The Orkney Scroll (23 page)

“You’re going to think I’m crazy, but please hear me out. I’m here because someone I knew only briefly, but rather liked, has died, and his last words to me were the words I just recited to you, the ones about Bjarni the Wanderer. I told the police what he said, and they have ignored it. He died violently, and I think if I could understand those words I might know what happened to him.”

“The man in the bunker?”

“Yes.”

“And you came to me because… ?”

I didn’t want to say that his house made me think of The Wasteland, and he of the wounded king. Worse than preposterous, it was rather insulting. “The man who died thought this place was significant to his quest.”

Haraldsson harrumphed. “I suppose he was correct in that thinking.” The younger man beside him giggled again. I looked more closely and could see Thor was what we would call developmentally challenged. “Thor, don’t you worry,” Haraldsson told him. “This young woman is not going to hurt me. You just wheel me into the parlor, and then you should either go out to your workshop or watch the telly while I talk to our guest. There are cartoons on now, and you’ll enjoy them.” Thor smiled and did as he was bidden, pushing the older man into a rather sparsely furnished room and gesturing to me to follow. One of the dogs left with Thor, the other lay at Sigurd’s feet, and soon I could hear the noise of cartoons coming from a room toward the back of the house. Now that they had stopped barking frantically, the dogs seemed pretty harmless. They were similar, except that one had a white face, and they were both of indeterminate parentage.

“I’d really appreciate it if you could tell me about this Bjarni,” I said. “I am at a loss as to where to go with this one.” It hadn’t yet been suggested that I should sit down, so I figured I was still on probation, but at least I’d made it past the front hall. There was only one armchair in the room, and a rather uncomfortable-looking settee. It didn’t look as if they had company very often.

“Rather brave of you to come in here. Most people are afraid of me,” Sigurd said.

“I guess I’m desperate. The police have me on their list of suspects in the killing.”

He nodded slowly. “That must be unpleasant.”

“It is. I’m also on the list of suspects in the robbery of some jewelry of Mrs. Alexander’s. I didn’t do that, either.”

“I believe I am on the list of suspects for that theft as well, or rather Thor is. You may have gathered neither he nor I are capable of such a thing. Or rather, if Thor took it, he wouldn’t have any concept of the nature of what he had done. But he was with me no matter what those people across the way have to say. What exactly are you expecting me to do about these problems of yours?” His tone was belligerent and quite unwelcoming.

“I would just like to know what this Bjarni the Wanderer business is all about. That is all. If that is too much trouble, then…” I turned toward the door.

“Oh, sit down. You don’t strike me as the kind of young woman who murders people or steals jewelry, either, I’ll give you that. I suppose you want a cup of tea in addition to sympathy.”

“No tea, thanks, but you go ahead. I do have a bottle of Highland Park Single Malt,” I said. “I’d be happy to share it.”

“Twelve- or eighteen-year-old?” he said.

“Eighteen.”

“The glasses are in the cupboard above the sink in the kitchen.” I got them and poured, and after a sip or two he began. “You might as well make yourself comfortable. This is going to take some time. I don’t want any interruptions, do you understand?”

“Were you a school teacher?” Sigurd reminded me very much of my grade seven math teacher, Mr. Postlethwaite, of whom I had been terrified, and probably still would be should I ever run in to him on the street.

He glared at me. “What is that supposed to mean, young woman?”

“You know, I’m not all that young any more. Why don’t you call me Lara.”

“I’m eighty-nine. Everybody is young to me. Yes, I was a school teacher. It was a long time ago. I’ve been retired twenty-nine years. I would have liked to go on with it, but my health took a turn for the worse. Are you going to listen :o this or not?” I shut up. His tale began. “You’re not the only person lured by the words, ”Before he went mad, Bjarni the Wanderer hid the cauldron in the tomb of the orcs.“ It’s an intriguing declaration to be sure, one that requires more than a little explication, and in some ways an irritating way to put finis to a story. For some, though, it is a beginning rather than an end, a statement of such promise that hopes and dreams are pinned on it, as if believing would make it so. To decide whether you come down on the side of the dreamers or the skeptics, or rather somewhere in between, you will have to go back to the beginning, and that means more than nine hundred years…”

It took some time all right, but it was a fascinating story. Bjarni the Wanderer was a Viking, putative founder of Sigurd Haraldsson’s family, who lived in Orkney a very long time ago. This Bjarni the Wanderer, whose name was really Bjarni Haraldsson, got caught up in a political feud, backed the wrong side, and had to leave home, embarking on a journey of thousands of miles and several years’ duration, hence his moniker “the Wanderer,” during which he experienced any number of adventures, some more plausible than others. The saga ended with the words that I had come to know so well, about how before Bjarni went mad, he hid the cauldron in the tomb of the orcs.

Haraldsson told it straight through, stopping only to take a sip now and then from the tumbler of scotch, which I refilled when necessary. I didn’t dare ask any questions until he was finished, as if my asking them would break his concentration and he would lose the thread of his story, and so I just sat there quietly as the light coming through the window dimmed, and the room grew cooler as night rolled in. It made me think he had memorized the story word for word, which maybe he had. I felt as if I were sitting around a campfire very long ago, hearing an elder tell the story of our people, enjoining us not to forget our history, to memorize the story exactly as it was told.

At last he took a deep breath. “The last line of the saga is this: ‘Before he went mad, Bjarni the Wanderer hid the cauldron in the tomb of the orcs.” “

My opportunity to ask questions began. I felt as if I should put my hand up to get permission to ask them. “You believe this story is true? I know you said it wasn’t inconsistent with the facts, but do you believe it?”

