The Orkney Scroll

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 BB 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 BB.

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 BB. 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 BB? 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 BB 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.”

“I’m so glad you’re feeling better,” Willow said.

“This is great, Lara,” the adorable Kenny said, pulling out a chair. “Please join us.”

“I will,” I said. “I’m starving.”

“Good sign,” Willow said. “We seem to have stumbled on the place to be in Kirkwall, Kenny. We went to a pub first, Lara, but it was so dark we decided to try for something else, and we picked this place, and what do you know, here’s Lester. And then you come in, too. I can’t believe it.”

I couldn’t either. “How do you know each other?” I said brightly. Kenny and Willow looked discomfited. It was left to Lester to reply.

“Kenny and I met at the University.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Which one?”

“Glasgow,” Lester said, as simultaneously Kenny offered up Edinburgh. I suppose I looked perplexed.

“Was it Edinburgh, Ken?” Lester said. At least his name was really Kenny apparently, unlike other people I’d met lately. “I suppose it must have been. I give courses at both universities from time to time, and obviously have trouble keeping them apart.”

Didn’t this just strain one’s credulity? “Has to be,” Kenny said. “I’ve never been to Glasgow University.”

“That solves it, then,” Lester said.

“You give courses, Lester?” I said. “You are a man of many talents. Antiques? History?”

“I have made something of a hobby of Viking jewelry,” Lester said. “Nothing to do with the shop, but from time to time I give a lecture or two.”

“He’s being modest,” Kenny said. “He’s a real expert, unlike me who is just trying to be.”

“So you’re talking about…” Willow gave me an almost imperceptible shake of the head, but there was no mistaking her meaning. “Vikings,” I said. “How fascinating. Tell me more.”

“It is,” Willow said. “But how do you and Lester know each other?”

“Fellow antique dealers,” Lester said.

“Yes, we met in Glasgow when I happened upon Lester’s shop. He was kind enough to suggest I attend a rather splendid fund-raiser at a lovely home in Glasgow.”

“I think we’re going to be fellow houseguests this evening, in fact,” Lester said.

“Are we?” I asked.

“You’re staying at the same B B in Stromness?” Willow said. “What a coincidence!”

“Stromness?” Lester said.

Oh, dear. “I received a very nice invitation today,” I said. “I ran into Maya a couple of days ago, and she’s just invited me to stay with them.”

“She told me last night you were coming,” Lester said.

Kenny and Willow looked at me. The tables had somehow been turned here, and I was the one who was under suspicion. I didn’t think that was exactly fair under the circumstances. “I think she must have meant she intended to invite me,” I said. “I was just talking to her this morning.”

“That must have been it,” Lester agreed, but he looked doubtful.

“I see,” Willow said. I expect she did, too, which was too bad, but given I didn’t believe a word she was saying, maybe she shouldn’t believe me either.

“The Alexanders are fabulous hosts,” Lester said. “I know you’ll enjoy it there. I e-mailed Robert a couple of days ago with a photo of a pocket watch I thought he’d love, and he invited me to come for a visit. I never turn down an invitation from the Alexanders.”

“This would be Robert Alexander the entrepreneur, would it?” Kenny said. “The rich guy?”

“One and the same,” Lester said. “They have a wonderful weekend home here.”

“Very nice,” Willow said, but she didn’t mean it. The conversation was a little strained after that, and I didn’t learn anything more of interest. Lester rattled on about antiques and Vikings, Kenny joined in on the Viking stuff, and Willow just picked quietly at her food. I concentrated on eating everything in sight.

“So, are we going to get together tomorrow as planned?” I asked brightly as we left the restaurant.

“Kenny and I were thinking of taking a day off,” Willow said. “Given you’ll be spending time with Lester and your hosts, maybe we should regroup the next day.”

“Fine with me,” I said. “Should I just come to your B B first thing the day after tomorrow? Then we can take my car.”

