by Caroline Lea
She made no sound, beyond the rhythm of her breath, which matched his thrusts. Her eyes were fixed and blank. At last, he would groan like a bull in pain, then collapse onto her. She would lie silent and unblinking, then ease herself from under him, tug down her skirts and return to patching his clothes.
I used to dream that I was not his child. I spent days staring across the sea, waiting for my true father to arrive – a brawny Danish trader. He would drown the drunken impostor who masqueraded as my father.
Mamma and Pabbi both died of sickness when I was fourteen summers. He killed them both – an infection from rotten fish he had stolen from another man’s net. The smell of it had turned my stomach and I had refused to eat it, as had Mamma. Pabbi cuffed both of us about the head, spat, ‘Ungrateful savage,’ then threw me from the croft. After I had gone, he forced Mamma to eat the foul-smelling flesh and, drunk as he was, ate it himself. I returned under cover of darkness. They lay in the baðstofa, groaning; the room stank like a midden.
Pabbi was sprawled on the floor, spattered with his own shit and vomit. I ignored his groans and resisted the urge to kick him as I stepped over his writhing body to go to Mamma, who was barely moving on the bed.
Her breathing was shallow, her mouth crusted with sour vomit. As I drew closer, she hunched over and retched, bringing up green, rank-smelling bile. I tried to encourage her to drink, but she brought everything back up, time and again.
Her eyes were large and frightened. She had spent her life being hurled about and pummelled by a tyrant. Nothing and no one had ever saved her, and this time would be no different.
I held her hand as her last breath grew chill against my cheek.
I felt too hollow for tears. I shut her eyes and kissed her cooling lips.
‘Jón.’ Pabbi’s voice was an agonized rasp. He held his hand out for the pitcher of water, which was just out of his reach.
I watched him dragging himself towards it, breath tearing from him.
At the last moment, just as he was about to clutch it, I kicked out and smashed it. The water sloshed onto the floor. Pabbi gave a low moan and tried to suck some moisture from where it seeped into the earth beneath him. His mouth filled with dirt and he retched.
He looked up at me, eyes burning. ‘Water.’
I watched him, paralysed by horror at my own lack of pity.
His expression changed. ‘I’ll whip you . . . until you bleed . . . you miserable wretch. Water!’
Heart pounding, I shook my head. Alongside my rattling fear was a rising euphoria. He couldn’t touch me now.
His lips curled back in a snarling rictus. ‘Should have drowned you . . . years ago . . . useless whelp –’ His words were cut off as he coughed and vomited, then collapsed, face down, into his own mess.
I couldn’t help it: I smiled. My poor dead mamma would have felt safe, if she could have seen this. Perhaps if she had known that the man who had tormented her for years was no more than a bag of rotting flesh, spitting curses, she might have smiled too.
I fetched his brennevín from the pantry and sat down. At the sight of the bottle, his eyes lit up. He licked his lips. I drank. As the clear, sour liquid loosened my thoughts, I felt the stirring of something more intoxicating than the alcohol.
For a long time, Pabbi wept, dry, hacking sobs, as he tried to struggle towards me, towards the drink. Then he fell silent, the only sign of life the snorting of his breath against the earth floor.
As darkness dropped from the sky, like a stone, even that noise quieted.
I leaned in close to his face. ‘I hope it pains you,’ I hissed.
Rósa
Stykkishólmur, October 1686
After the disappearance of the letters and the knife, Rósa creeps around the croft, avoiding Jón’s gaze. When he catches her eye, she shrinks. She feels the compression of her own spinning thoughts on every breath. Once again, she tries to write to Mamma, but she rips up the paper and burns it: reading her thoughts is like cracking open the mind of a madwoman.
The long, lonely hours while the men are on the boat are punctuated by the odd creaks and flutterings from the loft. At least when the men are in the croft they drown the noises.
The day after the knife and the letters disappear, she is standing at the door of the croft when she sees Páll walking towards her. Jón and Pétur are in the barn, but still she shakes her head and waves him away. Páll doesn’t stop until he reaches the croft and holds out the corner of his tunic, where there is a jagged hole.
