Iceland's Bell (6 page)

6

The old woman’s destination, Skálholt, the episcopal seat and site of the learned school, offers with its throng of turf-covered dwellings an inhospitable welcome to unfamiliar travelers. It was so long into the spring that the mires had dried up. Folk there paid no heed to strangers and did not return the greetings of petty visitors, but passed by without asking the news, like shadows or speechless wraiths in dreams. All the same, it was invigorating to breathe in the vapor that emanated from the place, a blend of smoke from cooking-fires, the odor of fish, and the stenches of manure and refuse. The turf huts numbered, without doubt, in the hundreds, some lopsided and battered, their roofs nearly bare, others burly-looking, with smoking chimneys and grass-grown roofs, practically new. The cathedral towered up and over these scraps of earth and turf, a tarred wooden building with a belfry and tall wedge-shaped windows.

She guessed her way to the bishop’s residence. This was a large, garreted house, also built with turf except for one lime-washed wooden wall facing the church. In this wall was a row of four-paned windows midway up from a comely paved footpath. One could see into the residence from the footpath. Glinting within were tankards and pots made of silver, tin, and copper, elegantly painted chests, and magnificently carved woodwork, but no one was to be seen inside. Double doors closed off the entry—the outer door was weatherworn and ajar, but the inner door was made of select wood and carved with dragons, and had a copper ring at the lock. The windows above the entry were within her arm’s reach, with only two panes in each and brightly colored curtains that came together in the middle of the windows at the top and were drawn out to the sides at the bottom.

Now when the traveler had finally reached her destination and stood on the footpath before the bishop’s residence in Skálholt, with nothing left to do but knock upon the door, something like irresolution came over her; she sat down on the path before the bishop’s windows, her knotty feet stretched forward off the flagstones, her chin sunk down to her chest. She was tired. She sat there unmoving for some time before a woman walked up and asked what she wanted. The old woman lifted her head slowly and extended her hand in a gesture of greeting.

“Vagabonds are not welcome here,” said the other.

The old woman dragged herself up and asked after the bishop’s wife.

“Beggars must report to the steward,” said the churchwoman, a vigorous widow, authoritative and contented, in the prime of her life.

“The bishop’s wife knows me,” said the old woman.

“How could the bishop’s wife know you?” said the churchwoman. “The bishop’s wife does not associate with beggars.”

“God is with me,” said the woman. “And that’s why I can speak to the bishop’s wife in Skálholt.”

“All vagabonds say that,” said the churchwoman. “But I am certain that God is with the rich, not with the poor. And the bishop’s wife knows that if she spoke to wretches then she would have time for nothing else, and the parish of Skálholt would fall to ruin.”

“All the same, she came to my hovel last year and spoke to me,” said the old woman. “And since you think that I’m poor, good madam, whoever you are and whatever you’re called, then let me show you something here.”

She reached into her blouse and drew forth her silver coin, which was wrapped tightly in a kerchief, and showed it to the churchwoman.

“The bishop’s wife is not at home,” said the churchwoman. “She rode west with the bishop, home to her mother to refresh herself after this dreadful spring. They found corpses lying here on the pavements sometimes in the mornings after folk had gotten up for work. She’s not coming back before the middle of the summer, after the bishop has completed his visitation out west.”

The hand holding the coin sank slowly back down and the visitor looked tremblingly at the parishioner. It had been a long journey, and her tongue had gone dry from reciting Reverend Halldór of Presthólar’s penitential hymns.

“They’ve probably finished beheading men at the Alþingi by now,” she said finally.

“Beheading? What men?” asked the churchwoman.

“Poor men,” said the visitor.

“How should I know when miscreants are beheaded at the Alþingi?” said the churchwoman. “Who are you, woman? What do you want? And where did you get that coin?”

“Where might the aristocrat from Copenhagen be now, the one who came with the bishop to Akranes last year?”

“I suppose you mean Arnas Arnæus, my dear? Where else would he be but with his books at home in Copenhagen? Or maybe you’re one of those women who expects her comforter to arrive on the Bakkaship,* haha!”

“And where is the slender maiden whom he brought last year into our hovel at Rein?”

