On the Cold Coasts

firmly. “We’re going inside, and you’re going to lie down and rest. You need sleep.” He had not slept a wink ever since his hellish ride from Holl, could not close his eyes without the horror replaying itself behind his eyelids: Einhildur’s mutilated body on the kitchen floor and the old couple lying in a pool of blood in the farmyard. His eyes would fly open the moment he closed them, and he would stare at the beam in the sloping ceiling above his bed, upset, hardly daring to blink.
    One of the women snorted and remarked that thieves should be both whipped and hanged—there was no need to feed such people. Another agreed: just think of all the horses they have stolen from around the district, even from the magistrate himself. Murderers should get the axe and horse thieves should be hanged, as is written in the law of the land.
    The boy followed his mother into the farm as though in a trance. He had seen a hanged person before—the girl who had killed herself in the cowshed at Holar, Brynhildur from Thufnakot. The image of her dangling body was engraved in his mind, a look of terror on her swollen, blue face. Oswald did not deserve to die like that. Surely he had not killed anyone. They were friends! He had told him stories and taught him poems in English. Maybe Oswald had even tried to stop his comrades from committing those evil deeds. Michael clenched his fists. Surely that was it. And now, he had to act with courage; he had to find a way. Only the most wretched coward would not at least try to save an innocent friend from the gallows.

    “What do you plan to do with the Englishmen?” Ragna directed her question to Thorkell, as his seatmate, Bjorn the magistrate, did not look likely to answer. Bjorn’s lanky body was half up on the table, his hands were under his chin, and he snored loudly, even though he had only drunk about half as much ale as many of those who were still awake. Only a few of the men had ever been in battle before, and most had only seen blood spilled during the annual slaughter season. They had never before shot arrows at anything that moved, save for birds and foxes. Consequently, the magistrate’s liquor supply was barely able to wipe away the blood still flowing from the veins of the dead in the men’s recollection of that morning’s horror. And yet the liquor seemed to amplify the thrill of their victory, and they had begun laughing and singing and toasting to each other. Many of those toasts were drunk to Thorkell Galdur of the Dark Arts and his great explosion. They chose to ignore the resentment that flickered across the priest’s face when he was referred to by that unfortunate nickname.
    Thorkell himself had drunk a great deal, yet it was hard to see any liquor on him. The only sign of his drunkenness was a film over his dusky blue eyes. He pushed the sleeping magistrate further away and invited Ragna to sit down between them on the bench.
    “The fate of the English is in the hands of their countryman at Holar,” he said, pouring ale into a drinking horn and handing it to her. She had been rushing back and forth between kitchen and hall all evening and quaffed the warm ale, thirsty from the smoke in the hearth and the heat in the crowded hall.
    “What do you mean?” she asked, surprised, wiping her mouth with a corner of the tablecloth that lay in her lap. “Is it not the magistrate, rather than the bishop, who should pass a sentence over them?”
    Thorkell smiled, smug and sure of his victory, his eyes twinkling. “They’ve already been sentenced to death by hanging, each and every one, for grand theft of fish and horses. By God’s will and mine, John Williamsson Craxton shall have the option of releasing them from that sentence. He’ll be able to do so by relinquishing the bishop’s seat and securing their departure from this country by accompanying them himself, on a ship that is half his, by virtue of the share that he purchased a short while ago. I hope, dearest, that you have no objection to residing with me at Holar, rather than at Grenjadarstadur.”
    Ragna was shocked. “Thorkell! If you take the bishop’s seat by force, you will be banned from all sacraments and receive eternal damnation in hell!”
    He shook his head. “Dearest Ragna, what you don’t understand is that I have planned all my moves very carefully. There will be no blood spilled in this battle. I would not risk my plans in that way. The pope will not appoint an Icelander to the