Burial Rites(76)

‘There, there, Mamma. You’ll be all right.’ Lauga rubbed her mother’s back, stifling a cry as a bright clot of blood fell out of her mouth.

‘Mamma! You’re bleeding!’ Steina rushed forward, tripping over the broom.

Lauga pushed her sister away. ‘Let her breathe!’

They watched, anxious, as Margrét continued to hack.

‘Have you tried a jelly of lichen?’ Agnes was standing in the doorway, looking at Lauga.

‘I feel quite well,’ croaked Margrét, bringing a hand to her chest.

‘It eases the lungs.’

Lauga turned towards the doorway, her face pinched. ‘Leave us, would you?’

Agnes ignored her. ‘Have you tried such a jelly?’

‘We don’t have need for your potions,’ Lauga snapped.

Agnes shook her head. ‘I think you do.’

Margrét stopped coughing and looked sharply at her.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Lauga whispered.

Agnes took a deep breath. ‘Boil some chopped moss in water for a time. A very long time. When the stock cools it will form a grey jelly. The taste is not pleasant, but it may stop you from bleeding in the lungs.’

There was a moment of silence as Margrét and Lauga stared at Agnes.

Steina sat down on the bed again. ‘Did Natan Ketilsson teach you that?’ she asked in a quiet voice.

‘They say it helps,’ Agnes repeated. ‘I can make it for you.’

Margrét slowly wiped her mouth on a corner of her apron and nodded. ‘Do that,’ she said. Agnes hesitated, then turned on her heel, walking quickly down the corridor.

Lauga turned to her mother. ‘Mamma, I’m not sure you should take whatever she –’

‘Enough, Lauga,’ interrupted Margrét. ‘Enough.’




THE REVEREND STILL DOES NOT come. But winter has. Autumn has been pushed aside by a wind driving flurries of snow up against the croft, and the air is as thin as paper. Each breath hangs in front of me like a ghost, and mists drop down from the mountains to swarm on the frozen ground. The dark comes; it has settled down in these parts like a bruise in the flesh of the earth, but the Reverend does not.

Why doesn’t he come?

If the Reverend came tonight, would I tell him that Natan and I were as husband and wife? Then I could tell him about what began to change between us. Perhaps he guesses at it anyway.

The salt came. The darkling wind rose and the black sand began to sting. The way down. The cold path down to colder water. The salt came.

What would I say to Tóti?

Reverend, Natan began to leave Illugastadir at the close of summer, and each time he returned, it was as though he became more of a stranger to me. He’d catch me alone in the dairy, take the scrubbing brush out of my hand and draw me to him, only to ask me if I had kept Daníel warm in his bed while he was out, scraping together a living by luring death out of the bowels of his countrymen. He even accused me of loving Fridrik! That lug of a boy, swinging his fists about and stinking of unwashed wool. Natan’s accusations seemed comical to me. Couldn’t he see how much I missed him? How different he was from any other man I had known?

I imagine Tóti’s face blushing. I imagine him wiping his sweaty palms against the material of his trousers. His slow nod. The light from the candle in the badstofa flickering over his face as he watches me, wide-eyed.

Reverend, I would say, I told Natan that Daníel was nothing to me. That Fridrik was enamoured with Sigga. I told him that I was his for as long as he’d have me, that I’d be his wife if he wished it.

It was those moods of his that took him away. I’d find Natan in the workshop measuring broths, skimming the dirty froth off boiling roots. I’d offer my help, as I helped him when I first came. He began to push me out of his way. He didn’t want me, he said. Did he mean he didn’t want my help, or my presence? He’d direct me towards the door.

‘Go. I don’t want you here. I’m busy.’

Sometimes I’d go to the outhouse and hammer the dried cod heads with a cow thighbone. Just to beat and rail against something. He is falling out of love with you, I told myself. And I began to wonder whether he ever loved me.

But there were still hours when he found me alone by the shore, collecting eiderdown. He would take me beside the birds’ nests, his hands in my hair, his look as desperate as a drowning man’s. He needed me like he needed air. I felt it in his gaze, in the way he grappled for my body like a buoy in the water.

Reverend Tóti, draw your stool nearer. I’ll tell you what it was really like.

I hated being his servant. One night I would be his lover, with the hard rhythm of his breath matching my own. And then, the next, I was Agnes the workmaid. Not even the housekeeper! And his cool commands began to seem like reprimands.

‘Call the sheep home from pasture. Milk the cow. Milk the sheep. Fetch water. Collect the ashes and spread them upon the soil. Feed Thóranna. Make her stop crying. Make her stop crying! This pot is still dirty. Ask Sigga to show you how to wash the beakers properly.’

Do you understand what I am saying, Reverend? Or is love constant for you? Have you ever loved a woman? A person you love as much as you hate the hold they have on you?

I hated the way my mind would turn to Natan throughout the day, until I was sick with the pattern of my thoughts. I hated the nausea that came at the suggestion he did not care for me. I hated the way I kept tripping up over those rocks to his workshop, again and again, to bring him things he no longer required.