Corban sat with the piece of pot in his hands. From the curved pale surface his sister looked up at him with wide eyes.
He had forgotten. He had come all this way and then somehow he had forgotten.
He had not forgotten. He had given up.
He lifted his head, blind to the people and bustle and noise around him. He knew he stood at a crossroads. He could decide now to keep on forgetting. He could stay here, with Benna, with her sisters, with Grod, and build the house he could already see in his mind, with straight solid walls of withy, a byre at one end for the goats, a real thatched roof. A warm snug place in the winter, a family’s place.
Or he could go on, alone, and look for Mav.
Mav was far across the water. He had no way to find her. He would never find her. He would trudge on down the long and lonely road forever, seeking her.
He could stay here. He could betray his sister, and stay here.
He felt himself riven down the middle like a split log. He wanted to be here more than he had ever wanted anything else. He wanted Benna, he wanted what he could build here.
He would know, always, that he had abandoned Mav.
He clenched his teeth together. Benna had come back from dickering with the women, her hands full of withered apples and old nuts. She looked deeply into his face but he could not speak, he could not even raise his gaze to hers.
She sat down heavily next to him, and sighed. Only a handsbreadth divided them, but somehow they were far apart; he knew she would not reach across it. He looked down at the shard in his hands.
“You are very good at this, Benna,” he said. “It looks just like her.”
“It’s you,” she said, quietly. Then her voice changed, tighter and rougher. “Here come the King’s men. At least I have something to give them.”
Corban looked up the street. A brace of Vikings was moving down from the top of the hill, stopping at each shop and stall. Eelmouth came first, his wild red hair standing up on his head like a cock’s comb, with his brawny friend Gorm on his heels. They came on the baker woman, and took the last of her bread, in spite of her glowers. Ahead of their progress, the shopkeepers scurried quietly around, hastily removing their best wares out of sight.
Corban said, “What does he want of you? He can’t eat clay.”
“Money,” she said. “He takes money from me.”
Corban grunted, and stood up. A dull raw rage pressed up through his chest into his throat. Benna said something; he made no answer, but watched Eelmouth sauntering down the muddy street, Gorm tramping slouch-shouldered and bent-kneed in his tracks. The thought ran through Corban’s mind that if he died, he would not have to leave Jorvik.
Eelmouth saw him, and his eyes narrowed. He tramped straight up to him, his chest out.
“Well, Irish. I looked for you this morning. What are you doing here?”
“Keep going, Sweyn,” Corban said. “She has nothing for you.”
“Oh, really.” Eelmouth wiped the back of his hand across his slobbery lips. His eyes glittered. He glanced beyond him, at Benna. “And who says that?”
“I do.”
“Well, now. I don’t remember you standing before the King to hear his orders.” Eelmouth reached out and shoved Corban hard in the chest.
Corban leapt on him. They grappled together; Corban wrapped his arms around Eelmouth’s chest and bore him hard down to the ground. People were shouting around them. He gripped one of Eelmouth’s wrists and pinned his arm down under one knee, and he was struggling to get hold of the other arm when from behind him hands clutched him by the hair and the shoulder and dragged him back.
He wrenched at the grip, but Gorm had him fast, a hot breath in his ear and one arm wound tight around him from behind. Eelmouth, drooling bloody down his front, surged up off the ground and strode two steps toward Corban and backhanded him hard across the face.
Corban’s sense flew off; he staggered, dazed. A hand fisted in his hair jerked his head back. He gasped for breath. Eelmouth faced him, snarling.
“You never do that! You never dare do that!”
Benna leapt between them. In her fingers she held silver, and she waved it in Eelmouth’s face. “I have money! I will pay you!”
Corban took a deep breath, his strength and his sense flowing back into his body. Behind him, Gorm said, “We can kill him.”
