by Hannah Kent
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said eventually.
‘Not much, mind you,’ Margrét added.
‘No, I’m not worth much,’ Agnes remarked bitterly. Margrét glanced at her. She sipped her milk, feeling the hot liquid fill her stomach and begin to spread its warmth through her body.
‘The Reverend has not come recently,’ Margrét said, changing the subject.
‘No.’ Agnes’s face was still puffy from sleep, and the older woman suddenly felt an impulse to put an arm around her. It is because she looks like a child, Margrét thought. She tightened her hands about her cup.
‘I didn’t mean to wake you before,’ Agnes said.
Margrét shrugged. ‘I often wake at night. When my girls were small I used to wake to check that they were still breathing.’
‘Is that why you’re awake now?’
Margrét looked at Agnes sharply. ‘No. That’s not it at all.’
‘I’m sorry you have been afraid for them,’ Agnes said. ‘With me here, I mean.’
‘A mother is always afraid for her children,’ Margrét said.
‘I’ve never been a mother.’
‘No, but you have one.’
Agnes shook her head. ‘My mother left me when I was small. I haven’t had a mother since.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Margrét said eventually. ‘Wherever she is, she thinks of you.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Margrét paused. ‘A mother always thinks of her children,’ she repeated. ‘Your mother, Fridrik’s mother, Sigga’s mother. All mothers.’
‘Sigga’s mother is dead,’ Agnes said bluntly. ‘And Fridrik’s mother is going to be sent to Copenhagen.’
‘Why?’
Agnes glanced cautiously at Margrét. ‘Thórbjörg had an inkling of what Fridrik planned. She knew about some sheep Fridrik stole. She lied to the courtroom.’
‘I see,’ Margrét said. She took another sip of milk.
‘Thórbjörg saved my life,’ Agnes added after a moment’s pause. ‘She found me on her doorstep after Natan threw me out. I would have died had she not brought me inside and let me stay there.’
Margrét nodded. ‘No one is all bad.’
‘When Thórbjörg was young and a servant, she set fire to her mistress’s bed and killed her master’s dog with an axe. They brought it up in the trial.’
‘Good Lord.’
‘It did not help my case,’ Agnes said quickly. ‘She said we were friends. She told them Natan and I had fought, and that I had sought her advice.’
‘But you hadn’t?’
‘She never told me to burn down Illugastadir, as they claimed. I never went to Katadalur to ask for Thórbjörg’s assistance or to conspire with Fridrik. They made it seem that I had gone to Katadalur on purpose. To plan murder.’ Agnes sipped her milk, spluttering as she swallowed. ‘I went to Katadalur because Natan would not let me stay at Illugastadir and I had nowhere else to go.’
Margrét was silent. She stared into the fire and imagined Agnes creeping about Kornsá at night, lighting a torch in the kitchen and setting the farm ablaze while they slept. Would she smell the smoke and wake?
‘It was Fridrik who burned Illugastadir down, wasn’t it, Agnes?’ Margrét tried to keep the concern from her voice.
‘At the trial I said that the fire spread from the kitchen,’ Agnes said firmly. ‘I said that Natan had set a pot of herbs to boil. It spread from there.’
Margrét said nothing for a moment. ‘I heard it was Fridrik.’
‘It wasn’t,’ Agnes said.
Margrét coughed again, and spat into the fire. The moisture bubbled upon the live embers. ‘If you are protecting your friend –’
‘Fridrik is not my friend!’ Agnes interrupted. She shook her head and set her milk on the ground. ‘He’s not my friend.’
‘I thought you two spent a deal of time together,’ Margrét explained.
Agnes frowned at her, and then returned her gaze to the hearth. ‘No. But at Illugastadir . . .’ Agnes sighed. ‘Natan was not often home. Loneliness . . .’ She struggled for words. ‘Loneliness threatened to bite you at every turn. I took what company presented itself.’
‘So Fridrik would visit Illugastadir.’
Agnes nodded. ‘It’s not far from Katadalur. Fridrik had a little romance with Sigga.’
‘I have heard of Sigga.’ Margrét got up to set some more dung on the fire.
‘People are fond of her. She’s pretty.’
‘And simple, I have heard.’
