The Orkney Scroll (26 page)

The question was where to start. The Haraldssons and Percy seemed to me to be inextricably linked by one Bjarni the Wanderer, fictional character or real historical person it mattered not. The Haraldssons were the keepers of Bjarni’s saga, just as the wounded king was guardian of the Grail. The saga told the story of a cauldron of obviously great beauty, and at the time much significance, and part of that saga was a scroll that might or might not point in the direction of the hiding place of that cauldron, something called the tomb of the orcs.

Percy was not looking for a Viking cauldron. He was looking for the Holy Grail. Somehow the cauldron and the Grail were one and the same in Percy’s mind. It was possible, too, I suppose. I knew just enough about the Grail legends to know that people believed the Grail existed, and that the quest for it was tied to Arthurian legend. The Grail was supposed to be somewhere in the British Isles, and at one time had no association with what we now know as The Holy Grail. It was a magic cauldron pure and simple. It didn’t matter if Percy was confusing two different objects or even mythologies. Percy had shown me a photograph that I thought was of a piece of furniture, but was really a photograph of the scroll. He had come all the way to Canada to try to find it, so clearly it was important. Airfare wasn’t cheap, and Percy wasn’t rich.

Trevor Wylie had somehow come into possession of that scroll. Willow had found it amongst his belongings when he died. He got it legally or otherwise, when he purchased the furniture. Had the nice woman in the photograph, the one with dementia, simply given it to him not realizing what she was doing? Did he just take it off the wall at the same time he talked her out of the furniture? I wouldn’t put it past him. It didn’t matter really. Both Trevor and Sigurd’s wife were dead. The important questions right now were why would Trevor take it? Was it just because it looked a little bit old and was there to be taken or was Willow correct in saying that Trevor was off to hunt for treasure? If the latter, what would make him think it was a treasure map? Was he a Viking expert, too? And how had Percy known about the scroll?

When I thought about it, though, I knew how Percy had seen it. He had gone to get the Mackintosh furniture, real or otherwise, I couldn’t tell from the photograph, for Trevor. I couldn’t prove it at this moment, but I was willing to bet that there’d be an invoice from an Orkney mover in Trevor’s files, and that mover would have been Percy’s employer. I was so busy looking for something that could be the Mackintosh, both of them, that I hadn’t worried about who had transported and shipped it. But why had Percy come looking for the scroll, if indeed that was what he had been looking for? How could he have any idea as to its significance in the tale of Bjarni the Wanderer? It could still have been the cabinet he was looking for. He never said that it wasn’t that I could recall. No matter which way I turned, the furniture and the scroll and therefore two murders kept intersecting in a way I did not understand.

For the sake of argument, I assumed Percy had seen the scroll, framed on the wall above the cabinet. How did he know what it was? In a way, I suppose, it didn’t matter. No matter how he’d seen the scroll, I thought it very possible that Percy had found not just a cauldron, but
the
cauldron. And then Percy had been killed. Had he been killed in the tomb of the orcs? Was that why the police could find no trace of the initial scene of the crime? And if so, where was this tomb? If Percy could find it, so could I. I had seen him cycle by the Alexanders’ place the day before he died. I think I would have noticed if he had a cauldron on his handlebars. He had come home that day with it, though. At least that is what Emily said, and she now seemed to be completely alert. So he had found it somewhere later that day, and my guess was Hoxa. It fit with Bjarni’s saga and also with Percy’s one known location that day. Did people get killed because they were looking for the Holy Grail? Surely not. Did this mean this was still about a piece of furniture? A hugely expensive piece of furniture, that is.

The day he had died, and I had forgotten this, I had seen Willow and Kenny go by on Kenny’s motorcycle. They were heading for Hoxa. I hadn’t seen them later. They were liars, but were they murderers, too? Did they kill Percy because he found the tomb of the orcs and the treasure before they did? Did they try to torture him into telling them where it was? I felt sick.

