by Caroline Lea
‘You believe in . . . sea spirits?’
‘Some things go beyond our understanding.’
Pétur uses the poker to shift the peat. The orange glow flickers over his face and he looks, for a moment, monstrous. Earlier, she had watched him crouch by the river and impale a trout on a fishing spike.
Now, he leans towards her. ‘You must have heard the rumours – I am one of the huldufólk.’ The sharp angles of his cheekbones and his dark eyes make him the very image of one of the grinning elves.
He laughs and Rósa jumps.
‘Superstitions are ungodly.’ Her hands are sweating. In her skirt pocket, the runestone Mamma had given her is warm against her skin.
Pétur raises a mocking eyebrow. ‘Ah, Rósa, such piety! You may even win over my own dear pabbi.’
‘Your dear pabbi?’ He’d said he had no family.
Pétur leans in closer. He smells of sweat: a sharp, animal odour. ‘I believe what any Icelander believes,’ he says. ‘Some answers are given in the Bible. Others are not.’
‘And . . . Jón?’ Rósa holds her breath.
‘Jón is an Icelander. But the blood and the heart may tell us different truths.’ He watches Rósa until she looks away.
‘What of the prestur? He likes my husband?’
‘Egill? Best to stay away from him. Jón will tell you the same.’ Pétur gazes morosely into the fire.
After a moment of silence, except for the crackling fire and Sigridúr’s snores, Rósa asks, ‘Will I have a maidservant?’ She imagines, briefly, a mouse-haired, hazel-eyed girl like herself.
But Pétur shakes his head. ‘The croft is not so large that you will need help.’
The likeness fades; Rósa feels a stab of loneliness.
Pétur looks up, his eyes suddenly hard in the firelight. ‘Besides, you should keep apart from the people of Stykkishólmur. They are full of nothing but sly gossip.’
She opens her mouth, then, seeing the burn in his gaze, shuts it.
They set off early the next morning. The sky has been filled with pale light for hours, but even the farmers are asleep, the cows and sheep still drowsing in the fields.
Pétur holds Rósa’s stirrup while she clambers atop the mare, a beautiful chestnut beast, comically shaggy in her thick winter coat. Rósa has not ridden since she was a child; she feels awkward in the saddle and grips the mane tightly.
‘Do not worry.’ Pétur smiles at her nervousness. ‘She is a fine mare. Sturdy, strong and full of courage. Wait until you feel her tölt.’
Rósa’s confusion must show, because Pétur chuckles, his face light and animated.
‘See, I will show you.’ He swings himself into the saddle of his own dun mare and digs in his heels. The mare walks, trots, then changes her gait to high-stepping strides, which are so smooth that Pétur hardly shifts in the saddle.
He circles the mare back to Rósa, grinning. ‘The tölt. It will cover the ground and is comfortable – the horses can sustain it all day. You try.’
Rósa presses her heels against the mare’s sides and the horse springs forward into the smooth, high-paced gait. Remembering riding a trader’s horse as a child and bouncing in the saddle, like a sack stuffed with wet rags, Rósa laughs. ‘It feels like flying.’
Pétur whoops, a strange, inhuman sound, and kicks his horse to catch up, but hers is faster. She gallops up the hill, the wind whipping tears from her eyes.
Birds are flushed from the long grasses ahead of her: two ravens flap skyward, then circle overhead, shrieking. Rósa feels a chill: the carrion birds make her think of Hugin and Munin, Odin’s twin messengers of Thought and Memory, who deliver word from the dead. She shakes off the thought and urges her horse onwards.
It is only when she reins in her mare at the top of the hill that she sees it: Skálholt lies far behind. She has left, without even realizing it. Her little croft is a smudge of brown against the green, no bigger than her thumbnail. Somewhere, in the scattering of crofts, Páll will be rising for the day. Will he sense, somehow, that she has gone?
Overhead, the ravens circle and caw.
Pétur reins in next to her. Expecting mockery, she rubs her eyes with her sleeve and turns her face away.
‘You can return, briefly, if you wish,’ he says, gently. ‘I will wait.’
