Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Tóti had overheard themerchant speak with Reverend Jón, complaining about the flaking paint of the previous mural. The merchant had mentioned his son, the artistic talent that had secured the boy a scholarship in Copenhagen. If Reverend Jón would permit him to express his singular devotion to the parish, he would happily purchase all necessary materials and donate his son’s labour without the church incurring expenses. Naturally, Tóti’s father, being a man of economic mindfulness, had allowed the old picture to be painted over.
    Tóti missed it. It had been a fine Old Testament illustration of Jacob wrestling with the angel, the man’s face buried against the angel’s shoulder, his fist full of holy feathers.
    Tóti sighed and slowly sank to his knees. Placing his hat on the floor, he clasped his hands tightly to his chest and began to pray aloud.
    ‘O Heavenly Father, forgive me my sins. Forgive me my weakness and fear. Help me to fight my cowardice. Strengthen my ability to withstand the sight of suffering, so that I might do Your work in relieving those who endure it.
    ‘Lord, I pray for the soul of this woman who has committed a terrible sin. Please give me words so that I might inspire her to repent.
    ‘I confess to fear. I do not know what to say to her. I do not feel at ease, Lord. Please guard my heart against the . . . the horror this woman inspires in me.’
    Tóti remained on his knees for some time. It was only the thought of his horse standing bridled in the rain and wind that caused him to finally rise and lock the church door behind him.

    MARGRÉT WOKE EARLY THE NEXT day. The officer who had slept in the bed opposite to protect her from the criminal was snoring. The gargled breathing had entered her dreams and roused her.
    Margrét turned in her bed to face the wall and dug the corners of her blanket into her ears, but the man’s ragged snorting filled her head. Sleep was gone from her now. She lay on her back and looked across the unlit room to where the officer lay. His rough blond hair stuck up in oily tufts, and his mouth was open upon his pillow. Margrét noticed spots along the man’s jaw.
    So this is how they protect me against a murderess, she thought. They send a boy who sleeps soundly.
    She cast an eye at the prisoner, lying in one of the servants’ beds at the end of the room. The woman was lying still, asleep. Her daughters were also sleeping. Margrét sat up on her elbows to take a better look.
    Agnes .
    Margrét silently mouthed the word.
    It seems wrong to call her by a Christian name, Margrét thought. What would they have called her in Stóra-Borg, she wondered. Prisoner? Accused? Condemned? Perhaps it was the absence of a name, the silence where a name should be, that they had summoned her by.
    Margrét shivered and drew the blanket about her. Agnes’s eyes were shut fast and her mouth was closed. The cap Margrét had given her had unfastened during the night, and had let loose her dark hair. It lay across the pillow like a stain.
    Strange to finally see the woman after a month of anticipation, Margrét thought. A month of fear, too. A tight fear, like a fishing line, hooked upon something that must, inevitably, be dragged from the depths.
    In the days and nights after Jón had returned from meeting with Blöndal, Margrét had tried to imagine how she would act towards the murderess, and what the woman might look like.
    What sort of woman kills men?
    The only murderesses Margrét had known were the women in the sagas, and even then, it was with words that they had killed men; orders given to servants to slay lovers or avenge the death of kin. Those women murdered from a distance and kept their fingers clean.
    But these times are not saga times, Margrét had thought. This woman is not a saga woman. She’s a landless workmaid raised on a porridge of moss and poverty.
    Lying back down in her bed, Margrét thought of Hjördis, her favourite servant, now dead and buried in the