Mermaid

  “I am sure he was not sent to kill me,” Margrethe said. I met a mermaid, she wanted to say. We sat on the beach together. “As for the danger you’re referring to, I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  She gave Laura a sly look then, and the girl burst out laughing.

  “But he was … He came to the convent where you were staying,” Josephine said. “Why else would he be sent there?”

  “He was not sent there,” Margrethe said. “There was a terrible, terrible storm. He was not supposed to be there at all. He … swam to shore. I was the one who found him on the beach, nearly drowned.”

  “Nearly drowned?” Josephine asked. “They said he appeared on his horse, with a gleaming sword at his side.”

  “No,” Margrethe said, shaking her head. “He washed up on the shore one day, soaked through and shivering. If I hadn’t come upon him when I did, he would have died. He was alone. Does that sound like a man sent to kill me?”

  “You know how they all like to tell such stories here,” Josephine said. “They’ve talked of little else.”

  “I know,” Margrethe said. “But it was not like that. It was …” Her mind spun as she tried to reach back to those moments on the beach, in the infirmary and the garden. “He thought I was a novice, you know. He had no idea who I was. I was the girl who found him on the beach. He thanked me over and over.”

  “It was a coincidence, then?” Laura asked.

  “No,” Margrethe answered. “Fate.”

  “Fate,” Laura repeated, sighing. “That’s so romantic.”

  “Imagine if he knew who you were,” Josephine said. “Do you think he knows by now?”

  “Maybe,” Margrethe said, her heart sinking. She had avoided the thought: Christopher, learning that the young novice was actually a princess, the daughter of his father’s enemy. How would he react to that news?

  She had no idea what he would think. She had no idea what would happen to any of them now.

  Slowly, she stood from the bath. “I need to sleep,” she said.

  She remained silent as they dried her off and dressed her in her nightgown. Then she dismissed them and curled up on her bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

  SHE WOKE TO a hushed, dark world, wondering, once again, if she had dreamed everything. If it was months earlier, when her biggest decisions had been what to wear that day, what manuscript to read, what delightful pastimes to partake in. Back then, the world had seemed so safe. There were enemies in the South, evil and ferocious, but the bravest men of her land were ready to fight them, and she had no doubt that, when the time came, they would be victorious, loved as they were by God.

  She held up her arm, and it was still there, the shimmer across her skin in the sunken firelight.

  Edele was sitting near the fire. Margrethe stood up, groggy from sleep, and walked over to her, put her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

  “Have you recovered?” Margrethe asked.

  Edele looked up, surprised, then broke into a smile. Margrethe was struck for a moment by the girl’s vibrant beauty: her elaborate brocaded green dress that dipped down in the front, revealing her pale skin and ample cleavage, her mass of red curls and open, freckled face. Back to normal, as if the last months had never happened at all. The fire reflecting against her skin, making it glow.

  “I feel like I slept for days,” Edele said, standing. “I’m a new woman. And you? You must be dying to get into some civilized clothes again.” She walked to the wardrobe against the wall, began rifling through the rich gowns hanging in it.

  Margrethe laughed. “It is strange to be back, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But I am so relieved. I missed it here. I do not like being in a world without men.” She turned back to Margrethe and winked.

  “Edele! There are other things in the world besides men.”

  “Not anything of importance, m’lady.”

  “You are terrible. Did you really hate it so much?”

  “Yes! What was there not to hate? Rising at all hours of the night, never getting a proper rest, wearing those awful habits, all those hours ruining our hands at the loom, the terrible food. Worst of all, no men but that mean old bishop and the son of our greatest enemy.” Edele pulled out a pale blue silk gown. “This one,” she said, turning to Margrethe with the dress in hand. “Did you not hate it as well? All that time, and not once being able to speak as openly and loudly as we are now!”

  “I think I found some beauty there.”

  “Well. That you did.”

  There was a knock on the door, and a servant entered, followed by Josephine and Laura, announcing that the king expected Margrethe at dinner.

  “I will be there shortly,” Margrethe said, nodding, as Edele embraced the others and started regaling them with tales of the convent’s horrors.

  They all bustled around Margrethe, dressing her in the gown Edele had selected, combing out her long hair and piling it on her head, perfuming her with exotic oils. Margrethe closed her eyes. She could not help but savor the feeling of being stylishly clothed again after months of dressing plainly. Having her dark hair out and in full view, elaborately adorned. She moved to the glass and peered at herself, spread her palms on the silk of her dress, admiring how it cinched her waist. How splendid her dark hair looked against the pale blue. She found herself imagining, for a moment, Prince Christopher standing before her, seeing her like this.

  “You are back in the world now, too, my princess,” Edele said. “I know there are many gentlemanly eyes that have missed the sight of you.”

  Margrethe started, embarrassed, as if Edele had been reading her thoughts. “I hardly care about such things,” she said, lifting her head and turning to all three ladies. “I am ready now.”

  They led her down the austere old halls, lined with portraits of the past kings. The smell of roast pheasant wafted from the banquet hall, making her mouth water. The sound of voices drunk with wine. The stomping of feet on the old wooden floors. The pleasures of court life.

