Erik stared after her for a moment before giving himself a shake. He had his own mystery to solve – he didn’t need to know what frightened the maids of Beacon Isle.
He stepped through the doorway and had to stop. He’d entered what might have been just another passage, if it weren’t lined from floor to ceiling with shelves full of books. Erik couldn’t suppress a grin. This was what he was here for.
Selecting a leather spine at random, he pulled a book from the shelf. The pages were filled with strange symbols, interspersed with letters he recognised. Erik laughed. Trust Beacon Isle to keep their books in some sort of code, indecipherable to all but those who lived here. Maybe an assistant would be useful after all.
An assistant who didn’t appear to be anywhere in the library. Erik strolled between the shelves, not sure where to start. When he reached the end of the corridor, he realised he’d been mistaken – the biggest library he’d ever seen was merely the antechamber to the real, much more massive collection that filled a chamber easily as big as the great hall itself. Some shelves were divided into pigeonholes occupied by scrolls instead of birds, while others were nigh as tall as him to accommodate huge books that would take two men to lift.
A table sat in the middle of the room, as large as one of the feasting tables in the hall below, dwarfing the stack of books that lay at its head.
"Uh, hello?" Erik called.
From behind the stack of books, which were taller than he’d thought, a figure rose to her feet.
Erik’s heart leaped as he recognised the lady he’d danced with last night. The Master’s daughter, whose name he still did not know.
"Beg pardon, my lady, but your father told me to meet my assistant here, as I’ll be doing some research about the island’s history in your remarkable library. Can you tell me where he might be?" Erik ventured.
The girl’s eyes grew flinty. She picked up the hefty stack of books, thrust them at his chest so hard she nearly knocked him over, then stalked out of the library without a word.
Erik set the books down on the table, wondering how such a slight girl had had the strength lift such a heavy load.
There was still no sign of the promised assistant, so he sat down and flicked open the first book.
He found a list of ships, along with their date of arrival, cargo, and duty paid on that cargo. They dated from the previous century.
A quick examination of the other books in the pile revealed they all contained information about the history of the isle.
Had the Master given him his own daughter to be a research assistant? No wonder the lady was angry at being assigned a task that surely should have been given to a servant.
"Thank you," Erik called after her, but he doubted she heard. Even if she did, she certainly didn’t return, so Erik set to work.
Seventeen
This could only end badly. A polite ambassador who did his best to charm her spelled trouble for her and for himself, Margareta knew. Her father couldn’t possibly have meant for her to work closely with him as his assistant. Why, the ambassador wouldn’t last the week. She’d already seen that look in his eyes that told her he was under her spell, and not only was he less boorish away from the dance floor, but her she could feel her heart softening toward him. If she hardened her heart to him like any other man, he might stand a chance. But if she let him win her over, maybe even try to seduce her a little, the ambassador was a dead man, and whatever king he served would want to know why.
And whatever he thought about the matter, Margareta knew that her father was no longer capable of leading the island to war, let alone victory.
Margareta didn’t often question her father any more, and not just because she maintained her vow of silence. She’d seen him deteriorate from the strong man she remembered, revered and feared as a child, to a shadow of himself. Oh, some days, like at the Harvest Festival, he covered his thinning hair with a horsehair wig and dressed to outshine even the richest merchants. But others…Margareta sighed.
Her father had taken to his bed today, much the worse for last night’s wine, and he refused to see anyone. Margareta was the exception, for no one could keep her out. Not even her father on days like this.
The moment he saw her, he sat up, leaving his bedcap on the pillow. "Have they returned? Do you bring word?" he asked eagerly.
Margareta shook her head. No, her brothers had not returned. She hadn’t yet broken the curse.
His face crumpled. Some days he dissolved into tears, but today wasn’t one of them. Instead, his face twisted into a snarl. "Bring them back. You must bring them back. Without my sons, the isle will be defenceless against all those kings who fancy my island. Not least of all that sneaky ambassador who’s rooting around for his king. He’ll never get what he’s looking for. See that you help him with the books, for the sooner he’s off the island, the better. You’ll take care of him, won’t you?"
Margareta’s heart sank. When her father was having a bad day like this one, she could refuse him nothing. So she nodded dutifully, praying that the ambassador would leave before he came to harm.
Eighteen
Every day for a week, Margareta set a stack of books on the table for the ambassador, then left him to his reading. After the way he’d looked and spoken to her that first day, she didn’t dare to spend more than a few minutes in his company. If she lingered, he would give in to the desires she could read clearly through his eyes, and when he did, he would die.
Much safer to let him read the port logs than to meet his gaze and wonder what it would feel like to surrender to her siren desires. Her father made them sound like such terrible things, but anything you didn’t want to stop doing surely resulted in a great deal of pleasure. How could that be so terrible?
Yet every time the ambassador bade her good morning, thanking her for the books and wishing her a pleasant day, she longed to linger. The only thing that stopped her was the stack of ledgers she’d handed to him, and the sheer boredom she’d experienced on the rare occasions she’d copied one out.