Agnes looked at Margrét carefully. ‘Yes, well, Fridrik thought otherwise. When Natan was away Fridrik would come from Katadalur on some small errand, or carrying some false message from his parents or the priest, and then he’d feign thirst or hunger. Sigga would fetch a sup of milk or a bite to eat, and they’d laugh and chatter, and by autumn it was not unusual for me to find them sitting together on Sigga’s bed, cooing over each other like birds.’
‘It’s hard to be alone in winter,’ Margrét agreed.
Agnes nodded. ‘It was worse at Illugastadir. It wasn’t like it is here, in the valley. The days crept along as weary as they come, and I had no friends or neighbours. Only Sigga, and Daníel – the manservant Natan hired from Geitaskard – and sometimes Fridrik.’
‘The dark can make a body lonely,’ Margrét said thoughtfully. ‘It’s not good for people to be kept too much to themselves.’ She offered Agnes more milk.
‘Natan never liked winter. He went his whole life without getting used to the darkness.’
‘I wonder at him buying Illugastadir then, and not some other farm where folks might keep a body company.’
‘He went away a lot,’ Agnes conceded. ‘To Geitaskard, mainly. He said it was for work, but I think it was to be with friends. Or to avoid me,’ she added. ‘It would have been better if he was home. We needed him there. But each month he seemed to stay away for longer and longer at a time, and when he did come back he wasn’t pleased to see us. He didn’t even seem happy to see Thóranna, his daughter. He left her with us.’
‘I suppose it was hard-hearted of him to begrudge you a visitor, with you three so lonesome and penned up amongst yourselves.’
Agnes gave a thin smile. ‘His problem was perhaps not the fact of a visitor, but the fact of it being Fridrik.’
‘I see.’
‘Fridrik and Natan had a fraught friendship at the best of times. They were always suspicious of each other. And then they had a fight. It was when the whale was beached at Hindisvík, that autumn.’
‘I remember. We bought some whale oil from folk up north of the valley. They went to get what they could.’
‘It was a stroke of luck for us. It rained a lot that harvest and we were worried the hay would rot or burst into flames, and we’d find all our animals dead and ourselves no more than skeletons come spring. Natan was home when he heard of the whale, and went to go buy some meat from the family who owned that part of the shoreline.
‘Natan was gone all day and didn’t come home till evening. When I met him at the door he was covered in mud. It was in his hair, on his face; there wasn’t a clean patch on his clothes. When I asked him what had happened, Natan told me that he had been slicing his share from the whale, already bought and paid for, when Fridrik appeared and began to help himself. When Natan told Fridrik to get a knife and pay for his own, Fridrik shoved him to the ground and attacked him. Later, the family at Stapar, the farm next to Illugastadir, told me a different story. They said that Natan had shouted at Fridrik and pushed him in the back, and Fridrik had swung at him, knocking Natan to the ground. Fridrik then beat him, and dragged Natan in the mud. But at the time all I knew was that Natan had come back home in a mess, and a mood to match.’
‘How unpleasant for you,’ Margrét murmured.
Agnes shook her head. ‘It was worse for Sigga. When I was pickling the whale meat I could hear Natan washing in front of the fire, and Sigga trying to soothe him. Natan was shouting that Fridri
k was crazy, that he’d kill someone before he turned twenty. Fridrik was Sigga’s sweetheart and she took it badly. Of course, she didn’t dare say anything to Natan, but when we had gone to bed later that night I heard her crying.’
Margrét didn’t say anything. She badly wanted to look at Agnes, but she thought that if she turned in her direction, she would stop talking and things would be as before. She chose her next words carefully.
‘It must have been hard for you at Illugastadir.’
‘It grew worse after the whale. Natan spent less and less time at home. When he did come back he spent hours telling Sigga and me that he was not paying us to be idle. He found fault with everything we did. The butter was too wet, the badstofa was dirty, someone had been in his workshop and upset his vials. No matter that neither of us dared go inside his workshop when he wasn’t there. The wind would stir some object of his, or the yard would be disturbed after one of us had hauled driftwood up to the house, and he’d think that we’d been digging holes, trying to find his money. Neither one of us even knew he buried it out there until he said that.
