The Prince and the Selkie

The selkie girl brought water to the castle kitchens. On her head she balanced her jug of fresh water and behind pulled her cart of sea water filled with mussels, clams, and seaweed. The cook paid her for the water and the sea’s bounty. As usual, he made a comment about her parents. “Shame about the fever, it is,” said the cook. The selkie girl only nodded.

She held the coins in her palm and counted them as she walked down the rocky path towards the shanty town near the docks. A voice called out to make way, and she looked up to see a retinue of men in bright clothes riding horses wearing the same colors. She darted off the road and waited with her head down for the procession to pass.
She pushed the coins down into her small purse and pulled her shawl further over her head to conceal her wary watching as the men passed by. The ones who rode in front carried bright banners that flapped in the wind like beautiful birds, while knights in armor polished like mirrors came after. In their midst was a young man all in red and gold with hair so clean and oiled it shone in the sun. His glance towards her was one of innocent curiosity, the first such she had seen from a noble. The innocent part, at least. She had been eyed hungrily by others, and retreated immediately from their sight before they acted on their interest.
Despite the young man’s kind look, the selkie girl decided to bow her head and make absolutely certain her hair was hidden. The fewer temptations they could see, the better. She kept her face to the ground until the procession was far along. She risked a look to see what they might do. To her surprise, she saw the young man also sneaking a look over his shoulder at her. She hurried down along the road, away from the castle to which the men rode.
The selkie girl stole carefully along a pathway of rocks that led out to a sharp promontory of stone overlooking the restless gray sea. Just visible above the rugged sea grass stood a shambles of a hut, bowed and crushed beneath its layers of thatch. She let herself inside.
“Here we are,” the girl announced. She unwrapped her shawl and let it fall on a chair. Her younger brother was sitting at the window that almost faced the sea. He smiled when he saw her and fetched his crutches. The fever had taken the feeling out of his legs; he could not walk on land nor swim in the sea. The selkie girl let him struggle towards her. He did not like to be helped, no matter how it hurt her to see him hobble about. They hugged and she presented him with her pay.
“We’ll soon be able to afford a better home,” she told him. Her brother’s mouth curled up at the edges, but his dark eyes did not. “You do not wish for a warmer one? One nearer to town?”
“Ma and da are buried here,” her brother replied, “and I can see the sea from the window.”
“We’ll have a house on the docks, and I shall sell cockles and mussels from the windows. So will you, and you will have the sea at our doorstep,” she told him, and pinched his chin. Her brother’s mouth tried to smile once more.
She went down to the sea with her seal skin. She put it on and dove for their supper, catching three eels and a large herring. With this haul and some of her haul of mussels and seaweed, they ate a hearty stew.
The next morning she filled her bucket once more with the sea’s bounty, then fetched fresh water from the well on the hill, loaded her cart with the mussels and the rest, and off she went to the castle. It was a long walk, but she always made it before brunch, and the cook knew to expect her and he paid her as usual.
The day after, when the selkie girl came to the cook she found the young man from the procession in the kitchens. Her heart screamed inside her. Had he found out about her routine? Might she have to abandon the steady money? The cook stood to one side as she remained frozen in the doorway, her jug on her head and one hand on her cart. The young man wore some sort of fur in the trim of his clothes, too fine and soft for squirrel fur. He saw her standing there, glanced over at the cook, and approached the selkie girl.
His eyes reminded her of a frightened hare’s which could not decide whether to run or hope it remained unseen. She did not know what to do herself. It could be no coincidence that he appeared in the kitchens so soon after he spotted her.
“I have water and mussels and seaweed for soup,” she mumbled at last.
“Yes,” said the young man. He might have been her age, sixteen or seventeen. He had a very soft, uncertain voice. The cook left his pots and came over to the doorway, coins in hand.
“Here you are, much obliged,” said the cook. He tried not to look at the young man as he took her wares. To her surprise, the selkie girl saw the young nobleman take up the jug of water and carry it within. Perhaps he was not so high-ranked as she had supposed. Perhaps his beautiful clothing had been on account of some function he served which she had not heard of, and he was one of the distant barons or lowly knights come to visit. He might be gone in a few days’ time, and so long as she kept her distance he was not likely to be any real problem.
When she left, she checked to make certain she was not followed, and was pleased to see that she was not.
The young nobleman greeted her at the kitchen again the next day.
“The cook tells me you’ve delivered our soup stock for two years,” he said, as though such a statement passed as greeting. “Your well water is the sweetest, he says.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Thank you,” said the young nobleman. “It must be hard work to carry water and pull a cart besides.”
“It’s good work, and better than starving,” she answered back. At this, he nodded thoughtfully.
