It was late afternoon and the light was fading across the hayfields, eased out of the sky by low clouds gathering in the east. Patches of old snow upon the mountain ridge looked by turns dull and grey, and then, as the clouds shifted, a startling white. Summer birds darted across the hayfields to catch the insects that quavered above them and the querulous bleats of sheep could be heard, as young boys drove them down the valley towards the farmsteads.
At Kornsá, Lauga and Steina stepped out of the croft to collect water from the mountain stream, Lauga rubbing her eyes in the sunlight and Steina absently swinging her bucket against her side in time with her step. They were not speaking.
The two sisters had worked the past few days in complete silence, only addressing one another to request the spade, or to ask which barrel of salted cod ought to be opened first. The silence, which began after a row following the District Commissioner’s visit, had been streaked with anger and anxiety. The effort of speaking as little to each other as possible had exhausted them both. Lauga, frustrated by her elder sister’s stubbornness and awkwardness, could not stop thinking of what her parents would say about Bl?ndal’s visit. Steina’s ungracious reaction to the news delivered by Bl?ndal could affect their social standing. Bj?rn Bl?ndal was a powerful man, and would not like to be challenged by a stripling of a girl. Didn’t Steina know how much their family relied on Bl?ndal? How they would only be doing their duty?
Steina was trying to avoid thinking about the murderess at all. The crime itself made her feel sick, and remembering the callous manner in which the Commissioner had forced the criminal upon them made her throat seize up with fury. Lauga was the youngest, she should not be the one telling her what she should and should not do. How was she to know the ins and outs of social niceties one was obliged to perform for fat men in red jackets? No. It was better to not think of it at all.
Steina let the weight of her bucket pull her shoulder down and gave a great yawn. Beside her, Lauga couldn’t help but yawn too, and for a brief moment they caught each other’s eye and an understanding of shared fatigue passed between them, until Lauga’s curt reminder to cover her mouth made Steina glower and glare at the ground.
The gentle beams of afternoon light were warm on their faces as they moved towards the stream. There was no wind, and the valley was so still that the two women began to walk more slowly to keep with the pause in the air. They were nearing the rocky outcrop surrounding the brook when Lauga, twisting around to pull her skirt off a thorn bush, noticed a horse in the distance.
‘Oh!’ she gasped.
Steina turned. ‘What is it now?’
Lauga nodded in the direction of the horse. ‘It’s Mamma and Pabbi,’ she said breathlessly. ‘They’ve returned.’ She squinted through the haze of sunlight across the fields. ‘Yes, it’s them,’ she said, as if to herself. Suddenly agitated, Lauga pushed her bucket at Steina and motioned for her to continue walking towards the stream. ‘Fill these. You can manage both, can’t you? It’s better if I . . . I’ll go. To light the fire.’ She shoved Steina on the shoulder, harder than she intended, then turned on her heel.
The brambles along the path caught at Lauga’s stockings as she rushed back to the croft, overcome with relief. Now Pabbi could deal with the District Commissioner and Agnes Magnúsdóttir.
Pushing open the door to the farmhouse, Lauga made her way down the corridor and turned left into the kitchen. In the absence of her mistress, Kristín had taken the afternoon off to visit her family, but the hearth was still smoking from that morning’s fire. Lauga quickly heaped it with dried dung, almost suffocating the flames that crept up in her rush. How would her father react to news of the District Commissioner’s visit? How long would the prisoner be kept at Kornsá? She didn’t even have the letter he had shown her; Steina had thrown it on the fire during their quarrel.