by Caroline Lea
She cannot stop herself weeping at odd moments; her hands shake as she writes. Perhaps if she could speak to someone, if she could see Katrín . . .
After seven days, she says to Jón, ‘I would like to have help in the croft.’
He is back from a day out on the sea, and his face is grey with cold and weariness: he seems carved from rock. He has been rubbing his fingers over his eyes and yawning, but at her words, he bolts upright, alert.
‘Why? You do a fine job – the croft is clean, the clothes are washed and mended. You prepare the food with skill.’
She rubs her chapped fingers. ‘Still, I would like company.’
He encircles her wrists with his thumb and forefinger and squeezes, his hand huge around hers. Rósa thinks of the strength that must rest within them, these hands that wield oars and the scythe so easily; these hands that dug his first wife’s grave.
She swallows nervously, frees herself and puts a hand into her pocket, gripping the glass figurine as if it will give her courage. ‘You are away so much.’
‘I am away less than I should be,’ he growls. ‘I should travel to Denmark to trade. Rósa, I stay here this winter because of you.’
She looks at her feet. ‘You can leave me here,’ she whispers. The thought of wintering alone is horrifying, yet she might be able to breathe without his eyes upon her. The noises might stop. ‘Go to Denmark.’
‘I cannot,’ he barks, and she flinches.
He takes a breath. His fisted hands are trembling. ‘Come, Rósa. I don’t like leaving you, but I must provide – you see that. You were alone much as a child. I thought you would not mind the solitude.’
She thinks of long summer days spent playing with Páll.
‘I admired your poise when we first met. You seemed happy, so self-possessed. I chose you for better things than idle chatter.’
He watches her silently, until she nods.
He shifts a little closer and takes her hand again. ‘You may read the Bible, of course. I know you will not let your duties slip.’
She thinks of the endless knitting and sweeping, cooking and mending. And she thinks of the Saga of her own that she had started a lifetime ago in Skálholt. But the thought of writing is impossible with this compression of her thoughts. Her world is constricting to the tiny compass of her body: the shift of her breath, the thud of her heart.
‘This solitude should strengthen your faith. This time with God is a gift. You must be grateful.’ His voice has taken on the commanding tone of the goði.
She wants to remind him that the Bible says it is not good for man to be alone, but disagreeing with Jón, she is discovering, is like shouting into a blizzard.
On Sabbath days, she stands on the hill, watching the people of Stykkishólmur as they pray and worship. Sounds wash over her. She is like the grass: present but invisible. The people from the settlement avoid looking at her, keeping their eyes fixed on Egill, as he stands at the pulpit, then on Jón when he speaks afterwards.
She remembers Egill’s warnings when she arrived, that Jón is a devil, that the people have no love for him. It has crossed her mind that she might visit Egill and question him, but there is something predatory in the old man’s gaze.
Egill preaches his dry and terrifying sermons on the open mouth of Hell, which waits at the top of Mount Hekla for all souls who sin. Afterwards, while Jón addresses the people on secular matters, telling them what food to expect and where they should fish, Egill stands apart from the congregation. He is gaunt, and his face has the taut, hungry look of a carrion bird. Olaf stands beside him, meaty arms folded across his barrel chest. They scowl at Jón as he leads the people in a final prayer for good harvests and dry weather.
After the service, Rósa forces herself to walk near to where they stand and draws a breath to speak but can find no words. The two men stare at her, coldly.
‘You continue to look thin, child,’ Egill says. ‘And unhappy.’ He smiles.
She opens her mouth to answer, but then a strong hand is on her elbow and Jón is at her side.
‘Come, Rósa.’ His face is tight. ‘You are tired. You must rest.’ He puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her in close, as if he is embracing her. It is like being pinioned by a rockfall.
Rósa resists, then allows herself to be pulled away. As she turns, a smirk creeps over Egill’s face, like a crack in an ice sheet.
When they are back in the croft, Jón holds her hand and leads her to her bed.
‘Lie down. If the services tire you, you should stay in the croft.’
‘They do not tire me.’ She tries to sit up but he pushes her shoulder until she is lying down.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘if you must still come to the services, then you will stay close to me. A good husband should care for his wife. I wouldn’t like Egill to upset you.’
