How can anything be so cold?

Then he remembers that cold causes him no injury, not as it does humankind. He is drowning in his vision. He must open his eyes, and quickly. Why did the ship surge in the waves so suddenly?

He opens his eyes as the water streams past, as a weight nudges him, then pushes, hard, and he flails through the water trying to get his bearings so he can reach the surface.

He is surrounded by merfolk.

They are circling, as for a kill.

They mean to kill him.

"Why?" asked the taller crone sarcastically. "Why? You don't think we're letting you get in the baths as filthy as you are? You wash that dirt off first. Then you can soak."

"So cold!" he said between gritted teeth. Goose bumps had erupted all over his skin, but he could not tell if it were the cold water or the upwelling of fear that made him shiver uncontrollably.

"We should heat it up for you? Well, if you'd split the wood and paid for it before-times, maybe we'd consider it!"

"Don't curse your fortune, young man. You're one of the lucky ones!"

They were both old and spry, well enough fed by the evidence of their plump cheeks and ample hips, cheerful enough to be amused by him but nevertheless watchful, glancing at frequent intervals toward the door as if expecting someone to come charging in. They went on chattering, and the flood of words calmed his trembling.

"Getting a bath at all! Used to be under the rule of Biscop Constance that the common folk in town might pay a sceatta for use of the baths on Hefensdays, Secundays, and Jeddays, but not now. Reserved for the lady's noble entourage and her captains."

"Will you stop it?" said the other one in that same undertone. "If they throw us out of town for speaking sedition against the lady my family will starve! You might speak, and I keep silence, and I'll be guilty same as you." She handed Alain a greasy lump of scouring soap. "Begging your pardon, my lord. We mean no harm by our whispering."

"I'm no lord," he said, taking the soap gratefully, "and I thank you for your trouble." He scrubbed. He was not as dirty as he might have been, not nearly as filthy as he had once been, but it felt good to feel the dirt loosen and come free.

They chortled, as if he had made a joke. The taller one left. The shorter swept water into the drain as he washed his hair.

"All done?"

He braced himself for the deluge. The water hit.

Ice. Gasping. The air leaves his lungs and bubbles to the surface. A shape looms out of the water, so close that those teeth seem about to close over his face. He finds his knife and draws it, but it catches infolds of his trousers.

"Too late," whispers the merman, and it is strange he can speak underwater in words Stronghand can understand. "It is too late for you, Stronghand. Now I am the victor, although you won at Kjalmarsfjord."