Burial Rites

by Hannah Kent

  Agnes’s eyes slipped from Steina’s and she swayed on her feet. ‘Blöndal?’ she muttered under her breath. Steina noticed that Agnes gripped the rock so hard her knuckles were white.

  ‘I’m sorry I told you.’

  Agnes staggered backwards, and then continued walking unsteadily towards the river.

  ‘Maybe we can convince him to appeal to the King for you too!’ Steina called after her. ‘Tell them what really happened at Illugastadir!’

  Agnes dropped to the ground by the riverbank, her skirts bulging around her. Steina, thinking she had fainted, ran towards her, but as she drew closer she saw that Agnes was staring blankly at the river. She was shivering. At that moment the dark clouds opened up, and the two women were engulfed in a sudden, freezing downpour.

  ‘Agnes!’ Steina called, wrapping her shawl more tightly about her head. ‘Get up! We have to get out of the weather.’ The sound of the rain drowned out her words.

  Agnes didn’t respond. She watched the drops hit the fast-flowing river, breaking the surface so that the mountains’ reflection became wildly distorted. She still held the rock in her hand.

  ‘Agnes!’ Steina cried. ‘I’m sorry! I thought you knew!’ Her shawl was soaked, and she could feel her dress grow heavy with water. She hesitated by the riverbank, and then turned and began to run up the hill to the croft. The ground had become soggy, and she slipped in the mud. Halfway up the field she turned and saw that Agnes was still where she had left her. She called one more time, and then continued tripping up the muddy path to the farm.

  ‘Goodness, Steina! Where on God’s earth have you been?’ Margrét rushed down the corridor to scold her eldest daughter, who slammed the croft door behind her. ‘You look half drowned!’

  ‘It’s Agnes,’ Steina gasped, dropping her sodden shawl to the ground.

  ‘Did she hurt you? Oh my sweet Lord, protect us! I knew it.’ Margrét wrapped her arms around her daughter, who was shaking with cold, and drew her towards her.

  ‘No, Mamma!’ Steina yelled, pushing her mother away. ‘She needs help, she’s by the river!’

  ‘What happened?’ Lauga had stepped out of the kitchen. ‘Oh, Steina! You’ve muddied my shawl.’

  ‘I don’t care!’ Steina shouted. She turned back to her mother. ‘I told her about the appeal for Sigrídur Gudmundsdóttir and she went all strange and white and now she won’t get up!’

  Margrét turned to Lauga. ‘What is she talking about?’

  ‘Agnes!’ Steina screeched. She wiped the rain off her face with her sleeve and began to run down the corridor. ‘I need to tell Pabbi.’

  Jón was in the badstofa, mending his shoes. ‘Steina?’ he asked, looking up from his work.

  ‘Pabbi! Please, you have to go down to Agnes. I told her about the appeal Blöndal has for the other Illugastadir maid and she’s gone mad.’

  Jón immediately pushed the shoes from his lap and stood up. ‘Where?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘By the river,’ Steina said, fighting back tears. Jón pulled his boots out from under his bed and tied them on roughly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Pabbi, I thought she knew! I wanted to help her.’

  Jón stood up and gripped his daughter by the shoulders. His cheeks were pink with anger. ‘I told you to stay away from her.’ He glared at his daughter, then shoved her out of the way and left the room, calling for Gudmundur, who had been lying on his bed. The farmhand got up reluctantly. Steina sat down and began to cry.

  A few moments later Lauga stepped into the badstofa with Kristín at her side.

  ‘What did Pabbi say?’ she asked quietly, then, seeing where Steina had sat, ‘Oh! Get up, you’re making my bed wet.’

  ‘Leave me!’ Steina screamed, causing Kristín to yelp and flee the room. ‘Leave me alone!’

  Lauga smirked and shook her head. ‘You’re in a temper, Steina. What were you trying to do out there? Make friends?’

  ‘Go to hell, Lauga!’

  Lauga’s mouth dropped open. She glowered at her sister, as though about to cry, and then narrowed her eyes. ‘You’d better watch yourself,’ she hissed. ‘If you continue this way you’ll be as wicked as her.’ She turned to walk away, but stopped. ‘I’ll pray for you,’ she sniffed, and then left the room. Steina put her head in her hands and cried.