The churchwoman pointed to the windows over the door and lowered her voice, though this particular subject always worked to loosen her tongue. “If you’re asking about Lady Snæfríður, the magistrate’s daughter, my dear woman, you’ll find her sitting here in Skálholt. Some say she’s betrothed, and even more, that she’s going to have to learn how to mingle with countesses. One thing is certain—they’re teaching her Latin, history, astrology, and other arts far beyond the reach of any other woman who’s lived in Iceland. She herself made it clear this spring that she was expecting a little something to arrive on the Bakkaship, and that there was no way she was going to go west with her sister despite her protests. But the Bakkaship arrived over a week ago and no one has heard anything new. On the contrary—those who were prowling around here late on winter evenings are now riding up and down the pavements here in the bright light of day. And the schoolmaster’s hardly ever sent for anymore. Climb high and fall far. That’s the way the world goes, my dear. I was taught that everything’s best in moderation.”

She led the old woman to the upper floor of the bishop’s residence, to the bower of Snæfríður the magistrate’s daughter, who was sitting there embroidering a girdle, clad in flowery silk. She was extraordinarily slender, with almost no bosom, her golden appearance of the previous autumn having long ago given way to a delicate paleness, though the azure of her eyes was even more vivid than before. Her countenance was joyless, her glance distracted, her lips closed so that her natural smile was denied; indeed, it appeared as if the expressive quality of her mouth had been wiped away by unnatural effort. She looked out from a kind of incredible distance at the grimy, decrepit image of a person who stood in her doorway with an empty pouch and bruised and bloody feet.

“What does the old woman want?” she asked finally.

“Does my lady not recognize this old woman?” asked the visitor.

“Who can tell one old woman in Iceland from another?” asked the damsel. “Who are you?”

“Do you not recall, my lady, a little hovel beneath a mountain by the sea?”

“A hundred,” said the damsel. “A thousand. Who can tell them apart?”

“A renowned and noble maiden stands in a little house one day in the autumn and leans up against the greatest man in the country and the best friend of the king. ‘My friend,’ she says, ‘why have you brought me into this dreadful house?’ That was the house of my son Jón Hreggviðsson.”

The damsel laid aside her handwork and leaned back in her armchair to rest, her long, nearly transparent fingers drooping over the ends of the chair’s carved arms, higher than the life of the land. She was wearing a large golden ring. The air within was heavy with the scents of musk and nard.

“What do you want from me, woman?” she asked lazily, after a long silence.

“It isn’t often that a woman from the south travels such a long way east,” said the woman. “I’ve come this whole way to beg my lady to free my son.”

“Me? Your son? From what?”

“The ax,” said the woman.

“What ax?” asked the damsel.

“I know that my lady wouldn’t mock an old woman, even if she were a fool.”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, good woman.”

“I heard that your father was going to have my son beheaded at Þingvellir by Öxará.”

“That’s of no concern to me,” said the damsel. “He has a lot of men beheaded.”

“My lady may yet give birth to a son who will be the fairest of all Icelanders,” said the woman.

“Have you come here to frighten me with evil prophecies?”

“May God protect me from prophesying evil against my lady,” said the old woman. “I never once thought that I would even see my lady. I came all this way to meet the bishop’s wife, because no woman is so powerful that she doesn’t understand other women. I had hoped that she who is the magistrate’s daughter and the wife of the bishop would recall the time when she stepped into my house and take pity on me, now that my son is to be beheaded. But now, since she’s gone, there is no one who can help me but my lady.”

“How could it possibly cross anyone’s mind that we sisters, two muddleheaded women, could have any influence over laws and judgments?” asked the young girl. “Your son will hardly be beheaded for no reason at all. My son would not be spared from guilt even if he were the fairest of all Icelanders. Nor would I, for that matter. Wasn’t the queen of the Scots also beheaded?”*

“My lady can influence the laws of the land, and she can influence the judgments,” said the old woman. “The friends of the king are the friends of my lady.”

“I have no place in the events of the day,” said the girl. “These things are ruled by strong men—some with weapons, others with books,” said the girl. “They call me the fair maiden and say that the night is my domain.”

“The night is said to rule over the day,” said the old woman. “In the morning the maiden shall be praised.”

“I’m the kind of woman who’ll be praised when I’m burned,” said the girl. “Go back home, blessed mother.”

