‘I hate you.’ The words seemed stupid, childish.
‘And do you think I love you?’ Natan shook his head. ‘You, Agnes?’ He narrowed his eyes and stood up, his breath hot in my face. ‘You’re a cheap sort of woman. I was wrong about you.’
‘If I am cheap it is because you have made me so!’
‘Yes, go on. You’re pure and holy, and everyone else is to blame.’
‘No, you are to blame!’
‘Forgive me, I thought you wanted this.’ He grabbed me and pulled me roughly to him. ‘I thought you wanted to get out of the valley. But you just want what you can’t have.’
‘I wanted you! I wanted to leave the valley because I wanted to be with you.’ I felt sick with anger. ‘I can’t stand it here.’
‘Then go!’ He took a step back and grabbed me by my wrist. ‘Get out! You’ve done nothing but cause trouble!’ He started to pull me out of the badstofa. I was aware of Sigga sitting up in bed, watching us. Thóranna had begun to cry.
‘Let go of me!’
‘I’m just giving you what you want. You hate me? You want to leave? Good! Here is the door.’
As small as he was, Natan was strong. He dragged me down the corridor and pushed me over the doorstep. I tripped on the ledge and went sprawling into the snow, naked. By the time I got to my knees, he had slammed the door in my face.
It was dark and snowing heavily outside, but I was so light-headed with anger and grief that I felt nothing. I wanted to hammer down the door, to go to the window and scream for Sigga to let me back inside, but I also wanted to punish him. I wrapped my bare arms about my body and wondered where I should go. The cold needled through my skin. I thought about killing myself, about walking down to the shore and pushing my limbs into the frigid water. The cold would kill me; I wouldn’t have to drown. I imagined Natan finding me dead, washed up amongst the seaweed.
I went to the cowshed.
It was too cold to sleep. I crouched down next to the cow and pressed my bare skin against her warm bulk, and pulled down a saddlecloth to cover myself with. I pushed my freezing toes into a cowpat so they would not suffer.
At some time in the night someone entered the cowshed.
‘Natan?’ My voice was thin and pathetic.
It was Sigga. She had brought me my clothes and shoes. Her eyes were puffy from crying.
‘He won’t let you back inside,’ she said.
I dressed slowly, my fingers stiff with cold. ‘And what if I die out here?’
She turned to leave, but I grabbed her shoulder.
‘Talk some sense into him, Sigga. He’s actually gone mad this time.’
She looked at me, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I’m so sick of living here,’ she whispered.
The next morning I woke, and for a few moments I didn’t know where I was. Then my memory of the night came back to me, and anger tightened my stomach, invigorating me. I leaned against the cow, warming my cold nose and fingers, thinking of what I should do. I wanted to leave before Natan came out to feed the stock.
TÓTI WOKE IN THE SHADOWED badstofa of Breidabólstadur and saw his father at the end of his bed, slumped against the wall. His grizzled head lolled on his chest. He was asleep.
‘Pabbi?’ His voice was no more than a whisper. The effort seared his throat.
He tried to move his foot to nudge his father awake, but his limbs were heavier than he had ever known them to be. ‘Pabbi?’ he tried again.
Reverend Jón stirred, and suddenly opened his eyes. ‘Son!’ He wiped his beard and leaned forward. ‘You’re awake. Thank God.’
Tóti tried to lift his arm and realised that it was bound to his side. He was swaddled in blankets.
‘You’ve been suffering yet another fever,’ his father explained. ‘I’ve had to sweat it out.’ He pressed a calloused hand against Tóti’s forehead.
‘I need to go to Kornsá,’ Tóti murmured. His tongue was dry. ‘Agnes.’
His father shook his head. ‘It’s the care of her that’s done this to you.’
Tóti looked distressed. ‘I have forgotten the month.’
‘December.’
He tried to sit up, but Reverend Jón gently pushed his head back down on the pillow. ‘You’ll pay her no heed until God restores you.’
‘She has no one,’ Tóti argued, trying again to lift himself. His muscles barely responded.
‘And for good reason,’ his father said, his voice suddenly loud in the small room. He held his son down on the bed, his face grey in the unlit badstofa. ‘She’s not worth the time you give her.’
MARGRÉT WAS SILENT A MOMENT. The milk had cooled in her cup. ‘He threw you into the snow?’
Agnes nodded, watching the older woman carefully.
Margrét shook her head. ‘You could have frozen to death.’
‘He wasn’t in his right mind.’ Agnes drew her shawl more tightly about her shoulders. ‘Natan had wanted Sigga for himself. He finally understood that she preferred Fridrik.’
Margrét sniffed and nudged a burning ember back against the hearth wall with a poker. ‘As you say, then.’ She stole a glance at Agnes, who was staring into the fire. ‘Go on,’ she said quietly.
Agnes sighed and unfolded her arms. ‘I went to Fridrik’s family’s home at Katadalur. I had not been there before, but I knew where it lay beyond the mountain, and the day grew clear enough for me to walk there without falling victim to the weather. It took me hours though, and by the time I entered the mouth of the valley where Katadalur stood, I was delirious with fatigue. Fridrik’s mother found me on my knees on her doorstop.
‘Katadalur is a horrible place. All slumped and squat, with the roof threatening to fall in, and the inside of the farm as miserable as its outside. Smoke from dung fires on the walls of the kitchen and the badstofa as cheerless as they come. When I entered there was a group of children, all of them Fridrik’s siblings, huddled together on one bed, just trying to stay warm. Fridrik was sitting next to his father and uncle on another bed, sharpening knives.
‘The first thing Fridrik said to me was, “What has he done now?” He asked me if Natan had decided to marry Sigga.
‘I shook my head and explained that he’d thrown me out. I told him I’d spent the night in the cowshed. Fridrik was not sympathetic. He asked me what I’d done to cause it, and I told him I’d fought with Natan, saying I couldn’t abide him treating Sigga the way he was.
‘That’s when Fridrik’s mother interrupted. She’d been listening quietly to us, and all of a sudden she gripped Fridrik’s arm and said: “He means to deprive you of your wife.”
‘I thought I saw Fridrik glance down to the knife on the bed covers and I became fearful.
‘I suggested that Fridrik speak to the priest at Tjörn, that maybe they could go to a District Officer. But Thórbjörg, Fridrik’s mother, interrupted me again. She stood up and gripped Fridrik about the shoulders, and looked him in the eye. She said: “You will not have Sigga while Natan is alive.” Then they all sat down, and while I slept, they must have decided to kill him.’
Margrét was still. The fire had died. Only a thin glowing crust of live ember flickered amid the ashes. The wind had not stopped wailing. Margrét slowly exhaled. She felt weary. ‘Perhaps we ought to return to bed.’
Agnes turned to her. ‘Don’t you want to hear the rest?’
CHAPTER TWELVE