The Soul Thief

by Cecelia Holland

  Her face floated in a mist of faces, many-eyed, not all of them smiling. Mav saw her several times at once, young and old, ugly and beautiful, happy and raging. She wondered which was the true woman. She wondered if any of them were true, and shuddered.

  Yet the Lady, toward Mav at least, was kind. Stroking Mav’s hair. “Is he still there, girl?”

  Mav’s mouth tasted foul. The Lady fed her sips of a clear spicy wine. She laid her head in the Lady’s lap and kept her eyes closed. At first she had spoken her heart, grateful for the tenderness, for the warm food and the gentle hand on her hair, but now she could sense the fear all around her and she was afraid to talk. She had said too much already. She had given away too much.

  She felt this begin, a long struggle, whose end she could not imagine. She was too weak even to move, much less give battle.

  “Is he there? Is he still coming?”

  Off at the edge of the world, yes, that was her brother, walking toward her. She was glad of him; weak and thoughtless she said, “Yes.” The Lady fed her sips of broth. Her whole being yearned toward her brother, creeping over the curve of the world toward her. Light wrapped him, red and blue. She said, “Corban.”

  The Lady said, “Sleep, girl. Don’t worry about the baby. We’ll get rid of it, don’t worry.”

  She folded her arms over her belly, where the little alien knot pulsed. She shut her eyes and sent her mind to Corban. He was not alone, he walked with others, but he was in danger. She could feel anger all around him like thorny brambles; she saw great pits opening up before his feet, that he could disappear in. The red and blue light shone warm around him. He walked with a long step, his head up, his eyes forward. Her heart gladdened to see him strong.

  Later the Lady brought her a goblet of green water, but when she looked into it, she saw worms in it, coiling and uncoiling in the green, and would not drink it.

  Hedeby. Lying in the warm bed, the blankets around her, she half-drowned in its jumble, the voices of men and of seagulls, the barking of dogs, the heavy lumbering of feet, coming and going. Some people cried here. Women and children, taken away, penned and sold like cattle. A strange harsh voice sounded close, inside this same house: a man’s voice, a royal voice. She flinched from it.

  Outside. Everywhere arguing. The clink of gold and silver. The slice of a blade into flesh. The stink of smoke, rising into the still cold air, of cesspots and rot. Always, like music, the tramp of feet on wooden walks, and the rush of the sea past the keels of boats, heavy laden.

  She knew the Lady walked through her house, her servants quailing and bowing away from her, as if she walked in a coat of winds that blew them down. The Lady nodded and men quaked. Not all men. That harsh voice sounded again, in this house; he sat somewhere nearby, stinking of swords and blood.

  “I will have it all, or my sons. Then let Fairhair sleep deep and cold in his howe, and his sons come with tribute to me and mine.”

  That voice made her shiver; it went through her like a knife of ice. A name came to her, out of nowhere, not even really a name: Bluetooth.

  Another goblet came, this one red, with a smell like fish blood, and she would not drink it.

  “If you drink this, girl, you will not have to bear this brat. Drink, drink.”

  She drank only the good broth, ate the dry bread, and threw most of that up again anyway. Her head floated, a great soft empty haze, above her ruined body. She was dying.

  The Lady laughed. “No, no, not dying. You are safe here, and most precious. Come, come, don’t you understand me yet? Trust me. I love you. I shall not let you die.”

  The hand stroking on her hair lulled her. She found herself talking again, of her home, her family, her brother.

  “He comes.”

  “Yes,” said the Lady. “Where is he now?”

  “He walks.” She shuddered. She knew that bridge, those trees. He was following the way she had come. There she had walked on the road. There the men had dragged her off and thrown her down and made use of her as if she were nothing. Quarried a nothing out of the middle of her. All around him walked men with knives in their hands and their eyes. She wept, and the hand on her hair soothed her.

  “You are safe now. Only, drink this, and the baby will be gone. Do you want it? Foolish girl, they raped you, it has no father, why should you want to bear it? Such pain as that is, even for a wanted child.”