She shakes her head. ‘I have said my farewells.’ She pushes away the image of the downcast slant to Páll’s shoulders when she saw him last. ‘Let’s go on.’ And she turns her back on Skálholt and looks to the cloud-hooded mountains ahead.
Pétur kicks his mare on. ‘You are stronger than you seem, Rósa. Eigi deilir litur kosti.’ Appearances can be deceptive.
She shrugs off the compliment – or perhaps it is an insult – and keeps her eyes fixed on the grey clouds in the distance. ‘What is my mare’s name?’
‘Hallgerd. And mine is Skalm.’
‘Good strong names.’
‘There is much to be told by a name, Rósa.’
Is he trying to flatter her? She is nothing like a rose. ‘Pétur’ means stone. At first, it had seemed a fitting name: hard, jagged and unrelenting. But now she considers his laughter, his kindness at her grief. He is right: appearances can be deceptive.
She is so lost in thought that she does not notice the large rock until her mare veers sharply left to avoid it. Rósa falls. The grass is soft and it does not hurt, but her face is hot as she scrambles to her feet.
‘Are you injured?’ Pétur dusts off her skirts.
‘I am well, only . . .’ Tears sting her eyes and she swallows hard.
Pétur picks a sprig of heather from her hair. ‘The land does not want to release you. This brave piece of heather has martyred itself so that you will stay.’
She cannot help laughing, and wipes her eyes.
‘Here, keep it in your pack,’ he says. ‘It will remind you to watch your step. I carry a knife to remind me.’
‘To watch your step?’
‘No. To remind me that there are many ways to silence a chattering woman.’
Her stomach drops and she backs away. He chuckles, then takes her hand and helps her back into the saddle. His hand is strong, his grip hard.
‘They say a fall bodes a good journey,’ he says.
‘You use proverbs from the Sagas. I did not think . . . I imagined it would not please a religious man, like Jón.’
He fixes her with those strange golden eyes. ‘Jón is not a zealot.’
‘So Jón approves of the old ways?’
‘Talk is one thing. Witchcraft will see you burned.’ He yanks the reins, his face rigid as his horse wheels away and canters off.
She examines the broken boulder that caused her fall and realizes that it marks the spot where Jón Arason and his two sons were beheaded after the civil war nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. Arason’s execution had taken seven blows of the axe. Rósa looks at the black soil beneath her feet and wonders if, deep in the earth, the richness of the man’s lifeblood might still pulse.
She mutters a blessing for him and squeezes the runestone in her pocket.
In the days after his execution, Arason’s followers had hunted down his executioner and poured molten lead into his throat. Blood for blood.
Overhead, the ravens wheel and shriek, always searching for the dead.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of wind-flattened grass and snow-hunched mountains that grapple with the horizon and shift their shape with every step.
When the sun reaches its zenith, the land broadens. It is greener and tamer here. The horses saunter drowsily, heads low to the ground, snatching mouthfuls of grass, which is webbed by rivulets of water. An exposed spine of stones, ten times the height of a man, juts upwards, as if the earth has done battle with itself and ripped off its skin.
Pétur sees her staring. ‘The ancient ones used to think the ground here was alive. Every time there is an earthquake, even now, the landscape changes. Pieces fall away or rise up. Whole hills are engulfed.’
&nb
sp; ‘Whole hills? How?’
He gestures at the ragged stone teeth. ‘The earth moves and the rock cracks. The land breaks open. Fire and melted rock bubble up, like blood. When the ground sleeps again, these scars remain.’
‘Where are we?’
‘Thingvellir. It is where the Law Council meets.’
She exhales in awe. ‘The Althing?’ This is the place, then, where laws are passed, and where men and women have been tried and burned or beheaded for casting spells or reading runes or spreading sickness.
In her pocket, the stone throbs, like a beating heart.
Rósa searches for a blackened patch of soil, which might mark the place where bodies had crisped and burned, but the tangle of grass, water and rock stretches off into the distance, insolent with life.
She closes her eyes, sure, for a moment, that she can hear a raw-throated scream in the distance. But it is only a raven – the bird can imitate almost any call. It flaps overhead, shrieking like a man on fire, then gives a gurgling chuckle.
Rósa is suddenly cold and weary. ‘Will we stop to eat?’
