Far North - Michael Ridpath [37]
‘I am trying to pray,’ said Benedikt.
‘What for?’ said Hallgrímur. ‘They won’t find him.’
‘For his soul.’
‘Ah,’ said Hallgrímur. He had never quite got to grips with the concept of soul. ‘Are you all right, Benni?’
‘No. I feel so bad for my mother. She has no idea what happened to Dad and she will never find out. Unless I tell her.’
‘You can’t do that,’ said Hallgrímur.
‘Why not?’ said Benedikt. ‘I think about it all the time.’
‘It will get us into trouble.’
‘Not very much trouble,’ said Benedikt. ‘We didn’t kill him.’
Hallgrímur frowned. ‘It would get my father into a lot of trouble.’
‘Perhaps he deserves it.’ Benedikt glared at Hallgrímur.
‘And your father, too. I know he’s dead, but everyone thinks he’s a hero. They won’t think that if they know what he did.’
‘Maybe.’
The two boys stared at the altar and its simple cross.
‘Benni?’
‘Yes?’
‘If you do tell anyone, I will kill you.’ Hallgrímur didn’t know why he made the threat: it just came out of nowhere. But he knew he meant it. And the fact that he had uttered it in the church gave it greater meaning.
Benedikt didn’t answer.
‘Tell me a story from in there, Benni,’ Hallgrímur said, tapping the book on Benedikt’s lap.
‘All right,’ said Benedikt. He was still staring ahead at the altar, not looking at Hallgrímur. ‘Do you remember Björn of Breidavík?’ Benedikt didn’t need to open the book: he knew all the stories.
‘The one who went to America and became a chieftain?’
‘Yes. Do you want to know why he went there?’
‘Why?’
‘There was a beautiful woman called Thurídur who lived at Fródá. It’s near Ólafsvík.’
‘I know.’
‘Even though she was someone else’s wife, Björn kept on going to see her. He loved her.’
‘Oh.’ Hallgrímur wasn’t sure he liked the sound of this story.
‘Thurídur’s brother was a great chieftain called Snorri who lived at Helgafell.’
‘Yes, you have told me about him.’
‘Well, Snorri was angry with Björn and had him outlawed so he had to leave Iceland.’
‘That was then,’ Hallgrímur said. ‘My father couldn’t have got your father outlawed. That doesn’t happen any more.’
Benedikt ignored him. ‘A few years later Björn returned to Breidavík and went back to seeing Thurídur. This time Snorri sent a slave to kill Björn, but Björn caught the slave and had him killed instead. There was a big battle between the families of Björn and Snorri on the ice below Helgafell. In the end Björn left Iceland of his own accord. He ended up in America with the Skraelings.’
‘Perhaps your father should have gone to America,’ said Hallgrímur.
Benedikt turned away from the altar to look straight at Hallgrímur. ‘Perhaps Björn should have killed Snorri.’
Friday, 18 September 2009
Magnus carried the two cups of coffee from the counter and sat down opposite Sigurbjörg. They were in a café on Borgartún. He had called her early, catching her just as she arrived in her office, and she had agreed to see him for a few minutes before the working day began in earnest.
He had woken up at four-thirty thinking about what Sigurbjörg had told him back in April, and had been unable to get back to sleep. Denial wasn’t going to work. He had heard what he had heard and he was going to have to make sense of it. The sooner the better.
The café was busy with office workers loading up on caffeine, mostly to go, so there were a few seats available.
‘I’m glad you called,’ said Sibba in English. ‘I didn’t think you would.’
‘Neither did I,’ said Magnus. ‘It was kinda weird seeing you yesterday.’
‘OBG is a good client of our firm’s, as you can imagine. Do you want to ask me about Óskar Gunnarsson? That might be tricky.’
‘No, no.’ Magnus took a deep breath. ‘I wanted to talk about our family.’
‘I wondered,’ said Sibba. ‘Have you seen any of them since you’ve been here?’
‘Only you that once.’
‘I can understand why you would want to avoid them, especially after the way Grandpa treated you last time you were here.’
Magnus had summoned up the courage to travel back to Iceland when he was twenty, just after his father died. He had hoped to achieve some kind