Hannah Kent - Burial Rites

‘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 Fridrik 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.’