No other woman has a hand in the burial of their kin. The men work methodically: two passing a body down to two in the grave. The families step forward to sprinkle dirt, Pastor Kurtsson blesses the grave, it is filled. No one wails, or falls to their knees. The women are tired, numb, done. Toril prays incessantly, the words rising and falling on the wind.
The cycle repeats until it is time for the second boathouse to be emptied, and Pastor Kurtsson raises a pale eyebrow at the silver-birch shrouds. Mamma plucks at Pappa’s, looks from the minister to Maren.
‘Perhaps we should ask Toril—’
‘I have no cloth left,’ says Toril.
‘I have a sail—’
‘No thread neither,’ says Toril, and she turns her back on them, walking home, pulling her son and daughter after. Sigfrid follows, and Gerda. Maren is sure that she, Diinna and Mamma will be left alone to bury their dead, but the other women stay to watch as Mads, then Pappa, then Erik, and at last Baar are lowered, covered over.
That night, when the men from Kiberg have left, Maren walks to the graves with Erik’s lock of hair in her pocket, thinking to bury it with him. She has decided it is a macabre keepsake, that perhaps it is this poisoning her dreams, letting the sea seep in. The nights are no longer winter dark, and in the gloom the graves appear to her like a pod of whales on the horizon, humpbacked and menacing. She finds she cannot approach them.
She knows what they are: hallowed ground, blessed by a man of God, holding naught but the remains of their men. But here, with the wind whistling through the open channels of their island, and the lit houses at her back, walking towards them seems as ill-fated as stepping from a cliff. She imagines them crashing up, thrashing down, and the world seems to rock beneath her feet. In her confusion, she loosens her grip on the lock of Erik’s hair. The wind plucks it from her slack fingers, and spins it away.
•
Later that night, the noise of the door wakes Maren. Mamma is curled on the blankets like a snail in its shell, breathing rank air into her face. She has insisted they still share the bed, though Maren sleeps the worse for it.
Maren sits up, body singing with nerves as the door closes. She can’t see anyone, only sense them there. There is a grunting sound, a fast series of almost animal breaths. It sounds like a mouthful of dirt being choked on.
‘Erik?’
She wonders if she has called him to her, conjured him with her dreaming and prayers, and it frightens her to the point where she is up and climbing over her mother, towards Pappa’s axe. Then she hears Diinna’s soft cry, a lurch of pain that sends the woman to her knees and Maren can make out her edges. A spirit wouldn’t open a door, Maren chides herself, and an axe would be no help against it.
‘I’ll fetch Fru Olufsdatter.’
‘Not her,’ says Diinna on an outrush of breath. ‘You.’
She guides Diinna to their hearthrug. Mamma is awake and cracks open the fire so its light spills over the floor, brings blankets and heats water, gets a strap of leather for Diinna to bite on, makes soothing sounds.
They don’t need the strap – Diinna doesn’t make much noise beyond panting. She sounds like a kicked dog: she whimpers and bites her lip. Maren stays by her head and Mamma removes her underthings. They are wet, and the whole room smells of Diinna’s sweat. She is pouring with it, and Maren wipes a cloth across her forehead, tries not to stare at the dark mound between Diinna’s legs, her mother’s hands slick and working. She has never seen a child born before, only animals and often they did not live. She tries to banish the thoughts of slack tongues poking from between soft jaws.
‘It is already nearly come,’ says Mamma. ‘Why did you not fetch us sooner?’
Diinna is almost dumb with agony, but whispers: ‘I knocked at the wall.’
Maren dabs and murmurs at Diinna’s ear, enjoying the closeness Diinna’s pain is allowing them, like old times. Soon the light coming through the thin weave of the curtains at the window meets that of the fire, and they are all caught in a foggy white glow. Maren feels shrouded in sea mist as Diinna clings to Maren as if she were an anchor, holding her steady against the tides of pain. Maren presses a kiss to her forehead, tasting salt.
When it is finally time to push, Diinna flaps like a landed fish, bucking her body against the floor. ‘Hold her,’ says Mamma, and Maren tries though she has never been stronger than Diinna and cannot hope to be now. She sits behind so Diinna can lean against her, and whispers into her neck. Maren’s own tears come to meet Diinna’s as she gives another twist and, at last, a scream as an answering wail comes from between her legs.
‘A boy.’ Mamma’s voice is bright with joy, and the sharp edge of pain. ‘A boy. Just as I prayed for.’
Diinna falls back and Maren guides her to the floor. Maren holds her, kisses her cheeks, listening to the baby cry, the clatter of metal as her mother takes up a blade to cut the cord, then wipes blood from him with a rag. Diinna clings to her, crying harder, their bodies shaking, damp, exhausted, until Mamma nudges Maren off with her elbow and puts the baby to Diinna’s chest.
He is tiny, crumpled, creamy with afterbirth. His lashes are dark against his white cheek. Maren is minded of a baby bird she found struck from its nest in the moss roof, so thinly skinned she could see the workings of its eye under the closed lid, the heartbeat quaking its entire frame. As soon as she touched it, thinking to put it back in the nest, it stopped moving.
His cries heave his tiny shoulders, his small mouth works. Diinna pulls down her nightgown, places her dark nipple into his mouth. There is scar tissue laced across one collarbone, a burn that Maren remembers came from a pan full of boiled water, though she can’t recall who threw it. She wants to kiss there too, to smooth it.
Mamma finishes cleaning Diinna. She is crying, pulls herself up to lie on the other side of her, places a hand over Diinna’s where it rests on his back. Maren hesitates only a moment longer before placing hers there too. He is shockingly warm, and smells of fresh bread, clean cloth. Her chest tightens, aches with want.
3rd of June 1618
To the Esteemed Mr Cornet,
I write on two counts.
Firstly, to thank you for your generous letter of the 12th January of this year. Your words of congratulations are most appreciated. My appointment as Lensmann over Finnmark is a great honour and, as you markedly say, a chance to serve our Lord God in that troubled place. The Devil’s breath reeks there, and there is much work to be done. King Christian IV is working to solidify the Church’s position, but sorcery laws were passed only a year previous, and though they are modelled on Daemonologie they are most lacking next to what our King James has achieved in Scotland and the Outer Isles. They are not even yet enacted in my Lensmannship. Of course, when I take up my post next year I will move to rectify this.
Which brings me to my second point. As you are aware, I am much admiring of your conduct in the 1616 Kirkwall trial of the witch Elspeth Reoch, which reached us even here. As I wrote at the time, while the public praise was all for that popinjay Coltart, I know how much you supported him and that it was your swift action that caught the incident in its earliest stages. It is precisely this pace that is required in Finnmark: men who can follow Daemonologie’s teachings to ‘spot, prove, and execute those who practise maleficium’.