Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

  Lauga stepped across the doorway, nearly tripping on the raised ledge, and went into the storeroom to fetch a little mutton for the pot. There was no point cutting down any smoked lamb at this time of year, but there was a slice or two of blood sausage left from the winter, very sour but good.

  We’ll eat together in the badstofa. I’ll tell them then, Lauga decided. She heard the sounds of the horse’s hooves in the dirt of the yard outside.

  ‘Komið þið sæl!’ Lauga stepped out of the croft, brushing the dust from the dung off her hands, and quickly smoothing her hair back under her cap. ‘Good to see you both safely returned.’

  Jón, her father, slowed the horse to a stop and gave her a smile from under his riding hat. He raised a bare hand in greeting and stepped forward to give her a quick, formal kiss.

  ‘Little Lauga. How have you managed?’ He turned to the horse to unload a few parcels fastened on its back.

  ‘Hello, Mamma.’

  Margrét glanced down at Lauga and gave her a warm look, although her lips barely moved. ‘Hello, Sigurlaug,’ she said.

  ‘You look well.’

  ‘I’m still alive,’ she replied.

  ‘Are you tired?’

  Margrét ignored the question and slid awkwardly to the ground. Lauga embraced her mother shyly, then ran her hand over the mare’s nose and felt the nostrils quiver, the hot, wet breath on her palm.

  ‘Where’s your sister?’

  Lauga glanced at the outcrop where the stream was, but could see no movement. ‘Fetching water for supper.’

  Margrét raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought she’d be here to welcome us.’

  Lauga turned again to her father, who was placing the small packages from the saddle on the ground. She took a deep breath. ‘Pabbi, there is something I have to tell you later.’

  He began to untie the stiff rope from about the mare. ‘A death?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have we lost any animals?’

  ‘Oh. Oh no, nothing like that,’ Lauga answered, adding, ‘Thank the Lord,’ as an afterthought. She stepped closer to her father. ‘I might need to tell you this alone,’ she said in a low voice.

  Her mother heard her. ‘What you have to say can be told to the both of us, Lauga.’

  ‘I don’t want to distress you, Mamma.’

  ‘Oh, I am often distressed,’ Margrét said, suddenly smiling. ‘It comes from having children and servants to look after.’ Then, telling her husband to make sure he didn’t set the remaining parcels down in puddles, Margrét picked up some packages and headed inside, Lauga following after her.

  Jón had entered the badstofa and eased himself down next to his wife by the time Lauga brought in the bowls of broth.

  ‘I thought a hot meal might be of comfort,’ she said.

  Jón looked up at Lauga, who was standing in front of him, holding the tray. ‘May I change out of these clothes first?’

  Lauga hesitated, and, setting the tray down on the bed beside her mother, dropped to her knees and began to untie the binds about Jón’s shoes. ‘There is something I have to tell you both.’

  ‘Where’s Kristín?’ Margrét asked sharply, as Jón leant back on his elbows and let his daughter work the damp sock off his foot.

  ‘Steina gave her half the day in holiday,’ Lauga replied.

  ‘And where is Steina?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Here somewhere.’ Lauga felt her stomach twist in panic, aware of the scrutiny of her parents. ‘Pabbi, District Commissioner Blöndal paid a visit when you were away,’ she whispered.

  Jón sat up a little and looked down at his daughter. ‘The District Commissioner?’ he repeated.

  Margrét clenched her fists. ‘What did he want?’ she asked.

  ‘He had a letter for you, Pabbi.’

  Margrét stared down at Lauga. ‘Why didn’t he send a servant? Are you sure it was Blöndal?’

  ‘Mamma, please.’

  Jón was silent. ‘Where is the letter?’ he asked.

  Lauga wriggled the shoe off his other foot and let it drop to the floor. Mud cracked off the leather.

  ‘Steina burnt it.’

  ‘Whatever for? Good Lord!’

  ‘Mamma! It’s all right. I know what it said. Pabbi, we are being forced to –’

  ‘Pabbi!’ Steina’s voice rang down the corridor. ‘You’ll never guess who we have to keep locked up in our house!’

