over the turf they spread skins of seals newly taken. Blubber helped flint and steel start a fire in twigs gathered above, which kindled driftwood from below. Besides the flesh, they had an auk to roast and fish to eat raw.

  “Ah,” said Tauno. “That smells good.”

  “Yes, it does.” Eyjan stared at the spit she was handling, .where

  she squatted. He clasped knees under chin and stared out at the firth.

  “Enjoy this weather while it lasts,” he said after silence had extended itself between them. “It won’t for long.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “Well, we needn’t linger over our repairs.”

  “No. True.”

  “After all, we are-what?-two-thirds of the way?”

  “Maybe a bit more.”

  Neither had anything else to say for a span. Eventide waned.

  Eyjan poked the fowl with a bone skewer. As she hunched

  forward, the unbound hair that she had dropped over her bosom swung away from white skin and rosy nipples. “This will soon be done,” she said. “You might begin cleaning the fish.”

  “Yes.” Tauno jerked his glance to them and became busy.

  Each movement sent a flow of muscles across him.

  “We needn’t hasten our overhaul unduly,” she said, minutes later. “A breathing spell here will do us good.”

  “Yes, we’ve talked about that. Still, we should have ample time on Bornholm, till Niels hears from us and can come.”

  “We talked about that too.”

  “Remember, let me deal with humans. Inuit garb in Europe

  is not too outlandish on a man, but a woman-“

  “Yes, yes, yes!” she snapped. Redness went over her cheeks, down her throat, across her breasts.

  “I crave pardon,” he said in an unclear voice, and raised his golden eyes to her gray.

  “Oh, no matter,” she hurried to reply. “I’m on edge. My gut is a-growl.”

  He made a grin. “Mine likewise. That isn’t the sea you hear.”

  The exchange eased them somewhat. Nonetheless they were

  nearly dumb while they finished preparing their meat, and held no converse white they ate it except a few words about how savory it was and how pleasant the fire.

  When they were through, Tauno fetched more wood and stoked the blaze. Early night was falling, the strip of sky gone dusk-blue, a deeper violet in the niche. Their vision found ample light. They sat down on opposite sides for enjoyment of red, yellow, blue flicker with coal-glow at the core, homely crackle, pungency of smoke.

  “We ought to retire, I suppose,” Tauno said, “but I’m not sleepy yet. You go if you like.”

  “I’m not sleepy yet either,” Eyjan answered.

  Both gazed into the flames.

  “I wonder how Y ria fares,” she said at last, quite low.

  “We’ll learn.”

  “Unless Niels and Ingeborg failed.”

  “In that case, we can hit on something else.”

  “How I hope they’ve not suffered evil,” Eyjan whispered.

  “Well-nigh could I wish to believe a god would help them if I

  prayed.”

  “Oh, they’re tough,” said Tauno. “I dare look forward to seeing them again.”

  “I also. Niels is . . . I like him better than any other human I’ve known.”

  “And she- Whoof!” snorted Tauno, squinching his eyes and fanning his nose. “Suddenly the smoke’s become mine alone.”

  Eyjan lifted her face to him. A half moon made frosty his greenish-fair locks and threw soft highlights on the wide shoulders where firelight did not reach. “Come over here,” she invited.

  He stiffened, then did. Side by side, flanks touching, they held out palms to the heat and gazed straight before them. Time blew by, over the cliff tops.

  “What will we do, waiting at Bornholm for news?” Eyjan finally asked.

  Tauno shrugged. The movement passed his arm along hers, and he swallowed hard before he could say, “Take our ease, no doubt, apart from chasing food. We’ll have earned that.”

  Her bronzy tresses brushed him as she nodded. “Yes, we’ve done much, haven’t we? . . you and’I.”

  “And more is ahead.”

  “We’ll meet it together.”

  Somehow their heads swung around, somehow they were

  breathing each other’s breath, the clean smells of each other, and her mouth was an inch from his. They never knew which of them reached out first.

  “Yes, yes,” she half sobbed when the kiss came to a pause.

  “Oh, yes, now!”

  He pulled back. “Our mother-“

  She threw herself against him. Behind softness, he felt a heart that slammed even faster than his. Laughter gasped in her throat. “Too long have we fretted about that. W
e’re merfolk, Tauno, darling.” In flfelit splendor she leaped to her feet, tugged at his hand. “Over there, on the turf, we have a bed. . . only now do I know how I yearned.”

  “And I.” He stumbled up. She nearly dragged him along, and down.

