“Aye. When might you be done? In a year?”
Niels frowned and plucked at his wispy beard. “I would guess
longer. Surely for me to establish myself-but that’s not what you want to hear about, is it? Yria. . . if all goes well. . . we might have her ransomed in a year. It depends on what allies we can find, you see. . . . Oh, say that a twelvemonth hence we’ll know better how things are going.”
Tauno nodded. “As you like, Eyjan and I will return then for news.”
Niels’ mouth fell open. “You’ll be gone that long?”
“Why should we linger, when we’d fain be searching for our
people?”
Niels gulped hard. His hands wrestled. In a while he could ask: “Where will you seek?”
“West,” said Tauno, more softly than heretofore. “Toward Greenland. Hauau and I spoke of this, one moonlit night in the sea. He has foreknowledge. About me it was hazy; but he did say there was a whisper in his skull, that somewhere thither, a part of my fate lies waiting.”
Sunlight blinked upon him, to turn /tis head amber. As if that recalled him to the everyday, he shrugged and finished, “It’s a reasonable direction. We may learn something helpful along the way, as at Iceland.”
“You’ll not lead Eyjan into danger, will you?” Niels.implored.
Tauno rapped forth a laugh. “She’s hard to keep out of it.”
After regarding the countenance before him, he added, “Let’s not borrow trouble. Enough comes as a free gift. Let’s plan how we may meet again.”
Niels threw himself into that matter as if escaping. Talk went back and forth. The siblings must needs inform him when they arrived, and thereafter wait for him to come. This was a bad spot for them to do so. It had little cover ashore; if Alsmen in fishing boats glimpsed them, that would awaken dangerous gossip. For his part, Niels would be taking ample risks whenever he came back to raise more gold. Best that otherwise he do nothing overly remarkable in neighborhoods where he was known-and he was bound to become noticed throughout the kingdom.
They decided on the island of Bornholm, away off in the Baltic Sea. Tauno knew and liked the place, which had but few clusters of settlement. Niels had been to that fief of the Lund archbishopric too, on an earlier trip, and there met an old salt, crusty and trusty, who owned a boat in Sandvig. Let the merman’s children seek him out, passing themselves off as human foreigners, and give him a carefully worded message. For payment-they had both donned golden arm coils, off which bits could be sliced-he should be willing to go to Denmark, track Niels down, and deliver the report.
“Next year, if we are alive-aye!” said Tauno. He and his comrade handselled it.
Ingeborg and Hauau stood among wet swirls that an unseen sun turned silvery. The Kattegat leaped at their feet.
“I maun be awa’ the noo, ere the weather breaks and reveals us,” he told her. The scheme was for him to steer Herning well out, then turn the cog loose, to smash beyond recognition on a Norse or Swedish coast where nobody knew her anyway. Mean-while a gray seal would be swimming toward Sule Skerry. She embraced him, forgetful of the fishy stench that rubbed off on her gown. “Will I ever see you again?” she asked through tears.
Surprise made fluid the heavy features, the blocky, shaggy frame. “Och, lass, why’d ye wish that?”
“Because you, you are good,” she stammered. “Kind, car-ing-How many care, in this world. . . or beyond?”
“Wha’ gowk yon halfling be,” Hauau sighed. “But nay, In-geborg, seas will sunder us.”
“You could come back sometime. If everything goes well-
I’ll have me an island or a strip of beach to dwell on-“
He clasped her by the waist and looked long into her eyes.
“ Are ye that lanely?”
“You are.”
“And ye think we might tegither-“ He shook his head.
“Nay, my jo. Ye hae your ain doom, I hae mine.”
“B-before those claim us-“
“Nay, I said.” He fell quiet. Mist blew by, waters murmured.