The housekeeper Guðríður Jónsdóttir had been sent directly to Bræðratunga by the wife of Magistrate Eydalín at the start of the first year of Snæfríður’s married life to make sure the young matron would not be reduced to begging for her sustenance; this woman acted as if she had no other obligations to God or men. In spite of the fact that Guðríður Jónsdóttir prided herself on being in the service of Madam Eydalín, or, closer to the truth, on being her legate to another quarter of the land, and a poor one at that, almost all the household management of this foreign home was relegated to her, since her mistress Snæfríður paid heed to no work other than her embroidery—she had never once attempted to manage the domestic affairs, nor had she ever shown the slightest concern for the household finances. Thus it happened that this daleswoman, a domestic from a different quarter, was obliged to become, completely counter to her own will, governor and chancellor of a reputable southern estate—anything less and she might not have been able to fulfill the duties entrusted to her by the madam, to see to it that her daughter be provided with the necessary sustenance and service at table and bed, and that her bedroom remained weatherproof and heated during cold spells by a small stove.
When the squire regained his health after a drinking expedition he would usually see to his wife’s loft—he would climb up to the roof to inspect whether the turf was in place, or to add a beam or plank if the wood appeared rotten anywhere, because he loved his wife passionately and feared only the single threat that Gudda would leave and take his wife with her. Sometimes before the next breaker crashed over him there was sufficient time for the squire to commence repairs elsewhere on the buildings, but unfortunately the times were so tough that he scarcely ever owned a serviceable piece of wood. Seldom was the squire domiciled for many days after an expedition before he was visited by all sorts of authorities: the bailiff, the parish administrator, priests, and summoners, whose job it was to inform him of his liability for various misdeeds committed during his most recent expedition, or to induce him either to close on various deals he had made or to fulfill various obligations he had accepted, as spelled out in the legal documents produced during the same expedition. It would then emerge that he had perhaps sold a portion of his lands, with the result that he had forfeited most of them by now, and during the previous winter he started cutting into the estate itself by selling off tenancies. Sometimes he would sell a horse or livestock. Usually whatever profit he made would have mysteriously disappeared by the time he found out about the sales from the contracts he himself had signed. He frequently sold his own hat and boots on these expeditions and once he arrived home without any breeches. Sometimes during an expedition he would buy horses, livestock, or land, and men would show up at his door, valid contracts in hand, demanding payment. More often than not compensation would be claimed from him for various types of damage he inflicted on others during an expedition—he would frequently destroy other men’s hats or tear their clothing. Sometimes redress was demanded of him for having lodged with cotters in Bakki and having had intercourse with their wives. Others had been forced to endure his slander, having been called thieves or dogs or even thief-dogs and threatened with murder in the presence of witnesses. In the end the man became enwrapped in a ceaseless series of lawsuits and fines.
As a matter of fact, when he was sober Magnús Sigurðsson was a reticent man, averse to quarreling with others, and timid, most resembling an animal that longs only to cower in its hole undisturbed. He desired more than anything to be able to buy himself peace soberly, and he was eager to pay back everyone with something for his drinking transgressions, especially if it could be accomplished without too much discussion. If he had any money he would hand it over to his claimants; otherwise he paid with livestock living or dead, or even with farm implements taken from his workers’ hands if the demands were not too lavish. He gladly yielded several lengths of rope to the man whose wedded wife he had regaled contrary to the Ten Commandments, and even plucked off his own rags of clothing to make up for having called someone from Bakki a thief or someone from Flói a dog, all without looking up, and with no desire whatsoever to prolong discussion of the matter. Some said they would be completely satisfied if he were to beg their forgiveness openly, and he considered this the gravest obligation. When the claimants finally left him he would often wind his way silently up to his wife’s bower and weep there without saying a word, sometimes entire nights, until daylight rose.
“He’s sold the land,” said the housekeeper Guðríður, who had been eavesdropping and now rushed excitedly up to her mistress’s loft. “I know for certain my mistress the madam in Eydalur will never forgive me for this.”
“My husband has always been a man who can get things done,” said the housewife.
“He hasn’t left you a single cow bone,” said the daleswoman. “That devil of a bailiff has come here in person to take the property and we’re to vacate today. They’re sending you out with the beggars. How can I look in the blessed madam’s face?”
“I’ve wanted to be a beggar-girl for a long time,” said the housewife. “It must be exciting sleeping up in the heather with the ewes and the lambs.”
“Most right would it be indeed if I drowned myself,” said the daleswoman, “and God knows this was the only duty she entrusted to me, to see to it you wouldn’t have to go begging; and now, at this very hour, you’re out with the beggars, and here I stand and have to answer to my mistress.”
“Maybe she’ll be the next one to have to go begging,” said Snæfríður, but the daleswoman made it a point not to respond to useless chatter.