  I SIT AND WAIT UPON my bed as Margrét, Jón and their daughters talk about me behind the grey curtain in the parlour. Although Margrét speaks in hissed whispers I catch the words as they slither through the gap between this room and the next. My hands shake and I can feel my heart throbbing. It’s as though I have just run for my life. It’s the same feeling as in court, when I felt outside of everything.

  I could have been a pauper; I could have been their servant, until those words! Sigga! Illugastadir! They anchor me to a memory that snatches the breath out of me. They are the magic words, the curse that turns me into a monster, and now I am Agnes of Illugastadir, Agnes of the fire, Agnes of the dead bodies with the blood, not burnt, still clinging to the clothes I made for him. They will free Sigga but they will not free me because I am Agnes – bloody, knowing Agnes. And I am so scared, I thought it could work, I thought I could pretend, but I see it will not, I will never, I cannot escape this, I cannot escape.

  THE LETTER WAS SMALL, AND written in bunched cursive on a tiny piece of paper, the lines overlapping in the author’s attempt to conserve space. Tóti took it into the badstofa to read, where he had been eating his midday meal.

  ‘Blöndal again?’ his father asked, without looking up from his meat.

  ‘No,’ Tóti said, casting his eyes quickly over the message: Come quickly, it is Agnes Magnúsdóttir. I do not like to tell Blöndal. Your brother in Christ, Jón Jónsson. ‘It’s from Kornsá.’

  ‘Don’t they know it’s raining? And a Sunday,’ the elder priest muttered.

  Tóti sat down at the table and observed his father. Crumbs of dried porridge were visible in his beard. ‘I ought to go,’ he said.

  Reverend Jón breathed out heavily. ‘It’s a Sunday,’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes, the Lord’s day,’ Tóti said. ‘For the Lord’s work,’ he added.

  Reverend Jón pulled a piece of gristle from his mouth, examined it, and then began chewing again.

  ‘Father?’

  ‘I hope Blöndal knows how you slave to his will.’

  ‘The Lord’s will,’ Tóti said gently. ‘Thank you, Father. I’ll return tonight. Or tomorrow, if the weather is bad.’

  Tóti was drenched to the bone by the time he reached the pass leading to the Vatnsdalur valley. He saw the messenger who had delivered him the note riding ahead and spurred his mare onwards to catch up with him.

  ‘Hello there,’ Tóti shouted, peering through the thick glaze of rain.

  The man turned in his saddle and Tóti recognised him as one of the Kornsá servants. He was wearing fishing skins to keep himself dry. ‘So you’ve come!’ he shouted back. ‘That’s two of us riding in this miserable weather.’

  ‘Bad for the hay,’ Tóti said, by way of conversation.

  ‘You don’t need to tell me twice,’ the man snorted. ‘I’m Gudmundur.’ He raised his hand. ‘And you’re the Reverend that’s been trying to save our murderess.’

  ‘Well, I –’

  ‘A grisly business,’ the man interrupted. ‘She gives me the shivers.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  The farmhand laughed. ‘She’s wild.’

  Tóti spurred his cob to keep pace. ‘What has happened? That note –’

  ‘Oh, she had a fit. Fought off Jón and me, scratching and clawing, screaming all the while, soaked like, lying in the mud like a madwoman. See this?’ He pointed to a bruise on his temple. ‘That’s her handiwork. I tried to lift her and she tries to stone my brains out. Howling things about Blöndal. Same act they say she put on at Stóra-Borg, what got her shifted.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Agnes seemed so self-contained to Tóti.

  ‘I thought
she’d kill me then and there.’

  ‘What upset her?’

  The man sniffed and wiped his nose with a gloved finger. ‘Damned if I know. One of the girls said something. Mentioned the other servant girl they caught. Sigga.’

  Tóti turned and looked at the puddles in the path before them. He felt ill.

  ‘Not bad looking,’ Gudmundur said, turning to Tóti with a glint in his eye.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Agnes. Nice hair, and that,’ the servant said. ‘But too tall for me. Needs to be a head or so shorter, you know.’ He winked at Tóti and laughed.

  Tóti pulled his riding hat more firmly over his head. The rain lightened for a minute, and then resumed falling as they turned into the valley, sheets of grey sweeping over the curved earth before them, and water falling over the rocky precipices of the mountains.

