MARGRéT WAS WRAPPING A SHAWL about her head, preparing to fetch some dried dung from the storeroom, when she heard the sound of someone scraping snow from the front door. She waited. The door creaked open.
‘Good heavens, is that you, Gudmundur?’ she said, hurrying out of the badstofa only to meet Tóti coming up the hallway, his face as white as milk, drops of sweat pebbled across his skin. ‘Good Lord, Reverend! You look like death! How thin you have become!’
‘Margrét, is your husband in?’ His voice was urgent.
Margrét nodded and invited Tóti into the badstofa. ‘Take a seat in the parlour,’ she said, drawing aside the curtain. ‘You ought not to be travelling in weather like this. Good Lord, how you are shaking! No, come into the kitchen and warm your bones. Whatever has happened?’
‘I have been unwell.’ Tóti’s voice was a croak. ‘Fevers, and a swelling of the throat and neck until I thought I might suffocate.’ He sat down heavily. ‘That is why I have not come until now.’ He paused, wheezing a little. ‘I could not help it.’
Margrét stared at him. ‘I’ll fetch Jón for you.’ She quietly summoned Lauga to come and help the Reverend out of his ice-covered coat.
After a few short minutes, Margrét and Jón returned to the kitchen.
‘Reverend,’ Jón said warmly, giving Tóti his hand. ‘It is good to see you. My wife tells me that you are not in good health?’
‘Where is Agnes?’ Tóti interrupted.
Margrét and Jón glanced at each other. ‘With Kristín and Steina. Shall I get her?’ Margrét asked.
‘No, not yet,’ Tóti said. He pulled off his glove with effort and rummaged about his shirt. ‘Here.’ He offered Jón the District Commissioner’s letter, swallowing hard.
‘What is this?’ Jón asked.
‘From Bl?ndal. It announces the date of Agnes’s execution.’
There was a gasp from Lauga.
‘When is it?’ Jón asked quietly.
‘The twelfth day of January. And today is the sixth. You haven’t heard about it then?’ Tóti asked.
Jón shook his head. ‘No. The weather has been so bad, it’s hard to go out.’
Tóti nodded grimly. ‘Well, now you know.’
Lauga looked from the priest to her father. ‘Are you going to tell her?’
Margrét reached across the table and took up Tóti’s bare hand. She glanced up at him. ‘Your skin is so hot. I’ll go get her,’ she said. ‘She would want to hear it from you.’
THE REVEREND IS TALKING TO me, but I can’t hear what he is saying, it is as though we are all underwater, the light keeps flickering overhead and I can see the Reverend’s hands wave in front of me, he takes hold of my wrists and lets go, he looks like a drowning man trying to catch hold of something to bring him up to the surface. He looks like a skeleton. Where has all the water come from? I don’t think I can breathe.
Agnes, he is saying. Agnes, I will be there with you.
Agnes, the Reverend says.
He is so kind, he is reaching around me, he is pulling my body closer to his, but I don’t want him near. His mouth is opening and shutting like a fish, the bones of his face like knives under his skin, but I cannot help him, I don’t know what he wants. Those who are not being dragged to their deaths cannot understand how the heart grows hard and sharp, until it is a nest of rocks with only an empty egg in it. I am barren; nothing will grow from me any more. I am the dead fish drying in the cold air. I am the dead bird on the shore. I am dry, I am not certain I will bleed when they drag me out to meet the axe. No, I am still warm, my blood still howls in my veins like the wind itself, and it shakes the empty nest and asks where all the birds have gone, where have they gone?
‘AGNES? AGNES? I AM HERE. I am with you.’ Tóti looked at Agnes anxiously. The woman was staring at the floor, breathing hard and rocking, making her stool creak. He felt the prick of tears at the back of his throat, but he was aware of Margrét, Jón, Steina and Lauga behind him, and the servants, waiting in the doorway to the kitchen, watching.