And Lester: where did he fit in all this? Friend and dealer to the magnificent Alexanders, he had shown up on Orkney and just happened to run into Kenny and Willow, had he? When I’d asked how they knew each other, one had said Glasgow University, the other Edinburgh. I guess they hadn’t had time to get their story straight when I came upon them in that restaurant. Yes, Orkney, at least the Mainland was a small place, but was their meeting just too much of a coincidence?

I was coming to realize that I had too many questions, and that I had missed an opportunity to get answers to at least some of them. Like Perceval, I hadn’t asked the right question at the right moment. But unlike Perceval, I thought I might get a second chance. First, though, I was going to keep my promise to Sigurd Haraldsson.

What had started out as drizzle was now a gathering storm. Some of the darkest clouds I’ve ever seen sat poised on the horizon, and the wind was beginning to howl. It was, as one of Emily’s neighbors put it, “a peedie bit of a puff.” The water on the roads swirled in little eddies ahead of me. I was heading for Willow’s B&B when I saw Kenny’s motorcycle in front of the Quoyburray Inn. They were seated once again in a corner of the bar. Celtic music was blaring through the sound system. They didn’t look that happy to see me. I didn’t waste any time with small talk.

“I’ve come to get the scroll. You have to give it back to its rightful owner. It’s not yours. Trevor stole it. The true owner isn’t going to look for the treasure. He gave up on that long ago, and even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to do it. He says you are welcome to take a copy of it, and look as long as you like. But you really do have to give it back to him.”

“How do you know Trevor didn’t buy it?” Willow demanded.

“Because I know it wasn’t for sale.” That was true, but it was still possible that Sigurd’s wife had simply given it away, a bit of information I considered unnecessary for the purposes of this conversation.

“We don’t have it with us.”

“Then go and get it. I’ll even come back with you to pick it up.”

“Why should we believe you are going to give it to its rightful owner? Would it surprise you to know that Kenny and I don’t find you particularly trustworthy, Lara?” Willow said. “How do we know you won’t take it for yourself, because you know there is some secret code in the lining or something that will lead you to the treasure? You have not been open and honest with us.”

“Stop right there, Willow. Don’t you talk to me about honesty and trust. I told you I was coming to Orkney and that is exactly what I did. You, on the other hand, didn’t bother to tell me you were coming here. Please don’t lie to me again about the e-mail. I don’t believe that, nor do I believe you were looking for me either. You could have found me if you wanted to. Heaven knows you passed me on the highway often enough. You uncovered what you thought was a treasure map and decided to find it for yourself. I do not give two hoots about your treasure, believe me. I do care about some people here who are either dead, or in desperate straits.”

“I meant to send an e-mail,” Willow said. “I don’t know. I got so excited about this treasure map…”

“As for you, Kenny,” I said, ignoring her. “I’m wondering what your surname is, and what your true relationship to this whole issue might be. Because it has just occurred to me as I look at you, Kenny, that you bear a certain resemblance to one Trevor Wylie. You wouldn’t happen to be a relative, would you?”

Kenny blushed and nodded. “Cousin,” he said, hanging his head. “Sorry.”

“It’s just so easy to forget to mention little details like that, isn’t it? You know, I found it difficult to believe that the two of you met on the ferry, and that Willow, you would just immediately tell this stranger all about the treasure. I suppose you and Trevor stayed in touch over the years since he left Orkney, right, Kenny?”

Kenny nodded again. The proverbial cat had apparently got his tongue.

“But…” Willow said.

“Shut up. Let me tell you both something. I have your precious cauldron. What I don’t have is the location of the tomb, and I want to find it because the person who uncovered the cauldron died the day after he found it. People here think I’m going to believe a whole bunch of coincidences, for example the one in which you just happen to run into Lester in Kirkwall, but this coincidence, and someone dying the day after he finds a treasure, doesn’t wash with me.