At that moment someone came riding into the yard, and a groom was ordered gruffly to his work. The lady gave a start and raised a fist to her cheek.

“So he has come,” she whispered. “And I am alone.”

Then, in an instant, booted footsteps and the rattling of spurs resounded upon the steps. The door was heaved open before the girl had a chance to smooth out the creases in her skirt, comb her hair, or tidy up her face.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and well-built, but stooped slightly as if he considered it too openhanded to stand up straight. He had a surly, sideways glance, not unlike a bull’s, and he moved with an awkward sulkiness.

“Greetings,” he said, weakly and sullenly. He looked away from the girl with a fastidious grimace, just like a dandy who pretends to be worthless even though he might be the most noble match for a woman in the land. Emanating from him was a mild odor of brennivín. He was wearing high, double-soled boots, a soiled Spanish collar, a blue cloak with wide, ruffled sleeves, and a long, full peruke like the ones worn by ostentatious Danes, so high that he had to hold on to his feathered hat with one hand. Instead of bowing to the damsel and kissing her hand he pointed in the direction of the visitor and asked, in the same tone of voice as he had made his greeting:

“What old woman is this?”

The damsel stared into the distance with a look so cold that it seemed the light of day would never be able to penetrate and reveal the secrets of her heart. The cavalier went straight up to the shabby woman, shook the stock of his whip at her breast as she stood there leaning on her walking stick, and asked:

“Who are you, granny?”

“Do her no harm,” said the magistrate’s daughter. “She is speaking with me. I am speaking with her. As I said, old woman—even the queen of the Scots was beheaded. Powerful kings have been beheaded, along with their best friends. No man can save another from the ax. Every man must save himself from the ax, or else be beheaded. Magnús from Bræðratunga, give this woman a coin and show her out.”

The cavalier said nothing, but took a coin from his purse and gave it to the woman, showed her out, and shut the door.

7

It was overcast in the morning on the day that Jón Hreggviðsson and the sorcerer were fished up from the pit at Bessastaðir, placed upon horseback, and transported to the assembly at Öxará. Later it started to rain. They arrived at their destination late in the evening, soaking wet. Special orders had been given concerning Jón Hreggviðsson, who had murdered the king’s hangman and was therefore less to be trusted than other criminals. He was to be placed under personal guard and housed alone in a tent behind the regent’s booth, whence he would be fed. He was shackled as soon as he arrived. Sitting upon a stone before the tent-flaps was a huge giant, with a clay pipe in his mouth and a brazier at his side. The brazier contained a few glowing embers that the giant tended carefully, making sure they did not burn out. He gave Jón Hreggviðsson a sideways glance, silently, then lit his pipe and smoked.

“Give me something to smoke,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“No one gives me anything to smoke—I pay for my tobacco,” said the guard.

“Sell it to me then.”

“Where’s your money?”

“You’ll have a lamb after the roundup.”

“Not likely—the only way I’d stick a pipe in your mouth would be for payment in cash,” said the guard. “But I won’t take back-payment from a beheaded man, as I am called Jón Jónsson.”

Jón Hreggviðsson looked keenly at the man for some time, and laughed with a gleam in his eyes as his white teeth flashed and his chains rattled. Then he started singing.

On the next day the magistrate sits with the members of the court and the king’s proxies at a rotting table in the decaying, leaky, and cold courthouse whence the bell had been taken the year before. Only two of these dignitaries were wearing good cloaks, the magistrate Eydalín and the regent from Bessastaðir, and the regent was the only man wearing a ruff. The rest were wearing scarves, and were clad in poorly tailored capotes or frayed doublets. One or two of the bailiffs were pale and had soft hands, but most there had been colored dark red by hard weather; their hands were callused and scabby, their knuckles blunt, their limbs crooked. All of their faces were ugly, each in its own particular way. Some of them were tall and others short; some had broad faces, others long; some were fair-haired, others dark-haired. It was a gathering of the most dissimilar of peoples, yet they all shared the single distinguishing feature of their race: their shoes were in terrible condition. Even Magistrate Eydalín himself, in his new foreign cloak, was wearing old boots that were cracked, stretched, and shrunken from neglect, badly soled and crusted with dirt. Only the Danish regent was wearing lustrous topboots made from soft, deep brown, newly tanned leather, the tops turned down at the knees and the heels fitted with polished silver spurs. Standing facing the country’s grandees was a ragged man wearing a tattered smock girded with a horsehair rope, his feet bare and black, with small hands, chafed, swollen wrists, coal-dark hair and beard and an ashen complexion, brown eyes, and a sharp, coarse manner.

