Burial Rites (23 page)

I am nothing like Steina. She is unhappy too, yes, but she is not like me. When I was her age, I was working for my butter at Gudrúnarstadir, helping with the five children there – each as thin and faint as tidemarks – and cleaning, and cooking, and serving until I thought I’d collapse. Always up to my elbows in something – brine, or milk, or smoke, or dung, or blood. When Indridi was born, the youngest of the Gudrúnarstadir clan, I was there beside his poor mother, holding her hand and cutting the knotted cord. What has Steina seen of the world? When I was her age I was alone, keeping
an eye ajar at night to prevent a foul-mouthed servant from lifting my shift when he thought I was asleep. Not that he was always so secretive. He grabbed me by the creek one morning, twisted my arms behind my back and pushed me down, so that my face splashed against the water, and I worried I would drown while he fumbled with his trousers. Has Steina had to struggle under the weight of a servant man like that? Has Steina ever had to decide whether to let a farmer up under her skirts and face the wrath of his wife, who will force her to do the shit-work, or to deny him and find herself homeless in the snow and fog with all doors barred against her?

That babe, that thistle-headed child Indridi I saw into the world, they buried him a few years after I cut him free. He was old enough to talk. Old enough to know he was hungry. What does Steina know of dead children? She is not like me. She knows only the tree of life. She has not seen its twisted roots pawing stones and coffins.

I left Gudrúnarstadir after Indridi died, the farmer and his wife, their remaining huddle of children, splintered with starvation. They gave me kisses, a letter of recommendation and two eggs for the journey to Gilsstadir. I gave the eggs to a pair of fair-headed girls I met on my way.

I could almost laugh. To think those round-cheeked lasses throwing clumps of dirt for their dog to chase are now my custodians here at Kornsá.

Lauga kicked up a terrible fuss when Jón told them they must miss the harvest party and go berrying. She’s a tremendous sulker and reminds me a little of Sigga, only smarter. Jón spoke with her and Steina last night when he thought I was asleep. ‘She must meet her God, and in an ugly way,’ he said. ‘Our family way of life must continue. We must keep you safe from her.’ He does not want them to pity me. He does not want them to draw close, and so he has sent them away for a time, while the weather permits. A reprieve from my presence.

Margrét says that the guests will eat outside today, for it is a fine September morning and it will do us good to take what we can of the sunshine, for soon winter will be upon us. Already the mountain grass is fading to the colour of smoked meat, and the evenings smell of burning fish oil from lamps newly lit. At Illugastadir there will soon be a prickle of frost over the seaweed thrown upon the shore. The seals will be banked upon the tongues of rock, watching winter descend from the mountain. There will be the call and whoop of men on horseback, rounding up the sheep, and then there will come the slaughter.

‘Greetings to all at Kornsá!’ There is a call from the farm entrance, and Margrét looks up, alarmed. ‘Stay here,’ she says. She bustles out. There is the rise and fall of a woman’s voice, and then a large, pregnant woman enters the room, surrounded by a swarm of white-blond children with runny noses. Another woman, a thin grey lady, follows her. I look up from the hearth, where I am stirring the soup, and see that the fat woman is staring at me, her hand over her mouth. The children gape at me also.

‘Róslín, Ingibjörg, this is Agnes Magnúsdóttir,’ Margrét sighs.

I curtsey, aware that I must look a sight. The steam has made my hair stick to my damp forehead and blood is on my apron from the meat.

‘Out! Children, outside now!’ The little flock of children leave, one emitting a violent sneeze. They seem disappointed.

Not so their mother. The Róslín woman turns to Margrét and grabs her by the shoulder.

‘You invite us all with
her
here!’

‘Where else would she be?’ Margrét glances over at the other woman, Ingibjörg, and I see a glimmer of conspiracy in their eyes.

‘At Hvammur for the day! Locked up in the storeroom!’ Róslín shouts. Her face is flushed; she’s enjoying her tantrum.

‘You are working yourself into a frenzy, Róslín. You’ll bring about your time.’

