On the Cold Coasts

with contempt, she was sure of that. Could she bring herself to oppose her mother on her deathbed, to cause her more grief?
    “What is the age of this man?” she asked after a brief silence.
    Thorsteinn smiled. “Just like a woman to think of such things first,” he said, pleased. “Valur is just thirty, a very good age. The two elder sons are of a similar age to Michael, and the youngest is five or six winters old. The poor things have been motherless for the last two years.”
    “How did the mother die?”
    Sigridur and Thorsteinn looked at one another uncertainly, like each wanted the other to answer. Ragna guessed the answer. “In childbirth?” They both nodded.
    “The child was so large that it had to be cut out of the poor woman,” said Sigridur, her voice hoarse. “The blood loss killed her.” All three were silent, thinking back to Michael’s devastating birth, twelve years earlier. The only sound was Sigridur’s wheezing breath, like something was seething inside her.
    Ragna summoned her courage. “Would we sail next spring?”
    The lawman shook his head. “Klaengur will sail the Christopher back to Greenland on Michaelmas at the latest, in ten days’ time. He’ll spend the winter in Gardar. There is a dire shortage of goods in the Eastern Settlement, and we must help the people in their time of need. They don’t even have flour to make altar bread and have started using seaweed for baking. In return we shall receive ample payment in stockfish that will be sent to England in the spring, when fish stocks are low after Lent and the price as high as it can be.”
    “Michaelmas!” Ragna exclaimed.
    “Your mother will be immensely relieved to know that your future is secure before she passes,” Thorsteinn said firmly and looked at his wife, who nodded.
    “But is my future not secure at Holar? Bishop Craxton says he is much pleased with my work,” said Ragna willfully, resisting the sway that death held over life. “As the bishop’s housekeeper, I am respected.”
    Thorsteinn’s countenance grew dim. “The people’s respect for the bishop is declining rapidly, Ragna, as is his influence—that is, if things continue along this path. He has given protection to English ribalds who have ridden through the districts marauding and injuring, and even killing people. Soon he will have to pay for his poor judgment. Things will come to a head, sooner rather than later.”
    Sigridur took her daughter’s arm, gently. “These are turbulent times, Ragna. You would be safer in Greenland, a married woman on your own land, that you inherited from your father.” She looked at Thorsteinn. “Fetch the gift that Valur sent her, dear. It is in my chest.”
    The lawman lifted the lid of a large oak chest at the foot of the bed and glanced through its contents, then removed a small package that had been tied with a leather string. He handed it to Ragna. She unraveled the string and took out a hair comb from a sheath of speckled gray sealskin. The comb was skillfully carved from a milky white walrus tooth, and on it was her name, engraved in runic letters: I belong to Ragna . The inscription was encircled with dragon tails, a tiny dragon head carved at each end.
    “He is skilled with his hands, like all his kin. They are all accomplished craftsmen,” said Thorsteinn. Ragna weighed the comb in her hand, its teeth sharp, the surface of the comb polished to a silky finish. She ran it through the thick tresses that cascaded loosely around her shoulders.
    “It is beautiful, is it not?” Sigridur said. Ragna reluctantly concurred. Yes, it was beautiful. Surely only a good man could transform the tooth of an animal into an object of such beauty. Was there any point in resisting? Parents make the rules; daughters obey. That was the way of the world.
    She wondered what Thorkell would say.

    The air was acrid from the smoke coming from the large fireplace, yet the great hall was not warm. Rather than wafting out through the small porthole in the roof above the fire, the smoke swirled forward into the hall, while the chill of autumn slipped in through the opening. The wind had picked up from the north as the afternoon wore on. Servants added brushwood to the fire, their eyes watering and faces dark with soot.
    Many people had gathered for dinner. Kristin Thorsteinsdottir had come from Holl on Hofdastrond to see her mother, probably for the last time. She had her swaddled firstborn Ingvaldur with her, and she