The Soul Thief

by Cecelia Holland

  Only a few years before it had been so different; they had lived in a house in the city, and her father had been known all over the country for his pottery. Then her mother died, and her father lost his sight, and then his mind, and the King took the house. Now they clung to the edge of Jorvik like weeds growing in the chinks of a wall.

  She fed her father some chewed-up meat. His eyes were milky and running and she wiped them with a rag.

  Gifu should do this, she thought, in a seethe of resentment. Gifu, whom he loved so much. Now sitting there giggling by the fire, head together with her sister’s. One fair mop of crinkly hair, one russet brown, fire-gilded, bubbling up gusts of laughter.

  They seemed still babies to Benna: Arre who would give away everything they had to anybody who needed it, who laughed and sang even on days when they had nothing to eat; and Gifu, who without a mother or a father was growing wild as an animal.

  She should marry, she thought, but who would take her? Who would take any of them, who had nothing, no dowry, no family, not even decent clothes? There were often men around, looking at them, but for bad reasons. Arre said she loved Euan, that Euan loved her, but Euan’s widowed mother, who was an apothecary, forbade him to see her. He might sneak across the river whenever he could, but he would not marry her.

  The stranger Corban, who had just brought them the first meat they had eaten in days and days, when he saw how they lived, his face had fallen, all aghast.

  She fed her father the last of the meat. Off across the river, the church bell rang, and she lowered her head and crossed herself and said an absentminded prayer. It did no good to fret; she had gotten through the day, again, and perhaps that was really all what mattered.

  He had said, not once or even twice, but three times, he had said three times that the thing she made was beautiful.

  Her father was snoring, slumped down where he sat, his chin on his chest. Gently she laid him down on his bed and pulled the blanket over him. Grod was already asleep, curled up by the wall, snoring. Her sisters also were going to their beds, and even the goats were quiet. In the stillness Benna crept in by the firelight, groping in her apron pocket for a piece of broken pot and her paintbrush.

  “She is dying,” Bluetooth said. “I have wasted a whole winter here waiting for you to make something of her and all she is becoming is a corpse.”

  The Lady clenched her teeth, angry—with him, with Mav. She kept her back to the hall, where she knew her people watched and whispered. Before her, in the little cupboard bed, the Irish girl lay like a rock, her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around her swelling belly. She was gaunt; they had been forcing food through her jaws, and yet she wasted away before them.

  And she did not sing. She gave up nothing to the Lady, not a word, not an image. Something terrible had happened; perhaps the brother had died.

  “How long has she been so?” asked Bluetooth.

  “Nearly a month,” the Lady said. She sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to stroke the girl’s cheek, but Mav’s skin was icy cold, and the Lady pulled her hand hastily back. A thrill of alarm went down her spine. On Mav’s cheeks tears lay hard and pearly like frost. Even her hair was cold. Yet she breathed; and her eyelids fluttered.

  Bluetooth grunted. “Hakon daily grows stronger. Soon he will have all Norway under his command, and then he will attack me, and the great struggle will begin. I need someone to distract him and weaken him and Eric is the obvious choice. You told me you would help me and instead you have led me down this path to nowhere, this dying girl. You owe me something now.”

  The Lady said nothing, the iron taste of failure in her mouth. She wondered if the girl’s own power had somehow killed her, or decayed her mind to uselessness.

  She wondered if she herself were fading. She should have drawn this girl entirely into her by now. But Mav resisted, holding fast to herself, and she had that wretched baby to keep hold of. The Lady wished again she had managed to get rid of it. The baby bothered her; something unknown, unmeasured, unquiet there, as if it watched her malevolently from the safety of the womb.

  The baby kept Mav from yielding to her.

  “Kill her,” Bluetooth said. “It would be a kindness.”

  His mouth twisted, loose and lustful, as he said that. In Bluetooth, kindness was a lie.

  The Lady stood. “Well, perhaps.” She drew shut the cupboard door on the girl’s bed.

