‘The girls are protected then?’
‘Yes.’ George shakes his head in sad disbelief. ‘Only moments before the accident.’
‘Well, that is some small relief. Thank you. I really must get them home now.’
What remains of the broken Lawless family sways to and fro in the coach until they are swallowed by a dim twilight.
ICELAND
1830
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The sun gleams on the glaciers to the south and to the east. Jón Eymundsson and Elísabet Ingólfsdóttir hear the waterfall crashing down, though they are miles from it. Each plod of their horses’ hooves brings them closer to its thundering roar. The spray looks like thick smoke from where they ride. The curlews wing overhead, moving south, the white bog cotton slants in the wind.
The path is rough with tremendous ruts, full of holes and stones, but their sure-footed horses pull ahead as if to defy each patch of ragged earth. Their load is lighter now; two days ago their carrying horses bore the weight of Elísabet’s knitting and weaving work. Every piece was sold or traded giving them a heady sense of relief and pleasure at their luck that the merchant sailors had survived another journey from England.
When they arrived at the trading settlement, Elísabet faced the hard stares of the men whose wives were at home with their children. Thus far in her marriage of five years, she has been unable to produce a child, and for this she blames herself. Each month that passes brings an unspoken sorrow to her, and a burden to her husband. How will they survive the future of their old age without the help of sons and daughters?
Jón never mentions the night he found her in the traveller’s shelter, bleeding, almost to her death. On that day, returning home from a long walk, she felt the beginnings of her loss. She did not know the pain of childbirth, but surely it was not as painful as this. Her breathing became heavy, laboured from fright. There was a seat in the shelter, a bench-like seat made from the vertebra of a whale, and someone had left a coverlet of three folds of wadmal. She threw it on the cramped earthen floor and knelt down on all fours. After what seemed hours, a horrifically slow pace set, gravity won and the bloody mass fell from her. The baby she held in her hand, a sac with a complete foetus inside it, was conceived before she met Jón. The blood flowed on. Dusk fell as her blood seeped under the crude door. She’d never felt so cold. Then, hope. She heard hiking steps, plodding along. They stop. Through the crack of the door, a woman’s skirts. But Elísabet is fevered now and cannot trust the vision, for Koldís is not due home until tomorrow. Yet, with her face resting on the frozen floor, the tips of the boots stay in her sight.
‘Help. Help me.’
The skirts remain still.
‘Please. Help me.’
The shadow in the crack of the door disappears. It was then that Elísabet knew she was going to die, as her mother had; bleeding to death after expelling her baby. It was just before full dark that Jón noticed the dark, wet blood soaking the ground as he passed the shelter.
Elísabet draws up on her saddle, her face lifts to the bracing air. A return to the trading settlement always reminds her of this for it was here that the waves had washed up the English ship that carried her misery.
The skies were clear two days ago when their horses entered the seaside camp. The ships’ sails billowed above the sand and shared the same breeze that carried the pungent scent of trade. There are but three months of harvest and trade, and these must be worthwhile or starvation and death come as surely as the sun sets in a purple glow.
The camp trading was brisk, and the temporary makeshift settlement throbbed with the day’s work. The island’s livelihood was piled on slabs of lava rock – Icelandic fish for barter.
Jón worked near Elísabet as he always does, ready to enforce respect. The English sailors and traders are too free with their eyes. Not an innocent grunt of admiration, nor compliments on her beauty will go unchecked. The older women gravitate to her, drawn by her warmth, they admire her knitting and weaving work.
On this late August day, on their journey home, they venture off the sand path to explore a suitable place for their second meal of the day. Walking along a rough pathway of high ferns, bilberry plants and a few birches, they veer towards the rushing of a small waterfall that plays against the sound of murmuring springs.
Elísabet tears off chunks of sweet bread that she had baked at home in the hot springs. She unwraps fresh angelica stems spread with butter. Earlier in the day the trade of two pairs of mittens procured pork and stale beer. The meat is salty and though the beer is good, it is not enough to quench their thirst.
‘We did well. Thank you for working so hard,’ Jón says, as he moves towards the hiss of bubbling water.
‘It comes easy to me.’ She would like to say more, to tell him that when she knits, her busy hands and the clicking of the needles quieten her mind. She wishes to confide that with each row she weaves, her worries cease, if only for a few moments, and that a terrible and inexplicable sense of foreboding is released and evaporates. Knitting satisfies, like a dusting of sugar after the shock of something bitter.
Several small pools ripple where they stand. Two are washing springs, the water a perfect temperature for laundry and bathing. Clouds of smoke rise above hissing streams. The waterfall, set within a rock formation, trickles down to form a pool. Elísabet unwraps horn cups while Jón tests the bubbling water, letting it run
