A lamp swung from a chain, guttered, cast dull light and trollshaped shadows and rank smoke. Who had kindled it-? A moan brought his glance to the bunk. The girl Raxi and the youth Haiko were making love.
To interrupt would be bad manners. Vanimen waited, braced against the crazy lurching and swaying around him, frostily amused at what agility their act required of them here. Above the head of the bunk was a crucifix; above the foot, where a man could regard it as he lay, was a painting of the Virgin, crude, dimly seen, yet somehow infinitely tender. The images had not turned their backs-this was not the church he had dared enter, seeking for Agnete—but he felt anew his strangeness to everything they were. He felt his aloneness.
The rutting couple finished, with a shared cry. Presently they noticed Vanimen. Haiko grew abashed; Raxi grinned, waved, and eased out from beneath her partner.
“Why are you in my berth?” Vanimen demanded through windhowl, thunder-crash, wave-roar, timber-groan.
“The others are full,” Raxi answered. “We knew not you’d come, nor thought you’d mind.” Did Haiko flush? “It. . . it would be unwise to. . . do this in the water,” he mumbled. “We might lose sight of the hull. But we may soon be dead.”
Raxi sat up and reached out her arms. In the narrow space, she touched Vanimen. “Will you be next?” she invited. “I’d like that.”
“No!” he heard himself snap. “Get out! Both of you!”
They did, with hurt looks. The door closed behind them, leaving him altogether solitary. Through foul gloom he stared into the eyes of the Holy Mother and wondered why he had been angered. What had those two done that was wrong. . . in her very sight? They were soulless; they could not sin, any more than an animal could. Nor could he.
“Is that not true?” he asked aloud. There was no answer.
Day and night, day and night, day and night, until counting drowned in weariness, the storm drove the ship before it.
Afterward hardly any of that span abode in memory. It was nothing but chaos, struggle, half-perceived pain, and loss. Sharpest in Vanimen’s heart was that his orca disappeared. Maybe it got stunned into bewilderment and drifted elsewhere, as several merfolk did. He saw it no more.
Somehow he and his people kept their vessel afloat, though in the end she was leaking so badly that the pumps could never stop. Somehow they outlived the tempest. In all else it had its will of them—
-until it was finished.
The hulk lay outside the Gates of Hercules. Vanimen recognized those dim blue masses on the world-rim, Spain and Africa, from a time past when he had adventured south. The seas still ran heavy, but azure and green beneath a sky washed utterly pure; glitter danced along every movement. Warmth spilled from the sun, calling forth odors of tar to mingle with salt and flavor the breeze. A throb and a murmur went through planks, ears, bones: a song of peace.
No craft had thus far ventured out of port. Insatiably curious, dolphins flocked about this one. Vanimen left on deck a crowd as gaunt and shaky as himself. He dived, struck, went below, rose anew to continue breathing air. His flesh felt each ripple through the cleanliness that upbore him. He addressed the dolphins.
What could they tell him of the Midworld Sea? On his earlier faring he had not swum much beyond a great lionlike rock in the straits. Christendom had prevailed hereabouts for long and long; little or naught of Faerie seemed to remain. Today was different for him. His ship would never cross the ocean. He would be lucky if she made another thousand leagues before foundering, and that would have to be through waters more mild than stretched westward. Did any refuge exist to which she might bring the Liri folk?
The dolphins chattered among themselves. They sent messengers off, a-leap in prismatic spray, to seek additional counsel. It took time. Meanwhile the people rested, hunted, regained strength. By fortune, a dead calm fell and lasted a considerable period; hence no humans sailed near to inquire who this might be.
An answer of sorts emerged. Most lands inside the Gates doubtless would be inhospitable. Fishermen were too plentiful and, the Church aside, would not welcome fish hunters. The African coast might be better, save that mankind there was of a faith which kindled still more zeal against Faerie than Christendom generally did.
But. . . a certain shore on the eastern marge of a narrow sea was otherwise. The dolphins had trouble explaining. They knew merely that nothing like merfolk dwelt yonder, yet Faerie was not wiped out as it had been in, say, Spain. No, to judge from glimpses and encounters the dolphins had had, that country teemed with nonhuman beings. Were the mortals more tolerant than elsewhere? Who knew?
Much shipping went back and forth in those parts, as well as trawling. Nevertheless, food ought to be ample for a few score settlers. The coast was rugged, too, often heavily wooded, rich in islands; surely someplace was a site for New Liri.
Vanimen’s pulse thudded. He made himself be patient, asking and asking. The dolphins could describe more or less what the men looked like that they had observed, how they dressed, what kind of sacred or magical objects they carried. (Many had come to grief at sea; the dolphins occasionally helped swimmers reach land, and always studied the drowned with interest.) It was hard to understand the accounts. These creatures did not think or even see quite like him. Slowly, he puzzled out a portion. More helpful was their relation of what mortals said. They had a range and keenness of hearing, an exact memory for what they heard, such as were given to no life elsewhere.
Vanimen joined what he got from them to what he had garnered on his travels or from men he had known. A few of the latterdecades or centuries down in dust-were educated, eager both to learn and to teach, willing to take him for what he was if word about it did not get around... King Svein Estridsen, Bishop Absalon. . . .
That seaboard, on the far side of Italy, was called Dalmatia. Nowadays it was part of a realm called Hrvatska, or Croatia in the Latin tongue. The folk were akin to the Rus, but of Catholic belief. Nor did the dolphins know of anything among them like the northern rousalkai. That was as much as Vanimen could piece together.
Perhaps what waited yonder was the final working out of a curse. But perhaps not. And had the merfolk much to choose from?
II
The storm overtook the cog Herning on her journey back to Denmark. That had already been a hard passage through hostile winds. She could tack, awkwardly and never pointing close, but this was a matter of straining at sheets and braces to reset, while tightly keeping the helm lest she lose steerage way or go worse out of control. In these airs, it must be done again and again, day or night, with scant warning or none.
Ingeborg could just cook and keep house, work amply rough. Eyjan had the strength to stand watches and help at lines and tiller; she brought fresh fish aboard, aided by several dolphins whose curiosity kept them nearby; she navigated in mennaid wise. Mainly the undennanned craft depended on Tauno’s muscles. Yet heregretting now that none of the original crew had been spared, dangerous though that would have been afloat and at home-could not have been the sole deckhand. He needed the lesser might of Niels, as well as the boy’s redes.
It was not that Niels was experienced, even as much as a fisher lad his age. He had only been on a few short trips before this one. But he was quick to learn, eager to ask; he dreamed of a berth on a better vessel and maybe, maybe, in a far tomorrow, if God willed, a captaincy of his own. What shipmates could or would not explain, he got from other men when in port, his friendly manner making them glad to oblige him. In this present peril, he observed more keenly than ever, and from this he also learned, fast.