by Caroline Lea
Rósa recoiled. Was bad breath a sign of rot on the inside? But she forced a smile. ‘Your daughters are much older than I am. Perhaps you should seize this chance for one of them.’
Snorri gaped as Rósa curtsied, then ran outside and down the hill before he could reply. Mamma would be proud of her. Pabbi would have been less so.
Again, she scanned the hills and fields for the familiar set of Páll’s shoulders, but he was nowhere to be seen. The rest of the villagers filed back to their crofts, some calling to Rósa as they passed, then turning back to their neighbours to mutter. Rósa clenched her jaw and forced out a greeting. It had been like this ever since Pabbi had died: the whispering and speculation. Sometimes Rósa felt as if she were standing naked in a blizzard, every soul in the village pointing as she shivered.
Then Hedí Loftursdóttír came and pressed a clump of moss into Rósa’s hands. Her face was pale and her light blue eyes darted left and right. ‘For your mamma. It will help her cough.’
Rósa nodded and smiled. Perhaps some people still felt compassion for her. But before she could draw a breath to thank Hedí, the girl had run away, head down, as if Rósa carried some terrible disease.
The sky was a wide blue eye above her. When it paled, near midnight, the sun would skim below the edge of the horizon, then resurface in a blink, shedding a milky half-light.
In the distance squatted the upturned tabletop of Hekla. It spat smoke and ash into the sky, sometimes spewing out black rocks and lava to entomb the land and people for miles around. Hekla was known to be the open door into Hell. All in Iceland feared it, and many would rather die than live within sight of it. But Rósa could not imagine living anywhere else.
It would mean leaving her mamma. And Páll.
Rósa flexed her fingers, squeezing the soil beneath, and smelling the black dead-ash promise the mountains made anew each day: we will remain.
Something comforting in that relentless obstinacy. No more thoughts of ghosts and spirits. No more thoughts of leaving.
Two days after the church service, there had been a knock on the croft door. Rósa had known who it would be – no one ever knocked in Skálholt.
She hadn’t mentioned to her mamma anything about the service, or about the broad-shouldered stranger, and when she heard the knocking, Rósa froze.
Sigridúr stirred and coughed, then gave the door a dark look, as if the wood were to blame for waking her. ‘God’s teeth!’ she mumbled. ‘Open the door, Rósa, would you?’
Rósa pretended to be absorbed in her knitting. Another knock. She remained motionless, and Mamma, still coughing, gestured at the door.
Rósa sighed, set down her work and opened the door. In the sudden glare of light, all she could make out was a tall, bearded figure.
‘Komdu sælar og blessaðar.’ Jón’s voice was deep.
She shielded her eyes from the light. ‘Komdu sæl og blessaður.’
From her bed, Sigridúr had snapped, ‘If it’s traders, shut the door. We’ve sold both cows and all the sheep we can spare. I’ve nothing else I want to be rid of.’
‘Mamma, it is a visitor,’ Rósa hissed. ‘A man.’ Then she turned to the broad figure in the doorway and smiled. ‘Forgive us. Mamma is wary of strangers, since Pabbi’s passing. But you are Jón Eiríksson, goði of Stykkishólmur.’
He gave an awkward duck of his head that she supposed was a bow. ‘Indeed. May I come in?’ The flash of white teeth in his black beard softened his face.
She returned his smile, despite the hammering of her heart.
Sigridúr pursed her lips and struggled to sit up. ‘You must take us as you find us. My husband died some months ago and –’
‘I am sorry.’
Sigridúr gave a curt nod. ‘Your wife died too, folk say.’
He sighed. ‘Two months past.’
‘So soon? And I heard you buried her in the middle of the night, then went out fishing the next day. As if your wife cost you no more grief than a dog.’
Rósa gasped. ‘Mamma!’
‘It is the truth. Look at his face.’
Jón clasped his hands together, as if in prayer. ‘I buried her alone, it is true. I didn’t . . .’ He sighed, scratched his beard. His face was weather-beaten, his mouth had deep grooves at the corners, and there was darkness in his eyes, like a slammed door.
