Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

  ‘He’s sitting in the parlour.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You know, behind the curtain.’

  ‘You left him there by himself?’ Lauga’s eyes grew wide.

  Steina grimaced. ‘Please come and talk to him.’

  Lauga glared at her sister, then quickly untied her dirty apron and dropped it beside the lovage. ‘I can’t think of what goes through your head sometimes, Steina,’ she muttered, as they walked quickly towards the croft. ‘Leaving a man like Blöndal twiddling his thumbs in our badstofa.’

  ‘In the parlour.’

  ‘What difference does it make? I suppose you gave him the servants’ whey to drink, too.’

  Steina turned to her sister with a panicked expression. ‘I didn’t give him anything.’

  ‘Steina!’ Lauga broke into a little trot. ‘He’ll think us peasants!’

  Steina watched her sister pick her way through the tussocks of grass. ‘We are peasants,’ she mumbled.

  Lauga quickly washed her face and hands, and snatched a new apron from Kristín, the family’s workmaid, who had hidden herself in the kitchen at the sound of a stranger’s voice. Lauga found the District Commissioner seated at the little wooden table in the parlour, reading over a slip of paper. Expressing apologies for her sister’s discourteous reception, she offered him a plate of cold, hashed mutton, which he took gladly, albeit with a slightly injured air. She quietly stood aside as he ate, watching his fleshy lips wrap about the meat. Perhaps her Pabbi was to be promoted from District Officer to an even greater title. Perhaps he would receive a uniform, or a stipend from the Danish Crown. There might be new dresses. A new home. More servants.

  Blöndal scraped his knife across the plate.

  ‘Would you like some skyr and cream, District Commissioner?’ she asked, taking the empty dish.

  Blöndal waved his hands in front of his chest as if to decline, then paused. ‘Well, all right then. Thank you.’

  Lauga blushed and turned to fetch the soft cheese.

  ‘And I would not object to coffee,’ he called after her as she ducked her head around the curtain.

  ‘What does he want?’ Steina asked, huddling by the fire in the kitchen. ‘I can’t hear anything except you, clomping up and down the corridor.’

  Lauga shoved the dirty plate at her. ‘He hasn’t said anything yet. He wants skyr and coffee.’

  Steina exchanged looks with Kristín, who rolled her eyes. ‘We have no coffee,’ Steina said quietly.

  ‘Yes we do. I saw some in the pantry last week.’

  Steina hesitated. ‘I . . . I drank it.’

  ‘Steina! The coffee isn’t for us! We save it for occasions!’

  ‘Occasions? The Commissioner never visits.’

  ‘The District Commissioner, Steina!’

  ‘The servants are coming back from Reykjavík soon. We might have more then.’

  ‘That’s then. What are we going to do now?’ Exasperated, Lauga pushed Kristín in the direction of the pantry. ‘Skyr and cream! Hurry.’

  ‘I wanted to know what it tasted like,’ Steina offered.

  ‘It’s too late. Bring him some fresh milk instead. Bring everything in when it’s ready. Actually no, let Kristín. You look like you’ve been rolling in the dirt with the horses.’ Lauga shot a scathing look at the dung on Steina’s clothes and walked back down the corridor.

  Blöndal was waiting for her. ‘Young lady. I suppose you are wondering at my occasioning your family with a visit.’

  ‘My name is Sigurlaug. Or Lauga, if you like.’

  ‘Quite. Sigurlaug.’

  ‘Is it some business of my father’s? He is –’

  ‘Southbound, yes, I know. Your sister told me, and . . . Oh look, here she is.’

  Lauga turned and saw Steina emerging round the side of the partition, carrying the soft cheese, cream and berries in one grimy hand, and the milk in the other. Lauga gave her sister a vexed look as Steina accidentally dragged the edge of the curtain through the skyr. Fortunately the District Commissioner seemed oblivious.

  ‘Sir,’ Steina mumbled. She set the bowl and cup on the table in front of him, and then gave an awkward curtsey. ‘May it do you good.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Blöndal replied. He sniffed the skyr appraisingly, then looked up at the two sisters. He smiled thinly. ‘Who is the elder?’

