Adrift: A Little Mermaid Retelling

39: Agnes

They came to the cottage at noontide, when I had just finished my small lunch of fish and bread. I was always hungry in those days.

The knock surprised me. We had lived out in the cottage for nearly three years and had not yet had a single visitor; any social calls we made, which were few and far between, required our presence in the town proper. Our cottage was small and poor, and could comfortably seat no more than ourselves. A visitor was completely unexpected.

I have looked back a hundred times and wondered what I could have done differently to change the course of that day, but there was nothing; even had I guessed who was at my door, I could not have run away. The windows were too small for me to clamber out, and I was in the later stages of my pregnancy; I would not have made it far. Even had I escaped, the six soldiers without my door were too many for me to break through, had I decided to run.

I opened the door to them, expecting a familiar face, and I saw one: Lerrick, the man who had been stricken by a horse hoof and gone down the day I had killed my thrice-damned husband.

I would like to say I comported myself bravely that day, but I am bound to the truth and to my shame: the shock of seeing his face, with the red scar at his brow and the drooping eye telling the tale of the wound he had suffered, overwhelmed me. I saw in his eyes the image of my husband lying dead, his chest and stomach a mess of blood and gore and my own hands slicked with his blood.

I fell to my knees in a swoon, my head swimming, my heart beating out a drumming rhythm of panic.

"Get up," Lerrick said. When I did not immediately obey, he seized my arm and dragged me to my feet. I protested with a weak, animal sound, trying to shape the words in my panic: Get off, get off, let me go!

"This is she," he said to the soldiers accompanying him. I noticed through the haze of fear that he wore the captain's badge at his breast. He had taken my husband's place, and no doubt had hunted with vengeance in his mind.

I twisted in his grip, trying to pull myself away. His fingers only tightened on my arm, holding me fast. A length of cord swung free of his belt. I cried out, struggling, but another of the soldiers came and took hold of me from behind. His arm was an iron band across my chest. Together, Lerrick and his man tied my hands before me, none too gently.

"I hereby place you under arrest in the name of the King and his loyal subjects," Captain Lerrick said. "I name you an adulteress, a conspirator, a murderess and a fugitive. I hereby charge you with having entertained men other than your husband with licentious intent; with conspiring and undertaking to commit violence upon the person of your husband; with the cold-blooded murder of Captain Aroc Dremmer, your husband; and with the crime of avoiding capture and consequence by way of adopting an alias and maliciously deceiving your neighbors and peers."

He smiled, allowing the words to hang in the air. For a second, he closed his eyes. "This gives me great satisfaction, madam. You think there were no witnesses to your crime, but I am pleased to inform you that I saw it all. The gods granted me my life, that I might undertake to bring you to justice. Thanks to Oran for his grace."

He stepped past me into the cottage, leaving me in the hands of the other soldier. I hung my head, all the strength fleeing my limbs.

I had never paused to repent of the sin of murder. Aroc had murdered me, and more than once. That I had lived did not free him of the crime. Now, I would hang for having freed myself and Daniel from his clutches. Cursed be the gods that brought about this miscarriage of justice.

My only consolation was that Dannie was not there.

"Where is the man who conspired with you?" Lerrick stepped out of the cottage again.