“Like their Faerie parents, halflings have indeed no souls, though doubtless their bodies also are ageless. Yet God is willing to receive even these, aye, even full-fledged beings of that kind. Upon Margrete’s baptism, He gave her a soul as He gives a soul to a quickening babe. She has become entirely human, mortal in the flesh, immortal in the spirit. We must see well to it that she loses not her salvation.”
“Why can she not remember?” Knud asked.
“She has been reborn. She keeps the Danish language, with
what other terrestrial skills she has; but everything that is in any way linked to her former life has been cleansed from her. That must be Heaven’s mercy, lest Satan use homesickness to lure the ewe Iamb from the fold.”
The old man seemed more troubled than pleased. “Her sister and brothers will take this ill.”
“I know about them,” said Magnus. “Have the girl meet them
on the strand in front of those seven trees which grow low and
close together. Their branches will screen my men, who will have
crossbows cocked-“
“No! Never! 1 will not have it!” Knud gulped, knowing how scant an authority was his. At length he persuaded Magnus not to ambush the halflings. They were leaving soon. And what might the effect be on Margrete’s new soul, that almost the first thing she would remember was a deed of blood?”
Therefore the priests told the men-at-arms to shoot only if ordered. All waited behind the trees, in a cold, blowing dusk. Margrete’s white robe fluttered dimly before them where she stood, puzzled but obedient, hands folded over a rosary.
A sound broke through the soughing of leaves and the clashing of whitecaps. Forth from the water waded the tall man, the tall woman, and the boy. It could just be seen that they were unclad. “Lewdness,” Magnus hissed angrily.
The man said something in an unknown tongue.
“Who are you?” Margrete replied in Danish. She shrank from
them. “I can’t understand you. What do you want?”
“Yria-“ The woman held out her wet arms. “Yria.” Her own Danish was agonized. “What have they done to you?”
“I am Margrete,” the girl said. “They told me. . . I must be brave. . . . Who are you? What are you?”
The boy snarled and sprang toward her. She raised the crucifix. “In Jesu name, begone!” she yelled, aghast. He did not obey, though he stopped when his brother caught him. The tall man made a strangled noise.
Margrete whirled and fled over the dunes toward the hamlet. Her siblings stood a while, talking in tones of bafflement and dismay, before they returned to their sea.