  Lauga nudged Steina to prompt her, but she remained silent, gaping at the brilliant red of the man’s coat.

  ‘I am younger, District Commissioner,’ Lauga said eventually, smiling to show off her dimples. ‘By one year. Steinvör is twenty-one this month.’

  ‘Everyone calls me Steina.’

  ‘You are both very pretty,’ Blöndal said.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Lauga nudged Steina again.

  ‘Thank you,’ Steina mumbled.

  ‘Both have your father’s fair hair, though I see you have your mother’s blue eyes,’ he said, nodding at Lauga. He pushed the untouched bowl towards her and took up the milk. He sniffed it and set it down on the table again.

  ‘Please, sir, eat,’ Lauga said, motioning to the bowl.

  ‘Thank you, but I am suddenly sated.’ Blöndal reached into his coat pocket. ‘Now, I would have preferred to discuss this with the master of the house, but as District Officer Jón isn’t here and this cannot wait until his return, I see I must tell his daughters.’ He took up his sheet of paper and unfolded it upon the table for them to read.

  ‘I trust that you are familiar with the event that occurred at Illugastadir last year?’ he asked.

  Steina flinched. ‘Do you mean the murders?’

  Lauga nodded, her blue eyes wide with sudden solemnity. ‘The trial was held at your home.’

  Blöndal inclined his head. ‘Yes. The murders of Natan Ketilsson the herbalist and Pétur Jónsson. As this most unfortunate and grievous tragedy occurred within the Húnavatn District, it was my responsibility to work with the magistrate and Land Court in Reykjavík to come to some sort of arrangement regarding the persons accused.’

  Lauga picked up the paper and walked to the window to read by its light. ‘So it is all over.’

  ‘On the contrary. The three accused were last October found guilty of both murder and arson in the court of this country. The case has now proceeded to the Supreme Court in Copenhagen, Denmark. The King . . .’ and here Blöndal paused for effect ‘. . . The King himself must learn of the crime, and agree with my original sentence of execution. As you can read for yourself, they have each received a capital sentence. It is a victory for justice, as I am sure you will agree.’

  Lauga nodded absently, still reading. ‘They’re not being sent to Denmark?’

  Blöndal smiled, and swung back on the wooden chair, lifting the heels of his boots off the ground. ‘No.’

  Lauga looked up at him, puzzled. ‘Then, sir, excuse my ignorance, but where are they to be . . . ?’ Her voice trailed off.

  Blöndal scraped back his chair and rose to stand next to her at the window, ignoring Steina. He peered out through the dried sheep’s bladder that had been pulled across to serve as a pane, noticing a small vein twisted in its dull surface. He shuddered. His own house had glass windows.

  ‘They shall be executed here,’ he said finally. ‘In Iceland. In the north of Iceland, to be exact. I and the magistrate who presided at Reykjavík decided it would be . . .’ He hesitated, deliberating. ‘More economical.’

  ‘Really?’

  Blöndal frowned at Steina, who was eyeing him with suspicion. She reached over and plucked the slip of paper out of Lauga’s hand.

  ‘Yes, although I will not deny that the execution also brings with it an opportunity for our community to witness the consequences for grave misdemeanour. It requires careful handling. As you are aware, clever Sigurlaug, criminals of this stature are usually sent abroad for their punishment, where there are gaolhouses and the like. As it has been decided that the three will be executed in Iceland, in the same district in which
they undertook their crime, we are in need of some sort of custodial holding until the date and place of execution have been agreed upon.

  ‘As you well know, we have no factories, no public house in Húnavatn that we may use to accommodate prisoners.’ Blöndal turned and eased himself back into the chair. ‘This is why I decided that they should be placed on farms, homes of upright Christians, who would inspire repentance by good example, and who would benefit from the work these prisoners do as they await their judgment.’

  Blöndal leaned across the table towards Steina, who stared at him, one hand over her mouth and the other clutching the letter. ‘Icelanders,’ he continued, ‘who would be able to fulfil their duties as government officials by providing this accommodation.’

  Lauga looked at the District Commissioner in bewilderment. ‘Can’t they be placed in holdings at Reykjavík?’ she whispered.

  ‘No. There are costs.’ He waved his hand in the air.

