The Flatey Enigma (12 page)

A
uthor Árni Sakarías was not listed in the phonebook, so the only way Dagbjartur could meet the man was by going to his house and seeing if he was home. He lived in a small block of apartments, and the main entrance was unlocked. Dagbjartur found his place on the second floor, but the doorbell was broken. As he was knocking on the writer’s door for the fourth time, a neighbor stuck his head out in the corridor and asked the policeman to cut out the racket. He said the author had gone up to the municipal pool for a swim, as he always did at this time of the day.

Dagbjartur found Árni Sakarías in the shallow pool where he was lethargically floating on his back with an inflated black cushion under his head, in the middle of a bunch of kids who were playing in the water. The policeman knew the author by sight; Árni Sakarías was a recognizable figure around the town, tall and chubby, with a shock of hair and a bushy beard.

It took Dagbjartur a few moments to attract the swimmer’s attention. Once he had, he introduced himself and asked, “Are you familiar with some old riddle that’s supposed to be connected to the
Book of Flatey
?”

The shortsighted Árni Sakarías peered at him through the thick and wet lenses of his glasses.

“The Flatey enigma, Aenigma Flateyensis. Yes, young man. I know the story quite well.”

Dagbjartur wasn’t used to being addressed like this anymore, not now that he was well into his forties, even though he looked older, but Árni Sakarías presumably didn’t see too well, even with his glasses. But as it happened, Dagbjartur could still consider himself to be young when he compared himself to this author, who was well into his seventies.

“Mind if I ask you a few questions on the subject?”

The author took one stroke and allowed himself to float on his back again before answering. “Yes, you could certainly do that, but let me get out of the pool first, dry myself, and get dressed. I’m presuming the police will be happy to offer me a cup of coffee at the Austurbaer diner in gratitude for the information I’ll be providing? Might help to trigger off my memory, you see. Useful thing at my age, young man.”

Dagbjartur nodded, and half an hour later there were sitting at a table in the café on Laugavegur. They were the only customers, and Árni Sakarías asked the waitress to bring him the usual. She knew what that was and brought him a pot of coffee, a bread roll, and a Danish pastry. Dagbjartur asked for the same and the bill, which he paid.

As Árni Sakarías relished his pastry, he told Dagbjartur about the Flatey enigma.

“In the late summer of 1871, a group of Icelandic students were on a ship to Copenhagen where they were going to study over the winter. This was on the steamboat
Diana
, which operated as a mail boat to Iceland during those years. An excellent seafaring vessel, I’ve read, with first-and second-class cabins. This was a few years after the
Flatey Book
had come out in print for the first time at the expense of the Norwegian state. Gudbrandur Vigfússon and Unger took care of the publishing, although the book was printed in Oslo, and the last volume was dated 1868. This edition became popular reading material among students in Copenhagen, and there was a copy in the possession of an Icelandic scholar who was a passenger on the mail boat. The students did a lot of things to entertain themselves on the
Diana
during the crossing, including quizzing each other about the stories contained in the
Flatey Book
. There’s a whole gallery of characters that crop up in these stories, of course, and the students varied in their knowledge of them. This was their favorite pastime, though, and they decided to hold a formal quiz the following evening. A young man from the West Fjords, a budding poet and writer who also happened to be on board, was enlisted to set the quiz because he was known for his sound knowledge of ancient literature. He pored over the Oslo edition and by the following evening had completed his task. He hadn’t slept a wink all night and kept himself awake with a bottle of schnapps. He produced a list of forty questions, the last of which depended on you getting the previous thirty-nine questions right. The solution was linked to an incomplete poem, and the right answer was supposed to complete the poem. One letter contained in the answers to each question formed the solution, and the last question revealed how the letters were supposed to be arranged to form it. The writer then proposed that if a solution could not be found to the riddle on this journey, the riddle had to be kept in the
Flatey Book
and could not be removed from it until the solution had been found. A peculiar picture was drawn on the first page, and the legend that developed around it was that it was a magical rune that protected the writer’s instructions. The people of the West Fjords have a reputation for knowing a thing or two about magic. The students brooded over the enigma that evening and tried to piece a solution together. The questions were considered rather odd, and many of them were open to a variety of possible answers that seemed to be based more on taste than logic. But although some of the boys managed to solve some of the questions and to produce thirty-nine letters, none could solve the key to the last question that was meant to complete the poem.”

