The Soul Thief

by Cecelia Holland

  Help me, he thought, but there was no one to ask.

  He shuddered. His father’s curse was following him. Yet he stood a long while, miserable, seeing nothing, missing again the voices of his people, all gone now, gone.

  He could not stand there in the road like a stone; he had to do something, and so he started on again. He found some berries and nuts and drank from a cold spring and began to feel better. He went down through the lane under the branches of the old trees, shutting out the sun, and watched for something to kill and eat.

  The dream caught at him again, the beaks of the birds.

  Hungry, he made a better hunter, and he killed a hare, and dug some wild onions, and that night ate by a little fire in the open, on the cliff overlooking the sea. The sun went down and he drew his cloak around him against the sudden sharp wind. The stars came out like thousands of cold, fiery eyes opening. He thought about going on in the morning and saved some of the hare to eat then.

  He realized, with a start, that he had not given up. He could have given up and no one would have known. He would have known, he would have carried that knowledge along with him, together with his father’s curse and the memory of his mother dead and his home burning and his sister standing by the grey rock, her hair blown like a flag in the wind, feeling the approach of something evil. He was pleased with himself suddenly, that he was not a man who gave up without even trying.

  In the morning, walking on through thick woods, he came before the middle of the day to a road worn and rutted from the wheels of carts, and that road led him on over the hill to the edge of the forest. He came out of the trees above a river and looked down and saw a settlement there on the far side of the river like a great gall stuck onto the side of a watery oak.

  The green water ran in from his right hand, and went away toward his left, toward the sea in the distance; opposite where he was standing, another little stream came in from the south. Just before it met the river’s smooth rush it widened out into a still pool fringed with the stalky brown rushes of dead cattails. Dubh Linn, the Black Pond: there it was.

  The settlement was much greater than his farm, or even Dun Maire; it was the largest place he had ever seen. On the land between the converging waters stood two rows of well-made houses, with thatched roofs. The land on that southern bank sloped up away from the river and on the rise was another, larger building; a hall, maybe.

  Past that were people working on a wall of mounded dirt and stakes, carrying baskets back and forth, and digging. Two big piles of stakes stood at the foot of the earthen wall. There was one who watched and did not work, and when a digging man suddenly flung down his shovel and sat down on the ground, that watcher went over and kicked him back to work. Corban shivered, and drew his eyes away.

  Closer to the river, around the houses, were a lot more people, most of them not working. They stood or sat in groups and talked, or wandered up and down through the open ground below the rows of houses. They kept to the walkways of planks that ran all over the open ground, and he guessed the ground there was wet; a goat was browsing on the reeds near the river’s sloped bank and Corban saw how the goat with every step had to pull up its feet out of the muck.

  A little way along the river bank was firmer ground, where several people sat with baskets while others strolled slowly by. He had seen markets before and knew this was one, but he also saw they were selling no people there. He saw nowhere that his sister could be.

  Just upstream of the market, a long wooden wharf walked out over the river on stilt-piers. A round-bellied ship was tied up to it. Three other ships, smaller, were hauled up on the riverbank. None of them looked like the ships he had seen through the smoke of the burning farm, with their great serpent heads: these were smaller and rounder.

  From down in his memory the sound of screams rose, again, and the wafting of the smoke, and the smell of the smoke, and the fire’s roar. He pushed all that away; that did not bear thinking about.

  He went down the slope toward the river. A little upstream from the wharf was a plank bridge, where people were crossing into the settlement, and he made for that.

  The slope was high in bracken. The path cut sideways across the steep pitch of the hillside. A whiff of the stink of a cess pit reached him. Mav was not here, and yet he was eager to see this place. He had to go somewhere and this place drew him like a fly. He went over the bridge, following a hunter carrying marsh hens by their feet and an old man with a load of firewood on his back. Garbage littered the edge of the water. Just below the bridge, a broken hurdle of withies was rotting in a green scum in the shallow water.