  Steina’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re putting them here? With us? Because the court in Reykjavík wants to avoid the cost of sending them abroad?’

  ‘Steina,’ Lauga warned.

  ‘Your family will be compensated,’ Blöndal said, frowning.

  ‘What are we supposed to do? Chain them to our bedposts?’

  Blöndal slowly rose to his full height. ‘I have no choice,’ he said, his voice suddenly low and dangerous. ‘Your father’s title comes with responsibility. I’m sure he would not question me. Kornsá has too few hands to work it, and there is the issue of your family’s financial state.’ He approached Steina, looking down at her small, dirty face in the dim light. ‘Besides, Steinvör, I will not suffer you and your family to hold all three convicts. It is only one of the women.’ He placed a heavy hand upon her shoulder, ignoring the way she recoiled. ‘You’re not afraid of your own sex now, are you?’

  After Blöndal had left, Steina returned to the parlour and picked up the uneaten bowl of skyr. Cream had congealed at its rim. She shook with frustration and rage, and pressed the bowl hard into the table, biting her bottom lip. She screamed silently, willing the bowl to break, until the flood of anger passed. Then she returned to the kitchen.

  THERE ARE TIMES WHEN I wonder whether I’m not already dead. This is no life; waiting in darkness, in silence, in a room so squalid I have forgotten the smell of fresh air. The chamber pot is so full of my waste that it threatens to spill if someone does not come and empty it soon.

  When did they last come? It is all one long night now.

  In the winter it was better. In the winter the Stóra-Borg folk were as imprisoned as I; we all shared the badstofa when the snow stormed the croft. They had lamps for the waking hours, and when the oil ran out, candles to keep the darkness at bay. Then spring came and they moved me to the storeroom. They left me alone without a light and there was no means to measure the hours, no way to mark the day from night. Now I keep company with only the fetters about my wrists, the dirt floor, a dismantled loom, abandoned in the corner, an old broken handspindle.

  Perhaps it is already summer. I can hear the footsteps of servants patter along the corridor, the creak of a door as they go to and fro. Sometimes I hear the shrill, piping laughter of workmaids as they chat together outside, and I know that the weather has eased, that the wind has lost its teeth. And I close my eyes and I imagine the valley in the long days of summer, the sun warming the bones of the earth until the swans flock to the lake, and the clouds lifting to reveal the height of the sky: bright, bright blue, so bright you could weep.

  THREE DAYS AFTER BJÖRN BLÖNDAL visited the daughters of Kornsá, their father, the District Officer of Vatnsdalur, Jón Jónsson, and his wife Margrét, set out for home.

  Jón, a slightly stooped, wiry man of fifty-five winters, with snow-blond hair and large ears that made him appear simple-minded, walked in front of their horse, leading it by the reins and stepping over the uneven ground with practised ease. His wife, sitting atop their black mare, was wearied by their journey, although she would not have admitted it. She sat with her chin slightly raised, her head propped up by a thin, tremulous neck. The glance of her hooded eyes skipped from farm to farm as they passed the small homesteads of the Vatnsdalur valley, closing only when she suffered fits of coughing. When these subsided she would lean over the horse to spit, then wipe her mouth with a corner of her shawl, muttering a short prayer. Her husband occasionally inclined his head towards her when she did so, as if vaguely concerned she might topple off the horse, but otherwise they continued travelling uninterrupted.

  Margrét, having just exhausted herself with another racking bark, spat onto the grass and pressed her palms against her chest until she got her breath back. Her voice, when she spoke, was hoarse.

  ‘See now, Jón, the folks of Ás have another cow.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Her husband was lost in his thoughts.

  ‘I said,’ Margrét remarked, clearing her throat, ‘the folks of Ás have another cow.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t notice it yourself.’

  ‘Right.’

  Margrét blinked against the dusty light, and made out the vague shape of the Kornsá croft in the distance ahead.

  ‘Nearly home.’

  Her husband grunted his agreement.

  ‘Makes you think, doesn’t it, Jón? We could do with another cow.’

  ‘We could do with many more things.’

  ‘Another cow would be nice though. The extra butter. We could afford another hand for harvest.’

  ‘In good time, Margrét, love.’