  ‘Locked up?’ Margrét twisted around to query her elder daughter, who had just bounced into the room. ‘Oh, Steina, you’re sopping.’

  Steina looked down at her soaked apron and shrugged. ‘I dropped the buckets and had to go back and fill them up again. Pabbi, Blöndal’s forcing us to keep Agnes Magnúsdóttir in our home!’

  ‘Agnes Magnúsdóttir?’ Margrét turned to Lauga, horrified.

  ‘Yes, the murderess, Mamma!’ Steina exclaimed, untying her wet apron and carelessly flinging it onto the bed next to her. ‘The one who killed Natan Ketilsson!’

  ‘Steina! I was just about to explain to Pabbi –’

  ‘And Pétur Jónsson, Mamma.’

  ‘Steina!’

  ‘Oh, Lauga, just because you wanted to tell them.’

  ‘You ought not to interrupt –’

  ‘Girls!’ Jón stood up, his arms outstretched. ‘Enough. Begin from the start, Lauga. What happened?’

  Lauga hesitated, then told her parents everything she could remember about the District Commissioner’s visit, her face growing flushed as she recited what she recalled reading in the letter.

  Before she had finished, Jón began to dress again.

  ‘Surely this is not something we are obliged to do!’ Margrét tugged at her husband’s sleeve, but Jón shrugged her off, refusing to look at his wife’s distraught face.

  ‘Jón,’ Margrét murmured. She glanced over at her daughters, who both sat with their hands in their laps, watching their parents silently.

  Jón pulled his boots back on, whipping the ties around his ankle. The leather squeaked as he pulled them tight.

  ‘It’s too late, Jón,’ Margrét said. ‘Are you going to Hvammur? They’ll all be asleep.’

  ‘Then I’ll wake them.’ He picked up his riding hat from its nail, took his wife by the shoulders and gently shifted her out of his way. Nodding farewell to his daughters, he strode out of the room, down the corridor and shut the door to the croft behind him.

  ‘What shall we do, Mamma?’ Lauga’s small voice came from a dark corner of the room.

  Margrét closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Jón returned to Kornsá some hours later. Kristín, who had come back from her afternoon’s holiday to a sound chastising from Margrét, was scowling reproachfully at Steina. Margrét paused at her knitting and was considering whether or not to make peace between the girls, when she heard the door to the croft creak open and the sound of her husband’s heavy tread in the corridor.

  Jón entered and immediately looked across at his wife. She clenched her jaw.

  ‘Well?’ Margrét ushered her husband to his bed.

  Jón fumbled at the ties on his shoes.

  ‘Please, Pabbi,’ Lauga said, dropping to her knees. ‘What did Blöndal say?’ She jerked backwards as she pulled off his boots. ‘Is she still to come here?’

  Jón nodded. ‘It’s as Lauga said. Agnes Magnúsdóttir is to be moved from her holdings at Stóra-Borg and brought to us.’

  ‘But why, Pabbi?’ Lauga asked quietly. ‘What did we do wrong?’

  ‘We have done nothing wrong. I am a District Officer. She can’t be placed with any family. She is a responsibility of the authorities, of which I am one.’

  ‘Plenty of authorities at Stóra-Borg.’ Margrét’s tone was sour.

  ‘She’s to be moved nevertheless. There was an incident.’

  ‘What happened?’ Lauga asked.

  Jón looked down at the fair face of his youngest child. ‘I am sure it was nothing to worry about,’ he said eventually.<
br />
  Margrét gave a short laugh. ‘Are we just going to yield to this? Like a dog rolling over?’ Her voice dropped to a hiss. ‘This Agnes is a murderess, Jón! We have our girls, our workmen. Even Kristín! We are responsible for others!’

  Jón gave his wife a meaningful look. ‘Blöndal means to compensate us, Margrét. There is remuneration for her custody.’

  Margrét paused. When she spoke her voice was subdued. ‘Perhaps we should send the girls away.’

  ‘No, Mamma! I don’t want to leave,’ cried Steina.

  ‘It would be for your own safety.’

