Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

  ‘Shush now, Gudrún. That’s just a story.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Tóti asked.

  Dagga shifted the crying toddler onto her other hip. ‘You’ve not heard it?’

  Tóti shook his head. ‘No, I’ve been at school in the south. At Bessastadir.’

  Dagga raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, it’s just something folks say around the valley. There’s people here who claim that Natan Ketilsson’s mother had foresight – she dreamt things and they’d come to pass, see. Now, when she was pregnant with Natan she dreamt that a man came to her and told her she would have a boy. The dream man asked if she’d name the boy after him, and when she agreed, the man told her his name was Satan.’

  ‘She took fright,’ Gudrún interrupted, frowning. ‘The priest changed it to Natan, and they thought that was decent. But we all knew that boy would never come to any good. He was a twin, but his brother never saw God’s light – one for above, and one for below.’ She slowly swivelled on the bed and brought her face close to Tóti’s. ‘He was never without money,’ she whispered. ‘He dealt with the Devil.’

  ‘Or he was just a nimble-fingered herbalist, and the money came from charging a king’s ransom,’ Dagga suggested cheerfully. ‘As I said, it’s just something people say.’

  Tóti nodded.

  ‘Anyway, what brings you to Vatnsdalur, Reverend?’

  ‘I’m Agnes Magnúsdóttir’s priest.’

  Dagga’s smile dropped from her face. ‘I heard she’d been brought to Kornsá.’

  ‘Yes.’ Tóti saw the two servant women exchange glances. Next to him Gudrún gave a hacking cough. He felt flecks of spittle land on his neck.

  ‘The trial was held at Hvammur,’ Dagga continued.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s from this valley, you know.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here,’ Tóti said. ‘At Undirfell, I mean. I want to learn a little of her life from the ministerial book.’

  The woman’s expression soured. ‘I could tell you a little of her life.’ She hesitated, and then ordered the servants to take the children outside, waiting until they had left the room before speaking again. ‘She always had it in her,’ Dagga said in a low voice, casting a careful eye at Gudrún, who had slumped against the wall and seemed to be dozing off.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tóti asked.

  The woman pulled a face and leaned in closer. ‘I hate to say it, but Agnes Magnúsdóttir never cared about anyone but herself, Reverend. She was always fixed on bettering herself. Wanted to get on above her station.’

  ‘She was poor?’

  ‘Bastard pauper with a conniving spirit like you’d never see in a proper maid.’

  Tóti winced at the woman’s words. ‘You weren’t friendly.’

  Dagga laughed. ‘No, not quite. Agnes was a different kind.’

  ‘And what kind is that?’

  Dagga hesitated. ‘There’s some folk who are contented with their lot and those they have for company, Reverend, and thank God for them too. But not her.’

  ‘But you know her?’

  The woman shifted her whimpering child onto her other hip. ‘Never shared a badstofa, but know of her, Reverend. Know her as folks know everyone in this valley. There used to be a poem about her in these parts, when she was younger. Folks were fond of her then, and called her Búrfell-Agnes. But she bittered as she grew older. Couldn’t keep a man, something about her. Couldn’t settle. This valley is small and she had a reputation for a sharp tongue and loose skirts.’

  Someone cleared his throat in the doorway. The farmer had returned with another man, who was yawning and scratching at the stubble on his neck.

  ‘Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson, please meet Reverend Pétur Bjarnason.’

  Undirfell church was a small house of worship with no more than six pews and only standing room at the back. Not large enough for all the farmers of the valley, thought Tóti, as Reverend Pétur absently pushed a pair of wire-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Ah, here’s the key.’ The priest bent down to a chest by the altar and began to struggle with the lock. ‘Now, you said you were staying at Kornsá?’

  ‘No, just visiting,’ Tóti said.

  ‘Better you than me, I suppose. How is the family there?’

  ‘I don’t know them well.’

  ‘No, I meant, how are they taking it – having the murderess?’

  Tóti thought of Margrét’s spiteful words the night Agnes arrived from Stóra-Borg. ‘A little upset, perhaps.’