‘I –’
‘Rest now, Rósa. Close your eyes.’ He watches her until she does so. ‘Rósa, you know you are fortunate to have this life, these riches. Yes?’
His grip on her hand tightens. She clenches her jaw, then nods.
‘Good,’ he says. ‘You must write to your mamma, telling her of your good life here, how you are content with me. She will be happy to hear it.’
Rósa’s stomach jolts and her eyes snap open. He is smiling at her and his voice is silken as he says, ‘You would like to make your mamma happy?’
Rósa’s mouth is dry; she swallows. Jón grips her hand more tightly. Her bones crackle. She whispers, ‘I will . . . write.’
‘Good.’ He grins, his face lightening. ‘Give me the letter and I will send it south with a trader.’ He releases her hand and pats her cheek, then turns and strides from the room. After he has gone, she stretches out her hand. It is pale and bloodless, like the limp body of a strangled creature.
One morning, after Pétur has been gone for ten days and Jón has left early to go out on the boat, Rósa rises from her bed and decides that she cannot endure another moment alone in the croft.
She will go down to the settlement again. She will visit Katrín.
She sets off early down the hill, towards the distant huddle of crofts. She will be back before sunset. Jón need never know she has disobeyed him.
As she runs down the path, she glances back over her shoulder. The croft looks peaceful: the wind gusts birch leaves around the door – whirling gold glimmers in the autumn sun. The beauty makes her catch her breath. She reminds herself that the sunlight will fade and the leaves will rot. And then her husband’s croft will look like the unquiet burial mound that it is.
There is a saying that the resting places of the unsettled dead often appear beautiful from the outside. Draugar haunt places that they loved in life, or where there is unfinished business: the ghost of Thorgunna in Eyrbyggja Saga rose again and again because her bedding hadn’t been burned upon her death. Who knows what tasks Anna might have left undone?
Rósa shakes her head, and turns away from the croft, running down the hill, away from Jón and from the version of herself she doesn’t recognize.
The rearing mountains and the sharp smell of the black and red soil fill her with a giddy lightness, making her fears of these past weeks ridiculous: there are no ghosts. She will explain to Katrín how she thought she heard breathing and movement in the loft. Katrín will tell her that only fools believe in draugar: there are no spirits that drive people insane, then devour them.
Katrín must have seen Rósa approaching; she runs out of her croft before Rósa has even reached the bottom of the hill.
‘Rósa!’ Katrín clasps her in a quick embrace and immediately Rósa feels more human.
She had begun to feel like she was fading, as if she herself were turning into a draugr. Now, for the first time in days, she smiles. ‘I hope I am not intruding?’
‘You are very welcome. But Jón?’
‘He . . . does not know I am here. He is fishing. Please do not –’
‘I am no simpleton.’ Katrín
clasps Rósa’s shoulders. ‘I shall not say a word. And the others can also be trusted, for that at least.’
Rósa feels a wave of relief, but it turns to alarm. ‘The others?’
‘They’ll be glad to see you. Just pay no heed to Gudrun’s sharp tongue.’
Before Rósa can protest, Katrín leads her inside the fuggy gloom of the croft, where four women sit around the open fire, knitting. Rósa has met three of them already: old Gudrun, with her blank eyes and whiskery face; Nóra and Clara, whom she saw at the stream with their children. The little ones are playing, tumbling on the floor like puppies, their mothers uttering sharp warnings about the heat of the fire, and protesting when they tangle the wool.
The fourth woman is younger, very near to Rósa’s own age, she guesses. She has skin the colour of skyr and hair so pale it is almost white. Her eyes are the lightest blue – they seem almost opaque. She is breathtaking and Rósa finds herself smiling. The woman scowls. Rósa flushes and turns to examine the croft.
It is small, a similar size to Mamma’s, although, like Jón’s croft, the walls are lined with wood. There is no separate kitchen, simply a narrow baðstofa, which serves as a space to cook, live and sleep. A doorway opens into the pantry: there are barrels on the floor, and dried fish hangs from the rafters. Despite the dimness of the room and its size, it feels lighter and less oppressive than Jón’s.
