by Caroline Lea
Rósa sobs and Katrín holds her upright, stroking her hair, then guides her over to the stream, where she sits her on a rock and washes her wounds, repeating, ‘Hush now, you’re safe. They can’t hurt you now, elskan. Hush, Rósa.’
Eventually, Rósa’s tears subside.
Katrín kneels next to her and holds her face in her hands. ‘You are safe,’ she says. ‘But Jón is not. Do you feel strong enough to walk?’
Rósa nods. Katrín takes her hand and turns towards the hill and Egill’s lonely croft. He had walked home while Olaf was beating Jón, his mouth twisted downwards in distaste, though he did nothing to halt the violence.
‘Quickly,’ Katrín gasps. ‘Before it is too late.’
Rósa’s eye has swollen shut and her breath still comes in ragged gasps; she cannot order her thoughts into speech, but she is aware that Katrín’s lips are pursed and her face hard as she knocks on Egill’s door.
‘Stay quiet and look penitent,’ she murmurs.
Rósa wipes her eyes, but Katrín stops her. ‘No, leave your tears. And the blood.’
Katrín pushes the door open. Egill is kneeling on the earthen floor, praying. And behind him, sweeping, is Gudrun. She glances up and her milky eyes glint.
‘You!’ Katrín hisses.
Gudrun’s shoulders stiffen, but she says nothing, merely pats her hand on the table to find Egill’s Bible, then holds it out to him. He takes it from her, with a nod of thanks, and she returns to making slow, shuffling sweeps across the floor with the brush.
‘Katrín, my child.’ Egill smiles. ‘And Rósa. Such confusion today, but I am glad you are safe, now Jón has confessed, praise God. His villainy nearly killed you – imagine! Do you seek counsel or a prayer?’
‘I seek mercy.’ Katrín looks narrowly at Gudrun, then casts her eyes down. Rósa copies Katrín and drops her gaze to the floor.
The wind presses itself against the walls of the croft; the wood groans.
‘Mercy?’ Egill’s gaze sharpens.
Outside, a raven caws. Rósa draws a steadying breath.
A muscle is working in Katrín’s jaw. She swallows, then clasps her hands before her, as if in prayer or supplication. ‘I come to plead for your mercy upon Jón.’
Egill raises his eyebrows. ‘He has confessed. The Althing will judge him, not I. If the thaw continues, we may send a messenger south tomorrow.’
Gudrun continues sweeping. The room is stark and chilly as a burial mound.
‘But you could plead with the Lawspeaker . . .’
The wind insinuates itself through the gaps in the turf. The tiny fire flares, then gutters. Rósa shivers.
Egill smiles. ‘Why would I do such a thing?’
‘I do not believe he killed Anna.’
Gudrun coughs. The raven shrieks again.
Rósa closes her eyes. How is it possible to prove Jón’s innocence without her own confession? She remembers the villagers’ hands on her. They would tear her to pieces.
‘His guilt is for the Althing to decide. His case may go to Copenhagen.’ Egill is almost smiling, as if he relishes the excitement.
The lungs of the wind exhale. Rósa stares at him and feels her lip curl.
He spreads his hands. ‘Why would I plead for such a sinner? His death will cleanse this village.’ Egill’s cold smile widens. He will gain so much: Jón’s croft, his land, his sway in the settlement. Egill will be a great man now, able to dictate who stands as the next goði. Rósa can guess at the argument he will put to the Althing: there is no one else in the settlement with the power and wisdom to hold that title. Egill will argue that he should stand as both prestur and goði.
‘Go now,’ Egill says. ‘I must thank God for His justice.’
Katrín gives Gudrun a final dark look, then curtsies. Her hand, when she grasps Rósa’s arm to pull her from the croft, is hot and dry. They stumble down the hill, towards the sea, blinking tears.
The sea ice has started to thaw, and the water gulps under the blackening glass. A chill wind winnows in from colder lands to the north, plucking at Rósa’s cap, whipping Katrín’s grey hair into her face.
She squeezes Rósa’s hand. ‘You cannot confess.’
Rósa allows the squally breeze to encircle her, gasping as the ice burrows into her bones.
Jón will die.
