by K. T. Tomb
For three years, Freda enjoyed her immense freedom. She had been discarded by Alaric, wholly forgotten, and left to her own devices. When Helga was married to one of Freda’s younger brothers and had moved to Oslo, Freda and Ivor were left to keep each other’s company. It wasn’t long before they became enraptured with each other. It was a love story fit for the sagas; a spurned princess and her lover, an unimportant second son. They spent weeks together locked up in one after another of Ivor’s hunting lodges; venturing as far West as Hardangervidda, ensuring to stay with the animals that were in season. When the hunting was poor, they journeyed east to King Ottir’s fishing lodges on the lakes near Arvika. The food stores and the tables in the Great Hall at Drammen were never without meat and fish.
It wasn’t long before Freda found that she was pregnant with Ivor’s child. When she told him she had tears in her eyes.
“What will we do, Ivor?” she asked.
“We will have to make a plan, Freda,” he replied. “Alaric has come to realize that he is impotent, and he expects that his wives will remain barren.”
“He will surely execute me now,” she wailed, throwing herself to the ground.
Ivor rushed to her side. He took her in his arms and pulled her up to her feet.
“Remember who you are,” he whispered to her, “Princess Freda.”
“I will be a headless Princess Freda soon if we cannot fix this. Should I go to see the völva?”
“What would you do, Freda? Have her kill our baby inside your womb? Our baby has harmed no one; it is Alaric who has caused harm. He has harmed you, his other wives and he has harmed me as well.”
“What will you do, Ivor?”
“I will do something that I should have done a long time ago and the less you know of it the better.”
As she lay with him in the dark considering his words, she wondered what he had planned and when his plan would be carried out. Would his plan be carried out while Alaric was on his way to Sandefjord? Might she already be widowed? Not knowing Ivor’s plan made it very difficult to sleep and it was not until a few hours before sunrise that she finally drifted off.
***
“Make sure the falcons are majestic,” Ivor told the goldsmith. “They should have their wings spread wide and the feathers must be prominent just as the feathers of Freyja’s cloak. Make their legs spread wide so they stand like birds which are prepared to take flight. One must be looking to the right, while the other looking to the left.”
“Yes, Master,” the goldsmith replied.
“When will the two finials be ready?”
“I shall have them in four days.”
“That will do.”
Ivor had dug up the hoard of gold he had been collecting from their raids for ten years. When he took it all to the goldsmith, he had smiled and handed back a good portion of it to Ivor.
“This will be enough to make both birds, Master,” he had said.
The finials were ready when the four days had passed and Ivor had them mounted on freshly carved flag poles. At the half moon, he presented the flagpoles to Jarl Alaric as a crop festival gift in order to congratulate him on another successful year of raiding and harvest. In his vanity, Alaric accepted the extravagant gift without any sort of questions. He knew that his brother must have sacrificed a huge portion of his hoard of raided gold.
“Look,” he called out to the guests in the Great Hall. “My brother honors me for the grand year we have had in Drammen. He had brought me the images of the Falcons of Freyja.”
There was a loud cheer at the mention of the beloved goddess’s name.
“They are stunningly beautiful, aren’t they?” Ivor asked. “I would like to congratulate you, my Jarl, on your tenth harvest as chieftain of Drammen. It has been ten years of undoubted success and I wish you many more years to govern us, brother.”
Alaric had the standards of Drammen placed on the flagpoles immediately and his standard bearers stood on either side of his chair holding them for everyone to see.
“Brother, I am honored by your gift,” Alaric said.
“I am pleased, brother,” Ivor replied. “I thought they would be splendid at the head of your retinue when you attend the thing next month at Sandefjord.
“That is a magnificent idea. I will certainly take them with me,” Alaric said proudly. “I am certain that there will be no other jarl there who will carry such a formidable sigil at the front of their retinue. I doubt that even King Ottir can claim that his men are led forth by the ‘Falcons of Freyja’.”
***
The forests outside of Sandefjord were indeed cold that morning and though Alaric would not admit it, he wanted nothing more than to arrive at the Great Hall and sit in front of the fire there. He looked up the line and caught sight of his flag bearers proudly carrying the golden falcons above their heads with the standards of his station flowing in the wind. He smiled broadly. The pride he felt over the two golden finials was so immense that it was enough to make him forget about the bitter cold for a moment or two.
They soon passed into the valley within the wood which marked the halfway point through the forest. There were rocky cliffs to both sides upon which gigantic trees grew, towering over them like the gods themselves. It was always dark in that section of the forest, no matter how high the sun was in the sky. The men kept a steady pace, being careful not to rush the horses through that particular stretch of the journey for fear of losing a shoe or, even worse, having a horse break a leg on the loose stones.
