On the Cold Coasts

entire household at Grenjadarstadur and would live as my wife in every way, except in name. Foreign bishops may not have an understanding for this, but you know as well as I do that Icelanders are used to priests having mistresses.” Thorkell spoke kindly and convincingly, yet she felt her obstinacy rise up within her. She could not agree to his proposal.
    “You betrayed me,” she said curtly. The words slipped out, and she instantly felt childish and ashamed. She could have asked him, rather than snap at him like that. What if he didn’t protest? She dug her fingernails into her palms and stared at the floor to prevent him from melting the sheet of ice in her heart with his eyes. The silence became intolerably long.
    “No,” he said after an eternity. Too long. He took both of her hands in his and pulled her to him.
    “You alone have my heart. Other women mean nothing to me, and never have. All they have done is given me help to release those urges that are natural to a man.” Thorkell removed the comb that held up the thick braid in the nape of her neck, and he separated her black hair with his long, white fingers.
    Ragna leaned against his chest and closed her eyes, listening to the beating of his heart. Then she pulled herself together, took a deep breath, put her flat palm on his chest, and pushed him away.
    “I cannot leave. I manage the household, I am in charge of people who look up to me and trust me.” Perhaps not everyone, not anymore. “Bishop Craxton relies on me. I have caused enough disgrace to my parents. The bishop’s friendship and respect are very important to my people. And Michael needs to stay in school. It would be an offense to the bishop, who has withdrawn his tuition fees, to remove him. Other parents must pay the equivalent of many heads of cattle and even large pieces of land to educate and board their sons here. My son can claim no inheritance or anything else, but if he is allowed to continue his education and enjoys the favor of the bishop, he might even become a priest. I must think of others.”
    She spoke rapidly so that he would not interrupt her, the words spilling out. “You know how it would look if I went with you, Thorkell. People might not care, but they would know, and they would laugh behind our backs. I don’t want to go. I cannot sacrifice everything I have worked for here.”
    “I thought you were courageous, Ragna,” he said. “It takes courage to love, and it takes love to forgive.” He threw up his hands in resignation. “You are not the woman I thought you were. I thought you would be happy to be free. I cannot understand your thinking, cannot understand that you don’t want to be free from Craxton’s tyranny, he who watches everything and everyone here during every waking moment.”
    “I don’t feel like I have him breathing down my neck, apart from that which he is perfectly entitled to with his domestics,” she said, annoyed on Craxton’s behalf, but mostly to refute Thorkell. Who was he to accuse her of cowardice? “It would be worse if the bishop did not observe what goes on here and record it.”
    “Oh yes, that would be terrible,” answered Thorkell scornfully. “Icelanders might earn a noble or two were it not for the strong hand of John Craxton, who manages everything so skillfully for the merchants in King’s Lynn and Bristol.”
    “What are you saying?” she asked, astonished. “Do you and Jon Palsson actually concur, after everything that has happened?! Did you not say to me, and agree with my foster-father in that regard, that the English should be free to trade here? Did you not say that the Danish have no mandate to prevent trade with them while they have not honored signed contracts regarding sea voyages to this country?”
    “These are matters too complex for the female mind,” he said, although his manner was softer than before. “Of course I want the English to be able to trade with us. I want anyone to be able to trade with us, and for the fish to go to those who offer the highest price. Don’t you see, silly woman, that as long as one nation has a monopoly on trade, the price gets pushed down and profits pile up in coffers on the other side of the sea. In such cases it makes no difference whether it goes into the coffers of kings and merchants in Denmark, Norway, Lübeck, or England. Gold nobles that rightfully belong to us Icelanders are taken from the country and given to those whom the pope has the greatest