  She would not drink. She held her arms over her belly, where the little life grew, filling up the nothing, and clenched her teeth against the rising wave of nausea.

  “She seems half dead to me.” That was the cold bloody voice, right before her. She lifted her eyes to narrow eyes pale as water beneath his crow’s wing of an eyebrow. In his eyes she saw a fathomless hunger like a black pit in the center of the world.

  The Lady spoke. “She has a great power. It comes also from the brother. When I have both of them, I shall have something to watch. You said you wanted a spy, to go to Jorvik and see what Eric does, and maybe twist him a little. This is the chance.”

  “Bah. She is a waif, and dying.”

  “You know nothing of this. What you know, you know, but of this you are ignorant.”

  Mav shut her eyes, to keep from seeing his hunger, but she could not shut the eyes of her mind. Within her, the little life beat. She wondered which of the many men had planted that seed in her belly. Yet she would protect it, hers to love, hers alone. Around her the wooden city clamored, a thousand pounding feet, a thousand bawling voices. And somewhere, in the distance, Corban, coming toward her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Just before midday the road led them over a bridge and down toward a great stone bar, a gateway through the overgrown earthworks of the city wall; beyond the ragged upper line of the wall Grod could see the wooden finger of a steeple, and in the distance some roofs. The stink and uproar of the city reached his nose, and all along his arms the flesh pebbled up: he could not wait to get in there, to the crowds and the bustle and the food and excitement. He wondered why he had ever taken to the road.

  Of course there was Corban. He gripped the young man by the arm and drew him off the road, into the shadow of a tree, where they could talk. Down the road past them came a steady parade of people going into the town and from it, and Grod kept watch on the gateway while he talked.

  “Now, you remember what the abbot said, back there. That getting into Jorvik can be hard.”

  Corban turned toward him, his eyes sharp. “Yes. What should we do?”

  Grod stroked his chin, bristling with his new beard. “You see those men in the bar?”

  Corban lifted his head and looked. “Yes. They are stopping people.”

  “I saw that.” Grod shifted his weight from one foot to the other, uneasy. Corban had sharp eyes; Grod hadn’t even really seen the guards there, among the clog of people by the bar. “They’re looking for the King’s enemies, and for people who are coming in to sell and buy—he gets a tax from those. We should go in separately.” He looked down at himself. “We don’t look like much—we look even less, one at a time. Good. I’ll go first, you watch me, and do as I do. Meet me at the church by nightfall.”

  Corban’s head bobbed up and down. He fumbled with his sleeve. To Grod’s amazement he saw the boy was taking out some of his silver money. His heart swelled. Corban was as good as sunrise. He reached out his hand and Corban put four pennies into it.

  “Meet me at the church,” Grod said again. “I’ll be there by the time the sun goes down, certainly. And stay out of trouble.” He closed his fist over the money. “Be careful, Corban, will you?” Now suddenly he could not bring himself to part from the young man, although the stream of people walking by, the open gate, and the city beyond called him like a sinner to his luxuries. He nodded to Corban. “Be careful. Watch me.”

  Grod turned back toward the road, saw a woman passing with a bundle on her arm and a baby on her back, and went after her. He fell into step with her, a pace behind, close enough to see the eg
gs in her basket. They stood a while, among a dozen other people, until a big wagon in the gateway passed on through, and then in the midst of the crowd entered the gate.

  The dark air of the stone passageway fell over him, cold and dank. The gate was deep, ten feet from outside to inside, paved with square stones. Off to one side, two men in iron-studded leather shirts were watching people go in and out of the city; another, redheaded, slumped with his back to the inside wall of the gate, dozing. King Eric’s men stopped the woman with the basket. Grod kept on walking, and was out the bar, and into the narrowing street leading into the city.

  He felt suddenly much lighter. He knew this place, somewhat. He had been to Jorvik once before, years ago; then he had known people here, and maybe some of them remained. He went on into a narrow planked street that wound between buildings, closer together than in Dublin. Within a few steps he was closed in, the city crowding around him. He turned and looked back, toward the bar, thinking about Corban.

