The Orkney Scroll (19 page)

“Tell her what the runes say, Kenny,” Willow said.

“Yes, don’t keep me in suspense,” I said, trying to keep profound cynicism out of my voice. There was a slight throbbing at my temples that indicated a headache was on its way, due perhaps to the strain of keeping myself from snapping at them.

“It says,” Kenny replied, pointing at the sticklike figures down one side, “ ‘Before he went mad, Bjarni the Wanderer hid the cauldron in the tomb of the orcs’.” At the sound of these words, I dashed into the bathroom and threw up.

Chapter 8

Do 1 detect some skepticism on your part? I could hardly blame you for that. What are the chances, you are asking yourself, that a Viking from Orkney, of good lineage, but neither king nor earl, would be taken to the court of the caliph of Spain? In the highly unlikely event that he was, what language were they speaking? Did the caliph speak Old Norse? Was a translator provided? Did Goisvintha, descended from Goths of northern Spain, provide the necessary interpretation?

hut surely that is always the issue with sagas of this type. How does one separate the wheat from the chaff, the true historical background from the ripping good yarn? How can you extract the nugget of truth in what is otherwise a fable? I’m not just talking about Bjarni’s story here, you understand. The much-revered Orkneyinga Saga, the history of the earls of Orkney, believed to be the only medieval chronicle centered on Orkney, was not the work of someone in or from Orkney, despite what you might think. Rather it was written by an unknown Icelandic poet, probably about 1200, but based on ancient traditions and tales, stories told on the long winter nights, and set out in such a way that they would be recited by rout, and thus passed from generation to generation. Icelandic verse was extremely complex, with many strict rules governing it as to the number of syllables permissible in each line, the use of internal assonance and rhyme and so on. These rules served as an aide-memoir, really, the complexity ensuring that the story, which was passed along orally for possibly hundreds of years would survive intact.

In the same way, Bjarni’s saga was not written down as it happened, indeed not until much, much later. Still, my family believes it to be an eyewitness account by Svein the poet, passed along orally through many, many generations before finally being given literary form. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn’t.

Were there embellishments to it over the centuries? Of course there were. That does not, however, make the tale a lie. Was the story of Bjarni’s sojourn in Spain added by one of my forbearers eager to establish a more important family pedigree? Was it an exaggeration or even a fiction told by Bjarni himself in a boastful way, something one is inclined to assume he was more than capable of or perhaps instead to justify his rather extended absence from home and hearth? Or, unlikely as it might appear, did all this actually happen? Did Bjarni really visit the caliph of Spain? I have spent much of my life trying to decide what it is I believe.

I can tell you that the saga’s description of the Spain of the Umayyad caliphate does not arouse much argument from those who study such things. As the saga says, it was an extraordinary place. In Cordoba, the streets were indeed paved, lit, and patrolled as the story relates. In Bjarni’s day the caliphate was still in power, but it was soon to disintegrate amongst warring factions and then to fall to the
Reconquista,
the reestablishment of Catholic power, the beginning of which is often said to be the fall of Muslim Toledo in 1085.

I leave it up to you to decide how much or how little to believe. All I ask of you is an open mind. I can see you are tiring, or perhaps it is that you are impatient to find how this story ends. Let me pick up the thread and speed Bjarni on his way.

It is possible that mine was not the reaction Willow and Kenny had been expecting when they told me what the runic inscription said, and it was certainly a waste of a very good meal. “I’m being just so thoughtless,” Willow said. “Here you’ve found another body, and then I spring this treasure map on you. It’s all too emotional, I can tell. Look, we’re going to get you some hot tea, and then see that you get back to your B & B. You can have a good rest, and we’ll come pick you up tomorrow morning. Can we use your car, given there are three of us?”

“I guess so,” I said. “No tea, please. I really just want to go back to my B & B.” Why did everybody here think hot tea would solve everything?

“You drive her car, Willow, and I’ll follow on my bike,” Kenny said.