Katrín holds Rósa’s hand as she makes the introductions, her touch warm and steadying. ‘Gudrun you have met already. And Clara and Nóra.’
‘Yes. Bless.’ Rósa curtsies and the women giggle a little.
Katrín tuts. ‘Your fine manners turn them into children.’ Clara and Nóra smother their laughter and return Rósa’s curtsy.
Katrín indicates the pale beauty with the cold gaze. ‘And this is Audur.’
Rósa curtsies again and says, ‘Komdu sæl og blessuð.’ Somehow, the more formal greeting seems appropriate. ‘You are as beautiful as Gudrun from Laxdaela Saga.’
Audur’s eyes remain blank and humourless. ‘Does your husband know you read the Sagas?’ She does not curtsy.
Katrín glares at her, then seats Rósa and passes her a mass of wool. ‘Untangle this,’ she murmurs. ‘It will keep your hands busy.’
Rósa sees that her fingers are shaking. Gratefully, she sets to work freeing a smooth skein from the snarl in her hands.
The croft is hushed, each woman weighing the silence.
Finally, Katrín says, ‘We will have snow early, this year.’
‘Nonsense!’ Gudrun cries. ‘The air is mild still. Look at the sea – no darkness on the water.’
‘You cannot see past your own nose.’ Katrín snorts.
‘Insolent girl! I always smell bad weather, and this year I do not.’
‘Who is to say your nose does not fail, along with your eyes and ears?’
Rósa expects Gudrun to be affronted, but both women are smiling. Perhaps they often needle one another so.
‘I shall knit you a shawl to keep you warm this winter, Gudrun,’ Katrín says, ‘so that you will not freeze, even if your weather-telling nose has lied.’
‘Do not trouble yourself.’ Gudrun sniffs. ‘I may be dead before the spring. Starved.’ She blinks her milky eyes at Rósa. ‘If only Jón would grant an old woman more meat . . .’
‘Well, then, I will knit you a shroud,’ Katrín’s grin widens, ‘and you will not have to trouble Rósa with matters that do not concern her.’
‘Heartless woman!’ Gudrun splutters. ‘Rósa may give me meat, if she wishes. Anna often did.’
‘Once!’ Clara chimes in. ‘She gave you meat once, towards the end, and she probably cursed it first.’
Katrín stiffens, and there is real heat in the glare she shoots at Clara, who drops her gaze and snaps an oath at her child, then pulls a chicken bone from his hand to stop him jamming it into his ear. The child howls and, as Katrín helps Clara with him, she hisses something at her. Clara looks chastened.
Then Audur calls, above the child’s clamour, ‘I hope you are contented in your marriage, Rósa.’ She gives a thin smile.
Rósa bows her head. ‘I am.’
‘Why does she whisper so?’ Gudrun complains.
Audur’s voice grows mocking. ‘She is quiet because she wanted to stay in the church with her pabbi.’
‘I have always loved reading in solitude,’ Rósa murmurs.
Audur gives a high-pitched, serrated giggle. ‘You have your solitude now.’
‘Audur!’ Katrín’s tone is sharp.
Rósa raises her chin. ‘I am lucky to be able to read, I know.’ She cannot help adding, ‘Most women cannot.’
Audur colours. ‘And do you want children? They are rarely quiet.’ She indicates the red-faced pair by the fire, both of whom are now crying as they fight over the chicken bone.
‘God grants children when He wills it,’ says Rósa, clenching the wool in her hands. No one in Skálholt would have dared question a goði’s wife so. Rage rushes through her. ‘You would know that, if you read your Bible.’
Angry spots of colour stand out on Audur’s cheeks. ‘Anna longed for children also. Two years, but no sign. No wonder she started –’
‘Audur! Enough!’ Katrín snaps.
Rósa bites her lip and stands, ready to leave, but Katrín pushes her back onto the bench. ‘Come now, my croft seems small all of a sudden. Nóra, Clara, the children must roll around outside, away from my fire.’ Then Katrín turns to Audur. ‘Gudrun must go to the outhouse. Audur will take her.’