She hears a shout from behind her and turns to see Gudrun battling into the wind, struggling not to be blown over. When she reaches them, Katrín looks at her with contempt. ‘I should push you onto these rocks. Go back and tend Egill.’
‘Egill!’ Gudrun sucks her teeth, then spits.
Rósa raises her eyebrows. ‘You dislike Egill? I thought Jón was the villain.’
‘Egill seeks to profit for himself, but calls it God’s work. And he’d have watched the village crush you, young Rósa.’
‘I didn’t notice you trying to help, Gudrun,’ says Katrín, sourly. ‘You were sitting on a rock while they threw stones at her. She’s bleeding.’
‘A nasty thing to happen.’ Gudrun nods. ‘But Egill might have stopped it. What sort of man would watch a woman being attacked? He is the true villain.’
‘So now you say Egill should not be goði?’ Rósa says. ‘But you are content to sweep his floor?’
Gudrun blinks her cloudy eyes against the wind. ‘Everyone must earn food somehow. But now the villain speaks to us of tithes . . .’
‘Ah! Tithes. The villain.’ Rósa laughs bitterly.
‘You may mock an old woman. But Jón never demanded what we could not afford. He sent Pétur to help to rebuild my croft and has not asked for a single ell in return. Egill would have us half starve ourselves and call it worship. And you . . .’ She turns her rheumy eyes to Rósa. ‘Jón is a good husband, is he not?’
‘I . . .’ Rósa bites her lip. ‘He is –’
‘Pah! Young people expect the world on a platter. He’s never struck you?’
‘No.’
‘There! A fine husband. Besides,’ Gudrun continues, ‘my eyes may be weak and my ears may fail me, but I heard Jón’s confession. His voice was full of lies. He confesses falsely to hide something, is that not so? Whom does he protect?’
Rósa examines her mittens and Katrín looks out at the blank of the sea.
‘No matter. It is a dishonest confession and now Jón is a dead man.’ She sucks her teeth again.
Rósa turns into the wind and allows it to gust the tears from her eyes. She can feel Gudrun’s silence, like a threat. Then the other woman leans forward and clasps Katrín’s and Rósa’s hands. ‘Dead bodies should be removed through the walls. Remember that.’
Then, still scowling and muttering, Gudrun turns and struggles back up the hillside.
While Rósa is considering Gudrun’s words, she walks back up to Jón’s croft, limping. She is still unsteady and the wound on her head throbs, but she needs a moment alone to reflect on what she must do next.
Inside, she fingers the soft homespun that covers the beds in the baðstofa, and opens the Bible with its fine vellum pages – it must have cost a fortune. All Egill’s now.
She closes her eyes, imagining Páll journeying south across the thawing land. She must let him go. He should return to Skálholt, free of the misfortune she carries within her. She squeezes the glass woman in her pocket until the fractured edge of the shattered figure pierces her skin. Broken. She has broken everything.
Suddenly purposeful, she picks up a blanket and spreads it flat on one of the beds. In the centre, she places the Bible, a pot of honey, and the whalebone knitting needles that an ordinary farmer could never hope to buy. After a thought, she takes the runestone from her pocket and folds that into the blanket too. She bundles it all together.
She searches about. What else can she take?
There is a loud scrabbling from overhead. Rósa startles. Some spirit in the croft must see her thievery. Then she remembers and her heart slows: the gyrfalcon. She lays her little bundle down on the bed and climbs
the ladder.
The loft is dark, but the white-barred shape of the gyrfalcon, huddled in the corner, seems to emit a light of its own. It is worth a hundred cows, a thousand ells of cloth. Men kill and are killed for this bird of kings, this frozen hunter.
The ice-people from the snow lands to the north have another name for it: they call it the grasper. Rósa can see why: its feet are long and scaly, the black claws curved and vicious. They grip the perch with a strength that promises impalement.
She reaches out to touch it, and, for a moment, lays her fingers on feathers that feel softer than the finest linen. Then the bird bates, flapping and hanging upside down, twisting on the jesses until Rósa worries it will fracture a wing.
She remembers how she had feared the bird contained Anna’s spirit. It cocks its head to one side and stares at her, unblinking.
As she stretches out her hand, Rósa begins to whisper her favourite passage from Laxdæla Saga, when Bolli kills his best friend, Kjartan. She and Páll used to recite it together: ‘Then Kjartan said to Bolli, “It is an ignoble deed, kinsman, that you are about to do; but I would much rather accept death at your hands, cousin, than give you death at mine.”’
