Burial Rites(58)

‘When did you see Natan again, after that?’

Agnes paused to count her stitches before casting off. ‘Oh, that same day,’ she said. ‘María and I were kept busy all afternoon, running errands for Worm’s wife, and keeping the children from underfoot, but we were given the evening to celebrate the harvest in our own way. It was a fine delicate sort of twilight, and all the servants sat outside to watch the night fall down. One of the hands was telling a story of the hidden people, when a cough was heard and we saw Natan standing behind our group in the shadows. He apologised for sneaking up on us, but told us he was fond of stories, and would we humour a stranger by allowing him to join our festivities? One of the servant men said that Natan Ketilsson was hardly a stranger, especially amongst the women, and most laughed. But one or two of the men and also a number of the workmaids looked away.

‘María made room for Natan next to her. I was on the outer of the group, not being as popular on account of my having a certain way of talking to people, but Natan walked right past María and sat down next to me. “Now, we are all ready,” he said, and he looked over to the man who had been speaking, and he invited him to continue his tale. We all sat into the night telling stories and looking at the stars, until it was time to sleep and that was that.’

‘Why do you think Natan chose to sit next to you?’

Agnes shrugged. ‘He told me afterwards that he’d been watching me all day, and could not read me. I misunderstood him at first, and said, well, no wonder, for I was a woman, not a book. And he laughed, and said that no, he could read people too, although some seemed to be in a script he couldn’t comprehend.’ Agnes gave a slight smile. ‘Make what you will of that, Reverend. But that is what he said.’




THE REVEREND IS SURELY WONDERING at what we were to one another. I watch him and know that he is thinking of Natan and I, letting the thought roll through his mind, savouring it, like a child sucking the marrow out of a bone. He might as well be sucking a stone.

Natan.

How can I truly recall the first moment of meeting him, when the hand I felt press my own was merely a hand? It is impossible to think of Natan as the stranger he was, once, to me. I can picture the way he looked, and recall the weather, and the play of light across his stubbled face, but that virgin moment is impossible to recapture. I cannot remember not knowing Natan. I cannot think of what it was not to love him. To look at him and realise I had found what I had not known I was hungering for. A hunger so deep, so capable of driving me into the night, that it terrified me.

I did not lie to the Reverend. That night of stars and stories, and the warm pressure of his hand on mine, happened as I told him. But I did not tell Tóti what followed when the servants went to bed. I did not tell him that María went with them too, sending me a reproachful glance. I did not say that we were left alone, and that Natan urged me to stay with him in the half-light. To talk, he said. Only to talk.

‘Tell me who you are, Agnes. Here, let me take your hand so that I might learn a little of you.’

The swift warmth of his fingers tracing the length of my open palm.

‘These are calluses, so you are a hard worker. But your fingers are strong. You not only work hard, but you do your work well. I can see why Worm hired you. See this? You have a hollow palm. Like my own, here, can you feel how it is unfilled?’

The soft depression, the ghost creases in his skin, the suggestion of bones.

‘Do you know what it means, to have a hollow palm? It means there is something secretive about us. This empty space can be filled with bad luck if we’re not careful. If we expose the hollow to the world and all its darkness, all its misfortune.’

‘But how can one help the shape of one’s hand?’ I was laughing.

‘By covering it with another’s, Agnes.’

The weight of his fingers on mine, like a bird landing on a branch. It was the drop of the match. I did not see that we were surrounded by tinder until I felt it burst into flames.





CHAPTER EIGHT





Poet-Rósa’s poem to Natan Ketilsson,

c. 1827


ó, hve s?la eg áleit mig, –

engin mun tví trúande, –

tá fjekk eg líea fyrir tig

forsmán vina, en hinna spje.


Sá minn tanki sannur er, –

tó svik tín banni nyting ares –

ó, hve hefir oreie tjer

eitrue rosin Kiejaskares!


Oh, how happy I believed I was –

no one could have known how free –

even when I suffered for you,

when everyone was mocking me.


Traitor, look at your misfortune –

these are my thoughts, they’re true –

Oh, how this rose of Kidjaskard

has gone and poisoned you!





AUTUMN FELL UPON THE VALLEY like a gasp. Margrét, lying awake in the extended gloom of the October morning, her lungs mossy with mucus, wondered at how the light had grown slow in coming; how it seemed to stagger through the window, as though weary from travelling such a long way. Already it seemed a struggle to rise. She’d wake in the chill night with Jón pressing his toes against her legs to warm them, and the farmhands were coming in from feeding the cow and horses with their noses and cheeks pink with the ice in the air. Her daughters had said that there was a frost every morning of their berrying trip, and snow had fallen during the round-up. Margrét had not gone, not trusting her lungs to last the long walk up over the mountain to find and herd the sheep from their summer pasture, but she’d sent everyone else. Except Agnes. She could not let her walk over the mountain. Not that she would flee. Agnes wasn’t stupid. She knew this valley, and she knew what little escape it offered. She’d be seen. Everyone knew who she was.