Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

‘I don’t care!’ Steina shouted. She turned back to her mother. ‘I told her about the appeal for Sigrídur Gudmundsdóttir and she went all strange and white and now she won’t get up!’

Margrét turned to Lauga. ‘What is she talking about?’

‘Agnes!’ Steina screeched. She wiped the rain off her face with her sleeve and began to run down the corridor. ‘I need to tell Pabbi.’

Jón was in the badstofa, mending his shoes. ‘Steina?’ he asked, looking up from his work.

‘Pabbi! Please, you have to go down to Agnes. I told her about the appeal Blöndal has for the other Illugastadir maid and she’s gone mad.’

Jón immediately pushed the shoes from his lap and stood up. ‘Where?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘By the river,’ Steina said, fighting back tears. Jón pulled his boots out from under his bed and tied them on roughly.

‘I’m sorry, Pabbi, I thought she knew! I wanted to help her.’

Jón stood up and gripped his daughter by the shoulders. His cheeks were pink with anger. ‘I told you to stay away from her.’ He glared at his daughter, then shoved her out of the way and left the room, calling for Gudmundur, who had been lying on his bed. The farmhand got up reluctantly. Steina sat down and began to cry.

A few moments later Lauga stepped into the badstofa with Kristín at her side.

‘What did Pabbi say?’ she asked quietly, then, seeing where Steina had sat, ‘Oh! Get up, you’re making my bed wet.’

‘Leave me!’ Steina screamed, causing Kristín to yelp and flee the room. ‘Leave me alone!’

Lauga smirked and shook her head. ‘You’re in a temper, Steina. What were you trying to do out there? Make friends?’

‘Go to hell, Lauga!’

Lauga’s mouth dropped open. She glowered at her sister, as though about to cry, and then narrowed her eyes. ‘You’d better watch yourself,’ she hissed. ‘If you continue this way you’ll be as wicked as her.’ She turned to walk away, but stopped. ‘I’ll pray for you,’ she sniffed, and then left the room. Steina put her head in her hands and cried.

I SIT AND WAIT UPON my bed as Margrét, Jón and their daughters talk about me behind the grey curtain in the parlour. Although Margrét speaks in hissed whispers I catch the words as they slither through the gap between this room and the next. My hands shake and I can feel my heart throbbing. It’s as though I have just run for my life. It’s the same feeling as in court, when I felt outside of everything.

I could have been a pauper; I could have been their servant, until those words! Sigga! Illugastadir! They anchor me to a memory that snatches the breath out of me. They are the magic words, the curse that turns me into a monster, and now I am Agnes of Illugastadir, Agnes of the fire, Agnes of the dead bodies with the blood, not burnt, still clinging to the clothes I made for him. They will free Sigga but they will not free me because I am Agnes — bloody, knowing Agnes. And I am so scared, I thought it could work, I thought I could pretend, but I see it will not, I will never, I cannot escape this, I cannot escape.

THE LETTER WAS SMALL, AND written in bunched cursive on a tiny piece of paper, the lines overlapping in the author’s attempt to conserve space. Tóti took it into the badstofa to read, where he had been eating his midday meal.

‘Blöndal again?’ his father asked, without looking up from his meat.

‘No,’ Tóti said, casting his eyes quickly over the message: Come quickly, it is Agnes Magnúsdóttir. I do not like to tell Blöndal. Your brother in Christ, Jón Jónsson . ‘It’s from Kornsá.’

‘Don’t they know it’s raining? And a Sunday,’ the elder priest muttered.

Tóti sat down at the table and observed his father. Crumbs of dried porridge were visible in his beard. ‘I ought to go,’ he said.

Reverend Jón breathed out heavily. ‘It’s a Sunday,’ he repeated.

‘Yes, the Lord’s day,’ Tóti said. ‘For the Lord’s work,’ he added.

Reverend Jón pulled a piece of gristle from his mouth, examined it, and then began chewing again.

‘Father?’

‘I hope Blöndal knows how you slave to his will.’

‘The Lord’s will,’ Tóti said gently. ‘Thank you, Father. I’ll return tonight. Or tomorrow, if the weather is bad.’

Tóti was drenched to the bone by the time he reached the pass leading to the Vatnsdalur valley. He saw the messenger who had delivered him the note riding ahead and spurred his mare onwards to catch up with him.

‘Hello there,’ Tóti shouted, peering through the thick glaze of rain.

The man turned in his saddle and Tóti recognised him as one of the Kornsá servants. He was wearing fishing skins to keep himself dry. ‘So you’ve come!’ he shouted back. ‘That’s two of us riding in this miserable weather.’

‘Bad for the hay,’ Tóti said, by way of conversation.

‘You don’t need to tell me twice,’ the man snorted. ‘I’m Gudmundur.’ He raised his hand. ‘And you’re the Reverend that’s been trying to save our murderess.’

‘Well, I —’

‘A grisly business,’ the man interrupted. ‘She gives me the shivers.’

‘How do you mean?’

The farmhand laughed. ‘She’s wild.’

Tóti spurred his cob to keep pace. ‘What has happened? That note —’

‘Oh, she had a fit. Fought off Jón and me, scratching and clawing, screaming all the while, soaked like, lying in the mud like a madwoman. See this?’ He pointed to a bruise on his temple. ‘That’s her handiwork. I tried to lift her and she tries to stone my brains out. Howling things about Blöndal. Same act they say she put on at Stóra-Borg, what got her shifted.’

‘Are you sure?’ Agnes seemed so self-contained to Tóti.

‘I thought she’d kill me then and there.’

‘What upset her?’

The man sniffed and wiped his nose with a gloved finger. ‘Damned if I know. One of the girls said something. Mentioned the other servant girl they caught. Sigga.’

Tóti turned and looked at the puddles in the path before them. He felt ill.

‘Not bad looking,’ Gudmundur said, turning to Tóti with a glint in his eye.

‘Pardon?’

‘Agnes. Nice hair, and that,’ the servant said. ‘But too tall for me. Needs to be a head or so shorter, you know.’ He winked at Tóti and laughed.

Tóti pulled his riding hat more firmly over his head. The rain lightened for a minute, and then resumed falling as they turned into the valley, sheets of grey sweeping over the curved earth before them, and water falling over the rocky precipices of the mountains.

Agnes was in bed when Tóti entered the badstofa. Kristín, the workmaid, brought a stool for him, and the youngest daughter began to fuss over his wet clothes. As Lauga stooped to untie his boots, Tóti peered across to the unlit corner where Agnes sat. She was awfully still.

Lauga pulled away his remaining boot with a sudden jerk that nearly knocked him off the stool. ‘I’ll leave you, then,’ she muttered, and walked out of the room, holding the boots at arm’s length in front of her.

Tóti made his way to Agnes in his damp socks. She slouched against the wooden post by her bed, and as he grew closer he saw that she had been handcuffed.

‘Agnes?’

Agnes opened her eyes and looked up at him blankly.

Tóti sat down on the edge of her bed. Her skin appeared ashen in the low light and her lip was split and bloody.

‘What happened?’ he asked gently. ‘Why have they put you in irons again?’

Agnes looked down at her wrists, as if surprised to see them there. She swallowed hard. ‘Sigga is to have an appeal. Blöndal is appealing to the King to reduce the sentence he gave her.’ Her voice cracked. ‘They pity her.’