  ‘They’ll do their duty. A pleasant enough family. The younger daughter is quite a beauty. Those dimples. Conscientious and smart as a whip.’

  ‘Lauga, isn’t it?’

  ‘Quite. Runs circles around her sister.’ The priest heaved a large leather-bound book onto the altar. ‘Here we are. Now, how old is she, my boy?’

  Tóti stiffened with displeasure at being called a boy. ‘I’m not sure. More than thirty years, I’d guess. You don’t know her?’

  The priest sniffed. ‘I’ve only been here one winter myself.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I was hoping to learn something of her character from you.’

  The priest scoffed. ‘Surely Natan Ketilsson’s dead body is a fair indication of her character.’

  ‘Perhaps. But I’d like to know a little of her life before the incident at Illugastadir.’

  Reverend Pétur Bjarnason looked down his nose at Tóti. ‘You’re awfully young to be her priest.’

  Tóti blushed. ‘She requested me.’

  ‘Well, if there’s anything worth knowing about her character it will be in the ministerial book.’ Reverend Pétur carefully turned the yellow pages of scrawled handwriting. ‘Here she is. 1795. Born to an Ingveldur Rafnsdóttir and Magnús Magnússon at the farm of Flaga. Unmarried. Illegitimate child. Born October 27th, and named the next day. What else did you want to know?’

  ‘Her parents were unmarried?’

  ‘That’s what’s written here. Says “the father lives at Stóridalur. Nothing else noteworthy.” Now, what else do you want? Shall we look up her confirmation? It’s in here. District Commissioner Blöndal had me write out the details for him a few months ago.’ The priest sniffed and pushed his glasses back up his nose. ‘Here’s the notice. You can read it for yourself.’ He stepped out of the way to let Tóti lean closer to the page.

  ‘The 22nd of May, 1809,’ read Tóti, aloud. ‘Confirmed at fourteen with . . .’ He paused to count. ‘Five others. But she would have been thirteen.’

  ‘What’s that?’ The priest turned from where he had been looking out the window.

  ‘It says she was fourteen. But in May she would have been thirteen.’

  The priest shrugged. ‘Thirteen, fourteen. What does it matter?’

  Tóti shook his head. ‘Nothing. Here, what does this say?’

  The priest leaned over the book. Tóti caught a whiff of his breath. It smelt of brandy and fish.

  ‘Let’s see here. Three of these children – Grímur, Sveinbjörn and Agnes – have learnt all of the Kverið. Then, it goes on. You know, the usual comments.’

  ‘She did well?’

  ‘Says she had “an excellent intellect, and strong knowledge and understanding of Christianity”. Shame she didn’t end up following its teachings.’

  Tóti ignored the last comment. ‘An excellent intellect,’ he repeated.

  ‘That’s what it says. Now, Reverend Thorvardur. Would you like to keep us out here in the cold looking up family trees for a while longer, or shall we return to Haukur’s pretty little wife for some breakfast victuals and coffee, if any can be found?’

  ‘REVEREND TÓTI!’ MARGRÉT OPENED THE door not three seconds after the young man had rapped smartly on its surface. ‘Nice of you to visit. We thought you might have gone back south. Come in.’ She coughed and pushed the door open wider, and Tóti noticed that she was balancing a heavy sack on her hip.

  ‘Here,’ he offered, ‘let me take that
for you.’

  ‘Don’t fuss, don’t fuss,’ Margrét croaked, beckoning him down the corridor. ‘I’m perfectly capable. The workhands have returned from Reykjavík.’ She turned around to him with a thin smile.

  ‘I see,’ Tóti replied. ‘From the merchants.’

  Margrét nodded. ‘Not too bad. No weevils in the flour, not like last year. Salt, and sugar, too.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘You’ve coffee?’ Tóti was surprised.

  ‘We sold all the woollen stuffs and some cured meat. Jón’s out sharpening the scythes for harvest. Care for ten drops?’ She directed him into the badstofa and pulled the curtain aside for him to step into the parlour. ‘Wait here,’ she said, hobbling out, the sack still on her hip.

  Tóti sat down on the chair and began tracing his fingers along the grain in the wood of the table. He could hear Margrét break into a fit of coughing in the kitchen.