She tuts. ‘You did this, with a knife. On purpose.’
‘Slander! I didn’t use a knife.’
‘But –’
‘I used a nail.’ He steps closer.
She exhales slowly, as if breathing through pain. ‘Jón will –’
Páll’s grin fades. ‘You fear him.’ His voice is suddenly hard.
‘I . . .’ She can’t bring herself to deny it.
‘Yesterday when he came to the barn you flinched, Rósa.’
‘I –’
‘Has he hurt you?’
‘No, never, it is simply . . .’
Páll narrows his eyes. ‘He has threatened you?’
‘He –’
‘If he has threatened you, I’ll kill him.’
Rósa puts her hands over her mouth. ‘No! No, you cannot.’ She imagines Páll striking her husband, imagines Jón brushing him off, like a bear cuffing a wolf about the head. Then Pétur would hold Páll down and Jón would take the knife and –
‘No! I . . . Would you . . .’
Páll looks at her, waiting.
‘If I were to leave, would you . . . You would come with me?’
‘Leave? But –’
‘Not because I am frightened of Jón, but I miss Mamma and . . .’ She trails off, helplessly, willing him to understand.
He nods slowly. ‘I would do whatever you needed me to.’ He leans into her and rests his forehead against hers for the space of two shuddering breaths, then turns to go.
Rósa watches him walk away, then stands staring at the empty space where he had been. The wind whips her hair around her face. The air scrapes over her skin with the promise of the coming ice and the winter snows that will enclose her if she does not leave soon.
Somewhere behind her, a raven caws. A single raven is a bad omen, they say.
The next morning, when she sees Gudrun by the stream, Rósa could almost weep with gratitude. The woman is rude, but even Katrín admits that she can predict the weather with uncanny accuracy.
Rósa calls a greeting and helps Gudrun to draw a bucket of water. ‘Will the snow come early this year?’
Gudrun squints at her. ‘The winds are tricksters, who can say? I smell sudden storms – not good weather for travel.’
Rósa forces her voice to remain level as she picks up Gudrun’s bucket and offers to carry it to her croft. Gudrun smiles and clutches Rósa’s arm with her bony claw as they walk down the hill. ‘Nice to see a wife of Jón’s with manners,’ Gudrun wheezes. ‘Anna would sooner have spat on me than helped me.’
‘Katrín liked her, I think,’ Rósa ventures.
‘Ha! And Katrín calls me blind! Even when Anna lost her mind, wandering the hills, gibbering like a madwoman, Katrín claimed it was a fever.’
Rósa feels a chill. ‘What did Anna say?’
Gudrun narrows her eyes. ‘Things she imagined. Better not to listen to the rantings of a lunatic. Madness is a sickness.’
Rósa nods, dry-mouthed, and when she returns to the empty croft, she can almost hear Anna whispering. Or is it a noise from the loft? Or in her own mind? She presses her hands against her skull and curls up with her back to the wall. Once the pounding in her head has ceased, she climbs the ladder and puts her lips to the door.
‘Who’s there?’ she hisses. ‘Anna?’ But there is no movement, nothing but the thud of her blood in her ears.
Even the ghosts have deserted her now.
That evening, Jón sets down hi
s spoon and asks Rósa if she has written to Mamma yet.
She flushes and shakes her head.
‘You must. Tell her how well you are.’
‘I will write soon,’ Rósa whispers.
‘Are you certain you have not written already?’ Jón stares at her for too long, and her skin crawls. As he reaches into his tunic pocket, she knows what he must have. Still, it is a shock when he spreads them out on the table: one letter after another – fifteen in all. Each filled with blots and scribbles and pools of ink where she has wept onto the paper. He opens them in turn, his large fingers tracing over her words. Doubt . . . Danger . . . Something monstrous . . . I do not trust him . . .
Her heartbeat clamours in her ears.
Jón places his hand on hers. ‘It is hard to know what to write, when you have so much to tell.’ His voice is soft, his tone silken. ‘But your mamma doesn’t need to have every detail to share with the neighbours, does she?’
Mutely, Rósa shakes her head.