‘Then everything took another turn for the worse. Natan met Fridrik coming from Illugastadir on his return from the south. At first they seemed civil enough, but Sigga, Daníel and I soon heard them shouting at each other across the pass. Natan was threatening blows and the District Commissioner should Fridrik ever step foot on his farm. They went on for some time, before Fridrik left and went home.
‘Natan was raging that night. He dragged Sigga outside and I could hear him accusing her of betraying his trust, of lying to him. He threatened to throw her to the winds, and I could hear Sigga pleading with him. She had nowhere to go. No one would hire a servant at this time of year. It was snowing, she would die from cold. Eventually Natan lowered his voice, and I could not hear what he was saying. Neither of them returned indoors for over an hour, but when they did come inside Sigga’s eyes were red, and she went straight to bed. Then Natan ordered me to get up and follow him.
‘It was as black as pitch. He walked me down to the sea’s edge, and told me that Fridrik had asked him for permission to marry Sigga. He said that he had known Sigga had been carrying on with Fridrik behind his back, but he did not think it would lead to this. He thought it had been an idle flirtation.
‘When I told Natan that I thought it was a harmless sentiment between two innocents, he laughed, and said that neither of them were what he would call innocent. Then he reached into his pocket and showed me three silver coins, and said the boy had offered him money for his permission to marry Sigga. I asked him why he had taken the money if he seemed so set against it, and Natan laughed and said that only a fool refuses money freely offered. Then he asked me why I’d let Sigga and Fridrik carry on when I knew he didn’t want the boy on his property in his absence. I told him that I didn’t like Fridrik, but that I was used to farms full of servants and folk about the place, and the days at Illugastadir were the longest I had ever known.’
Agnes took a final draught of her milk and threw the dregs on the fire. Margrét flinched at the hiss.
‘I won’t sleep again now,’ Agnes said.
Margrét nodded. ‘No, I don’t suppose I will either.’ She hesitated. ‘I didn’t know that Fridrik and Sigga were wedded.’
Agnes gave a short laugh. ‘They never married,’ she said. ‘Although Fridrik did offer her his hand. He came back the very next day. Natan had gone to Geitaskard. Sigga was in a sulk, and slipping about the place like a shadow, and when I cornered her in the kitchen and asked her what Natan had said the night before, she burst into tears and wouldn’t say a word. I asked her if she’d told Natan she loved Fridrik and she shook her head. Then I told her about Fridrik’s money, how he had paid Natan for her hand in marriage, and this shocked her out of her tears. She gaped at me and mumbled that she couldn’t believe Natan had agreed. He had said she ought not to marry such a man. She was too young, and besides, she was his servant and would remain so until he saw fit to let her go.
‘Daníel saw Fridrik coming that day and told him that he was better off turning tail if he cared to see summer, but Fridrik ignored him and asked me where Sigga was. I hadn’t the stomach to follow him indoors and see what passed, so I went down to the shore and waited. And sure enough, Fridrik came out holding Sigga’s hand, and told me and Daníel that they were engaged to be wed.’
‘What did you do?’ Margrét asked.
Agnes sighed. ‘What was there to do? I trudged up the slope and poured us all a capful of brandy. Fridrik was beaming, but Sigga was anxious. After a few nips Daníel began to sing songs to the couple and I slipped outside for some fresh air and walked down to the ocean.’
The fire crackled before them. A clump of burning dung broke apart and sent a flurry of sparks towards the rafters.
Eventually Agnes spoke again. ‘Do you ever visit the sea?’
Margrét shook her head and huddled into her shawl. ‘When I was younger I spent some time working by it. Around Langidalur.’
‘The sea is different up around Vatnsnes. Sometimes the water in the fjord is like a looking glass. Something you want to run your tongue across. “As glazed as a dead man’s eye,” as Natan used to say.’ She shifted closer to the fire. ‘One time I saw two icebergs grinding against each other. The wind had blown them together. When they came closer I saw that both boulders had gathered driftwood upon their shelves, and after some time I heard a terrible cracking and saw the driftwood erupt into flames.’
‘It sounds like something out of the sagas,’ Margrét remarked.
‘It was eerie,’ Agnes agreed. ‘I couldn’t help but watch. Even when night fell I could still see small flames burning out to sea.’
