On the Cold Coasts

been cast out, who wander from farm to farm and live on charity, who have lost everything along with their treasured virginity. Their children have been taken from them, as well as their honor and their future, and even their very lives. So should I then concur with those who judge me, who judge us all and refuse us access to the society of the just? Why is Thorkell not judged for his bastard children and the women he has betrayed? Why is he able to look others in the eye and amass power and wealth and the goodwill of the chieftains? Why him and not me? I want to shout these and other questions at their indignant glances, cast them before all those judges, demand answers, if not peacefully then violently. But I know it is no use, for this is how it has been arranged. So efficiently arranged. Of what consequence is one fallen woman, whether her family is powerful or not? I thirst for some kind of justice, something to call my own.
    Though I know not what.

    A crowd had gathered on the beach at the mouth of the Kolbeinsa River. The ship carrying the new bishop had lowered its sails and dropped its anchor a short distance from Helenarholmi. A handful of cloudlets drifted through the clear blue sky, the heavy scent of late summer hung in the air, and the grass rippled like green waves in the fields. The sea was smooth and glittered in the sun, green-hued from the sea vegetation near the shore, dusky blue further out, near Drangey Island and Thordarhofdi. Malmey Island hovered on the horizon like a distant and unexplored wonderland in the mist. Waves rolled gently in and out, their lace borders white and vivid on the black sand. Fat bluebottles buzzed all around, contented from the nearby plenitude in the stockfish stores of the English.
    Michael pulled away from his mother and ran to the shore to see what he could see. The bishop’s ship was a large balinger, a speedy and splendiferous vessel with a castle in bow and stern, rigged with three lateen sails. Its name and home port were painted on the black bow in large, red letters: Leonard de London . The crew was still landing the cargo, mostly flour and malt casks and barrels filled with precious salt; they ferried this on a small dinghy from ship to land and stacked it all up on the raised beach, a safe distance from the incoming tide. Also among their cargo were an abundance of chests, some made out of rough wooden panels and of lesser quality, others finer and locked, ornately decorated and lined with silver, undoubtedly belonging to the man who was now clambering down a rope ladder to the dinghy. Seabirds glided above him, screeching on their way to the shore, caring nothing for office or title, having learned the one thing that mattered: that where there is a ship, there is a chance of food. Within a short time, the boat had reached the shore, and the new spiritual, and in some respects the temporal, authority of North Iceland was on dry land after weeks of tossing about on the Atlantic Ocean. This was His Grace John Williamsson Craxton from England, whom Pope Martin V had appointed bishop of Holar in Hjaltadalur Valley.
    The dinghy was rowed to the ship once more to fetch more passengers, as the bishop had taken along with him a sympatric entourage.
    The gaping boy watched from a distance as his grandfather Thorsteinn went before all the rest to receive the bishop. The two men greeted each other cordially. Craxton was a tall and wiry man, wore no beard in the priestly tradition, had a dark rim of hair around his shaved crown, and small, darting eyes that seemed to take in everything at once. His garments were impressive: a maroon cloak, trimmed with fur, and high leather boots. On his head he wore a chaperon with a long liripipe extending down the back. The boy thought Thorsteinn’s apparel no less impressive: the lawman wore an otter coat slung over his shoulders, and underneath a striped, button-down velvet singlet and tight, dark-green breeches. The women of Akrar—Sigridur and her daughters—were elaborately attired with white wimples made of silk, clad in many-layered dresses and coats made of velvet and trimmed with scarlet, so that all who looked on could see that these were persons of consequence. Michael inadvertently straightened his back and pushed his own chaperon back on his head; he had a tendency to carry himself slightly stooped in an unconscious attempt to downplay his height and broad shoulders, so uncommon for his young age.
    The bishop