Pétur shakes his head and passes her some dried fish from his pack.
She would like to argue that she is exhausted and aching from the time in the saddle, but the obstinate set of his mouth silences her.
As she chews, she notices the far-off figure of a man on a black horse. Pétur leans across and grasps Hallgerd’s reins, pulling the mare towards a cluster of birch trees. ‘You look weary. Here, the trees will provide shelter.’
‘Shelter from what?’
Pétur does not reply, but squints into the distance, his mouth hard.
Rósa doesn’t protest: she must try to be mild and biddable.
They eat in silence while the horses graze. Rósa gazes in wonder at the knot of branches surrounding them: trees not much taller than her own head. ‘I have never seen so many trees before.’
He puts his fingers over his lips. Then he whispers, ‘Jón says that in other lands there are clusters of trees called forests. They stretch up like mountains, blocking out the light. The soil beneath is always in winter.’
Rósa hears a branch crack as the horseman rides past the stand of trees. Pétur waits a moment for the hoofbeats to recede, then his face softens. ‘In Stykkishólmur they say that years ago, when the Vikings arrived, the land was covered with thick forests, but the men felled the trees and the soil was washed away. The land never recovered and never forgave them. Now, every farmer must work from dawn until dusk to scratch hay from the dead soil. And if he does not show gratitude, the earth devours him.’
Rósa shivers. The mountains rear large and black, their sides striated with huge vertical clefts, as if some giant of old had plunged an axe into the rock.
The hoofbeats of the black horse fade. ‘We were hiding,’ she mutters.
‘No. I felt compassion for your woman’s weariness.’
‘You are . . . I do not believe you.’
‘Lying is a mortal sin. You are brave. Remember why I carry a knife.’ His eyes are narrowed, his voice flat.
She grips Hallgerd’s thick, greasy mane for courage. ‘Don’t threaten me! I will tell Jón. And are you a Catholic, to speak of mortal sins? It is forbidden to . . .’ She trails off at his expression. ‘You are laughing at me.’
He holds up a hand in apology. ‘I am not laughing at you. But Jón had not warned me you had such a temper.’ He tilts his head to one side, mouth curled into a smile. ‘Or perhaps he does not know.’
Then Pétur digs his heels in; Skalm trots away.
She flaps her legs against Hallgerd’s ribs until her mare catches up. She gives him a withering look and he laughs again, kicking his mare forward.
Her unease grows when they ride late into the evening and he shows no sign of stopping at any of the settlements or scattered crofts they pass. In fact, he veers away from any blink of light in the blanketing grey of falling night.
Rósa’s chin lolls onto her chest and then she starts awake. Unable to bear the bone-burning exhaustion, she demands, ‘Are we to sleep in the saddle?’
‘We can stop, if you must.’
‘And sleep out in the cold?’
‘The horses will keep us warm, and I have blankets.’
He is teasing her, surely. But, in the fading light, his face is as severe as ever.
‘Is there a settlement nearby?’
He shakes his head. ‘A day to the east is the closest.’
She takes a breath to quell her growing hysteria. She will not sleep out in the open air, where there are foxes and rats and the marrow-gnawing cold. ‘I would like a bed.’
‘We will sleep outside.’
Louder, her voice sharp: ‘I need a bed!’
He growls, then gives a tight nod. ‘Very well. There is a croft on the other side of this hill. We will be there before dark.’
‘Why did you not say so before?’
When they reach the croft, he tells her to wait ten horse-lengths back, by a small clump of birch saplings. He knocks on the door. An old man shuffles out. He and Pétur confer in low voices, then the man nods and Pétur returns to Rósa.
‘We sleep in the barn. The horses too.’
‘With the animals?’ Rósa’s voice is high-pitched.
‘No animals. They are all out in the open, as we should be in this weather.’
‘Did you ask him for a bed?’
‘We are sleeping in the barn, Rósa. Come, this way.’
The man, who has been watching their exchange, calls, ‘Tómas!’ and Pétur walks back to him. The man gestures at the baðstofa, but Pétur shakes his head and points at the barn with its sagging turf roof. In the end, the man nods but disappears into his croft, then emerges with two woollen blankets. Pétur walks to the barn, pulls open the rickety door and leads the horses inside.
