The Orkney Scroll

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.

So where was it? I looked toward the sea from my window, but the fog had rolled in, and if there were a shoreline there, you wouldn’t know it right at that moment. I left a note for Lester, and then headed out once again for The Wasteland. I wanted to be there good and early.

There was no answer to my ring at the house. There were also no barking dogs. The van was out front, so that pretty much meant they had to be home. Maybe Sigurd was having a rest. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to me, but he might if he knew why I was there. I slid a note I’d written in my room through the mail slot. It informed him that I had told the people who had the scroll to come to the house at five. I sincerely hoped Sigurd was there, and that he’d get the note very soon. It was twenty to five. There was no sign of Willow and Kenny.

I thought I could see a light in the barn through the gloom and wondered if Thor might be there. The wind was really howling as I made my way along a muddy path toward it. I pushed the door open and stepped in. The barking started the moment I touched the door handle. I stood still as Oddi and Svein circled for a moment, but they seemed to remember me, and quickly went back into the gloom. “Thor? Are you in here? It’s Lara. Remember me?” There was no sound, but I was almost certain he was hiding. I flipped a switch by the door.

Thor was nowhere to be seen. What there was to see, however, almost made me laugh out loud. It seemed to me that ever since I’d left home, when I was looking for furniture I found something about a tomb. Now I was looking for a tomb, and what had I found? Nothing less than the source of the furniture that had started this whole business! Before me was revealed a workshop, or perhaps more accurately an artist’s studio. Sketches and designs were pinned to the beams, and the wonderful smell of fresh wood permeated the space.

Looking around I realized that I, like Sir Perceval, Knight of the Round Table, had failed to ask the right question the first time I’d come. I had not asked about the writing cabinet in the photograph, so entranced had I been by Bjarni’s saga, the scroll, and the possibilities they presented. I did not ask whence the cabinet in the photograph came; I did not ask where it went. But standing here I now knew who had made it. Thor may not have had many advantages, as far as raw intelligence went, but he made some of the most beautiful furniture I have ever seen, each piece made by hand, every joint cut to fit perfectly, every surface so beautifully planed and sanded and polished it felt like silk to my touch. I had thought I had come to Orkney looking for a forger, but I had found instead a master craftsman, someone inadvertently, I was certain, drawn into the murky world of art and antiquities fraud. I had not asked if Sigurd Haraldsson knew Trevor Wylie.

Thor had been working on a beautiful piece of furniture. The specs and drawings were pinned above his workbench. He was making a Mackintosh writing cabinet. I guess he’d sold the one he’d made earlier, and he was going to make another for the house or perhaps to sell. If it weren’t for the fact that Trevor was murdered, it would have been funny.

“This is wonderful, Thor,” I said loudly, hoping he could hear me. “Yours is some of the most beautiful cabinetwork I have ever seen. You should be very proud of it.” It was possible I heard the tiniest creak in the loft. “I know Trevor Wylie liked it, too.”

Now I had another question. Where had Thor gotten the copy of the specs for the writing cabinet? The owner of the original, of course, but who would that be? An answer to all my questions was rapidly forming. I would have liked to talk to Thor, although I wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer my questions, and in any event, my heartfelt compliments met no response. “Thor,” I called out again. “I’m going up to the house to talk to your father. I have asked the people who have your family’s scroll to bring it back. They’ll be here in a few minutes. I’d really like to talk to you about your wonderful furniture later.” I looked at my watch. It was ten to five. There was still no response from Thor, although I remained convinced he was there, and when I went outside, there was no sign of Willow and Kenny either. My threat about reporting them to the police as the recipients of stolen goods had been just that, a threat. If they didn’t show up, I didn’t know what I was going to do.

I started toward the house, now thoroughly drenched and cold. I decided I was going to have to lean on the bell until Sigurd opened the door again. As I dashed through the rain, I looked down toward the shore, and in the fog thought I saw someone making their way along in front of the Alexanders’ place. I wondered if I’d been wrong about Thor being in the barn, and that instead he was out walking. Or could it be Willow or Kenny? Their motorcycle was nowhere to be seen. The figure vanished into the mist. I followed, cutting through the hedge that separated Sigurd’s place from the Alexanders‘. The shadowy figure was gone.