“But…”

“So this is what is going to happen. This afternoon we are all going to a place I like to call The Wasteland. You are going to bring the scroll with you and you will meet the man who owns your cute little treasure map, a man whose family has kept Bjarni the Wanderer’s story alive for hundreds of years. He’s a disabled World War Two veteran, and he’s eighty-nine years old. He is trying to look after his son who is also disabled, albeit in a different way. He will tell you the story of Bjarni the Wanderer if you let him. And then I am going to show him the cauldron, explain about the woman I have borrowed it from, and you are going to give back that scroll. If you don’t, I’m going to the police to tell them you possess stolen property. Do not delude yourself into thinking that I won’t. Here is the map to The Wasteland. Be there at five o’clock or else.”

“But…” Willow protested again.

“Don’t say one more word to me. I am completely disgusted with you. You are as bad as Trevor ever was. And by the way, it is a camel.” Then I stomped out of the place, slamming the door so hard I rattled the windows. It was not my finest hour, but I was far too angry to care. I didn’t even bother to wave to Drever the Scary, who clearly had learned tracking skills in the army, as I left. Maya said she thought Drever was always watching her. I knew for certain he was spying on me, and right now he was going to have to hurry to keep up with me.

Chapter 11

By the time Bjarni and Svein landed in Orkney, they had been away for six or seven years. You would think Bjarni would be happy to learn that his magic spell had worked, that Earl Einar was dead, the young Earl, Thorfinn, now ruling Orkney. But the changes in the world at large were none compared to those in his own small ambit, at least as far as Bjarni was concerned. Frakokk, thinking him dead after all this time, had married again, a farmer from Rousay. Bjarni’s sons, now strapping youths, did not remember him, and his lands had been dispersed to others. Oddi was gone, of course, never to return to Orkney. A church had been built and all attended, and the men were not inclined to go raiding anymore. There were still Vikings who would fight, and who still went raiding in England, but 1066 was not that far off, when at the Battle of Stamford Bridge an army of Vikings under Harald Hardrada fell to the Anglo-Saxon king Harald Godwinson, who was defeated in turn at the Battle of Hastings by the Norman and a descendant of Vikings himself, William the Conqueror. The Viking Age was coming to a close.

Bjarni did what many of us would do under the circumstances. He drank himself into insensibility. The drink just made him belligerent, and he decided to trick and then kill his wife’s new husband, in order to win her and his lands back. He’d brought her silks from Constantinople and jewels from Baghdad, but she would have none of it. Bjarni tried to lure the farmer, whose name was Kali to a broch on South Ronaldsay where Thorfinn Skull-Splitter, Earl of Orkney, was said to be buried. He told Kali that he knew of treasure hidden in an ancient tomb nearby, the one known as the tomb of the orcs: gold and silver arm rings, cloak brooches, the finest of swords, and of course, there was the lure of the silver cauldron that many had seen and wondered at. That night, Bjarni armed with his Viking axe and knife, and with the silver cauldron with him for safekeeping, hid near the broch and waited for Kali to appear.

Unbenownst to Bjarni, some kin of Kali’s heard of the plot and warned the man. Kali was all for confronting Bjarni but Frakokk wouldn’t allow it, and so Kali stayed home with his eye on the door lest Bjarni, thwarted in his plan, come to get him. But Bjarni never did.

I had no trouble finding the Howe of Hoxa on my map, the place where Thorfinn Skull-Splitter is supposed to be buried. It was not that far from where I was, drying out in my little sitting room at the Alexanders. Sigurd’s grandfather had chosen the site for his castle well. If indeed there was a tomb of the orcs, then it should be nearby. Sigurd had been surprised by Kenny’s idea that the swirls on the bottom of the scroll represented a section of coastline. I thought of all the tombs into which I’d slithered with Percy and later. I could see how they would get lost in the landscape. The terrain was rolling hills, and after many thousands of years, the tombs would just be grassed over. They were still turning up. One had turned up on a dairy farm and not that long ago. There might still be a tomb of the orcs to be found.