by Caroline Lea
Rósa’s teeth chatter, but she would rather the cold than the noises.
A memory flickers: watching the aurora lights in Skálholt with Páll. Frost layered the ground, so they wrapped their arms around one another and huddled against the bodies of the sheep for warmth. At once, Rósa wonders why she hasn’t thought of it before and runs the hundred paces to the barn, shivering. She will wait with the horses. When the men bring the sheep and the cows in, she can say that she will help to settle the animals.
The barn is draughty, but the horses radiate warmth. Rósa can hear them contentedly munching hay in the gathering darkness, shifting their hoofs restlessly and snorting dust from their nostrils. Friendly, familiar noises. No madness here.
Rósa wraps her arms around Hallgerd’s neck and scratches the greasy mane just in front of her withers. Hallgerd grinds her teeth and rests her chin on Rósa’s shoulder, wiggling her top lip in an attempt to caress Rósa’s back. She grins. This is how horses befriend one another. She presses her face into Hallgerd’s hot neck and breathes in the rich scents of grass and horse-sweat.
Suddenly, Hallgerd’s neck stiffens. Every muscle is alert and her ears prick forward, concentrating intently on some sound outside the barn.
A boot thuds on the pathway.
Pétur and Jón!
But the men would have the sheep and cows with them, and Rósa cannot hear the animals. Hallgerd does not relax and begin to chew her hay again, as she would if it was a noise she recognized. Instead she and Skalm bolt forward, knocking Rósa to one side. Rósa falls painfully on her wrist but she springs up, every nerve alive. Both animals are now rigid at the far end of the barn, staring at the doors, ears pricked, nostrils flaring.
Rósa’s instinct is to hide, to cower behind the horses and wait for the danger to pass, but she forces herself to creep towards the doors. All is silent. She holds her breath and opens one of the doors. A cold wind funnels against her face, and a snowflake – the first she has seen in Stykkishólmur – melts on her nose.
No more footsteps. No shadows.
Rósa closes her eyes. Enough foolishness. She must return to the croft. Jón made it clear he did not want or need her help with the animals. She will write another letter to Mamma, and this time, she will send it south.
As Rósa walks up the path to the croft, the snowfall thickens and the wind sighs and plucks at her tunic.
It is when she is passing the pit-house that she hears another noise – not a footstep this time but the rumble of a voice. She stops dead.
She rarely thinks of the pit-house any more. It squats, dark and chill, fifty paces from the croft. She has never seen Jón fetch anything from within. It is simply an empty building, sag-roofed and surly, that would probably collapse on top of her if she opened the door.
But tonight a glow emanates from inside. And susurrating whispers.
Who would break into her husband’s pit-house? Vagrants from the hills? Anyone honest would come to the croft, not hide in the pit-house, like an outlaw. More noises contrived by her own mind. She stifles a sob. She must find Jón.
She spins around to run up the hill to the field, then crashes straight into someone and is knocked sprawling.
‘Forgive me.’ The voice is deep, male. The hands that pull her up are strong around her wrists.
‘Let me go!’ she shrieks.
‘Rósa!’ the man exclaims.
Rósa screams and kicks out at the attacker, who will not release her wrists, who somehow knows her name and keeps repeating, ‘Rósa! Rósa, hush!’
The door of the pit-house bursts open, and two more male voices join the chorus: ‘Rósa! What is it? What is the matter?’
And the nightmare gains intensity, for somehow Jón and Pétur are there. The world compresses and Rósa feels like the startled horses: muscles rigid, poised to flee.
Jón and Pétur wrench the man away from her. There is a scuffle and the thud of fists on flesh. Pétur howls and clutches his arm. Jón curses. He lights a torch. In the flickering orange glow, the stranger is dragged to his feet, and Rósa sees the face and surely it cannot be, but it is.
Páll!
Even in the shadows, she can make out his wry grin as he wipes the blood from his lips.
‘A fine welcome, Rósa.’ He winces and massages his ribs. ‘Your husband’s man punches hard. I will not breathe easily for a week.’
Pétur is bent double, cradling his arm and groaning.
