The Soul Thief

by Cecelia Holland

  He leaned his back against the wall, and dozed. When he woke, people were moving into the church, carrying candles, and he started up onto his feet, afraid. But they only walked down toward the far end, where the flat table was, and began to light the candles there.

  Corban had not come. He shivered a little; the air was cold, the night seeping in, dark and pestilent. He could not stay here, and he went out the door and into the city.

  The square in front of the church was empty. Somewhere a dog was barking. The air was cold and still, and a haze of smoke hid the stars. He went uncertainly away down the long street that led down toward the river. On the right rose the steep embankment where the King’s Hall stood, and he saw lights there and knew to stay far away. He had to find somewhere to sleep. Along the street stood a row of houses, but every one was shuttered and dark. He stopped in front of the last one, thinking of climbing over the withy fence and crawling into the lean-to tipped against its wall, but a dog started barking inside and he went hastily away.

  He was hungry. The savory pie seemed days behind him. He huddled his arms around himself and went on down to the riverbank; off to his right, downstream, several ships were drawn up on the shore, and a fire glowed in among them. He thought of going down there, of begging and whining his way in with those men, but there was risk in that, especially if they were drunk. He turned upstream, walking along the flat beaten path along the shore of the river, following the way that led up the bank and back into the city’s heart.

  Down this path someone was toiling along, a woman, small and slight, struggling with a handcart. He gave her a keen look, wondering if she had anything to steal, and saw it was the little potter woman he had seen earlier, in the Coppergate marketplace. She would have nothing worth stealing. He started by her, his shoulders hunched up, cold.

  She rolled the barrow on toward the river; he could hear the grunt of her breath as she wrestled with the weight of it. Then she gave a cry of exasperation, and the handcart thudded over. With a loud clatter everything inside fell out.

  He stopped, looking back. For a moment the woman stood still, her arms hanging, staring at the upset cart. She lived here, he thought, she was going somewhere. Suddenly he remembered how he had fallen in with Corban; if he helped her, or seemed to, maybe she would give him a place to sleep. He went back over toward the upturned handcart, which she was now struggling to right.

  “Here,” he said, “I’ll help you.” He took hold of the side of the cart.

  She started, her head flying up, and he saw he had frightened her. She gave him a wild stare. She was much younger than he had thought, only a girl. He said, “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and wrenched the cart up onto its wheel. “I can do it—” Quickly she knelt, gathering up pots. “Thank you, I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll help you,” he said, again, and hurried to pick something up before she got it all. Then, on the far side of the river, there was a yell.

  The potter woman straightened, looking across the water, and shouted, “I’m here!” She gave Grod a sideways look and dumped her armload of pots into the handcart. “Thank you,” she said, sending him off, her voice clipped.

  Grod dusted his hands together. From the other side of the river, a girl came running toward them, bounding lightly across the surface of the water. As she came up, even in the darkness Grod could see her smile. She walked up beside the potter woman and slipped her arm around her waist, saying, “Where were you, Benna? I came at sundown, you weren’t here.”

  “I was doing something,” the potter woman said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see how late it was getting.” She glanced at Grod, and said, again, insistently, “Thank you.”

  “Please,” Grod said. “I need a place to sleep—”

  “Oh, no,” the potter woman said.

  The other girl gave him a keen look. “Who is he?”

  “I spilled out the pots—he just stopped—”

  “Please,” Grod said. “I’m cold.”

  The other girl said, “You can stay with us. We don’t have very much—”

  The potter woman, Benna, tossed her hands up. “We have nothing. And what we do have, Arre, you give away to strangers.”

  “We can give him shelter, and lose nothing ourselves.” Arre smiled at him. “My name is Arre, and this is my sister Benna, who is much kinder than she’s seeming right now.”

  “Thank you,” Grod said. “I’m cold, I wouldn’t ask—”

  “Hah,” Benna said. “Well, then, come along, I suppose.” She grabbed the handles of the cart.