  When he came to the far side of the bridge, two men sitting there leapt up and stopped him, their hands stretched out to hold him back, a barrage of words he did not know. He stood on the very end of the bridge, looking from one to the other: an old man and a young one. He said, uncertainly, “Why can I not go in?”

  The young man frowned, and grumbled something, giving him a harsh look, but the old one stepped forward, and suddenly spoke so that Corban could understand him.

  “What’s your name? You’re Irish?”

  “My name is Corban Mac—” He stopped. He could not use his father’s name. “Corban. I came from up the road.”

  The younger man had lost all interest and was walking back to his place on the river bank. The old man watched Corban keenly. His head was bald as a buzzard’s, his cheeks and jowls hanging from it in folds and sags, his jut of a nose like a buzzard’s beak. He said, “What do you want here?”

  “I’m looking for my sister,” Corban said. “She was taken by the—the foreigners, yesterday morning, and I was thinking she might be here.”

  The old man’s sparse white eyebrows wobbled up and down. “I don’t think so. We’ve had no slaves here since the summer. Most likely they’ll have carried her off to Jorvik.”

  All this way for nothing, Corban thought. A cold despair dragged at his mind. His gaze lifted past the old man to the wattle houses, the crowds of people, and returned to the keen old buzzard face before him.

  “Where is Jorvik?”

  “Across the sea. It’s a long way.”

  “Can I come in here?”

  “To Dubh Linn?” The white eyebrows jerked up and down again. “Do you have anything to sell?”

  “No,” he said, startled.

  “Are you buying anything?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any weapons?”

  Corban put his hand to the sling in his belt. “Only this.”

  “Pagh,” the old man snorted. “Squirrel-killer. Go in, then.”

  Gladly, Corban went the last few steps off the bridge into the city; the old man was going back to the river bank, and his voice rose, incomprehensible again. Corban realized he was speaking the foreigners’ language, what he had heard called the dansk tongue. His skin tingled with panic. But no one stopped him or even looked curiously at him; he went into the settlement without attracting any attention at all.

  The boardwalks were crowded and he had to worm his way through. Everybody here now was speaking that other language. They filled the boardwalk, too close for his comfort, and stepping down onto the ground he picked his way carefully through the mucky swamp. He passed a crowd of men shouting and waving their arms at each other. Carelessly he stepped into a wet patch and drew his shoe free with a loud squelch. A naked child ran past him, laughing, its mother racing afterward, her hands outstretched and her mouth open. Across the bare mucky ground were dog prints and goat prints in every direction.

  He went down along the river, past a row of frames made of poles, where nets hung to dry; in front of them an old man sat mending a net, the shuttle flying back and forth in his hand. Somewhere up on the higher ground a hammer began to rang out a steady metal rhythm—he knew that sound. There was a smith here, as there was at Dun Maire.

  There would be many things here he had only heard of, until now. He kept his eyes moving, looking at everything. The place s
tank, not just of the marsh; the air was streaked with the flavor of cess pits, and middens, and ovens and brewing beer. He moved carefully along the edge of the river, stalky with the bent and broken reeds that grew up through the litter of garbage—shells, old bones, a rotting cat carcass—until he came to the market.

  Here were only two old women dozing over their goods. He thieved a handful of nuts from one and went on along the river cracking the nuts in his fingers and eating the meats. He told himself that now he would have to steal to live. Just past the wharf, where the ships were drawn up on the bank, a dozen men had gathered, talking and arguing; he could not make out a single word of their speech. They were watching two other men who sat with a board on their knees, bending over it, intent. A dog began to bark, and all around the place other dogs took up the yowling.

  He remembered what the old man had said: They would have taken her to Jorvik. He had heard that name, another great settlement like this one, far across the eastern sea. He went off along the river again, past the wooden wharf, where people were loading sacks and bundles onto one of the fat-bellied boats, and walked on a little farther, until looking down the river, toward a rising headland there, he thought he saw the glimmering of the sea.

