The novel opens with a prologue and with the main character, Agnes. She was sentenced to death and in the prologue she is waiting in her cell for someone to come to her. While in her cell, Agnes is able to think about how easy it is to die and how fragile human life is.
In the first chapter, various public documents and letters are presented. The first document is a note noticing the public about a public action regarding the possessions that were owned by a man named Natan Ketlisson. Next, there are some letters written to a reverend inquiring about the appropriate burial rites for a man named Pétur Jónsson, a known criminal. From the same letter the reader finds that Natan was murdered and that the people charged with the murder were sentenced to death. The people who were sentenced to death were Fridrik Sigurdsson, Sigrídur Gudmundsdóttir and Agnes Magnúsdottir and they also killed Pétur Jónsson.
Before being executed, Agnes asked to receive a spiritual advisor and the District Commissioner asked a man named Tóti to fulfill that role. While everyone thinks that Tóti is too young to be Agnes’s spiritual advisor, he accepts the task given.
Next, the Commissioner goes to his employer’s house but he only finds his daughters home. Blöndal is disgusted by the conditions in which his inferior lives. Blöndal is welcomed by Steina who then goes to the garden to fetch her sister, Lauga. The later makes sure that Blöndal is served with coffee and milk before going to clean herself. Blöndal refuses to eat and the girls see how Blöndal smells the food and drink put before him before refusing.
Blöndal tells the girls that two people were to be executed in Iceland and because there were no prisons in Iceland, the prisoners will be held on various farms owned by government officials. Thus, Steina and her family will have to host one of the prisoners sentenced to death. Even though Steina is furious to hear this, she can do nothing about the decision.
After a few more days, Jón and Margrét return from their trip and Steina and Luga tell them the news. Jón takes his horse immediately and goes to Blöndal but when he returns home he only confirms what the family already knew.
Meanwhile, Agnes waits to be moved and Tóti prepares for his first encounter with Agnes. After a period of few months of waiting, Agnes is finally moved to the farm where she will stay until she will be executed. When Agnes reaches her new home, she is malnourished and weak, barely able to stand on her own. The family takes care of her that night and the next day Margrét tells Agnes that she will help her around the house and do the work her servants do.
Outside, Margrét is questioned by her neighbors about Agnes and they all tell their own version of the story. Agnes returns inside and there she thinks of her parents and how she was abandoned by her mother at the age of six.
Agnes helps Margrét in the garden all day and when Tóti comes to her, she thinks that maybe she made a mistake by asking him to be her spiritual advisor. Tóti returns home disappointed with himself and he stops going to Agnes for a few weeks. After that however, he decided that he must try again and this time he must try and be first Agnes’s friend before becoming her advisor. Tóti continues to visit Agnes and little by little she opens up to him about her parents and her situation. Agnes expresses her opinion, telling the priest that humans are just too cruel sometimes and that it is unfair how a little mistake can ruin a person’s life forever.
Agnes continues to live in the house and as winter approaches, Agnes knows that so will her death. One day, Agnes finds that one of the people also involved in the murder was released and she felt into a fit, knowing that no one will ever forgive her for her crimes. Tóti is asked to go and see Agnes immediately and he does not lose any more time, getting his horse and traveling through the rain to see her. Tóti arrives at the house and has a lengthy conversation with Agnes who also tells him that she has a living brother named Jóas. Agnes also tells him about the family who raised her and how her adoptive mother died. Agnes tells Tóti that her adoptive mother got pregnant after a few years of her staying with them. The weather was extremely bad that winter and a blizzard forced the family to remain inside for days. During such a blizzard, the mother got into labor and because the children could not get any help, the husband helped her give birth. Unfortunately, the mother died during childbirth. The child was born dead as well and because of the cold weather, both the bodies of the mother and the child were put in the attic until spring. Unfortunately, the family could no longer take care of the children and thus Agnes was given away to the parish.
A few days later after the discussion, Tóti goes to Blöndal’s house to talk about Agnes. Blöndal is appalled to see that Tóti talks about Agnes as if she were his friend and is also surprised to hear that Agnes was allowed to work in the house and help the family. Blöndal tells the priest about the murders in an attempt to convince him to stop trying to be Agnes’s friend but from the conversation Tóti reaches the conclusion that maybe Agnes did not killed anyone and that she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Tóti returns to Agnes and Agnes tells him that they meet before, once in a dream and once when she helped her cross a stream. She knew then than Tóti will help her later in life as well. Tóti tries to calm Agnes by telling her that God will take care of her and that seems to help Agnes a bit. Agnes then tells the priest about the time she spent in Worm’s farm and how she stayed there with her brother, Jóas. After a fight, Jóas ran away from the farm after stealing the money Agnes had and they never saw one another again. Agnes met Natan while she was working in the Worm’s farm and while she was not attracted to him at first, he charmed her with his way of words.