  “I’ll help,” Grod said, gladdened. He could tell Benna was glaring at him in the dark but he ignored her. He took one of the handles of the cart, and she took the other, and they started over the river; there were stones laid down in the river here, which was how Arre had seemed to skip across the surface. The wind bit cold, but he kept his groans to himself. It was amazing how a few words from a woman made everything seem better. Now he was thinking that Corban had just gotten lost somewhere, and he would find him in the morning. Happily he struggled getting the handcart across the river.

  Corban waited a little while, after he saw Grod get through the gate, and fell in behind a stream of people, as he had seen the old man do. As he came near the gate he fumbled up into his mind all the dansker he could remember, which was almost nothing, and then he was going in behind a cart full of firewood, into the shade of the gate. The cart rolled on, past the three men in their iron studded jackets, standing to one side watching.

  Corban’s face heated. He tried not to look at them, but he felt as if he gave off some glow of alarm, and suddenly one of them was shouting, and stepping forward, pointing at him.

  He stopped, his palms suddenly greasy. The three men came toward him; the one in front, who had shouted, wore a leather cap, his red hair sticking out in bunches all around the lower edge.

  He said something in dansker. The teeth in the front of his mouth were missing, and when he spoke his lips flapped around this hole in his face; Corban could understand nothing of what he said.

  “I only speak Irish. I’m Irish.”

  “Irish.” The redheaded man wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “I speak Irish. You are?”

  “Corban Mac—” He would not say that name. “Corban Loose-strife. I came from—”

  “Why you wear Kenneth’s colors, hah?” The Viking reached out and pulled at Corban’s cloak.

  “I don’t wear anybody’s color,” Corban said, startled; he glanced around; the other two danskers were behind him, now, watching him steadily, keeping him in the middle. He turned back toward the man with the hole in his face. “I don’t know any Kenneth.” But he had heard the name, at the monastery: the King of the Scots. “I’m not Scot.”

  The redheaded man was looking him over, even pulling the cloak away so he could see what Corban carried on his belt. “How you know Scot if not Kenneth? No weapon?”

  “My sling,” Corban said. “My belt knife.”

  “Money?”

  Corban stared at him, confused, wondering if this meant he had to pay money to get into the city; the redhead rubbed his fingers together. “Money money money!”

  “I have some money.” He gave the redheaded man his four pennies.

  The Viking took the coins and went over to the sunlight and stared at them. Corban glanced at the other men, who were beginning to look bored; he thought suddenly he would get by them soon, and be out of this.

  “Hah!” The redhead strode back to him. “Jedburh!” He waved a coin under Corban’s nose. “Jedburh! Explain that one, hah?” He gripped Corban’s arm and held him. “We’re taking you to see the King.”

  Corban thought of running, of jumping one of these men and knocking him down and bolting, but they were watching him; one on either side, and one behind him. On their belts they carried swords. They went down a crowded narrow street, past a big wooden shoe hanging from an eave, through a delicious
wafting aroma of baking bread. He had told the truth and this was what it had gotten him. As he went along he saw people in the street turning to see him, and the back of his neck heated.

  Off past a row of thatched roofs he saw the wooden tower of the church. Grod might be there waiting for him. His stomach fluttered. They walked down a broad street, littered with cow shit; the street turned downhill and they came into sight of the river, green and slow between its high banks. From the street a broad path led up the last stretch of the embankment, toward the height, where there were two or three large thatched wooden halls.

  They led him to the middle hall, the largest. The yard was trampled dust, and the front door into the hall stood wide open; a dog lay over the threshold. When they went in the place was empty. It was a fair hall, Corban thought, wide and long, with benches on either side, two big hearths, and a great carved highseat at one end; he wished he were anywhere else. The danskers led him down to the end, and made him sit on a bench there, and got a chain and shackled him to the bench by one leg, and left him there.