  Bluetooth watched her narrowly. He wore light-bending jewels in a great collar around his neck. Abruptly the Lady boiled with a heat of rage against these kings and their hungers, and against the girl who had filled her with hope and then dashed it. She thought of the flask hidden in her bed cupboard, a long thin tube of Byzantine glass, with its drops of green poison. One sip of that, and in the morning the girl, the baby, would both be on the rubbish heap.

  He was watching her, unblinking. He enjoyed her failure. He wanted her to fail, which would give him power over her. She fought down a sudden sickening panic, and collected her mind, struggling back to the calm unmoving center of herself.

  “I will send for you,” she said. “When I have something more. Go, now.” Her voice was shrill with uncertain command.

  He stood a moment longer, watching her, smiling. Showing her what he thought of her commands. But then, he obeyed her; huge and heavy-footed, he went away toward the door.

  She went back to the cupboard where Mav lay. The girl was strong, even now; just standing here beside the bed, the Lady could sense her unwakened power. Her gorge rose, an upsurge of her will. She would not lose Mav, she needed her, she ached for that power sleeping in her, so close and yet utterly out of reach. Let Bluetooth talk of his great work, the fool. He knew nothing of how great a work there was.

  She pulled open the cupboard. Calling sharply to one of her slaves, she sent him for a cup of milk and honey, and sat down on the bed by the girl, to force food down her throat again, and keep her alive.

  Corban went out of the church in the morning thinking he would hunt again. The day was dark and blustery, although the snow had stopped, and in the street people hurried along, bundled into their clothes like sausages. He went to the fountain and broke a skim of ice on the pool of water. As he was washing his face somebody thumped him on the shoulder, and he turned and saw Eelmouth.

  Without a word, the Viking held out a cup of ale to him. Corban took it, and soon he was walking down along the street with Eelmouth, foraging from shop to shop, and not going hunting any more.

  They ate bread and apples and sausage, leaving behind a trail of angry shopkeepers. Corban went along just behind Eelmouth’s shoulder, one of several men in this band, more than usual, and as they went, Eelmouth picked up other men, until he had a dozen or more. Corban saw that the redheaded Viking had some purpose in all this, and drank less of the ale than he wanted.

  From the riverbank they turned back up the hill street, past the King’s Hall, going up toward the church. Heavy clouds covered the sun, and the wind blew raw, booming around the steeple, and the bell began to toll. In the square before the church, Eelmouth turned his head and spoke to the men behind him.

  “Stay somewhere around me, all of you. Don’t go anywhere alone. Watch me for a signal, if anything happens.”

  Corban’s neck prickled up. He wondered what was happening, what he would have to do now. With the rest of Eelmouth’s men he moved off to the edge of the square. The bell clanged steadily overhead, and presently out of the church came a procession of people.

  A young man in a black gown led them—a priest, carrying in both hands an elaborate wooden box, which he held high so that everyone could see it. As he went along he called out a long string of church words.

  “Dommmm—” He sucked the sound out long and humming “—in—oos vohhhh—bis—cummmmmm—”

  After him, in twos and threes, the wide church doors gave out a steady parade of people, stepping together and praying. The first to appear were townspeople, men in jerkins and cloaks, bareheade
d, women in long gowns, their hair smoothly wrapped up in white cloth. They answered the priest, their words jumbled and fumbled out.

  “Et cumuh sprituh-um-usto—”

  Corban said, “This is just some Christian matter. Why do you want to see it?”

  Eelmouth was staring sharp-eyed at the growing crowd. “I keep watch every time there are many of them together. They hate us, and there are more of them than us.”

  “Hunh,” Corban said. “Isn’t Eric a Christian?”

  Eelmouth grinned at him. He wiped drool off his beard with his hand. “He took the water when he was first king. But his father lies in a howe in Norway, water can’t change that.”

  Still more people were funneling out of the church, a steady stream, marching steadily off down the street after the priest with his relic. Many turned their heads and shot curious and angry looks at the Vikings, but most of them were praying, and paid Eelmouth and his men no heed.