Benna cast a wild look over her shoulder. She held the silver up before Eelmouth’s nose, crying, “No—I’ll pay—I’ll pay—”
Eelmouth stepped back. He swiped his tongue over his lips; his gaze drilled into Corban’s. “No.” He plucked the money from Benna’s fingers. “I’m not afraid of you, Irish. Try that again, and I will kill you. Without help.” He wheeled and went across the street, toward the man with the grindstone.
Gorm let go, and sauntered after him. Corban sagged, his knees loose, his rage fading away; he rubbed one hand over his face. The Vikings went off across the street, and he turned to Benna.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Are you all right?” She had collected herself, her white face smooth and blank. She put a single silver penny back into her apron.
“Yes, yes.” He sat down again, watching Eelmouth drift away down the street. His jaw hurt, and his eye. A slow anger burned in him. There were people moving up around him; he lowered his eyes, humiliated.
“I’m sorry. I cost you something.”
She said, “Yes, you did.”
He punched his fist against his thigh. Everything he did turned out wrong. He fixed his mind on what he had to do now.
“Benna,” he said. “I have to tell you something.”
Grod said, “But you can’t leave. Not now. Everything is going so well.”
“I have to,” Corban said.
The old man’s cheeks sucked hollow, his eyes cloudy, and he glanced around him at the hut, as if looking for help; the girls sat there watching, a row of unsmiling, accusing faces. Arre had put her arm around Benna.
Gifu said suddenly, “Well, that’s the end of the meat.”
Benna straightened up, her face taut. “Don’t be selfish. He must go. You have to see that. He has to find his sister. If one of us was lost, the others would never stop looking.”
Grod said, “I’m not going with you.”
“No.” Corban reached out and gripped the old man’s arm. “I didn’t think you would. You got me this far, and that was the bargain.”
“Grod, you can stay here, with us,” Arre said. “It’s almost spring. You can help me with my garden.”
Grod leaned toward Corban, intent. “How will you get anywhere without me, though? You’ll put yourself in terrible trouble. You can’t even get out of Jorvik, without my help.”
“I’m leaving Jorvik tomorrow,” Corban said. “I went down to the river, after I talked to Benna. There’s a ship leaving that needs a rower. It’s going first up to Orkneyjar, but then it goes to Hedeby.”
“Tomorrow,” Grod said, and his face quivered and twitched and tears gathered in the comers of his eyes.
“I’d like to stay here tonight,” Corban said. He was looking at Benna. “Could I do that?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Will you come back?” Arre said. Her smile had vanished.
Corban said, “I don’t know. I will if I can. But every time I think to find her she is farther off than before.”
Arre said, “I’ll pray for you,” and crossed herself. Beside her Benna lowered her head and looked away. Gifu wrapped her arms around her raised knees and glared at him.
“Thank you,” Corban said. His throat had thickened and he did not try to say anything more, but busied himself getting ready to leave. His shoes were splitting along the sides and he had borrowed Arre’s awl to sew them up again. When that was done he shook his cloak out, and looked it over: he had thought there were some rips in it, along the edge, but now he could not find them. He thought one of the girls must have mended it.
In the
gloom of the evening he went out and helped Gifu and Arre bring in firewood, and they hardly spoke to him, would not look at him. He saw they were angry, in spite of his protests and apologies, and his heart twisted. He told himself he should have slept in the church. He saw the way before him dark and cold and fateful, and himself too weak and small to endure it.
He went inside, sat down, and shut his eyes and thought of Mav. He would never find her. Perhaps she was already dead. He was looking for a ghost. He could give up looking.
Deep in his mind, like a drowned star, his sister burned.
He slept ill, busy with dreams. Before dawn he woke, and gathered himself. The girls were just stirring. The old father snored happily on his bed and Grod also still lay fast asleep, wrapped in his blanket, his hand under his cheek. Corban did not wake him, but went out into the cold blue air of the morning.
Up in the tops of the trees along the river, a flock of birds brawled and flapped and screeched in raw voices. The cloudless sky was whitening toward day. He stood a moment, breathing the air in, willing himself to go on. Benna came out of the hut and came up to him.