  He tried the shackle with his hands and could not budge it. The chain let him stand up but go nowhere. He sat there a while, watching. A woman came into the hall with a load of firewood but left at once. Two little white-headed boys ran in and out again. No one came down toward his end of the place. There was a bearskin on the bench, and he pulled it over and lay down on it, and went to sleep.

  He woke in the half-dark to a rising babble of noise. Cautiously he lifted his head. Up there in the middle of the hall, in the light of a string of torches, people were dragging tables out before the benches, talking all the while. More men kept coming in the door, lifting their voices to be heard over the uproar, laughing, and strutting around. He smelled roasted meat and hot bread. Sitting up, he drew himself as far back into the shadows as the chain would let him go.

  Up there the people crowded to the tables and sat down. He saw a man in a long blue coat come in, surrounded by people who never took their eyes off him, and thought, That is the King. He was cold, and his empty stomach hurt. In the door two men rolled a great cask, which the others saw, and greeted with a roar and a clapping of hands. They heaved the cask up onto the nearest table and people gathered around it. Then suddenly through the milling crowd the redheaded man with the hole in his mouth was striding down the hall toward Corban.

  Corban licked his lips. The redheaded man squatted down and undid the shackle. A scrawny yellow-haired boy had come along with him, and stood watching. The Viking straightened.

  “Come, Irish.”

  Corban followed him up the hall and into the light, the delicious aromas of roast meat, the stares of these men. On either side they lined the opposite edges of the tables, chunks of meat in their fingers, or passing a cup. They watched him, rows of men in leather jackets, their hair braided and clasped with gold. He went straight ahead, up between the tables, toward the High Seat, where the King sat.

  Who was not the man in the blue coat. That man sat at that front table, but on the King’s right hand. In the High Seat was a great fat man, his tawny beard hanging down over a red shirt stitched with gleaming gold. In front of him on the table was a litter of gnawed bones, and fresh meat juice stained the front of his fine red shirt where it bulged over his belly. He sat slumped in the High Seat, one foot up on the edge of the table, his arm hung over the side of the chair; it was as if he disdained everything, even being King of Jorvik.

  The redhead was speaking to him, gesturing with both hands. He spoke so fast and mush-mouthed that Corban could not understand what he said. In the High Seat next to the King, a woman stirred around, looking to see what was happening, and let her gaze fall on Corban.

  Corban met her eyes; a shock passed through him. Her look was hard and direct as a man’s, and more, as if she saw down into him. She was beautiful, younger than the King, with hair brighter than the gold in his shirt. Around her neck hung a collar set with pale purple stones, and as she looked at Corban she touched her fingers to the stones. Her gaze held his a moment but she did not smile, or nod, or speak, but searched him, and then dropped him, uninterested.

  The redhead said, “The King says who you are.”

  Corban guessed at what this meant; he spoke his name again, feeling as if he climbed a slippery hill. “I am from Ireland. I know no Kenneth. I am not Scot.”

  The King grunted at him, and turned to the Viking and said something about the money. Corban understood him much better than the redhead. Leaning across the table, the Viking gave him two silver pennies. Abruptly the woman bent forward, and spoke, pointing one long forefinger at Corban, demanding to see his cloak.

  The redhead took hold of his cloak. Corban fisted his hands in the cloth, unwilling to lose this too. The Viking gave him a narrow grin. “Give or not,” he said; his hand went to the sword hanging by his thigh, and Corban slowly lowered his hands, feeling cold, and shed the cloak. The redhead passed it over the table to the woman. The fat King twisted his head to look at her, and she bundled the cloth in her hands, put her face against it, and then tossed it down onto the table.

  Her voice high and clear and indifferent, she said, “He is nothing. Nobody.” She sank back into the High Seat, her eyes half-closing. Corban reached for the cloak. The redheaded man slammed down his hand and pinned it against the table, and the King spoke.

  Corban understood all of it, even before the redhead’s translation. “Queen Gunnhild makes you innocent, but the King says maybe you hang anyway.”