  That was all, then; he could not cross the sea. He had to give up now.

  He stood a long while, staring out past the headland to the distant strip of water. No idea came to him how he might cross it. Yet he felt no release from the task. He told himself again the search was over, he could stop looking now. He turned, and walked up through the settlement, toward the houses.

  Here there were women working, and he looked closely at them, thinking by some wild chance she had gotten among them. The houses had little yards around them, fenced off with woven withies. Behind one such, a girl was pulling turnips.

  He stood a while, hoping she would look up and notice him. If he could make friends with someone here, anyone, he could stay. She was pulling turnips, her arm moving rhythmically back and forth, her head bowed; a white cloth hid her hair, but enough escaped away from the headcloth that he saw how fair she was. After a moment, as if she felt his gaze on her, she lifted her head and their eyes caught.

  He jerked a smile onto his face. She frowned, a little, and glanced away, and then looked back at him. Her frown melted into a little smile, and she started to get up off her knees.

  Gladdened, he started forward, to meet her by the withy fence. Then behind her someone shouted, a man’s voice, harsh. Her face went red as a berry. She wheeled and ran back into the turnip patch, her back to him, and Corban went quickly off again.

  A little way off, he turned to look back, and saw her watching him, her head turned over her shoulder. When she caught him watching her she whipped her head forward again.

  He laughed. He felt much better, suddenly, as if the sun had just come out; he thought, I can get along here, if the women like me. He went back toward the river bank, hungry again, watching for a chance to steal something more to eat.

  The crowd there had grown. The two men with their gameboard had gotten up and moved away; one of them still stood nearby, the board dangling from his fingers, watching a man with a stocky, smooth-coated brindle dog, who stood in the middle of the crowd, talking loudly in the strange foreign speech. Corban went along the edge of the mass of bodies. A slat-sided boy was coming up, dragged along on a rope by an eager black dog that lunged and bulled at the lead. They were going to have a dog fight.

  The swarm of men drew back, clamoring. Among them, one in a long cloak trimmed with red fox fur plucked a fat bag from inside his cloak and dug into it with his fingers and took out a bit of something that flashed in the sun; he tossed it up into the air.

  In the crowd all the heads turned, and tipped up, all eyes following that flashing bit. Corban eased into the crowd. He saw how all the others watched the man in the fox cloak and his bag and the shiny bit he had taken out of it, which now he stuffed back into the bag, and stuck into his belt. He spoke in a hard, loud voice.

  The crowd backed suddenly away from the dogs. The brindle dog was growling and standing up on its hind feet against its lead, and the man with it squatted down beside it and spoke to it, stroking its dusty striped shoulder. The slat-sided boy brought up his dog lunging and snarling. The dogs faced each other. The other men yelped and laughed and cried out, giving the dogs room to fight, circling around them. The man in the fox fur cloak stood with his hands on his hips.

  The dogs began to lunge at each other, growling and slavering; the two men held them back a moment. The brindle dog had burst into a sweat that darkened its coat almost black. The watchers crowded in closer, elbowing each other and shoving to get a better view. Corban hung back a little, wary, to the left of the man in the fox fur cloak; all these people seemed as fierce as the dogs, and he reminded himself that the men who had murdered his family were foreigners, danskers, like these.

  His gaze snagged on the fat little sack in the belt of the man with the fox fur cloak, like a fine red apple, just waiting to be plucked.

  With a yell, the slat-sided boy loosed his dog, and in two leaps it jumped on the brindle. Howling and whining, the two dogs tangled. Clods of mud flew up around them. Strings of bloody foam spun through the air. The men watching screamed and howled, their arms driving up and down, and Corban backed up, unwilling to get into their midst. One of the dogs let out a terrible scream.

  The crowd surged closer. Behind them all, Corban could see nothing of the dog fight; he was trying to work up the courage to grab for the fat sack, there on the big man’s belt, still right in front of him. Abruptly, as if his wish had made it happen, through the corner of his vision somebody else’s hand darted out toward the bag.