“Here,” she said, and gave him the broken shard with his face on it.
He took it in his palm, grateful; he saw she had forgiven him. “I wish it were your face,” he said.
“Ah,” she said. “But I don’t know what I look like. I can draw Gifu and Arre but not myself.”
He held out the shard to her. “Then keep this, to remember me.” He took her hand and put the shard into it and held onto her hand. “Don’t break it. I will come back, Benna, somehow, I promise.” Her face tipped up to his was pale in the dawn light and the eyes bright and dark. He reached out suddenly and put his arms around her.
She leaned on him, lifting her head, and they kissed. He held her so tight he heard her gasp. She was so slight, and yet so fierce, and all in his arms now, and so soon left behind. He could not let her go. But he had to. He opened his arms, and stepped back.
She lowered her arms to her sides. Tears streaked her face. She said, “Do what you have to do, Corban. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” he said, and lurched off away from the hut, his legs stiff as a stork’s, across the muddy meadow.
Benna stood watching him go; she thought he might turn, at the riverbank and look back, but he did not. He stepped down onto the log ladder there and was gone down over the rim.
She looked down at the shard in her hand. She hurt all over, as if her body burned. She told herself she had been wrong to be happy. Now she was paying for it. And even with the picture on the shard, she had failed: she had not taken him well, only the line of his cheek, the shape of his nose, not the quick glint in his eyes when he laughed, not the joyful sound of his voice, not the pleasure of his touch. She shut her eyes to keep from seeing what she had done, and all that she had left of him, and stood there crying quietly in the bright dawn light.
Mav climbed up from the cold place, the grey place, into a blaze of red and blue. She woke, in the deep of the night, already singing in her mind.
Corban was coming. She saw him moving again, coming over the edge of the world. He rose and fell like the sea, he walked on the water like Jesus, he went into the sea like a ship sailing away.
She kept silent, although the song wanted to burst out of her. She swung open the cupboard door, and put her feet out of the bed. They had thought she was asleep and could not hear them but she had heard them. “Kill her,” he had said, and the Lady had nearly done it.
She slid down out of the bed and stood up, her legs wobbly. Up and down the hall, on the wide benches, the Lady’s slaves slept, each meshed in a frightened little dream; the iron of the Lady’s will caged them, each one. The Lady meant something like that for her. And she was using Mav to bring Corban here, to do it to him too.
She yearned for him, an ache all through her. And yet she was bringing him into a trap.
All she wanted was to hold her baby in her arms. She had no interest in the Lady’s schemes, Bluetooth’s schemes, the Kingdom of Norway, or the Empire of the North, whatever they called it, their world-ring. Whatever power the Lady thought she had was nothing to Mav; hardly a power, anyway, just the great floppy seething world around her, and she knowing it. She had no mastery of it. It came and went through her, she only endured it.
Now she was bringing her brother into the Lady’s web.
She reached the door, and pushed it open, so that the blue-white moonlight washed across her face. The thin light painted the yard before her, every stick in the fence laying a distinct black line of shadow against the next. The great city slumbered around her, all but a few—a late drunk, a sneaking wife, an old one-eyed cat, stiff in every joint, looking for a safe place to sleep.
She could not leave, even if she could have walked much farther than the gate; already her legs were bending, wanting to drop her onto the threshold. If she left he would never find her. She slumped against the doorway, her eyes aching.
She wanted none of this. She wanted nothing but the child, stirring and mewling in her womb.
She roused herself. She was here for one reason, which was the song, and perhaps now she should master it. If she could not save herself and Corban, then at least she could deny the Lady what she wanted. She had no notion how to do that.
Corban was coming. She had to learn.