“Sure,” Willow said, and with that we parted company. I offered Lester a ride to Hoxa, but he declined saying he had some business to attend to in town, some banking or something, and had already rented a car. I went back to the parking lot and waited awhile to see if Willow and Kenny came back. I felt I had to make a better effort at explaining myself, although of course all I’d be doing would be making a lie worse. They didn’t come. I eventually gave up and drove across the Churchill Barriers to St. Margaret’s Hope and Hoxa once more. Or maybe what I was heading for was The Wasteland, the maze, and the wounded king.

My reception at the Alexanders was not quite what I was expecting, although Maya and Robert were waiting for me, and Drever the Intimidating, still in army fatigues, took my bag with exemplary speed. Unfortunately Detective Cusiter was awaiting my arrival as well.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said in his polite Orkney fashion, looking as if he was personally pained by any inconvenience he might be causing. “But I’m afraid I have some more questions. The Alexanders have very graciously said we can use the downstairs study.”

I thought he wanted to ask me about Percy’s last words, but that wasn’t what had brought him to Hoxa. “You were telling us you gave Mr. Budge a ride,” he began.

“I did, yes,” I said.

“You picked him up on the side of the road,” he said, consulting his notes.

“Yes.”

“Not a safe thing to do, really, is it? Pick up a stranger? This is Orkney, of course, but I wouldn’t have thought you as a tourist would want to do something like that.”

“I was sure I’d seen him somewhere,” I said. “I didn’t regard him as a real stranger. And you know he looked kind of harmless. And his bicycle was all bent and everything.”

“Very good of you, I’m sure.” I didn’t like his tone. There was something underneath the politeness there.

“Did you get the message I left about his last words?”

“I did. Unusual.”

“I thought so, too, both at the time, and when I remembered them again. Do you have any idea what that might mean?”

“None at all,” he said. There was a long pause. “I’ll come to the point. We found traces of the victim’s blood in your rental car.”

“Oh! Well, he did grab me, and there was blood everywhere, on my clothes, on my arm. But you knew that.” I was obviously still not firing on all cylinders, because I didn’t immediately fathom where he was going with this. I had not been in that car since just before I’d found Percy.

“On the door side of the passenger seat,” he said, as if I’d said nothing. “You didn’t climb across from the passenger side, did you?”

I was tempted to say I was always trying to get in the passenger side, that and turning on the windshield wipers when I wanted to signal a turn, because I was unaccustomed to right-hand drive. “No. It must be from his bicycle accident, when I gave him a ride. He did have some bad scratches from a barbed wire fence.”

“Hmm,” he said, or something like that. I suppose it did sound a little lame. “Anyone you can think of that would confirm this bicycle accident?”

“His mother? He might have mentioned it to her. The bicycle repair shop? I mean he couldn’t repair it himself. I even wondered if it was a write-off.”

“The blood,” he said. “The cuts and scratches. Did anyone see him in that state?”

“We went to Maeshowe,” I said. “He went into the men’s room at the Historic Scotland center there, so maybe someone would recall that.”

“Hmm,” he said again. “He had a bad fall, cut himself on barbed wire, was bleeding, but you decided to go sightseeing with this complete stranger.”

“We struck up a conversation. It turned out he’d been to Toronto recently, so we talked about that.” There I’d said it. “He pointed out Maeshowe to me and was appalled I didn’t know what it was, and insisted we go to see it. I guess he thought I should know something about his home. Then I said I’d like to see the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness and he very kindly agreed to accompany me, then we went to Skara Brae. He was very knowledgeable, and I assumed this was his way of saying thank you for the lift. I dropped him off in Kirkwall. But why are you asking me this? He wasn’t stabbed in my car. He was stabbed in the bunker.”

“Just part of our investigation,” he said.

I thought about that for a moment. “The glasses,” I said. “You didn’t find the glasses, and that means he was killed somewhere else and transported to that bunker. Am I right? There’d be other things, too, where the blood was and everything.”