  “It smells like heaven,” Edele said. “I wish I’d made my dress looser …” She put her palms at her waist and grimaced.

  They all laughed, then quieted as they approached the door. The ladies stood back, according to custom, and Margrethe entered the banquet hall before them. The entire room broke out in cheers, and she smiled, nodded serenely, immediately slipping into the courtly style. She was a princess. This was what she knew how to do. Her father sat at the head of the table, with Pieter and Gregor flanking him, dressed in fur capes, while the rest of the court sat down the length of the table covered with platters of roast pheasant and soup and bread. Along the walls bright torches burned, reflecting in the silver and gold that decorated each place setting.

  Immediately the king stood and raised his glass, and everyone else followed suit.

  “To war!” he called out, his voice booming.

  “To Margrethe!”

  She curtsied the way she had since she was a girl, accepting the court’s toast with a princess’s grace. But a sick feeling moved through her. She remembered the boy drawing a mermaid with a stick in the ground, living in squalor while here there was such abundance. How much worse would it get for him? How many more children were there spread throughout her father’s land, her land, like him? Suddenly the smell of meat suffocated her.

  “Welcome home, my daughter,” the king said, as the room quieted. “We all thank the glory of God for your safe return.”

  “Thank you, Father,” she said. She walked up to the platform and took her seat, which Gregor quickly exchanged for the next chair down, beside her father. Calm and elegant, though every part of her wanted to stand up and shout what she had seen, what she knew.

  In front of her, a servant spread a lavish meal: roasted meat, spiced rice, thick bread. Just a few months ago, she would have been content to sit here and dine on pheasant and cake, accept the young courtiers’ attentions, clap as the court musicians played. The talk of war would have made her fe
el safe and strong.

  When I rule this kingdom, she thought now, her heart hammering in her chest, a great change will come.

  She pushed her plate away as the king continued. “It is only through God’s glory and His love for us, His people, that no harm came to my daughter, though she was within the enemy’s grasp. We will not let the South make fools of us. We will not let the prince’s disrespect for the North go unpunished.”

  All the nobles in the room raised their glasses and cheered as the servants scurried in and out, bringing more wine, more meat.

  “To war!”

  Margrethe forced herself not to flinch, not to show any emotion, when all she wanted to do was stand up and scream at all of them.

  The men stomped their feet and clanged their silverware against their plates.

  “Marte,” Gregor said softly, using his old nickname for her and taking her hand in his.

  She turned to him, grasping his hand gratefully, and felt comforted, instantly, by his touch. He was a brilliant man, learned in the ways of the skies and stars, the ocean and earth, literature and the arts. He’d been schooled, long ago, in the East, and brought from one of the universities to teach her father when he was a boy. When her father became a young king, he kept his old tutor close at hand and often turned to him for advice. It was the late queen who had insisted that Gregor school Margrethe, and, because of the prophecy made at her birth, her father had agreed. Margrethe’s happiest memories were of sitting with Gregor in the library, reading the poetry of the troubadours, stories from the ancients. When her mother died, all the times her father had gone off to war … she had always had the library to escape to.

  Gregor was like an anchor for her in the midst of all this confusion. Aside from Edele, he was the person she trusted most in the world.

  “I have missed you greatly,” she whispered. She clutched her old tutor’s hand, feeling close to tears. Next to her, she could sense her father’s anger as if it were a stone wall.

  “Let us eat!” the king said as the room erupted once more into cheers and stomping. All along the table, members of the court picked up their utensils and resumed eating. The musicians started playing a well-loved song, walking up and down the room. From the kitchen, the servants brought plates piled with cakes.

  “You are not eating, child?” her father asked after a few minutes, turning to her.

  She was surprised to see that, despite everything, he looked happier, more handsome even, than he had in ages. Since before her mother died, maybe. His dark eyes were bright, he was suddenly smiling and relaxed, where a minute ago he’d seemed overcome with rage. He likes this, she realized. He thrives on it.

  And then she felt guilt and love flow through her, too. It had been too long since she’d seen him look happy.

  “I am not feeling well, Father,” she said. “I’m still tired from the journey.”

  “It is no wonder,” he said.

  And her father reached out his large, ringed hand and touched her face tenderly, the way he’d done when she was a little girl. It took her by surprise, this gesture, and for a moment she again felt close to tears.

  She sat quietly through the rest of the meal, pushing her meat around her plate, forcing herself to take a few bites of bread. The music became more boisterous, and some courtiers began to sing along. She watched Edele, sitting with a group of young noble men and women, laughing with her head back, her hair tumbling down her shoulders. She wished she could sit with them, carefree.

  “Margrethe, would you accompany your old teacher on a walk in the garden?” Gregor asked as the servants cleared their plates.

  “Of course,” she said.

  He rose and gestured to the king, who nodded. Margrethe followed Gregor out of the hall, and through the doors that led into the heated, glass-walled garden, a project of her mother’s last years.