Once more Árni Sakarías became silent and for a moment stared out the window at the pedestrians on Laugavegur. Dagbjartur waited in a patient silence.

Finally, he resumed his narrative: “A tragic incident then occurred on the boat that night: the writer who had devised the enigma vanished from the ship without anyone noticing. Naturally, there was a great deal of commotion on board, and all interest in the riddle faded. There was one student, however, who held onto the papers and wrote about how the riddle was created, and then thought of taking it home to Flatey, as the poet had said. But that got delayed for some reason. The student died in Copenhagen that winter, and the sheets somehow found their way to the Royal Library. There they were placed in an archive with other material about the
Flatey Book
and were lost for many decades. The story of the Flatey enigma was well known, though, and was recounted in Copenhagen’s student circles from one generation to the next. In the winter of 1935, a keen Icelandic scholar was looking through some material at the Royal Library when he stumbled on the sheets. The Icelander was pushy and insisted that the author’s wishes be respected and the sheets sent to the Flatey library. It took several months to discuss this issue which, to be honest, was made in jest. Now it just so happened that they heard the Flatey library was celebrating its hundredth anniversary in 1936 and that the Munksgaard publishers were going to donate a facsimile copy of the
Flatey Book
, which had been published in 1930. The librarians at the Royal Library saw this as an opportunity to free themselves of the unwelcome document they considered the Flatey enigma to be, and were allowed to stick the sheets into the Munksgaard edition that was on its way to Flatey. The Icelandic scholar was then entrusted with the task of ensuring that this was all done. That smart aleck happened to be me, so I am considered to know more about this enigma than most. I can also be blamed or thanked for the fact that the sheets are now on the island. Someone at some stage wrote
Aenigma Flateyensis
on the sheet of riddles, which, of course, is Latin for the Flatey enigma. That was to harmonize it with the Latin title of the Munksgaard edition of the
Flatey Book
, which is
Codex Flateyensis
. The same person also had a stab at writing the last two lines of the poem, but no one has been able to verify it. So that’s the story of the enigma.”

Árni Sakarías shoved the last piece of Danish pastry into his mouth and poured himself some more coffee.

“So the enigma hasn’t been solved yet?” Dagbjartur asked.

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“Wouldn’t it be possible to solve it without going to Flatey?”

“No, impossible. The key is there and nowhere else. The questions can be found in many places, but the key, which is the rows of letters, is only to be found on the sheet that lies in the Munksgaard edition in the Flatey library. That’s where people have to go if they want to test their solutions.”

“Why hasn’t anyone just copied it?”

“It’s a matter of simple decency. The librarians in the Flatey library have taken good care of the sheets, and those who want to test their answers have to swear they won’t write the key down. There’s also a belief that anyone who breaks the rules will be cursed by a mishap. The fates of the poet and the young student in Copenhagen helped to propagate that myth. It is said that a powerful curse rests on the key to the enigma but that it won’t be unleashed so long as the sheets remain within the four walls of the library.”

“Have many people tried this?”

“No, I don’t think so. Students who are completing their studies in Icelandic philology have been known to go on pilgrimages to Flatey to have a go at it. You have to be pretty well up on the subject to be able to hazard any guesses at the answers. This isn’t a challenge for amateurs.”

“Haven’t you tried to solve the enigma yourself?”

“I just tried it once. The enigma is basically two riddles. I realized that you’ve got to solve the key to the fortieth question first. Without that, there’s no way of verifying the answers to the other thirty-nine questions. I studied that for a while but found no solution.”

“What happens if someone solves the enigma?”

“What happens? Well, nothing really. The winner savors the moment and gets to enjoy some recognition, as well as the admiration and envy of other scholars. I hope it doesn’t happen anytime soon because many people secretly enjoy the failures of these whippersnappers in trying to find the key. Perhaps the enigma is unsolvable. Who knows?”

Question ten: The ice was slippery with…Third letter. The Birkibeins drove the fleet along the ice and killed many because most of them wore studded shoes, whereas the fugitives were on bare soles, and the ice was slippery with blood. The king rode close to them, and his task was to give one spear thrust to every man he attacked, and the Birkibeins then did whatever was necessary to finish them off and kill them. The answer is “blood,” and the third letter is
o.

