Mermaid

  The sun was beginning to set, and the smell of the sea came in through the windows. Outside, its surface shone black, like oil, reflecting the sun above it, revealing nothing of what it contained. Lenia scanned the water, as had become her habit. She thought of her sisters, there, beneath those waters. What were they doing, right then? She tried to bring them to her mind—Thilla with her wise face, beautiful Nadine, the flame-haired twins Bolette and Regitta, Vela with her exotic sea creatures—but they seemed so far from her. Her heart ached as she imagined them searching for her, the panic they must have felt when they discovered her gone. She wondered how long it had taken one of them to go to Sybil, who would have told them about what she had done.

  Would they understand, eventually, and forgive her?

  She thought of the necklace they’d found for her, within the prince’s wrecked ship, and about how she’d tossed it angrily back in the water after hearing the prince speak about the human princess Margrethe. The woman he thought had saved him. Had one of her sisters found it, and taken it as a message from her to them? I love you, and I am well, here in the upper world.

  “Are you feeling all right, lady?” one of the women asked.

  She was swaying, she realized, off balance. A strange feeling rose from her belly. She tried to steady herself.

  She nodded, but then the feeling swept through her, like a giant wave, and it was as if her body were turning inside out, and she was falling from the stool and one of the seamstresses was catching her and the other running for the chamber pot, and then they were both helping her to the bed.

  She opened her mouth, and her insides came out. A hot liquid, a terrible sensation, like her body was being flipped over, everything contained inside her skin being pushed out. She remembered the feeling of her tail turning to legs, and for a moment she felt sheer panic. What if the potion was wearing off? What if she were becoming something else, something between mermaid and human?

  As quickly as it began, it passed. She sat breathing heavily, rocking back and forth, not sure what had just happened.

  “Here,” one of the women said, handing Lenia some water, which she drank gratefully.

  And she saw that, rather than panicking, the two seamstresses gave each other an amused look before going back to their work.

  SHE TOOK TO her bed for the rest of the evening, to recover from the sickness that had overcome her. Never, in the sea, had she felt anything so awful and unnerving.

  She lay alone and naked on the soft bed, with the curtain closed around her, clutching this strange torso she had, this curving belly. Slipping in and out of sleep. Wishing there was a shell she could crawl into, the way ocean creatures did, burrowing into a smooth recess of pink.

  Every smell suddenly bothered her, even more than before. The spice from the tea the servants brought. The lavender from the water that scented the fabrics. The vague odor of fowl coming from the castle kitchen.

  She sobbed under the covers. Slick with sweat, with tears. She was like a raw, disgusting sea creature. A clam. A mussel.

  Without him there, touching her, she was entirely alone. Abandoned, by everything. This, too, was a sickness.

  Sybil, she thought, closing her eyes. Help me.

  But she was so far away now. She pushed herself under the covers and listened to the hush of the castle. Her own breath, slightly ragged. The vague sound of the sea, breathing in and out, splashing against the shore. Horses clopping outside. Voices, laughter, the vielle. The occasional cough of the servant girl she knew was waiting on a chair outside her door.

  Then, what seemed like minutes later, she could see, beyond the curtains, that there was movement at the door. And there was his voice.

  She sat up.

  The curtains moved back, and it was him, the prince, standing in front of her. He was wearing his hunting clothes—a big cloak, his riding cap, his carved ivory horn hanging from a strap around his neck—and he smelled of bark and forest. He breathed life into everything, she thought. Not only her. He was grass and dirt and sun and sky.

  “Hello, my love,” he said softly. “I was told you are not feeling well.”

  She smiled at him and stretched out her hand. Behind him, the servant girl bent her head and left the room.

  “You are not well.”

  She shook her head, smiled at him.

  I am more than well. I am perfect.

  It was the first time he had come to her room rather than send for her. He slipped off the horn, his cap, his cloak, watching her with his strange, beautiful eyes. He was happy, she saw. She could feel it coming off him. Something had happened.