  “Everything you have been through, it must have been very traumatic,” he said, taking her arm in his. They began walking along one of the pathways that wound past exotic trees that had come on ships from the southern part of the world. “I am so relieved, Marte, that you are safe. But I can see something is troubling you.” He looked at her carefully. “What is it?”

  She looked at him, wondering how he always knew what she was feeling, and then, unbidden, the tears came, streaming down her cheeks. Sparkling like crystals in the night air. Above them, the moon was full and bright through the glass.

  “What is it?” he asked, stopping and turning to her. “Did he hurt you? Is there something you’re not saying? When we received a report that Prince Christopher had been not only nearby but within the same walls … Oh, your father! That he had been right next to you, down the hall—it was unimaginable, what might have happened.”

  “No, no,” she said. “That’s just it. I tried to tell my father this, Gregor, when he came to the convent that day. That he has it completely wrong. They all do. But he wouldn’t listen to me, and now there’s this talk of war, and it’s wrong, Gregor, all of it. He was not there to kill me.”

  “What are you saying? Why else would he have been there?”

  “He was not there to hurt me at all. I talked to him, to the prince. In the convent infirmary, I spoke to him, alone.”

  “Just you and him? Did he know who you were?”

  “No! He did not know anything. And he was kind to me. He believes that he owes his life to me. Well, not to me exactly, to the novice he thought I was. All this talk of retribution, it’s based on a coincidence. A stroke of fate. It is wrong.”

  She was relieved to see the concern on Gregor’s face. Despite their closeness, she’d half expected him to dismiss her as her father had.

  “You need to talk to your father,” he said gently. “When he left to get you … He was out of his mind. Terrified he could have lost you, the way he lost your mother. Now you are safe and home, and he may be able to listen.”

  “Gregor, my father stopped listening to me a while ago.” The idea of going back to her father made her feel sick. She had never before stood up to him aside from those few moments in the chaos of the convent. But she had never before had a reason like she did now.

  “You need to try. It’s too important. Too many lives are at stake.”

  She cocked her head, studying her tutor’s weathered face, which she loved so much, with its high cheekbones and deep crevices. “You are not as in love with war as my father is, are you?”

  “No,” he said. “Many of us are not.”

  She nodded slowly. “I did not think of it much before. I just figured it was how things were, the way they were supposed to be.”

  “You have seen something of the world now.”

  “I will try to speak with him,” she said, looping her arm through his. And then they continued along the path, past trees bursting with fruit and flowers while snow drifted silently to the ground outside the glass walls. In front of them, an ornate fountain, with water trickling down, shone icy in the moonlight.

  MARGRETHE WAITED TO go to her father until the next morning, when she knew he’d be in the best spirits, right after morning Mass and before the midday meal.

  She stood up straight, lifted her chin, and nodded for the guards to open the door. She was reminded of a night not long before when she’d stood outside the convent infirmary and been just as nervous as she was now.

  The guards announced her presence and led her to her father, who stood by the window, looking out over the grounds.

  He turned to her, and she could see that he was in a somber, melancholy mood.

  “Father,” she said, curtsying before him.

  “Margrethe,” he said. “Come to me, child.” She walked over to him awkwardly, let him pull her to him. He was such a large man, she felt enveloped by him. As a child, she had loved climbing over him as he lay on the floor, her mother laughing nearby, loved when he lifted her on his legs and swung her back and forth in the air. It was impossible to imagine this aged man ever behaving like tha
t now.

  “I am sorry you were so worried for me, Father,” she said. “And I thank you for rushing to help me.”

  “Of course,” he said, stepping back and looking at her. “You know there is nothing I would not do to protect you. I am only sorry I sent you into that den of vipers.”

  “Father,” she said, “it was not like that. Those women there, they are holy and good. The abbess was a friend to me.”

  He smiled slightly, gestured for her to sit on a couch nearby, and then sat down beside her. “You think well of those who do not deserve it, Margrethe. You are a gentle soul, but you will have to learn hardness, too, before you are queen.”

  “It is not weakness that makes me say this,” she said. “Not about the women I knew there, and not about”—she hesitated and then forced herself forward—“Prince Christopher.”

  “What about Prince Christopher?”

  “Father,” she said, taking a deep breath and turning to face him. “You cannot go back to war over this. You cannot break the peace agreement because of what happened. There has been a terrible misunderstanding. The prince was not there to hurt me. I promise you that. But even if he had been … the cost of war is too great.”

  She watched his face harden. “You do not know enough of the world yet, Daughter,” he said, “to speak of these matters.”

  “I believe the prince was sent there for a greater purpose. He washed to shore, bruised and battered, nearly dead, and I was the one who saw him, who made sure he lived. How can you explain that, except as a sign from God?”

  “You must not let yourself be fooled by Southern tricks,” he said. “Remember the horse the Greeks used to win the Trojan War. I would hope your studies could serve you better than this.”

  She was startled by her father’s reference to the old tale and could not help raising her voice. “I am the one who found him. He was not tricking me by dying! I should never have been standing there watching the sea in the first place. At any other time, he would have just died there, on the rocks. How else can you explain what happened?”