Burial Rites(13)

Margrét nodded solemnly. ‘So long as you don’t trample the grass. Would you like some milk? Whey and water?’

‘Thank you,’ the man replied. ‘We’ll reimburse you for your kindness.’

‘No need.’ Margrét pursed her lips. ‘Just make sure the bitch stays away from the knives in my kitchen.’

The man sniggered and turned to follow Margrét into the turf home. Tóti grabbed his arm as he passed.

‘The prisoner has requested that I speak with her. Where is she?’

The man pointed to a horse furthest from the croft. ‘She’s the one with the sour mouth. The younger maid remains in Midhóp. They say she’s awaiting the result of an appeal.’

‘An appeal? I thought they were doomed?’

‘A lot of people Vatnsnes way hope Sigga will receive a pardon from the King. Too young and sweet to die.’ The man pulled a face. ‘Not like this one. She has a right temper when she fancies.’

‘Is she awaiting an appeal?’

The man laughed. ‘I don’t like her chances. Bl?ndal’s behind the youngest. They say she reminds him of his wife. This one . . . Well, Bl?ndal wants to set an example.’

Tóti gazed down at the horses now gathered at the edge of the home field. The men had begun to dismount and attend to their packs. Only one figure remained mounted. He bent closer to the man.

‘Is there a proper name? What should I call –?’

‘Just Agnes,’ the man interrupted. ‘She’ll answer to Agnes.’




WE’VE ARRIVED. THE MEN FROM Stóra-Borg are dismounting at a little distance from the crooked farmhouse of Kornsá. Two figures stand outside the croft, a woman and a man, and the rider who announced my forfeited rights is walking up to them. No one is coming to unscrew my irons. Perhaps they have forgotten me. The woman ducks her head to go back indoors, coughing and spitting like a crone, but the man remains to talk with the Stóra-Borg officer.

To my left is laughter – two officers are pissing on the ground. I can smell it on the warm air. As usual, no one has noticed that I haven’t eaten or had a sip of water all day; my lips are as split as firewood. I feel the same as when I was little and hungry, as though my bones are growing larger in my body, as if my skeleton is about to shiver out of me. I have stopped bleeding. I am no longer a woman.

One of the men is walking towards me, taking quick, long strides over the home field. Don’t look at him.

‘Hello, Agnes. My . . . my name is Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson. I am the Assistant Reverend from Breidabólstadur in Vesturhóp.’ He is out of breath.

Don’t look up. It’s him. It is the same voice.

He coughs, then bends as if to kiss me according to custom, but hesitates, stepping backwards and nearly tripping over a tussock. He surely smells the dried piss on my stockings.

‘You asked for me?’ His voice is uncertain.

I look up.

He doesn’t recognise me. I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. His hair is as red as before, as red as the midnight sun. It looks as though his locks have soaked up the light as a skein of wool suffers the dye. But his face is older. It has thinned.

‘You asked for me?’ he says again. When I look him in the eye he glances away, then nervously wipes the sweat off his upper lip, leaving a trail of dark specks. Snuff? He doesn’t want to be here.

My tongue has swollen in my mouth and it cannot be moved to form words. What would I say to him anyway, now that it has come to this? I pick at the scabs on my wrists where the irons chafe the skin, and blood bubbles up to the surface. He notices.

‘Well. I must . . . I’m glad to have met you, but . . . it’s late. You must be . . . uh, I will call again soon.’ He bows awkwardly, then turns and walks away, tripping in his haste. He goes before I can let him know I understand. I smear the fresh blood across my arm as I watch him stumble to his horse.

Now I am alone. I watch the ravens, and listen to the horses eat.




ONCE THE MEN FROM STóRA-BORG had eaten and retired to their tents for the night, Margrét picked up the dirty wooden bowls and returned inside. She smoothed the blankets over her sleeping daughters, and walked slowly around the small room, bending down to pick up the strands of dry grass that had fallen from the turf layered between the rafters. She despaired at the dust in the room. The walls had once been panelled with Norwegian wood, but Jón had removed the boards to pay a debt owed to a farmer across the valley. Now the bare walls of turf collapsed their dirt and grass onto the beds in summer, and grew dank in winter, issuing moulds that dripped onto the woollen blankets and infested the lungs of the household. The home had begun to disintegrate, a hovel that had spread its own state of collapse to its inhabitants. Last year two servants had died from diseases wrought by the damp.

Margrét thought of her own cough, and instinctively raised a hand to her mouth. Ever since the news brought by the District Commissioner, her lungs had issued rot with increased regularity. She rose each morning with a weight upon her chest. Margrét could not tell whether it was dread of the criminal’s arrival, or the night’s accumulated dross in her lungs, but it made her think of the grave. Everything’s collapsing inward, she thought.

One of the officers had gone to fetch Agnes from where they had left her tied with the horses. Margrét had only caught a distant glimpse of the woman when she had left the dim rooms of the farmhouse to bring the men their supper – a slight blur of blue, a smudge of skirt being hauled off a horse. Now her heart thumped. Soon the murderess would be in front of her. She would see the woman’s face; feel her warmth in the small confines. What was to be done? How to behave in front of such a woman?