Why anyone wanted to know which ships had touched at the island a hundred years ago, she wasn’t sure, but she had no intention of keeping him company while he read books that would put any normal man to sleep.
Yet he certainly didn’t sleep, as evident by the pages of notes he scrawled each day. Margareta had glanced at them, but his writing was harder to read than the books she copied. What she could decipher appeared to be records of ships lost near the island. The list looked long after three days, and grew with each new day.
It seemed to Margareta that merchants would avoid what appeared to be such a dangerous trading port, but a quick peek at the harbour outside told her otherwise. Only on the rare winters when the ocean froze over entirely was White Harbour ever empty. It was almost full today.
The ambassador didn’t seem to notice, though. He was too intent on reading the books she’d given him yesterday.
Margareta thumped a new stack onto the table beside him and turned to leave.
To linger was to lose control, which she couldn’t do, Margareta reminded herself.
He caught her arm, and though she tried to pull away, his grip on her wrist tightened.
"Please, my lady, stay. Shipping logs are all very good and well, but they’re also boring. They say this ship carried this cargo, or was lost on this date, but none say how the ship was lost."
Margareta shrugged. Ships were lost. Such was the fate of men who thought to control the ocean. She yanked out of his grip and glared at him.
To her surprise, he looked suitably contrite. "I’m sorry if I hurt you, my lady. It’s just that I don’t know your name and if I didn’t catch you, I would lose my chance for another day. You see, your father promised me an assistant, but all he seems to want to give me is you." He caught the anger in his eyes. "Not that the books you’ve found for me haven’t been a great help – they have, I swear. It’s just that I want to know more, and you are the only other person who come
s here. As the lady of the house, I’m sure you know who I should ask for help instead?"
Margareta considered sweeping out of the room, but the pleading look in his eyes plucked at her heart in such a way that she relented. She perched on a bench, placed her hands on her lap, and lifted her eyebrows in mute query. What exactly did he want to know?
He leaned forward. "You see, I want to know why the ships were lost. Was it storms? Pirates? A battle with enemy ships? Sea monsters?"
Margareta bit her lip, wishing she could laugh. What would the ambassador say if he knew that she was the only kind of monster that lived in the sea? She shrugged again.
"Have you ever seen a sea monster?" he asked eagerly. "I’ve heard some of them can take the form of a beautiful woman who entices sailors to their deaths."
Margareta gasped – could he read her thoughts? Quickly, she schooled her expression into one of bewilderment, but it was too late. He’d seen her surprise.
"You have, haven’t you?" he guessed. "I knew it! It is you. You’re the same girl who was aboard the Golden Eagle when she sank. You’re the girl who survived."
Margareta wished she could tell him what a fool he sounded, saying such things. She was the sea monster who had survived, not some weak-as-water maiden who needed to be rescued from the ocean, of all things. Her eyes narrowed. And how did he know such a thing, after all this time?
"I was the boy who was aboard the Golden Eagle, too," he continued. "We were in one of the ship’s boats that made it to shore, except when I woke up, you were gone. I’m Erik." He held out his hand to her, palm up.
This ambassador was the squire? Margareta squinted at him, trying to see the boy in the well-built man before her. Maybe around the eyes and the mouth she could see a faint resemblance, but…
Her father had told her he’d searched for the boy, but found no trace of him anywhere on the island. It was as though he’d leaped back in the water to drown with the prince he’d served. Her father had suggested that the boy had never existed at all, until Margareta almost believed it. Sirens didn’t suffer from the same maladies as sailors at sea for too long, though, so Margareta knew the boy had been real. So if he’d survived and this was him…that put him in a different light. He wasn’t just some neighbouring king’s ambassador. He was…a friend, of sorts. One she’d mourned who wasn’t dead. Who wouldn’t die here, no matter what she had to do to ensure it, Margareta swore.
She realised he’d continued speaking, and she shook her head, focussing on his words. Only her father knew she’d saved the squire, and he would never have told a soul, for it would mean telling people he had a siren for a daughter. So the only other people who knew were herself and the squire. He had to be the same boy.
"I had to go home to report Philip’s death. My father was devastated at first, and then…well, there was so much to do. Learning to be a squire and one day a knight is one thing, but learning to be a prince, and politics, and how to rule a country…" Erik shook his head. "It’s taken me this long to find my way back here, but I have to know. Do you have any books about sea monsters in these waters?"
All her parents’ warnings about secrecy screamed at her to stop, and show the man nothing. And yet…something about him whispered to her that he was different – just as she’d known he was the day she saved him from the sea.
Perhaps it was time to find out what humans did know about her kind, so she could make sure they didn’t learn more. Maybe they knew more than she gave them credit for. Her father certainly seemed to know plenty. Maybe he’d learned it all from a book in this very library. A book she could also learn from, so that one day she might manage to control her monstrous nature and not worry about how she might kill someone without meaning to. Maybe she could work out how not to kill Erik.
She regarded Erik for a long moment. He already owed her his life, if he truly was the squire she’d saved. Perhaps he could help her, and in some small way repay his debt.
Margareta winked at him, then set off for the section on myths and legends for the first time in what felt like forever.