The bird’s body is rigid and trembling.
Rósa whispers, ‘After Bolli stabbed him, Kjartan fell and died in Bolli’s lap. Bolli wept and repented. But weeping gives nothing to the dead.’
The bird flaps its wings, as if in agreement.
‘Still,’ Rósa continues, ‘there is a difference between murder and . . .’ She pauses. Is there a name for what she did? She had known Anna would die when she cut her. That is murder, certainly. But she had meant to save the baby. Katrín had understood, when Rósa told her. ‘Intentions matter,’ she’d said, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
Now Rósa creeps forward and eases her arms around the gyrfalcon. Fear throbs through its whole body, but it doesn’t struggle. It is as if it is used to human kindness. Rósa imagines Jón capturing the bird: he would have been careful and gentle as he pinioned it. He would have fed it daily, nurtured it, even as he kept it prisoner.
She remembers the whispers she had heard at night from the loft room. What secrets does this bird know?
Its eyes are golden and merciless: the eyes of a being whose sole purpose is to hunt and kill.
At first the bird panics and strikes out at her, but gradually it stills. Its body is lighter than she expected, as if it is a ghost after all. She makes her way slowly down the ladder, careful not to jolt the gyrfalcon and mindful of the curved beak and talons.
Back in the baðstofa, Rósa searches for something to use as a perch. Finally, she snatches up the Bible from the bed. Then, with the bird under one arm and the Bible under the other, Rósa strides out of the confines of the croft and into the chill sea air.
The night is falling fast, blackness seeping up from the horizon. The stars are clear as candles: it will be a cold night. High overhead, the wind tugs a ragged scarf of cloud over the frozen-faced moon. Rósa holds the Bible in one hand, then carefully sets the bird’s feet along the spine. It instinctively perches on the leather covering, and digs its sharp claws into the surface, puncturing the soft calf-skin.
Rósa waits until the bird has stilled. Then slowly, slowly, she reaches out and unties the leather jesses on its feet. It is a fumbling struggle, and she worries she will hurt the bird. But it waits, frozen and trembling, as though it knows what she intends. It stretches its wings and gives a sharp caw, as if to hurry her. Its yellow predator’s eyes flash: fierce and furious.
As she tugs on the cord, the gyrfalcon flaps its wings: they smash bruisingly against Rósa’s face and she flinches – how can something that seems made of air be so strong? Her fingers are clumsy, but finally the cord loosens and drops to the ground.
The bird perches on the Bible. It is unfettered. It spreads its wings, but doesn’t take off. It gazes at Rósa, sharp-eyed, waiting.
‘I know,’ she whispers. ‘You’re frightened. But you have been made for this.’
Rósa turns to the mountains, raises her arm, then flings the Bible and the bird into the air. The book crashes to the ground, but the gyrfalcon beats its wings and rises. In the thud of three heartbeats, it is high overhead. Within ten breaths, it is a tiny black outline against the white fang of Helgafell.
The power of the creature’s flight – its freedom – leaves Rósa breathless. Suddenly Gudrun’s words make sense.
Dead bodies should be removed through the walls.
Jón is a dead man. Egill’s judgement has pronounced him so.
Jón
Thingvellir, December 1686
I sit in my cave, staring at the boot mark in the ash and waiting. When I touch my tunic, I find it soaked, and my fingers come away black with blood.
If Olaf does not arrive soon, he will find that time has made a corpse of me. I close my eyes, willing my body to continue. It has served me well, even when broken.
After throwing me into my pit-house, Olaf bound my wrists and ankles. I waited for hours, a fierce energy throbbing through my veins, expecting Egill to come to gloat.
I was woken some time later by a boot thudding against my ribs. I groaned and Olaf hauled me upright.
Standing before me was Egill. He smiled. ‘You look very ill, Jón.’
‘You must be sorry to find me still breathing.’
His smile faded. ‘Remember, our suffering brings us closer to God.’
‘My suffering brings you more sway, and that is all you –’
‘Not everyone has your grasping heart, Jón.’
‘You are a bitter old man, Egill.’ I sighed. ‘Go away, so I can sleep.’