He looked a bit startled, but then he almost smiled. “I see a close personal relationship with a policeman has rubbed off on you. You may even know what I’m going to say next.”

“Something about not leaving Orkney anytime soon.”

“Right again. You wouldn’t be thinking of it, would you?

“I guess not,” I said.

“Good. That will be all for now.”

“You can’t possibly think there’d only be a couple of drops of blood in my car if I’d driven him around with all those stab wounds, do you? You think I propped him up in the passenger seat, hauled him up that hill and then down the steps of the bunker and on to that slab?” This was making me cranky.

“I don’t think anything,” he replied. “We’re in the early stages of our investigation. But we believe someone, presumably the person who stabbed him, threw Mr. Budge down the stairs, along with his bicycle, and that Mr. Budge dragged himself across the bunker and up onto the slab.”

“Please, no!” I said, with a catch in my voice. I could hardly tolerate such a terrible thought, and I think it must have showed. I got this horrible idea Percy had crawled up on that slab to get his last look at the setting sun. Ridiculous, but I couldn’t shake it.

“We’ll find whoever did this,” Cusiter said, his expression softening slightly. Then he shook my hand and left.

Despite the welcome, my accommodations at the Alexander residence were definitely a step up, although perhaps not as relaxing as Mrs. Brown’s place. Robert immediately asked me if I played golf. I reluctantly said no, because his homegrown driving range and putting green would be a spectacular place to play. I was given my own little suite, complete with fancy bathroom and a little sitting area off the bedroom with a small sofa, a desk, and a couple of interesting-looking chairs. Still, the fabulous antique furniture, which I promised myself I’d have a closer look at later, took second place to the views: from the bedroom across beautiful countryside to the sea, and from the sitting room, a perfect, unobstructed view of the house across the way. Maya showed me to my room.

“I want you to consider this your home,” she said. “Anything you want, please help yourself. If you can’t find it, just ask. I’ll give you a key so you can come and go as you please. We have a reservation for dinner at a very nice place, and we want you to be our guest. If you feel like coming with us, that’s great. If you’d prefer, I’ll make something up for you here. I know you’ve had a terrible time, and you might just like to rest. I hope that discussion with the policeman wasn’t too upsetting. You looked a little pale when he left.”

“Unpleasant subject,” I said, which was true, especially the part about a dying Percy dragging himself up on to the slab. On top of that, I seemed to have gone from unfortunate tourist to potential killer in the space of a day or two. I wondered if Maya would be as keen on me as a houseguest, going so far as to give me a key, if she’d known that. “I’d like to come with you to dinner.” I didn’t want her to think I was an invalid, because I had things to do, people to see, and I didn’t want her fussing over me the whole time. “I really would like the company. It keeps my mind off what happened. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your exceedingly generous invitation.”

“It was a selfish invitation, if truth be told. I’m very glad of your company, too. Robert is away from the house much of the day when we’re here, and Drever always has chores that take him away for hours. I’m not that comfortable by myself now, what with that murder happening so close by. I’ll be a lot happier when they catch the awful person who did it. I love it here. I just hope this doesn’t spoil the place for me.” I didn’t tell her that Percy might have been murdered somewhere else entirely, because what difference would that make to her? The body had been found just a few minutes drive away. I didn’t think this was a random killing though, a killer just roaming the neighborhood looking for someone to stab. I thought Maya pretty safe and said so.

“I suppose it wasn’t a robbery, or anything,” she said. “A man on his bike can’t be a great target, so I guess I don’t have to worry about a home invasion or anything. It must have been something else, a jilted lover or something. What do you think?”

“I’m sure you’re right,” I said.

