The Orkney Scroll (21 page)

“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.

Chapter 9

Bjarni and his crew spent many months as guests of the man who had spared their lives, but Bjarni wasn’t happy, and when it was clear they were free to go whenever they wished, announced his intention to Svein, Oddi, and Goisvintha to move on. This was the occasion of much debate in the group, with Bjarni and Oddi taking opposite sides.

“I’ve been thinking, Bjarni,” Oddi said. “This is the most exciting place I’ve ever been, not that I’ve been very far until now. And I think I’m tired of traveling. I also can’t see taking Goisvintha with us, nor can I see her back in Orkney on our farm, with those cold wet nights and the stale air, I’m thinking now I’ve seen better, of our houses. I’ve been offered some work here should I choose to stay, and I believe with your permission, Brother, I will do just that. But I’m hoping you will stay, too.”