  Jón cleared his throat. ‘The girls will be safe enough with you, Margrét.’ He sighed. ‘There is another thing. Björn Blöndal has requested my presence at Hvammur on the night the woman arrives here.’

  Margrét opened her mouth in dismay. ‘You mean to make me meet her?’

  ‘Pabbi, you can’t leave Mamma alone with her,’ Lauga cried.

  ‘She won’t be alone. You will all be here. There will be officers from Stóra-Borg. And a Reverend. Blöndal has organised it.’

  ‘And what is so important at Hvammur that Blöndal requires you there the very night he ushers a criminal into our home?’

  ‘Margrét . . .’

  ‘No, I insist. This is unfair.’

  ‘We are to discuss who shall be executioner.’

  ‘Executioner!’

  ‘All the District Officers will be present, including those from Vatnsnes who will travel with the Stóra-Borg riders. We will sleep there that night and return the next day.’

  ‘And in the meantime I am left alone with the woman who killed Natan Ketilsson.’

  Jón looked at his wife calmly. ‘You will have your daughters.’

  Margrét began to say something further, but then thought better of it. She gave her husband a hard look, took up her knitting and began working the needles furiously.

  Steina watched her mother and father from under lowered brows, and picked up her dinner, feeling sick to her stomach. She held the wooden bowl in her hands and examined the gobbets of mutton swimming in the greasy broth. Slowly taking her spoon, she lifted a piece to her lips and began to chew, her tongue locating a lump of gristle within the flesh. She fought the instinct to spit it out and ground it under her teeth, swallowing in silence.

  AFTER THEY DECIDE I MUST leave, the Stóra-Borg men sometimes tie my legs together in the evening, as they do with the forelegs of horses, to ensure I will not run away. It seems that with each passing day I become more like an animal to them, another dull-eyed beast to feed with what can be scraped together and to be kept out of the weather. They leave me in the dark, deny me light and air, and when I must be moved, they bind and lead me where they will.

  They never speak to me here. In winter, in the badstofa, I could always hear myself breathing, and I’d get scared to swallow for fear the whole room might hear it. The only sounds to keep a body company then were the rustling of Bible pages and whisperings. I’d catch my name on the lips of others, and I knew it wasn’t in blessing. Now, when they are forced by law to read out the words of a letter or proclamation, they talk as if addressing someone behind my shoulder. They refuse to meet my eyes.

  You, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, have been found guilty of accessory to murder. You, Agnes Magnúsdóttir have been found guilty of arson, and conspiracy to murder. You, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, have been sentenced to death. You, Agnes. Agnes.

  They don’t know me.

  I remain quiet. I am determined to close myself to the world, to tighten my heart and hold on to what has not yet been stolen from me. I cannot let myself slip away. I will hold what I am inside, and keep my hands tight around all the things I have seen and heard, and felt. The poems composed as I washed and scythed and cooked until my hands were raw. The sagas I know by heart. I am sinking all I have left and going underwater. If I speak, it will be in bubbles of air. They will not be able to keep my words for themselves. They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt. They will say ‘Agnes’ and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there.

  REVEREND THORVARDUR JÓNSSON SIGHED AS he left the church and entered the cool, damp air of the afternoon. Just over one month had passed since he had accepted Blöndal’s offer to visit the condemned woman, and he had questioned his decision every day since. Each morning he had felt troubled, as though newly woken from a nightmare. Even as he had made his daily walk to the small church of Breidabólstadur to pray and sit awhile in the silence, his stomach had crowded with nerves, and his body had trembled as if exhausted by his mind’s ambivalence. It had been no different today. As he had sat on the hard pew, gazing into his hands, he caught himself wishing that he were ill, gravely ill, so that he might be excused for not riding to Kornsá. His reluctance, and his willingness to sacrifice his own blessed health, horrified him.

  It is too late now, he thought to himself as he walked through the rather pitiful garden within the churchyard. You have given your word to man and God, and there is no turning back.

  Once, before his mother had died, the church plot had been full of small plants that threw purple blossoms over the edges of the graves in summer. His mother had said that the dead made the flowers sway, to greet the churchgoers after winter. But when she died, his father ripped out the wild flowers and the graves had lain bare ever since.

