Prologue Quotes

They said I must die. They said that I stole the breath from men, and now they must steal mine. (Agnes at Stora Borg) Prologue

…in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life away from my in a grey wreath of smoke. (Agnes at Stora Borg) Prologue

Chapter 1 Quotes

As you will be aware, our community has recently been darkened by the shadow of crime. The Illugastadir murders, committed last year, have in their heinousness emblematised the corruption and ungodliness of this county… I intend to execute the Illugastadir murderers. (Blondal, in his letter to Toti) Chapter 1

‘It is with some uncertainty that I approach you for this task…you may yourself admit that you are too pale in experience to know how to bring this condemned woman to the Lord and His infinite mercy… it is a weight that I would hesitate to bestow on the shoulders of experienced clergymen.’ (Blondal, in his letter to Toti) Chapter 1

Blondal slowly rose to his full height. ‘Your father’s title comes with responsibility. I’m sure he would not question me.’ (Blondal, to Steina and Lauga when they protest Agnes being held at their farm) Chapter 1

They will say ‘Agnes’ and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. (Agnes) Chapter 1

We are all God’s children, he thought to himself. This woman is my sister in Jesus, and I, as her spiritual brother, must guide her home. (Toti) Chapter 1

Chapter 2 Quotes

At first I did not know why these people stood about, men and women alike, each still and staring at me in silence. Then I understood that it was not me they stared at. I understood that these people did not see me. I was two dead men. I was a burning farm. I was a knife. I was blood. (Agnes, as she is being transferred from Stora-Borg) Chapter 2

‘You are a man, a young man, yes, but a man of God. I don’t think she would kill you. But us? My daughters? Lord, how will we sleep in peace?’ (Margret speaking to Toti about her fears that Agnes might hurt them all) Chapter 2

The man laughed. ‘I don’t like her [Agnes’] chances. Blondal’s behind the youngest. They say she reminds him of his wife. This one… Well, Blondal wants to set an example.’ (The guards to Toti) Chapter 2

The walls had once been panelled with Norwegian wood, but Jon had removed the boards to pay a debt owed to a farmer across the valley. Now the bare walls of turf collapsed their dirt and grass onto the beds in summer, and grew dank in winter, issuing moulds that dripped onto the woollen blankets and infested the lungs of the household. The home has begun to disintergrate, a hovel that had spread its own state of collapse to its inhabitants. (The Jonsson house) Chapter 2

Invigorated by a sudden curl of anger, Margret pointed to the irons about the woman’s wrists. ‘Is it necessary to keep her bound like a lamb ripe for slaughter?’ (Margret, upon meeting Agnes for the first time) Chapter 2

But this woman was neither ugly nor a beauty. Striking perhaps, but not the sort to inspire hungry glances from young men. She was very slender, elf-slender as the southerners would put it, and of an ordinary height. (Margret observing Agnes) Chapter 2

Chapter 3 Quotes

‘I shall make no secret of my displeasure to you. I don’t want you in my home. I don’t want you near my children… I have been forced to keep you here, and you…’ She falters a little. ‘You are forced to be kept.’ (Margret to Agnes) Chapter 3

‘… for having to keep a murderess under your family’s roof! For being forced to look at her hideous face every day! For the fear it must inspire in you, for your own good self and your husband and poor daughters!’ Chapter 3

Chapter 4 Quotes

‘Couldn’t keep a man, something about her. Couldn’t settle. This valley is small and she had a reputation for a sharp tongue and loose skirts.’ (Dagga to Toti, about Agnes) Chapter 4

They did not let me say what happened in my own way, but took my memories of Illugastadir, of Natan, and wrought them onto something sinister; they wrested my statement of that night and made me seem malevolent. Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own. (Agnes) Chapter 4

Toti thought for a moment. ‘What was your mother’s mistake?’
‘I’ve been told she made many, Reverend. But at least one of those mistakes was me. She was unlucky.’ (Agnes and Toti) Chapter 4

Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts talking over one another. There is only ever a sense that what is real to me is not real to others, and to share a memory with someone is to risk sullying my belief in what has truly happened. (Agnes) Chapter 4