From my vantage point I scanned the area. In such treeless terrain it was difficult to hide, let alone disappear. Still no one. Where had that person gone?

I was about to return to Haraldsson’s house to wait for Willow and Kenny when the mist cleared a little by the water. I stared at it for a minute, then began rummaging in my bag for the scribbles I’d taken from Percy’s room. The rain tore at the paper the minute I opened it, and with water in my eyes, I was having trouble seeing it very well, but I held it up as best I could, and looked back at the shoreline. It was difficult to tell, but I thought perhaps Percy had been scribbling this shoreline. I walked a little farther across the Alexanders’ property in the general direction of Robert’s putting green and driving range. It was a work of art, really, ridiculous though it might be. It seemed to me it would have been easier to go to a real golf course, but that obviously wasn’t Robert’s way.

“It can’t be,” I believe I said out loud, as I began running toward the putting green. In a minute I was standing on the top of the mound that marked the end of the driving range. I walked quickly around it, but saw nothing. If Percy had found a tomb here, there had to be an entrance of some sort. At the top there was a small pipe protruding from the ground, a watering system for the course. A tarpaulin lay around it, with a garden hose coiled there. I yanked away the hose and the tarpaulin to reveal a large metal plate. It all looked very ordinary, just part of the irrigation system, ordinary, that is, unless you were looking for the entrance to a tomb. This was a hatch. I pulled at it for a minute, before I realized that it ran on a track. I had to sit on the dismally wet ground and brace my feet against the edge of it. In a second or two it started to slide back to reveal an old iron ladder leading down into the dark.

I descended past large stone slabs, into the inky darkness. At the bottom of the ladder there was actually a light switch. This tomb had been put to use rather more recently and by someone other than Bjarni the Wanderer. A stone tunnel led off to one side. I crouched over and made my way toward the light that seemed to come from a chamber beyond. At the end of the tunnel I was able to stand up. If there had been any question in my mind as to whether or not this was a tomb, that doubt was dispelled by the pile of skulls and bones stacked in a side chamber to my right.

So excited was I to find this tomb, that it took me a few minutes to accurately assess the situation in which I found myself. My first clue as to the precariousness of my position was the sight of the Gaudi chair that had once graced my sitting room. There was a small plastic bag on top of it which I didn’t bother to open because I pretty much knew what it would contain: Maya’s necklace, bracelet, and perhaps some cufflinks of Robert’s. Apparently Drever was not only scary, but a thief, pure and simple, stealing from his employers.

But then I entered a second side chamber to find that it contained two large wooden crates. It took a minute to use the small crowbar sitting on top of one to pry it open, see what was in it, and to close it up again. One quick look at the contents told me that Percy’s death was not really about furniture or a cauldron. It was about the quest itself and where it had taken him. As I turned, something else caught my eye, and the sight of it made me sick. A skull stared out from a niche in the room, as if it were an icon in a little shrine. This skull wore eyeglasses, one arm of which was held with a safety pin, one lens cracked and smeared with what must have been dried blood.

I had seen enough to know that Percy had died here. I had seen enough to know what was going on. I had seen enough to know that I had to get very far away from this place if I didn’t want to end up like Percy on a concrete slab in a bunker on Hoxa Head. I crouched down and headed back along the stone passageway as fast as I could, but I could hear the sound of the hatch closing as I hit the bottom rung of the ladder and looked up to see Drever Clark smiling down at me.

I still had the crowbar, and I did the only thing I could think of. I hauled myself up a few more steps and smashed at his fingers on the edge of the hatch, hitting as hard as I possibly could. I heard a grunt of pain, and for a moment the hatch stopped moving. It was long enough for me to get up and out, but not long enough to get away. Drever had recovered sufficiently to hit me with the hose. I stumbled, then tried to run, but slipped in the mud. The next thing I knew Drever was standing over me with a shovel. “Say good-bye,” he said. He was still smiling.

