Burial Rites (15 page)

Tóti shifted his seat on the rock. ‘What about your father?’ he tried.

Agnes laughed. ‘Which of them?’ She stopped knitting to study him. ‘What did your book say about my father?’

‘That his name was Magnús Magnússon and that he was living at Stóridalur at the time of your birth.’

Agnes continued to knit, but Tóti noticed that she was clenching her jaw. ‘If you spoke to certain people about these parts you might get a different story.’

‘How is that?’

Agnes looked out across the river to the farms on the opposite side of the valley, silently counting the stitches on her needle with her finger. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter if I’m honest with you or not,’ she said coldly. ‘I could say anything to you.’

‘Indeed, I hope you will confide in me,’ Tóti said, misunderstanding. He leaned closer in anticipation of what she would say.

‘Your book at Undirfell ought to have said Jón Bjarnason, the farmer at Brekkukot. I’ve been told that he is my real father, and Magnús Magnússon is a hapless servant who didn’t know better.’

Tóti was perplexed. ‘Why would your mother name you Magnús’s daughter if that were not the truth?’

Agnes turned to him, half-smiling. ‘Have you no idea of how the world works, Reverend?’ she asked. ‘Jón of Brekkukot is a married man with enough legitimate children of his own. Oh, and plenty like me, you can be sure. But it seems a lesser crime to create a child with an unmarried man than one already bound in flesh and soul to another woman. So I suppose my mother picked a different sod to have the honour of fathering me.’

Tóti considered this for a moment. ‘And you believe this because others told you so?’

‘If I believed everything everyone had ever told me about my family I’d be a sight more miserable than I am now, Reverend. But it doesn’t take an education in Copenhagen or down south to work out which bairns belong to which pabbis in these parts. Hard to keep a secret to yourself here.’

‘Have you ever asked him?’

‘Jón Bjarnason? And what would be the good of that?’

‘To get the truth out of him, I suppose,’ Tóti suggested. He was feeling disappointed with the conversation.

‘No such thing as truth,’ Agnes said, standing up.

Tóti stood up also and began rubbing the seat of his pants. ‘There is truth in God,’ he said, earnestly, recognising an opportunity to do his spiritual duty. ‘John, chapter eight, verse thirty-two: “And ye . . . ”’

‘Shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Yes, I know. I know,’ Agnes said. She bundled her knitting things together and began to walk back down to the farm. ‘Not in my case, Reverend Thorvardur,’ she called to him. ‘I’ve told the truth and you can see for yourself how it has served me.’

IT WON
’
T BE ANY GOOD
for the Reverend to read ministerial books, or any book for that matter – what will he learn of me there? Only the things other men think important about me.

When the Reverend saw my name and birth in the church book, did he see only the writing and understand only the date? Or did he see the fog of that day, and hear the ravens cawing at the smell of blood? Did he imagine it as I have imagined it? My mother, weeping, holding me against the clammy warmth of her skin. Avoiding the looks of the Flaga women she worked for, knowing already that she’d have to leave and try to find work elsewhere. Knowing no farmer would hire a servant woman with a newborn.

If he wants to learn of my family he’ll have a hard time of it. Two fathers and a mother who seem as blurry to me as strangers departing through a snowstorm. I have few clear memories of her.
One is the day she left me. Another is when I was young, watching her in the lamplight of a winter night. It’s a silent memory, and one, like the others, I can’t quite trust. Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts all talking over one another. There is only ever a sense that what is real to me is not real to others, and to share a memory with someone is to risk sullying my belief in what has truly happened. Is the Reverend the person of my memory, or is he another altogether? Did I do that, or was it another? Magnús or Jón? It’s the glaze of ice over the water, too fragile to trust.

Did my mother look down at her baby daughter and think: ‘One day I will leave you’? Did she look at my scrunched face, hoping I would die, or did she silently urge me to stick to life like a burr? Perhaps she looked out to the valley, into the mist and stillness, and wondered what she could give me. A lie for a father. A head of dark hair. A hayrack to sleep in. A kiss. A stone, so that I might learn to understand the birds and never be lonely.

CHAPTER FIVE

Poet-Rósa’s poem to Agnes Magnúsdóttir,

June 1828

Undrast þarftu ei, baugabrú

þó beiskrar kennir þínu:

Hefir burtu hrífsað þú

helft af lífi mínu.

Don’t be surprised by the sorrow in my eyes

nor at the bitter pangs of pain that I feel:

For you have stolen with your scheming

he who gave my life meaning,

and thrown your life to the Devil to deal.

Agnes Magnúsdóttir’s reply to Rósa,

June 1828

Er mín klára ósk til þín
,

angurs tárum bundin:

Ýfðu ei sárin sollin mín
,

solar báru hrundin.

Sorg ei minnar sálar herð!

Seka Drottin náðar
,

af því Jésus eitt fyrir verð

okkur keypti báðar.

This is my only wish to you,

bound in anger and grief:

Do not scratch my bleeding wounds,

I’m full of disbelief.

My soul is filled with sorrow!

I seek grace from the Lord.

Remember, Jesus bought us both

and for the same accord.

‘HOW IS IT TO HAVE
her here, in this same room as you? I should find it difficult to sleep,’ said Ingibjörg Pétursdóttir.

Margrét looked over to where the Kornsá mowers were cutting the grass closest to the river. ‘Oh, I don’t think she’d dare set a foot wrong.’