“I wish I knew more people here. I’m lonely, really. Robert is, I don’t know, a jealous man. I don’t mean other men. He would have no cause for that. He seems to be content with just the two of us, you know. We don’t have friends as a couple. There are lots of people around, like that evening we did the fund-raiser in Glasgow, but they’re not friends. I haven’t had a close girlfriend since Bev, Robert’s first wife, died. Robert has his business associates, of course, and so he always has people to talk to, but I don’t. So often I’m alone with only Drever. Please don’t tell Robert, but I don’t like Drever much. I sometimes think he considers part of his job to be watching me on Robert’s behalf. Oh my. I’m really running off at the mouth, here, aren’t I? And you’ve had such a dreadful time. I know I’m very fortunate. Anything my little heart desires is mine. Please forgive me. It must all sound terribly selfish.”

“Not at all,” I said. “I appreciate your company very much, and I hope we’ll be friends. I think we are already.”

“You are so nice. If you don’t mind, I might just have a nap before dinner. I haven’t been sleeping that well.”

“A nap sounds good to me, too.”

“Good. We’re leaving at seven-thirty. We have two other guests, Lester whom you know, and there’s someone else as well, Simon Spence, a museum consultant. He’s a friend of both Lester’s and Robert’s.”

“I look forward to it.”

“I meant what I said about staying on longer. Robert can fly his plane back, and I’ll take a regular flight whenever it works for you.”

“Robert has his own plane?”

“He does. He loves to fly, mybe even more than golf. If the weather’s good, he might even take you up in it. Or out in his boat. He does love his toys. See you about six-thirty downstairs for a cocktails.”

I suppose Maya really did have a nap. I, however, borrowed some binoculars—she had, after all, told me to help myself to anything I needed—and turned them on the house across the way. I watched for some time but saw no one, just the wind blowing dried brush around the yard. It was a very dismal spot, all the more so because Orkney seems such an orderly and tidy place. Then for something to do, I turned the binoculars on Robert, who was hitting golf balls, and Drever, who kept working way out of Robert’s range. I decided that Maya was right, and that Drever spent most of his time making sure every blade of grass on the green was perfect. At some point both Robert and Drever walked over the hill toward the sea together, maybe looking for golf balls.

Dinner that evening, in the dining room of the Foveran Hotel in St. Ola was very pleasant. The food was spectacular, the conversation stimulating, although I was not exactly sparkling myself. Lester was amusing, Robert and Maya both generous hosts. Simon Spence, the museum consultant was from Edinburgh, in Orkney on a contract of some kind with Historic Scotland.

I finally managed to work in the question I needed to have answered, which is to say, what is an “orc”? Spence launched into an explanation immediately. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed that “orc” was essentially part of the place name where I found myself, the “orc” in Orkney.

“The Norse called these islands Orkneyjar,” he said. He pronounced it more or less orc-nee-yahr. “That was their interpretation of a much older name for the islands. The Celts referred to the islands in Old Gaelic, as Insi Orc, or ‘Island of the Orcs,” which is to say young pigs or wild boar. Not that we think Gaelic was ever spoken in Orkney, although it’s possible the Picts, who were here a very long time ago, spoke a type of Celtic language. It was not Gaelic, though. When the Norse, or Vikings, arrived in the ninth century, they assumed the name meant Seal Islands, because their word for seal was orkn. Eyjar means ’islands,“ hence Seal Islands. But the name predates the arrival of the Vikings by hundreds and hundreds of years. The Romans knew the islands as the Orcades, for example, and the Romans were long gone by the time the Vikings showed up here. Some believe that the Picts, who were here before the Vikings, took the boar as their symbol, which would explain the name.”

I told him how interesting I thought all this was, and I meant it. Bjarni the Wanderer had hidden the cauldron in the tomb of the pigs or the boar, or maybe the seals. Not that I was any further ahead in actually nailing this down, mind you, but at least I knew what the word meant, and that it was not so far-fetched in this place given the long history. Would Bjarni have thought the tomb held the bones of seals? I suppose it depended when and by whom the line had been written.

“I don’t suppose you could explain why this island is called the Mainland,” Maya said. “Given that it is an island, and what I would call the Mainland would be Scotland proper, the Highlands and such.”

