The Merman's Children Read Online Free PDF

finger. She raised herself to her knees and drew the Cross. “That is Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” she said almost steadily.
    Magnus lifted his arms. He likewise wept, but for glory. “Lo, a miracle!” he shouted. “I thank You, Almighty God, that You have let me, most miserable of sinners, witness this token of Your overflowing grace.” He swung on the folk. “Kneel! Praise Him! Praise Him!”
    Later, alone with Knud, he explained more calmly: “The bishop and I thought something like this might happen. Your message did relate that the sacred pictures had not turned from her. Moreover, in the archives we found a few legends from the days of those apostles to the Danes, Ansgar and Poppo—apocryphal, yet now seen to have embodied some truth. Thus I can interpret what we have seen.
    â€œLike their Faerie parents, halflings have indeed no souls, though doubtless their bodies also are ageless. Yet God is willing to receive even these, aye, even full-fledged beings of that kind. Upon Margrete’s baptism, He gave her a soul as He gives a soul to a quickening babe. She has become entirely human, mortal in the flesh, immortal in the spirit. We must see well to it that she loses not her salvation.”
    â€œWhy can she not remember?” Knud asked.
    â€œShe has been reborn. She keeps the Danish language, with what other terrestrial skills she has; but everything that is in any way linked to her former life has been cleansed from her. That must be Heaven’s mercy, lest Satan use homesickness to lure the ewe lamb from the fold.”
    The old man seemed more troubled than pleased. “Her sister and brothers will take this ill.”
    â€œI know about them,” said Magnus. “Have the girl meet them on the strand in front of those seven trees which grow low and close together. Their branches will screen my men, who will have crossbows cocked——”
    â€œNo! Never! I will not have it!” Knud gulped, knowing how scant an authority was his. At length he persuaded Magnus not to ambush the halflings. They were leaving soon. And what might the effect be on Margrete’s new soul, that almost the first thing she would remember was a deed of blood?
    Therefore the priests told the men-at-arms to shoot only if ordered. All waited behind the trees, in a cold, blowing dusk. Margrete’s white robe fluttered dimly before them where she stood, puzzled but obedient, hands folded over a rosary.
    A sound broke through the soughing of leaves and the clashing of whitecaps. Forth from the water waded the tall man, the tall woman, and the boy. It could just be seen that they were unclad. “Lewdness,” Magnus hissed angrily.
    The man said something in an unknown tongue.
    â€œWho are you?” Margrete replied in Danish. She shrank from them. “I can’t understand you. What do you want?”
    â€œYria——” The woman held out her wet arms. “Yria.” Her own Danish was agonized. “What have they done to you?”
    â€œI am Margrete,” the girl said. “They told me…I must be brave.…Who are you? What are you?”
    The boy snarled and sprang toward her. She raised the crucifix. “In Jesu name, begone!” she yelled, aghast. He did not obey, though he stopped when his brother caught him. The tall man made a strangled noise.
    Margrete whirled and fled over the dunes toward the hamlet. Her siblings stood a while, talking in tones of bafflement and dismay, before they returned to their sea.

V
    T HE island men call Laesö lies four leagues east of northern Jutland. Sand and ling, windswept from Skagerrak and Kattegat both, it holds few dwellers. Yet the small churches upon it forever banned merfolk from what was once their greatest gathering place—for then it was Hlesey, Hler’s Island, with Hler a name of Aegir. Early on, therefore, Christian priests exiled thence, with bell, book, and