Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

THERE, STANDING IN FRONT OF THE court on the 19th of April, was Bjarni Sigurdsson again, Fridrik’s brother from Katadalur, a ten-year-old boy who looked to be clever and intelligent. After a long time of questioning he still gave no information, until at last he said that Fridrik had slit the throats of two milk-giving sheep and one lamb last autumn, when his father was not home. Bjarni Sigurdsson remembered that these sheep were Natan’s. His mother, he said, had, for a long time, told him he should say he didn’t know about this, and told him not talk about it when it came to the trial. However we tried then, both with toughness and gentleness, we could not get any more information out of him.

Anonymous clerk, 1828.

MARGRÉT WOKE TO THE SOUND of whimpering. She peered through the darkness to where her daughters lay. They were asleep.

Agnes.

Margrét put her head down on the pillow next to her husband’s and listened. Yes, the criminal was crying; a thin, tight wail that made Margrét’s throat close up. Should she go to her? Perhaps it was a trick. Margrét wished she could see better in the gloom. The cries stopped, and then broke out anew. She sounded like a child.

Margrét carefully got out of bed and felt her way to the doorway, turning down the corridor, until she could see the glow coming from the dying coals in the kitchen hearth. Taking a candle from its bracket, she kindled a flame from the embers and lit the wick. Before she left the warmth of the kitchen, Margrét paused. She could still hear the plaintive cry. She realised she was scared without understanding why.

The candlelight danced over the walls and rafters of the badstofa. Everyone was asleep, their heads tucked under blankets to ward off the December cold that had left frost on the walls. Margrét placed a hand around the flame to protect it from draughts, and slowly walked towards Agnes. The woman was asleep, but her eyes darted under her lids, and the blankets had been pushed to the end of the bed. Agnes was shivering, her elbows tightly tucked to her sides, her hands bunched into fists as though she was about to fight, bare-knuckled.

‘Agnes?’

The woman groaned. Margrét reached down for the blankets with her spare hand, and started to draw them up over the woman’s exposed body, but as she pulled them over her chest, Agnes grabbed hold of Margrét’s wrist.

Margrét opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. She froze at the sudden grip of Agnes’s cold fingers.

‘What are you doing?’ Agnes’s voice was as unfriendly as her grasp. The candlelight sputtered.

‘Nothing. You were shivering.’

‘You were watching me.’

Margrét coughed and tasted blood. She swallowed it, reluctant to set the candle down. ‘I wasn’t watching you. You woke me. You were crying.’

Agnes regarded Margrét for a moment, then dropped her hand. Margrét watched as Agnes examined the tears she wiped from her cheeks.

‘I was crying?’

Margrét nodded. ‘You woke me.’

‘I was dreaming.’ Agnes stared at the rafters.

Margrét coughed again, but this time too suddenly to bring a hand to her mouth. Both of the women looked down at the blankets and saw the small spot of blood. Agnes looked from the stain to Margrét.

‘Do you want to sit down?’ She drew up her legs and Margrét eased herself onto the edge of the bed.

‘Two dying women,’ Agnes murmured.

At any other time Margrét knew she might have been insulted, but sitting across from Agnes she saw the truth of this.

‘Jón worries for me,’ Margrét admitted. ‘He says nothing, but when you’re so long married to a man, there’s not much need for speaking.’

‘Did you tell him about the lichen jelly?’

‘He knows you have a hand with herbs. He heard about Róslín and her baby.’

Agnes was thoughtful. ‘He doesn’t mind it?’

Margrét shook her head. ‘You mustn’t think he’s a bad man, my Jón.’ She looked down at the floor. ‘He does his best to live a quiet Christian life. We all do. He wouldn’t wish harm to any soul, only with you here…’ She opened her mouth as if to say more, but stopped herself. ‘There’s a deal on his mind, is all. But we’ll carry on, for as long as we’re able.’

‘But he knows your sickness is worsening?’

Margrét felt the heaviness on her lungs and shrugged. ‘What were you dreaming about?’ she asked, after a moment’s silence.

Agnes drew the blankets up about her neck. ‘Katadalur.’

‘Fridrik’s farm?’

Agnes nodded.

‘A nightmare?’

The younger woman’s gaze slipped to the bloodstain on the blankets between them. She seemed to be studying it. ‘I was staying there in the days before Natan died.’

‘I thought you were living at Illugastadir?’ Margrét shivered, and Agnes reached for her shawl, which lay draped across the headboard. She handed it to Margrét.

‘I stayed at Illugastadir until Natan threw me out. I didn’t have anywhere to go so I went to Fridrik’s family in Katadalur.’

‘You said you weren’t friends.’

‘We weren’t.’ Agnes looked up at Margrét. ‘Why haven’t you asked me about the murders?’

The question took Margrét by surprise. ‘I thought that was between you and the Reverend.’

Agnes shook her head.

Margrét’s mouth had gone dry. She looked across to where her husband lay. He was snoring. ‘Would you like to come to the kitchen with me?’ she asked. ‘I need to warm my bones or I’ll be dead by morning.’

Agnes sat on a stool brought from the dairy, and watched as Margrét broke open the embers in the hearth, prising flames from them with pieces of dried dung. She coughed in the smoke and wiped her eyes.

‘Are you thirsty?’

Agnes nodded, and Margrét set a small pot of milk on the hook. She sat down on the stool next to Agnes and together they watched the flames begin to crowd the kindling.

‘My mother would never let the hearth die in her home,’ Margrét said. She felt Agnes turn to look at her, but didn’t meet her gaze. ‘She believed that as long as a light burned in the house, the Devil couldn’t get in. Not even during the witching hour.’

Agnes was quiet. ‘What do you believe?’ she asked eventually.

Margrét extended her hands towards the flames. ‘I think a fire is a useful thing to keep a body warm,’ she said.

Agnes nodded. The fire crackled and flared in front of them. ‘When I worked at Gafl, the fire went out during winter. It was my fault. We were snowed in and the children were starving, and I was so busy trying to get the youngest to take a little whey from a rag that I forgot to check the kitchen. We went three days without a light, without a fire, before the weather cleared and we could get help from the next farm. I thought our neighbours would find us dead and blue in our beds.’

‘It happens,’ Margrét conceded. ‘There’s more than one way a body can die.’

The two women fell silent. The milk began to tremble, and Margrét got up to pour it off. She handed a steaming cup to Agnes and sat down again.

‘Your family is lucky to have enough supplies,’ Agnes said.

‘We had a little extra money this year,’ Margrét replied. ‘District Commissioner Blöndal has given us some compensation.’ She regretted her words as soon as she spoke, but Agnes did not react.

‘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.