On the Cold Coasts

tongue, woman!” Thorkell replied angrily. Yet she saw that he was shocked, as was she, and that he knew she was speaking the truth. “Whatever the reasons that led to this heinous act, the girl took her own life, knowing full well that those who murder themselves are barred from resting in consecrated earth. Yet she did not let that stop her, also knowing that the bairn would be without salvation and that it would be her fault.”
    “A curse upon your justice!” Ragna spat out, caring nothing about the others’ furtive glances.
    Thorkell made no reply. “Dig her a grave to the north of the churchyard. Four yards from the wall,” he ordered, speaking to the farmhands.
    They stood there, frozen, and looked uncertainly at Ragna.
    “Now!” Thorkell demanded. Ragna lowered her head in concession, and only then did the men obey. There was no opposing that which had prevailed since the beginning of time.
    When the workers had gone off to perform their duties, the two of them remained behind with the corpse.
    “I can say a prayer for her,” Thorkell said quietly.
    She looked at him, surprised. “You would do that? Why?”
    “She was a child of God, whatever else there was,” he said. “And it would ease your mind, would it not?”
    “Then do it at the grave, and have her buried in the right direction.”
    “I cannot do that. It is forbidden.”
    “Then you are a coward.” She said it as though she had expected nothing more from him; as if she were talking to a common laborer.
    He looked as though she had slapped him. “I’ll pray for her after night mass,” he said after a brief silence. “If you’ll keep this between you and me. If anyone finds out, I will be discharged from office.”

    Ragna had begun to think he would not keep his word when he finally arrived at the grave, a good while past night mass. She was freezing from the wait but said nothing, not wanting to risk having him leave again. Thorkell held a Holyrood in one hand and a small lantern in the other to cast a dim light into the darkness. She saw that he was wearing an embroidered chasuble over his black tunic; the wind took hold of the hem and blew it back and forth. The lantern shone weakly across Brynhildur’s grave. There was a rough wooden cross that had been stuck into the earth that day, on the western side, by the corpse’s feet. The girl lay inverse in the grave. On Judgment Day, Brynhildur Gudmundsdottir, resurrected, would have her back turned to the Savior and the dawn.
    Thorkell handed Ragna the lantern and clasped the Holyrood in both of his hands, said a quiet prayer, and then raised his deep voice in song, singing in Latin. She recognized the words: he was singing a requiem for the girl, asking for peace for her soul and safekeeping by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The cold northern wind caught the prayers and whisked them up into the starlit sky where they became a band of northern lights that wafted through the celestial heavens, first white, then green and blue, then violet; pure beauty flowing above them. Ragna felt her heart swell with humility in the face of all creation. But only for a moment. Before she knew it, the anger returned, washed over her like it had when she saw the girl hanging from the beam in the cowshed and they became one and the same woman, the past, the present, and the irreversible future. She glared at the man who stood there singing at the grave, he who had bastard children spread far and wide. Did he feel guilt, or was a requiem for a self-murderer enough to clear his conscience?
    He finished, made the sign of the cross over the grave, and turned to Ragna. “Let’s go. We can do no more for this wretched soul.”
    He took the lantern in one hand and Ragna’s arm with the other, guiding her along the gravelly path by the side of the churchyard and down past the great cathedral. She felt chilled to the bone, but warmth emanated from him, like he had been standing next to a hearth.
    “Brynhildur’s parents should know that she received a requiem and a blessing,” said Ragna when they came to the step in front of the women’s hall.
    “You promised to say nothing,” answered Thorkell.
    “I promised no such thing.” She pulled her arm away. “They would not expose you, and it would give them peace.”
    “I sang for the soul of the dead woman, not for those of the living.”
    “Are they less deserving of mercy than she who fled from the battle and left them with all the