“You’re a selkie, are you not? You can catch fish in the sea as easily as a hawk snares a rabbit. You could go anywhere you like.”
“You think you know everything,” she muttered under her breath, then feared she might have been heard when she saw the look of hurt in his eyes. This time, the young nobleman handed her the coins, and she did her best not to let his fingers touch her. Why was he wasting his time talking to a poor fishmonger’s orphan? No good reason, she wagered.
The selkie girl debated holding off her deliveries for a day or two. What the young nobleman had said was true. She and her brother never had need of food so long as she had her seal skin to escape to the sea and catch it. No human fisherman could swim beneath the waves and snap up fish and squid like she could.
“Aren’t you feeling well?” her brother asked when she made no preparations to leave.
“Not really,” she told him, “Don’t worry, we will have enough money soon, though.”
“That’s all right,” said her brother.
Two days later she resumed her routine, thinking that the young nobleman would have left or forgotten all about her by now, only to discover that he stood beside the cook overseeing the affairs of the kitchen. He smiled when he saw her, and it was such a genuine one that the selkie girl wondered if she was the hare who did not know whether to run.
“I’m glad to see you,” said the young nobleman. “I was worried that you were unwell.”
“I was,” she lied.
“Here,” he reached into his beautiful silk purse and held out a glass vial and a tightly wrapped packet of healing herbs for her to take. “If you like. I had the castle doctor select these especially.”
The selkie girl stared at the royal medicine and felt as though her blood drained out her feet into the mud. Why such an extravagant gift? Did he mean to make her indebted to him?
“Your parents served my family so faithfully,” the young nobleman added, and his voice sounded sad, “I apologize we did not provide this to you when it would have helped.”
The selkie girl stared into his face. He seemed in earnest.
“Keep your charity,” she hissed at him. “What do you know?”
He seemed sad. No, ashamed. It was shame she’d heard earlier, too, not sadness.
“That it is hard to make your way in the world, and that you suffered a hardship my family could have prevented, or at least tried to,” he answered. “And that it was not good of us.”
“You think you’re some sort of saint?” she wondered. “No one cares about us. Only what they can take from us.”
“Then let me be the first to give you something,” he said.
She stared at the herbs. They would fetch a pretty penny, and the vial as well. She could buy a house seven times over.
“No,” she told him, “I do honest work, and I get honest pay.”
The young nobleman seemed sad, but he nodded and put away the extravagant gift.
“Girl,” the cook hissed. He stepped out of the kitchen and took her by the arm. “Mind your tongue, don’t you know who he is?”
The selkie girl did not, but when the cook said so, she realized what the young nobleman had said, “your parents served my family.” The water and food she brought went to the castle, it always had. When her parents brought it, it was the same.
Oh gods above, she realized. Oh no. Please, don’t let it be so.
“He’s the prince, you fool,” the cook hissed, “He’s come back home after his knighting. Have you no brains at all?!”
The selkie girl dropped the jug, and it cracked open on a stone, its water spilling over the cook’s feet. She abandoned the cart and ran for her life. A poor fishmonger’s orphan had snubbed the prince’s gift! To his face, no less! She ran until the air was like fire in her lungs, all the way past the shanty town and across the rocky path to the sunken little hut.
“What is the matter?” her brother wondered when she burst through the door and collapsed on the floor, swallowing air like a dying fish.
“We must leave,” she answered in between gasps.
“L-leave? Now?” her brother stammered, confused. “But ma and da—”
“Now!” the selkie girl shouted. Her brother staggered back, he was so startled, and had to catch himself on a chair. She did not apologize. She did not have the time. The next three minutes that she allowed herself, she took only the waterproof things, the flint, the bedding and clothes. No need for food or water. There was a sea cave some distance down the promontory. Her brother should be able to make it if she helped him. It would have to do for the moment.
“What happened?” her brother asked, now that he saw how she paused not even for breath.
“Never mind. Just come on.”
She took his hand and helped him towards the door. Her brother cast his eyes on the house like a man leaving his true love’s grave, but he said nothing.
The selkie half-pushed her brother out the door, the bundles under arms, across her back. She glanced up at the castle to see whether there was a line of men on horses coming to arrest her.
The prince stood outside with the reins of his horse in his hand. The selkie girl clutched her brother tightly.
“I was worried you might think you were in trouble,” said the prince. “I wanted to let you know you aren’t. You don’t need to leave.” He studied the little hut, the promontory, and the two gravestones that stood to one side, but she could not see what he made of it all.
When she said nothing, the prince said, “I apologize. I did not properly introduce myself. I was worried you would be too frightened to speak to me. You needn’t worry, truly. So far as I’m concerned, you gave an honest answer, and no one in my position should expect any less.”