I
t was late in the day, and the mail boat from Brjánslækur was soon expected to reappear on its way back to Stykkishólmur. Thormódur Krákur arrived towing his handcart up to the doors of the church, where the three men—Grímur, Kjartan, and Högni—were waiting. The moment had come to transport the body down to the pier. Reverend Hannes arrived a short moment later, dressed in his robes. This time he was going to accompany his guest all the way to the ship. Grímur and Högni collected the casket in the church and placed it on the cart. There was also a sealed mail bag on the cart that looked virtually empty. Stína, the postmistress, wanted to take advantage of the trip down to the pier to get the mail onto the ship.

They set off. As had happened the last time the body was transported across the island, the village suddenly seemed deserted again. The inhabitants had all vanished. Kjartan wondered how it was possible for them all to be so synchronized. It was as if an invisible hand had swept over the village, ushering all the locals into their houses at the same time.

But there were two men standing on the embankment by the pass, and they were observing the procession. Kjartan recognized one of them, Benny from Rádagerdi, although he couldn’t make out who the second person was because of the considerable distance.

“Who’s that walking with the boy?” Kjartan nudged Grímur, throwing his head back.

Grímur looked back. “That’s some reporter from Reykjavik. He was well oiled when he arrived on the boat today, and he hasn’t sobered up. He seems to have found a drinking buddy.”

“Do you think he’s going to write something about Professor Lund in the papers?” Kjartan asked.

“He’ll probably have to sleep it off first. I think Sigurbjörn in Svalbardi is going to be putting him up during his stay here.”

The mail boat could be seen approaching from the north of the island, and the pallbearers quickened their pace. There was no point in keeping the boat waiting.

The Ystakot clan—Valdi, old Jón Ferdinand, and little Nonni—were alone on the pier when Thormódur Krákur drew the cart around the corner of the fish factory. The boat was pulling in, and now only one hawser came over the gunwale. The islanders had swift hands. The mail bag was thrown on board, and Reverend Hannes read some text while the other four men lifted the casket off the cart and started lowering it onto the boat. Two crew members then took it, while the heavy-browed skipper observed the proceedings through the bridge window with a pipe in his mouth.

“Who’s paying for the freight then?” one of the sailors, who had grabbed the casket, called out.

All eyes were on Kjartan. “The district magistrate in Patreksfjördur will pay the bill,” he answered after a moment’s hesitation.

Then the boat slipped away from the pier, and Valdi loosened the moorings.

“May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,” Reverend Hannes intoned, winding up his speech and blessing the mail boat with the sign of the cross.

It was as if a weight had lifted from the men’s shoulders as they watched the boat sail south.

Benny and his drinking buddy had observed it all from the corner of the fish factory, but he swiftly turned around and vanished when the funeral cortege returned with an empty cart.

Grímur, the district officer, was in a more cheerful mood and suddenly talkative. Life on the island could get back to normal now. The reasons why Gaston Lund had ended up on Ketilsey were still shrouded in mystery, but that was still a triviality compared to the ordeal of having the corpse of a stranger lying in the church. “Right, lads,” he said, wrapping his arms around Högni and Kjartan, “we’re going to take the evening off now and play whist with my wife, and tomorrow we’ll go to Reverend Hannes’s Whitsunday mass.”

He looked at Kjartan. “I hope you play whist?” he asked.

“Yeah, I suppose I do,” Kjartan answered, smiling for the first time in many days.

A long telegram from the detective force in Reykjavik awaited the district officer when he got back to his house. It provided a detailed rundown of the day’s investigation and contained nothing new, apart from the fact that Gaston Lund probably had a love child in Iceland in 1927, which he had been unwilling to acknowledge. The child’s mother probably bore a grudge against him. Nothing else was known about this family, but the investigation was set to continue. The district officer was asked to look into it.

Question eleven: The severed head that killed a man. Second letter. A meeting was set up between a Scottish earl, Melbrigd Buck-tooth, and Earl Sigurdur to reach a settlement between them. Each earl was to be attended by a retinue of forty men, but Sigurdur got two men to mount each of the forty horses. When Earl Melbrigd saw this, he said to his men, “Earl Sigurdur has dealt us a treacherous hand, for I see two feet on each horse’s side.” A fierce battle ensued, and Earl Melbrigd and all his men were slain. Earl Sigurdur and his men fastened the heads of the dead to their saddle straps as they rode home rejoicing in their triumph. On the homeward ride, Sigurdur was spurring his horse when he hit his leg against a tooth protruding from the fallen Melbrigd’s head, which made a slight incision that soon became swollen and painful, eventually resulting in his death. The answer is “Melbrigd,” and the second letter is
e.