  Agnes was in bed when Tóti entered the badstofa. Kristín, the workmaid, brought a stool for him, and the youngest daughter began to fuss over his wet clothes. As Lauga stooped to untie his boots, Tóti peered across to the unlit corner where Agnes sat. She was awfully still.

  Lauga pulled away his remaining boot with a sudden jerk that nearly knocked him off the stool. ‘I’ll leave you, then,’ she muttered, and walked out of the room, holding the boots at arm’s length in front of her.

  Tóti made his way to Agnes in his damp socks. She slouched against the wooden post by her bed, and as he grew closer he saw that she had been handcuffed.

  ‘Agnes?’

  Agnes opened her eyes and looked up at him blankly.

  Tóti sat down on the edge of her bed. Her skin appeared ashen in the low light and her lip was split and bloody.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked gently. ‘Why have they put you in irons again?’

  Agnes looked down at her wrists, as if surprised to see them there. She swallowed hard. ‘Sigga is to have an appeal. Blöndal is appealing to the King to reduce the sentence he gave her.’ Her voice cracked. ‘They pity her.’

  Tóti sat back and nodded. ‘I knew.’

  Agnes was aghast. ‘You knew?’

  ‘They pity you too,’ he added, wanting to comfort her.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ she hissed. ‘They don’t pity me; they hate me. All of them. Blöndal especially. What about Fridrik? Are they appealing his sentence, too?’

  ‘I don’t believe so.’

  Agnes’s eyes glistened in the shadow. Tóti thought she might be crying, but when she leaned closer he saw that her eyes were dry.

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Reverend Tóti. All my life people have thought I was too clever. Too clever by half, they’d say. And you know what, Reverend? That’s exactly why they don’t pity me. Because they think I’m too smart, too knowing to get caught up in this by accident. But Sigga is dumb and pretty and young, and that is why they don’t want to see her die.’ She leant back against the post, her eyes narrowed.

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Tóti said, trying to soothe her.

  ‘If I was young and simple-minded, do you think everyone would be pointing the finger at me? No. They’d blame it on Fridrik, saying he overpowered us. Forced us to kill Natan because he wanted his money. That Fridrik desired a little of what Natan had is no great secret. But they see I’ve got a head on my shoulders, and believe a thinking woman cannot be trusted. Believe there’s no room for innocence. And like it or not, Reverend, that is the truth of it.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in truth,’ dared Tóti.

  Agnes lifted her head off the post and stared at him, her eyes paler than ever. She grimaced. ‘I have a question for you, speaking of truth. You say God speaks the truth?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘And God said, “Thou shalt not kill”?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tóti said, carefully.

  ‘Then Blöndal and the rest are going against God. They’re hypocrites. They say they’re carrying out God’s law, but they’re only doing the will of men!’

  ‘Agnes –’

  ‘I try to love God, Reverend. I do. But I cannot love these men. I . . . I hate them.’ She said the last three words slowly, through clenched teeth, gripping the chain that connected the irons about her wrists.

  There was a knock from the entrance to the badstofa and Margrét entered with her daughters and Kristín.

  ‘Excuse me, Reverend. Don’t mind us. We’ll work and talk amongst ourselves.’

  Tóti nodded grimly. ‘How goes the harvest?’

  Margrét huffed. ‘All this wet August weather . . .’ She returned to her knitting.

  Tóti looked at Agnes, who gave him a bleak smile.

  ‘They’re even more scared of me now,’ she whispered.

  Tóti thought. He turned to the group of women. ‘Margrét? Is it not possible for these irons to be removed?’

  Margrét glanced at Agnes’s wrists, and put down her needles. She left the room and returned with a key shortly after. She unlocked the irons.

  ‘I’ll just set them here, Reverend,’ she said stiffly, lifting the cuffs onto the shelf above the bed. ‘In case you need them.’

  Tóti waited until Margrét had returned to the other end of the room and then looked at Agnes. ‘You mustn’t act like that again,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘I was not myself,’ she said.

  ‘You say they hate you? Don’t give them further reason.’

  She nodded. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’ There was a moment before she spoke again. ‘I had a dream last night.’

  ‘A good one, I hope.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘What did you dream of?’

