Burial Rites (29 page)

‘The girl took my sack of belongings and kissed me. She asked if I was Agnes Magnúsdóttir, and she introduced herself as Sigrídur, but said that everyone called her Sigga.’

‘This was the girl-servant Natan had mentioned to you at Geitaskard?’

Agnes nodded. ‘Sigga exclaimed she’d been expecting me all week, and was I hungry, and had I come very far, and wasn’t I frightened of highwaymen or outlaws, walking alone on the mountain paths. She spoke so fast that I barely had time to provide her with answers, and before I knew it she had ushered me inside and showed me my bed, which she had only made up that morning. The badstofa was very small, with only four bunks, and no space to speak of. There was a tiny window over one of the beds, but I supposed that Sigga had taken that bunk for herself. Illugastadir was more cramped and dirtier than I’d imagined. But I reassured myself that it was better to be mistress of a croft than a servant in the home of the governor. Sigga said that she would give me some time to arrange my things about my bed, and went and made coffee for us. When I told her she needn’t go to any expense, that whey and water would be plenty, she smiled and assured me that Natan was fond of coffee and that they drank it at all hours. It seemed a great luxury to me.

‘I waited until Sigga had left the room before looking at my surroundings. Only two beds were made up – hers and mine – and I wondered where Natan slept, and if there was a loft I hadn’t noticed.

‘When Sigga returned, I asked her where Natan was. I’d expected him to be there to greet me. Sigga looked embarrassed and blushed, and said that Natan was out.

‘It was a Sunday, so I asked if Natan was at church, but Sigga shook her head. Natan was not a church-going man. She said that he was the only man she’d ever known who refused to read the evening blessings, and said that if I had a book of psalms I should hide it under my pillow otherwise Natan might kindle the hearth with it.
No, Natan was fox-hunting on the mountain, she said, but she would show me the farm in his place.

‘I can’t remember what my first impression of the farm was, Reverend. I was tired from my journey and overwhelmed from seeing so much water on the horizon. But I can certainly tell you what Illugastadir is like after spending a year or so trapped upon that corner of God’s earth.’

‘I should like to hear you describe it,’ Tóti prompted.

‘It’s not much more than the base of the mountain, and the shore of the sea. It’s a long line of rocky ground, with one or two smooth fields where winter fodder is grown, and all the rest is wild grass, growing around the stones. The shore is of pebbles, and huge tangles of seaweed float in the bay and look like the hair of the drowned. Driftwood appears overnight like magic, and eider ducks nest upon nearby banks of rocks near seal colonies. On a clear day it’s beautiful, and on others it’s as miserable as grave-digging in the rain. Sea fog plagues the place, and the nearest farm is Stapar, which is a fair distance away.

‘There are several stony skerries of land that reach a little way out into the fjord, and on one of these is Natan’s workshop. You have to walk out over a narrow bed of rocks to reach it. I remember thinking it was a strange place to build a workshop, away from the croft and surrounded by water, but Natan planned it thus. Even the window of the cottage looked inland, rather than out to sea, because Natan wanted to observe who might be travelling along the mountain. He had some enemies.

‘Sigga said that she didn’t know where the key to his workshop was kept, but that the little hut was where he had his smithy, and where he made his medicines, and that he probably kept a lot of money in there. She told me this with a wild sort of giggle, and I remember thinking her as daft as Natan had told me she was.

‘Sigga told me that Natan went seal-clubbing, and there’d be seal leather shoes if I wanted them, and that they had eiderdown
mattresses just like all the District Commissioners of Iceland, and that I would sleep like the dead, they were so soft. Sigga said she’d grown up at Stóra-Borg, but that her mother was no longer living, and she was new to service and had not been a housekeeper before, but that Natan had spoken highly of me and she hoped I would teach her.

‘I was surprised to hear her call herself a housekeeper. I said: “Oh, you are the mistress here? Did you take Karitas’s position?” And she nodded and said yes, she’d been working as a simple maidservant before, but when Karitas gave her notice Natan had asked her to be his housekeeper. She
thanked
me then for coming to be
her
servant, and she took me by the arm and said that we must get along well, for Natan was often away, and she grew lonely.

‘I thought there must have been a mistake. I thought that perhaps Natan had only asked her to be his housemistress until I arrived, or perhaps she was a liar. I didn’t think that Natan would lie to me.

‘We had some coffee then, and I told Sigga a little of where I’d worked before. I was careful to mention the number of farms I had lived in and Sigga seemed quite impressed, and kept saying how pleased she was to have me at Illugastadir to help her, and would I teach her how to make such a patterned shawl as I was wearing, so that all in all, I grew more easy.

‘Soon our conversation turned to Natan again, and Sigga said that she expected him after dinner. But he didn’t come home until it was late.’

‘Did you ask him about your position then?’ Tóti asked.

Agnes shook her head. ‘I was asleep when he came in.’

PERHAPS IT WAS THAT FIRST
morning at Illugastadir when I understood the nature of things. Perhaps not.

I woke late to the plaintive shrieks of the gulls and stepped outside to see Natan walking down to the stream. Down by the shore, his bedclothes still flapped in the breeze. I thought, then, he had only returned that morning.