For a few moments the two women gazed at the fire. The flames were now dying in a red glow that spread over the women’s faces. Outside a low moan signalled the onset of more winter winds.
AFTER FRIDRIK PROPOSED TO SIGGA it snowed hard enough to bury a highwayman. There was no riding home for Fridrik, and I made him bunk with Daníel. The brandy slipped them into sleep like a shoehorn.
I remained wakeful. Thoughts of Natan and Sigga wormed through my brain, interrupting my dreams. I knew why Natan hated Fridrik. It wasn’t because the boy had taken a shine to his wealth and valuables, although that was part of it. No, it was because of Sigga. I decided that he wanted Sigga as much as he didn’t want me.
I must have eventually fallen into an uneasy sleep. The badstofa was empty when I woke, and the snow had finally stopped falling. The world outside was white, except for the oily grey of the ocean. There was a noise out by the home field, and when I went out to see what it was, I saw Fridrik kicking a dead sheep. His aggression made my stomach turn.
‘What are you doing?’ My voice rang out clear and strong in the still air. Fridrik didn’t hear me. He kept kicking, grunting. His boots sent up a spray of bloody snow.
‘Fridrik!’ I called again. ‘What are you doing?’
He stopped and turned around. I saw him rub his face on his sleeve and he began to haul his boots through the heavy drifts towards me. As he came closer I saw that he was in a mood.
‘Hello, Agnes,’ he said, breathing heavily.
‘Why are you kicking that animal?’
Fridrik was panting. His breath issued from his mouth in a puff of fog. ‘It was already dead.’
‘But why were you kicking it?’
‘What does it matter?’ Fridrik squinted up at the heavy sky. ‘More snow’s coming, I’m thinking. Best not get caught in it.’ He sniffed and wiped his nose on his glove, leaving a shiny smear upon the wool.
‘Natan will kill you.’ I gestured towards the stain of blood and dirt surrounding the sheep. ‘You’ve ruined the meat. And the skin.’
Fridrik laughed. I wanted to slap him for kicking the sheep, but I had no power over him, and he knew it.
‘It was already dead, Agnes. It died this morning.’ He wiped a melting fleck of bloody snow from his cheek, a
nd heaved his boot out of the drift to walk past me. ‘Don’t worry, it will still be good to eat.’
‘You’ve trampled it.’
He rolled his eyes.
‘You’ll catch your death,’ he called out, his back to me. I watched the snow clouds descend upon the mountain and let the chill air prickle at my ribs until I shuddered with the cold.
Seeing Fridrik hack at the sheep with his boots unsettled something within me. It was portentous: the rapid limbs, dark against the snow, colliding with the soft corpse until a fine mist of blood floated above.
Snow began to fall. I turned around to follow Fridrik back to the farm, and saw a raven descend upon the sheep. It gave a mournful caw and then plunged its beak into the innards. Snowflakes landed on its black feathers.
I interrupted Fridrik and Sigga sitting together on her bed, whispering in low voices. Sigga looked as though she had been crying.
‘There are two sheep missing,’ I said.
‘Well, one of them is dead. You saw it yourself.’ Fridrik yawned.
‘Not the one you were kicking. There are another two besides.’
Fridrik gave a nasty smile and I knew at once what had happened.
‘You killed them.’ Sigga let out a sob, and Fridrik stood up. He walked over to me and bent close. I could smell his sweat.
‘Agnes. You might like to know that Sigga and I have been talking this morning.’ His voice cracked with anger. ‘Natan has been taking advantage of her.’
I waited until I could speak calmly.
‘I already knew.’
Sigga burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry, Agnes! I wanted to tell you so bad!’
Fridrik paused. ‘You knew?’
‘I thought she’d agreed to it.’ My voice was brittle.
‘He’s been raping her!’ He began pacing the floor. I noticed that he held Sigga’s green silk nightdress in his hand, a present from Natan. ‘I’m going to kill him.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Go ahead. A lot of difference that will make now.’ I turned to Sigga. ‘Did he force you?’
‘Of course he forced her!’ Fridrik sat down again next to Sigga and punched the mattress. Sigga gave a start.