‘Would you not be bitter?’ he hissed, leaning in close. I could see every wrinkle in his skin, leprously pale. ‘Wouldn’t you be filled with hatred had a man stolen your child, made your wife sicken and die with grief – and if the man’s own wife cursed yours? Wouldn’t you despise the one who mocked you before your people? Who poisoned your son’s mind –’
‘Pétur is not your son!’ I roared. ‘And you were a tyrant.’
‘The boy was full of the devil!’ Egill cried. ‘I had to purify him and –’
‘Beat him?’ I spat. ‘A grown man beat a boy until he bled? Did it make you feel stronger? You coward!’
‘I should have beaten him harder, to save his soul. To save him from your sin.’
I strained against the bonds at my wrists, imagining the satisfying thud of my fist against Egill’s skull. ‘You tormented Pétur, then threw him out into the cold, and demanded that I bring him back so you could torture him again. Tyrant!’
Egill flinched. ‘I did everything to protect him. I loved him. I . . . love him still, but he is . . . lost.’ His mouth crumpled; his eyes shone.
I almost felt pity then. I softened. ‘Pétur is a good man. Talk to him. Be reconciled.’
‘You are a fool, Jón. You would sacrifice yourself to save Pétur’s body, rather than strive to redeem his immortal soul.’
‘And you are saving his soul?’
‘You mock me. But God Himself cast Adam out of Eden and allowed him to choose the path of righteousness or of sin.’
‘Pétur has no more sin than any other man.’
Egill knelt next to me and put his lips close to my ear. I could feel the dry heat of his skin, as though his fervour was a fire within him.
‘He is depraved,’ Egill whispered, ‘as you are depraved.’
I couldn’t draw breath to speak.
‘Anna told me what you are. None would have believed it before. But now you are a murderer. You killed Anna to silence the truths she spoke. Soon all Iceland will know of your other perversions. The Althing will take your head. Your name will be a pollutant on every tongue.’
The walls compressed around me. All my vision seemed filled by Egill’s burning gaze.
He continued: ‘And as your soul is twisting in the eternal fires of damnation, men will speak of your acts and
curse you, until you pass out of living memory.’
I tried to speak but could gather no breath. It wasn’t true. I had never allowed myself to do more than think . . . to wonder in the darkest hours of the night. Had Pétur ever thought of me? Had he suspected? I shook my head, then retched.
Egill leaned in close again. The sudden darkness in his eyes was all-consuming. ‘So, I see what must pass for Pétur to be free, for him to be pure and upright, as I taught him. He must be without any friend or comfort in the world, save the Lord. Then he will turn back to God. Then his soul will be saved. But you will die. And you will burn.’
I stared at him.
‘And Stykkishólmur will be transformed after you are gone,’ he hissed. ‘It will be a place of the Lord’s at last.’
I looked deep into those dead eyes. ‘You disgust me. Had you been my pabbi, I would have stabbed you while you slept.’
Egill recoiled, drew a deep breath, then turned and pounded on the door. Olaf opened it and Egill swept out. The door banged behind him; the darkness settled.
In the dark bowels of the night, I was woken by a scraping on the wall next to my head. I bolted upright, wishing I had a blade: I had neither eaten nor drunk in so long, and a creature of any sort might have quieted my raging hunger and thirst. But as the scrabbling continued, I realized it was too deliberate and rhythmic to be that of an animal.
Someone is trying to get in! One of the people from the settlement, perhaps, determined to deliver a quicker and more violent punishment than beheading. The scratching grew louder still, and I suddenly understood that someone was cutting a hole through the wall! I felt a cold rush of night air and readied myself to pounce, but then a voice hissed, ‘Jón!’
‘Rósa! How –’
‘Hurry!’ She reached through the hole and, in the darkness, I could just make out the glint of her eyes. There was the sudden flash of a knife and I recoiled, until I understood that she intended to cut my bonds. I drew the rope across the blade while she held it and, once I was free, rubbed the blood back into my wrists before cutting the rope binding my ankles. ‘Take my hand,’ she whispered.
I obeyed and scrambled through. The sudden slap of the night air made me gasp; the splash of rain on my face was like stepping into the chill of sea, hoping for my boat, and endless miles of unbroken time. I felt dizzy.