‘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.’
‘Margrét?’ Tóti called. ‘Have you any work for Agnes?’
Margrét paused, and then reached over and plucked Steina’s knitting from her hands. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘It’s full of holes. It wants unravelling.’ She ignored the look of embarrassment on Steina’s face.
‘I feel sorry for her,’ Agnes said, slowly pulling out lines of crimped wool.
‘Steina?’
‘She said she wants to get up a petition for me.’
Tóti was hesitant. He watched Agnes nimbly wind the loose wool into a ball, and said nothing.
‘Do you think it possible, Reverend Tóti? To organise an appeal to the King?’
‘I don’t know, Agnes.’
‘Would you ask Blöndal? He would listen to you, and Steina might speak to District Officer Jón.’
Tóti cleared his throat thinking of Blöndal’s patronising tones. ‘I promise to do what I can. Now, why don’t you talk to me.’
‘About my childhood again?’
‘If you will.’
‘Well,’ Agnes said, wriggling up higher on the bed so that she could knit more freely. ‘What shall I tell you?’
‘Tell me what you remember.’
‘You won’t find it of interest.’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘You’re a priest,’ Agnes said firmly.
‘I’d like to hear of your life,’ Tóti gently replied.
Agnes turned around to see if the women were listening. ‘I have told you that I have lived in most of the farms of this valley.’
‘Yes,’ Tóti agreed, nodding.
‘At first as a foster-child, then as a pauper.’
‘That’s a horrible pity.’
Agnes set her mouth in a hard line. ‘It’s common enough.’
‘To whom were you fostered?’
‘To a family that lived where we sit now. My foster-parents were called Inga and Björn, and they rented the Kornsá cottage back then. Until Inga died.’
‘And you were left to the parish?’
‘Yes,’ Agnes nodded. ‘It’s the way of things. Most good people are soon enough underground.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘There’s no need to be sorry, Reverend, unless of course you killed her.’ Agnes glanced at him, and Tóti noticed a brief smile flicker across her face. ‘I was eight when Inga died. Her body never took to the manufacture of children. Five babes died without drawing breath before my foster-brother was born. The seventh carried her to heaven.’