One in your position is always given less, she thought, No one would ever dare speak plainly to the people who can take your home or your hands.
“You followed me?” was all that came out of her mouth.
“I knew where you lived already,” he answered. “Your parents bought this patch some years ago. They were freemen, not serfs; we kept record of it.”
This whole time he had known how to find her. Yet he hadn’t appeared before. What did he want? Why would he not leave her alone?
“I appreciate your kind regard,” she said. Her mouth was dry. Sensing her brother wished for an answer, she set down her bundles, and hugged him and kissed his head. “Go back inside,” she told him. Her brother looked to her, then the prince, and back to her, but he went inside all the same.
“What little good it has done you,” said the prince then, watching her brother hobble on his crutches.
“I don’t know that such a poor girl as myself deserves such kind regard,” she continued. She wanted him to leave. He didn’t belong here.
“Why not?” the prince wondered, “You like honest work, you are an honest person. Why should you not merit kindness?”
Why was he so obstinately determined to misinterpret everything she said? Why did he seem so honest?
“I will buy you another jug,” he told her. “I’m afraid I could not return your cart. I wanted to be certain to catch you before you ran off and could not carry it on or behind my horse. I’ll return it tomorrow.” He seemed uncertain what to do, but at last he nodded to her and turned to mount his horse.
“Thank you for coming all this way,” she said. He paused. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes I did,” the prince answered. He nodded to her again, mounted his horse, and went back up the rocky path.
“Who was that?” the selkie girl’s brother asked when she came back inside.
“It doesn’t matter,” she told him.

*****

The prince met her every day in the kitchens, though he let the cook pay her; he seemed to realize that she felt uncomfortable around him. The cook said nothing about the situation, but he cast furtive glances at the prince all the time when he thought he wouldn’t be spotted.
“Aren’t you afraid to walk all the way up here by yourself?” the prince asked one day. “You are a selkie. If someone steals your skin, you wouldn’t be able to return to the sea, and you would be bound to him unless you found it again.”
“No, I am not afraid,” she answered. She wore a seal skin tied around her waist wherever she went, it was true, but she did not wear her own. Hers was well hidden at all times where not even her brother knew to look.
The prince did not press her.
Months passed in that way. The prince did not offer her any more gifts, but he liked to talk with her. He made no overtures to her, no attempts to put his hands on her, only conversation. They talked about their island home, life down at the docks, in the kitchens; about hawks, fish, the sea, and everything at all but their own lives and their own experiences; but all the same she felt that the prince wanted to speak especially on those topics. He did not bring them up, however, and went far out of his way to dance around them in conversation. Perhaps he truly regretted what had happened to her family, but the fever was not his doing, and despite his words her family had not been servants in the strictest sense. They were freemen, as he himself had said, and only came to sell their goods. His family owed them nothing in particular beyond protection from enemies or thieves.
The prince had studied at temple while he was a squire, it seemed. That must be where he picked up his pretense to saintliness. Though she supposed if such a pretense should be worn by anyone, he was most suited to it. On occasion she saw him in the town, speaking to shopkeepers and urchins and anyone who showed the nerve to answer. The talk was that he was more gentle than expected for someone of his station, even more so than some of the local priests. She even heard that he had rescued a merchants’ son from drowning when his ship sank, and a poor orphan girl that the local boys had beaten. He was gentle, true, and handsome and decent.
It did not occur to her to wonder why he spent so much time speaking with her until one day there was a strange woman dressed in red velvet and pearls standing in the kitchens instead of the prince. The selkie girl knew this was no idle meeting, and this woman must be the prince’s mother.
“You are the selkie girl who delivers us our mollusks and seaweed stock?” demanded the regal woman.
“Yes, your Grace,” answered the selkie girl.
“I see. And you have been speaking with my son, the prince? Daily?”
The selkie girl felt weak in her knees. What a fool she had been, to allow herself to think that just because the prince forgave her for ignoring her station, that his family would do the same! What fate awaited her? The stocks? Disfigurement? Maiming? Worse?
“Do not try to deny it,” said the prince’s mother, “I only came here to remind you of where you stand. I think my son has it in his head that there is something between you.”
Between us?
“He’s at that age,” the regal woman continued. She clasped her hands very purposefully and paced just a little, standing tall and stiff as a pole. “It’s not so unexpected, except of course, for your…”
Because of my station? Or because I am a selkie? The girl wondered, but she knew it was both. Selkies were descended from fairies, and they ruled the sea. For an island kingdom, that meant a great deal.
“You understand, I take it?”
Not to expect to marry him? The selkie girl almost laughed at the idea. Your Grace, perhaps you should tell your son, not me. I already know. But she said, “Yes, your Grace.”