  He slipped into bed next to her, under the covers, and pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her slick waist. She smiled as he kissed her neck and jaw.

  “Are you feeling better than you were earlier?” he asked.

  She nodded, breathing in his scent. She could not get close enough to him. She wanted to disappear into him. There was nothing like this in her own world.

  Can’t you remember me?

  “You’re so sweet,” he said, smiling at her. “So beautiful.”

  Love me.

  “Your maids say you might be pregnant …”

  She looked at him, confused. He was watching her tenderly. Tracing his warm hand from her neck to her chest to her belly, resting his palm there, causing another wave of sickness to move through her. From her belly to her throat and then down again.

  Pregnant?

  She shook her head, backed away from him.

  “I was told that you had fallen ill, in the woman’s way.”

  He put his hand on her belly. She looked down at her own soft, pale skin where before there had been scales, glittering and bright green-silver. Could a child be growing inside of her? What kind of child could she have, in this world?

  She tried to ignore the intense feeling of disgust that passed through her.

  He noticed her distress and grew worried. “Are you ill again?”

  She shook her head, forced herself to smile.

  He relaxed, reached out his arm, stroked her hair. His fingers ran over her neck and back, sending shivers up and down her skin. He wants this, she thought.

  “My first child,” he said, kissing her jaw. “A son. He will be beautiful, like his mother.”

  DINNER THAT NIGHT was a splendid affair. The king and queen were dressed even more finely than usual, seated at the head table, and the service seemed especially extravagant, with elaborately dressed peacocks, their tails erupting at the ends of the silver platters, and pheasant and boar and lamb. Musicians played at the front of the hall, and jugglers made their rounds. Some nobles from a country estate were visiting, taking up one end of one of the long tables. The mood was firelit, jovial.

  Though still recovering from her earlier sickness, Lenia was in high spirits. It seemed the whole world was celebrating her good news, though no one mentioned it outright. But Christopher sat next to her on the bench rather than at his father’s table again, and Katrina kept looking over at them, a small smile on her face.

  Halfway through dinner, the king stood up and signaled to the musicians to stop playing.

  Christopher shrugged and raised an eyebrow at Lenia.

  “We have an announcement to make,” the king began, as a hush came over the hall. “We have been at war for a long time, and have lost many of our sons. Now we have peace, but the North, we have learned, is preparing a new set of attacks on the eastern coastline. We have already mobilized our soldiers, but our hope is that we can avoid more bloodshed. We have long desired a just and peaceful end to the fighting, as many of you know. We have long wished to restore our kingdom’s glory of old, by joining the North and the South once more.

  “This morning I dispatched a group of men to meet a new guest at our court. Princess Margrethe, daughter of the Northern king. She comes to us by her own volition as part of a marriage alliance that will bring peace to our land for many years to come, should the North agree. Th
is alliance will bring the bloodlines of our kingdom together, and make us whole once more. We have ensured her safety. Another set of men are now traveling to the North to lay out our terms to the king. Princess Margrethe will be a guest here at our court until we receive his response. If all goes as we hope, Princess Margrethe and Prince Christopher will be married, and we will have peace. Peace and the glory of the kingdom of old.”

  The king lifted his glass, and there was silence in the hall as his words soaked in.

  Lenia looked over to Christopher wildly. He was livid. His face ashen, his jaw hard. She had never seen him look like that.

  The king drank from his glass and set it down. “And now,” he said, “I want to present to you my son’s future bride, Princess Margrethe of the North.”

  Before anyone had time to react, a guard opened the side door to the hall, and a young woman in a bright blue gown, her black hair twisted elaborately under a gold headpiece, entered the room. She stepped forward regally and calmly, stopping to bow to the king. She looked over the court with her dark eyes.

  Lenia stared. Her mouth dropped open. And for the first time she knew what it was to feel pure panic.

  Margrethe.

