But now something else catches his eye: something nearer to hand, on the surface of the water. He peers through the gloaming, squints to bring the object into view. When he does, he does not want to believe it – but he is certain of what he sees. It is a man’s head, bobbing in the water. For a few seconds, full of the horrors that he has witnessed, the young man believes that he is looking at a head that has been severed from a body. Not here, he thinks, not so close to home. But as he watches, an arm breaks the surface. He suddenly understands that he is looking not at the remains of some terrible mutilation, but a living human: swimming. What can they be doing here, so far from the coast, in such deep waters?
He calls to his second-and third-in-command, who come up on deck. He points to the figure. One man’s eyesight is so poor that he cannot make anything out, but the other’s is keener than his own.
‘He’s swimming, sire,’ the man calls, ‘but he’s tiring. Keeps slipping beneath the waves. He won’t be afloat for much longer.’
‘We’ll go for him.’ If he is Genoese, it is their duty to save him. If he is a Pisan, they can make him their captive, and plunder useful information from him about their near neighbours.
The captain orders a tender made up with all possible speed, and boards it with two of his men.
‘Pray that we get to him in time.’
Luckily, with the relative calm of the sea, it is easy to keep the figure in sight, and with the wind behind them the little craft moves swiftly.
It is only when they are a few arm’s lengths away, beginning to reach hands out towards the water, that the men see what had not been apparent to them before. The figure is nude. And then they see the other thing. Not a man, but a woman. The men’s hands drop – they are unsure of what they should do. None of them have seen a woman in weeks – and a woman like this? Perhaps never. The captain is not so easily defeated as his men, however. He reaches over and grabs the girl beneath her armpits, hauls her – even as she flails against him, almost threatening to pull him over with her – into the craft. She lies there, breathing in great gasps, sounds that might be made by some dying animal. The captain struggles not to look at the slender, nude white body, at the dark hair that seems to bleed onto the wood like black squid’s ink.
‘That’s not a woman,’ one of the men whispers, almost to himself. ‘It’s a mer-creature.’
The captain scolds him for his whimsy, but he can understand the fellow’s meaning. The woman’s beauty is unearthly, and the extreme whiteness of her skin seems suited to some submarine lair.
He shrugs off his cloak and wraps it about her, taking care not to touch the soft white flesh. The woman is barely sensible now: her eyes are closed, and the breath rasps out of her. But at least, the captain thinks, it shows that she is breathing. He leans in close. ‘Can you hear me?’ he asks her. His voice surprises him by betraying a quaver, almost as though he were afraid. Strange, because he prides himself on never showing fear.
Her eyes open, and she looks at him but there is no answer, and he does not try again. Her black gaze has silenced him.
‘I don’t like it,’ one of the men says. ‘I don’t think we should bring her onto the boat. There’s something odd about it.’
‘What do you suggest I do?’ the captain asks. ‘Pitch her back in?’ The fellow shrugs, but his expression suggests he thinks it might be preferable.
‘The men, sir,’ the other man says, ‘there will be a riot. They haven’t seen a woman in months.’
And neither have I, thinks the captain to himself. And perhaps I have never seen a woman quite like this: so beautiful and strange. But aloud he says, ‘We’re close to home now. I will keep her in my quarters. She will be protected from them there.’
When they return the captain sees that men have lined the deck, curious to discover what has caused their commander to leave his ship. He has wrapped the woman in his cloak so that as much of her as possible is hidden from view. Only the blue-pale legs are visible, and when she is hoisted up on deck they hang limply down, not unlike the limbs of a corpse. As she is carried to the captain’s cabin the men stare, wordlessly, at the strange spectacle. For all they know their captain is carrying a body – not a living person. He will have to find some way of explaining it to them. The men mutter and whisper among themselves, but he hears several perplexing references to ‘the ankles’. It is only when the woman is placed in the chamber outside his cabin that he realizes why. Around her ankles is a thick rope of bruises, as though something had been tied viciously tight about them.
A bed is made up for the woman in the captain’s quarters, and when he goes to his own bed he finds that sleep eludes him. He cannot stop thinking about the woman in the next room. Despite the heavy drapes that divide the two cabins, he is certain that he can hear the gentle exhalations of her breath. Eventually, unable to bear it any longer, he goes through to her, simply – he tells himself – to have a quick look, to check that her condition has not deteriorated.