Burial Rites(55)

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 G?ngusk?rd. 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.

Tóti pressed her slender fingers, her knuckles. He was aware of her smell, the sweet scent of fresh buttermilk, and a sourness also. Of skin? Of the dairy? He fought off a sudden compulsion to put her fingers in his mouth.

Unaware of his thoughts, Agnes smiled and patted his knee with her free palm. ‘I am sure that you will make a fine priest after all,’ she said.

Tóti stroked the skin on the back of her hand. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘Bl?ndal nearly didn’t let me come to you.’ He felt conspiratorial.

‘Of course he didn’t.’

‘When I saw him today I was worried he would forbid me from seeing you.’

‘And did he?’

Tóti shook his head. ‘He said I must preach to you.’

Agnes gently pulled her hand out of his grasp, and he reluctantly released her. He watched her resume her knitting.

‘Why don’t you tell me about Natan,’ he asked, a little peevish.

Agnes glanced at the people before them. ‘Do you think they need more food brought out?’

‘Margrét would have called you.’ Tóti wiped his sweaty palms against his trousers. ‘Go on, Agnes. Bl?ndal isn’t here.’

‘And thank the Lord for that.’ Agnes took a deep breath. ‘What do you want me to tell you about Natan? You know that he was my employer at Illugastadir. You’ve obviously heard enough about his character from people around here. What else do you want to know?’

‘When did you meet him?’

‘I met Natan Ketilsson when I was working at Geitaskard.’

‘Where is that?’

‘In Langidalur. It was my sixth farm as a workmaid. It’s run by Worm Beck. He was good to me. I’d been working at Fannlaugarstadir, in the east, then Búrfell. That is when we first met, Reverend, when I was on my way towards Búrfell and you took me across the river. I’d gone because I’d heard that Magnús Magnússon, the man named as my father, was working there, and I thought I might go stay with him.

‘I didn’t stay there long. Magnús was kind, but when I reminded him I was named Magnúsdóttir for him, he flew into a rage and said that my mother had damaged his good name, and would he ever see the end of the trouble women had brought him. I didn’t like to stay after that. Magnús fixed me a bed and let me stay with everyone there, but from time to time I’d see him looking at me with a queer expression and I knew it was because he saw my mother’s likeness. He gave me some money before I left. It was the first time I ever held money in my life.

‘I decided to go to Geitaskard. I set off quite early in the morning on foot, and was following the white river Blanda downstream, when I saw a group of men coming from an eastern mountain pass. They fell in with me and my companions, other servants mostly, and we introduced ourselves, and if one of them wasn’t my own little brother, now all grown up! We hadn’t even recognised each other. Jóas was overcome. He pressed my hand and called me sister, and the others mocked him when they saw tears in his eyes. I was happy to find Jóas too, but I noticed he had the lick of brandy about him, and his dress was slovenly. He told me that he was a servant, but he carried no letter of recommendation, and he had the nervous look of vagrants you see about these parts. Something told me he was not doing well for himself, and I was heartsore to see it. We talked all the way to Geitaskard that morning, and I learnt that Jóas’s childhood hadn’t been any brighter than mine. Mamma had left him soon after she lugged me down to Kornsá, and he told me he’d been thrown up and down the valley like a hot coal. He didn’t know where Ingveldur was, and he said that she could be in hell for all he cared. So that was the two of us, paupers both, only he looked the worse for it. He couldn’t read or write, and when I offered to teach him he was put out of temper and told me not to show off.

‘Jóas and his friends, a greasy lot with nary a clean face between them, told me they were headed to Geitaskard to see what odd jobs they could pick up, it being a large farm. Jóas hadn’t organised himself a position like I had, but I vouched for him in front of Worm, and he was taken on, too. Those were kinder days, having family about me like that, even though we hardly knew each other, and a good farm to work on. There was plenty of food at Geitaskard, not like Gudrúnarstadir or Gafl, or even Gilsstadir. There were times at those farms when I had no choice but to give the bairns tallow candles to eat, and myself a bit of boiled leather. The servants at Geitaskard always minded themselves too. With all those cows and horses, and butter and grass, and thick servings of meat to line your stomach, it wasn’t hard to be good. I fell in with one of the other servants there, María Jónsdóttir. I never had many friends, but she had been a pauper as well, and I suppose we understood one another in a way.