“No, I’m okay,” I said. I didn’t really want them to know where I was staying until I’d had time to think this all through. Still I couldn’t avoid giving them Mrs. Brown’s name. It would have seemed rather peculiar not to, but now that I’d found her, I really just wanted to get away from Willow and her Kenny. Menace seemed to lurk everywhere, but it was a fuzzy everywhere, and I couldn’t decide where the real danger might lie. All I knew is that I wanted to be very far from anyone associated with mad Bjarni the Wanderer, because people interested in this Bjarni person ended up dead. A means of evading Willow and Kenny was waiting for me back at Mrs. Brown’s place, along with a nice shot of her single malt scotch. It was a letter from Maya Alexander, which read:

I heard about your terrible experience. You must have been terrified, and you simply must come and stay with us. We’ll be here for two or three more days at least, and I can stay longer than that, if you need to stay. Both Robert and I insist you come. You can’t stay all by yourself in that B&B after what has happened. Please call any time, day or night. Love, Maya.

I called. They said they would come to
get
me immediately. I told them I would find my own way there the next day in time for dinner, not wishing to insult Mrs. Brown. I wondered how they found me. Maya told me Robert had got on the phone the minute they’d seen the article in the paper. I guess if you have enough money and influence you can do just about anything. At least I hope that explained it.

That night I alternated between nightmares, in which disembodied heads featured prominently, and fussing about what all this meant. It was just too much of a coincidence that both Percy and Willow were looking for the same thing. Both Percy and Willow, by way of Trevor, had an association with the writing cabinet. But neither was really interested in the writing cabinet, I now realized. I was the only person who really gave two hoots about the Mackintosh.

The two lines, Percy’s dying words and Kenny’s translation of the Viking runes, were not identical. I was sure that Percy had said Bjarni had hidden a “chalice,” not a “cauldron,” in the tomb of the orcs. His last words were now burned into my memory. Was that semantics, a slightly different translation of the same word, or was there something more significant, or sinister about it? And if there was such a thing in Orkney as the Tomb of the Eagles so-named for the eagle talons and bones found in it, and of course there was because I’d been in it, what, other than a creature in Tolkien, was an orc?

I was up very early the next morning. The good news was that in addition to the fish and chips, I seemed to have purged that cold, hard lump in my chest. Now instead of numb, I was mad as hell. In other words, I was feeling a whole lot better.

There are not that many hedges in Otkney, the terrain tending more to rolling farmland, dark hills, and high cliffs by the sea where the waves crashed in. Still, there was a hedge at Willow and Kenny’s place, and early the next morning, I was in it. It did occur to me that I was spending rather too much time in hedges, an undignified activity if ever there was one, since Blair Bazillionaire’s cocktail party. This time I wasn’t looking for pathetic remnants of furniture. I was getting ready to follow Willow. At the crack of dawn I packed my bag, bade the lovely Mrs. Brown adieu, phoned the Northern Constabulary to tell them what Percy’s last words were—I believe I heard a snort of disbelief when I told them—and where they could find me that evening. Then I headed out for Deerness and Willow and Kenny’s B&B.

On the way, I called Willow from a phone booth, one of those lovely old red ones you don’t see much anymore, in the corner of a field—seriously, there were cows in the field that looked as if they were lined up to use it—to tell her I still wasn’t feeling very well, and they should carry on without me for the day. I’d promised to call the next morning, a promise I had no intention of keeping. Had I believed her question, delivered with wide-eyed innocence, about my not receiving her e-mail? I had not. Did I believe the “Wow, we’ve been looking for you everywhere,” from Kenny? Not that, either, no matter how cute he was. Did I even believe they had just met on the ferry? No, again. I had no idea what was going on here, but I knew I didn’t like it.

