“I wish I were doing this because I truly want to be with God,”
he got out. “I ought not come to Him as a pauper.”
“You, Vanimeq?” she whispered.
“Aye,” he said. They halted. She saw him square his shoulders
inside the peasant’s coat. “Let me go first, so the rest of you may see what happens and thereafter choose for yourselves.
“I am your king.”
Father Petar was grossly offended that the ceremony would take place off in the woods, with Father Tomislav officiating. The zhupan must point out that this was at the Ban’s express command, because having many observers who often went to Shibenik or farther would be impolitic.
Having received religious instruction, Vanimen excused him-self and went alone down to the coast. He spent the day and night of the equinox at sea. What he did or thought then was something whereof he later kept silence.
His return was on the eve of St. Gabriel. Next morning, after Mass had been sung, he entered the church. The inhabitants of the zadruga stayed there as onlookers. No image denied him. Outside, his people waited under budding leaves, in a hard rain.
He carne forth with arms widespread and cried in their own tongue: “Oh, hasten, hasten, beloved! Christ bids you welcome to blessedness!”
VI
TAUNO and Eyjan reached Greenland months after leaving Den-mark. First they had searched the nearer waters, albeit with scant expectation. Their tribe could only be living in those parts in dispersal, and that might well itself prove impossible. Everywhere from North Cape and the Gulf of Bothnia to the Galway coast and Faeroes, what few hunting grounds remained-not yet overrun by humans or barred by curse of a Christian priest-had long been held by others, who numbered about as many as could support themselves.
Though friendly enough to the siblings, these dwellers had no knowledge whatsoever of where the exiles might have gone. That was strange, as widely as news traveled with merfolk roving singly or in small bands, and with the dolphins. A few persons had heard of a migration up the Kattegat and across the Skagerrak, but there the trail ended.
Hence the siblings went on to Iceland, arriving about midwin-ter. They got no help from the three surviving settlements along yonder shores either, save hospitality during a season more stem than Tauno and Eyjan had known in their young lives. Elders who had seen several hundred years go by told them that through the past eight or nine decades cold had been deepening. Pack ice groaned in every fjord which once had been clear, and bergs laired in sea lanes which Eric the Red had freely sailed three centuries ago. .
But this was of no large moment to merfolk, who, indeed, found more life in chill than in warm waters. The king of Liri might well have led his community to unclaimed banks off Green-land. In spring, Tauno and Eyjan sought thither.
On the way, they encountered some dolphins who confirmed what they had suspected. Vanimen and his following had tak a ship westward from Norway. Alas, a mighty storm arose and blew the vessel farther off course than any of those animals-whose territories are large but nevertheless territories-Chose to go.
“If she foundered,” Tauno reasoned, “the sailors would be swimmers again. Where they made for would depend on where they were, but they’d strive toward the. goal they had if it seemed at all reachable. If she did not go under, then they’d beat back toward that same goal. As close as we ourselves are to Greenland, our chances are best if we continue.” Eyjan agreed.
They spent that summer on the eastern side, fruitlessly for their search. What gatherings of their father’s sort that they met were uncouth barbarians who had never heard the name of Liri-for merfolk had less occasion to make this crossing than the sons of Adam had had. When they came upon a group of Inuit, the half-lings joined those in hope of some tidings.
At home they had barely gotten rumors of a new human breed moving southward through the great glacier-crowned island. Tauno and Eyjan found them to be hardy, skilled, helpful, open-handed, merrier companions and lustier lovers than most shore-dwellers of Europe, heathens who felt no guilt at welcoming Faerie kind into their midst. But after a few months, their way of life, took on a sameness which chafed. Having learned somewhat of the language, and the fact that nobody had the longed-for infor-mation, brother and sister bade farewell and returned to the sea.