I glance down to the woman’s swollen belly. She looks full-term.

‘It’s a girl,’ I say, without thinking.

The three women stare at me.

‘What did she say?’ Róslín whispers, looking horrified.

Margrét gives a small cough. ‘What did you say, Agnes?’

I feel uneasy all of a sudden. ‘Your baby will be a girl. It is the shape of it. The way your belly protrudes.’

Ingibjörg observes me, interested.

‘Witch!’ Róslín cries. ‘Tell her to stop looking at me.’ She storms out of the room.

‘How do you guess at that?’ Ingibjörg asks. Her voice is gentle.

‘Rósa Gudmundsdóttir told me. She is a midwife in the west.’

Margrét nods slowly. ‘Poet-Rósa. I did not know you were friends.’

The meat is cooked. I place the spoon on the top of a barrel and use both hands to lift the pot from the hook. ‘We aren’t,’ I say.

Ingibjörg picks up a small dish of butter by my side and nods towards Margrét.

‘I hope your mistress will let you come outside for a time,’ she says, smiling. ‘You ought to feel the sun on your face.’

She and Margrét leave, but her words hang in the room behind her. You ought to feel the sun on your face. ‘Before you die,’ I cannot not help but add, aloud, to the rustle of the embers.

The guests arrive on foot and horseback, the women bearing food and the men coyly slipping small bottles of brandy from out of their vests and coats. I see them as I place dishes on the tables, but for the most part Margrét keeps me busy in the kitchen, out of sight of the
neighbours. They look sideways at me and fall silent as I set jugs of milk down, pats of fresh butter.

I don’t want to be out here. There will be people I know, perhaps farmers I have worked for, servants I have shared quarters with. My forehead aches from the tightness of my plaits, and I suddenly long to untie them, to walk about with my hair unbraided, to lie on my back in the sun.

TÓTI FOUND AGNES IN THE
dairy, churning the butter.

‘Not joining the party, Agnes?’ he asked quietly.

She didn’t turn around. ‘I am better use in here,’ she said, continuing to raise the plunger and push it through the cream. Tóti thought it was a good sound, the dull splash of the churn.

‘I hope you don’t mind me interrupting you.’

‘No. But if you don’t mind, I won’t stop until the butter takes.’

Tóti leant against the doorframe as Agnes continued to raise and drop the plunger. After a moment he became aware of Agnes’s breath, fast and hard in the small room. It seemed intimate somehow; the rhythm of the plunger and the sound of quickened breathing. He felt himself blushing. Eventually a thud could be heard inside the small barrel, and Agnes stopped and deftly strained the butter from the buttermilk. Tóti blinked as Agnes washed it then formed and slapped the paddle, skilfully forcing out the remaining liquid, and thought of what Blöndal had said.
Someone plunged the knife into Natan Ketilsson’s belly
.

Once the butter had been shaped and covered with a cloth, Tóti suggested that they go outside to take the air. Agnes looked nervous, but after fetching some knitting from the badstofa, followed Tóti outside. They sat down on the turf pile by the croft and looked across
at the group of adults and children, the farmers getting steadily drunker on their brandy, and the women gossiping in tight clusters of dark clothes. Several were taking turns to hold a baby, clucking into its face. It broke into a wail.

‘I have been to Blöndal,’ Tóti said eventually.

Agnes blanched. ‘What did he want?’

‘He thinks I should spend more time engaging you in prayers and sermons, and less time letting you speak.’

‘Blöndal likes only one thing better than religious chastisement, and that is the sound of his own voice.’ Agnes’s words were crabbed.

‘Is it true Blöndal hired Natan to heal his wife?’

Agnes gave him a wary look. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, that’s true. Natan visited Hvammur some years back to give her poultices and bleed her.’

Tóti nodded. ‘Blöndal also told me a little about Fridrik. Apparently he is doing very well under the guardianship of Birni Olsen and the counsel of Reverend Jóhann.’ He looked at Agnes to measure her reaction. She narrowed her eyes.

‘Will they get up an appeal for him too?’ she asked.

