Westward the stars glittered, but eastward a horned moon had risen and the sky beneath was turning argent. The sea shimmered ever more bright; Eyjan stood -forth against shadow as if a lamp glowed cool from within her. Wind had freshened, it strummed on the rigging and bellied out the sail, Herning heeled over a bit, aquiver. Waves whooshed.
Niels halted. “Eyjan,” he c~ed, “you’re too fair, your beauty burns me.”
“Soft, soft,” she said, with a hasty glance up the mast. “This way, to the forepeak.” She danced ahead, he bumbled after.
Blackness no longer dwelt under the bow deck: instead, a twilight wherein he could see her clearly, till she cast her body against his and he was caught in the whirlwind of her kiss. Trum-pets, drums, and exploding flames burst loose in him. “Get those stupid clothes off,” she soon commanded, and plucked at them herself.
—They lay resting for the next passage. “I love you,” he said into the fragrance of her hair. “With my very soul, I love you.”
“Hush,” she warned. “You’re a man-yes, a man, however young-and christened.”
“I care not!”
“You will. You must.” Eyjan leaned on an elbow to look down
at his countenance. Most gently, her free hand descended on his breast. “You have an immortal spirit to ward. Need has made us shipmates, but I’d not be the means of your ruin, darling friend.”
Blinded by sudden anguish, he groped at her bosom and gasped, “I can’t leave you. Never can I. And you-you’d not leave me, would you? Say you won’t!”
She calmed him with kisses and embraces till he could listen to her: “We’ll not fret about the morrow, Niels. What can that do save spoil the today that is ours? No more talk of love.” She chuckled. “Rather, good, honest lust. You’re a most rousing fel-low, did you know?”
“I, I care for you-“
“And I for you. We’ll share in many ways, at work, at talk, at song, at gaze over sea and sky. . . close comrades. . . .” Again she laughed, deep in her throat. “At this hour, though, we’ve els~ to do, and I feel that you-how marvelous.”
—In the crow’s nest, Tauno heard the noises they made. Hi~ mouth grew tight; he beat fist into palm, over and over.
Easy weather prevailed, and Herning limped south faster than might have been awaited. When she passed near craft plying be-tween England and the Pale, Hauau, clad like a man, shouted in the English language that she was whatever he and Niels deemed would be plausible at a given encounter. Since they were clearly on no mission of war or robbery, that sufficed. Once they did heave to and wait for night in order to steal past a royal ship which Hauau took a near look at in his seal form. She could have stopped them on suspicion of spying or smuggling.
On a cloudy eventide Tauno came back with a fine big salmon
in his grip. He swung himself up the rope ladder that trailed from
the waist and cast the fish onto the planks. “Ho, ho!” boomed the
selkie from the dark in the aftercastle where he steered. “Will ye
cut me a chunk 0’ that the nooT’
Tauno nodded and brought it to him. In the dull light of a lanthom which illuminated the floating compass needle, Hauau bulked less human-looking than by day. He snatched the raw meat and tore at it greedily. The siblings did not care for cooked fish either, and Ingeborg prepared it only for Niels and herself. Yet a touch of disgust passed across Tauno’s face before he could check it.
Hauau noticed. “Wha’ ails yeT’ he asked.
Tauno shrugged. “Naught.”
“Nay, summat, and tae do wi’ me, I’m thinking. Spit it oot.
We canna afford tae let angers rankle.”
“Why, I’ve no plaint against you.” Tauno’s voice remained sullen. “If you must know my fancy, I’ll say that we were more mannerly about our eating in Liri.”
Hauau studied him a moment before he said in chosen words:
“Ye’d na let that itch, save tae tak’ your mind off a pain. Wba’s the matter, lad?”