01 The Soul Thief by Cecelia Holland

Author:Cecelia Holland [Holland, Cecelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
Published: 2002-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

The wind blasted fitfully and violently up out of the southeast, and now they were caught in some current of the sea that bore them on steadily northward. With so few rowers they could not move the ship against the wind and the current. Ulf doled the bread out to them and they caught water in Corban’s water trap and fished, and waited for a wind that would take them east again.

The other two oarsmen whined and griped and fought whenever they weren’t rowing. The bigger of them was named Floki; his eyes looked in two different directions at once, one seeing and the other just wild. The smaller, straw-haired and wiry, was named Gisur. He was the one who fished.

He caught a big lump-jawed cod, and they divided it up. Corban chewed the raw meat carefully, picking the bones out of his teeth, trying to make the taste last. Floki gobbled his down, and said, “I didn’t get as much as everybody else.”

Gisur was gnawing on the fish’s head. Ulf, beside him, said, “You got what everybody got.”

Floki’s lips curled back from his teeth; he drew his head down into his shoulders. His wild eye glared out to sea but his good eye was fixed on Ulf. “You lie. You shouldn’t eat anything. You’re the reason we’re lost. We should eat you.”

Corban looked away, his nerves sore. His mouth was dry; they had been out of water for over a day and he scanned the horizon for clouds, for rain. Ulf was ignoring Floki’s jibes, staring off across the waves, his mouth twisted. Gisur collected the gnawed fish head and the guts and bones of his catch and flung them out over the gunwale, and baited his hook again with some saved bit of offal. Floki was still glaring at Ulf.

“You got my brother drowned, Ulf, I won’t forget that. One of these days I’ll—”

He froze, his eyes bugging out; a gurgle escaped his throat. Corban whipped around to look where he was looking, past Ulf, and jerked his hand back off the gunwale. Gisur whispered, “Blessed mother—”

Higher than Corban’s head a great dark fin was gliding by the ship, so close he could have reached out and touched it. He sat rigidly still, not breathing, his belly locked up in fear. The tall fin went slowly the length of the ship, and then silently dropped down below the surface of the sea. For a moment, Corban, his breath stuck in his throat, could see a vast dark shape down in the water, larger than the ship, and with a whisk of its forked tail it dove away.

Gisur whispered, “God have mercy on us—”

Floki shoved an elbow into him. “Shut up! Shut up!”

Tears slid down his cheeks; he turned away, his shoulders slumping. Nobody spoke for a long while.

Another storm was overtaking them. Late the next day Corban went to sleep with the clouds towering black up over the whole sky and woke some while later, soaking wet, in the dark, with rain pouring down on him.

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