"You know the king of Seafoam, don't you?" Bib said, during a lull in the conversation when Ma got up to fix another cup of restorative tonic for Elli.
"I know of him," Merrigan said.
She trembled a little when Ma stopped, two steps away from her chair, and fixed her with that look she knew all too well from her nursery days. The look her own mother and Nanny Starling both gave her when she had secrets and they were on the verge of finding out. She had learned early that a wise child told those secrets, because no matter how naughty she might have been, the longer she took confessing, the worse her punishment.
"I never met the previous king," she hurried to add, feeling as if the words were being squeezed out of her. "I did see his silly daughters when they came to court. None of them were good-hearted enough to make their silliness bearable." At least, that was Merrigan's impression of the princesses of Seafoam on their one visit. She had been perhaps five years old at the time. They had been ridiculously obvious in their attempts to make one of her older brothers fall in love with them.
"You met princesses." Ma sat down, not quite frowning, but concentrating on Merrigan so her gaze had weight.
"I told you, I sewed in royal courts." She trembled, unwilling to admit to Ma, especially, that she was under a curse. Somehow, she didn't want Ma to get the wrong impression of her.
"That's the answer," the woman said after several more moments. She smiled, nodded twice, and picked up the cup to go get Elli's tonic.
"Answer?" Elli watched Ma cross to the kitchen side of the long room, then turned back to Merrigan.
Before she rejoined them, Ma sent one of the dishwashing crew down to the harbor to the Fleetwind, her third oldest son's ship. She sent one of the table-service girls upstairs to a storage room with a long list of items to bring down with her. Then she picked a number of bottles and jars and bags off the high shelves in the narrow room where cooking ingredients were kept, tossed them into a massive bowl big enough to wash a five-year-old boy, and came back to the cluster of couches and chairs where Elli and Merrigan waited in silence. She spread the ingredients out on a low round table and dragged it over to within easy reach of Elli's chair.
"I'd wager your spoilsport prince—sorry, king—has your description spread around the various ports, to keep you from getting on a ship and going after the knife." Ma picked up one bottle or jar or bag after another and took a pinch or scoop of each ingredient and dropped it into the big bowl. "I'll wager he's enough of a snot that he made sure you knew what he did with the knife, just to torment you. My guess is that he's counting on the longevity of mermaids, so that when he's a wrinkled old codger, you'll still be beautiful. When he's a widower, he can force you to marry him to get the knife."
"He could be banking on a few of the sillier legends of the sea people," Bib offered. "Such as, if a mermaid takes you down deep enough and you eat a certain kind of seaweed that only grows where no light can reach, you'll become mer and eternally young."
"Extremely silly, since that seaweed can only turn him into a mermaid, emphasis on maid," Ma said with a nasty grin.
"What are you doing?" Merrigan asked, when Ma had dumped in a particularly strong-smelling vinegar. It made the mixture bubble and release even stronger aromas reminiscent of a nursery on a hot summer day.
"A disguise that will get our new friend across the ocean to steal that knife. I dare any magic spell to stand up against my great-granny Phoebe's hair tonic."
Merrigan dared any vermin within two miles to stand up against the smell. Fortunately, the stench died out quickly enough that only a few customers looked in from the dining room to ask if there was a problem.
Quincy, captain of the Fleetwind, showed up just as Ma was throwing a thick sheet around Elli's shoulders to protect her clothes and the surrounding chairs and books. He waited, rubbing his nose and pretending the stink didn't bother him. Ma used a pastry brush to glop the thick, slightly bubbling, brown concoction on the mermaid's hair and then work it through to her scalp. While Elli waited, her throat convulsing every time she took too deep of a breath, Ma explained her plan.
If she hadn't already had her breath taken away by the hair tonic, Merrigan might just have lost it altogether.
Mistress Mara, seamstress to royalty, would cross the ocean to Seafoam and kingdoms beyond, to seek her former home and cash in on several promises her former patrons had made to her. Naturally, a woman of her skill and age and delicate constitution couldn't travel such a great distance without a serving maid-apprentice. When they reached Windward, the capital and main port of Seafoam, the two would establish themselves in a reputable inn and then become part of the neighborhood, and trusted. Then they could find a way into the palace and retrieve that knife.
This was where Quincy came in. He crossed the ocean to Armorica regularly, and knew all the ports, large and small, fishing towns and major ports of commerce and quiet little villages so small they didn't have docks.
"Oh, yes, I know about Avylyn and Carlion and the other major kingdoms," he said, when his mother asked. His face lit up, as if he had been given an amazing gift. "Would you like to know about Jardien or Heiffelbein or—"
"No need. Just knowing there's someone on this side of the world who knows about my homeland, it's very encouraging." Merrigan blinked rapidly, fighting totally inexplicable tears.
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