Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

  It took Margrét several minutes to find Lauga. She was not by the warmth of the hearth in the kitchen, nor in the dairy. Margrét shuffled into the darkness of the pantry, holding a candle aloft.

  ‘Lauga?’

  There was a faint noise from the corner where the barrels stood together.

  ‘Lauga, is that you?’

  The candlelight threw shadows over the walls, before lighting on someone behind a half-filled sack of meal.

  ‘Mamma?’

  ‘What are you doing in here, Lauga?’ Margrét stepped forward and brought the candle closer to her daughter’s face.

  Lauga squinted in the light and hurriedly stood up. Her eyes were red. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Are you upset?’

  Lauga blinked and quickly rubbed her eyes. ‘No, Mamma.’

  Margrét studied her daughter. ‘I’ve been trying to find you,’ she said.

  ‘I only wanted a minute to myself.’

  They regarded each other for a moment in the ragged light of the guttering candle.

  ‘To bed, then,’ Margrét finally suggested. She handed Lauga the candle and silently followed her out of the room.

  THERE WAS NO PURSE. FRIDRIK never found the money he wanted. Agnes, Agnes, where did he bury it, is it in the trunk? But it was too late, my fingers were slippery-thick with the whale fat all rubbed into the wood and mingled with the blood on the floor and the lamp was already dashed on the boards and Sigga had already screamed at the sound of glass breaking.

  They try to make me eat, but, Tóti, I cannot do it. Don’t feed me or I will bite you, I will bite the hand that feeds me, that refuses to love me, that leaves me. Where is my stone? You don’t understand! I have nothing to say to you, where are the ravens? Jóas has sent them all away, they never speak to me, it’s not fair. See what I do for them? I eat stones, I shatter my teeth, and still they will not speak to me. Only the wind. Only the wind speaks and it will not talk sense, it screams like the widow of the world and will not wait for a reply.

  You will be lost. There is no final home, there is no burial, there is only a constant scattering, a thwarted journey that takes you everywhere without offering you a way home, for there is no home, there is only this cold island and your dark self spread thinly upon it until you take up the wind’s howl and mimic its loneliness you are not going home you are gone silence will claim you, suck your life down into its black waters and churn out stars that might remember you, but if they do they will not say, they will not say, and if no one will say your name you are forgotten I am forgotten.

  THE NIGHT BEFORE THE EXECUTION, the family of Kornsá sat together in the badstofa. Steina, tear-streaked, had gathered as many lamps as she could find, lighting them and placing them about the room to dispel the shadows that lingered in the corners. The servants sat on their beds with their backs against the wall, dumbly watching Tóti and Agnes as they huddled together on her bed. They were holding hands, the Reverend whispering quietly to her. She gazed at the floor, shivering.

  Jón came in from feeding the stock, and eased himself down on the bed next to Margrét, bending down slowly to untie his boots. Margrét took the knitting out of her lap and stood to help him out of his jacket, and then hovered there, holding the frayed coat out from her.

  ‘Mamma?’ Steina got up from her place beside Lauga, who was staring impassively at the dancing wick of the lamp at her side. ‘Mamma, let me take that.’

  Margrét pressed her lips together and silently handed Steina the wet coat. Then she slowly got down on her knees and, stifling a cough, shuffled closer to her bed. Her daughter watched as she reached beneath the bunk. ‘Steina?’

  Steina bent down and helped Margrét pull out a painted trunk. ‘Put it on the bed there, next to Jón.’ With some difficulty, Steina heaved the wooden trunk onto the blankets. Dust rose into the air. She watched as Margrét undid the iron latch. Inside the trunk were clothes.

  Margrét cast a glance at Agnes shaking against the Reverend’s side, reached into the trunk and took out a fine woollen shawl. Without a word she walked to her bed and, nodding to Tóti, leant down and wrapped it about Agnes’s shoulders.

  Tóti looked up at Margrét’s face in the dim light and gave a tight smile, his face wan.

  The rest of the family watched as Margrét continued to rifle through the trunk, her lips pressed together firmly. She took out a dark skirt with an embroidered pattern about the hem and laid it carefully on the blankets beside her. Then she did the same with a white cotton shirt, an embroidered bodice, and finally a striped apron. She smoothed the wrinkles out of the folds of material with both hands.