  · The moon was sunken behind the cliffs. Stars glistened small.

  Eyjan raised herself to an elbow. “It’s no use, is it?” she said bitterly. “Nothing is any use.”

  Tauno threw an arm across his face where he lay. “Do you think I am glad?” he mumbled.

  “No, of course not.” Eyjan beat fist on thigh. “The Christians can exorcise us,” she cried. “Why in the name of justice can we not exorcise the Christians?”

  “There is no justice. I’m sorry .” Tauno rolled over so his back was to her.

  She sat erect, regarded him, ran a hand along his side till it came to rest on his hip. “.scorn yourself not, brother mine,” she achieved saying. “There are worse curses. We both have a world for living in.”

  He did not speak.

  “We will remain comrades. Brothers in arms,” she said.

  The toilsome journey behind him became merciful. He slept.

  ---He woke and saw different constellations. The fire had died, frost deepened, his body had been burning the food in it for warmth; hunger prodded him anew. He stretched and smiled. Memory washed back like a tide race. He snapped after air.

  Shortly he noticed that Eyjan was absent. He frowned, rose, peered. She could not be hidden from him in this narrow space.

  Where, then? With Faerie perceptions, he cast about. She had not

  re-entered the water. Hence the footpath. . . aye, her spoor, faint

  but clarion-clear, thrilling through his blood.

  There he paused. He guessed what she had gone for, but he could be mistaken, or she could meet danger in these Christian wilds. Decision hardened. He strapped on knife, took up harpoon, and started off.

  The moon was down. Above the steeps, a ling-begrown slope descended toward moorland. Rime and patches of snow whitened its grayness. Tauno padded fast along the trail, which followed the coast until it bent south into a shallow dale. This sheltered a croft grubbed out of the heath: for a meager yield of oats and barley, but chiefly for sheep that ranged afar in summer. He saw their fold, the hayricks, a pair of huddled buildings. Beyond rose a Viking grave-mound and the snags of a Pictish keep.

  The trail led thither. Tauno followed. As he approached, a couple of dogs came baying; and as ever, when they had winded him they whimpered and fled.

  A softer noise caught his attention. He crouched, ghosted closer, till he could see through the open door of a shed. A woman—aged by toil, for all that she rocked a babe in her arms-stood within, weeping. Two half-grown daughters slumped at her feet. They shuddered with cold; none of the three wore aught but a shift, that must have been hastily thrown on.

  Tauno proceded to the cottage. Under the low eaves of a peat roof, light glimmered past cracks in shutters. He laid his ear against a wall, strained his senses.

  They told him that four human males were inside, loudly breathing; and Eyjan, who yowled like a cat. While he listened, one fellow shouted. Straightway she called, “You next, Roderick!”

  Tauno’s knuckles whitened around the harpoon shaft. ---Well, he thought long afterward, he had none but himself to thank, and what import had it anyhow? A chuckle rattled his gullet as he imagined what the crofter and the crofter’s sons had felt when she came naked out of night and beat on their door. The amulet would make her able to purr whate;ver she chose to them: belike that she was indeed of elvenkind but no mortal threat to life or soul; she feared not the Cross, she could name the name of Christ. They had not questioned their luck any further.

  Tauno returned to camp. When Eyjan arrived at dawn, he pretended he was asleep.

  III

  Now that the vodianoi was gone, winter had become for the vilja altogether a time of aloneness. There was nothing else in the water but fish, that never were company and in this time of year grew sluggish, seldom delighting her with their gleaming summer grace. Frogs did not croak in twilight, but slumbered deep in bottom mud. Swans, geese, ducks, pelicans were departed; what fowl stayed at the lake were not swimmers or divers, and their calls sounded thin over snow and leafless boughs.

  The vilja floated, dreaming. White and slim she was in the dimness. Her hair made a pale cloud around her. Great eyes, the hue of the sky when it is barely hazed, never moved, never blinked, never took aim at anything that a living creature might have seen. Nor did the slight roundness of her bosom move.

  Thus had she drifted for days, weeks, months-she reckoned it not; for her, time had ceased to be-when the water stirred with an advent. As the force of it waxed, she came to awareness. Her limbs reached out, took hold, sent her in an arc and a streak toward shore. Faint though the undulations were that she raised, the new-comer felt them and swam to meet her. At first a wavery shade, he swiftly became solid in the view. Warmth radiated from him, strength, life. His motion made streams, gurgles, caressing swirls; bubbles danced upward.

