fed, droning through her nose at God while letting wither what
God put between her legs; never to know love, children about her,
the growth of home and kin, or even wanderings under apple trees
in blossom time—“
“Tauno, it is the way to eternal bliss.”
“Hm. Rather would I have my bliss now, and then the dark.
You too-in your heart-not so?-whether or not you’ve said you mean to repent on your deathbed. Your Christian Heaven seems to me a shabby place to spend forever.”
“Margrete may think otherwise.”
“Mar-aah. Yria.” He brooded a while, chin on fist, lips taut,
breathing noisily in the smoke. “Well,” he said, “if that is what she truly wants, so be it. Yet how can we know? How can she know? Will they let her imagine anything is real and right beyond their gloomy cloi-cloister? I would not see my little sister cheated, Ingeborg.”
“You sent her ashore because you would not see her eaten by eels. Now what choice is there?”
“None?”
The despair of him who had always been strong was like a knife to her. “My dear, my dear.” She held him close. But instead of tears, the old fisher hardheadedness rose in her.
“One thing among men opens every road save to Heaven,” she said, “and that it does not necessarily bar. Money.”
A word in the mer-tongue burst from him. “Go on!” he said in Danish, and clutched her arm with bruising fingers. “To put it simplest: gold,” Ingeborg told him, not trying to break free. “Or whatever can be exchanged for gold, though the metal itself is best. See you, if she had a fortune, she could live where she wished-given enough, at the King’s court, or in some foreign land richer than Denmark. She’d command servants, men-at-arms, warehouses, broad acres. She could take her pick among suitors. Then, if she chose to leave this and return to the nuns, that would be a free choice.”
“My folk had gold! We can dig it out of the ruins!”
“How much?”
There was more talk. The sea people had never thought to
weigh up what was only a metal to them, too soft for most uses however handsome and unrusting it might be.
At the end, Ingeborg shook her head. “Too scant, I fear,” she
sighed. “In the ordinary course of things, plenty. This is different.
Here Asmild Cloister and Viborg Cathedral have a living miracle. She’ll draw pilgrims from everywhere. The Church is her guardian in law, and won’t let her go to a lay family for your few cups and plates.”
“What’s needed, then?”
“A whopping sum. Thousands of marks. See you, some must
be bribed. Others, who can’t be bought, must be won over by grand gifts to the Church. And then enough must be left for Margrete to be wealthy. . . . Thousands of marks.”
“What weight?” Tauno fairly yelled, with a merman’s curse.
“I-I-how shall I, fisherman’s otphan and widow, who never
held one mark at a time in this fist, how shall I guess?.. A boatful? Yes, I think a boatload would do.”
“A boatload!” Tauno sagged back. “And we have not even a boat.”
Ingeborg smiled sadly and ran fingers along his arm. “No man wins every game,” she murmured. “You’ve done what you could. Let your sister spend threescore years in denying her flesh, and afterward forever in unfolding her soul. She may remember us, when you are dust and I am burning.”
Tauno shook his head. His eyelids squinched together. “No. . . she bears the same blood as I… it’s not a rest-ful blood. . . she’s shy and gentle, but she was born to the free-dom of the world’s wide seas. . . if holiness curdles in her, during a lifetime among whisker-chinned crones, what of her chances at Heaven?”
“I know not, I know not..”
“An unforced choice, at least. To buy it, a boatload of gold.
A couple of wretched tons, to buy Yria’s welfare.”
“Tons! Why-I hadn’t thought-less than that, surely. A few hundred pounds ought to be ample.” Eagerness touched Ingeborg. “Do you suppose you could find that much?”
“Hm. . . wait. Wait. Let me hark back-“ Tauno sat bolt upright. “Yes!” he shouted. “I do know!”