Agnes gained the trust of the family she was staying with and she even helped deliver Róslín’s baby when it came the time for her to give birth. Margrét also grew more attached to Agnes and she wondered what she will do when Agnes will be executed. When the time comes to slaughter the animals for the winter, Agnes helps as well but Lauga is mad to see that everyone seems to like Agnes. Luga cannot understand how someone can like a murderer and even goes as far as claiming that her mother’s attachment to Agnes is dangerous. She also claims that her family’s reputation is now destroyed and that no man will want to marry them.
Agnes continues to talk with Tóti about Natan and how he tried to convince her to become his servant. This made the other servants feel jealous and Agnes lost a few friends because of this. Natan and Agnes became involved romantically soon after and in spring, he asked her to go and love with him. Unfortunately, Natan had another lover, a servant girl named Sigga who lived with him.
Agnes moved to Natan’s farm where she spent a lot of time with him in his workshop. Natan even shared his passion for medicinal plants with Agnes and she soon began reading the books Natan had about medicinal plants. While Sigga was Natan’s lover, she expressed her wish of being one day married to a man named Fridrik who was unfortunately not liked by Natan.
Tóti returned home and as soon as he got there he had fallen sick. Because of this, he was not able to visit Agnes who continued to wait for him. While waiting for Tóti, Agnes also took care of her new mistress who was affected by her cough and who began coughing up blood.
Agnes also began thinking of her last days with Natan and how he changed drastically. Agnes notes that he became violent, abusing her even and accusing her of stealing from him. When his behavior became too erratic, Agnes thought about leaving him but she knew that she had no place to go so she decided to remain with him.
One night, Agnes is having bad dreams and Margrét wakes up to check on her. The two then go to the kitchen where Agnes tells Margrét that she stayed on Thórbjörg’s farm only because Natan threw her out and she had no place to go. Agnes also reveals that in the moths prior to Natan’s death, he spent less and less time home and when he was home he was violent and harsh. Natan agreed to let Sigga and Fridrik marry but the only reason he agreed to do that is because Friedrik offered him money. Friedrik became mad when he found that Natan had sex with Sigga and that she did not agree to it. When Natan returned to the farm, he gave Sigga his blessing but Sigga was never happy after that.
Then, one night, Agnes told Natan that she saw him and Sigga have sex but Natan responds that he was aware of the fact that Agnes knew about them. Agnes asks Natan weather he loves her and when he refuses to give her an answer, she starts screaming at him, calling him names. As a result, Natan threw her out.
Agnes then went to Fridrik’s farm where she was taken in by Thórbjörg. Agnes thinks that during that night, Fridrik and Thórbjörg planned to kill Natan, knowing that maybe he will not let Sigga marry Fridrik. The next day, Fridrik and Agnes go to Sigga and find that Natan changed him mind about letting her marry his enemy.
When Natan returned home, he saw Sigga, Agnes and Fridrik in his home. He agreed to let Agnes sleep on the farm but he made her go into the cowshed. That night, Agnes was woken up by Fridrik who had a hammer in his hand. Later, when Agnes woke up again, she went to the house and found Pétur dead and Natan heavily disfigured and in pain. To ease his pain, Agnes stabbed Natan in the stomach, thus killing him. After stabbing him, Agnes realizes that she will be blamed for murder and most likely hanged.
The day of the execution was set on the 13th of January and when Tóti hears about this, he goes to Agnes despite his illness. Tóti tells Agnes about the date of her execution and he tries to comfront her the best he can.
On the day of the execution, Margrét and her daughters give Agnes beautiful clothes to wear and tell her that she will never be forgotten by them. Agnes is then put on a horse and she is accompanied by Tóti and Jón who gives her alcohol to drink. At the execution site, Fridrik is the first one to be executed and Agnes panics, telling Tóti that she is not ready to die. The chapter stops here, with Agnes in a state of panic. In the epilogue, the reader finds from an official letter that Agnes was executed, her head being cut off with an axe. After the execution, her head was put on a stake while her body was buried with no Christian rites.