‘My wife was suddenly unwell. It was . . . distressing. She was from near Thingvellir and had few friends in my settlement.’
Rósa held up her hand. ‘I apologize. Mamma grieves still and . . . We feel Pabbi’s loss keenly every day.’ She gestured at the sagging turf roof and the broken beams, which would need imported wood to repair them. He was too polite to look directly at these signs of their poverty, but he nodded in sympathy.
‘But you should not feel you must explain,’ Rósa continued. ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’
‘Indeed.’ His expression brightened and his voice was warm.
Sigridúr snorted. When Magnús was alive, she had been more reserved, but since his death she had cared little for the opinions of others.
But Jón seemed not to take offence: he puffed out his cheeks, then exhaled. ‘Like any man, I have enemies, keen to spread rumours. But, believe me, I mourned my wife. It pained me that I could not help her.’
Even Sigridúr had the manners to hold her tongue.
He turned to Rósa. ‘Bishop Magnús was a virtuous man. A good man with a good family.’
Sigridúr’s scowl returned. ‘As you see.’
The weight of silence rested between them.
Sigridúr didn’t take her eyes from Jón’s face. ‘Rósa,’ she snapped, ‘fetch food and drink for our guest.’
Rósa went through the cowhide curtain to the pantry, where she could still hear them. The shrillness in Sigridúr’s voice made her flinch.
‘You would be best to visit Margrét – she has sheep and daughters both. I’m sure she’d trade either for a few ells of homespun, or their weight in dried fish.’
Rósa scooped some skyr onto a plate, poured two cups of ale and hurried back to the baðstofa.
Sigridúr’s lips were pursed. ‘I am weary.’ She indicated the door. ‘Thank you for your visit. Bless.’
Jón bowed. ‘Bless. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’ He turned to go.
Rósa glared at Sigridúr. ‘Won’t you stay? We have skyr and ale –’
‘Thank you, no. Bless.’ He ducked through the little doorway and was gone.
As soon as he left, Rósa rounded on her mother. ‘What possessed you to be so rude?’
‘You are not a cow that he can offer a trade for you.’ Sigridúr narrowed her eyes. ‘You may wilfully ignore what others say, Rósa, but a woman listens to wisdom if she wants to live to old age. They say he cut the hand off a merchant who cheated him. And that he had a man in his village burned for witchcraft. And his wife –’
‘His wife died of a fever, Mamma. The rest is gossip.’
‘Only a child could be blind to the darkness in that man.’ Sigridúr sank back onto her bed, coughing. ‘It’s all over his face. His wife no sooner dies than he’s on the hunt for a new one.’
Rósa’s mind hissed the same thought, but she knelt, taking Mamma’s hands. ‘It would be a good match.’
‘Nonsense. Your brain will rot. Think of your writing. Besides,’ Sigridúr grinned, ‘you are too wilful to be a wife.’
‘I will try to be . . . obedient. And marriage will not stop me reading or writing.’ Rósa’s voice faltered, as she thought of the scraps of parchment she had hidden under her mattress, which contained scribbled thoughts about a new Saga: a little like Laxdaela Saga, except this time the heroine would not kill or die for love. Surely her husband would not grudge her the chance to write occasionally. Even Magnús, who had despised anything associated with the old ways, had scoffed at the belief that writing stories or poems could be a form of witchcraft. He had also believed that, as he lacked a son, his dau
ghter should be taught to read and write, despite the mutterings of the villagers when they saw Rósa curled up with a quill and parchment.
Sigridúr stroked Rósa’s hair. ‘Bless your innocence. A man like that would set fire to your feet if you wrote a single word. Besides, keeping a croft, you would have no time to do anything other than sleep and eat. And I would never see you. No. I’ll hear no more of it. You’ll stay here.’
‘Jón is wealthy – ’
‘So was Odd of the Bandamanna Saga,’ Sigridúr muttered, ‘and he carried misfortune with him too.’
Sigridúr persuaded Rósa that it could not happen: he was too old, too odd, his home too distant. Besides, the man went through wives like cloaks.