Even when Sigga later told me he had returned at midnight with two fox pelts slung over his shoulder, I did not think to ask what bed he had passed the rest of the night in.

‘I WAS SO PLEASED TO
see Natan that morning that I forgot to ask him why Sigga thought herself the mistress of Illugastadir. It wasn’t until later that day, when I was following Natan across the rocks to his workshop, that I raised the matter with him.

‘I didn’t want to seem rude, so I only asked, very casually, how he liked having Sigga as a housekeeper. But Natan, as always, saw through my questioning. He stopped and raised his eyebrows.

‘“She’s not my housekeeper,” he said.

‘I was relieved to hear him say so, but explained that when I arrived Sigga had told me she’d taken Karitas’s position.

‘Natan laughed and shook his head, and reminded me that he’d warned of how young and simple she was. And then he opened the lock to his workshop, and we stepped inside. I’d never seen a room like it. There was the usual anvil, bellows and so on, but also big bunches of dried flowers and herbs along the walls, and jars filled with liquids, some cloudy, some light. There was a large pail of what looked like fat, and needles and scalpels and a glass jar that held a small animal, all pale and puckered like a boiled stomach.’

‘How horrible,’ Steina murmured from the other side of the badstofa. Agnes looked up from the mitten, as though she had forgotten the family was there.

A sudden knocking could be heard from the farm entrance.

‘Lauga,’ Margrét said. ‘Will you go and see who that is?’ Her daughter went to answer the door. She soon returned with an old man brushing snow off his shoulders. It was the Reverend Pétur Bjarnason from Undirfell.

‘Greetings to all in God’s name,’ the man grumbled, wiping his glasses on his inner shirt. He was breathing heavily from his walk in the ice and wind. ‘I’ve come to enter you all into the soul register of Undirfell’s parish,’ the man intoned. ‘Oh, hello, Assistant Reverend Thorvardur. Still in the valley, I see. Oh, of course. Blöndal’s got you . . .’

‘This is Agnes,’ Tóti interrupted. Agnes stepped forward.

‘I am Agnes Jónsdóttir,’ she said. ‘And I am a prisoner.’

Margrét immediately stood up in surprise, looking over to Jón, who sat on their bed, his mouth open in horror.

‘What?! She isn’t our –’ Lauga began, but Tóti cut her off.

‘Agnes Jónsdóttir is my spiritual charge. As I told you before.’ He was aware of the family gaping at him, stunned that he would agree to such a name. There was a long moment of awkward silence.

‘Duly noted.’ Reverend Pétur sat down on a stool under the flickering lamp, and took a heavy book out from under his coat. ‘And how is the family of Kornsá? Slaughter finished?’

Margrét stared at Tóti strangely, then slowly sat back down. ‘Uh, yes. Just the manure to spread over the
tún
, and then we’ll be making woollen goods for trade.’

The old priest nodded. ‘An industrious family. District Officer Jón, if you could please speak with me first?’

The priest conversed with each family member, one by one, examining their reading skills and ability to recite catechisms. He also asked them questions to ascertain the characters of those they lived with. After all the servants had had their time with the priest,
Agnes was summoned. Tóti tried to listen to their conversation, but Kristín, relieved her reading test was over, had collapsed into giggles with Bjarni, and he couldn’t hear anything over their laughter. The priest did not take long with Agnes, but soon gave her a nod.

‘I thank you all for your time. Perhaps I’ll see you at a service soon,’ Reverend Pétur said.

‘Won’t you stay for coffee?’ Lauga asked, curtseying prettily.

‘Thank you, my dear, but I have the rest of the valley to see, and this weather’s only going to get worse.’ He set his hat atop his head and carefully bundled the book back inside his thick coat.

‘I’ll see you out,’ Tóti said, before Lauga could offer.

In the corridor, Tóti asked the priest what he had recorded about Agnes.

‘Why do you want to know?’ the man asked, curious.

‘She’s my charge,’ he said. ‘It is my responsibility to know how she behaves. How well she reads. I am invested in her welfare.’

‘Very well.’ The priest took the ministerial book out of his coat again and flicked to the new pages. ‘You may read it for yourself.’

Tóti brought the book over to a candle bracketed into the wall of the corridor and squinted in its dim light until he made out the words: Agnes Jónsdóttir. A condemned person.
Sakapersona
. 34 years old.

‘She reads very well,’ the priest offered, as he waited for Tóti to finish.

‘What is this you have written about her character?’ He could hardly make out the words, his eyes swimming in the gloom.

‘Oh, that says
blendin
, Reverend. Mixed.’

‘And how did you arrive at that answer?’

‘It was the opinion of the District Officer. And his wife.’

‘What was your opinion of Agnes, Reverend?’

The old man tucked the book back into his coat and shrugged. ‘Very well-spoken. Educated, I should think. Surprising, considering
her illegitimacy. Well brought up. But when I spoke to the District Officer, he said her behaviour was . . . Unpredictable. He mentioned hysterics.’

‘Agnes is facing a death sentence,’ Tóti said.

‘I’m aware,’ the priest retorted, opening the door. ‘Good day, Reverend Thorvardur. I wish you the best.’

‘And I you,’ Tóti mumbled, as the door slammed in his face.