As the shovel came down, I tried to put my arms over my head, but somewhere in my frantic brain I knew it wouldn’t save me. Suddenly there was a frightening sound, more howl than anything else. Drever stopped, the shovel in midair, as two dogs went airborne, straight for his neck. He went down in a scream of pain, Oddi and Svein all over him. There was blood everywhere. I just lay there for a minute, stunned, unable to think what to do. Then I heard a voice calling my name. “Run, Lara,” Willow yelled. “We have your back.”

I staggered to my feet, then turned to see Robert Alexander, gun in hand, sprinting across the lawn toward me. Willow was running from the direction of the hedge, Kenny a few yards behind her. Thor was just ducking through the hole in the hedge right behind Kenny. Robert stopped and took aim just as Willow hurled herself at him. She grabbed him from behind and held on. Robert fired, but missed, then shrugged Willow off, and smashed her head so hard with the butt of the gun that she was unconscious before she hit the ground. Then Robert turned the gun on her.

“No!” Kenny screamed, lunging at Robert, who in turn staggered and fell back. The gun flew out of Robert’s hand and arched through the sky. In a second, Kenny had his hands around Robert’s neck and was throttling him. I started for the other gun, but Thor beat me to it.

“Bad man,” he shouted looking at Drever and waving the gun around.

It was bedlam. The wind was howling, the dogs were snarling, Drever was screaming, Kenny was sobbing, and Thor kept shouting, “Bad man, bad man,” over and over. Over by The Wasteland, Sigurd was gesturing and calling out to Thor, I suppose, but he couldn’t be heard over the din. The only people who were silent were Willow, lying cold and lifeless, the dark hair framing her pale, pale face now matted with blood and mud, and me, whose vocal cords had unaccountably shut down completely. I kept trying to say something, but could make no sound.

There was another shot, and we froze where we were and turned to look. “Stop!” Maya Alexander screamed. She was standing few yards away, a shotgun in her hands. Unlike Thor, she looked as if she knew exactly how to use it. Stop we did, every single one of us, maybe even the wind. For a moment there was a deathlike silence, as if the whole world were holding its breath. Then Robert straightened up and almost smiled.

“Give me the gun, darling,” Robert said. Maya still stood there, gun in hand, waving it back and forth as if to keep it fixed on all us. “Maya, darling? The gun, please.”

The tiny rational part of my brain that was still functioning, the part charged with the onerous responsibility of trying to ensure my survival said, “Say something now or it’s over.” The shotgun was pointed at me.

“Don’t give him the gun, Maya. Your husband and Dr-ever are drug dealers. You can go and see for yourself. They are hiding drugs in an old tomb under the putting green. They killed the man in the bunker. His spectacles are still down there. I think his blood is, too. They stabbed him and then they dumped him in the bunker. He crawled up on to the slab before he died, Maya. He died slowly. The murderer you fear is right in your house.”

“The gun, darling,” Robert said. “Just give me the gun and I will get this situation under control.”

“Bad man,” Thor repeated, pointing the gun at Drever.

“Maya!” Robert said in a tone that brooked no opposition. “The gun!”

“Don’t, Maya, please,” I said.

Maya took a deep breath. Mascara was running in rivulets down her cheeks, rain or tears or both. “Drugs? Tell me this isn’t true, Robert.”

“Of course it isn’t true, darling,” he said, taking a step toward her. Maya took a step back, but he was gaining ground.

“Drugs?” she repeated. “Bev died of a drug overdose. I knew you and Drever were up to something. But drugs? It couldn’t be drugs, could it? Bev was my best friend! I thought you were the perfect couple!”

“You and I are the perfect couple,” Robert said. “Now, then, the gun.”

“No, Maya,” I said. “He will kill us all.”

Robert took another step toward her, Maya another step back. She was looking back and forth at each of us, waving the gun wildly at everyone. Now only a few feet separated Maya from her husband.

“She’s lying. You know that, and you know what to do, darling,” Robert said, lunging at her. Maya stumbled back, took aim, pulled the trigger and blew Robert away.