  ‘In good time I’ll be dead.’

  The words came out more bitterly than she intended. Jón didn’t reply, only murmured to their horse to urge it onwards, and Margrét frowned at the back of his riding hat, willing him to turn around. When he kept plodding onwards, she took a deep breath and again peered towards Kornsá.

  It was late afternoon and the light was fading across the hayfields, eased out of the sky by low clouds gathering in the east. Patches of old snow upon the mountain ridge looked by turns dull and grey, and then, as the clouds shifted, a startling white. Summer birds darted across the hayfields to catch the insects that quavered above them and the querulous bleats of sheep could be heard, as young boys drove them down the valley towards the farmsteads.

  At Kornsá, Lauga and Steina stepped out of the croft to collect water from the mountain stream, Lauga rubbing her eyes in the sunlight and Steina absently swinging her bucket against her side in time with her step. They were not speaking.

  The two sisters had worked the past few days in complete silence, only addressing one another to request the spade, or to ask which barrel of salted cod ought to be opened first. The silence, which began after a row following the District Commissioner’s visit, had been streaked with anger and anxiety. The effort of speaking as little to each other as possible had exhausted them both. Lauga, frustrated by her elder sister’s stubbornness and awkwardness, could not stop thinking of what her parents would say about Blöndal’s visit. Steina’s ungracious reaction to the news delivered by Blöndal could affect their social standing. Björn Blöndal was a powerful man, and would not like to be challenged by a stripling of a girl. Didn’t Steina know how much their family relied on Blöndal? How they would only be doing their duty?

  Steina was trying to avoid thinking about the murderess at all. The crime itself made her feel sick, and remembering the callous manner in which the Commissioner had forced the criminal upon them made her throat seize up with fury. Lauga was the youngest, she should not be the one telling her what she should and should not do. How was she to know the ins and outs of social niceties one was obliged to perform for fat men in red jackets? No. It was better to not think of it at all.

  Steina let the weight of her bucket pull her shoulder down and gave a great yawn. Beside her, Lauga couldn’t help but yawn too, and for a brief moment they caught each other’s eye and an understanding of shared fatigue passed bet
ween them, until Lauga’s curt reminder to cover her mouth made Steina glower and glare at the ground.

  The gentle beams of afternoon light were warm on their faces as they moved towards the stream. There was no wind, and the valley was so still that the two women began to walk more slowly to keep with the pause in the air. They were nearing the rocky outcrop surrounding the brook when Lauga, twisting around to pull her skirt off a thorn bush, noticed a horse in the distance.

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped.

  Steina turned. ‘What is it now?’

  Lauga nodded in the direction of the horse. ‘It’s Mamma and Pabbi,’ she said breathlessly. ‘They’ve returned.’ She squinted through the haze of sunlight across the fields. ‘Yes, it’s them,’ she said, as if to herself. Suddenly agitated, Lauga pushed her bucket at Steina and motioned for her to continue walking towards the stream. ‘Fill these. You can manage both, can’t you? It’s better if I . . . I’ll go. To light the fire.’ She shoved Steina on the shoulder, harder than she intended, then turned on her heel.

  The brambles along the path caught at Lauga’s stockings as she rushed back to the croft, overcome with relief. Now Pabbi could deal with the District Commissioner and Agnes Magnúsdóttir.

  Pushing open the door to the farmhouse, Lauga made her way down the corridor and turned left into the kitchen. In the absence of her mistress, Kristín had taken the afternoon off to visit her family, but the hearth was still smoking from that morning’s fire. Lauga quickly heaped it with dried dung, almost suffocating the flames that crept up in her rush. How would her father react to news of the District Commissioner’s visit? How long would the prisoner be kept at Kornsá? She didn’t even have the letter he had shown her; Steina had thrown it on the fire during their quarrel.

  Still, Lauga thought, placing a pot on a hook above the flames, once Pabbi knew, he would take charge.

  She stoked the hearth with a little air from the bellows, and then quickly trotted down the corridor to poke her head outside the door. Another thrill of panic ran down her spine. What would he do? She ducked her head back inside and went into the pantry to gather what she could for a broth. There was only a little barley left. They were still waiting for the farmhands to return from the merchants in the south.