  ‘Reverend Tóti?’ a voice murmured from the other side of the curtain. Tóti got up and gingerly tugged the curtain across. Agnes peered around the gap and gave him a nod.

  ‘Agnes. How are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just needed to get . . .’ She gestured towards a spool of wool that lay on the other chair in the room. Tóti stepped aside and lifted the curtain for her to enter.

  ‘Stay, please,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to see you.’

  Agnes picked up the spool. ‘Margrét has asked me to –’

  ‘Please. Sit, Agnes.’ She obeyed, and sat down on the very edge of the chair.

  ‘Here we are!’ Margrét walked briskly back into the room bearing a tray of coffee and a plate with butter and rye bread. She suddenly noticed Agnes in the parlour.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind sparing Agnes for a moment,’ Tóti said, standing up. ‘Only I’ve come to speak with her.’ Margrét stared at him. ‘Blöndal’s orders,’ he joked, giving a weak smile.

  Margrét pressed her lips together and nodded. ‘Do as you like with her, Reverend Tóti. Take her off my hands.’ She set the tray down on the table with a clunk and then turned and ripped the curtain across. Agnes and Tóti listened to her footsteps thump down the earthen floor of the corridor. A door slammed.

  ‘Well, then.’ Tóti sat down at the table and made a face at Agnes. ‘Would you care for some coffee? There’s only one cup, but I’m sure . . .’ Agnes shook her head. ‘Please have the bread, then. I’ve just paid a visit to Undirfell and the housewife there stuffed me with skyr.’ He pushed the plate over to Agnes and then poured himself a cup of coffee, shaking a little sugar into it from the stoppered bottle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Agnes tear off some bread and slip it into her mouth. He smiled.

  ‘It appears the servants did well with their master’s trading in Reykjavík.’ Tóti felt the hot coffee scald his tongue as he sipped it. His immediate reaction was to spit it out, but he was aware of Agnes’s pale eyes watching him and forced the boiling liquid down his throat, choking a little.

  ‘How do you like it here, Agnes?’

  Agnes swallowed her bread and stared at him. Her face had filled out slightly, and the bruise on her neck had faded almost entirely.

  ‘You look well.’

  ‘They feed me better than at Stóra-Borg.’

  ‘And you get along with the family?’

  She hesitated. ‘They tolerate me.’

  ‘What do you think of Jón, the District Officer?’

  ‘He refuses to speak to me.’

  ‘And the daughters?’

  Agnes said nothing, and Tóti continued. ‘Lauga seems to be quite the favourite of the Reverend at Undirfell. He says she is supremely intelligent for a woman.’

  ‘And her sister?’

  Tóti took another sip of coffee, then paused. ‘She’s a good girl.’

  ‘A good girl,’ Agnes repeated.

  ‘Yes. Have some more food.’

  Agnes picked up the rest of the bread. She ate quickly, keeping her fingers close to her mouth and sucking them clean of butter when she finished. Tóti couldn’t help but notice the greasy pink of her lips.

  He forced his eyes to the coffee cup in front of him. ‘I suppose you are wondering why I have returned.’

  Agnes used her thumbnail to dig a crumb out of her teeth and was silent.

  ‘You called me a child,’ Tóti said.

  ‘I offended you.’ She seemed disinterested.

  ‘I wasn’t offended,’ Tóti said, lying. ‘But you’re wrong, Agnes. Yes, I’m a young man, but I have spent three long years at the school of Bessastadir in the south, I speak Latin and Greek and Danish, and God has chosen me to shepherd you to redemption.’

  Agnes looked at him, unblinking. ‘No. I chose you, Reverend.’

  ‘Then let me help you!’

  The woman was silent for a moment. She continued picking at her teeth and then wiped her hands on her apron. ‘If you are going to talk to me, talk in a common way. The Reverend at Stóra-Borg spoke like he was the Bishop himself. He expected me to weep at his feet. He wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘What did you want him to listen to?’

  Agnes shook her head. ‘Every time I said something they would change my words and throw it back to me like an insult, or an accusation.’

