Far down on the shore, farmer Jón Oddsson heaved himself over the protruding stone lip that had kept him covered between two crushed shelves of granite. With leaden feet he managed to pull himself high enough to watch the course of the ships as they rounded the island of Ellidaey to head south. Which of them held Anna, the bride he had barely had time to bed? He thought he could hear over the water a great crying in the wind that was bearing her away, and for a moment he wondered – so shaken was he and dizzy, such an ache for her in his chest – if the sound had come perhaps from him.
Meanwhile, in a puddled cave near Kirkjubaer, a contented mass of full-bodied flies was feasting on both parts of Jón Thorsteinsson’s head.
5
Dear Lord, will this never end? The pain grows and tightens and takes a long time to die. Two or three minutes later it begins again. Ólafur has taken Marta away and the sail is back in place. Ásta’s head is resting on the rope and Margrét is stroking her hair. She is soaking with sweat. The ship is rolling and she has retched on the floor until there is nothing left.
Margrét makes her take a sip of the horrible water. She brings it straight back up.
‘You know what I need, Margrét? Some of that potion the elfman gave to the girl in the shieling. You remember the story?’
Margrét sniffs. ‘What you need is a bed in a nice empty badstofa and some water boiling on the kitchen fire. And you won’t be getting that either.’
‘Tell me the story instead, then. That will be help enough.’
‘It’s unsuitable. What would Ólafur say? No, don’t try and tell me. Is that another one? Just breathe slowly then. That’s it. Slowly, slowly. There you go. Is that better?’
‘Please, Margrét. A story.’
Margrét rolls her eyes. Jón would turn in his grave. Oh God, oh God, is he even in a grave yet?
‘Very well, then. We could both do with a distraction. There was once a priest – just like your father, Ásta – and he had a daughter he loved more than all the world. Just as yours did you. She used to go up to the shieling in summer to milk the cattle in the high pasturelands and make the skyr and keep house for the herdsmen. She was a girl of great beauty and skill and considered the best match in all the world.’
‘Just as I was?’
‘I think not. I imagine it’s safe to assume this girl did not overfill her liver-pudding bag so that it kept bursting and every meal was ruined.’
‘Oh, hurry up, Margrét. Before the next one.’
‘Well, in the autumn the girl returned from the shieling, and soon everyone began to notice that she was putting on weight. Her father was convinced she must be expecting a child, and he urged her not to go back to the shieling at the end of spring, since it was no place to give birth. But the girl insisted she was not with child and would return as normal. Her father let her go back. I think we can agree that your own father would not have been so obliging. But he ordered his herdsmen not to let her out of their sight up there for a single moment. Are you still all right?’
A nod.
‘They did as he asked and she was never left alone – except for just one evening when all the sheep and cows mysteriously went missing. Everyone hurried into the hills to look for them except the girl, who was left behind in the shieling. When the men returned with the animals in the morning, she was busy at her work as usual, but they did think she seemed lighter on her feet. As the weeks passed, the men noticed she had lost her plumpness, but you know how men are – the matter was soon forgotten.’
Here it comes. Ásta closes her eyes and fights the urge to yell. Margrét offers a skinny arm for clutching and waits for the tightening to ease.
‘Then, the following winter a neighbouring farmer asked for the girl’s hand in marriage. He was a fine man and everyone thought well of him. No heed was paid to the girl’s objections.
‘At last the wedding day arrived. Just before they were married, the girl went to her betrothed and said, straight out, “I have no desire to marry you. But since I must, I insist that you promise never to allow strangers to lodge with us during the winter without first telling me, otherwise things will go badly for you.”’
Margrét selects another sniff from her large store. ‘He was a tolerant man, this husband, considering the girl was trouble from beginning to end. Far too easygoing. I would have sorted her out in no time. His mother was also a kindly soul. She found her new daughter-in-law sullen and unhappy, but she tried to cheer her up by entertaining her with stories as they sat together carding the wool. One day, the old woman’s storytelling flagged and she begged the girl to tell her a tale instead. The girl said she knew only one story, but she would tell it. And here – are you all right, Ásta? – here is the story she told.’