  “No,” Corban said. His belly gave a sickening lurch. His hand was trapped still under the Viking’s. “Why?”

  The fat King watched him with a glint in his pale eyes. He drew some little amusement from this, Corban saw, like a bite of something sweet. They would kill him to pass the time between servings of the meat. The Queen was looking off, her chin on her fist, caring nothing anymore, innocent or not. The redheaded man said, “You poor for money—how you get money except steal?”

  “No,” Corban said.

  “So thief,” the redhead said. “So hang.” In the High Seat the King smiled, pleased.

  “No,” Corban said. “I got the money in Ireland, it belongs to me. I got it fairly.” A name swam up into his mind, and he caught at it. “I got it from Einar Ship-Farmann.”

  That reached them. The Viking lifted his hand, and stepped back. The King’s eyes widened, and his smile vanished, his lips drawing together thoughtfully; he jerked his head around to look down to his right. There the man in the blue coat was turning around, his eyes sharp, paying attention to this for the first time. He gave the King a single intent look and sat back, his hands before him on the table, his gaze on Corban.

  Corban straightened; quickly he gathered up his cloak. The redheaded man said to him, “You are Einar’s man? Why you only ever said this now?”

  “I’m nobody’s man. I did something for Einar in Dublin and he gave me the money.”

  The King waved his fingers at him, and said, “Tell him he can go free. As a favor to my friend Arinbjorn, here, who is Einar’s friend.” He reached for his cup again. The redhead said, “The King says go. Since you Einar’s man.”

  The man in the blue coat snorted, and looked away. Corban stepped back, his chest swelling, as if until now he had been locked in tight iron bands. The itch to be out of this place was like a rash on his skin. He said, “May I have my money, then?”

  The redhead gave a roar of laughter, and the King also, not waiting for the dansker of it; Corban had suspected he spoke Irish. The redhead said, “I think you pay King Eric new tax, two pence, no hang tax.” He laughed again, glancing at the King.

  “Well, then,” Corban said, “I should get not hung twice, since I gave you four pence.” He bowed to the King, and to the woman in the High Seat with him, and turned and went fast away down the hall.

  Behind him the King’s voice rose in a yell. “Sweyn! Where’s the rest of my money?” Corban strode quickly out the door.

  I
t was full night now. He walked down the path across the lip of the embankment, above the dark cavern of the river, and turned uphill on the street. The church’s steeple showed dim and dark against the night sky. He was tired; he had eaten nothing all day, and his legs dragged. Grod was nowhere around the church, not inside, where some people slept on the floor at the back and other people prayed by the light of candles in the front, and nowhere around it. He drank long from a fountain, just down the street, and came back.

  He was too tired to look any more. He had escaped being hanged but he felt halfway dead anyway. The church at least was warmer than the street, and he wrapped himself up in his cloak and lay down in the company at the back. To the murmuring of other people’s prayers he passed into a fitful sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Coming awake, Grod opened his eyes and looked quickly around. He was lying in the back of a hut, under the slope of the tilted wall. A dim light came in through the chimney hole in the roof; day was breaking. He was warmly wrapped in a tattered cloak and felt no need to stir. Somewhere just beyond his head a chicken was clucking. As the light grew stronger the room around him began to appear: the pile of jugs by the stone ring of the hearth, the thatchy inside of the overarching roof, dripping spider webs. His belly rumbled with hunger. In the middle of the hut, under the peak of the roof, a girl with a mass of wild curly yellow hair was sitting on the floor stuffing straw into a shoe.

  Her voice rang out. “I will have to go far with the goats today, there is no browse at all between here and Highcross.”

  From the other side of the hut the potter woman Benna came, small and slight, leading an old man along. “If it looks like snow, stay close.” The old man walked stooped down, plodding, one hand out before him, the other in the girl’s hand; Grod saw that he was blind. Benna led him tenderly to the door and out.

  “I have to find browse for my goats,” the wild-haired girl Gifu said. She put the shoe on and laced it.