The documents concerning his case that had been prepared in Kjalardalur the previous autumn were now read to the court. In the judgment rendered by the bailiff of the Þverá district, which Jón Hreggviðsson wished now to appeal before the magistrate at the Alþingi, the defendant had been sentenced to death; the judgment was based upon the testimony of six men, the churchgoers from Saurbær, who had examined the deceased, Sigurður Snorrason, in the stream on the first Sunday of the winter. These men had sworn oaths to the truth of their story: that the body of the hangman was stiff when they came to it in the stream that runs eastward from the farm Miðfell in the parish of Strönd in the Þverá district; that the eyes, nostrils, and mouth were closed, but that the head was erect and peculiarly rigid. Furthermore, it was attested that on the previous day, a short time before the deceased had flogged Jón Hreggviðsson at Kjalardalur, the latter had taunted and threatened the hangman, though in somewhat vague terms, and had cursed him in the devil’s name and said that he would definitely get his due before he’d tied a knot good enough for his last and fattest whore. Also described was Monsieur Sívert Magnússen’s sworn testimony that on the evening of the murder, Jón Hreggviðsson and Sigurður Snorrason had gone a different direction than their companions as they rode away from Galtarholt into the darkness. Finally it was attested that Jón Hreggviðsson had roused the folk at Galtarholt just before daylight, riding Sigurður Snorrason’s horse and wearing the hangman’s hat upon his head. Twelve men had been summoned to the Kjalardalur assembly to give their opinions, under oath, as to whether Jón Hreggviðsson was guilty or innocent of the death of Sigurður Snorrason, and the oath that they swore contained the following allegation: the oathsayers considered the fact that Sigurður Snorrason’s sense organs were closed as definitive proof of the work of a man, and that Jón Hreggviðsson more than anyone else was the man responsible.

The magistrate sat there in his hat and peruke, bloodshot-eyed and slightly bleary, suppressing a yawn as he asked the accused whether he had anything to add to the statements that he had previously made at Kjalardalur. Jón Hreggviðsson reiterated that he couldn’t recollect any of the deeds sworn against him, neither the threats and taunts made against Sigurður Snorrason before the flogging nor their riding off together away from the other men out into the darkness. The only thing he remembered about the night ride was that the travelers had wound up in a wide bog in the darkness, and that he, Jón Hreggviðsson, had played a substantial part in dragging Monsieur Sívert Magnússen up from a peat-pit, into which this honorable personage and pillar of the district had fallen, down amongst the rotten dogs—the defendant proclaimed this rescue operation a verifiable success. After he, Jón Hreggviðsson, had finished rescuing this precious man’s life, he had intended to try to mount his nag, and the last thing he remembered was that the mare had started kicking, besides the fact that she’d grown unreasonably larger in the still of the night and looked well-nigh unclimbable, so he was not entirely sure whether he’d ever actually mounted her. He remembered nothing more about his traveling companions either: they’d all disappeared by the time the story reached this point. In all faith, he thought that he’d then simply dropped down and fallen asleep. When he awoke the first glimmer of dawn shone faintly in the sky. He stood up and saw some rag or other lying in the grass and picked it up; it was Sigurður Snorrason’s cap, and he placed it on his head because he’d lost his own. A short distance away a four-footed beast loomed into view; he walked over and discovered it was the hangman’s horse, so he rode it to Galtarholt. Jón Hreggviðsson concluded by proclaiming this to be the long and short of what he could recollect concerning the events of that night: anything else that supposedly occurred that night was above and beyond his reckoning. “I call as witness,” said he, “the Lord who created my soul and my body and who pressed these two things together into one—”

“No, no, no, Jón Hreggviðsson!” interrupted Magistrate Eydalín. “You have no right to call upon the Lord here.”

Then he ordered that the prisoner be removed.