‘He did not say.’ Tóti cleared his throat. ‘Agnes, a servant called Karitas sends her regards. She asked if you had spoken to me about Natan.’

Agnes stopped knitting and clenched her jaw.

‘Karitas?’ Her voice cracked.

‘She asked to speak with me after I had met with Blöndal. She wanted to tell me about Natan.’

‘And what did she say about him?’

Tóti rummaged for his snuff horn, poured a little on his hand and snorted it. ‘She said that she could not bear working for him. She said that he toyed with people.’

Agnes said nothing.

‘I have met others here in this valley who say he was a sorcerer, that he got his name from Satan,’ Tóti said.

‘That’s a very popular story. And plenty believe it too.’

‘Do you believe it?’

Agnes smoothed the length of the unfinished stocking out across her knees. ‘I don’t know,’ she said finally. ‘Natan believed in dreams. His mother had foresight and her dreams often came true. His family is famous for it. He made me tell him my dreams and put a lot of store by them.’

Agnes stopped running her palm over the stocking and looked up. ‘Reverend,’ she said quietly. ‘If I tell you something, will you promise to believe me?’

Tóti felt his heart leap in his chest. ‘What is it you want to tell me, Agnes?’

‘Remember when you first visited me here, and you asked me why I had chosen you to be my priest, and I told you that it was because of an act of kindness, because you had helped me across the river?’ Agnes cast a wary glance out to the group of people on the edge of the field. ‘I wasn’t lying,’ she continued. ‘We did meet then. But what I didn’t tell you was that we had met before.’

Tóti raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m sorry, Agnes. I don’t remember.’

‘You wouldn’t have. We met in a dream.’ She stared at Tóti, as if worried he would laugh.

‘A dream?’ The Reverend was struck again by the contrast of her dark lashes against the lightness of her eyes. She is unlike anyone else, he thought.

Satisfied that he wasn’t going to laugh, Agnes resumed her knitting. ‘When I was sixteen years old I dreamt that I was walking barefoot in a lava field. It was covered with snow and I was lost and scared – I didn’t know where I was, and there was no one to be seen. In every direction there was nothing but rock and snow, and great
chasms and cracks in the ground. My feet were bleeding, but I had to keep going – I didn’t know where, but I was walking as fast as I could. Just when I thought I would die from fear, a young man appeared. He was bareheaded, but wore a priest’s collar, and he gave me his hand. We kept going in the same direction as before – we didn’t know where else to go – and even though I was still terrified, I had his hand in mine, and it was a comfort.

‘Then suddenly, in my dream, I felt the ground give way beneath my feet, and my hand was wrenched out of the young man’s, and I fell into a chasm. I remember looking up as I fell into the darkness, and seeing the ground close back up over my head. It shut out the light and the face of the man who had appeared. I was dropped into the earth, buried in silence, and it was unbearable, and then I woke.’

Tóti felt his mouth go dry. ‘Was I that man?’ he asked.

Agnes nodded. She had tears in her eyes. ‘It terrified me when I saw you then, at Gönguskörd. I recognised you from my dream, and I knew then that you were bound to my life in some way, and it worried me.’ Agnes wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘After we parted I found out your name. I heard that you were to be a priest like your father, and that you were going south to the school there, and I knew then that my dream was real, and that we would meet for a third time. Even Natan believed that everything comes in threes.’

‘But you are not down a chasm, and it is not yet dark,’ Tóti said.

‘Not yet,’ Agnes replied quietly, swallowing hard. ‘Anyway. It wasn’t the darkness in the chasm that scared me. It was the silence.’

Tóti was thoughtful. ‘There is a lot in this world and the next that we don’t understand. But just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean we have to be afraid. We can be sure of so little in this life, Agnes. And it
is
frightening. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t frightened by what I did not know. But we have God, Agnes, and more than that, we have His love and He takes our fear away.’

‘I can’t feel sure of anything like that.’

Tóti reached over and tentatively took up her hand. ‘Trust me, Agnes. I’m here, as I was in your dream. You can feel my hand in yours,’ he added.