Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [43]
“Just you and him? Did he know who you were?”
“No! He did not know anything. And he was kind to me. He believes that he owes his life to me. Well, not to me exactly, to the novice he thought I was. All this talk of retribution, it’s based on a coincidence. A stroke of fate. It is wrong.”
She was relieved to see the concern on Gregor’s face. Despite their closeness, she’d half expected him to dismiss her as her father had.
“You need to talk to your father,” he said gently. “When he left to get you … He was out of his mind. Terrified he could have lost you, the way he lost your mother. Now you are safe and home, and he may be able to listen.”
“Gregor, my father stopped listening to me a while ago.” The idea of going back to her father made her feel sick. She had never before stood up to him aside from those few moments in the chaos of the convent. But she had never before had a reason like she did now.
“You need to try. It’s too important. Too many lives are at stake.”
She cocked her head, studying her tutor’s weathered face, which she loved so much, with its high cheekbones and deep crevices. “You are not as in love with war as my father is, are you?”
“No,” he said. “Many of us are not.”
She nodded slowly. “I did not think of it much before. I just figured it was how things were, the way they were supposed to be.”
“You have seen something of the world now.”
“I will try to speak with him,” she said, looping her arm through his. And then they continued along the path, past trees bursting with fruit and flowers while snow drifted silently to the ground outside the glass walls. In front of them, an ornate fountain, with water trickling down, shone icy in the moonlight.
MARGRETHE WAITED TO go to her father until the next morning, when she knew he’d be in the best spirits, right after morning Mass and before the midday meal.
She stood up straight, lifted her chin, and nodded for the guards to open the door. She was reminded of a night not long before when she’d stood outside the convent infirmary and been just as nervous as she was now.
The guards announced her presence and led her to her father, who stood by the window, looking out over the grounds.
He turned to her, and she could see that he was in a somber, melancholy mood.
“Father,” she said, curtsying before him.
“Margrethe,” he said. “Come to me, child.” She walked over to him awkwardly, let him pull her to him. He was such a large man, she felt enveloped by him. As a child, she had loved climbing over him as he lay on the floor, her mother laughing nearby, loved when he lifted her on his legs and swung her back and forth in the air. It was impossible to imagine this aged man ever behaving like that now.
“I am sorry you were so worried for me, Father,” she said. “And I thank you for rushing to help me.”
“Of course,” he said, stepping back and looking at her. “You know there is nothing I would not do to protect you. I am only sorry I sent you into that den of vipers.”
“Father,” she said, “it was not like that. Those women there, they are holy and good. The abbess was a friend to me.”
He smiled slightly, gestured for her to sit on a couch nearby, and then sat down beside her. “You think well of those who do not deserve it, Margrethe. You are a gentle soul, but you will have to learn hardness, too, before you are queen.”
“It is not weakness that makes me say this,” she said. “Not about the women I knew there, and not about”—she hesitated and then forced herself forward—“Prince Christopher.”
“What about Prince Christopher?”
“Father,” she said, taking a deep breath and turning to face him. “You cannot go back to war over this. You cannot break the peace agreement because of what happened. There has been a terrible misunderstanding. The prince was not there to hurt me. I promise you that. But even if he had been … the cost of war is too great.”
She watched his face harden. “You do not know enough of the world yet, Daughter,” he said, “to speak of these matters.”
“I believe the prince was sent there for a greater purpose. He washed