“Can we not stop for a while?” She flexed her shoulders uncomfortably. “Is it far still to Grantham?”
“Not too far. One more story.” He tugged playfully on one of her plaits. Even more than the stories themselves, Jason was enjoying the way Emerald recounted them. She seemed swept away, her voice full of fun and adventure rather than hostility and mistrust. “In the sea fairytale you mentioned mermaids. Do you know a mermaid’s tale?”
She thought for a moment. “Aye. But it’s a sad one.”
“Tell me. By the time you finish we’ll be there and stop for dinner.”
“Very well.” She sighed and shifted on the saddle, a diversion in itself. “In the Land-under-Waves live the mermaids, which we call Maids-of-the-Wave. They are lovely to look at, and their voices are sweet and melodic. Their lower bodies are shaped like the fishes and glitter like salmon in the sun. They have long, coppery hair, and on beautiful days they sit on the rocks and comb it.” She paused. “Unlike me, they have combs.”
Jason laughed. “I’ll buy you a comb before the day is out, I promise. And a Chase promise is not given lightly.”
“I shall hold you to that.”
He didn’t doubt it.
“On moonlit nights,” she continued, “the Maids-of-the-Wave sometimes take off their tails and don pale blue gowns. They can walk on the land then, and they’re fairer than any land-dweller lass.”
“Not fairer than you,” Jason protested.
She shook her head. “If you’re attempting to flatter me, I warn it will get you nowhere.”
“You cannot fault me for trying,” he said smoothly. Was he flirting? He wasn’t ordinarily a flirt.
“Do you want to hear the story?”
“Did I interrupt?” Behind her back, he grinned. “Pray, do go on.”
She cleared her throat. “One moonlit night, a handsome young farmer was walking along the cliffs when he heard the most beautiful voices raised in song. He looked down to see a company of fair lasses, all dressed in pale blue, dancing in a circle around one who was the fairest of the fair. Then he noticed nearby a pile of scaled tails, still wet and glistening in the moonlight. He crept down the rocks, took one, and ran home with it.”
Absently, Jason trailed a finger along the part in Emerald’s hair.
She looked up and back, bumping her head on his chin in the process. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Did I do something?” His eyebrows snapped together. Whatever had possessed him to touch her? Aloud he asked, “What happened next?”
Sending one more puzzled look over her shoulder, she faced forward. “When the mermaids saw the man stealing away, they screamed and ran for their tails. Hurriedly they put them on and jumped into the sea. All except one, the fairest of the fair. Her tail was missing.”
“This is sad,” Jason remarked, failing to hide the smile in his voice.
“Hold your tongue,” she admonished. “Now, the young farmer locked the tail in a box and hid the key. Before long, someone came to his door and knocked on it. He opened it to find the most beautiful lass in the land. Tears were pouring from her big blue eyes—” Interrupting herself, she looked up. “That’s the tallest spire I’ve ever seen,” she said, sounding awed.
“St. Wulfram’s,” he told her.
A sight to see, the church seemed a combination of every period of Gothic architecture mixed with traces of Norman and possibly Saxon work. She gawked until he turned onto Grantham’s busy High Street, a distinguished row of modern gray stone buildings interspersed with the occasional old, half-timbered Tudor.
“Now, to find a place to eat,” Jason said. “In the meantime, please do continue your tale. You cannot leave me hanging on the precipice of such tragedy.”
“Very amusing. Now, where was I?” She fussed at her skirts. “Oooh, look at that angel.”
The carved stone angel was brightly gilded, giving it the look of solid gold. It perched over the gateway of an inn called—appropriately enough—The Angel.
“Whose heads are those?” she asked.
Jason halted and squinted up at the corbel above the winged cherub. “King Edward the third,” he decided. “So that must be his queen, Philippa of Hainault.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I see you’re not completely uneducated.” Before he could protest that thinly disguised insult, she added, “Edward was brutal to the Scots.”
“Everyone was brutal in those days,” he pointed out. “Edward was after revenge for Bannockburn.”
“He got it,” she said dryly.
“So this is what comes of educating girls,” Jason quipped as he guided Chiron through the archway, earning himself a hard pinch on the knee.
He helped Emerald down and led her inside. The Angel’s taproom had a fine timbered ceiling and an enormous stone hearth, but no fire this summer day. Since the weather was warm, Jason opted for a cold dinner of bread, cheese, and small pickled onions. He carried it to where Emerald had seated herself by a stone vaulted window.
“There are so many people,” she marveled, watching them pass by on horses, in carriages, and on foot.
“Wait till you see London.” He sliced the thick slab of cheddar. “So, what happened after the woman showed up?”
“Pardon?” She dragged her gaze from the window.
He handed her a piece of bread topped with cheese. “The mermaid.”
“Oh. The Maid-of-the Wave.” She took a bite. “Well, when we left her she was standing there in her blue dress, greeting. I mean, crying.”
“Greet means to cry?”
“Aye. And she said, ‘Won’t you have pity and return my tail, so I can go home to the Land-under-Waves?’”
“Let me guess.” He popped an onion into his mouth. “He couldn’t stand to see the woman cry, so he returned her tail.”
“Nay.” Her eyes danced, looking turquoise today. “Maybe that’s what you would do. But not this young farmer. He thought she was so gentle and beautiful that he couldn’t bear to let her go. He told her, ‘What I have I will keep. But shed no tears, fairest of the fair, for you may stay with me and become my bride.’”
She paused for a