She pulled the door shut and went back through the hall, looking for food like a mouse in the night, a crust, a half-eaten apple, or a chunk of cheese; as she went along she dabbled her fingers in the dreams of the slaves, so they stirred and called out. When she went by the Lady’s cupboard bed, all woven around with spells like layers of smoke in the air, she kept her feet soft on the floor, and her eyes turned away, and breathed lightly. Finally, exhausted, she went back to her own bed, and drew the door shut, and tried to think how to do this.
In the morning she was singing again, helplessly, spilling it all out. The Lady looked on her, smiling, patted her cheek, and brought her milk and honey, triumphant.
CHAPTER TEN
The ship was a little trading craft, half the size of the big dragons drawn up on either side, rounder in the belly and higher in the freeboard. She had no deck, only the open hold, loaded now with bales of fleeces and woolen cloth, and several barrels of whiskey, lashed down and covered with hempcloth. On their benches, the rowers had just enough room to stretch their legs out.
The captain’s name was Ulf, and there were five other oarsmen besides Corban, three to a side. By the time the sun was well up over Jorvik, they were rowing away down the river toward the sea.
Corban had forgotten how hard this work was, and he leaned into the oar, trying to keep rhythm with the other men, his back and shoulders already sore before they had gone around the first river bend. The high banks of the river slid by, curtained in willows just turning fuzzy with new buds. He remembered what Arre had said, that spring was coming: he might never see the spring here, he might never come here again. Grimly he leaned forward, dipped the oar in, and pulled hard. After a while, the soreness went away.
Jorvik’s river wound south a while through fenlands and moor to a larger river, broad like a bay between its banks. The wind was picking up and the wide stretch of water danced with whitecaps. Across the water there were other ships along the shore. The captain, Ulf, ordered the oars in and raised the mast, and Corban helped them rig the sail up. Under his feet the ship grew light and eager, leaning before the wind.
Ahead, the yawning mouth of the river met the sea; Ulf brought them over nearly to the northern bank to pass through the river’s mouth, and Corban, wrapped in his cloak against the biting, salty wind, saw how the rough chop of the waves broke white in the center of the stream and guessed why Ulf avoided it.
Ulf, one hand on the steerboard, his eyes squinting straight ahead, swung them neatly through the rippled water of the channel and turned at once to the north, to follow the coast.
“How many days to Hedeby?” Corban aske
d him.
Ulf shrugged. He was much older than Corban, a short square block of a man with shaggy dark hair on his head and chest and arms, and a coarse, hard laugh. He said, “We have a way to go before we come to Hedeby. I told you that.” He reached down beside him and picked up a wooden bucket. “Bail.”
Corban bailed. The little ship, heavy laden, pitched and wallowed over the waves, and he began to feel his stomach rolling too, a queasy heave and jerk around his rib cage. On their left hand the dark coast slipped by, bleak and windblown fens, with no sign of any human settlements.
They sailed along the coast all day long. In the late afternoon, Ulf craned his neck, peering toward the shore, and began to edge the ship in toward the land. Before the sun went down, he had run them neatly through the offshore rocks into a little tree-shrouded inlet where they could shelter for the night. They took down the mast and rigged up the cargo cover as an awning over the midships, ate cold bread and bad meat and beer, and slept, tucked in among the casks of whiskey and the bales of fleece and cloth.
So they went on, for days and days, Corban so seasick most of the time that he didn’t care. They stopped once in a rivermouth where there had been a village, but only the burnt shells of the houses remained. Ulf grumbled, looking around, and said, “Damn Eric.”
Corban said, “What did you say?”
Ulf flapped his hands at him, turning away. “No, no.”
In the morning it was raining, warm and gusty. Ulf groaned and swore, tramped around along the beach staring up at the sky, and finally ordered them all to their oars. “There is another place to haul in,” he said. “Farther up the coast, maybe there will be some people. Better than this.”
He stood in the bow piloting them and they rowed back out through the rocky mouth of the river and into the open sea. There he ordered the mast set up again and the sail rigged, and he came back into the stern and lowered the steerboard into the water, and they sailed away north along the coast again.
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