  The door to the Breidabólstadur croft was ajar. As Tóti let himself in, the heavy warmth from the kitchen, and the smell of melting tallow from the candle in the corridor, made him feel nauseous.

  His father was bent over the bubbling kettle, poking something with a knife.

  ‘I ought to leave now, I think,’ Tóti announced.

  His father looked up from the boiling fish and nodded.

  ‘I’m expected to arrive early in the evening to acquaint myself with the family at Kornsá, and be present when . . . Well, when the criminal arrives.’

  His father frowned. ‘Go then, son.’

  Tóti hesitated. ‘Do you think I’m ready?’

  Reverend Jón sighed and lifted the kettle off its hook over the coals. ‘You know your own heart.’

  ‘I’ve been praying in the church. I wonder what Mamma would have thought about it all.’

  Tóti’s father blinked slowly and looked away.

  ‘What do you think, father?’

  ‘A man must be true to his word.’

  ‘Is it the right decision, though? I . . . I don’t want to displease you.’

  ‘You should seek to please the Lord,’ Reverend Jón muttered, trying to scoop his fish from the hot water with his knife.

  ‘Will you pray for me, father?’

  Tóti waited for a response, but none came. Perhaps he thinks he is better suited to meet murderesses, Tóti thought. Perhaps he is jealous she chose me. He watched his father lick a fragment of fish from where it had stuck to the blade. She chose me, he repeated to himself.

  ‘Don’t wake me when you return,’ Reverend Jón called out as his son turned and left the room.

  Tóti slipped a saddle over his horse and mounted. ‘This is it, then,’ he whispered quietly. He gently squeezed his knees to urge his horse forward, and looked back at the croft. Its thin wreath of kitchen smoke dissipated into the soft drizzle of the afternoon.

  Travelling through the long grasses of the valley surrounding the church, the Assistant Reverend tried to think of what he should say. Should he be kind and welcoming, or stern and impenetrable, like Blöndal? As he rode, he rehearsed various tones of voice, different greetings. Perhaps he should wait until he saw the woman. Unexpectedly, a small thrill flickered through his body. She was only a workmaid, but she was a murderess. She had killed two men. Slaughtered them like animals. He silently mouthed the word to himself. Murderess. Morðingi. It sli
pped through his mouth like milk.

  As he travelled over the north peninsula with its thin lip of ocean on the horizon, the clouds began to clear and the soft red light of the late June sun flooded the pass. Drops of water glittered brightly upon the ground, and the hills appeared pink and muted, shadows moving slowly across them as clouds drifted overhead. Small insects wound their way through the air, lit up like flecks of dust as they passed through the sunshine, and the sweet, damp smell of grass, almost ready to be harvested, lingered in the cool air of the valleys. The dread that Tóti had felt so firmly lining his stomach dissipated as he fell into a quiet appreciation of the countryside before him.

  We are all God’s children, he thought to himself. This woman is my sister in Jesus, and I, as her spiritual brother, must guide her home. He smiled and brought his horse to a tölt. ‘I will save her,’ he whispered.

  CHAPTER TWO

  3rd of May 1828

  Undirfell, Vatnsdalur

  The convict Agnes Magnúsdóttir was born at Flaga in the parish of Undirfell in 1795. She was confirmed in 1809, at which age she was written as having ‘an excellent intellect, and strong knowledge and understanding of Christianity’.

  This is what is listed in the Undirfell Ministerial Book.

  P. Bjarnason

  THEY HAVE TAKEN ME FROM the room and put me in irons again. This time they sent an officer of the court, a young man with pocked skin and a nervous smile. He’s a servant from Hvammur, I recognised his face. When his lips broke apart I could see that his teeth were rotting in his mouth. His breath was awful, but no worse than my own; I know I am rank. I am scabbed with dirt and the accumulated weeping of my body: blood, sweat, oil. I cannot think of when I last washed. My hair feels like a greased rope; I have tried to keep it plaited, but they have not allowed me ribbons, and I imagine that to the officer I looked like a monstrous creature. Perhaps that was why he smiled.