Three

 

Erik drifted, dreaming of a mermaid who had saved him. A few times, he could have sworn he felt her in his arms, like one of the sirens in the stories. But sirens lured men to their deaths, just as mermaids dragged mariners to the depths of the sea. He'd never heard a tale about one who saved people.

When he awoke alone on the sand, he was disappointed. Oh, not that he wasn't dead – that he was quite relieved about, or he would be, once he worked out where the mermaid had gone.

Perhaps she had only left to get her sisters, and together they would finish him off.

"Is he dead?" a male voice asked.

Erik leaped to his feet. He found himself face to face with three fishermen, their arms full of fishing nets. "Prince Philip is dead," he said.

One of the men shrugged. "Don't know any princes. But dead men don't talk or jump, so I'd say he's not dead."

"He looked dead," one of the others said.

"Maybe he's like that miracle man who came back to life," the third ventured eagerly.

Erik didn't feel like a miracle man, nor did he deserve it, if Philip was dead and he yet lived. "Is there a town nearby? Or somewhere I might find a ship? I must go home to tell the king about Prince Philip."

"Up that way, just over the dune," the first man said, pointing. "White Harbour always has some ships coming and going."

Erik thanked them and trudged toward what turned out to be a sizeable town, clustered around a busy harbour that he recognised as the one at Beacon Isle. Could it really have been less than a week since he sailed out of this very harbour?

He enquired at the docks, and soon found a vessel willing to carry him and his ill tidings home, though for a price.

"Do you have any coin to pay for the passage, boy?" the captain asked, squinting at him.

Erik reached for his belt, where he still carried Philip's purse. He had coin enough to pay for the passage of their entire party home, but he knew better than to say so. "Will two silvers buy me a cabin on a ship that sails on the next tide?" he asked innocently, showing the captain his two coins while palming a third.

"The next tide?" The captain's eyes widened. "I had not thought to leave until the morrow. Rounding up the crew, loading the cargo...these things take time. But for three silver coins, I might manage it." He held out his hand a little too eagerly for Erik's liking.

Erik sighed and counted the coins mournfully into the captain's outstretched hand. "Very well. Show me to my cabin."

The cabin the captain ushered him into was barely big enough to hold a bed, but Erik didn't care. He stretched out on the pallet and stared at the wooden ceiling, wishing he wasn't the one who would have to tell his parents that their favourite son was dead. Maybe that's why the mermaid had spared him: she knew a worse fate awaited him if he lived.

All too soon, the ship cast off, and he felt the lull of the waves once more. Erik surrendered to sleep, only to dream of a mermaid who rocked him in her arms.