  Tóti nodded. ‘You would like me to speak to you in an ordinary way. And perhaps you would like me to listen to you?’

  Agnes regarded him carefully, leaning forward in her chair so that Tóti suddenly noticed the curious colour of her eyes. The blue irises were as lightly coloured as ice, with ashy flecks about the pupil, but were contained by a thin circle of black.

  ‘What do you want to hear?’ she asked.

  Tóti sat back in his chair. ‘I spent this morning at the church of Undirfell. I went there to look for you in the ministerial book. You said you were from this valley.’

  ‘Was I in there?’

  ‘I found the record of your birth and confirmation.’

  ‘So now you know how old I am.’ She gave a cold smile.

  ‘Perhaps you might tell me a little more of your history. Of your family.’

  Agnes took a deep breath and began to wind the wool from the spool slowly about her fingers. ‘I have no family.’

  ‘That’s impossible.’

  She drew the wool tightly about her knuckles and the tips of her fingers grew darker from the trapped blood. ‘You might have seen their names in that book of yours, Reverend, but I may as well have been listed as an orphan.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  There was a cough from outside the curtain, and a pair of fish-skin shoes could be seen shuffling under its hem.

  ‘Come in,’ Tóti announced. Agnes quickly unwound the wool from her fingers as the curtain was drawn to one side and Steina’s freckled face peeped through.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Reverend, but Mamma’s asking for her.’ She hastily gestured towards Agnes, who began to rise out of her chair.

  ‘We are talking,’ Tóti said.

  ‘Sorry, Reverend. It’s the harvest. I mean, it’s high July, so it’s haymaking today and onwards. Well, at least while the sun holds.’

  ‘Steina, I’ve come all this –’

  Agnes put a hand lightly on his shoulder and gave him a hard look that silenced him. He stared at her hand, her long, pale fingers, the pinking blister on her thumb. Noting his gaze, Agnes removed her hand as swiftly as she had placed it there. ‘Come again tomorrow, Reverend. If you care to. We can talk as the dew dries from the hay.’

  PERHAPS IT IS A SHAME that I have vowed to keep my past locked up within me. At Hvammur, during the trial, they plucked at my words like birds. Dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush. They did not let me say what happened in my own way, but took my memories of Illugastadir, of Natan, and wrought them into something sinister; they wrested my statement of that night and mad
e me seem malevolent. Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own.

  I thought they might believe me. When they beat the drum in that tiny room and Blöndal announced ‘Guilty’, the only thing I could think of was, if you move, you will crumble. If you breathe, you will collapse. They want to disappear you.

  After the trial, the priest from Tjörn told me that I would burn if I did not cast my mind back over the sin of my life and pray for forgiveness. As though prayer could simply pluck sin out. But any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel.

  Natan did not believe in sin. He said that it is the flaw in the character that makes a person. Even nature defies her own rules for the sake of beauty, he said. For the sake of creation. To keep her own blood hot. You understand, Agnes.

  He told me this after the two-headed lamb was born at Stapar. One of the servants had run to Illugastadir to tell of it, but by the time Natan and I arrived the lamb was dead. The farmer had killed it on sight because he thought it cursed. Natan asked to take the body so that he might dissect it and learn how it had been formed, but as he unburied the lamb, one of the women walked up to him and spat: ‘Let the Devil take care of his own.’ I watched as he laughed in her face.

  We carried the strange thing to his workshop, and, covered with blood and dirt and sickened to the heart, I left Natan alone to butcher it. Sigga and I did not eat the scraps of meat he cut from it, and although he called us ungrateful, although he reminded us of the number of coins he’d exchanged for the twisted corpse, his appetite was not great either. We left the meat for fox bait. The twinned skull he kept in his workshop, the bone the colour of new cream.

  I wonder if the Reverend sees me like that lamb. A curiosity. Cursed. How do men ever see women like me?

  But the priest is hardly like a man at all. He is as fragile as a child without the bluster and idiocy of youth. I had remembered him as taller than he is. I hardly know what to think of him.

  Perhaps he is merely a gifted liar. God knows I have met enough men to know that once weaned off the breast they begin to lie through their teeth.