  ‘What are you doing, Mamma?’ Steina asked.

  ‘It’s the least we can do,’ Margrét replied. She looked around the room, as if waiting for someone to object, then she snapped the lid of the trunk closed and motioned for Steina to put it back under the bed.

  For a moment Margrét stood still, looking across the room to where Lauga sat on her bed. Then, in a few quick strides, she crossed the badstofa and held out her hand.

  ‘Your brooch,’ she said. Lauga looked up, her mouth falling open. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she got off the bed and bent to the floor. She slowly handed her mother the clasp and sat back down, blinking away tears. Margrét turned, placed the silver brooch on the bodice spread out over the bed, and picked up her knitting.

  THE WORLD HAS STOPPED SNOWING, stopped moving; the clouds hang still in the air like dead bodies. The only things that move are the ravens, and the family of Kornsá, but I cannot tell which is which: they are all in black, jerking in circles around me, waiting to be fed. Where did time go? It left with summer. I am beyond time. Where is the Reverend? Waiting by the river at Gönguskörd. Looking for a skeleton amongst the moss, amongst the lava, amongst the ashes.

  Margrét is reaching out to me and she takes my hand in hers, clasps my fingers so tightly that it hurts, it hurts.

  ‘You are not a monster,’ she says. Her face is flushed and she bites her lip, she bites down. Her fingers, entwined with my own, are hot and greasy.

  ‘They’re going to kill me.’ Who said that? Did I say that?

  ‘We’ll remember you, Agnes.’ She presses my fingers more tightly, until I almost cry out from the pain, and then I am crying. I don’t want to be remembered, I want to be here!

  ‘Margrét!’

  ‘I am right here, Agnes. You’ll be all right, my girl. My girl.’

  I am crying and my mouth is open and filled with something, it is choking me and I spit it out. On the ground is a stone, and I look back at Margrét, and see that she did not notice. ‘The stone was in my mouth,’ I say, and her face creases because she does not understand. There is no time to explain, she has passed my hands on to Steina, as though I am a token, or a piece of bread and they are all taking communion of me, and Steina’s fingers are cold. She lets go of my hands and wraps her arms around my neck. The sound of her sobbing is loud in my ear, but I cling to her because her body is warm and I cannot remember when someone last held me like this, when someone last cared enough to lay their cheek next to mine.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I hear myself say. ‘I am so sorry.’ But I don’t know what I am sorry for. Everyone is speaking in bubbles of air and it is taking everything not to cry, my spine is cramped from not crying, but I am, the tears are here on my face, I don’t know, perhaps they are Steina’s. Everything is wet. It is the ocean.

  ‘Will they drown me?’ I ask, and someone shakes her head. It is Lauga. ‘Agnes,’ she says, and I say, ‘That is the first time you have called me by my name,’ and that is it, she collapses as though I have stabbed her in the stomach.

  ‘I think we should go,’ Tóti is saying, and I want to turn to him, but I can’t because we are all underwater and I cannot swim.

  ‘Here.’ A hand takes my arm and I am lifted into the air. The sky comes closer and for a moment I am going to collide with the clouds, but then I see, they have put me on a hor
se, and like a corpse they are going to take me to the grave, like a dead woman they will bury me in the earth, pocket me like a stone. There are ravens in the sky, but what bird flies underwater? What bird can sing without stones beneath him to listen?

  Natan would know. I must remember to ask him.

  SNOW LAY OVER THE VALLEY like linen, like a shroud waiting for the dead body of sky that slumped overhead.

  It’s all over, Tóti thought. He nudged his horse onwards and brought it next to Agnes’s. Holding the reins in one hand, he pulled off a glove and reached across to put his hand on her leg. As he did, he smelt the hot stench of urine. Agnes looked at him, her eyes wide. Her mouth was chattering uncontrollably.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she mouthed.

  Tóti squeezed her leg. He tried to hold her gaze, but her eyes were darting all over the valley. ‘Agnes,’ he murmured. ‘Agnes, look at me.’