After the guard had refettered Jón Hreggviðsson, he sat down upon the stone before the tent-flaps, stoked the embers in the brazier, and lit his pipe.

“Stick that pipe just once in my trap, you devil, and you’ll have a sheep,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Where’s this sheep?” asked the man.

“It’s up on a mountain,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “I’ll give you a deed.”

“Where’s the scribe?”

“Bring me a piece of paper and I’ll scribble it out,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Am I supposed to chase the creature up around the mountains with the deed?”

“What is it you want?” asked Jón Hreggviðsson.

“I make no deals for anything but cash,” said the guard—“least of all with dead men. As I am called Jón Jónsson. And you shut up.”

“We should speak more politely to each other,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“I’m finished speaking,” said the guard.

“You should be called Dog Dogsson,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

This was on the last day of the Alþingi.

In the evening judgments were handed down and around midnight Jón Hreggviðsson was dragged back into court to hear the verdict in his case.

The verdict stated that after the most thorough examination and attestation, and witnessing the fact that credible men had publicized the various villainous affairs of Jón Hreggviðsson, it was the unanimous decision of the magistrate and the members of the court, invoking the mercy of the Holy Spirit, that Jón Hreggviðsson was ascertainably a killer and the murderer of the late Sigurður Snorrason. The court confirmed the bailiff’s judgment in all items; the sentence was to be implemented duly and immediately.

But because it was late and the men were worn-out after the day’s activity, the magistrate bade that the beheading be postponed until morning, and suggested that the executioner and his assistants use the night to bring their instruments into peak condition. Jón Hreggviðsson was led back to his tent behind the regent’s booth and placed in chains for his final night. The guard Jón Jónsson sat down in the entrance, with his extremely broad backside inside the tent, and lit his pipe.

The whites of Jón Hreggviðsson’s eyes were uncharacteristically red and he uttered a few expletives through his beard, but the guard paid no attention.

Finally the farmer could no longer keep his thoughts to himself and said annoyedly:

“What sort of manners are they to tell a man you’re going to behead him and then to give him no tobacco?”

“Say your prayers and go to sleep,” said the guard. “The priest’ll be here at daybreak.”

The dead man did not answer and there was a long silence, broken only by the sound of an ax falling rhythmically upon a block of wood; the strokes echoed with a metallic hollowness off the ravine wall in the still of the night.

“What’s that hammering?” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“A sorcerer from the west is to be burned tomorrow morning,” said the guard. “They’re chopping up the brushwood.”

There was silence again for a short time.

“You’ll have my early-bearing cow for tobacco,” said Jón Hreggviðsson.

“Aw, what buzzing is this?” said Jón Jónsson. “Then what—what do you, a man as good as dead, plan to do with tobacco?”

“You’ll have everything I own, man,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “Go get some paper and I’ll scribble out my will.”

“Everyone says you’re maladjusted,” said Jón Jónsson. “And underhanded.”

“I’ve got a daughter,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “I’ve got a young daughter.”

“It’s all the same to me even if you’re as shrewd as they say—you won’t be able to trick me,” said Jón Jónsson.

“She’s got sparkling eyes,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “Bowl-shaped. And a high bosom. Jón Hreggviðsson of Rein swears by his landlord Christ as his final wish and commandment that she’ll marry you, Jón Jónsson.”

“What sort of tobacco is it you’re asking for?” said the guard reluctantly, turning around in his seat and peering with one eye into the tent. “Huh?”

“I ask, to be sure, for the one kind of tobacco that suits a man condemned to death,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “That tobacco you alone can deliver me the way things stand now.”

“Then it’s I who’ll be beheaded,” said the guard. “And what are the chances that the girl will say yes even if I do get away?”

“If she sees a letter from me she’ll say yes no matter what I ask for,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “She loves and respects her father above everything else.”

“You think my wretch of a wife out in Kjós isn’t already enough for me?” said the guard.

“I’ll deal fully with her this very night,” said Jón Hreggviðsson. “Don’t you worry about her.”

“Are you threatening to kill my wife, you bastard?” said the guard. “And to put me on the chopping block! Your offers are mirages like everything else that comes from the devil. It’s true mercy that a crook like you won’t be allowed to grow old!”