Burial Rites(61)

The suet renders quickly. Three of us drag the pot from the fire to leave it to cool, until we can break the lid of tallow hiding the liquid beneath.

The men come in to eat the kidneys, stinking of shit and wet wool. I think the servants look at us women, dropping bags of blood sausage into a pot of boiling water in the smoky, warm kitchen, with envy. When I serve Jón his food he looks me in the eyes for the first time. ‘Thank you, Agnes,’ he says quietly. It is because of Róslín’s baby – I am sure of it. He sees me differently now.

The men have finished eating, and they leave to fetch the first cuts of meat. I start to measure out the saltpetre and mix it with salt. It reminds me of when I used to help Natan in his workshop: measuring out sulphur, dried leaves, crushed seeds. I have been thinking of Illugastadir a lot today. The slaughter in the only autumn I ever spent there. I enjoyed putting provisions aside for the winter. Things we would eat later, that would sustain Natan on his long trips. He stood against the kitchen doorframe as I mixed the meal through the blood that day, reading to me from the sagas, and telling me of his time in Copenhagen, where the blodp?lse was spiced and speckled with a type of dried fruit. Then Fridrik and Sigga burst into the room giggling together, with pails of guts from the slaughter yard, snow in their hair, and Natan left me for his workshop.

My fingers sting as I press layer after layer of salted meat into the wooden drum. A pink crust crackles in between my fingers, and my back aches from bending into the barrel. Steina watches me, asking how much water to sprinkle over each layer, remarks on the way her fingertips pucker from the salt. She licks her skin, wrinkles her nose at the taste. ‘I don’t see why we can’t store it all in whey. Salt is so expensive,’ she says.

‘It suits the foreign tongue,’ I reply. This barrel is to be traded for goods. The fattier meat we will store in whey, will keep for the family.

‘Is salt fetched from the sea?’

‘Why do you ask me so many questions, Steina?’

The girl pauses, her cheeks pink. ‘Because you give me answers,’ she mumbles.

Next are the bones, and the heads. I ask Lauga to empty the tallow pot of gristle and water, but she pretends she cannot hear me and keeps her eyes fixed ahead of her. Kristín goes instead. When Steina sidles up to me again, smiling shyly, wondering if there is anything I need doing, I ask her to fill the emptied pot with the bones that cannot be used for anything else. Salt. Barley. Water. Steina and I haul the pot next to the poaching blood sausage, for the marrow to leach into the simmering water, for the salt and heat to prise away all the tenderness from the carcass. She claps her hands when we fix the slopping pot upon the hook and immediately begins to throw more fuel on the fire.

‘Not too much, Steina,’ I say. ‘Don’t cover the coals.’

The sheep-heads I hold close to the embers of the hearth to singe away all the hair. The burning wool does not catch, but shrivels at the lick of flame, and I feel my nostrils flare in the rising stink of it.

Oh, God. The smell.

The badstofa in Illugastadir. The whale fat smeared on the wood and the beds, and then the flame from the lamp smoking on the greasy, woollen blankets. Burning hair.

I can’t do it; I need fresh air. Oh God!

Don’t let them see how it upsets you. I give the heads to Steina, let her do it. I need fresh air. I tell Steina it is the smoke.

Outside the drizzle settles on my face like a blessing. But the stench of scorched wool and burnt hair remains in my nostrils, acrid, sickening me to my core.

It is Margrét who finds me, squatting in the dark with my head on my knees. I wait for her to berate me. What are you doing, Agnes? Get inside. Do as you’re told. How dare you leave Steina to do it all herself. She’s burnt the meat beyond recognition.

But Margrét remains silent. She eases herself down next to me and I hear her knees crack.

‘How quickly the light leaves now.’ Is that all she is going to say?

She’s right. The blue eventide seems to have crept up from the dark intestine of the river in front of us.

The smell of things always seems stronger at night, and sitting here I am aware of the odour of the kitchen on Margrét. Blood sausage. Smoke. Brine. She is breathing heavily, and in the silence of the evening I can hear a catch in her lungs; the grip of something upon her breath.

‘I needed some air,’ I say.

Margrét gives a sigh, clears her throat. ‘No one ever died from fresh air.’

We sit and listen to the faint rush of the river. The drizzle ceases. Snow begins to fall.

‘Let’s see what those girls are doing now,’ Margrét says eventually. ‘I won’t be surprised if Steina has strung herself up on the rafters, instead of the meat. We might discover her smoked through.’

A soft thud sounds from the smithy. The men must be spreading the sheepskins out to dry.

‘Come, Agnes. You’ll catch your death.’

Looking down, I see that Margrét has extended her hand. I take it, and the feel of her skin is like paper. We go inside.




THE FIRE IN THE KITCHEN had collapsed into a pile of whispering embers, and night had fallen thick upon the spilt blood in the stocks outside, by the time Lauga, with swollen fingers, tied the last wet bag of sausage to a string to hang and dry. Steina, her apron covered in smears from offal and blood, leaned against the doorframe and watched her sister.