She rounds on Páll, who is still rubbing his jaw and holding his sleeve to his lip to staunch the blood. ‘Why are you here?’ She wants to embrace him, but perhaps he will disappear, and she will find herself clutching the air and trembling. ‘How did you –?’
‘You know him?’ Jón cuts in, his voice steel.
‘Yes, Páll was . . . is . . .’ She rubs her eyes. ‘We grew up together,’ she finishes lamely.
‘We were like siblings – is that not so, Rósa?’ He loops an arm around her shoulders; her whole body hums with life.
She nods mutely. Siblings.
Pétur straightens, though his face is tight with pain; his injured hand hangs limp. With his good hand, he holds the flickering torch closer to Páll’s face. ‘You! I saw you a week ago. In Skálholt. You were asking about Rósa. And you questioned me.’
‘Questioned you?’ Jón rounds on Pétur.
Pétur shuffles his feet. ‘Only about the farm. He is barely more than a boy.’
‘A boy who has followed you here,’ Jón says. ‘A boy who has travelled more than a week on foot and with traders, because of what you told him.’
‘I told him nothing!’ Pétur’s voice is raw; his injured hand trembles.
‘You said something undoubtedly,’ Jón growls, through gritted teeth. He turns to Páll. ‘We are preparing for a bitter winter, and I do not have time to host you, forgive me. You will return to Skálholt tomorrow. There may be a trader’s cart.’
Páll’s face falls and Rósa cannot prevent herself interrupting. ‘I will look after him, Jón. It will take none of your time. I will –’
‘You will be silent!’ Jón’s voice is like a slap.
Rósa recoils. Páll draws a sharp breath. She can feel his body brace.
Please don’t! Please. She stares at his face and he glances at her, then gives a tight nod.
‘I mean,’ Jón continues softly, ‘that you have many duties. You will exhaust yourself, elskan.’ The endearment is loaded with menace.
Rósa is about to protest, but Páll interrupts, with forced brightness, ‘I shall be no trouble. I repair roofs, but work is scarce in Skálholt. I came here to work for you, learning how to fish and how to trade.’ He is lying, she can tell, but he smiles at Jón with the charm that used to convince the women of Skálholt that he had not raided their hen-house though his sleeves bulged with eggs.
Jón scowls.
‘I am a fast learner,’ Páll says smoothly. ‘I can put my hand to any task.’
‘I have Pétur to help me.’
‘But you have so many to provide for, now you are sending food to Skálholt, too. There is little enough to go around there. My neighbours Snorri and Margrét are eating enough bread for five people between them. Fattening themselves for winter while I go hungry.’ He slaps a hand against the flat muscles of his stomach.
Why are you lying? For a moment, Rósa dares to hope that Páll might have followed her to rescue her. But then she frowns: even if he truly had pursued her here, he couldn’t take her away from her husband. The thought is a child’s dream, drawn straight from the Sagas.
‘So you come begging for more?’ Jón says. ‘I send enough to Skálholt.’
‘I’m no beggar. I would like to learn a trade. And you are the most skilled and powerful man I know.’
Rósa almost smiles.
Pétur glowers. ‘Learn some other trade, back in Skálholt.’
Páll’s grin doesn’t waver. ‘I have heard of your skill too, Pétur. Come, let me stay. You will gath
er twice the food for this winter with my help. You will barely know I am here. I will be your shadow, except . . . a shadow that catches fish.’
Jón and Pétur smile reluctantly, and Rósa allows herself to breathe. Please. Please!
But then Jón sighs and rubs his beard. ‘I cannot –’
Rósa steps forward, trembling, and touches Jón’s arm. He freezes. ‘He has travelled far, Jón.’
He looks at her hand.
She tightens it on his arm. ‘We cannot send him away.’
‘I must.’
‘But,’ Rósa clutches his tunic, ‘would you send my own blood into the cold? What if the snows . . .?’ She blinks back tears.
Jón closes his eyes and rubs his temples with his fingers. ‘I . . .’
‘Jón!’ Pétur gives a warning growl.
Rósa takes a breath, then presses her body against Jón’s. The thud of his heart makes his muscles tremble, as if in rage. ‘Please, Jón. I ask so little of you.’
Jón sighs and turns to Páll. ‘I may need some help. Pétur’s arm pains him.’
‘It is nothing.’
