The Merman's Children by Poul Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

have been princesses less well-favored than Cod-Ingeborg. He did not like the smell of old sweat in her gown, any more than he liked any of the stenches of humankind; but underneath it he caught a sunny odor of woman.
    â€œI hoped…” she breathed at last, “I hoped…“
    He shoved her arms away, stood back, glared, and hefted the spear. “Where is my sister?” he snapped.
    â€œOh. She is—is well, Tauno. None will harm her. None would dare.” Ingeborg tried to draw him from the door. “Come, my unhappy dear, sit, have a stoup, be at ease with me.”
    â€œFirst they reaved from her everything that was her life——”
    Tauno must stop anew to cough. Ingeborg took the word. “It had to be,” she said. “Christian folk could not let her dwell unchristened among them. You can’t blame them, not even the priests. A higher might than theirs has been in this.” She shrugged, with her oft-seen one-sided grin. “For the price of her past, and of growing old, ugly, dead in less than a hundred years, she gains eternity in Paradise. You may live a long while, but when you die you’ll be done, a blown-out candle flame. Myself, I’ll live beyond my body, most likely in Hell. Which of us three is the luckiest?”
    Still grim but somewhat calmed, Tauno leaned his weapon and sat down on the dais. The straw ticking rustled beneath him. The peat fire sputtered with small blue and yellow dancers; its smoke would have been pleasant if less thick. Shadows crouched in corners and under the roof, and leaped about, misshapen, on the log walls. The cold and dankness did not trouble him, unclad though he was. Ingeborg shivered where she stood.
    He peered at her through the murk. “I know that much,” he said. “There’s a young fellow in the hamlet that they hope to make a priest of. So he could tell my sister Eyjan about it when she found him alone.” His chuckle rattled. “She says he’s not bad to lie with, save that the open air gives him sneezing fits.” Harshly again: “Well, if that’s the way the world swims, naught can we do but give room. However…yestre’en Kennin and I went in search of Yria, to make sure she wasn’t being mistreated. Ugh, the mud and filth in those wallows you call streets! Up and down we went, to every house, yes, to church and graveyard. We had not spied her from afar, do you see, not for days. And we’d have known were she inside anything, be it cabin or coffin. She may be mortal now, our little Yria, but her body is still half her father’s, and that last night on the strand it had not lost its smell like daylit waves.” Fist thudded on knee. “Kennin and Eyjan raged, would have stormed shore and asked at harpoon point. I told them we’d only risk death, and how can the dead help Yria? Yet it was hard to wait till sunset, when I knew you’d be here, Ingeborg.”
    She sat down against him, an arm around his waist, a hand on his thigh, cheek on shoulder. “I know,” she said most softly.
    He remained unbending. “Well? What’s happened, then?”
    â€œWhy, the provost took her off with him to Viborg town——Wait! No harm is meant. How could they dare harm a chalice of Heavenly grace?” Ingeborg said that matter-of-factly, and afterward she fleered. “You’ve come to the right place, Tauno. The provost had a scribe with him, and that one was here and I asked him about any plans for keeping our miracle fed. They’re not unkindly in Als, I told him, but neither are they rich. She has no more yarns to spin from undersea for their pleasure. Who wants a girl that must be taught afresh like a babe? Who wants a foster-daughter to find a dowry for? Oh, she could get something—pauper’s work, marriage to a deckhand, or that which I chose—but was this right for a miracle? The cleric said no, nor was it