She nodded. “Aye. They’d not have used the lamps tonight, had we not come. I think they keep the fat against a famine they await.” She shivered. “Hu, a lightless Greenland winter! Drowned Averorn was more blithe.”
Haakon took the high seat and, with manners elsewhere long out of date, beckoned his visitors to sit on the bench opposite. He ordered beer brought. It was weak and sour, but came in silver goblets. He explained he was a widower. (From her behavior toward him, they guessed the child was his which bulged the belly of a young slattern.) Three sons and a daughter were alive-he believed; the oldest lad had gotten a berth on a ship bound back to Oslo, and not been heard of for years. The second was married and on a small farm. The third, Jonas, was still here, a wiry pointy-nosed youth with lank pale hair who regarded Tauno in fox wariness and Eyjan in ill-hidden lust. The rest were poor kin and hirelings, who worked for room and board.
“As for my daughter-“
Bodies stirred and mumbled among thick, moving shadows.
Eyes gleamed white, fear could be smelled and felt in the smoke. Haakon’s voice, which had been fIrm, barked forth: “What can you tell of her?”
“What can you tell of merfolk?” Tauno retorted.
The Norseman curbed his wits. “Something. . . maybe.”
It gasped and choked through the dimness. “I doubt that,”
Eyjan breathed in her brother’s ear. “I think he lies.”
“I fear you’re right,” he answered as low. “But let’s play his game. We’ve a mystery here.”
Aloud: “We found her at sea, not far hence, amidst Inuit-Skraelings, do you call them? She and her baby looked well.” They looked better than anybody here, he thought. Belike Haakon had seen to it that she got ample food while growing, because he wanted her to bear him strong grandsons or because he loved her. “I warn you, though, you’ll not like what she told us to tell you. Bear in mind, this was none of our doing. We were on hand for a very brief time, and we don’t even understand what she meant by her words.”
The father’s knuckles stood white around his swordhilt. Jonas his son, seated on the bench next to him, likewise grasped dagger.
“Well?” Haakon snapped.
“I am sorry. She cursed you. She said everybody should depart
this country, lest you die of a-a tupilak, whatever ~at is-which a magician of theirs has made to punish a sin of yours.”
Jonas sprang to his feet. “Have they taken her soul out of the body they took?” he shrieked through a hubbub.
Did Haakon groan? He gave no other sign of his wound. “Be still!” he required. The uproar waxed. He rose, drew his sword, brandished it and said flatly: “Sit down. Hold your mouths. Whoever does not will soon be one less to feed through the winter.”
Quiet fell, save for the wind piping around walls and snuffing at the door. Haakon sheathed blade and lowered his spare frame. “I have an offer for you two,” he said, word by word. “A fair trade. You’ve told us you’re half human, but can breathe under-water as well as a real merman, and swim almost as well. By your weapons, I ween you can fight there too.”
Tauno nodded.
“And you ought not to fear sorcery, being of the Outworld
yourselves,” Haakon went on.
Eyjan stiffened. Jonas said in haste, “Oh, he doesn’t mean you are evil.”
“No,” Haakon agreed. “In truth, I’ve a bargain to strike with you.” He leaned forward. “See here. There is indeed. . . a flock of what must be merfolk. . . around an island to the west. I saw them shortly before, before our woes began. I was out fishing. Sturli and Mikkel were along,” he added to the astounded house-hold, “but you remember that the tupilalC got them afterward. We were. . . alarmed at what we saw, unsure what Christian men should do, and felt we’d best hold our peace till we could ask a priest. I mean a wise priest, not Sira Sigurd of this parish, who can’t read a line and who garbles the Mass. I know he does; I’ve been to church in the Ostri Bygd and heeded what was done and sung. And surely he’s failed to pray us free of the tupilak. Folk around here are sliding fast into ignorance, cut off as we mostly have been-“ His features writhed. .. Aye, sliding into heath-endom.”