‘Wait, Margrét. Give me your arm.’
Ásta clenches her teeth and fights to the top of the pain. On it goes, and on.
‘Well done, Ásta mín. A few more of these and we’ll be nearly there. Now where was I?’
Stop talking, Margrét. Leave me alone. Be kind enough to let me die.
‘Ah yes. The story the girl told her mother-in-law. It was really her own story, of course. And this is what she said:
‘There was once a farm girl who had worked at the shieling all the summer long. Near the bothy were rocky cliffs where she loved to go for quiet walks. A man, one of the hidden folk, lived inside one of those rocks. He appeared to the girl one day and they became extremely attached to one another. Some time later the girl discovered she was bearing a child.
‘Early the following summer she returned to the shieling. One night all the animals went missing and her companions went out to look for them. While everyone was gone the girl went into labour. Really, Ásta, are you sure this story is wise?’
‘It’s … fine. Give me … a minute.’ They are coming fast.
‘Take it steady then. That’s it now. Try not to panic. I said don’t panic, Ásta. That’s better. Good. Let me dab your forehead again. Now, just think about this before the next one. All of a sudden the elfman appeared at this girl’s side and he helped her through the birth. He gave the girl a delicious drink to sip and it stole all her pain away. Imagine it, Ásta. Imagine this drink slipping through you, cool and sweet as mountain water, and the pain tumbling away with it. There it goes, rushing far, far away to the sea beyond. See, I’ve made you smile.
‘Well, he cut the cord, this elfman (so the girl told in her tale), washed the child and wrapped it in a warm blanket. Then he slipped away, carrying their child with him, and the girl was left to get on with her life. But after that – this is what she told her mother-in-law very coldly – she was compelled to marry another man. And she has grieved bitterly for her child and her lost lover ever since.’
When the next pounding arrives, Ásta closes her eyes and tries to picture the pain being doused by a drink, carried off by a cool river, tumbling away on the foaming mane of the Leirvogsá to the sea. It is not the slightest help. A cry bursts through her gritted teeth and she clutches Margrét for dear life. Margrét strokes the hand on her arm while making a surreptitious movement to ease it off.
‘It did not end well for the girl,’ she continues at last. ‘Many years later two strangers arrived at the farm, one tall and the other shorter, requesting lodging for the winter in return for work. The farmer agreed, but without consulting his wife. A mistake, of course, as you will recall from his wedding-day promise. The men lodged in an outbuilding and the wife made every effort to avoid meeting them. But at last the farmer forced the issue, asking how she could be so rude as not to greet these strangers with a hospitable kiss. His wife went wild with rage.’
Margrét puts on a flouncy voice. ‘“First you take in these men without consulting me and now you force me to kiss them. Fine. I will obey you. But let me tell you, you’ll regret …” Ásta mín, you’re panicking again. You need to calm down. That’s it. There you are. Good girl. That’s it.’
This one is too long. She can’t c
limb to the top of it. She can’t do this.
Margrét wipes her cheeks with a filthy apron. ‘Shall I stop now?’
Yes. No. Yes. Make it all stop.
‘Well, it’s nearly done. The wife stormed out and was gone a long time. At length the farmer went to look for her in the lodgers’ room. And there he found her and the tall stranger lying on the bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, dead. They had died of grief, supposedly. Nonsense, if you ask me. Who dies of grief? You get on with it. Anyway, the younger man was standing over the two of them, weeping. When the farmer entered the room, the boy disappeared and was never seen again.
‘The farmer’s mother decided this was the moment to share the story that her daughter-in-law had recounted many years before. It was then that everyone realised that the older man had been her elfman lover from the shieling and the younger one their son.’
Margrét leans over to dab Ásta’s face again. ‘There now. That has passed the time nicely, hasn’t it? I dare say the good Lord will forgive us the indulgence in the circumstances.’
Her niece has only the briefest moment to reflect that the most down-to-earth woman in Iceland is not the person to bring out the full pathos of the elfman lover, the lost child and the disregarded husband who had not (really, when you think about it) been so very much at fault, before she is grabbing at Margrét’s arm again.