‘You may stay two days. You will sleep in the barn with the horses.’
‘Jón!’ Rósa cries. ‘He must stay in the croft.’
‘Do not test me, Rósa,’ Jón says.
‘Jón!’ Pétur snaps, his lips pressed into a thin line. He nurses his hand still, as though he is cradling a wounded creature.
Jón allows himself to be pulled to one side. The hiss of the men’s angry whispering thrums through the dark. Rósa hears the words injury, foolish, madness.
Páll peers at her. ‘Are you well, Rósa? You look thin.’
‘And you look dirty.’
He chuckles. ‘Skálholt has not been the same without you to insult me.’
I have missed you too, she thinks. She hadn’t known how much. It is as if she had lost all feeling in a limb and learned to ignore its awkward numbness, but now the sensation is returning: wholeness bubbles through her. She glances at Jón. She must not smile at Páll so in front of him.
‘How is your pabbi?’ she asks lightly.
‘He is well.’
‘I am surprised he could spare you.’
Even in the half-darkness, Rósa sees his eyes flinch from hers. He has not told his pabbi then, or has left Skálholt in defiance of Bjartur’s wishes. Rósa does not know whether this should make her happy or wary.
The men are still arguing, Pétur gesturing wildly.
Páll scrubs his hands through his hair. ‘I am to return to Skálholt, then.’
‘My husband is very private . . .’ She trails off. How to justify Jón’s strangeness?
A jagged breeze scoops past them. Rósa shivers and pulls her cloak more closely about her.
‘Here, take mine.’ Páll starts to untie it, but Rósa shakes her head. She judges her every movement with Jón’s scowling eyes.
Páll’s gaze is fixed on her face. She knows what he is thinking: not so long ago, he would have wrapped his arms around her to warm her. She would have leaned into his body until the shivering stopped.
He takes a step towards her, but she gives a single shake of her head; he stops, and Rósa exhales. The pain of keeping him at a distance is lessened by the exultation that he had listened to her. She has become so used to being invisible and mute.
Jón is gesticulating at Pétur, who is trying to flex his arm, but drawing sharp breaths with every attempted movement.
Jón gives a savage growl, then strides back to clap Páll on the shoulder, teeth clenched in a smile. ‘Well, Pétur is an invalid, so I need help. You will sleep in the barn?’
Páll smiles and claps Jón on the back in return. ‘A barn will be luxury after so many nights sleeping in chilly caves.’
Pétur hangs back, tight-jawed, his arm folded across his chest.
Jón gestures for Pétur to show Páll to the barn. He nods. ‘Follow me.’
Páll flashes a quick smile at Rósa and is gone.
‘Return home, Rósa,’ Jón says. ‘You are cold.’ He lays a hand on her back and pushes her towards the lonely croft on the hill.
‘I would like . . .’ she begins.
But Jón has already turned away.
She drags herself back to the smothering warmth of the empty croft and curls up on her bed.
Páll is here. Páll! She can barely believe it, has to pinch her leg to check she hasn’t dreamed it. She draws out the cold glass woman and the runestone Mamma gave her. She clutches the stone until it seems to draw the heat from her body, until it feels like a heart, throbbing with warm life.
But along with her excitement is the creeping knowledge that she must be even more careful now. Jón will be watching them.
The day after Páll arrives, Rósa wakes to find that the men have gone out on the boat early – even Pétur, with his damaged arm. She remembers how, as he had tried to flex his fingers, he had gasped, then drawn his sleeve back to reveal muscles that were oddly bunched and twisted. Surely that injury couldn’t have been caused by the brief scuffle with Páll. Pétur had looked at his arm with lip-curling loathing and, when he caught her staring, scowled.
She looks out to sea. Páll’s presence is like sudden sunlight on the horizon. Even the creaks and groans of the croft do not jolt through her like alarm calls: she climbs up to the darkness of the loft, and the rustling she hears behind the door seems, for a moment, reassuring, like an old wound that no longer pains her but reminds her that she is alive.
Rósa tries again to write a letter, but gets no further than Dear Mamma. What could she say? That Páll has arrived, and the sight of him makes her blood sing in her veins? That last night she dreamed she returned to Skálholt with him? That the scrabbling from the loft has become a familiar madness? That she feels as if she is turning into someone else, as if Anna’s ghost is filling her lungs with every breath?