  She glanced at him, and he thought the light blue of her eyes had faded to almost white. ‘I’m here,’ he said, and squeezed her leg again.

  Next to him, District Officer Jón rode with his mouth in a determined line. Tóti was surprised to see that several other men had joined them, all dressed in black, scarves pulled up high about their mouths to ward off the freezing air. They rode in a loose pack, their horses champing at their bridles, snorting stiff clouds of steam.

  ‘Reverend!’ There was a call from behind. As Tóti turned, he saw a large man with long blond hair ride up from the rear. As he pulled closer, the man reached into his coat and took out a small flask. He handed it to Tóti without a word. Tóti nodded. He leaned over, and took Agnes’s hand, and pressed the flask into it.

  ‘Drink, Agnes.’

  The woman looked down at the flask, and then at Tóti, who nodded. After pulling out the corked stopper, she brought the flask up to her trembling mouth with both hands and took a sip that left her spluttering and coughing. Tóti reassured her with soft words.

  ‘Take another, Agnes,’ he insisted. ‘It will help.’

  The next sip went down more easily, and Tóti noticed that her teeth stopped chattering quite so violently.

  ‘Drink it all, Agnes,’ the blond-haired man said. ‘I brought it for you.’

  Agnes swivelled in her saddle to try and see the man who spoke. She pushed her long, dark hair out of her face to regard him better.

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

  After some time the riders had climbed the ridge leading up out of the valley, and saw the first hills of Vatnsdalshólar. The strange mounds looked eerie in the blue light, and Tóti shuddered at the sight.

  Agnes had pushed her chin down into the scarves around her neck, and her hair had fallen over her face. Tóti wondered whether the brandy had sent her to sleep. But as he wondered this, the horses came to a halt, and Agnes jerked her face upwards. She looked down towards the valley’s entrance and began to shake.

  ‘Have we arrived?’ she whispered to Tóti. The Reverend dismounted and quickly handed his reins to another rider. He shook his head clear of the nausea that swamped him and stepped through the snow, the squeak of his footsteps resounding through the frosted air. He reached up for Agnes.

  ‘Let me help you down.’

  Jón and another man helped him take Agnes out of the saddle. As they set her feet upon the ground, she teetered, and fell.

  ‘Agnes! Here, take my hand.’

  Agnes looked up at Tóti with tears in her eyes. ‘I can’t move my legs,’ she croaked. ‘I can’t move my legs.’

  Tóti bent down and put her arm around his shoulders. As he tried to lift her up his knees buckled and they fell into the snow drifts again.

  ‘Reverend!’ Jón darted forward to help them.

  ‘No!’ The word came out as a scream. Tóti stared up at the circle of men standing over them. Agnes clutched at his arm. ‘No,’ he said again. ‘Please let me lift her. I need to lift her.’

  The men stood back as he crawled onto his knees, then slowly pushed himself upwards. He stumbled, then righted himself, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath until he wasn’t so light-headed. Do not falter, he told himself. He bent down and offered his hand to Agnes. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Take my hand.’

  Agnes opened her eyes and grasped it, her nails gripping his skin. ‘Don’t let go,’ she whimpered. ‘Don’t let go of me.’

  ‘I won’t let go of you, Agnes. I’m right here.’

  Clenching his teeth, he hauled her out of the snow, wrapping her arm about his neck to lift her higher. ‘There you go,’ he said gently, holding her fast about the waist. He ignored the smell of shit. ‘I’ve got you.’

  Around them the farmers of the District started walking towards the three hills that stood together in a clump. Already over forty men stood around the middle hill, all dressed in black. They look like birds of prey surrounding their kill, Tóti thought.

  ‘Do we have to go with them?’ Agnes asked, her voice cracking.

  ‘No, Agnes.’ Tóti reached over and brushed her hair out of her eyes with his free hand. ‘No, we have to walk just a little way, and then wait. Fridrik is walking out first.’

  Agnes nodded, and clung to Tóti as he slowly stumbled through the drifts to a tussock, lifting her as best as he could. Breathing heavily, he gently lowered her onto the snowy ground and sank down next to her. Jón squatted beside them and picked up the flask that had slipped from his gloved hand. Tóti watched as the older man took a quick sip and winced.