Someone is making a monstrous grunting noise. Through a red haze of pain, Ásta is dimly aware that it might be her. The long drawn-out shriek that follows hushes every voice in the hold, reaches a group of pirates dozing in the crew quarters directly above and trails thinly to the upper deck, where Ólafur is slumped beside a parakeet with Marta by his side.
But still the effort is not enough. ‘Come on, Ásta, you’ve done this before.’ Alarm is making Margrét testy. This is taking too long. ‘Hold back and pant some more.’
‘Can’t do any more. Too tired.’
‘Wheesht and hold my arm. No, the other one. Now try again. Now!’
Ásta has no idea of herself any longer. The haze is enveloping her, the screams tearing out of a throat far away.
Margrét peers again between the slender white thighs. She is so narrow, Ásta. Same figure she had as a girl. The Lord alone knows how she got the others out. And this one’s big. That last push was too weak. At this rate she won’t make it.
‘Ásta, listen to me. Look at me.’
A glassy gaze finds her.
‘You have to come back to me and try harder. Do you hear me? You have to jut that chin of yours out. The way you did when you were going to run away from our house back to Mosfell, remember? Do this for me. Do it for Ólafur. Do it for Kristín. Here it comes. One big push again. Are you listening, Ásta? WE HAVE LOST ENOUGH.’
Ásta’s eyes close. Her chin shifts. Her mouth opens in a great, animal roar. Muscles bulge and tear. The baby slides out in a cascade of blood.
Margrét grabs him, peers closely and gives him a stern shake. Holding him upside down by the ankles, she smacks and cajoles him. She blows into his nose. She runs a finger inside his little red mouth. But there comes not a sound nor a tremor. A blue tinge is creeping over his face, dusting the pearly skin with violet.
‘Breathe!’ Margrét mutters, glaring at the limp child.
The hold quivers with uneasy silence. In the gun-deck Sa’id turns in his hammock. Thanks be to Allah, the caterwauling is over and he can get some sleep before the night shift. He is annoyed to find himself tensing for the sound that should have come next. Ólafur, straining to hear from the deck, grabs the parakeet and flings it away in an indignant flurry of feathers. Someone is hammering to his left. The captain is roaring his usual spleen from the stern. Even the slap of halyard against mast is suddenly deafening. Can he have missed it?
Ólafur forces himself to count slowly to twenty, flinching at a sudden rumble of chain across the deck as the ship swings on a shifting wind. Ten, eleven, twelve. No, he can’t stand it. Thirteen. He pulls Marta to her feet and bolts for the hold.
The shock of it makes him stagger. There is blood on the timbers, blood spattered across the sail, blood on Margrét and blood all over his wife, who is lying limp and ashen with wild hair stuck to her forehead and a bundle on her chest wrapped in what looks like Margrét’s grimy apron.
Margrét waves him in impatiently. ‘Come on, man, don’t look so appalled. You have a son. And a wife, come to that, though I had my doubts for a while.’
Collecting himself with a few long breaths, Ólafur squats at Ásta’s side. Her eyes begin to flicker.
‘He took his time deciding to stay, but there he is,’ Margrét goes on, nodding to the bundle. Her hands are full of some liverish mess, plainly just delivered, from which Ólafur queasily averts his eyes.
He lifts the apron cautiously and peers underneath. ‘And what a world we have brought him to,’ he mumbles, more to himself than Margrét. The shock is fast succumbing to a powerful attack of gloom.
He is relieved to find them both safe. Of course he is. There was a moment when he thought … But to see the infant in this hideous, stinking place without so much as a decent swaddling cloth brings him suddenly very low. Here walks the priest of Ofanleiti, unable to dress his own child. He is also suffering from an emotion that might in another life have been described as embarrassment. When every privacy and all of life’s dignities are gone, the notion has little meaning, but Margrét sees it in him, tight behind the eyes: a tormented awareness of how publicly unclean the priest’s wife has become before all.