  Corban wondered what they prayed for—good weather for spring planting, a strong crop of lambs. For the Vikings to leave them alone. The meat and bread and ale that sustained him this day lay uneasy in his stomach. He drew back among the others, folding his arms over his chest.

  As the crowd was still proceeding out of the church, the sky darkened, and wet snow began to fall; quickly it turned to a hard frozen rain. Corban pulled his cloak up tight around him, cold.

  “Come on,” Eelmouth said. “Gorm, Ketil, those of you, go around the other side. The rest of you come with me.” With Corban at his shoulder he went along down the street, shadowing the procession.

  The priest was leading them all in a long slow circle around the city. Corban trailed along after Eelmouth, watching the people nearest him. He knew many of them, especially the shopkeepers among them, near the front, and their wives. After them came farmers, in from the country, dirt-colored men with broad, heavy hands and shoulders lumpy with muscle, as if they could be hitched up to their own plows.

  Eelmouth was tramping along the side of the street, holding his scabbarded sword still with one hand. Corban licked his lips; he slowed down, letting the procession and the rest of the Vikings go on by him, until at last he saw Benna and her sisters, walking near the very end.

  Arre was praying; Benna walked with her head bowed; Gifu strolled along, her hair wild, her eyes searching. Grod plodded after them, looking bored. The rain was falling harder now, spreading icy puddles across the street. Benna walked past him, not seeing him, her face pale in the gloom, her neat-fingered hands before her, rain on her cheek. Corban went into the procession and wended his way up to her. As he reached her, the crowd began to pray out loud again.

  “Orrrr—ray—moooos—”

  “Pada Nostre, quest in chelly—”

  “Benna,” he said, his mouth dry, and she turned toward him, her eyes widening. He held out his cloak. “Are you cold? You can use my cloak.”

  On her far side, Arre’s head swung around, and her smile widened. Benna said, quietly, “Thank you.” She walked in under his cloak, into the arc his arm made with his body. He held his arm out stiffly above her, sheltering her under a roof of the cloak, not touching her. She was so close he could have put his whole arm around her. She walked along beside him, chanting in a high, uncertain voice.

  He did not chant. He went along, protecting her from the rain, struggling with a sudden wild urge to throw his arms around her and carry her off, out of the crowd, off to somewhere dry and quiet. His outstretched arm began to ache. They were walking along the riverbank now, the rain falling thick and fast.

  A child’s voice behind him said, “Will there be a feast?”

  He looked down at Benna walking beside him, her hair smoothed under the damp edge of her headcloth, the tender slope of her cheek, and his chest swelled. She looked up at him, and smiled.

  “There will be something,” a woman said. “We can’t have a procession without a feast.”

  Corban lowered his arm down around her shoulders, the cloak all around them both, now, and she stepped closer and walked so near beside him her shoulder brushed his chest. He felt as if he could not breathe. She was warm against him, warm and alive. He shut his eyes. He would build her another house. He would take care of them all.

  “In the old days, the King would have put on a feast, damn him,” said a man, harsh-tongued. “Or the Archbishop. And here it is the middle of the winter and Lent almost on us and we’re already starving.”

  “Not this King.”

  They were walking up toward the church again. The procession was over. In the square people milled around, talking in the steady freezing rain. Arre disappeared and came back with an armful of bread, giving out loaves as she passed; she came up to Corban and Benna.

  “There isn’t much,” she said, and handed her sister the last loaf. Rain glittered on her hair; she smiled at them, like the sun gleaming through the rain.

  Benna broke the loaf, and made to give Corban a piece. He stepped back, drawing away from her; her sister’s steady attention made him shy. “No—you take it. I—” Everybody was watching him now, it seemed. They would know he had been with Eelmouth. He nodded to her, moving away from her. “Good-bye,” he said, and went quickly out of the crowd. He wondered who else had seen him. In the fringe of the crowd he stood and searched the square with his eyes. Eelmouth stood on the far side of the square, under the eave of a building; Corban turned and went the other way down the street.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The day after the rain stopped, Benna took a stack of her best pots up to the King’s Hall, and there sold them to the cook for three silver pennies. Then she went down to her market corner, and spread the rest of her wares around her.

