Eighteen

 

Every day for a week, Margareta set a stack of books on the table for the ambassador, then left him to his reading. After the way he'd looked and spoken to her that first day, she didn't dare to spend more than a few minutes in his company. If she lingered, he would give in to the desires she could read clearly through his eyes, and when he did, he would die.

Much safer to let him read the port logs than to meet his gaze and wonder what it would feel like to surrender to her siren desires. Her father made them sound like such terrible things, but anything you didn't want to stop doing surely resulted in a great deal of pleasure. How could that be so terrible?

Yet every time the ambassador bade her good morning, thanking her for the books and wishing her a pleasant day, she longed to linger. The only thing that stopped her was the stack of ledgers she'd handed to him, and the sheer boredom she'd experienced on the rare occasions she'd copied one out.

Why anyone wanted to know which ships had touched at the island a hundred years ago, she wasn't sure, but she had no intention of keeping him company while he read books that would put any normal man to sleep.

Yet he certainly didn't sleep, as evident by the pages of notes he scrawled each day. Margareta had glanced at them, but his writing was harder to read than the books she copied. What she could decipher appeared to be records of ships lost near the island. The list looked long after three days, and grew with each new day.

It seemed to Margareta that merchants would avoid what appeared to be such a dangerous trading port, but a quick peek at the harbour outside told her otherwise. Only on the rare winters when the ocean froze over entirely was White Harbour ever empty. It was almost full today.

The ambassador didn't seem to notice, though. He was too intent on reading the books she'd given him yesterday.

Margareta thumped a new stack onto the table beside him and turned to leave.

To linger was to lose control, which she couldn't do, Margareta reminded herself.

He caught her arm, and though she tried to pull away, his grip on her wrist tightened.

"Please, my lady, stay. Shipping logs are all very good and well, but they're also boring. They say this ship carried this cargo, or was lost on this date, but none say how the ship was lost."

Margareta shrugged. Ships were lost. Such was the fate of men who thought to control the ocean. She yanked out of his grip and glared at him.

To her surprise, he looked suitably contrite. "I'm sorry if I hurt you, my lady. It's just that I don't know your name and if I didn't catch you, I would lose my chance for another day. You see, your father promised me an assistant, but all he seems to want to give me is you." He caught the anger in her eyes. "Not that the books you've found for me haven't been a great help – they have, I swear. It's just that I want to know more, and you are the only other person who comes here. As the lady of the house, I'm sure you know who I should ask for help instead?"

Margareta considered sweeping out of the room, but the pleading look in his eyes plucked at her heart in such a way that she relented. She perched on a bench, placed her hands on her lap, and lifted her eyebrows in mute query. What exactly did he want to know?

He leaned forward. "You see, I want to know why the ships were lost. Was it storms? Pirates? A battle with enemy ships? Sea monsters?"

Margareta bit her lip, wishing she could laugh. What would the ambassador say if he knew that she was the only kind of monster that lived in the sea? She shrugged again.

"Have you ever seen a sea monster?" he asked eagerly. "I've heard some of them can take the form of a beautiful woman who entices sailors to their deaths."

Margareta gasped – could he read her thoughts? Quickly, she schooled her expression into one of bewilderment, but it was too late. He'd seen her surprise.

"You have, haven't you?" he guessed. "I knew it! It is you. You're the same girl who was aboard the Golden Eagle when she sank. You're the girl who survived."

Margareta wished she could tell him what a fool he sounded, saying such things. She was the sea monster who had survived, not some weak-as-water maiden who needed to be rescued from the ocean, of all things. Her eyes narrowed. And how did he know such a thing, after all this time?

"I was the boy who was aboard the Golden Eagle, too," he continued. "We were in one of the ship's boats that made it to shore, except when I woke up, you were gone. I'm Erik." He held out his hand to her, palm up.

This ambassador was the squire? Margareta squinted at him, trying to see the boy in the well-built man before her. Maybe around the eyes and the mouth she could see a faint resemblance, but...

Her father had told her he'd searched for the boy, but found no trace of him anywhere on the island. It was as though he'd leaped back in the water to drown with the prince he'd served. Her father had suggested that the boy had never existed at all, until Margareta almost believed it. Sirens didn't suffer from the same maladies as sailors at sea for too long, though, so Margareta knew the boy had been real. So if he'd survived and this was him...that put him in a different light. He wasn't just some neighbouring king's ambassador. He was...a friend, of sorts. One she'd mourned who wasn't dead. Who wouldn't die here, no matter what she had to do to ensure it, Margareta swore.

She realised he'd continued speaking, and she shook her head, focussing on his words. Only her father knew she'd saved the squire, and he would never have told a soul, for it would mean telling people he had a siren for a daughter. So the only other people who knew were herself and the squire. He had to be the same boy.

"I had to go home to report Philip's death. My father was devastated at first, and then...well, there was so much to do. Learning to be a squire and one day a knight is one thing, but learning to be a prince, and politics, and how to rule a country..." Erik shook his head. "It's taken me this long to find my way back here, but I have to know. Do you have any books about sea monsters in these waters?"

All her parents' warnings about secrecy screamed at her to stop, and show the man nothing. And yet...something about him whispered to her that he was different – just as she'd known he was the day she saved him from the sea.

Perhaps it was time to find out what humans did know about her kind, so she could make sure they didn't learn more. Maybe they knew more than she gave them credit for. Her father certainly seemed to know plenty. Maybe he'd learned it all from a book in this very library. A book she could also learn from, so that one day she might manage to control her monstrous nature and not worry about how she might kill someone without meaning to. Maybe she could work out how not to kill Erik.

She regarded Erik for a long moment. He already owed her his life, if he truly was the squire she'd saved. Perhaps he could help her, and in some small way repay his debt.

Margareta winked at him, then set off for the section on myths and legends for the first time in what felt like forever.