Burial Rites(41)

Tóti noticed the other women had stopped knitting. They were watching Agnes, her last sentence having carried loudly across the room. He rose to fetch the spare stool beside Kristín.

‘I’m afraid we’re disturbing you,’ he said to them.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to use the irons,’ Lauga asked nervously.

‘I think we are better off without them.’ He returned to Agnes’s side. ‘Perhaps we should speak of something else.’ He was anxious that she should remain calm in front of the Kornsá family.

‘Did they hear?’ she whispered.

‘Let’s talk about your past,’ Tóti suggested. ‘Tell me more about your half-siblings.’

‘I barely knew them. I was five when my brother was born, and nine when I heard about Helga. She died when I was twenty-one. I only saw her a few times.’

‘And you’re not close to your brother?’

‘We were separated when he was only one winter old.’

‘When your mother left you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember her from before then?’

‘She gave me a stone.’

Tóti shot her a questioning look.

‘To put under my tongue,’ Agnes explained. ‘It’s a superstition.’ She frowned. ‘Bl?ndal’s clerks took it.’

Tóti was aware of Kristín rising to light a few candles – the bad weather had made the room quite gloomy, and the day was rapidly dying. In front of him, he could only see the pale lengths of Agnes’s bare arms above the blankets. Her face was shadowed.

‘Do you think they will let me knit?’ whispered Agnes, inclining her head towards the women. ‘I would like to do something while I talk to you. I can’t stand being still.’

‘Margrét?’ Tóti called. ‘Have you any work for Agnes?’

Margrét paused, and then reached over and plucked Steina’s knitting from her hands. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘It’s full of holes. It wants unravelling.’ She ignored the look of embarrassment on Steina’s face.

‘I feel sorry for her,’ Agnes said, slowly pulling out lines of crimped wool.

‘Steina?’

‘She said she wants to get up a petition for me.’

Tóti was hesitant. He watched Agnes nimbly wind the loose wool into a ball, and said nothing.

‘Do you think it possible, Reverend Tóti? To organise an appeal to the King?’

‘I don’t know, Agnes.’

‘Would you ask Bl?ndal? He would listen to you, and Steina might speak to District Officer Jón.’

Tóti cleared his throat thinking of Bl?ndal’s patronising tones. ‘I promise to do what I can. Now, why don’t you talk to me.’

‘About my childhood again?’

‘If you will.’

‘Well,’ Agnes said, wriggling up higher on the bed so that she could knit more freely. ‘What shall I tell you?’

‘Tell me what you remember.’

‘You won’t find it of interest.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘You’re a priest,’ Agnes said firmly.

‘I’d like to hear of your life,’ Tóti gently replied.

Agnes turned around to see if the women were listening. ‘I have told you that I have lived in most of the farms of this valley.’

‘Yes,’ Tóti agreed, nodding.

‘At first as a foster-child, then as a pauper.’

‘That’s a horrible pity.’

Agnes set her mouth in a hard line. ‘It’s common enough.’

‘To whom were you fostered?’

‘To a family that lived where we sit now. My foster-parents were called Inga and Bj?rn, and they rented the Kornsá cottage back then. Until Inga died.’

‘And you were left to the parish?’

‘Yes,’ Agnes nodded. ‘It’s the way of things. Most good people are soon enough underground.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘There’s no need to be sorry, Reverend, unless of course you killed her.’ Agnes glanced at him, and Tóti noticed a brief smile flicker across her face. ‘I was eight when Inga died. Her body never took to the manufacture of children. Five babes died without drawing breath before my foster-brother was born. The seventh carried her to heaven.’

Agnes sniffed, and began to carefully thread back through the loose stitches. Tóti listened to the light clicking of the bone needles and cast a surreptitious look at Agnes’s hands, moving quickly about the wool. Her fingers were long and thin, and he was astounded at the speed with which they worked. He fought off an irrational desire to touch them.

‘Eight winters old,’ he repeated. ‘And do you remember her death very well?’

Agnes stopped knitting and looked around at the women again. They had fallen silent and were listening. ‘Do I remember?’ she repeated, a little louder. ‘I wish I could forget it.’ She unhooked her index finger from the thread of wool and brought it to her forehead. ‘In here,’ she said, ‘I can turn to that day as though it were a page in a book. It’s written so deeply upon my mind I can almost taste the ink.’