by Caroline Lea
‘Páll!’ She laughed. The trader had almost certainly deserved it and the peat would help to dry the air in the croft, which would soothe Mamma’s cough.
Páll continued to bring food and fuel. Slowly, Rósa began to hope that there might be a future for her with him. Perhaps she and Páll between them could keep Mamma alive through the winter, until the warmth of spring began to heal her.
At night, when the darkness surrounded her, Rósa lay on her bed and remembered again the feeling of Páll’s lips on her, his body close to hers. The heat of him.
But then, one day when Rósa was out on the hill, searching for bog bilberries, she heard the squelch of footsteps behind her.
Rósa did not turn. ‘There are very few, Páll. You should go back and help your pabbi – he will rage if he finds you have neglected your work.’
‘Indeed I will, and have done for weeks, though my son pays me no mind.’
Rósa gasped. ‘Bjartur! Bless.’ She bowed her head in greeting, hoping he would continue on his way, but he continued to stand, arms folded.
‘Your eyes will freeze if you stare so,’ Rósa said finally.
Bjartur scowled. ‘Mind your tongue, Rósa. And keep away from my boy.’
‘Good day to you, Bjartur. May the fair weather continue.’
His lip curled. ‘Always above yourself. You’re poisoning Páll –’
‘I will tell him –’
‘You will tell him to stay away from you.’
‘He is a man, and may command himself.’
‘Ah, but he does not. You command him. Tell him to stay away.’
‘You cannot order me –’
‘I can and I will. You’re unruly and selfish, and you’ve been allowed to tread your own path for too long. Must I spread word in the village that what they whisper is true, that you’ve bewitched my son? Shall I tell people that they should search your croft for runes and other writing?’
Rósa forced herself to return Bjartur’s baleful glare. ‘You would not . . .’ But her voice shook.
Bjartur stepped towards her. Though her guts were roiling, Rósa stood firm.
‘Have you looked at Páll, these past months?’ he growled. ‘Truly looked?’
Rósa blinked. ‘You are trying –’
‘The boy is exhausted. Thin as a broom-handle.’
‘I . . .’ Rósa dropped her gaze. ‘I had not noticed.’
‘No,’ Bjartur sneered. ‘You have been too full of your own thoughts and plans to see that my son starves himself to fill your belly.’
‘I – I will tell him to eat and rest.’
‘Tell him to keep away. You’re poison to him.’
Rósa prayed that Bjartur would leave, but he took a step closer. He smelt of bitter turf and sour sweat.
‘The goði from Stykkishólmur seeks a wife. Direct your simpering smiles at him.’
Rósa’s jaw dropped.
Bjartur turned his palms towards the sky. ‘A wealthy man, he’ll send coin and food for your kinfolk.’
Rósa ignored the trembling in her legs and drew herself up to her full height. ‘I am not a fool, Uncle. Your self-interest –’
‘You could save us all from grief, Rósa. It will be a hard winter, and many will die.’ He hawked up phlegm and spat upon the ground. ‘Think on it.’
He turned and trudged back down the hill. In the stoop of his shoulders and his limp, Rósa saw the ghost of what Páll might become. If he survived.
Jón stayed for nearly three weeks, trading in the surrounding area, watching. Watching everything. He refused the offers from various villagers, usually those with daughters of marriageable age, to share their roof as shelter. Instead, he made a little camp on the hillside, in spite of the cold nights.
Rósa passed him daily on her way to collect water from the river. She didn’t smile and wave a giggling greeting, like the other girls, but walked with her head down. The feel of his eyes on her made her skin itch.
Again and again she went over Bjartur’s words of warning on the hillside. Perhaps he had been right. Perhaps her marriage to this rich man would be better for everyone. But no! Why should she marry a stranger? Why should she leave everything behind?
Then, one night, Sigridúr coughed so violently that her handkerchief came away freckled with red, and Rósa knew that the decision had made itself.
The next morning, when she saw Jón trudging over the fields to the church, she took a deep breath, called a greeting and hurried to walk alongside him.
