Burial Rites(29)

‘REVEREND TóTI!’ MARGRéT OPENED THE door not three seconds after the young man had rapped smartly on its surface. ‘Nice of you to visit. We thought you might have gone back south. Come in.’ She coughed and pushed the door open wider, and Tóti noticed that she was balancing a heavy sack on her hip.

‘Here,’ he offered, ‘let me take that for you.’

‘Don’t fuss, don’t fuss,’ Margrét croaked, beckoning him down the corridor. ‘I’m perfectly capable. The workhands have returned from Reykjavík.’ She turned around to him with a thin smile.

‘I see,’ Tóti replied. ‘From the merchants.’

Margrét nodded. ‘Not too bad. No weevils in the flour, not like last year. Salt, and sugar, too.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘You’ve coffee?’ Tóti was surprised.

‘We sold all the woollen stuffs and some cured meat. Jón’s out sharpening the scythes for harvest. Care for ten drops?’ She directed him into the badstofa and pulled the curtain aside for him to step into the parlour. ‘Wait here,’ she said, hobbling out, the sack still on her hip.

Tóti sat down on the chair and began tracing his fingers along the grain in the wood of the table. He could hear Margrét break into a fit of coughing in the kitchen.

‘Reverend Tóti?’ a voice murmured from the other side of the curtain. Tóti got up and gingerly tugged the curtain across. Agnes peered around the gap and gave him a nod.

‘Agnes. How are you?’

‘I’m sorry. I just needed to get . . .’ She gestured towards a spool of wool that lay on the other chair in the room. Tóti stepped aside and lifted the curtain for her to enter.

‘Stay, please,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to see you.’

Agnes picked up the spool. ‘Margrét has asked me to –’

‘Please. Sit, Agnes.’ She obeyed, and sat down on the very edge of the chair.

‘Here we are!’ Margrét walked briskly back into the room bearing a tray of coffee and a plate with butter and rye bread. She suddenly noticed Agnes in the parlour.

‘I hope you don’t mind sparing Agnes for a moment,’ Tóti said, standing up. ‘Only I’ve come to speak with her.’ Margrét stared at him. ‘Bl?ndal’s orders,’ he joked, giving a weak smile.

Margrét pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘Do as you like with her, Reverend Tóti. Take her off my hands.’ She set the tray down on the table with a clunk and then turned and ripped the curtain across. Agnes and Tóti listened to her footsteps thump down the earthen floor of the corridor. A door slammed.

‘Well, then.’ Tóti sat down at the table and made a face at Agnes. ‘Would you care for some coffee? There’s only one cup, but I’m sure . . .’ Agnes shook her head. ‘Please have the bread, then. I’ve just paid a visit to Undirfell and the housewife there stuffed me with skyr.’ He pushed the plate over to Agnes and then poured himself a cup of coffee, shaking a little sugar into it from the stoppered bottle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Agnes tear off some bread and slip it into her mouth. He smiled.

‘It appears the servants did well with their master’s trading in Reykjavík.’ Tóti felt the hot coffee scald his tongue as he sipped it. His immediate reaction was to spit it out, but he was aware of Agnes’s pale eyes watching him and forced the boiling liquid down his throat, choking a little.

‘How do you like it here, Agnes?’

Agnes swallowed her bread and stared at him. Her face had filled out slightly, and the bruise on her neck had faded almost entirely.

‘You look well.’

‘They feed me better than at Stóra-Borg.’

‘And you get along with the family?’

She hesitated. ‘They tolerate me.’

‘What do you think of Jón, the District Officer?’

‘He refuses to speak to me.’

‘And the daughters?’

Agnes said nothing, and Tóti continued. ‘Lauga seems to be quite the favourite of the Reverend at Undirfell. He says she is supremely intelligent for a woman.’

‘And her sister?’

Tóti took another sip of coffee, then paused. ‘She’s a good girl.’

‘A good girl,’ Agnes repeated.

‘Yes. Have some more food.’

Agnes picked up the rest of the bread. She ate quickly, keeping her fingers close to her mouth and sucking them clean of butter when she finished. Tóti couldn’t help but notice the greasy pink of her lips.

He forced his eyes to the coffee cup in front of him. ‘I suppose you are wondering why I have returned.’

Agnes used her thumbnail to dig a crumb out of her teeth and was silent.

‘You called me a child,’ Tóti said.

‘I offended you.’ She seemed disinterested.

‘I wasn’t offended,’ Tóti said, lying. ‘But you’re wrong, Agnes. Yes, I’m a young man, but I have spent three long years at the school of Bessastadir in the south, I speak Latin and Greek and Danish, and God has chosen me to shepherd you to redemption.’