Willow, of course, had been terribly solicitous when I called. She said she understood completely, that I must rest after such an ordeal, and that they would let me know what progress they’d made when they saw me. She told me they had ordnance maps and were looking for a bay with the right shape, and that Kenny was going to try to do some research on the Internet to narrow their area of search down a little. I told them that was a good idea. Then I drove to Deerness, pulled my car off the road, and went and stood in the hedge.

It was not long before Willow and Kenny, arms around each other, emerged from the house. By the time they’d got the motorcycle out of the garage and put on their helmets, I was back in my car. My car looked very similar to most of the other cars on the road, so I wasn’t too worried about their recognizing it. Soon however, they left the bike and headed along the coast on foot. This made things a little trickier. I had my own ordnance map, and consulted it, trying to figure out where they’d be walking. I decided they were doing what they said they would, which is to say, they were scouring the coastline for a bay with a tower. I parked the car by a church and waited. I figured if they saw me, I’d just have to say that I had changed my mind about coming with them and had seen them leave the B&B. They wouldn’t believe me probably, but then I didn’t believe them either.

About forty-five minutes later, they were back on their bike, heading in the direction of Kirkwall. I followed at what I hoped was a safe distance. They parked in the same lot I had when I’d brought poor Percy back after our hours spent sightseeing, and then they headed for the Internet cafe. Once again they were doing exactly what they said they would, something I found annoying. Had they seen me or was their story absolutely genuine? I simply didn’t know.

They spent an hour in the Internet cafe. By this time I was hungry, having passed on breakfast in the fear my stomach wasn’t up for it. I was casting my eyes about for a quick place to grab a sandwich when they came out of the cafe, Kenny looking at his watch, and started walking quickly toward the main street of town. I followed. They went into a pub in a hotel on the harbor.

Now I didn’t know what to do. To add to my discomfort, it was starting to rain, just a drizzle, really, but I’d get wet enough in time. I could sit outside in a puddle and wait for them to have lunch, I could give up and go to the Alexanders, or I could march into the bar. I could do the wide-eyed innocent routine as well as Willow. I could feign surprise with the best of them. I would ask them if they got my message that I was feeling much better and look pained that they didn’t. I might even go to a phone and leave that message with their innkeeper.

That sounded like such a clever idea, I headed off immediately in search of a public telephone, and found one with no cows to be seen nearby. I just hoped that whoever the person was who took the message wouldn’t note the time exactly. I then stepped into the dim light of the bar. It took me a minute to realize neither Willow nor Kenny was there. Did they have two rooms, one in the hotel and one at the B&B? That seemed excessive, if nothing else. I went to the desk and asked for Willow Laurier, but there was no one there by that name. Unfortunately I only knew her partner as Kenny, so I couldn’t ask for him. I went back into the bar. I noted a back door, and took it on to a side street, a lane, really. They had given me the slip.

Once again I had several choices. I could go back to the parking lot and see if their motorcycle was still there. I could go back to the B&B if it wasn’t and spend some more quality time in the hedge waiting for them to come back. Or, and this was my favored option, I could go and have lunch. I was actually starting to feel a little light-headed, and realized that if I didn’t count dinner—and why would I under the circumstances?—I hadn’t eaten since breakfast the previous day. I wandered down the main street and chose a pleasant looking little cafe. They looked full, but they told me there was an upstairs room. In it I found Kenny and Willow, talking to none other than Lester Campbell, antique dealer from George Square in Glasgow. I had no trouble looking genuinely surprised. They didn’t either.

“Lara!” Willow exclaimed after a moment’s confusion. “You’re here.”

“Hi,” I said. “Am I ever glad to see you. I wondered if that was your motorcycle in the parking lot. And Lester, what an unexpected pleasure!”

“For me as well,” he said, rising from his chair politely, knocking over his water glass in the process. Fortunately there wasn’t much in it, but it gave us all a moment to collect ourselves.

“I left you a message,” I said to Willow. “I slept for a couple of hours after I talked to you and felt much better, but you’d already left when I called.”