On the Cold Coasts

whoosh of arrows once more. This time they glided high and far, but the flame went out on one before it hit the ground. No matter: the other one hit the vat, flames surged up, and a deafening noise crashed against their eardrums, horrifying and terrible. Blue and red lightning bolts shot out of the vat, and everything was enveloped in a great cloud of smoke. The nauseating smell of sulphur filled the air. At the very same instant, the horses bolted, kicking and rearing, wild with terror. They galloped in all directions, over tents, here and there and back again, up the slope towards them.
    For a few moments, the men were paralyzed by the noise. The frantic horses tugged at the reins, desperately trying to get away. Suddenly they all bolted down the slope into the basin. The sounds of galloping hooves merged with a blast that never seemed to end. Hooves crushed both tents and men, swords flew into the air, goads were embedded, half-dressed, defenseless Englishmen rushed around shouting, crying out for their God, begging for mercy. But alas, God had other business to attend to that morning. Wild horses maimed and killed as many as wild men did. There was a blast of thunder in the midst of the mayhem, a red-blue flare flashing through the dusk. One of the Englishmen managed to fire the gun. A rider, arms flailing, fell backward and onto the ground. The angel of death glided over the battlefield with spread wings, staking its claim, its pale white countenance smeared with soot. The gunman was unable to reload; a sharp axe cut away both arm and weapon.
    The sun rose over Gusthnjukur in the east. The sky burned with terrifying beauty.

    In the twilight before dawn, when the sky is both light and dark and the land and its inhabitants between sleeping and waking, I sense my smallness before God. Him who always prevails over night. The dark unnerves me; it holds unknown threats. Thorkell frightens me the same way; the dark worlds of his eyes contain secrets. Why am I here? Why do I allow myself feebly to be led from one place to another, thinking only of how I can be worthy in his eyes, more deserving of his affections than all the rest? I barely know myself anymore. Knowledge is power, he said. But what good is knowledge of the way things work if one does not recognize oneself, does not know one’s own heart and thoughts? Did I perhaps expect him to be a coward like me, that we could hold hands and be frightened together? He is not. His world is unlike mine. It is as though he fears nothing, neither darkness nor death. He almost seems to live for both. He was dazzling when he rode to meet the English, ahead of the rest, holding our country’s emblem, but he did not so much as glance at me. He never looked back, only saw what lay ahead. Unlike me, who only looks back, not daring to look at the road before me.
    What if he is killed?

    There were more than twenty of them. Many had bruises and broken bones; some were washed in blood. Defeated men, still alive. Kristin walked past the line, glaring at each one. Some avoided her wrathful gaze, while others looked at her anxiously, a silent appeal for clemency on their faces: At home, in Bristol, we have women who wait for us, young children, elderly parents. One wept bitterly, like a small child; perhaps he was injured, or scared. Probably both.
    She lifted a trembling hand and pointed an index finger at a short, burly, dark-haired man. That one. And this one, the one with the black teeth. She pointed her finger again and found a third: a young boy, muscular, with broad shoulders. She walked on, came to a halt in front of the gaunt and thin Oswald Miller. His cheeks were wet from crying, and he swallowed repeatedly. She hesitated, uncertain. Oswald’s brown eyes darted furtively to the side, and she followed his gaze to the front of the line, seeing a middle-aged man with a black beard who stared at the ground. She nodded, her expression stony. That one too.
    They took the assassins down to the gravel spit at Hofdaa River. There they untied them so they could dig graves for their dead comrades in a ling-covered basin, near the riverbank. Arduous work, this digging. The ground was mostly hard gravel, yet the grave needed to be large enough to fit a number of bodies. By the time they finished, it was nearly noon. The corpses were dumped into the grave, one on top of another.
    The Englishmen looked at the man with the shaved crown and the Holyrood around his neck. The magistrate