Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [39]
She knew she cut a ragged figure in her habit, her hair tangled, coming loose from the riding. She wanted to scream out to them: I am perfectly well! I was never in danger from that gentle man, you fools!
But instead she smiled gracefully as they all filed past, blessing her. She’d had years of practice at denying herself, stifling her very nature.
Finally, she was able to retreat to her own rooms. A fire was waiting for her, full of burning pinecones, and a hot bath was being prepared. It seemed like unbelievable luxury now. The smell of pine and wood and perfume from the bath, the sumptuous fabrics on the bed and furniture, the tapestries hanging from the walls. Her ladies waiting for her in exquisite dresses, their faces painted and hair strategically arranged. After so long in the convent, it seemed almost shocking, all that beautiful display, yet at the same time her whole physical being responded with relief.
She was home.
Gently, her ladies stripped her of her habit, took down her hair. In the midst of everything, Margrethe was almost surprised to see that Lenia’s shimmer was still there, on her forearm.
“Do you see that?” she asked Josephine, the lady, after Edele, of whom she was most fond.
“See what?” Josephine asked.
“A sort of … sparkle, on my skin. Do you see?”
“No.”
“How strange,” she said, stepping into the bath. As they helped her sit in the warm water, another servant poured in fresh hot water from a kettle that had been heating over the fire, and Josephine began sprinkling dried herbs in the water from baskets she had set nearby. Margrethe sat and let the warmth envelop her. Her arm shimmered faintly from under the water. She watched it for a moment and then closed her eyes, breathing in the steaming herbal scent.
Her other lady-in-waiting, Laura, knelt down behind her. She gathered up Margrethe’s thick hair and began to wash it thoroughly, rubbing it with herbs and powders.
“We are so glad you are safe,” Laura said. “How terrifying, to think the enemy was so close to you.”
“It was not so bad,” Margrethe murmured. “He was … not so bad.” Despite herself—her exhaustion, her natural pride—she could feel a flush coming over her, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
“Oh! You … liked him?” Laura said, widening her eyes. “You did! And he our enemy! Is it true? We do hear he is a very handsome man.”
“Oh, he is,” Margrethe said, no longer able to keep herself from breaking into a smile. “He is larger than life. Edele will tell you, too. He’s like something from a story.”
The two ladies gave each other knowing looks as they lifted Margrethe’s arms on either side, dipping pieces of cloth into the water and then squeezing them over her shoulders.
“There has been much talk of him here,” Laura said. “They say he’s a great warrior. They say he was sent to kill you. But it sounds like you were in a different kind of danger.”
“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