  Corban gave no thought to what he did, but reached out and caught the outstretched hand by the wrist just as it closed on the bag. The owner of the hand jerked back, trying to yank free, flexing his arm up; Corban grappled with him, which brought them face to face. Corban saw sleek black eyes, a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth. He clutched the man’s wrist, although the man wrenched at him, silently, the bag tight in his fingers; then abruptly from behind a hand fell on Corban’s shoulder, and a voice roared incomprehensibly in his ear.

  Startled, Corban stepped back and let the thief go. The thief wheeled, already running, but the big man in the fur cloak, his hand still on Corban’s shoulder, thrust one foot out, and tripped the thief headlong and put his foot down firmly on his back.

  On the far side of the crowd the dogs were yelping and screaming and the men roaring. The big man turned to Corban. He had a broad face above a thicket of fair beard. For a moment, Corban felt the glare of his eyes on him and his skin crawled; he would think Corban a thief, too, how could he know what had happened? Then the big man said something in dansker and thrust out his hand, smiling.

  Behind him, unknowing of any of this, the crowd gave up a blast of noise, waving their arms. The dogfight was over. Relieved, Corban put his hand out and took the big man’s. When the foreigner spoke again, Corban shook his head, and shrugged.

  “I don’t …” He shook his head again, letting go of the other man’s hand, and taking a step back. The crowd was turning toward them. The slab-sided boy was trudging away, tears running down his face, the black body of his dog in his arms. The foreigner in his fancy coat shouted something to the now curious crowd and waved his arm, and several of the men from the crowd launched themselves at the thief, still pinned under the big man’s foot, and hauled him up.

  The big man’s blond eyebrows jerked up and down. He was still staring at Corban and now suddenly he spoke Irish. “Quick hands yourself.” He ground the Irish words slowly out, all growls, like a southern man. “I am to thank you. You saved me a quantity of money, or at least the trouble of recovering it. Who are you?”

  “Nobody,” Corban said, smiling, but wanting to get away from this attention; he edged backward a step, seeing everybody looking at him. “I am only just come here.”

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nbsp; “Maybe so you still see everything sharp,” said the big man. He turned, and said something in his foreign tongue to the men holding the thief, and they carried him away up the slope from the river. Corban took another step away, but the big man put out his hand.

  “Wait.” He took the fat bag from his belt, opened it, and shook out a scatter of the flashing silver bits. “If you decide to stay here, come to me. I can always use good men.” He held out the silver, and when Corban held back, wary, took his hand and put the buttons in his palm. “Einar Ship-Farmann, I am.” He put his purse away, still very fat, and held out his hand to Corban to shake.

  Corban put the silver into his left hand and gave Einar his right. A few of the crowd had stayed to watch them, and these let up a cheer.

  Startled, Corban looked down at the silver in his hand. He remembered how the other men had watched just one piece of it, in the air, as if it were an angel messenger. Now he himself had some—thinking back, he hastily smoothed away how he had thought to steal the purse himself—now, he saw, he had cleverly only seen it could be done. And look what he had won for that. And it seemed Einar Ship-Farmann was offering him more. The silver held his eyes; the surfaces had figures on them, a cross, lettering. His chest swelled with a deep, gut-full pleasure.

  Then, suddenly, there was another man in front of him, talking.

  It was the old bald buzzard of a man, from the gate. “Well,” he said, “I found you a ship to England.”

  “What?” Corban said, startled.

  The man’s gaze stuck, goggling at the silver. “Where did you get that?”

  “From—” Corban nodded happily over his shoulder. Big Einar Ship-Farmann was already walking away, putting on his hat.

  The bald man counted the money with his finger. “Tenpence. You could buy your way to England.” He reached out as if to take one of the buttons and Corban closed his fist on them. He was wondering what Einar would want him to do, to get more of these.