But the late summer threw down early snow, which breathed cold over the village. Their evenings were spent huddled around the fire, burning precious tallow candles for extra warmth, stitching clothes that were more patch than cloth. Hunger shifted in their bellies and clawed at their guts. It would be yet another hard winter.
When Sigridúr’s cough worsened, and every breath sounded as if a swamp were squatting in her chest, Rósa began to have nightmares that Mamma had choked to death during the night, or starved, or died from the cold. More omens, perhaps.
She found a large, flat stone and used a stick with charcoal from the fire to draw out the protective vegvísir symbol, which she placed under her mamma’s straw mattress. The rune was only truly effective if drawn in blood on the forehead but, mindful of whispers, she hid the stone and hoped it might offer some net of protection around Sigridúr.
Even as she did it, Rósa knew that the real answer lay within her grasp: food and warmth would bring her mother back to full health.
But every time Rósa thought of Jón’s face, she shivered.
In the end, it was Páll’s pabbi, Bjartur, who forced the decision.
Páll had been Rósa’s closest confidant from childhood – his pabbi was Mamma’s cousin. Her earliest memories were of wrestling with Páll in the long grasses, or of him pelting her with snowballs. When they were older, they had lain on their bellies on the hillside, side by side in the sunlight. His eyes and thoughts, his very smell were as familiar to her as her own skin.
When they were sixteen summers, Rósa took to seeing Páll more often: she left the croft early and returned late. The two of them often walked over the hill, out of sight of the spying eyes of the village.
Magnús had become increasingly severe about Rósa spending time with Páll. ‘It isn’t fitting. You’re no longer children.’
‘You are seeing harm where there is none,’ insisted Rósa, when Magnús wouldn’t relent.
‘And you are ruining your chances of a good match,’ bellowed Magnús. ‘Ignorant girl! You know how people talk.’
‘Let them! Anyone would be a fool to think there is harm in my friendship with Páll. A poison-minded fool!’ Rósa spat the last word, and Magnús reeled, then turned and walked to the door.
He stopped there and said, very low, his back still to her, ‘Many fathers would have beaten their daughters for less. Remember that, next time you call me a fool.’
Rósa had spent the night alternately sobbing and raging, and nothing Sigridúr could say calmed her.
The next morning, she had woken early and crept out to see Páll as usual. Despite her fury with Magnús, she found herself saying to him, ‘I must see less of you in the coming months.’
‘Oh?’
‘My pabbi says . . .’ She uprooted a grass stalk. ‘He says I must spend more time alone.’
‘Doing what?’ Páll smudged the ink on the parchment and cursed under his breath. Rósa poked him with a toe.
‘He says . . .’ Rósa hid her face in her hands. ‘He says I must prepare to marry.’
‘Marry?’ Páll sat up, smiling quizzically, as if it were some joke. ‘Surely old Snorri Skúmsson is too much sought-after for you to have any hope there.’
Rósa laughed, but the sound emerged as a sob.
Páll’s smile faded. ‘So I am to see less of you because you are to marry?’
Rósa nodded. ‘Someone from . . . I don’t know where. Pabbi is talking of . . . He says I must make a good match. Someone . . . powerful.’
Páll blinked and Rósa was suddenly dry-mouthed.
Finally, Páll said, ‘Well, no doubt you will be like Gudrun from Laxdaela Saga, and men will be killing each other for your love.’ He used the quill to flick ink across her face.
Rósa wiped it away, then used her finger to smear it across his cheek. ‘Don’t waste ink, you scoundrel!’
He grinned. ‘No waste when it makes you laugh.’
They said no more about marriage and, after some time, she fell asleep with her arm across her face. She was wakened by a tickling sensation on her stomach. She reached down to brush away whatever insect was bothering her, and discovered that her stomach was bare – her dress had ridden up while she was asleep – and her skin was covered with letters where Páll had written on her.
She sat up. ‘What are you doing?’ she snapped. ‘How will I wash these off?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’ Páll was red-faced and wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘Your dress moved and I – I thought you would laugh, and then I . . . You’re just – And I couldn’t –’ He turned away.