“Corruption of the Norse name for it, Meginland,” Spence said. “Just to make it more confusing, what is now the Mainland may once have been called Hrossey, or Horse Island.” That, too, was interesting, in that it showed that Kenny the Adorable knew what he was talking about, even if that animal on his treasure map was really a camel. “You do all know that you call these islands Orkney and not the Orkneys unless you want to sound like an ignorant tourist.”

“That much we figured out,” Robert said. “And we know it’s the Mainland, not just Mainland, as in we are touring around the Mainland.”

“That is correct,” Spence said. “Always good to call a place by the name preferred by those who live there.”

“So the names are essentially Scandinavian, not Gaelic or whatever?” Lester asked.

“True. Norn, a Norse language was spoken here for almost a thousand years. It was supplanted by English, not Gaelic. The last official Norn document dates to the middle of the fifteenth century. Scottish earls replaced the Norse jarls, and Orkney became more Scottish than Scandinavian, although I can tell you people here are proud of their Norse heritage, and most place names here are of Norse origin. I understand that there were elderly people who still spoke Norn in the early nineteenth century, but the language died with them. Nobody speaks it now, and even then nobody read it. It essentially had gone out of common usage in the seventeenth century.” That information, too, was interesting, and would later prove, although I didn’t realize it at the time, to be very useful.

“What about Viking runes?” I asked. “I saw some in Maeshowe.”

“Yes, there are several examples of runic inscriptions here. It’s an early Germanic writing system, once used for magical purposes, but it was in use as a general communication for some time.”

“So people here could once write something in runes.”

“Certainly. That’s why we get all those runic inscriptions in Maeshowe and other places here. They are not magical inscriptions though. Instead they are about rather lusty encounters of the secular kind.”

“Didn’t the runes say there was treasure there?” Maya asked.

“Yes, indeed. And there may have been. Unfortunately it was long gone by the time archaeologists arrived. There are some runic inscriptions right in the tomb that say the treasure was removed over three days by Hakon. The runes make it clear that the tomb was definitely well-known to the Vikings. In the Orkneyinga Saga there is a story about Harald Maddadarson of Atholl who tried a surprise attack on Orkney while Orkney Earl Rognvald was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Maddadarson got caught in a bad storm and took shelter in Maeshowe, only to have two of his men go crazy while there.”

“Seriously?” I said.

“Who knows? It was a tomb after all. Maybe this was the Viking equivalent of staying in a cemetery overnight for us, and they scared themselves right over the edge. It’s a good story in any event.”

“I have another question, Simon,” Maya said. “I’m sure I should know the answer, but what exactly did St. Margaret hope for?”

Simon laughed. “Hope is a word for a cove or bay. There are two possibilities for St. Margaret, one being Margaret, the saint and queen of Scotland, the other the very young daughter of the king of Norway who died in the late thirteenth century when she was on her way to be wed to the English Prince Edward. She was only seven or something, unpleasant thought. I opt for the former.”

“I wish I hadn’t asked,” Maya said. “I prefer ‘hope’ as in ‘hopeful’.” I thought that was true, too, but especially for Maya, who seemed chronically hopeful, yet destined to be disappointed in some way I couldn’t explain.

This had all been very interesting. I didn’t know what to think about it all, insofar as mad Bjarni was concerned, but it did say that poor Percy’s last words were not without precedent, except, of course, for the chalice part. What if, and this was a revolutionary thought, the skeptic, by which I meant me, was wrong and the dreamers like Willow and Kenny and possibly Percy, and even the con man looking for his big windfall, which is to say Trevor, had been right and there really was something to this Bjarni business? I tried to put such a ridiculous thought out of my head.