Nineteen
Had she actually winked at him? The frosty maiden who hated him? Oh, not that she didn’t have good reason to do so – she surely did, being forced to spend her time in the library with him instead of doing…whatever it was ladies did all day. Knit? Sew? Spin? He had no sisters and he could scarcely remember his mother, so Erik had never seen what highborn ladies did when no men were around. Surrounded by servants, they didn’t need to do anything, but he couldn’t imagine this girl sitting still and doing nothing for very long. She was as restless as the ocean. Erik had half expected her to open her mouth and shout at him a few times during their conversation, but she evidently took her vow of silence very seriously. In his memories, she was certainly no mute, and she understood him just fine, so her brothers must be very important to her.
And why not? They were family. Surely the girl loved her brothers, as all good girls did, and it would be a great loss to her whole family if they never returned from their holy crusade. Many others had perished, or disappeared, never to be heard from again, but he didn’t dare say such things to her. The intelligence that shone through her eyes meant she probably already knew, and if she did not, he would not be cruel enough to tell her. Besides, she’d already worked one miracle when she saved him – another might not be as impossible for her as it would for ordinary people.
She returned with two leather buckets of scrolls, that Erik helped her to set on the table. She unrolled the first one on the table, and Erik was mesmerised by the detailed drawing of a sea serpent, wrapping its massive coils around a sailing ship amid fierce waves. It was a monster, all right.
A fleeting image of blue scales on a creature easy as wide around as he himself, racing through the water beside him, passed through his mind, as if it was only yesterday he’d seen it. Had he seen a sea serpent? Is that what had brought him to the surface when he’d drowned? Or had the creature been a mermaid, like he’d dreamed? Whatever it had been, the creature had been doing the girl’s bidding. That he knew for certain, for he’d heard her commanding the ocean itself. And a woman who could command the ocean in a world that relied on ships for trade was worth more than gold, jewels and the highest pedigree.
"Do you get many of these here?" he asked, trying to sound casual.
Her expression was impassive. Then she sighed.
She pulled a blank sheet of parchment toward her, picking up his quill with the ease of one who was familiar with writing, dipped it expertly in the ink, before scratching out the words:
Too cold. Serpents prefer warmer waters.
"Like most snakes," Erik mused. "But the ocean here is full of fish, and seals and maybe other creatures, too."
She nodded slowly. He got the impression she was waiting for him to continue.
Emboldened, he asked, "My lady, are there mermaids in these waters?"
The quill appeared in her fingers once more, flying across the parchment:
Don’t be a fool. Mermaids don’t exist outside of stories.
Her dark eyes held his. Mesmerising, that’s what she was.
Would her gaze be equally cold if he kissed her?
Erik shook the idea from his head. If she was truly as powerful as he remembered, to kiss her would be to take his very life in his hands. But, by God, how much he wanted to. Even if it was the last thing he did, he would die a happy man.
She broke his gaze, turned on her heel, and marched out of the library.
Erik sighed. He’d been going so well, and then, like the bumbling fool he was, he’d made a mistake that sent her away again. But at least he’d managed to persuade her to show him some new scrolls that didn’t mention a word of how many measures of wheat were aboard a ship when it sank.
Erik returned to the scrolls, which were filled with drawings that his eyes didn’t see. Instead, his mind was fixed on her ocean-coloured eyes, and how they might light up if he kissed her.
&n
bsp; Twenty
For the first time in his life, female voices arguing woke Erik. As his last dream faded, he realised he only heard one voice, but it was arguing loudly enough for two.
"I still don’t see what you need me for. I am so close to getting the cloth right, I might have it finished this week. Instead, you want me to wake some man when you could easily do it yourself. You don’t even need to touch him. Just throw a bucket of water over him, or whack him with a book, or…"
Erik jumped to his feet and met the annoyed gaze of the grey widow, who folded her arms across her chest.
"See?" the woman said. "He’s awake. You don’t need me. I’ll go find someone to fetch food for him to break his fast."
A hand grasped the widow’s sleeve, and Erik realised the girl stood behind her, using the widow for a shield. From him.
Pain smote his heart. "I’m sorry if I frightened you, my lady. The books you gave me yesterday were so interesting I stayed here late into the night to finish reading them. I must have fallen asleep on the table. My apologies if my snoring made you fear there was a monster in your library. I swear to you I mean you no harm. I am just a man."
The widow snorted. "Lady Margareta isn’t frightened by much, sir. But a man who swears to do no harm had best keep his word, or evil will befall him. That I promise you."
Don’t harm my charge or you will answer to me, Erik translated in his head.
"I spoke the truth. I mean her no harm. Both yourself and Lady Margareta are safe with me, Mistress…?"
"Lady Penelope," the widow supplied. She offered her hand, and Erik kissed it lightly. She lowered her voice so that only he could hear. "You should probably shave before you kiss her. She’s not used to stubble."
Erik’s hand flew to his face. Sure enough, he did need to shave. Muttering something about needing to wash, he hurried back to his chamber.
Silence: Little Mermaid Retold (Romance a Medieval Fairytale series Book 5) Page 5