Three years after settling in Torgrimsvær, Mother vanished. No one really knows what happened to her, but local tongues like to wag. They claim that, unable to bear her unhappiness, Mother filled her pockets with stones and stepped off the pier.

One benefit of becoming the new reverend, my father was assured, was that the fishermen were duty bound to provide for their spiritual leader. Father had envisioned the men happily bringing us the catch of the day, the women offering bread from their own kilns, but this was not the case. Father had to go down to the pier and ask the fishermen for whatever they could spare, which the men would comply with the smallest or sickliest of the day’s catch. The tithe, they sneered. It was humiliating, my father would complain to mother at the dinner table. In time, he refused to do it, sending me in his stead.

It is the worst part of my day, going round hat in hand like a beggar. Agrippa, sitting in his little skiff, offers up a minnow no larger than a finger. Otho’s tithe is a single clam. Wall-eyed Wilfrid has nothing at all, holding up his empty net to show me.

“I’m sorry, Kaspar,” he says, his left eye rolling east. “Luck was not with me today.”

“Not a single fish, Wilfrid? How will your family eat?” Wilfrid and his goodwife have seven children. All are thinner than spiders, but they have the appetites of lions.

His smile is contrite. “The missus is a sorceress at the stove. She can always conjure something for us to sup on.”

I watch the poor man sway in his little boat and feel pity for him. I reach into my basket for a fish. “Today’s tithing is slim, but I could spare this minnow. Take it.”

His coarse-calloused hand waves the notion away. “No, no. I’ll not have our reverend go hungry. Tomorrow, God willing, will be a better day.”

“I pray it is. Good day, Wilf.”

The offerings from the other men are equally stingy. The catch in my basket is barely enough to feed a cat. Another night when the family shall go to bed hungry.

The last boat is docked at the far end of the quay, away from the others. A trim sloop with a single mast and a maiden carved into the prow. The skipper of this vessel is Gunther Torgmundsin, a scarred giant of a man. Gunther the Brave, as he is called. Like most villagers, Gunther claims to be a descendant of the fabled hero that slew the sea monster. In Gunther’s case, it is probably true. His arms are thicker than tree trunks and laced with white scars from his years of hunting fish. He used to be a harpooner on whaling ships, spearing the leviathans with his weapon, and riding the beasts down. His tales are legendary.