She walks the hundred paces to the pit-house but, like the loft, it is locked – a bulky padlock hangs on the door: a solid iron bar with a complicated mechanism beneath. She has never seen such a thing, except on the church coffers in Skálholt where the relics were kept. Pabbi had traded the lock with a Dane.
She looks over her shoulder, draws the runestone from her pocket and smashes it against the lock, hard. It remains solid and unyielding.
She trudges further down the hill and peers out to sea. Among the scattering of islands and the broken rocks, a tiny boat bobs.
Páll. His smile. His warmth. But in two days he will return home.
The air is metallic and heavy with the threat of snow. She stares at the grey clouds, willing them to unload upon the hills, so that Páll will not be able to leave. But the clouds stay distant, cold and full.
Shoals of cod and herring skim the peninsula, and, for two days, the men row out on Jón’s boat, Pétur working one-handed. They return after dark, blue with cold, smelling of salt and fish, but triumphant. They heave the nets into the storeroom and scatter the glistening bodies as if they are spilling treasure.
She has had no chance to speak to Páll alone – as soon as she tries, either Jón or Pétur calls him away. Páll gives her an apologetic smile and leaps to do their bidding.
Jón must be pleased with Páll, because the two days pass and still her husband allows him to remain. Rósa dares not ask what Jón plans, or how long he will let Páll stay.
Jón does not invite him into the croft, and Rósa goes down to the beach more and more often, scanning the water for a sign of the boat.
On the sixth day, after she has watched them row away, Katrín trudges across the sand. She stands ten paces away.
‘Look ahead. Jón will be watching. People wonder about your guest.’
Rósa looks at Páll, sitting in the boat. He flashes a smile at her. Jón frowns and Rósa wills Páll to turn away. ‘His name is Páll,’ she mutters. ‘He’s my mother’s cousin’s son. Jón is allowing him to help.’
‘Strange,’ murmurs Katrín
. ‘Such a change in Jón . . . It will have the villagers whispering witchcraft.’
‘Jón would never believe them! And I would say . . .’
‘Hush, I was jesting.’ Katrín folds her arms and gives Rósa a measuring look. ‘But men are jealous creatures and your face is an open book. Take care Jón does not see that look.’
‘Oh.’ Rósa flushes and turns back to the sea. The boat is a dot in the distance. Overhead, frenzied birds wheel and call, eager for easy pickings.
Katrín’s eyes are creased with concern. ‘You look thin and tired. Weary people make mistakes.’
Rósa would like to confide in Páll, but she remembers Katrín’s words, about how she must be careful, how her face is easily read. So she avoids Páll’s eye, and when he speaks to her, she mutters monosyllabic responses.
He frowns in confusion, then anger.
On the seventh evening, Jón brings Páll into the kitchen and asks Rósa to feed them all. Páll behaves like a man she has never met: he laughs with the others, his easy familiarity mirroring their brusqueness.
Jón catches her watching and smiles. ‘He is a fine young man. Puts me in mind of myself ten years ago. He will go far.’
Is this why Jón is allowing him to stay? As an apprentice, of sorts?
That night, the men go back out to the barn to sleep, and Rósa sits in the kitchen, staring at the table.
Suddenly there is a figure in the doorway. Rósa jumps, then sees it is Páll.
‘Should I return to Skálholt?’
‘I . . . Why would you?’
He walks into the kitchen and stands in front of the stove. ‘You do not want me here. And I don’t wish to make you unhappy. I will leave.’ He turns to go.
‘No!’ She stands and grabs his hand, without thinking. He turns, his face suddenly a handspan from hers. ‘Please stay,’ she whispers.
‘Then you must stop glaring at me so.’
She sighs. ‘I don’t want Jón to become . . . suspicious.’
His face softens. ‘Suspicious of what?’ He moves a step closer. ‘We have done nothing.’
She nods. She dares not look up at his face, his eyes. She thinks of Katrín’s warnings. But Páll’s hand slides up her arm, over her shoulder and around the back of her neck and she cannot help leaning into him. His face is so close she can feel the heat of his breath as he exhales –