He reaches his long fingers to touch the stained head of his son and belatedly remembers an encouraging smile for Ásta, who has swum back far enough to return a watery one of her own.
‘We’ll christen him Jón,’ he says, ‘after our departed friend.’
‘Jón Ólafsson,’ Ásta whispers, trying it on her tongue.
Margrét looks up briefly, then away.
6
On the evening of the thirtieth of July, the day of his son’s birth, Ólafur Egilsson is standing on the deck of the slave-ship, looking out at the sinking orange sun. His spirits are still low. Jón Thorsteinsson used to tell him he had never known a man so excitable one minute and so cast down the next. Is it any wonder that Jón is the one the Almighty in his infinite wisdom chose for martyrdom? Always so calm, Jón, always so sure of himself. Ólafur sometimes suspects that the people take more comfort from the report of his fellow priest’s devout dying, prayer-book in hand, than they do from his own bumbling efforts below deck. The thought makes him feel even worse.
Unnoticed, three corsairs are loitering behind him. After a brief whispered dispute, one of their number is appointed to tap the priest on the shoulder. Ólafur wheels around with an off-target fist.
He is surprised to be presented with nothing more alarming than a pair of wide-shouldered men’s shirts, pale as bleached wood. Even while gazing at the men in mute astonishment, Ólafur cannot help running the cloth through his fingers and rubbing the weave with his thumb. The shirts are thinner and lighter than any woven with Icelandic wool, and clean. So very clean. Fresh as the wild air. He can smell the wind on them.
What is this? A gift? Ólafur becomes daily more confused by the pirates and what to make of them. One day they are treating people with a savagery no Icelander ever witnessed before, and the next he catches them tickling children’s chins and whiling away the voyage teaching ever more intricate sailors’ knots to Jón’s big lad and his own Egill. One day their captain is slicing a man’s head in two and the next sending down a tent for Ásta’s confinement and offering Ólafur the freedom of the deck. Adequate food and drink arrive in the hold each morning for everyone, and the captives are at last being allowed a spell of fresh air each day. Now this.
They are manifestly evil, these men. They bow to false gods and steal innocent Christians from their homes. And God will punish them, no doubt about that, just as he will glorify those who bear witness to him in their present agony.
Still – Ólafur’s sense of fairness has rarely proved more inconvenient – some of the subtler shades of wickedness are perplexing. As Ásta said when one of them came to put up the tent, how can evil smile? It was a pleasant smile. That’s what had bothered Ólafur. He has not been able to dismiss the thought that a black heart producing a kind smile might, in all fairness, tend to a shade of blackness somewhat less than pitch. Or is he a fool to believe it? God’s fool, he thinks, suddenly bitter – the priest who couldn’t even get himself martyred.
He fondles the soft shirts and buries his nose in the sweetness of them. The three young corsairs are watching him cheerfully, pleased with themselves. Two have dark faces and the third’s is freckled to his turban. They had heard the child’s cry and thought of it, the freckled lad explains, and Ólafur is gratified to discover that his conversations with a grumbling Cornish mariner forced to winter on Heimaey the year before last stand him in good stead. With no idea any longer on which side of expediency any act of humanity on this ship might lie, Ólafur jerks his head.
‘I thank you,’ he replies in English, and rushes off to show Ásta.
She is lying on her side with one arm around the baby. Little Jón is curled on her chest, plump and bare and shiny clean. Margrét must have begged some brine for washing. She also seems to have scoured some of the timbers and drawn aside the bloodstained sail. Ásta too looks fresher, her hair smoothed back, eyes bright. She has the air of exhausted elation he recognises from previous births. It looks to him, even here, even now, like happiness.
Easing himself down beside her, he is confident of bringing more. ‘Look, my dearest. Two shirts to cover the baby.’
He leans over and slips one of them under the child, tucking it around his yielding chin like a shawl and gently setting Ásta’s hand aside so that he can wrap the rest of it around him. The shirt spreads out like a christening gown. The long wide arms hang loose down her soiled dress. The baby snuffles in his sleep.
The Sealwoman's Gift Page 5