Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

Tóti sat back and nodded. ‘I knew.’

Agnes was aghast. ‘You knew?’

‘They pity you too,’ he added, wanting to comfort her.

‘You’re wrong,’ she hissed. ‘They don’t pity me; they hate me. All of them. Blöndal especially. What about Fridrik? Are they appealing his sentence, too?’

‘I don’t believe so.’

Agnes’s eyes glistened in the shadow. Tóti thought she might be crying, but when she leaned closer he saw that her eyes were dry.

‘I’ll tell you something, Reverend Tóti. All my life people have thought I was too clever. Too clever by half, they’d say. And you know what, Reverend? That’s exactly why they don’t pity me. Because they think I’m too smart, too knowing to get caught up in this by accident. But Sigga is dumb and pretty and young, and that is why they don’t want to see her die.’ She leant back against the post, her eyes narrowed.

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Tóti said, trying to soothe her.

‘If I was young and simple-minded, do you think everyone would be pointing the finger at me? No. They’d blame it on Fridrik, saying he overpowered us. Forced us to kill Natan because he wanted his money. That Fridrik desired a little of what Natan had is no great secret. But they see I’ve got a head on my shoulders, and believe a thinking woman cannot be trusted. Believe there’s no room for innocence. And like it or not, Reverend, that is the truth of it.’

‘I thought you didn’t believe in truth,’ dared Tóti.

Agnes lifted her head off the post and stared at him, her eyes paler than ever. She grimaced. ‘I have a question for you, speaking of truth. You say God speaks the truth?’

‘Always.’

‘And God said, “Thou shalt not kill”?’

‘Yes,’ Tóti said, carefully.

‘Then Blöndal and the rest are going against God. They’re hypocrites. They say they’re carrying out God’s law, but they’re only doing the will of men!’

‘Agnes —’

‘I try to love God, Reverend. I do. But I cannot love these men. I… I hate them.’ She said the last three words slowly, through clenched teeth, gripping the chain that connected the irons about her wrists.

There was a knock from the entrance to the badstofa and Margrét entered with her daughters and Kristín.

‘Excuse me, Reverend. Don’t mind us. We’ll work and talk amongst ourselves.’

Tóti nodded grimly. ‘How goes the harvest?’

Margrét huffed. ‘All this wet August weather…’ She returned to her knitting.

Tóti looked at Agnes, who gave him a bleak smile.

‘They’re even more scared of me now,’ she whispered.

Tóti thought. He turned to the group of women. ‘Margrét? Is it not possible for these irons to be removed?’

Margrét glanced at Agnes’s wrists, and put down her needles. She left the room and returned with a key shortly after. She unlocked the irons.

‘I’ll just set them here, Reverend,’ she said stiffly, lifting the cuffs onto the shelf above the bed. ‘In case you need them.’

Tóti waited until Margrét had returned to the other end of the room and then looked at Agnes. ‘You mustn’t act like that again,’ he said in a low voice.

‘I was not myself,’ she said.

‘You say they hate you? Don’t give them further reason.’

She nodded. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’ There was a moment before she spoke again. ‘I had a dream last night.’

‘A good one, I hope.’

She shook her head.

‘What did you dream of?’

‘Dying.’

Tóti swallowed. ‘Are you afraid? Would you like me to pray for you?’

‘Do what you like, Reverend.’

‘Then, let’s pray.’ He glanced at the group of women before taking up Agnes’s cold, clammy hand.

‘Lord God, we pray to you this evening with sad hearts. Give us strength to bear the burdens we must carry, and the courage to face our fates.’ Tóti paused and looked at Agnes. He was aware that the other women were listening.

‘Lord,’ he continued, ‘I thank you for the family of Kornsá, who have opened their home and hearts to Agnes and I.’ He heard Margrét clear her throat. ‘I pray for them. I pray they have compassion and forgiveness. Be with us always, O Lord, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

Tóti squeezed Agnes’s hand. She looked at him, her expression inscrutable.

‘Do you think it’s my fate to be here?’

Tóti thought a moment. ‘We author our own fates.’

‘So it has nothing to do with God then?’

‘It’s beyond our knowing,’ Tóti said. He gently placed her hand back on the blanket. The feel of her cold skin unsettled him.

‘I am quite alone,’ Agnes said, almost matter-of-factly.

‘God is with you. I am here. Your parents are alive.’

Agnes shook her head. ‘They may as well be dead.’

Tóti cast a quick look at the women knitting. Lauga had snatched Steina’s half-finished sock from her lap and was ripping back the wool to amend an error.

‘Have you no loved one I might summon?’ he whispered to Agnes. ‘Someone from the old days?’

‘I have a half-brother, but only sweet Jesus knows what badstofa he’s darkening at the moment. A half-sister, too. Helga. She’s dead. A niece. Dead. Everyone’s dead.’

‘What about friends? Did any friends visit you at Stóra-Borg?’

Agnes smiled bitterly. ‘The only visitor at Stóra-Borg was Rósa Gudmundsdóttir of Vatnsendi. I don’t think she’d describe herself as my friend.’

‘Poet-Rósa.’

‘The one and only.’

‘They say she speaks in lines of verse.’

Agnes took a deep breath. ‘She came to me in Stóra-Borg with a poem.’

‘A gift?’

Agnes sat up and leant closer. ‘No, Reverend,’ she said plainly. ‘An accusation.’

‘What did she accuse you of?’

‘Of making her life meaningless.’ Agnes sniffed. ‘Amongst other things. It wasn’t her finest poem.’

‘She must have been upset.’

‘Rósa blamed me when Natan died.’

‘She loved Natan.’

Agnes stopped and glared at Tóti. ‘She was a married woman,’ she exclaimed, a tremor of anger in her voice. ‘He wasn’t hers to love!’

Tóti noticed the other women had stopped knitting. They were watching Agnes, her last sentence having carried loudly across the room. He rose to fetch the spare stool beside Kristín.

‘I’m afraid we’re disturbing you,’ he said to them.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to use the irons,’ Lauga asked nervously.

‘I think we are better off without them.’ He returned to Agnes’s side. ‘Perhaps we should speak of something else.’ He was anxious that she should remain calm in front of the Kornsá family.

‘Did they hear?’ she whispered.

‘Let’s talk about your past,’ Tóti suggested. ‘Tell me more about your half-siblings.’

‘I barely knew them. I was five when my brother was born, and nine when I heard about Helga. She died when I was twenty-one. I only saw her a few times.’

‘And you’re not close to your brother?’

‘We were separated when he was only one winter old.’

‘When your mother left you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember her from before then?’

‘She gave me a stone.’

Tóti shot her a questioning look.

‘To put under my tongue,’ Agnes explained. ‘It’s a superstition.’ She frowned. ‘Blöndal’s clerks took it.’

Tóti was aware of Kristín rising to light a few candles — the bad weather had made the room quite gloomy, and the day was rapidly dying. In front of him, he could only see the pale lengths of Agnes’s bare arms above the blankets. Her face was shadowed.