Jón stopped and turned to her. ‘It will be another grim winter.’
She looked at the grass. His cold blue eyes made her insides coil. Not quite fear, but the feeling made her shift from one foot to another.
‘You must miss your pabbi. He was a good man.’
‘Thank you. He was. You knew him?’
‘I met him briefly at the Althing. His dedication to God and his care for his people were remarkable. Some bishops are greedy, but your pabbi was humble.’
She nodded.
‘And he would be proud of his daughter, I think.’
She forced herself not to reply. Women should be quiet and biddable.
He smiled and looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘You are the epitome of humility, Rósa Magnúsdóttir.’
His gaze on her was like a touch. She found herself looking at his hands: the thick veins like ropes, the strong fingers. Her own hands trembled; she clutched the wool of her skirt.
‘Does it please you to be obedient?’ Jón murmured.
She measured her words. ‘Pride is a sin. God says, Do not be haughty.’
He stepped closer to her. ‘You are a fine woman.’ His body radiated heat and Rósa squirmed, but forced herself to smile and meet his gaze. As they walked, he described Stykkishólmur’s beauty until she could almost taste the salt and hear the puffins. She made admiring comments. Mamma had told her that men needed adoration.
His manner became easier. He smiled as he itemised his wealth: the linen sheets, the abundance of bread and meat, the large peat fires that warmed the kitchen and baðstofa all day. ‘I have every comfort that might be dreamed of,’ Jón said. ‘It is a good life, only solitary. The Bible tells us that women were created for men, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.’ His eyes were dark blue, impenetrable. He reached out and touched her cheek, then rested his hand upon her shoulder. It was hot and heavy.
Rósa’s breath was tight in her chest.
Jón took her hand between his own. Her fingers disappeared. He looked down at her wrist. ‘Such delicate bones. Like a bird.’ He opened out her fingers and intertwined them with his. ‘I would care for you, Rósa. You understand?’
She nodded, wide-eyed.
‘I would send food to your kinfolk in Skálholt.’ He squeezed her fingers. She gasped. He leaned in close to her ear. ‘Say yes to me,’ he whispered.
Rósa sighed and closed her eyes. The darkness inside her widened its jaws but she ignored it and fixed her face into a smile.
Sigridúr was furious, of course. ‘Your pabbi nurtured your mind, taught you to read. Will you waste that in a life of drudgery? Stoking fires and beating washing until your body breaks? Aim at the bishop, if you must marry.’
Rósa set her jaw. ‘This is for the best. You will have meat and –’
Sigridúr wheezed. ‘You will be far away across the country. And there’s a coldness in that man.’
‘Hush, Mamma. He is . . . good.’ The more Rósa said it, the more she believed.
‘Marry someone young. From Skálholt.’
Unbidden, Rósa thought of Páll’s smile, his kiss, which had lit up her whole body. A sudden memory of him, aged twelve, chasing after her. She had stumbled and he had fallen, laughing. When she turned to him, her own laughter seemed to come from his chest, his from her mouth. The memory ripped through her now, leaving her momentarily breathless.
And yet when a stone is caught in a rushing river, what choice does it have but to move?
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When she next saw Jón, Rósa dropped her gaze and smiled meekly. They discussed scripture, and when he talked of the instruction for women to be silent in church, she nodded. She showered him with praise.
They sat next to the river and he put his hand on the back of her neck. He must have been able to feel the pounding of her heart – her whole body shook with it. When they stood, she peered down to look at her reflection, but beside his huge bulk she was less than a shadow, pale as a ghost. The surface of the water flickered, she disappeared, as if something had swallowed her.
It took a week of silent glares and growling stomachs, and a fire that kept dying overnight for want of peat to burn, before Sigridúr grudgingly agreed to the match. When she gave her blessing, Rósa’s eyes stung and her knees were shaking.
Jón visited to thank Sigridúr, and to say that he would travel west to Stykkishólmur after the wedding – the herring were plentiful in September, the hay must be harvested, and he should attend his people as goði, giving out food and counsel. ‘Forgive me, Rósa. My work and my people have claims on me.’ His mouth was a flat line and he squeezed Rósa’s fingers.