  His heart lurched in his chest. He reminded himself he had always meant to slip free of Corban, somewhere.

  That had been before. He could not remember exactly when his notion about that had changed, whether it was when Corban tossed him into the Cymric boat, or when he brought him the fat tender birds when he was starving, or drove off the men attacking him on the road. Somewhere everything had changed. He wandered deeper into the city, aching for his missing friend.

  The sun was still high in the sky, and the shops and markets of the town were full of people. He ducked beneath the great hanging shoe sign of a cobbler’s shop, and went by a candlemaker’s, stinking of tallow. He realized he was hungry and began looking for something to eat. He stowed the silver pennies carefully away in his clothes, too precious to waste on simple things like food, and watched for the chance to steal something. He tried to forget about Corban.

  The road dipped, going down a short slope, and he saw the river in the distance, smoothly flowing under the thin winter daylight. A bell began to ring, off to his right somewhere, up on the higher bank. The street was full of garbage, the center of it a string of puddles, and he kept to the side. Abruptly a woman stepped out of a doorway right in front of him and upended a bucket of slops; he bounded away, and she laughed at him, a harsh, croaking cry like a bird.

  A pieman strolled toward him, calling out in a long mournful voice. Grod licked his lips, his belly rumbling. He remembered that the market street lay just ahead, and turned into it, looking for a familiar face. It all seemed changed; he did not remember these bakeries, three of them all in a row, crowded around with people; the smell of the bread almost led him to take out some of his money.

  Silly to spend good silver on bread, which was eaten and gone right away. He hurried off, looking around him. Near the foot of the street was a big spreading oak tree; he remembered that—a market tree—and there were people under it now, buying and selling. Across the way from that, on the corner, a small woman in a white headcloth sat among an array of pots, bent over something she was doing with her hands. A boy with a stick drove three scrawny pigs up the street toward him and Grod drifted out of the way, around into the next street.

  That put him almost in the doorway of a house; he sniffed and drew in a long savory aroma of onions and pork. His mouth filled with water. He glanced around, saw nobody watching him, and went around the side of the house, chasing the aroma.

  Halfway down the house was a little open window, and on the ledge sat a fat pie, cooling. Steam rose from its thick brown crust. He slid his hands up into his sleeves, and with his fingers thus protected, lifted the pie neatly up off the ledge and continued on down the side of the house, toward the darkness of trees he saw just beyond.

  The steaming pie was still too hot to eat. He came to a thick hedge, set the pie down, stooped, and squeezed himself in through the spiny trunks at the bottom. That took him out to a dark lane, smelling of piss and garbage. The high steep bank of the earthworks rose just beyond. He reached back through the hedge and found the warm and crusty pie. He sat down and ate the pie, delicious with gravy and the sweet bite of the onions, and licked the sauce off his fingers.

  Now he drifted back toward the center of the city. He wished Corban were there; he felt small and unsure, and everything about Jorvik seemed to have changed since he had been here last. There had been a fire, he remembered. Maybe the pest had come through here. In any case he recognized none of the buildings. Everywhere he looked he saw Eric’s men, brawny danskers with leather shirts and swords in their belts, doing no work; walking idly up the street, or standing around, watching everything. In a doorway, as he passed, he saw a girl sitting, her red skirt drawn up to her knees. She caught his eye, and stared boldly at him, and pulled down on her dress, showing him her breasts.

  He slowed, an old practiced lust stirring in him, and thought of the silver, again, and turned and went on. He told himself a woman like that was the same as a bite of bread, nothing to spend money on. He did not remember such a thing before in Jorvik and at the corner he turned to look back at her. She was sitting well back inside the doorway; only her red skirt showed against the wall. He hurried on.

  He came into a narrow lane stinking of blood. The center of the street was a rotten running stream, clogged with mats of feathers and hair and crawling with flies. On either side were pens floored thick in manure, with here and there a cow or a sheep. Between the pens stood houses, their heavy thatches leaning over the street. In paying so much heed to keeping his feet tidy, he nearly brained himself on an iron meat hook dangling from the projecting eave.