She leaned towards him, smiling. ‘You’re a fool. Soak your tunic in the stream and I can wash the ink off. There’s your payment for drawing on me: you will be cold and wet.’
She had expected him to laugh, but he got up without looking at her and then returned a short while later, his tunic soaked.
She squinted up at him. ‘Well? I cannot rip it from your back.’
He swallowed, then slowly lifted his arms and peeled it off.
She stared. When she had last seen his body – when they had last swum together, the summer before – his arms and stomach and chest had been very much like hers: the flat planes of a child. Now his chest had broadened, while the digging and hefting of peat had made hard slabs of muscle under his skin.
When Páll held out the wet tunic to her, she found she couldn’t move to take it.
‘Here,’ Páll murmured.
Rósa shook her head: the letters could stay and he should put on his tunic. But he must have misunderstood her, because he closed his eyes and inhaled, then knelt next to her and began wiping her skin with the tunic.
Rósa jumped and gasped at the cold.
‘Am I hurting you?’ Páll asked. ‘Should I stop?’ He looked at her face. His blue eyes were fathomless and deep, his expression utterly serious.
She shook her head. Then she lay back and closed her eyes.
He worked carefully, one letter at a time, the cloth marking an icy trail, which left the surface of her skin stippled with cold. After a long time, when the sun had dropped in the sky, and Rósa had begun to shiver, Páll stopped.
‘Finished,’ he whispered. Then, before she could move, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the skin of her navel. A single moment of heat. Rósa jumped and drew a sharp breath.
Páll recoiled, as if she had slapped him. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –’
‘No! I didn’t mean –’
‘I’m sorry, Rósa. Please forgive me.’
And before she had found the words to tell him he didn’t need to apologize, that she wanted him to kiss her again, Páll had jumped to his feet and backed away from her, as if she might scald him.
For the rest of that summer, he had treated her like a stranger. He barely met her eye, and if she spoke to him, he grunted in response. When Sigridúr asked Rósa what had happened, Rósa didn’t know how to explain. All she knew was that, before, seeing Páll had been like looking at the familiar and beloved mountains that surrounded her home. Now, meeting his eyes was like staring into the open mouth of Hekla. When she looked at him, her whole body burned.
Magnús also noted the separation between them: he smiled and patted Rósa’s head, as if she we
re a child. ‘Sensible girl. That was never any sort of future.’ When Rósa raised her eyebrows, Magnús continued, ‘It wouldn’t do. A bishop’s daughter and a crofter’s son?’ He laughed. ‘I made you for better things. You’ll be a match for some fine goði somewhere. Hólar to the north, perhaps. Or even Copenhagen.’
‘I want to stay here.’ The words were out of Rósa’s mouth before she had even formed them in her head. ‘With you. I want to help you in the church. Here, in Skálholt.’
Magnús had laughed again but, when Rósa had been adamant, he had finally agreed that she need not marry and could stay at home.
After Magnús’s death, Páll had come to the croft more often, shyly offering strips of dried mutton or sacks of manure for the fire. Over time, he smiled at her again, teased her. Slowly, it seemed their friendship was returning to what it had once been. Rósa finally felt able to look at Páll again, to meet his eyes without fear.
Once he brought to the croft a large block of peat which he must have obtained from a trader, although Rósa could not imagine how.
When she asked, he grinned. ‘Believe me, you would rather not know.’
‘You stole it? Then take it back.’ She shoved it towards him, but he held her wrists lightly with one hand and laughed. ‘Your mamma needs it.’
She stopped struggling, but left her wrists in his hand. ‘I won’t burn stolen peat.’
‘Your mamma will. Besides, I didn’t steal it.’ He took her hands and squeezed them, smiling. ‘A greedy rogue wanted ten loaves. I gave him the bread, and he gave me the peat, happily.’
‘But . . .’ She tried to ignore the jolt of his skin on hers. ‘Wherever did you find the flour for ten loaves?’
Páll chuckled. ‘I am generous. The crust of the bread will fill his belly, while the inside of each loaf is packed with good hay for his horses.’