Chapter 5 Quotes

‘No doves come from ravens’ eggs,’ Margret agreed. (Margret discussing Agnes’ mother Ingveldur) Chapter 5

I thought I could be a servant here. Over a month has passed at Kornsa and already I have forgotten what will become of me. (Agnes) Chapter 5

But talking to him only reminds me of how everything in my life has worked against me, and how unloved I have been… I am a fool to think we speak the same tongue. I may as well be talking to him with a stone in my mouth trying to find a language that we both understand. (Agnes about Toti) Chapter 5

‘Lauga’s scared of you, you know. She’s been listening to Roslin and her lies. But I don’t believe a word that gossip says. I remember you from before. I remember how kind you were, giving us your food like that.’ Steina leaned in closer. ‘I don’t think you killed them,’ she whispered. (Steina to Agnes) Chapter 5

They will free Sigga but they will not free me because I am Agnes – bloody, knowing Agnes. (Agnes after learning of Sigga’s appeal) Chapter 5

‘I can turn to that day as though it were a page in a book. It’s written so deeply upon my mind I can almost taste the ink.’ (Agnes to Toti, when he questions her about the day her mother died) Chapter 5

Chapter 6 Quotes

He didn’t like me reading or writing either, and was not adverse to whipping the learning out of me if he caught me at it.’ (Agnes, about her step-father Bjorn) Chapter 6

I can feel others listening. I can feel Steina and Margret and Kristin and Lauga stretching their ears towards us in the shadowy corner, eating up this story like fresh butter and bread. (Agnes) Chapter 6

‘… Reverend, do you think that I here because when I was a child I said I wanted to die? Because, when I said it, I meant it. I pronounced it like a prayer. I hope I die. Did I author my own fate, then? (Agnes) Chapter 6

It seems everyone I love is taken from me and buried in the ground, while I remain alone. (Agnes) Chapter 6

Chapter 7 Quotes

Toti sat up straighter in his chair. ‘It’s become apparent to me that the condemned requires means other than religious rebuke to acquaint herself with death and prepare for her meeting with the Lord.’ (Toti to Blondal) Chapter 7

‘Assistant Reverend Thorvadur. You might be forgiven for thinking that friendship will direct this murderess to the way of truth and repentance, You are young and inexperienced. I bear some blame for this.’ (Blondal as he reminds Toti of his obligation to Agnes) Chapter 7

Blondal shook his head. ‘The maid of sixteen who burst into tears as soon as I summoned her? Sigga didn’t even attempt to lie – she is too simple-minded, too young to know how. She told me everything. How Agnes hated Natan, how Agnes was jealous of his attentions to her. Sigga is not bright, but she saw that much? (Blondal to Toti) Chapter 7

Blondal sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘I’ve never known tongues to wag faster than they do in this valley.’ Chapter 7

It was a surprise to suddenly realise that the girls were gone: I suppose I have grown used to Lauga’s rolling eyes, like some disgruntled calf, and Steina following me like a shadow. (Agnes) Chapter 7

Chapter 8 Quotes

She was too used to having Agnes’ presence on the farm. Perhaps it was the usefulness of an extra pair of hands about the place. Having another woman’s help had already eased the pain in his back, and her cough did not seem to interrupt her breath as frequently as it had done. She avoided thinking about what would happen when the day of execution was announced. (Margret) Chapter 8

Have they kept me amongst their number of mouths to feed? I fight an impulse to offer myself up to Jon and his knife. Why not kill me here, now, on an unremarkable day? It is the waiting that cripples. (Agnes) Chapter 8

‘You don’t see it, but we’re all marked now. And it does us no favours that they see us talking to her, giving her plenty to eat. We’ll never be married.’ (Lauga and Steina) Chapter 8

Despite the weather, Toti was reluctant to stay at home with his father. He felt that some invisible membrane between Agnes and him had been broken. She had begun, finally, to speak of Natan, and the thought that she might draw him closer still, might trust him enough to speak of what had happened at Illugastadir, set something quickening in him. Chapter 8