  ‘Dying.’

  Tóti swallowed. ‘Are you afraid? Would you like me to pray for you?’

  ‘Do what you like, Reverend.’

  ‘Then, let’s pray.’ He glanced at the group of women before taking up Agnes’s cold, clammy hand.

  ‘Lord God, we pray to you this evening with sad hearts. Give us strength to bear the burdens we must carry, and the courage to face our fates.’ Tóti paused and looked at Agnes. He was aware that the other women were listening.

  ‘Lord,’ he continued, ‘I thank you for the family of Kornsá, who have opened their home and hearts to Agnes and I.’ He heard Margrét clear her throat. ‘I pray for them. I pray they have compassion and forgiveness. Be with us always, O Lord, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

  Tóti squeezed Agnes’s hand. She looked at him, her expression inscrutable.

  ‘Do you think it’s my fate to be here?’

  Tóti thought a moment. ‘We author our own fates.’

  ‘So it has nothing to do with God then?’

  ‘It’s beyond our knowing,’ Tóti said. He gently placed her hand back on the blanket. The feel of her cold skin unsettled him.

  ‘I am quite alone,’ Agnes said, almost matter-of-factly.

  ‘God is with you. I am here. Your parents are alive.’

  Agnes shook her head. ‘They may as well be dead.’

  Tóti cast a quick look at the women knitting. Lauga had snatched Steina’s half-finished sock from her lap and was ripping back the wool to amend an error.

  ‘Have you no loved one I might summon?’ he whispered to Agnes. ‘Someone from the old days?’

  ‘I have a half-brother, but only sweet Jesus knows what badstofa he’s darkening at the moment. A half-sister, too. Helga. She’s dead. A niece. Dead. Everyone’s dead.’

  ‘What about friends? Did any friends visit you at Stóra-Borg?’

  Agnes smiled bitterly. ‘The only visitor at Stóra-Borg was Rósa Gudmundsdóttir of Vatnsendi. I don’t think she’d describe herself as my friend.’

  ‘Poet-Rósa.’

  ‘The one and only.’

  ‘They say she speaks in lines of verse.’

  Agnes took a deep breath. ‘She came to me in Stóra-Borg with a poem.’

  ‘A gift?’

  Agnes sat up and leant closer. ‘No, Reverend,’ she
said plainly. ‘An accusation.’

  ‘What did she accuse you of?’

  ‘Of making her life meaningless.’ Agnes sniffed. ‘Amongst other things. It wasn’t her finest poem.’

  ‘She must have been upset.’

  ‘Rósa blamed me when Natan died.’

  ‘She loved Natan.’

  Agnes stopped and glared at Tóti. ‘She was a married woman,’ she exclaimed, a tremor of anger in her voice. ‘He wasn’t hers to love!’

  Tóti noticed the other women had stopped knitting. They were watching Agnes, her last sentence having carried loudly across the room. He rose to fetch the spare stool beside Kristín.

  ‘I’m afraid we’re disturbing you,’ he said to them.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to use the irons,’ Lauga asked nervously.

  ‘I think we are better off without them.’ He returned to Agnes’s side. ‘Perhaps we should speak of something else.’ He was anxious that she should remain calm in front of the Kornsá family.

  ‘Did they hear?’ she whispered.

  ‘Let’s talk about your past,’ Tóti suggested. ‘Tell me more about your half-siblings.’

  ‘I barely knew them. I was five when my brother was born, and nine when I heard about Helga. She died when I was twenty-one. I only saw her a few times.’

  ‘And you’re not close to your brother?’

  ‘We were separated when he was only one winter old.’

  ‘When your mother left you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you remember her from before then?’

  ‘She gave me a stone.’

  Tóti shot her a questioning look.

  ‘To put under my tongue,’ Agnes explained. ‘It’s a superstition.’ She frowned. ‘Blöndal’s clerks took it.’

  Tóti was aware of Kristín rising to light a few candles – the bad weather had made the room quite gloomy, and the day was rapidly dying. In front of him, he could only see the pale lengths of Agnes’s bare arms above the blankets. Her face was shadowed.

  ‘Do you think they will let me knit?’ whispered Agnes, inclining her head towards the women. ‘I would like to do something while I talk to you. I can’t stand being still.’