Excerpt from The Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindbergh, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

To me, he cups my chin within his hand. Then, at last, he turns upon the risen deck, where his high-seat stands. The helmsman Audun waits, his hands clutched on the steering oar. Einar sets to wave and gives the master's call. Then the walking planks are swept swiftly up. With their sturdy oars, the rowing men push the ships from shore. The gravel scrapes. The water slogs. Stroke by stroke, the pyre's flames recede.

Slowly the shoreline empties of all who've come to wish our masters well. Around me, cries burst from freeborn women, mostly matrons pressing sodden rags against their softly shriveled jowls. Too, even whimpers slip out from the thralls. Yet my eyes are dry. I cannot cry for loss of what I leave or in terror of where I'll go. It is all the same to me, for I am slave to them in either. My life will be no different, only the dirt which will be my grave.

We push down the harbor, the ships cutting the fjord with lines of foam like a loom's taut webbing, the rowers' arms gleaming soon with sweat, slowly reddening in the sun. My mistress, Grima, standing lean and haughty on the deck, notices me at last and beckons to bring Torgrim. With a foul look on me, Grima takes him back and props him on her lap, proud beneath the shade of the risen deck where her husband conducts the progress of the ship. Then she sends me off. I must stand now, for there is no place left to sit. All the thralls huddle where they may, in empty spots along the ship's cramped sides, or by the mast and yard, lying long and low within the hull beside the thick-furled sail. They are like a hefty pair of spindles, one twined around with threads, waiting only for the first brisk gust and the master's call to be raised up high. Yet for now we must bide with them as well.

A brace of wind cuts across the hull. Just beyond a mounded isle, there, behold the open sea! Though it is still far, the other ships fall into line beside us, and all let Eirik Raude's knarr take the lead.

There he stands upon his high deck, gesturing, calling orders we cannot hear. Eirik's figure's grand and fierce, his head and beard afire. They say he was always much the same - boisterous, unruly, outlawed in his younger days, first from Norway for killing in a temper, and then again from Iceland for doing much the same, which sent him adventuring to this place, this "Greenland," to which we all now follow, blind but for his flaming lead.

I look behind as each ship falls in line. Yet, as I do, feeling some and musing, I am caught again by that same freeman's watching. The ship - I think 'tis of Hafgrim's house - and there he sits upon the oars. His shirt's pressed back around his waist as he strokes in rhythm with the call. His is a bare, fine shape, and his deep-blue eyes are locked with mine - ah, they spark a frightening fire! Hot, I turn away and try to hide my burning cheeks. But when I look again, Hafgrim's ship is pulled upon the waves, tangled somewhere among the others, like small whorls dropped to weave the sea.

Swift, we cross the fjord heading toward the open water. Soon the lift-and-falling makes me sudden ill. With each stretch we put between us and land, with each thrust of the men's great arms, my stomach quakes, jolting back while I am thrust forward. I put my hand upon my neck and lay my brow just upon the railing. The cool of the shield helps calm a bit, but, almost as the sickness fades, my mistress tumbles forward, thrusting Torgrim into my arms. Then we three together vomit into the waves.

I offer the child back as soon as she is recovered. Torgrim's weight is heavy, and my own arms, sudden weak. Yet the mistress simply stares at me with an edge of condemnation. I am a slave and so, I suppose, not allowed to sicken. Yet Inga comes to me. "Here, poor dear!" she says as she takes Torgrim to her arms, wiping off the spittle from his lips. "There, I'll have him, mistress. You should go and rest, if it should please you."

Excerpted from The Thrall's Tale by Judith Lindbergh. Copyright © 2006 by Judith Lindbergh. Excerpted by permission of Plume, a division of Penguin Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.