Burial Rites

Chapter 2 begins as a young court officer retrieves Agnes from her cell. She is smelly and unkempt, and she is relieved to breathe in fresh air. A crowd gathers around her as she is taken away, screaming at her and calling her a devil. She is strapped to a horse and they make the hard, uncomfortable ride north. Unaware of where she is going and told nothing by her guards, she wonders if she will be killed, but is still excited to be on the move again. She thinks back to the good times in Illugastidir, when she was with Natan and Sigga. She wonders where Sigga, the woman who was convicted of helping Agnes commit her crime, is being held now. She is jolted out of her thoughts by the announcement that she will be kept at Korsna, in the custody of gentle people, until her execution. Agnes is horrified because she grew up in Korsna and people will know her there. Thorvardur, who is known as Toti by most, is already waiting at the farm when Agnes arrives in the middle of the night. Margret is waiting with him, full of fear and refusing to let her daughters join them. She asks Toti to use his influence to have Agnes moved elsewhere, but he says they must all do their duty. The officers who arrive with Agnes stay the night, camping outside, and Toti tells them that the woman has asked to speak with him. They warn him that she has a temper and very little chance at a pardon.

As Agnes waits and watches, hungry and tired from the journey, she sees a man approach her. He introduces himself as Reverend Thorvardur Jonsson and says that she asked for him, but she says nothing. She wonders if he recognizes her, but he doesn’t seem to, and tells her he’ll come to talk to her again in the morning. In the house, Margret tidies up and notices all the repairs that are needed. She has been feeling increasingly ill and has developed a nasty cough ever since Blondal delivered the news. She has not seen Agnes yet, but knows that she will be face to face with her soon. She is determined to show her no sympathy or charity. The officer brings Agnes in, and Margret is shocked to see how filthy the woman is, and that she has been badly beaten. Margret draws Agnes a bath, and is disturbed by Agnes plunging her head into the water to drink, having been denied water for so long. Margret tells Agnes to ask for a cup next time. Toti rides back to his father’s home, thinking about the woman he encountered. He is horrified by how badly she was treated, and knows that her bruises were caused deliberately. He retreats inside his church, praying for the strength to continue on his mission and fight to save her soul, despite how oddly scared he is by this woman. Margret wakes the next day, and is startled to discover how young the officer who was supposed to protect her is. She wonders what to call Agnes, and wonders what drives a woman to kill. She thinks back to her daughter Lauga’s question of whether the woman would have the sign of the devil. However, Margret is more startled by how ordinary Agnes is. Despite her revulsion at having Agnes in her house, Margret cannot help but feel some compassion as she helps Agnes clean and dress the wounds that cover her body. She cannot help but remind Agnes that the medicine she uses once belonged to Natan, but Agnes does not react.

Chapter 3 begins with an account of the crime. It has been said that Fridrik, Sigga, and Agnes snuck into Natan’s house and stabbed him and Peter to death before burning the farm down. Agnes remembers that she barely slept after the fire, and wondered if her insomnia was part of God’s punishment. However, here in her new temporary home, she dreams of Natan. The two are together again, in love, but as she reaches for him, he suddenly dies. Agnes wakes up, and Margret orders her out of bed. Although Margret is frank about not wanting Agnes in her home, and warns her to stay away from the girls, she tells Agnes that there is lots of work to be done and she can earn her keep as a servant. Agnes has been a servant since she was fifteen and is well-versed in farm tasks such as knitting, cooking, and tending animals. Margret asks her if she can wield a scythe to cut hay, but warns her that at the first sign of violence she will throw her out of the house. A group of neighbors drops by, and Margret orders Agnes inside. The neighbors - Roslin, her husband Snaebjorn, and their son Pall, have supposedly come over to offer baked goods and help with repairs, but they soon begin to ask prying questions. Margret is irritated by this intrusion, which aggravates her cough. She finally discloses the reason Agnes is there, and Roslin is horrified. The two argue, and Margret finds herself defending Agnes, saying that the two victims were hardly angels themselves—Peter being a thief and Natan a philanderer. She urges Roslin to leave, and Roslin warns her to be careful around Agnes, who was supposedly the ringleader of the murders.

With Agnes temporarily alone in the house, she contemplates escape, but knows that she wouldn’t get far. She looks at the house and knows it’ll be cold in the winter, but muses that she’ll be dead by then anyway. As she observes the house, she thinks back to when she was a foster child in this very town when she was only six years old. Her story began here, and now it is likely to end here. She decides to pretend that she is simply a servant and to do her best to please her new mistress. At the very least, she thinks, this place cannot be any worse than what she experienced in Illugastadir. As Agnes examines a brooch under the bed, she’s confronted by Steina and Lauga, who are angry that she touched Lauga’s confirmation gift. They call for their mother, who tells Agnes not to touch anything in the house and sends her outside to work. As Agnes proves herself a hard worker on the farm, she notices Margret’s health declining. Steina, meanwhile, remembers that Agnes was once a servant in the nearby valley and was kind to her and her sister, giving them eggs. Toti comes to visit Agnes again, and they pray together. He asks her why she was unhappy with her previous spiritual advisor. Agnes asks Toti if he remembers her, but he can’t place her. In fact, he helped her once when she was on horseback and crossing a flooded pass. He states that although he is only an Assistant Reverend, he will do what he can to help her prepare for death. However, she thinks she may have made a mistake and sends him on his way. Agnes eats lunch with Margret and the girls, and then works on fixing the stone wall around the farm. Agnes starts to feel that the only one who could understand her is Natan, and wonders if she is beyond home. She muses that God didn’t free her when he had the chance.