  She could see, just under the girl’s sleeve, the diamonds on her skin where Lenia had touched her. The girl, Margrethe, had said she was the daughter of the Northern king. And Lenia, in this moment, understood what that meant. Understood what her lover’s father had just explained.

  No, she thought. He must marry me. Tears filled her eyes and dropped down her cheeks. As if her face were underwater.

  In horror, she watched Margrethe’s eyes searching the room before they stopped to rest on Christopher. She watched her soften and react to the sight of him, a slight blush coming to her face that only made her more beautiful.

  But Christopher did not even seem to see Margrethe. His eyes flicked over her, his face a hard mask of fury.

  The room erupted. Some clapped and cheered, others shouted in anger.

  “Enough!” The king demanded silence with a gesture. “We have had enough fighting!”

  The prince stood. “Father,” he said, his voice shaking with rage. “I seem to have been mistaken in the assumption that my life was my own to lead.”

  Margrethe visibly blanched at this statement and then looked regal once more, transforming so quickly that anyone not watching carefully might have missed it altogether.

  “Your task, my son,” the king responded, “is to serve your kingdom.”

  The whole room was silent, steeled for what would happen next.

  Several long moments passed as father and son faced each other, as if no one else were in the hall.

  All the men braced themselves, their hands sliding toward their weapons. Each of them had sworn to protect the king at all costs, even from his own heir.

  But Christopher surprised everyone. He turned to Lenia and extended his hand. She took it, her face burning, wet with tears.

  “Come, my love,” he said.

  Tenderly he helped her from her seat, his back straight and head high, and, his hand in hers, quietly left the room.

  As they walked out the door, Lenia glanced back once more at Margrethe, who stood awkwardly at the head of the room, looking as if a hundred men had, in fact, drawn their weapons, and pointed them all at her.

  IT WAS PRINCESS KATRINA who approached Lenia that evening in the queen’s outer chambers, after Lenia had spent over an hour trying to calm the prince, who insisted he would have no part in his father’s plan.

  “As my father said, she is the princess from the North,” Katrina said. “They have arranged some sort of deal, to bring peace. And now my brother will be forced into this marriage.” She spoke in a matter-of-fact fashion, as if Lenia’s heart were not breaking in her chest. “You are crying! Why are you crying? Oh, sweetheart. Did you want to marry him? Even without this peace treaty, my brother could not marry you. He is a prince. He cannot choose his own wife.”

  Katrina sighed, then turned back to her ladies-in-waiting. “I would like never to marry, of course. I would like to play the vielle and write poems, and I would quite like to live like one of these court troubadours. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Not be forced into some marriage to help the kingdom, as my brother will be. Most likely, though, I will be married off within the year.”

  “If we can find a man to have you,” the queen said, making everyone laugh.

  Everyone except Lenia, who sat stunned, watching her own tears falling on the crude embroidery in her hands.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Princess

  MARGRETHE WOKE UP SLOWLY, TO THE FEEL OF A SEA breeze moving across her, dusting her with tiny, sparkling grains of salt. She’d dreamed all night of the sea. The mermaid’s hand in hers, the two of them swimming together, gliding through the water like birds, deeper and deeper into the ocean, their arms spread on either side of them. She could feel the hard skin of the mermaid’s hand, like soft metal, in her own. Somehow she knew that they were going somewhere spectacular, mysterious, as wonderful as the visions that the old nuns saw when they trembled with love. And the water turned to clouds, to stars, and the mermaid turned into her mother, leading her up … until she could no longer see, the light was so bright, the love moving through her.

  She sat up, her heart sinking in her chest. Edele was awake, sitting by the window, staring out. Behind her, the sky was a dying smoky blue.

  “You were dreaming,” Edele said, turning to Margrethe.

  “Yes.” Slowly, Margrethe rose from the bed, her shift dropping in folds around her, and joined her friend by the window. “Edele, do you think I made a terrible mistake?”