There wasn’t a sound as the archer took his stand and drew back his bow. He had heard the sound of the approaching hoof beats and had made himself ready to take his shot. He saw the marker; two flagpoles at the head of the riding party whose poles were topped by giant golden falcons with wide spread wings. He watched carefully, waiting for Jarl Alaric to come into view. When he saw the white of the wolf fur on the shoulders of the target’s riding cloak, he stood and drew the bow taunt. He was sure to stay well within the tree line; out of sight and far enough for the twang of the bowstring to echo, disguising the direction from which the sound came. When Alaric was fully exposed, he let the arrow fly. It was true to its mark as it went straight through the jarl’s neck and out the other side before falling to the ground. Waiting only long enough to see his target fall from his horse, the archer gathered his things from the spot, turned and strode deeper into the forest.
Svein commanded the group to stop and leaped from his horse. He examined Alaric’s body and quickly discovered from where the blood was flowing. It came in spurts from the wound in his neck, creating an ever widening crimson stain beneath him, until it no longer flowed at all. Right there, in the thick snow on the road to Sandefjord, the jarl slipped away to Valhalla in his captain’s arms. The men spread out over the ridge in search of he who had fired the arrow, but they found nothing and no one in the forest above them. As they stood, paralyzed by the turn of events and wondering what to do next, there was not a sound in the forest except for the unmistakable calls of the wild falcons high above the ancient trees.
Chapter One
Chyna turned her head slightly, tossing a casual glance to her left, but watching out of her peripheral vision as the man, once again, turned away from watching her and feigned great interest in the SANA Newspaper in his hands. It confirmed the earlier suspicion that she was being watched. In fact, his action was so obvious that she was surprised that he even had the newspaper right side up.
There was the possibility that she was being ogled. An attractive woman with her well-toned shape and refined features tended to attract a lot of attention, especially among Arabian men. Most of them, however, would not have bothered to hide their lecherous gaze where this man obviously was.
So, I’m being followed already. A wry smile formed on her lips, not only because she enjoyed a challenge, but because few ever took interest in what she was after unless it was something of great value. Did someone else know of her mission? Did someone else
desire to have the Phonecian Falcon in their hands? It would appear so. She wondered at whether her decision to tackle the recovery of the Falcon on her own had been a poor one to make.
She had made her decision out of consideration for Lana and Oscar as well as one of convenience for herself. The idea of expanding the operations of Found History by adding a second branch was one which had increased in weight over the past several months, especially during the few weeks they had all gotten to return to the U.S. after more than a year abroad.
When she had announced that she was going after a routine artifact and would be able to handle it on her own, Lana and Oscar had been concerned, but also relieved. What she had tossed out before them in addition to that announcement had been a great cover for allowing her to get away on her own so that she could think and plan a little bit more.
She laughed and ran through the words of her announcement in her mind as she made a sharp turn and watched the man behind the paper scramble to remain incognito.
“As you all know, last year Lana and I went on a six month assignment in Greece which turned into eleven months of the most successful and rewarding work ever accomplished by Found History. Oscar, you had your first chance to join us in the field and what was supposed to be a three week expedition for you in Greece, turned out to be four months of plane hopping and equipment lugging. In the end it was worth it though; we had a great time, met some amazing people and found a lot of lost history.
“But it got me thinking about the future of our company and I think it’s time for me to take action on a plan I’ve been toying with for a long time. It’s why I hired Sirita a couple years back; I’ve just never taken it further because I wasn’t convinced it was lucrative enough. Even after coming back from our trip, I still wasn’t convinced until Sandra sent me the dossier on our latest assignment a couple weeks ago. After confirming us for this trip to Syria, I’m ready to propose that we open a second office, Found History East LLC. Tell me, what do you all think?”
The result of that announcement was full agreement to start putting things in motion for expanding Found History, a task which Sandra, Lana and Oscar were eager to help with, especially since the move created new positions of higher responsibility as well as higher pay for all of them. I hope I’m doing the right thing, she began to reason. Her thoughts were cut off before she could consider them further.
“Miss Stone?” the accented voice asked.
The sudden sound of someone addressing her gave her a start, but she covered it well, given the fact that she was already on edge. Actually, the speaker was fortunate that she had gained greater control over her reactions over the years or he might have found himself lying on the floor with a broken nose.
“Who is asking?” she responded.
“I am called Kadan,” he responded. “I was sent by Doctor Epstein to bring you to your hotel.”
Never one who liked to be catered to and carried about by others, Chyna frowned. “I have already ordered a Land Cruiser for my personal use while I am here. I told Doctor Epstein as much.”
“Yes. You are correct,” he answered as he held up the keys to what she assumed would be the rental unit. “But you will need someone who knows where you are going to take you where you need to go.”
She wasn’t really in the mood to argue the point, so she simply snatched the keys from his hand and smiled at his look of surprise. “Where’s this thing parked.”
One more glance over her shoulder before following Kadan revealed that the man who had been watching her had disappeared from his post. Let the games begin, she declared in her mind.
***
“You made a real mess of this one Marko, there’s no way Xavier’s going to let this one slide,” Greame said.