  This was the shambles, he realized, and now suddenly he knew where he was in the town, and went on more confidently, past a little herd of doomed swine waddling down the street, to where the way suddenly widened into a square, and the high front of the church loomed.

  Now he was certain he knew where he was. He drifted around the edge of the square and down a lane between the church and another house; between the two high walls the lane was dark even in broad daylight, and halfway down the church wall he came on several men throwing dice.

  Grod’s neck tingled. He suddenly felt very lucky. He went into the ring of men watching the game. The shadow of the church lay deep over them here and he had to look sharp to see. One of the men took the little bones and rattled them in his hand.

  “Doubles! Give me doubles!”

  Beside Grod, somebody bawled, “A farthing he makes it!”

  “Taken,” Grod said, mindful of his silver.

  The player cast, bent over the dice, and let out a wail. Grod turned to the man beside him, his hand out.

  “Another,” this man said. “Double or nothing.”

  He was tall, with a grizzled beard. Grod squinted at him in the bad light. “Edbert?”

  The broad face turned toward him, mouth falling open. With the light on him Grod was sure now, and he said, “It’s me, Grod, remember me? We came here together from London, after King Aethelstan died. Remember?”

  Edbert’s mouth sagged. Abruptly he was wheeling back to the dice game, where the players stooped to see the bones roll, and screamed and cried. “Damn,” he said.

  “That’s a halfpenny,” Grod said.

  Edbert swung toward him again. “Yes, damn you, I remember you now.” He made no move toward his purse. “What are you doing in Jorvik again?”

  “I was in Dublin. I thought I’d get on my way home.” Grod nudged him. “You owe me half a penny.”

  “Bah,” said Edbert. “Put it on his next throw. Landy! Make this one a good one, hey?”

  The man with the dice said something muffled. Across the way somebody else was calling out a bet. Grod poked Edbert with his elbow again. “I’m looking for a place to sleep. How about taking me in?”

  Edbert craned his neck, watching the dice. Then he threw his arms up, triumphant. “There! Yes!” All around, the crowd laughed and cheered, and the man with the dice leapt up and danced.

  Grod wiped his mouth. He shou
ld have collected the halfpenny. Now Edbert was pushing away. Grod followed after him.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  Edbert grunted. “There’s no—” His head rose, his gaze sliding past Grod, and he hissed, “Beat it, lads! Eric’s men!” Wheeling, he fled away.

  The rest of the dice players scattered. Grod shrank back against the wall of the church; from the head of the lane came a hoarse cry, and two danskers came running down past him. He shrank against the wall, hunching his shoulders, his arms against his chest. Down where the lane met the square somebody screamed. Grod wheeled away from the wall and dashed the other way, around the church, and dodged inside.

  Here he would be safe. Yet his heart galloped rabbity in his chest. The place was dim and empty. It smelled of mildew; the bare earthen floor was slick under his feet. At the opposite end of the building, above a narrow table, hung an image of the Hanged God. He went to the side wall and sat down, to wait for Corban.

  He wondered why he had ever taken to traveling again. It was mad to think he would go back where he began, to his birthplace in Gardarik. He could hardly remember the place; he had been wandering all his life, all he could ever recall clearly was the last place he had been. Of his homeland he remembered the heavy mounded snow bulging over the riverbank, the black water racing by. He remembered the mosquitoes in the summer, the backbreaking work, and the curses and the blows of his mother’s fist. His family had been fishermen and boatmen, but since his father died, he and his brothers had only the scraps, the leavings of his uncles and cousins. As soon as he could, he had escaped on a boat, when danskers came by.

  He had gone to Birka, and to Nid, to London and Hedeby and Dublin. He had seen much but he had left nothing behind, not even a friend he could count on. His spirits sank down. It seemed to him he had lived all his life like a grasshopper one leap ahead of the plow.