“I’m afraid I do. Perhaps I should clarify that. I think there really was someone by the name of Bjarni the Wanderer who traveled where and when he said he did. There is precedent for Vikings taking the route he did. Do I think some of it is exaggerated? Yes, I do. I think the part about the caliph of Muslim Spain is a later addition. Probably Bjarni was in Spain, but he never saw the caliph. Still, I believe there is a great deal of truth in Bjarni’s saga. Most of the sagas of this type have at least some real history in them. Even legends often have a kernel of history in them.”

“And the part about finding a cauldron and hiding it in the tomb of the orcs?”

“I believe it to be possible.”

“Have you ever tried to
get
an expert opinion on Bjarni’s saga?”

“I have, and I’m sure I’m not the only member of my family to do so over the years. I know my grandfather did. Most recently I talked to some fellow by the name of Spence, Simon Spence. He’s supposed to be some kind of expert.”

“I’ve met him. He’s staying with the Alexanders, next door. He struck me as pretty knowledgeable. What did he say?”

“The Alexanders! I can’t stand people who don’t like animals. They poisoned Bjarni, you know. I can’t prove it, but I know that fellow who likes to pretend he’s still in the army, that Drever whatever his name is, did it.”

I had this awful thought that this old man was crazy, thinking the neighbors had killed someone who’d lived, or maybe not, a thousand years earlier. “Bjarni?” I said.

“My dog. That’s why we keep the dogs inside now, here in the house or with Thor in the barn. We used to have three, now we just have Oddi and Svein. Oddi’s the one with the white face. I see you’re surprised. If you had three male dogs from a litter and you were me, knowing what you do about my family, what would you call them?”

“Probably Bjarni, Oddi, and Svein. That’s terrible, though, poisoning your dog.”

“They didn’t take to my dog relieving himself on that ridiculous golf green, I suppose, nor did they like Thor coming to get the dog, either.”

“Maya Alexander is a bit frightened of your dogs.”

“How intimidating do you find them now that you’ve been introduced?”

“Not very.”

“Exactly. I drove over and tried to discuss the problem. We used to have a good relationship with Alexander. Thor even did some work for him, but Drever’s there now, and he was abusive. He told me to keep my dogs and ‘that retard’ off the Alexander property. I tried, but the next time Bjarni got out and went over there, he died that same night.”

“That retard? What a terrible thing to say.”

“It is. Thor is a very gentle person, and he has many skills, even if he is at a disadvantage in some ways.” He was quiet for a minute or two, before continuing. “Show me the manuscript.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“That’s what that fellow Spence said: ‘Show me the manuscript.” “

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that a copy of it, in English, indeed a copy of a copy of a copy was interesting but essentially useless. The manuscript itself would be absolutely priceless. However, we don’t know where the original went. It may simply have disintegrated. Instead we passed along the translation over the centuries. Spence said that it would be extraordinary to have, if it existed. You may not be aware that the Orkneyinga saga, whilst about the earls of Orkney, was written in Iceland. Many of the famous Viking sagas were written there, the
Heimskringla,
the history of the kings of Norway, also Icelandic, not from Norway. It is the same with the
Knytlinga
saga, the history of the kings of Denmark. So we don’t have an Orkney saga actually told by an Orkney man, and written here. Bjarni’s saga would be extraordinary, if we had it.”

“Spence wasn’t interested at all?”

“He was polite. I think he wanted to believe it and he enjoyed the story. I can understand his point of view. We have nothing to show him except a stack of lined notebooks where children have practiced their handwriting. Perhaps if we’d been able to find this tomb of the orcs, particularly if there was still treasure in it, specifically a cauldron, that might lend some credence to the story, I suppose. But we’ve tried and failed many, many times.”

“You call this a cauldron. When I heard it, it was a chalice.”

“I’m more perplexed by the idea that someone outside the family would utter the words as they lay dying. I think, though, the correct word would be cauldron, although who knows? Cauldrons were very common in Viking times. They were used for cooking. On sea voyages, when they could spend time on shore, they would use them to cook meat and potatoes for the crew, so Bjarni would have started out with one, although that is not the point of the story.

You get the idea that Bjarni’s cauldron was different. There are many instances of magic cauldrons in mythology. The Irish have the cauldron of the god known as the Dagda, a cauldron that is never empty no matter how much food you take from it. The Northern European god Thor sought cauldrons for the feasts of his fellow deities, and the Irish Bran had one, too. It is my understanding that cauldrons were used in Iron Age rituals. They have been found in bogs and so on where they were probably thrown as part of some ceremony or sacrifice. And reading between the lines in Bjarni’s story, he does seem to have come across some ritualistic rather cult-like behavior. So I’d say cauldron. They were called
graal,
actually, these cauldrons.“

“What are the chances of this cauldron’s having survived all this time anyway?”

“Better than average, which is still not terribly good. Most of Scotland has very acidic soil, so artifacts don’t last long, but here we have a lot of shell sand, so chances are rather better.”

“For some reason I thought this was about furniture,” I said. “And now it’s about a pot, or a medieval manuscript, I should say. I don’t want to belittle it. It’s just not what I expected.”

“Why did you think it was about furniture?”

“I was looking for a Charles Rennie Mackintosh writing cabinet, or maybe two of them. It’s a long story and I won’t get into it. The short version is that someone showed me a photograph of an older woman standing in front of this piece of furniture, and this person later quoted the line about the tomb of the orcs as he died. I thought he and I were both looking for the same piece of furniture. I really don’t know what I’m going on about. I just can’t take all of this in right at this moment.”

“You said a photo of a woman standing in front of a writing cabinet?”

“Yes, but don’t worry about it.”

“Get me the photo album overby, will you?” he said, waving his arm in an indeterminate direction, but more or less toward the back.

“Overby?”

“My apologies. I should have said throughby. On the desk. It’s moved.”