He gestures towards the scraps of the Sagas. ‘You shouldn’t put yourself in . . . danger.’ Jón takes a step towards her and laces his fingers with her own. Her hand feels tiny in his. Her skin is so thin and pale, her veins blue underneath.
He squeezes her fingers. ‘Your mamma needs to know you are happy – you are happy, aren’t you, Rósa?’
She nods again.
‘Good. I took the liberty of writing to her for you, as you struggled to find the right words for her.’
Ice water trickles down her spine.
‘I sent the letter south with a trader this morning. I do not think there will be more traders for some time – I expect heavy snow. A blizzard. But I will keep you safe here.’ He embraces her and kisses the top of her head. ‘So you need not worry about what to tell your mamma. And she will spread word of your happiness to her neighbours, elskan.’
As he pulls her close, the handle of the knife in his belt presses against her stomach. She glances down. It is, unmistakably, the knife from under the bed.
Two nights later, when Pétur and Páll are out on the boat, the night is pierced by a desolate howling.
It is Jón who hears it first. He creeps from the barn into the croft and wakes Rósa, pressing a hand over her mouth. ‘Sssh!’ he hisses, his eyes wide and wild.
‘What?’
‘It sounds like a fox, except . . .’
The sound is uncanny. It is the bawl of a desperate child when the air is being crushed from its lungs.
He beckons her and she pads from the baðstofa, pulling on her shawl.
Another howl tears the darkness, as though the earth is being eviscerated. Rósa snatches up her knitting needles – a child’s imagining of a sword.
Jón clasps his knife, the blade now clean and gleaming. He is white-knuckled and grim. Rósa’s desire to run is almost overwhelming. She wishes for Páll’s presence – even Pétur’s harsh sarcasm would feel like protection. But both men are far out to sea so Rósa finds herself in the dark, alone with her knife-wielding husband. He makes her go in front of him and she keeps picturing the blade in his hand. They tread over the ground where she remembers seeing Anna’s grave. She imagines Jón carrying his wife’s body out at night and digging, then lowering it into the earth and covering it with soil.
He had told everyone she had died of a fever.
Rósa stifles a sob and forces one foot in front of the other.
They follow the screams. As they draw nearer, the noise sounds increasingly like a child being savaged. Rósa has her knitting needles pressed so hard into a palm that, days later, she will be able to trace the imprint of the wood on the whorls of her skin.
In her other hand, she grips the oil lantern, holding it high over her head, as Jón has instructed. The light wavers, no matter how she tries to steady her hand.
Behind her, she can hear the huff of Jón’s breathing. If she ran, how quickly would he catch her? She would have to drop the lantern and they would both be running through the dark. When she fell, he would be upon her.
As they near the boundary wall, they can hear rasping breaths – a demon? A spirit come to tempt them? Rósa tries not to think of the huldufólk : they will eat your heart in front of your eyes. The stories make grown men tremble.
The groaning howls are loud and high-pitched.
Rósa stops.
‘Come, Rósa.’ Jón’s voice is terse. ‘More light.’
She holds the lantern higher and the light picks out twin round mirrors of polished obsidian in the darkness.
Eyes.
A ghoul: a spirit, wailing. Rósa’s heart leaps. But no! There is the scrabble of tiny paws battering the ground, an animal’s desperate, panting panic.
‘Steady.’ Jón uses a lilting tone that calms the horses if they are skittish.
The light picks out the grey-brown coat, fading to winter-white, the delicate, vulpine face and the sharp white teeth in the snapping jaws. An Arctic fox pup, perhaps three months old. It has tried to scramble over the wall, but a rock has fallen on it, trapping its hind legs. It blinks at Rósa and she feels a clench of connection with the frantic creature. Suddenly she feels that her fate is somehow tied to that of the animal: if only she can free it, she will survive.
It throws back its head and screams, but in a voice like that of no animal Rósa has ever heard: the pain and crushing compression of the rock force its tone to the pitch of a tortured human. Rósa’s blood freezes and momentarily slews to a halt.
‘She’s a beauty,’ Jón breathes.
‘A fishing cord?’ Rósa whispers. ‘I can wind it around her muzzle so she can’t bite when you free her.’