“How many times,” she continued, “haven’t I had to take a little pinch of food, your portion of good butter, fish-strips, pickled eggs, and lamb, and stash it away like I’d stolen it, so he wouldn’t use it to pay for his rubbish about some fool from Flói or for sleeping with some tart out in Ölfus; and it wasn’t any longer ago than last winter that the coffers were ripped open and emptied out right in front of me one night, and if I hadn’t gone secretly that night over to Skálholt to talk to your sister I wouldn’t have had any breakfast for you next morning, and this is just one tiny example of the war I’ve had to wage against that tyrant whom the Lord has stricken with boils. And now it’s come down to this—you don’t own a single piece of land to stand on here in the south. I can’t see any way around it—we’ve got no choice but to ride west with you, home.”
“Anything but that,” said Snæfríður in a melancholy, temperate tone, without looking up. “Anything but that.”
“Oh how I wish my God might grant that these dreadful southern waters would take me out to sea so I wouldn’t have to enter into the sight of the blessed madam laden with shame,” said this big, strong woman, and she was about to start wailing, but at that moment the magistrate’s daughter stood up and kissed her on the forehead.
“There, there, Gudda mine,” she said. “Let’s keep ourselves dry. Now go down to the bailiff and give him my greetings and tell him that the housewife wishes to welcome her old friend.”
This was one of those old, honorable gentlemen who could be seen every spring amongst three dozen or so of his kind in the law-court at the Alþingi. His face was grooved and weatherbeaten, the expression of his eyes feeble and slightly drowsy, though his brows were uplifted like those of a man who has had long experience trying to fend off sleep while listening to the arguments of wearisome opponents; it was one of those faces that looked as if it could stand secure against most types of reasoning, but especially against the type built on reference to human frailty. The distaff side of the family of Snæfríður the magistrate’s daughter had been accustomed to the frigid protection of such men since time immemorial—she understood the nature of such men all the way down to their shriveled boots.
She received him with a smile at the doorway of her loft and bade her father’s colleague and honored guest welcome, saying it had always been a great cause of sorrow to her if distinguished gentlemen who ha
d business on the estate did not condescend to exchange pleasantries with one slender chit—and she had hoped that she would benefit from her mother’s, Madam Eydalín’s, renown for generosity.
He entered her room and she bade him sit, then she opened her bureau, took out a bottle of voluptuous claret, and poured glasses for them both.
He stroked his long gray jawbone, rocking slowly in his seat and breathing audibly—it was difficult to tell whether he was humming or groaning.
“Goodness me,” he said, “m-m-m-I remember my darling great-grandmother. She was born during the papacy. She was slim and fair and remained that way for many years, and finally, as a fifty-year-old widow of two bailiffs, married our departed Reverend Magnús from Rip. There have always been beautiful women in Iceland; sometimes very few, goodness me, especially these last several years—since when everything dies what is beautiful dies first. But one or two were always hidden here and there. Quod felix.* Goodness me. Here’s to her.”
“And how unfortunate it is also,” said the housewife, “that fewer true knights are made now than when you were young, my dear Monsieur Vigfús Þórarinsson.”
“My darling grandmother was no less a great woman,” said he. “M-m-m-. She was one of those esteemed women who have always lived in Breiðafjörður, one of those true island-women, who besides being able to understand Latin and versificaturam* inherited a hundred hundreds of land, twelve-reckoned,* and found herself a man all the way out east in Þingmúli, then sailed with him to Holland, where he learned the barber’s art and later became the governor’s proxy and the greatest Latin poet in the Nordic lands. And what’s more, she had such blue eyes and such airy shining hair—which was not, I might add, golden. When I was a boy, no one ever spoke of her otherwise than as the image that dominated the West. Goodness me. There have always been women in Iceland. Here’s to her.”
“Here’s to,” she said—“those old and wizened cavaliers who displayed to beautiful women true chivalry, eager to wade through fire and sea to do their utmost to uphold our honor.”
“My darling mother, Guðrún from Eydalur, was and is a true noblewoman though her hue does not match that of her foremothers. She is the one woman in my family who I believed would have been most suited for king’s halls in the lands where Icelanders were considered men in ancient times; she was at the same time the sort of woman of virtue, adorned with honor, who is most highly loved by the lowly. She possessed the charitable kindness of a true Christian aristocrat, but still reserved her heart for her children, as beseems only one woman: the woman who reckons as proper to her own nature nothing less than the sort of female pride that existed nowhere more than in the Nordic lands in olden times—and who possesses, on behalf of her husband, ambition, for she never would have given him any peace, even if he had been less of a man than dear old Eydalín, unless he had first made himself the greatest of the men with the name of authority here in Iceland. Proud women have upheld this land, but now it will sink. Here’s to her.”
“I have considered myself fortunate to have no daughter,” said Snæfríður. “For what shall become hereafter of Icelandic women who are born with the great misfortune to love one of those magnificent men who use their power to destroy dragons, like Sigurður Fáfnir’s-bane upon my cloth?”
“I have always known, my darling, that you are one of those great women who exist in Iceland. And the last time I stayed at your mother’s it looked to me like she was probably not sleeping too soundly at night, since she was forced to consider the possibility that maybe not all of the women in her family were born during the century—m-m-m—when Brynhildur slept on the mountain.* But now I must leave, my darling, the day is passing. And may peace be with those who provided for me. I thank my friend’s daughter for inviting me to speak with her. I am an old man and was never counted along with kindhearted folk. Goodness me. But since I see that her grace, my darling, is in possession of a most outstanding saddle, might she permit this old admirer of her mothers and foremothers to leave his most able workhorse here before her door, if she would have it? I bought it out west in Dalir last year; it knows the way back.”