“How the hell was I supposed to know that they would suddenly decide to excavate the Hamah location? It’s been under review for over a decade,” Marko replied, trying his very best to defend himself.
“I don’t think he’s going to give a damn about the circumstances, that bird statue was made of solid Roman gold, we confirmed it, so all Xavier’s gonna want to know is how the hell are you gonna get it back?”
Marko couldn’t believe his luck. It had been a breeze getting the statue out of Sweden disguised as props among some cargo he was shipping for a musical play. It had arrived in Milan and then been transported painstakingly over land to Athens without incident but it was then that he realized he had made a mistake taking it to Greece. Ever since the wrecks of the Artemesian fleet had been found and the Minoan Mask recovered, the Greek authorities had been on their toes to abate theft and smuggling of all cultural antiquities. He’d had to high tail it out of the country, chartering a private plane to Damascus to his favorite stash site, a restricted area outside the historic town of Hamah. It had been slated for archeological exploration but nothing had been done by the government along those lines outside of fencing it around; there wasn’t even any security in place.
He had buried the statue there and was waiting for the go ahead from one of his buyers before he would retrieve it for delivery. When the excavations had started at the site Marko had been in Burma arranging transportation for a cache of rubies stolen from a prominent mine. The statue was among the first items the archeologists recovered from the ground and it was immediately taken to a secure warehouse in Damascus to await carbon testing and cataloguing. The only news he had about the situation at the warehouse was that it was being run by a private company out of Denmark consigned by the Syrian government and that the lead archaeologist, Dr. Jared Epstein, had requested the assistance of the team from Found History in New York to classify the items. As soon as he had heard that, he knew he was in for trouble; it wasn’t going to be easy to get his hands on the statue now. The pressure he was under from his boss, Xavier, and his buyer in China wasn’t helping either.
The only thing he could think of was to call in Sergio, his hacker. He had tried to get to someone on the inside of Found History but the company was an iron fist, he couldn’t maneuver his way in from any angle; all he could come up with was to hack their systems and try to retrieve the information they had on the statue’s whereabouts and what kind of security it was being held under. Sergio had managed to hack the server of an HSBC bank in England once and made a wire transfer of five million pounds into a numbered account in Cayman. When they had tried to trace it, they found the transaction had been bounced off so many banks that it was irretrievable. Whatever Chyna and her people knew would be on their servers, so the easiest way to get it was to hack it.
“I’ll get it back, Greame,” he insisted. “Just tell Xavier I need some time to do the reconnaissance. It’s not going to be easy to fool Chyna Stone and her people, I may have to use force to get it back but it will be retrieved.”
“What about Chyna Stone? Are you handling that delicate little problem?”
“I have someone watching her,” Marko responded.
“I hope it is someone who is competent. I have heard that she is not one to be trifled with.”
“Competent enough.”
Greame stifled the smirk which dashed across his face, but not before Marko had a chance to see it. Rather than wasting time with questioning Marko over the tail he had put on Chyna Stone, he allowed that moment to convey its meaning and then pressed forward with their discussion.
“You’re just lucky those rubies turned out to be a better deal than he had hoped, otherwise your ass would be grass right about now,” Greame replied.
“At least that counts for something,” Marko said.
Greame’s only response was a straight-lipped smile and a sharp raising of his eyebrows.
Chapter Two
“Did you start making a list of the stuff you need to order to fully outfit the new operations as well as augment the office systems here and your mobile lab?”
“I’ve got something started, but I’m also waiting to get Nigel started before I make any orders. Maybe he’ll be able to give me
some suggestions of how to build the central servers here so they can handle both static locations as well as the remote one. I’m really keen on the security of the system as well as fluidity to manage the additional data and traffic.”
“Sounds like you’re on the right track,” Chyna said. “I’m assuming that Oscar is someone you have hired for your technical team.”
“He is…” Oscar hesitated. “Of course, with your approval.”
“You are in charge of that department, Oscar. My approval was given when I assigned you to the position.”
“Yes, of course,” he responded.
The line for the conference call was quiet for a moment. In spite of the fact that she was exhausted from her day of traveling, the time zone difference between Damascus and New York required her to make the call while it was still during business hours at Found History. It was all a little bit overwhelming.
“It’s like an invasion of the computer geeks around here! Now there’s going to be two of you around here, I can hardly wait,” Lana added in, interrupting the silence.
Chyna was too tired to respond, she simply pushed forward with the call so that she could bring it to an end much sooner. “What do you have, Lana?” she prompted.
“I spoke to Rashid yesterday,” Lana continued. “He’s put me in contact with a woman called Shakira Mendes who’s supposed to be Istanbul’s real estate agent to the moguls. I’ve got her scouting office space for us according to your specifications, Chyna. She didn’t sound like it would be difficult to find the right place. He also recommended that we stick with Citibank, they’ve got branches over there and since we already bank with them it should make things way smoother.”