‘That pelt will be worth a fortune.’ Jón raises the knife.
‘No!’ Without thinking, she puts her hand out, as if she is shielding her own skin and bone.
Jón grunts. ‘Step away, Rósa. The pup is suffering. And that pelt will buy a whole herd of sheep.’ He lifts the knife higher. The muscles in his arm and back are bunched. Rósa’s stomach churns as she places her hand on his shoulder.
‘But, Jón . . .’ She swallows. ‘You could – We should free her.’
He shrugs off her hand. ‘She’ll limp away and be ripped apart by ravens. This is a kindness.’
‘But . . .’ Rósa imagines the wild freedom of the open; she pictures the creature running for safety, returning to its pack.
‘The leg is broken, the chest half crushed,’ he says. ‘Better a quick death.’
The fox pup snarls, legs flailing, paws battering a frantic, helpless beat.
Jón hefts the knife and takes a breath.
Rósa steps in front of her husband, in front of the blade. The metal is cold against her throat. She swallows.
‘Move!’ Jón hisses. And is it her imagination or does he increase the pressure on the blade?
Rósa shakes her head. She can feel her pulse in her chest, in her skull, in the tips of her fingers. Any woman who defies her husband should be punished. The slightest movement from him would cut her off, like a clipped length of wool. She imagines the icy metal, the struggle for breath, the burst of her blood.
‘God’s teeth, Rósa! Move!’
‘No,’ Rósa says, her voice flat and steady, as if she is certain, as if she is unafraid. ‘I will not.’ Then she reaches out, clasps the cold knife and pushes it to one side. While Jón gapes, she creeps towards the fox, trembling hand outstretched. Elation and fear bubble through her.
The fox’s eyes are wild. It snarls and there is an acrid tang of sweat and blood and shit, summoning sharp images of the outhouse and used menstrual rags.
Rósa sinks her fingers into the dense pelt. The fur is soft and chill as meltwater. The dark eyes fix on hers. She will free it; they will both escape.
For a moment, Rósa allows herself to imagine turning and, taking Jón by surprise, snatching the knife from his hand and pressing it against his neck. She imagines how his eyes would widen, how his face would crumple, how he would beg and
beg and –
Suddenly, Jón pushes her to the ground. He straddles the fox; there is a flash of steel and he slits the animal’s throat. Hot blood splatters across Rósa’s cheeks, over her tunic and shawl. She cries out, trying to clutch the creature’s gaping throat, but Jón holds her back, one-handed. She struggles, but it is like fighting an avalanche. She collapses forward, gasping. Jón releases her and drops the knife. It is an arm’s length from her hand. It would take only a moment to seize it. But no. No. You cannot fend off a landslide with a knife.
When she can bring herself to look up again, the fox pup has slumped to the ground, lips drawn back in a rictus of snarling fear, eyes still bright, but frozen.
Jón puffs as he lifts the stones and pulls the animal free. He doesn’t look at her. ‘Help me open the stomach. We’ll keep the heart and liver. Leave the guts for the scavengers. Nothing wasted.’
Rósa silently obeys. The whiteness of her hands against the darkness of the blood and entrails is mesmerizing. Hands belonging to another woman? Crimsoning hands, capable and sure. She helps Jón to pull back the skin and draw out the long ropes of the viscera and the stomach. It is hard, slippery work, not like the tiny innards of the fish, which slide out like perfect little jellies.
When it is done, and they have scattered the bowels away from the boundary wall, they trudge home, towards the pale dawn that slices through the darkness.
Jón hefts the fox as if it is a sack of oatmeal, or an unwieldy block of peat for the fire. Its coat gleams: the beautiful rare pelt, for which Danish traders will pay a fortune. Coin that will buy more food. Coin that will keep Jón as goði. Coin that will silence any whisperings.
Rósa slouches behind, dragging the lantern, clutching the knife, trying not to look at the fox’s eyes, half open, glazed and already clouded. Trying not to imagine the clasped fist of the heart in the chest, still warm.
Jón swings the body into the barn, then strips off the skin with a tender focus, pausing occasionally to stroke the fur.