  He and she halted a yard apart and lay free a while, regarding each other.

  He was not naked like her; besides headband and knife belt, he had a cloth wrapped about his loins. Huge of stature, fair-skinned, golden-haired, green-eyed, he hardly differed from or-dinary man save in his beardlessness, webbed feet, easy breathing under water. Yes, hardly: to one of the halfworld, the outward unlikenesses were little, set beside the blazing identity. In him was a human, Christian soul.

  “Oh, welcome, be very welcome,” ,the vilja munnured when she had gathered courage. Her tones, which reached his mennan’s hearing clearly, were tremulous as her smile.

  Sternness replied: “Why do you think I am here?”

  She retreated. “You. . . are you not he. . . memory is like mist,

  but an autumn and an autumn ago-you drove the vodianoi hence?”

  “That which then was me did so,” said the deep voice.

  “You were frightened of me.” The vilja could not but giggle.

  “Of me! You!”

  Mirth released joy. She cast her arms toward him wide apart for him. “You’ve learned I’d not hurt you? How that does gladden me. Let me gladden you.”

  “Be still, foul spirit!” he roared.

  Bewildered, she shrank back from his wrath. “But, but I

  wouldn’t hurt you,” she stammered. “How could I? Why should I wish to, I who have no one for friend?”

  “Tentacle of darkness-“

  “We’d be happy together, in the summer greenwood, in the

  winter waters. I’d warm me at your breast, but you’d have me for

  your cool cascade, your moonlit leaf-crown—“

  “Have done! You’d haul men down to Hell!”

  The vilja shuddered and fell mute. If she wept, the lake drank

  her tears.

  The other calmed. “Oh, you may not know yourself what you are,” he said. “Father Tomislav wonders whether Judas really knew what it was he did, until too late.”

  He stopped, watchful. Seeing his fury abated, she eased in her quicksilver fashion, ventured the tiniest of smiles, and asked, “Judas? Should I know him? . . Yes, maybe once I heard-but it is gone from me.”

  “Father Tomislav,” he said like the stroke of an ax. She shook her head. “No.” Frowning, finger to cheek: “I mean yes. Somebody dear, is it not? But remembering is hard down here. Everything is so quiet. Maybe if you told me—“ She tautened. Her eyes grew yet more enonnous. “No,” she cried, hands uplifted as if against a blow. “Please don’t tell me!” He sighed, as best he could underwater. “Poor wraith, I do believe you speak truth. I’ll ask if I may pray for you.”

  Resolution came back. “Just the same, today you are a lure unto damnation,” he said. “Men fishing the lake for the first time, this past year, would glimpse you flitting through dusk; some heard you call them, and sore it was to deny such sweetness. The
y will be coming in ever greater numbers. You must not snatch a single soul from among them. I have come to make sure of that.”

  She quailed, for this was he who had prevailed over the vod-ianoi.

  He drew his knife and held it by the blade before her, to make a cross of sorts. “For the sake of the man who baptized me, I would not willingly destroy you,” his words tolled. “It may be that somehow even you can be saved. Yet certain is that none must be damned. . . on your account. ‘

  “No more luring of Christians, Nada. No more wanton tricks,

  either, raising a wind to flap a wife’s washing off the grass, or

  stealing her babe on its cradleboard while she naps at harvest

  noon-“

  “I only cuddle them for a while,” she whispered. “Soon I give them back. I’ve no milk for them.”

  He did not heed, but went on: “No more singing in human earshot; it rouses dreams best left asleep. Vanish from our ken. Be to the children of Adam-born or adopted-as though you had never been.

  “Else I myself will hunt you down. I will carry the wormwood you cannot bear the scent of, and scourge you with it, once and twice. Upon the third time you offend, I will come bearing a priestly blessing on me, and holy water for sending you into Hell.

  “In Hell you will burn, you thing of leaves and mists and streams. Fire will consume you without ending, and never a dew-drop, never a snowflake will reach you in your torment.

  “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she screamed, and fled.

  He hung where he was until he had lost all sight and sound

  of her, until it was indeed as if she had faded into nothingness.

  IV

  EARLIER in spring than skippers liked to fare-before the very equinox-a ship left Copenhagen for Bornholm. After a rough crossing through the Baltic Sea, she docked at Sandvig on the north end of the island, where it rises in cliffs to the stronghold called Hammer House. Her crew got shore leave. Those who had engaged her hired horses and rode to a certain unpeopled cove.