Vigfús Þórarinsson lifted his glass in farewell, stood up ponderously, and stroked her in thanks with a blue paw, bidding God have mercy on them all.
Shortly afterward she heard them leave. They rode eastward, up through Tungur.* Magnús slouched up to his wife’s loft; he spoke not a word, but cast himself facedown onto her bed.
She asked: “Are we to leave today?”
“No,” said the squire. “After he came down he said we could remain here for ten days.”
“I didn’t ask for reprieve,” she said.
“Nor did I,” he said.
“Why didn’t you promise to leave immediately?” she said.
“You’ve never asked me about anything, so don’t ask me about anything,” he said.
“Forgive me,” she said.
Then she went down.
The door to the houseroom was standing ajar and she saw two columns of beautiful special-dollars standing side by side on the table, the contract close by. She walked out of the farmhouse, onto the footpath, the sun gleaming off the Tunga River, the smell of grass in the wind. A rust-colored horse stood tied to a horseblock, restless to have been left alone in this unfamiliar place. When it became aware of the woman’s presence it jerked at its reins, glanced sideways at her with its young, extraordinarily keen, glassy black eyes, and whinnied shyly; it had completely shed its winter coat, its body was sleek, its muzzle silky-soft, its neck taut, its croup stately and slender.
The two workmen were still napping beneath the homefield wall with their caps over their faces, and the spear-legged woman was still raking the field.
The housewife walked out to the men in the homefield and woke them up.
“Do this for me,” she said. “Fetch a knife from the farm and slaughter the horse standing there tied to the stone. Put its head on a pole and turn it south toward Hjálmholt.”
The men sprang up with a start and rubbed their eyes. Never before during their stay on the farm had the housewife ordered them to work.
3
On the next day Snæfríður rode to Skálholt to speak to her sister Jórunn, the wife of the bishop. Madam Jórunn was accustomed to traveling west to Eydalur every year at the start of the Alþingi, to take her leisure with her mother for ten days, and this year was no different.
“Perhaps you should ride west as well, sister,” said the bishop’s wife. “Mother would be much happier to see you for one spring than to see me for ten.”
“Mother and I were much the same in many ways, but there was never any love lost between us,” said Snæfríður. “And I doubt very much that the story about the prodigal son will be twisted onto the female line of our family as long as there is a woman who resembles her mother in that family, sister Jórunn. There’s a certain small matter that I would like to discuss with my father this spring, but I’m afraid it’s not enough to justify my riding to meet him at Þingvellir. By the way, sister, will you be passing by the Alþingi?”
She said that this was so, that she would ride as usual to Þingvellir with her husband the bishop and remain there for one night, then continue westward with her attendants.
“I really would prefer to ask my father to ride east to meet me,” said Snæfríður, “but since the magistrate is supposedly tottering from old age and isn’t up for running odd errands, and since we in Bræðratunga have very little means to entertain great men, I would like to ask you, sister, for both these reasons, to bring him a message from me.”
She then willingly told her sister what had happened: her husband Magnús had sold his estate to the wealthy Vigfús Þórarinsson the bailiff and his son-in-law Jón the brennivín-dealer at Vatn, and the new owners had given them notice to quit without further delay. At these tidings the bishop’s wife went over to her sister and kissed her tearfully, but Snæfríður bade her be still and continued her narrative
: she said that what she wanted to discuss with her father was whether he would talk over the matter with Vigfús Þórarinsson and buy the land back from him; she herself, she said, did not have enough of a grip on the bailiff to be able to get him to resell the land, but the authorities in Iceland, she said, knew each other well and had always been able to persuade the others to agree to all sorts of deals.
“Beloved sister, I know you could not possibly be referring to our father,” said the bishop’s wife. “When has anyone ever heard that another authority in this land was able to persuade him to agree to something he knew in his heart to be unjust?”
Snæfríður said that it would be best if they kept their opinions on such matters to themselves for the moment. She did, however, insist that their father had the power of several authorities in his own hands, more than anyone else, and was far more successful at convincing the others of his will—as much now as ever before. She was certain he could buy the land back from wealthy Fúsi if he wanted to, she said, and for any price he set. After their father retook control of the estate, she herself would buy it from him with the farms she owned in the west and the north; farms that had not been paid out as part of her dowry when she had married without the consent of her kinsfolk before she reached the age of twenty.
The bishop’s wife looked over her sister for a moment, with a slight expression of pity for the fact that a certain agreeable slackness of body and soul, obtainable through long acquaintance with affluence, was not also to be found in her—instead this thirty-two-year-old woman was still fair and slender, with a hidden savageness in her blood and a tautness to her body, like a maiden.
“Why, sister, why?” asked the bishop’s wife finally.
“Why what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, good sister. But in any case, if I were in your shoes—I would thank my Redeemer if Magnús in Bræðratunga left me a beggar, so that I could not be blamed for leaving him.”
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