  Edele turned to her. “No,” she said. “I think you’ve done the right thing. But anything could happen to us. I knew that, coming with you. The prince must not realize who you are, that he has met you before. And he was caught off guard. I mean, look how his father just humiliated him.”

  Margrethe nodded. “You saw?”

  “Yes, I was seated with the princess’s ladies. I thought you saw me.”

  “I could barely see anything, I was so frightened.”

  For a moment they were both silent, staring out at the beach from the tower, the guards stationed at the shore, the small boats rocking back and forth. Avoiding talking about the topic on both women’s minds: the prince’s lover. Astrid, they had called her.

  “What did you dream about?” Edele asked, her voice falsely bright. “Tell me.” She put her hand on Margrethe’s, and Margrethe started, surprised, then relaxed into the gesture.

  “Nothing, just silliness,” she said, shaking her head. “I was swimming with a mermaid.”

  “A mermaid!”

  “Yes.” Margrethe smiled. “She was showing me all kinds of wonderful things, secret things in the ocean.”

  Edele sighed. “I wish I could dream about such fantasies. You looked so happy. In my dreams, I find a bit of thread or an earring I thought I’d lost. It is quite a letdown when I wake up.”

  Margrethe smiled. “It was nice being somewhere else. People don’t like that we’re here, Edele. He doesn’t like that we’re here. I don’t know if this will work, if I’ve put us both in grave danger for nothing. Prince Christopher … He didn’t even look at me. It has been so little time, really, since I was with him, and already he loves someone else.”

  “He was upset at his father, Margrethe, not you. He just needs time. You know he cannot marry that woman.”

  Margrethe shook her head. “If he does not marry me … I can’t even think of it. None of this will work if the marriage does not take place. We are in this enemy stronghold, alone, and the king will have no reason to protect us.”

  “We have many allies here, and the king, he is friendly to us. Please, my lady. My dear friend. Do not despair.”

  Margrethe could not help having them, these feelings of doom and foreboding. Nothing was as she’d envisioned. The reality of being here, in this enemy cast
le, the way things had gone last night. The feeling had been so strong before, that sense of purpose and knowing. Never in her life had she felt so confident, and it had all been because of that mermaid. But now that mermaid was just a dream, slowly vanishing.

  It hit her then: how much this Astrid woman had reminded her of Lenia.

  Exasperated, Margrethe stood and walked to the window, and then her heart sank even more in her chest. “Look,” she said.

  Edele looked out to where Margrethe was pointing. “What?”

  “Here, move closer to me. Look. Down there.”

  It was the prince, walking by the water. Walking arm in arm with Astrid.

  Silent, they pressed against the window and watched.

  “They look happy, don’t they?” Margrethe asked.

  “Yes,” Edele whispered, putting her arm around Margrethe’s shoulders. “But just give it time. He is a man, after all.”

  Margrethe hadn’t seen such radiance between a man and woman since that day at the beach, since it had been the mermaid looking at Christopher like that. She shook the memory away. This was a real woman now—no matter how much she resembled a creature from myth—and the prince, whole and healthy again, was looking back at her with the same devotion.

  “I feel sick.”

  “Shhh,” Edele comforted.

  “I don’t know what this means. I thought … those moments with him, between us … I thought they were special, that they would sustain us, I thought they might be the seeds of love. Now I’m not so sure. Is he so fickle that he’s forgotten me completely?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Margrethe. It only matters that you marry, and bring our two kingdoms together.”

  Margrethe took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right. That’s true.”

  Below them, the prince wrapped the woman in his arms.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Margrethe and Edele attended Mass in the queen’s chapel. Quietly, with bowed heads, they entered and sat together in the last pew. Margrethe tried to focus on the priest’s words, but she found herself watching as Astrid took communion with her eyes closed, her mouth gaping open. When she and Edele moved to the communion rail, Margrethe felt the eyes of the queen, the Southern princess, and the prince’s lover burning into her back.