There was another important moment that evening, the full significance of which would not be apparent to me for a while. Maya was wearing the necklace I had coveted that evening at her home in Glasgow. We were standing in the hallway waiting for the gentlemen to join us to leave for home, and, really just making conversation, I told her I could not understand why it was around her neck and not mine. She laughed, and insisted I try it on.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Maya said. “I’d like to be more appreciative when Robert gives me these things, and just to be able to discuss his passion for antiques with him. He gave me the necklace on Valentine’s Day a couple of years ago, and I love it. It’s my favorite; simple, you know, but I always feel elegant when I wear it. I do adore it.”

“You should. It looks wonderful on you. I saw a very similar one a couple of years ago. Someone was thinking about buying it for his wife. That one was Liberty and Company. This one is, too,” I added, turning it over to check it out.

“It’s about a hundred years old.” I tried it on and admired myself in the hall mirror.

“All I know is that I like it. I’ll confess something, though. I’m afraid to wear it, although I do because I know Robert would be hurt if I didn’t. Quite by accident I found the bill for it. Okay, I’ll be honest. I was snooping. I was afraid he was giving me something that had belonged to Bev, you know, his first wife. We were very close friends, but, you know, I just didn’t want to have her jewelry. But he bought it just a short time before Valentine’s Day. I was relieved until I realized that he’d paid about a hundred thousand dollars for it. I was horrified.”

“Wow,” I said. I meant it, too. I wouldn’t have let anyone I knew pay a dime over ten thousand, maybe fifteen thousand tops. I would have thought Robert would be more discerning. There were several possible explanations for the rather startling figure. Perhaps it was simply that Maya needed glasses or that she’d been into the champagne to the extent that an extra zero appeared before her eyes, although I hadn’t seen any indication here that she drank too much. She had a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, and she certainly wasn’t even remotely sloshed when I found her in the garden. That evening in Glasgow could well have been an anomaly. She was essentially shy, and maybe having all those strangers in her home was a little too much for her. The third, less palatable option was that Robert had someone else for whom he was buying extraordinarily expensive necklaces, and Maya had merely assumed the invoice was for hers. I’m always a bit suspicious of the “darling this” and “darling that” type, but he did genuinely seem to adore her.

“Horrified by what, darling?” Robert said, coming up and putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“We’re just sharing a girl story. By the way, Lara has been telling me all about the necklace you gave me,” she said. “She saw one very similar in Toronto. She says it’s a hundred years old.”

“I expect it is, darling.”

“You spoil me, Robert.”

“And why wouldn’t I, darling?”

At this point, I had taken the necklace off and was looking at it very carefully. It was remarkably similar to what I remembered about the piece Blair Bazillionaire had asked me to look at. I suppose one couldn’t be entirely certain at a distance of a couple of years, but really, the stones were the same, and the chain, which was rather distinctive, particularly the medallions of mother-of-pearl, was what I remembered as well. I really would not have thought there would be two of these. I handed it back with a smile, though, and told her I was envious. If Blair had bought one like it, I sure hoped he hadn’t paid what Robert had.

Later that night when all the lights were out in the house, at least all that I could see, I once again turned my binoculars on The Wasteland from the dark window of the sitting room off my bedroom. No light shone anywhere in the old house, although given the late hour that didn’t mean anything. There were, however, lights farther out, past the driving range. It could have been a boat of some kind, or just someone walking along the shore. As nice as the place was, I didn’t think I’d want to be out there by myself.

As I turned to go back to bed in the dark, I banged against a chair and heard something fall to the ground. I turned on the light, and reached to pick up a magazine that had fallen off the side table. It was then I noticed, really noticed, the chair. It was a rather unusual carved wood piece, probably by Antoni Gaudi. It looked very similar to one I had helped Blair Bazillionaire purchase, one that had once held pride of place in the holy of holies alcove in his home. We had bought it for tens of thousands less than the going rate because of a tiny cigarette burn on the seat. I tipped the lampshade up and had a really good look. It wasn’t similar to Blair’s chair, it was identical, right down to the tiny cigarette burn on the seat. I sat and looked at that chair for a very long time.