Hannah Kent: Burial Rites

‘I don’t want to distress you, Mamma.’

‘Oh, I am often distressed,’ Margrét said, suddenly smiling. ‘It comes from having children and servants to look after.’ Then, telling her husband to make sure he didn’t set the remaining parcels down in puddles, Margrét picked up some packages and headed inside, Lauga following after her.

Jón had entered the badstofa and eased himself down next to his wife by the time Lauga brought in the bowls of broth.

‘I thought a hot meal might be of comfort,’ she said.

Jón looked up at Lauga, who was standing in front of him, holding the tray. ‘May I change out of these clothes first?’

Lauga hesitated, and, setting the tray down on the bed beside her mother, dropped to her knees and began to untie the binds about Jón’s shoes. ‘There is something I have to tell you both.’

‘Where’s Kristín?’ Margrét asked sharply, as Jón leant back on his elbows and let his daughter work the damp sock off his foot.

‘Steina gave her half the day in holiday,’ Lauga replied.

‘And where is Steina?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Here somewhere.’ Lauga felt her stomach twist in panic, aware of the scrutiny of her parents. ‘Pabbi, District Commissioner Blöndal paid a visit when you were away,’ she whispered.

Jón sat up a little and looked down at his daughter. ‘The District Commissioner?’ he repeated.

Margrét clenched her fists. ‘What did he want?’ she asked.

‘He had a letter for you, Pabbi.’

Margrét stared down at Lauga. ‘Why didn’t he send a servant? Are you sure it was Blöndal?’

‘Mamma, please.’

Jón was silent. ‘Where is the letter?’ he asked.

Lauga wriggled the shoe off his other foot and let it drop to the floor. Mud cracked off the leather.

‘Steina burnt it.’

‘Whatever for? Good Lord!’

‘Mamma! It’s all right. I know what it said. Pabbi, we are being forced to —’

‘Pabbi!’ Steina’s voice rang down the corridor. ‘You’ll never guess who we have to keep locked up in our house!’

‘Locked up?’ Margrét twisted around to query her elder daughter, who had just bounced into the room. ‘Oh, Steina, you’re sopping.’

Steina looked down at her soaked apron and shrugged. ‘I dropped the buckets and had to go back and fill them up again. Pabbi, Blöndal’s forcing us to keep Agnes Magnúsdóttir in our home !’

‘Agnes Magnúsdóttir?’ Margrét turned to Lauga, horrified.

‘Yes, the murderess, Mamma!’ Steina exclaimed, untying her wet apron and carelessly flinging it onto the bed next to her. ‘The one who killed Natan Ketilsson!’

‘Steina! I was just about to explain to Pabbi —’

‘And Pétur Jónsson, Mamma.’

‘Steina!’

‘Oh, Lauga, just because you wanted to tell them.’

‘You ought not to interrupt —’

‘Girls!’ Jón stood up, his arms outstretched. ‘Enough. Begin from the start, Lauga. What happened?’

Lauga hesitated, then told her parents everything she could remember about the District Commissioner’s visit, her face growing flushed as she recited what she recalled reading in the letter.

Before she had finished, Jón began to dress again.

‘Surely this is not something we are obliged to do!’ Margrét tugged at her husband’s sleeve, but Jón shrugged her off, refusing to look at his wife’s distraught face.

‘Jón,’ Margrét murmured. She glanced over at her daughters, who both sat with their hands in their laps, watching their parents silently.

Jón pulled his boots back on, whipping the ties around his ankle. The leather squeaked as he pulled them tight.

‘It’s too late, Jón,’ Margrét said. ‘Are you going to Hvammur? They’ll all be asleep.’

‘Then I’ll wake them.’ He picked up his riding hat from its nail, took his wife by the shoulders and gently shifted her out of his way. Nodding farewell to his daughters, he strode out of the room, down the corridor and shut the door to the croft behind him.

‘What shall we do, Mamma?’ Lauga’s small voice came from a dark corner of the room.

Margrét closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Jón returned to Kornsá some hours later. Kristín, who had come back from her afternoon’s holiday to a sound chastising from Margrét, was scowling reproachfully at Steina. Margrét paused at her knitting and was considering whether or not to make peace between the girls, when she heard the door to the croft creak open and the sound of her husband’s heavy tread in the corridor.

Jón entered and immediately looked across at his wife. She clenched her jaw.

‘Well?’ Margrét ushered her husband to his bed.

Jón fumbled at the ties on his shoes.

‘Please, Pabbi,’ Lauga said, dropping to her knees. ‘What did Blöndal say?’ She jerked backwards as she pulled off his boots. ‘Is she still to come here?’

Jón nodded. ‘It’s as Lauga said. Agnes Magnúsdóttir is to be moved from her holdings at Stóra-Borg and brought to us.’

‘But why, Pabbi?’ Lauga asked quietly. ‘What did we do wrong?’

‘We have done nothing wrong. I am a District Officer. She can’t be placed with any family. She is a responsibility of the authorities, of which I am one.’

‘Plenty of authorities at Stóra-Borg.’ Margrét’s tone was sour.

‘She’s to be moved nevertheless. There was an incident.’

‘What happened?’ Lauga asked.

Jón looked down at the fair face of his youngest child. ‘I am sure it was nothing to worry about,’ he said eventually.

Margrét gave a short laugh. ‘Are we just going to yield to this? Like a dog rolling over?’ Her voice dropped to a hiss. ‘This Agnes is a murderess , Jón! We have our girls, our workmen. Even Kristín! We are responsible for others!’

Jón gave his wife a meaningful look. ‘Blöndal means to compensate us, Margrét. There is remuneration for her custody.’

Margrét paused. When she spoke her voice was subdued. ‘Perhaps we should send the girls away.’

‘No, Mamma! I don’t want to leave,’ cried Steina.

‘It would be for your own safety.’

Jón cleared his throat. ‘The girls will be safe enough with you, Margrét.’ He sighed. ‘There is another thing. Björn Blöndal has requested my presence at Hvammur on the night the woman arrives here.’

Margrét opened her mouth in dismay. ‘You mean to make me meet her?’

‘Pabbi, you can’t leave Mamma alone with her,’ Lauga cried.

‘She won’t be alone. You will all be here. There will be officers from Stóra-Borg. And a Reverend. Blöndal has organised it.’

‘And what is so important at Hvammur that Blöndal requires you there the very night he ushers a criminal into our home?’

‘Margrét…’

‘No, I insist. This is unfair.’

‘We are to discuss who shall be executioner.’

‘Executioner!’

‘All the District Officers will be present, including those from Vatnsnes who will travel with the Stóra-Borg riders. We will sleep there that night and return the next day.’

‘And in the meantime I am left alone with the woman who killed Natan Ketilsson.’

Jón looked at his wife calmly. ‘You will have your daughters.’

Margrét began to say something further, but then thought better of it. She gave her husband a hard look, took up her knitting and began working the needles furiously.

Steina watched her mother and father from under lowered brows, and picked up her dinner, feeling sick to her stomach. She held the wooden bowl in her hands and examined the gobbets of mutton swimming in the greasy broth. Slowly taking her spoon, she lifted a piece to her lips and began to chew, her tongue locating a lump of gristle within the flesh. She fought the instinct to spit it out and ground it under her teeth, swallowing in silence.