Audur grimaces, then helps Gudrun from the croft.
Once the other women have gone, Katrín smiles kindly at Rósa. ‘Audur has a sharp tongue. I will scold her for her rudeness, but you must not be upset.’
Rósa blinks until she can speak without her voice shaking. ‘What have I done to offend her? And how does she dare to ask such questions?’
‘It is no secret that Audur wanted Jón’s wealth for herself.’ Katrín grins. ‘I suppose he did not want her bitterness to turn all his milk to skyr.’
Rósa manages a faint smile. ‘Thank you.’
Katrín offers Rósa a plate of food. ‘Eat. If you faint from hunger, I will have to answer to Jón.’
‘Jón tells me so little of the village. He only orders me to stay away.’
‘He finds it hard to trust,’ Katrín says carefully. ‘People who have known darkness carry it with them always. Pétur is the same.’
‘Yes, I saw how Egill . . . I cannot imagine them –’
‘As pabbi and son?’ Katrín gives a wry chuckle. ‘Neither could the settlement. Egill believed he was doing good, but there’s a type of love that smothers. Pétur shamed Egill, then shunned him. It is a poison that seeps between them now.’
Rósa runs her finger over the plate. ‘And Anna was unhappy?’
Katrín purses her lips. ‘Not at first. She was . . . At first, she was like a wash of sunshine.’
‘But not at the end?’
‘Some people need love more than others. Anna was . . . so young. So affectionate. And she was so happy to be away from Thingvellir. She used to sit and talk to me while I knitted. She reminded me of my own Dora.’
Rósa thinks of the stories the traders told, of the woman who walked over the hills at night, shouting curses to the wind. ‘Jón changed her?’
Katrín nods and blinks, and Rósa cannot bring herself to push the matter, although she wants to ask about the noises, wants to tell Katrín that, in the dark, the groans and sighs of the loft make her want to crack a hammer against her skull, just to stop the sounds.
Katrín passes Rósa another piece of bread. ‘Anna changed Jón too. He is not the man he once was. Best to obey him – or seem to. He is not violent but . . .’ She touches Rósa’s hand. ‘You should do as he says. Please, Rósa.’
Rósa swallows, tight-chested.
As she stands to go, Katrín embraces her, then kisses her cheek. ‘You are sensible and will keep yourse
lf safe. I know it.’
As Rósa walks back up to the croft, the sense of compression is almost unbearable. It is like walking into an icy sea, knowing that the darkness and the cold will press the air from her lungs so that she will have to open her mouth to take a breath. And, as the water fills her ears, her nose and her mouth, no one will rescue her, even if they do hear her final, bubbling scream.
Stykkishólmur, October 1686
Pétur returns in the middle of a crisp, sun-spangled afternoon. He has been gone for nearly two weeks, and Rósa has watched Jón grow increasingly fretful, scanning the horizon and muttering about harvests and fish.
Then one day Pétur reappears – silently, as though he has emerged from the earth. One moment, Rósa is watching the clouds scudding across the sky, the next there is a voice behind her.
‘You will go blind if you stare at the sun so.’
She whirls around. Pétur is grinning, not three arms’ lengths from her. How can she have failed to hear him?
She pats her cap: she must look like a windswept fishwife. ‘You startled me.’
‘Forgive me. A lifetime of trying to escape being seen has taught me no other way than to creep.’ He turns to the sea. It is silver today, and radiates the first promise of winter’s waiting ice.
‘Is my mamma well?’ Rósa asks.
‘Her cough is gone. She wanted me to give you this.’
Pétur presses a kiss to her cheek. His face is rough and he smells of grass. Rósa gasps and pushes him away. He laughs and holds up his hands. ‘I only pass on a gift from your mamma. She said you would be furious and that you would shriek and slap my face. I said you were too gracious to do that. It seems I was right.’
Rósa’s rage is tempered by the faintest glow of amusement: she can imagine Mamma cackling as she persuaded Pétur to kiss her – it is a sign that Sigridúr is well.
Pétur bows again. ‘I am sorry, Rósa. You must tell Jón of my insolence. He will cuff me soundly about the ears.’