Burial Rites(52)

‘You are the Reverend attending Agnes Magnúsdóttir?’

‘Yes,’ Tóti said, curious.

‘I worked at Illugastadir. With Natan Ketilsson. I left in 1827, just before Agnes arrived to work there also. She came to take my position as housekeeper. Well, that is what Natan told me.’

‘I see. And what did you want to tell me?’

Karitas paused, as if trying to find the right words. ‘“The treachery of a friend is worse than that of a foe,”’ she said eventually.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s from Gisli Sursson’s Saga.’ Karitas swivelled to the open doorway, checking to see if anyone was coming. ‘He broke his word to her,’ she whispered.

‘His word?’

‘Natan promised Agnes my position, sir. Only, before she arrived, he decided that Sigga should have it.’

Tóti was confused. He absently stroked the feather Bl?ndal had given him. He still held it in his hand.

‘Sigga was young – fifteen or sixteen, Reverend. Natan knew it would embarrass Agnes to be under her authority.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, Karitas. Why would Natan promise Agnes a position and then give it to an inexperienced girl half her age?’

Karitas shrugged. ‘Did you ever meet Natan, Reverend?’

‘No, never. Although I gather that many here in the valley knew him.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve been hearing some rather mixed opinions. Some say he was a sorcerer, another a good doctor.’

Karitas did not return his smile.

‘But you are of the mind that he deceived Agnes?’

Karitas scuffed her slipper against the straw on the ground. ‘It’s only . . . Folks here have blacked her name, and that does not rest well with me.’

Tóti hesitated. ‘Why are you telling me this, Karitas?’

The woman bent closer. ‘I left Illugastadir because I couldn’t bear Natan any more. He . . . he toyed with people.’ She leant closer still, her lip trembling. ‘It was as though he did it to amuse himself. I never knew where I stood with him. He’d tell me one thing and do another. And if I had a mind to ask for leave to church-go, well.’ The woman looked askance at Tóti. ‘I’m a good Christian woman, Reverend, and I swear that I have never heard a man spout such disbelief.’ Karitas pulled a face and looked back towards the doorway. ‘You won’t tell Bl?ndal I’ve spoken with you?’

‘Of course not. But I don’t see what good it does to tell me this about Natan. I can see that opinion is divided about him, but even still, mischief-makers, even if they are non-believers, don’t deserve to be stabbed in the middle of the night.’

Karitas was taken aback. ‘Mischief-maker?’ She gave him a look. ‘Has Agnes said anything about Natan?’

‘No. She doesn’t talk of him.’

‘What has Bl?ndal said?’ She jerked her head in the direction of the farmhouse.

‘I have heard very little to trust from anyone besides superstitious talk of his being named for the Devil.’

Karitas gave a weak smile. ‘Yes, they say that. Bl?ndal wouldn’t speak badly of him anyway. Natan healed his wife.’

‘I didn’t know she was ill.’

‘Deathly. He paid plenty for him too. But it worked. Natan Ketilsson fetched his wife from heaven’s gate.’

Tóti suddenly felt angry. He stood up and brushed his trousers clean of straw and dust. ‘I should go.’

‘So you won’t tell Bl?ndal I spoke with you?’

‘No.’ Tóti attempted a smile. ‘Karitas, I wish you well. God keep you.’

‘Reverend, you must ask Agnes about Natan. I think they knew each other better than they knew themselves.’

Tóti turned from the doorway, puzzled. ‘Would you visit her in person?’

Karitas gave a hoarse laugh. ‘Bl?ndal would have me gutted and hung out to dry. Besides, I had already left when she arrived at Illugastadir. I’d had enough.’

‘I see.’ Tóti looked at her for a moment, then swiftly brought a hand to the brim of his hat. ‘God bless you.’ He left to collect his horse from the yard and, once seated, turned to wave goodbye to Karitas, who stood at the entrance to the cowshed. She did not wave back.




HARVEST HAS BEEN BROUGHT IN and everyone is longing to finally open their mouths for food and talk and drink after all those weeks of gritted teeth. I assist Margrét in the kitchen, cooking mutton for guests that have started to arrive for harvest celebration. There isn’t much time for private thoughts. The daughters are not here – sent away to the mountain heath with Kristín to collect berries and moss – and now it is up to Margrét and me to pour and blend the whey and water, churn the butter, serve the men, and ensure all the drying laundry is taken from the yard before any of the neighbours see our underthings. It was a surprise to suddenly realise that the girls were gone; I suppose I have grown used to Lauga’s rolling eyes, like some disgruntled calf, and Steina following me like a shadow. ‘I know you,’ she said to me before she left. ‘We are alike.’

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?