She swallowed. ‘Of course. You are a great man.’
Jón’s face relaxed. ‘I will send my apprentice to bring you home. He will care well for you on the journey.’ He stroked the palm of her hand.
She had to force herself not to flinch. This was her future: this mountain of a man, with the stern face and crushing hands. She nodded, unable to force any air past the jagged stone in her chest.
Rósa found Páll out working, shifting squares of turf on a roof. She tried to look at him through unfamiliar eyes and saw that, although he was lean and looked weary, his shoulders had broadened and his arms were hard with corded muscles.
She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly.
Páll turned when she called his name, but he didn’t climb down.
‘I hear you are to marry.’ His face was hard, his voice flat. ‘I wish you joy.’
‘I wanted to tell you –’
‘It is not my concern. Marry, if you like.’
He turned his back and slashed viciously at a piece of turf to square it. The sun glinted off his hair, accentuating the trace of red. She had tugged at the reddish hairs in his beard when it first grew, calling him a Vestmannyar, from Ireland. He had laughed, his breath warm against her hand.
‘Won’t you come down?’
‘I must finish this roof.’
‘I . . . Let me explain –’
‘Nothing to explain. Only . . .’ He clenched his jaw and, for a horrible moment, his voice shook. Then he coughed and said brusquely, ‘I thought you were set on church life. Here.’
‘I . . .’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I –’
‘Don’t.’ When he looked at her, his eyes were the blue of a glacier in midwinter.
After a long silence, she turned and walked away.
Behind her, she could hear Páll grunting with exertion as he shifted the squares of turf.
The marriage ceremony took place on the first day of September, in the jaundiced pre-evening light. The dark church was crowded with most of the people of Skálholt, craning their necks and muttering.
Rósa shrank under their hard eyes and whispered words, and pushed her hands into the dress Jón had bought for her, white linen, shot through with strands of red silk. When sunlight caught the silk fibres, Rósa’s body was picked out in fire. In the right pocket, Mamma had placed a wooden cross that had once belonged to Magnús; in the left was a stone, which she had pressed into her hand that morning.
Rósa had frowned at the symbol on it. ‘Ginfaxi?’
‘Courage in battle.’ Sigridúr had grinned. ‘And victory when wrestling.’
Now, under the eyes of the villagers, Rósa clutched the cross and the stone, squeezing them until her hands ached. Her blood pounded in her ears, but she could still hear snatches of the gossip around her. She heard the word witchcraft and tried not to roll her eyes. The villagers were happy enough still to use runes, but envy meant it suited them to be suspicious of Rósa and Sigridúr. She could also hear them murmuring about Jón. She heard first wife, then tutting and stifled laughter.
A finger of sweat traced the length of Rósa’s spine.
If Jón heard any of the snatches of gossip, he didn’t show it. He stood next to his apprentice, Pétur, whom Rósa hadn’t seen before.
Pétur was slimmer and darker than Jón: his skin was like the bronzed buckskin of Pabbi’s empty coin purse, and there was a coiled stillness about his body, which made Rósa think of the pictures of wolves she had seen in books about those lands to the east. His eyes were brown, but in the few beams of orange light from the tiny, high windows – expensive glass, imported from Denmark – they glowed almost amber. They locked on her, and Rósa’s breath caught. Then the corners of his mouth tugged upwards and his face softened.
Sigridúr nudged her daughter. ‘They say he’s one of the huldufólk.’
‘And they say a woman writing is witchcraft,’ Rósa muttered.
‘He was found on the hills as a child. As though he’d grown from the earth. He looks it too, with that dark hair, those eyes.’
Rósa risked a quick smile. ‘One of the huldufólk would have made off with the children by now.’
But it was true: Pétur looked darker and harder than any Icelander Rósa had seen, as though he was somehow formed from the volcanic soil itself.
Sigridúr gave a wheeze. ‘Huldufólk or not, he’s a pretty fellow. Now that would be a marriage choice.’