  The minutes staggered past. Tóti tried to ignore the deadening needles of cold that wormed into his bones. He held Agnes’s hands in his own, her head was on his shoulder.

  ‘Why don’t we pray, Agnes?’

  The woman opened her eyes and stared into the distance. ‘I can hear singing.’

  Tóti turned his face to where the sound was coming from. He recognised the burial hymn, ‘Just like the flower’. Agnes was listening intently, shivering on the ground.

  ‘Let’s listen together then,’ he whispered. He put his arm about her as the verses lifted over the snowy field and fell about them like a mist.

  On Tóti’s left, Jón was bent on his knees, his hands clasped before him, his lips muttering the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Dear Lord, forgive us all our trespasses.’ Tóti gripped Agnes’s hand more tightly, and she gave a small gasp.

  ‘Tóti,’ she said in a panicked voice. ‘Tóti, I don’t think I’m ready. I don’t think they can do it. Can you make them wait? They have to wait.’

  Tóti pulled Agnes closer to him and squeezed her hand.

  ‘I won’t let go of you. God is all around us, Agnes. I won’t ever let go.’

  The woman looked up into the blank sky. The sudden sound of the first axe fall echoed throughout the valley.

  EPILOGUE

  The criminals Fridrik Sigurdsson and Agnes Magnúsdóttir were today moved out of custody to the place of execution, and following them to the execution site were the priests Reverend Magnús Árnason, Reverend Gísli Gíslason, Reverend Jóhann Tómasson and Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson, an assistant priest. The criminals had wished that the latter two help them prepare for their deaths. After the priest Jóhann Tómasson completed a speech of admonition to the convict Fridrik Sigurdsson, Fridrik’s head was taken off with one blow of the axe. The farmer Gudmundur Ketilsson, who had been ordered to be executioner, committed the work that he had been asked to do with dexterity and fearlessness. The criminal Agnes Magnúsdóttir, who, while this was taking place, had been kept at a remote station where she could not see the site of execution, was then fetched. After the Assistant Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson had appropriately prepared her for death, the same executioner cut off her head, and with the same craftsmanship as before. The lifeless heads were then set upon two stakes at the site of execution, and their bodies put in two coffins of untreated boards, and buried before the men were dismissed. While the deed took place, and there until it was finished, everything was appropriately quiet and well-ordered, and it was concluded by a sho
rt address by Reverend Magnús Árnason to those that were there.

  Actum ut supra.

  B. Blöndal, R. Olsen, A. Árnason

  From the Magistrate’s Book of Húnavatn District, 1830

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  WHILE THIS NOVEL IS A work of fiction, it is based on real events. Agnes Magnúsdóttir was the last person to be executed in Iceland, convicted for her role in the murders of Natan Ketilsson and Pétur Jónsson on the night between the 13th and 14th of March 1828, at Illugastadir (Illugastaðir), on the Vatnsnes Peninsula, North Iceland. In 1934, Agnes and Fridrik Sigurdsson’s (Friðrik Sigurðsson’s) remains were removed from Thrístapar (Þrístapar) to the churchyard at Tjörn, where they share a grave. Natan Ketilsson’s grave in the same churchyard is no longer marked. Sigrídur Gudmundsdóttir (Sigríður Guðmundsdóttir) was sent to a Copenhagen textile prison, where she is believed to have died after a few years. There was, for some time, a popular local myth that claimed she was rescued from the prison by a wealthy man and went on to live a long life. While this is untrue, it is indicative of public sympathy towards her in the years after these events.

  My interpretation of the Illugastaðir murders and executions is informed by many years of research, during which I have accessed ministerial records, parish archives, censuses, local histories and publications, and have spoken with many Icelanders. While some historical characters have been invented, omitted, or had their names altered out of necessity, most, including Björn Blöndal, Assistant Reverend Thorvardur (Þorvarður) Jónsson, most members of the family at Kornsá, and Agnes’s parents and siblings, are taken from historical records.

  No offence is intended towards living relatives of any character whose name I have borrowed in the service of telling Agnes’s story.