The regal woman flicked her fingers as a dismissal, and the selkie girl left without pay that day. She supposed it was meant as a punishment, or as a reminder that she meant less than nothing to such people. The prince’s mother had probably never once concerned herself with where her soup stock came from, not until she noticed her son missing from his breakfast every morning.
When she returned home, she found her brother sallow-looking.
“What’s the matter, don’t you feel well?” she asked him.
“A little cold,” he admitted. He had wrapped himself in a blanket, but still he looked out the window at the sea.
“I’ll put the kettle on,” said the selkie girl. She saw the hollow attempt at a smile grace her brother’s face once.
The next day, he was very pale.
“You have a fever,” she observed with worry.
“It’s just a cold,” he told her.
She stayed at home and brewed him tea and soup. He was not better the day after, but much worse, his eyes dull and sunken.
In a panic, the selkie girl ran for the castle. She could never afford such herbs and medicine, but the prince had already offered her the gift once. She did honest work, but no honest work could pay for what her brother needed.
When she came to the kitchens, neither the prince nor his mother was there.
“Good gods, girl,” said the cook, “Where have you been? The other fishmongers don’t sell the sweet-tasting cockles and clams you do. They’ve missed them at their table—”
“Where is he?” the selkie girl asked, breathless from her run. The cook fiddled with his thumbs.
“He doesn’t come down here anymore,” he said.
“Please. It’s important. My brother is sick. It’s bad. Terrible bad. Please. I need his help.”
The cook knew the look in her eyes, and he bowed his head.
“I’ll tell him if I can,” said the cook. “Have no fear. He’s head over heels for you. I’m sure he’ll do all he can to help.”
The selkie girl kissed the cook’s hands and ran back home. For days she waited for him to come, but whenever she glanced through the cracks in the door, no one was there. Every day her brother was sicker. She tried the cook again.
“I haven’t been able to tell him,” the cook apologized. “They don’t want him talking to anyone down here.”
The selkie girl realized as much. With tears in her eyes, she returned home, but she knew now it was no use.
When her brother was as feeble as a dry vine, he said to her, “Will you please take me to the sea? I would like to feel it once again.”
She carried him down the promontory to a small beach and let him down by the water. He dipped his hands in the gray waves, and this time his eyes smiled.

*****

She heard hoofbeats coming down the rocky path as she laid the last stone upon the latest grave. Slowly, she turned to see the prince had come at last. He slowed his horse, seeing the pile of stones.
“I’m sorry,” he told her.
“You’re late,” she told him.
“I only heard this morning,” he answered. “The cook has been trying to reach me. He climbed the wall to my window in desperation.”
“How did you come here at all if things were that desperate?”
“I climbed out the window myself.” The prince dismounted and regarded the grave. “I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would have—”
“It’s all right,” she told him. “It wasn’t your doing. You didn’t send him the fever.”
“But because I spoke to you too often, you couldn’t speak to me when you needed to.”
“Don’t be daft,” she told him. “You’re not all the power in the world. You’re just a man, like anyone else. You’re trapped by your station just like I am.”
The prince regarded her helplessly, and she realized why he had nodded when they first met and said that she was a selkie and could go anywhere she liked. She had thought then that she had to remain for her brother’s sake and had been angry. Now she realized the prince had actually been envious. He saw that selkies could go into the sea to escape the troubles of the land whenever they liked. She chose to stay where she was, but he did not. His station was more oppressive than hers. All this time, she had hated him for being set so high above her, but she saw now that as high as he stood, it was only so long as his foot remained chained to his perch. As he had said, she was free, and free she was. He never would be.
Your own mother didn’t care what I did. Only what you did. I didn’t matter, she didn’t even see me.
But the prince knew all that, too. He had never told her how he felt, never even hinted at it except for the time he spent, and even that had been more than he was allowed.
“I’m going away from here,” she told him, “Do you want to come with me?”
He shook his head and smiled sadly. “There is nowhere I can go with you. Nowhere they could not reach me, and if they reach me, they will punish you.”
“You’re here now.”
“They’ll see that I’m missing. They’ll search the entire island for me if they have to.”
He was only human. He could not become a seal and dive into the sea. Except…
“I have a gift for you,” the selkie girl told him. The prince looked perplexed. She went inside and fetched her skin. When she emerged, she presented the seal skin she wore and only pretended was hers.
“This was my father’s,” she told him. The prince did not understand. “Any human that puts on a selkie’s skin can become a selkie themselves. You could be free, like me.”
The prince stared down at the skin she held out to him, and when his eyes rose to meet hers, they smiled just like her brother had when he beheld the sea.