‘You are past marrying age, Mamma.’
Sigridúr snorted.
Rósa kept her eyes fixed on Jón’s face. He smiled at her, grey eyes brightening from slate to sky. She felt the iron fist loosen around her chest.
When she had entered the church, Rósa had searched for Páll’s reddish-blond hair. She had allowed herself to imagine he might grin at her; even if he didn’t, even if he scowled, just seeing him might give her strength. When she realized that he hadn’t come, it was like a physical blow. She had lost him. Truly lost him. She pressed her hands to her stomach and forced herself to breathe through the pain.
She straightened her back, pressed her mouth into a fixed rictus. Around her neck was a leather cord, on which dangled a tiny glass figurine that Jón had offered to her that morning as a wedding gift. It was cold, like frozen water, and shaped into the perfect form of a woman: tiny hands clasped in introspection, gaze meekly lowered. Rósa had gasped: glass was costly and rare, and she had never before possessed anything that had no purpose other than to look beautiful.
‘I had it from a Danish trader,’ he said. ‘Beautiful. Fragile. Humble.’ He touched her cheek. His hand was burning on her skin. ‘It made me think of you.’
A woman made of glass and stillness: perfect but easily shattered.
Rósa squeezed the figurine until her hand ached. Later, she would find that the glass had left a purple imprint of itself on her palm.
The bishop’s voice was deadened by the dark, fuggy interior of the church, the air heavy with the warmth of too many breathing bodies.
After the words of blessing had been spoken, Jón looked at her and reached out, as if to stroke her cheek again, but let his hand drop to his side.
She exhaled slowly – she hadn’t realized she had been holding her breath.
He travelled back to Stykkishólmur that afternoon, no wedding feast, not even a night in Rósa’s bed – though she was thankful she didn’t have to endure Mamma snoring in the bed opposite hers while she lay with her husband for the first time.
It would be Pétur who returned in three weeks to take her to her new life.
Skálholt, September 1686
It is late but still light. In the morning, they will leave, she and Pétur, travelling north-west; Rósa will become someone else. She finds herself remembering The Saga of Eirík the Red, in which Gudrid journeyed to foreign lands, only to find that all who
accompanied her were plagued by illness and that her travels were marked with death. Gudrid sought out a seeress and they sang ward songs for protection.
Now, in the pantry, Rósa mutters the words in some attempt at protection, as she stuffs linens into a sack to take with her.
‘Sun knew not
what temples she had,
Moon knew not
what power he possessed,
Stars knew not
what places they had.’
She fumbles over the linens and drops them. Her hands are shaking.
Sigridúr has drunk too much brennevín and is snoring softly on her bed when Rósa returns to the baðstofa. Pétur is warming his hands by the fire. He fixes her with those eyes, dark bronze in the gathering gloom. At first she thinks he is scowling at her, but then she sees that he is staring at the glass woman, which dangles from a leather cord around her neck. Perhaps he disapproves of the expense. Rósa tucks it inside her dress.
He raises his eyebrows, then turns back to the fire. ‘Have you seen the sea before?’ he asks.
‘Never. Shall I like it, do you think?’
His smile seems mocking, as if he finds something about her amusing. ‘Some take to it and some don’t. But I think Jón has chosen you for reasons other than your strength at the oars.’
‘Oh.’ She stares at the fire. She is no innocent: she knows what men expect.
The silence between them shifts. Rósa smooths her skirts: they are linen and silk, another gift from Jón.
‘Your family must miss you when you are trading.’ Then she remembers Mamma’s tale: Pétur was discovered on a hillside as a child. She feels a blush creep over her throat. ‘I mean –’
‘I have no family.’
She looks down at her lap. The linen scratches her skin. ‘I am sorry for you.’
‘You must not be,’ Pétur says. ‘Jón is better than a family.’
‘You call him Jón?’
‘Should I call him Master?’ He studies her face; she looks at her hands. ‘When you wrestle your life from the hands of the sea, the waves are your master.’