Chapter 9 Quotes

‘I remember thinking it was a strange place to build a workshop, away from the croft and surrounded by water, but Natan planned it thus. Even the window of the cottage looked inland, rather than out to sea, because Natan wanted to observe who might be travelling along the mountain. He had some enemies.’ (Agnes) Chapter 9

‘She told me that with a wild sort of giggle, and I remember thinking her as daft as Natan had told me she was.’ (Agnes about Sigga) Chapter 9

‘Very well-spoken. Educated, I should think. Surprising, considering her illegitimacy. Well brought up. But when I spoke to the District Officer, he said her behaviour was… Unpredictatble. He mentioned hysterics.’ (Reverend Petur Bjarnason to Toti, regarding Agnes) Chapter 9

Agnes Jonsdottir. She sounds like the woman I should have been… She could even have been the sister of Sigurlaug and Steinvor Jonsdottir. Margret’s daughter. Born blessed under a marriage. Born into a family that would not be ripped apart by poverty. (Agnes) Chapter 9

Chapter 10 Quotes

…Perhaps he has had enough of my stories; perhaps I have said something and he is now convinced I am guilty, and that I must be abandoned and punished. I am too godless. (Agnes when Toti ceases his visits) Chapter 10

I hated the way my mind would turn to Natan throughout the day, until I was sick with the pattern of my thoughts. I hated the nausea that came at the suggestion he did not care for me. (Agnes) Chapter 10

‘Don’t be fooled. Just because you play at being a wife, does not make you a married woman, Agnes.’ (Daniel to Agnes) Chapter 10

Chapter 11 Quotes

Margret paused. ‘A mother always thinks of her children,’ she repeated. ‘Your mother, Fridrick’s mother, Sigga’s mother. All mothers.’ (Margret to Agnes) Chapter 11

‘I asked him why he had taken the money if he seemed so set against it, and Natan laughed and said that only a fool refuses money freely offered.’ (Agnes about Natan) Chapter 11

‘Seeing Fridrick hack at the sheep with his boots unsettled something within me. It was portentous: the rapid limbs, dark against the snow, colliding with the soft corpse until a fine mist of blood floated above.’ (Agnes to Margret) Chaper 11

Chapter 12 Quotes

Natan laughed. ‘You never mean what you say, Agnes. You say one thing, and a different meaning lurks beneath it. You want to leave? Leave!’ (Natan to Agnes) Chapter 12

‘… as the light crept across the bed I saw that Petur’s head was crushed. Blood darkened the pillow. Something glistened on the wall, and when I looked I saw several drops of blood slowly running down the planks.’ (Agnes recollecting to Margret) Chapter 12

‘The knife went in easily. It pierced Natan’s shirt with neat rips, sounding like an ill-practised kiss – I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to. My fist jerked, until I felt sudden, close warmth over my wrist and realised that his blood covered my hand.’ (Agnes recollecting to Margret) Chapter 12

Chapter 13 Quotes

Toti read the letter three times, then let it rest on his knee as he stared into the fire. It could not be happening. Not like this. Not with so much unsaid and undone, and him not even by her side. (Toti after receiving the news that Agnes’ execution was less than a week away) Chapter 13

Toti heard Margret click her tongue. ‘It’s not right,’ she was muttering. ‘It wasn’t her fault.’ (Margret to Toti) Chapter 13

She took out a dark skirt with an embroidered pattern about the hem and laid it carefully on the blankets beside her. Then she did the same with a white cotton shirt, an embroidered bodice, and finally a striped apron. She smoothed the wrinkles out of the folds of material with both hands. (Margret laying out clothes for Agnes’ execution) Chapter 13

Epilogue Quotes

The farmer Gudmundur Ketilsson, who had been ordered to be executioner, committed the work that he had been asked to do with dexterity and fearlessness. (From Blondal’s letter confirmed the executions) Epilogue

While the deed took place, and there until it was finished, everything was appropriately quiet and well-ordered… (From Blondal’s letter confirmed the executions) Epilogue