Rósa stalks after him into the dark fug. ‘He would have allowed us into his croft. And he called you Tómas?’
‘The horses can sleep against the bales of hay. We will lie alongside them.’
‘Why did he call you Tómas?’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘This barn smells foul.’
‘Sometimes folk in outlying crofts have no outhouse.’
‘So they use the barn?’
‘Sleep outside, if you prefer.’ Pétur has already encouraged both horses to lie down and has settled himself under a blanket next to Skalm. He turns his back on Rósa and his voice is muffled by the horse’s mane. ‘We will rise with the light, so you should fall asleep quickly, wherever you do it.’
Rósa scowls. Pétur’s breathing has already lengthened and deepened. She huddles under the blankets, and pillows her head against Hallgerd’s warm neck. The mare grinds her teeth with contentment and gives a huffing sigh.
Rósa lies rigid, blinking into the darkness, her blood thrumming in her ears. Pétur seems to be asleep. She presses her hands against her belly and curls around herself. She imagines she is stone or earth, but still, on every breath, she is aware of the soft rise and fall of her flesh, the brittleness of her bones beside the growling, deceptive creature in the shape of a man.
She remembers the smooth ease with which he had lied to the man who owned the barn, the lightness of his laughter.
And as sleep drags her down to its swampy depths, she remembers something else: Jón’s first wife, Anna, had come from a settlement near Thingvellir.
Near Thingvellir, September 1686
Rósa dreams of Páll. He reaches for her and brushes his fingers over her cheek. She leans into him, but cannot reach him: all she can feel is the pulsing fingerspan of air that separates them. When she looks up at his face, it is not Páll, but Jón. He moves his hand down to her throat, squeezes and releases her neck, pushing air in and out of her lungs. She tries to claw free, but Jón’s broad body is suddenly a sculpture, made of the blue ice from the belly of a glacier. He lurches at her, clawed hands stiff with frost, beard rimed with snow. His voice is a funnelling wind as he howls and twists in
fire. When his blackened hand clasps her shoulder, she screams.
‘Hush, Rósa!’ Pétur grips her arms and shakes her. ‘You will wake the farmer. And you’re terrifying the horses.’
She sits up and rubs her eyes. Both mares are now standing rigidly in the corner, their nostrils flared, their muscles shuddering under their thick coats.
Rósa is trembling. ‘Was I calling out?’
‘And thrashing and screaming – it was like holding a fish.’
The hands she felt upon her must have been Pétur’s. Rósa shivers and rushes outside. The cold air scrapes against the exposed skin of her hands and face – winter’s bite is looming. She squats behind the barn and relieves herself: pissing inside would be repellent. She leans her head against the cold wood until her breathing steadies enough for her to return inside. Not an omen, Rósa. Only a dream.
They travel in silence. The land is black-toothed and raw, occasionally stippled with rough scrub and coarse, yellowed grass. The haunting desolation stops her breath in her throat. In the distance, the mountains look like gathering storm clouds. There is an old belief that each mountain contains a spirit, and perhaps this accounts for the itch between Rósa’s shoulder blades as they move into the craggy landscape. There are a thousand eyes upon her, peeling off her skin, staring into her soul. She incants the warding verses in her head, then mutters the Lord’s Prayer under her breath. Pétur glances at her, his dark eyes inscrutable in the fading light, and she flushes.
She would like to ask if he, too, can feel the eyes upon his skin, but when she studies his face, the slow-dropping shadows have cast him in a sulphurous light, sharpening the planes of his cheeks and the hollows of his eyes. He looks dark and beautiful and her words die on her lips.
As evening approaches, the sky fades to tarnished steel. The occasional birch tree claws skywards. There is a tale that one of the huldufólk haunts the roots of birches and turns the golden leaves into treasure to tempt greedy travellers. The last thing they see is the precious metal turning back into a pile of leaves. Meanwhile, the elf man sits on their chest and feasts on their soul.
It is a warning against avarice. Rósa wonders if she would feel anything if a creature began to gnaw at her soul. But marriage to a wealthy man is not the same as selling her soul out of greed, surely.