The two women were resting on the pile of stacked wood outside the Kornsá croft. Ingibjörg, a small, plain-looking woman from a nearby farm, had paid Margrét a visit, having heard that her friend’s cough was preventing her from participating in the haymaking. While Ingibjörg had none of Margrét’s acidity, or her forthrightness, the two women were fast friends, and often visited one other when the river that divided their farms was low enough to be forded.

‘Róslín seems to think you’ll all be strangled in your sleep.’

Margrét gave a brusque laugh. ‘I can’t help but think that’s exactly what Róslín wants.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It would give that well-oiled mouth something else to wag about.’

‘Margrét . . .’ Ingibjörg warned.

‘Oh, Inga. We both know having all those children has turned her head.’

‘The littlest has croup.’

Margrét raised her eyebrows. ‘Won’t be long before they all have it, then. We’ll hear them wailing at all hours of the night.’

‘She’s getting big, too.’

Margrét hesitated. ‘Do you plan on helping with the birth? She’s had that many you’d think she could do it herself.’

Ingibjörg sighed. ‘I don’t know. I have a bad feeling.’

Margrét studied her friend’s grave expression. ‘Did you have a dream?’ she asked.

Ingibjörg opened her mouth as if to say something, and then shook herself, changing her mind. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. Anyway, let’s not be gloomy. Tell me about the murderess!’

Margrét laughed in spite of herself. ‘There! You’re as bad as Róslín.’

Ingibjörg smiled. ‘How is she really, though? In character. Are you frightened of her?’

Margrét thought for a moment. ‘She’s nothing like how I imagined a murderess,’ she said at last. ‘She sleeps, she works, she eats. All in silence, though. Her lips might as well be sewn over for all she says to me. That young man, the Reverend Thorvardur, he’s begun to visit her again over these last few weeks, and I know she talks to him, but he doesn’t tell me what passes between them. Perhaps nothing.’ Margrét glanced over to the field. ‘I often wonder what she’s thinking.’

Ingibjörg followed Margrét’s gaze, and the two women looked together at the bent figure of Agnes amidst the hay, hacking at the grass with her scythe. The blade flashed brightly as she swung it.

‘Who knows?’ Ingibjörg murmured. ‘I shudder to think of what goes on inside that dark head of hers.’

‘The Reverend says her mother was Ingveldur Rafnsdóttir.’

Ingibjörg paused. ‘Ingveldur Rafnsdóttir. I knew an Ingveldur once. A loose woman.’

‘No doves come from ravens’ eggs,’ Margrét agreed. ‘It’s strange to think of Agnes being a daughter. I can’t imagine my girls even thinking about something so wretched and sinful as murder.’

Ingibjörg nodded. ‘And how are your girls?’

Margrét stood and dusted the dirt from her skirt. ‘Oh, you know.’ She started coughing again and Ingibjörg began to rub her back.

‘Easy, now.’

‘I’m fine,’ Margrét croaked. ‘You know, Steina thinks she knows her.’

Ingibjörg gave her friend a curious look.

‘She thinks we met her on the way to Gudrúnarstadir, way back when.’

‘Is Steina making up stories again?’

Margrét winced. ‘Only the good Lord knows. I don’t remember. Actually, I’m a bit worried about her. She
smiles
at Agnes.’

Ingibjörg laughed. ‘Oh, Margrét! When did a smile ever get anyone into trouble?’

‘Many a time, I should think!’ Margrét snapped. ‘Just look at Róslín. Anyway, it’s other things, too. I’ve caught Steina asking questions of Agnes, and I’ve noticed she rushes to fetch her for errands and the like. Look – she’s following her now, even while she’s raking.’ She pointed to Steina turning the hay near Agnes. ‘I don’t know, I just think of that poor girl Sigga, and I worry the same thing will happen to her.’

‘Sigga? The other maid at Illugastadir?’

‘What if Agnes has the same effect on Steina? Makes her go to the bad. Fills her head with wickedness.’

‘You’ve just said that Agnes hardly says a word.’

‘Yes, with me. But I can’t help but feel it’s another story with . . . Oh, don’t you mind.’

‘And Lauga?’ Ingibjörg asked thoughtfully.

Margrét tittered. ‘Oh, Lauga hates having her here. We all do, but Lauga refuses to sleep in the next bed. Watches her like a hawk. Upbraids Steina for looking Agnes’s way.’

Ingibjörg considered the shorter daughter, dutifully raking the hay into neat lines. Next to Lauga’s windrows, Steina’s rows looked as crooked as a child’s handwriting.

‘What does Jón say?’

Margrét snorted. ‘What does Jón ever say? If I raise it, he starts on about his duty to Blöndal. I notice he’s watchful, though. He asked me to keep the girls separate.’

‘Hard to do on a farm.’

‘Exactly. I can keep them as separate as Kristín keeps the milk and cream.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘Kristín’s useless,’ Margrét said, matter-of-factly.

‘Just as well you’ve an extra pair of women’s hands about the place, then,’ Ingibjörg said practically. The two women fell into companionable silence.

I DREAMT OF THE EXECUTION
block last night. I dreamt I was alone and crawling through the snow towards the dark stump. My hands and knees were numb from the ice, but I had no choice.

When I came upon the block, its surface was vast and smooth. I could smell the wood. It had none of the saltiness of driftwood, but was like bleeding sap, like blood. Sweeter, heavier.