  The procession on Saint Hillary’s Eve had drawn in many people from the countryside, who had brought things to sell; a woman with a flock of little children hawking gatherings of nuts and mushrooms; men with loads of wood and bundled withies. A tinker with a grindstone had set up just across from her and was sharpening knives and tools. She settled down in the middle of her pots, the silver pennies carefully tucked into her pocket, and drew out a piece of broken pottery and her drawing kit.

  This was a good big piece, which she had been saving for a while, loathe to use it for anything small. She had made the ink from hawthorne berries, and chewed the ends of twigs for her brushes. Now, setting the shard on her knee, she dipped the brush into the ink, and drew Corban’s face.

  She left off his beard; she drew, not merely the surface of him, but what she saw under the surface. She concentrated on the strong, square lines of his brow, his eyes, the jut of his nose. People drifted by, talking to her and looking at her pots. Up the street the baker woman carried her rolls and loaves before her on a tray, calling out her wares; she waved, and Benna waved back to her. A dog from the shambles edged over toward her, sniffing at the pots. She looked for a stone to throw at it, but the dog scooted away before she could find one. Beyond, she saw Corban coming.

  She went warm all over. Quickly she tucked the shard away under the edge of her mat.

  He came up, unsmiling, his red and blue cloak slung over his arm; he gave her a single, quick, direct look, and then turned his head away, as if even his look might blister. He said, “May I sit down here?”

  “Of course,” she said. She slid sideways on the mat, to give him more room. He sank down on his heels beside her, still not looking at her. Neither of them spoke for a while. She was remembering how he had suddenly appeared in the crowd, the day before, and swung his cloak over her, warm and sheltering.

  He said, suddenly, “I’m sorry I haven’t brought more meat.”

  “Oh,” she said, “we have enough—I sold some pots at the King’s Hall.” She showed him the pennies. “We shall eat well enough for days and days, and soon the goats will kid, and then we will have milk and cheese.”

  “Good,” he said, and gave her a quick sideways look. “Then you don’t need me, I guess.”

  “You are always welco
me among us,” she said. “With me, especially.”

  He stirred, at that, and she saw him smiling, but he still did not look at her. He picked furiously at the dust before him, his head bowed. There was a little silence. She felt, between them, the beginnings of another kind of speech.

  Finally, for want of anything else, she said, “Are you going hunting again?”

  “Maybe.” His head bobbed up and down. He said, “Have you made any new images?”

  She saw his glance flick toward the edge of the mat and knew he had seen her hide it. “No,” she said, her stomach fluttering.

  He turned his face toward her, laughing. “I saw you. Why do you lie? Let me see it.” He reached for the edge of the mat, to lift it up, and she caught his hand.

  “Oh, please—”

  “Why can I not see it?” He was facing her directly now, laughing at her, his eyes merry. She leaned toward him, into the warmth of his attention. “I love what you make. Let me see them.”

  She gathered in a ragged breath. His hand lay still under her fingers. She said, “All right.”

  “Thank you.” He smiled at her, and lifted the mat and took out the shard. “I don’t understand why you want—”

  He turned the piece of clay up, looking down at it, and his voice stopped in his throat. She watched him, startled, as he went pale as ash, his mouth falling open.

  “Mav,” he said.

  She licked her lips. He lifted his face to her and his eyes were wild.

  “How did you know? Did you see her?”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “My sister—you drew her—” He held out the pot and she saw how his hand shook.

  “No—No—” She caught hold of his trembling hand. “It’s you, Corban. It’s your face.”

  He shuddered. Her hand slid away from him. He was staring at the pot again; he never looked back at her. She sat with her hands in her lap, shut out. Suddenly everything had changed between them. Two women were looking over the pots at the far side of her display and she got up and went over to them. Her eyes were burning; she was about to cry.