by K. T. Tomb
“That’s really great news, Lana. Let Shakira know I want three hundred and sixty degree views of the spaces she’s proposing as well as a street view and forward me the links to those when they start coming in. I’ll ask Sandra to contact Dean at the bank and have him set up the Istanbul accounts. What about the licensing?”
“Sandra told me she hired a lawyer that Rashid recommended highly, a Mr. Farouk Jureidini. He already has the information he needs about Found History to start the initial applications. I think she’s having him apply for international driver’s licenses for all of us, as well as an international firearm license for you.”
“I have to say that you have all impressed me. Great job everybody! I plan to ask Sirita to join our team in Istanbul. I’ll need to come up with a place for each of us to live before I officially land there.”
“Would you like me to ask Shakira to send you a listing of residences, Chyna?” Lana asked
“No, I don’t want to distract her. I’ll find somewhere but what I will do is send her the addresses of the places I like so she can have them inspected for me and broker the deal as well. That way, I’m confident I got a great place and she makes a commission.”
“Okay,” Lana replied.
“So, where are we with the falcon?”
“The falcon, I discovered, wasn’t actually from the region and, just as you had suspected, it was part of a set of two and they were Norse. The question then was: how did they get where they are?
“Vikings did sail the rivers of western Europe and portage over land in their time,” Chyna pointed out. “In fact, they were known to have gone as far as Persia. Why wouldn’t you think they put it there?”
“The design and the age place them in Norway in a region close to Oslo. There’s a goldsmith’s mark which identifies a well-known craftsman whose mark has been primarily found on relics identified with King Ottir of Oslo around the eighth century A.D. The timing is consistent with the dating that was included in the report from Syria. The Norsemen were never known to raid or migrate further east than maybe Belarus, they were obsessed with the wealth of England around that time. So, that, of course, deepens the mystery some.”
“Fair enough, so what’s your next step?”
“I’m going to try and pinpoint the person the falcons belonged to using the angle of the goldsmith. He was popular at the time so it’s possible I can find more about his work, his clients, maybe even some of his more famous pieces. If I’m lucky these might be among them. It seems whenever we unravel the story behind the artifact, the rest just seems to make sense and fall right into place.”
“You’re so right, Lana,” Chyna agreed.
“I’ll send over what I have from our source in Oslo as soon as I have it; probably first thing in the morning, for me, or for Oslo, anyway, but not for you.”
“Yeah,” she said, stifling a yawn. The hotel bed was calling to her loudly. “Well, keep up your good work, both of you.”
Chyna issued a few last instructions to the others and reminded them about the progress report meeting the following afternoon in which she hoped to have more information to feed into Lana’s already substantial foundation and then disconnected the call. For a moment she considered calling Sirita, but decided that it could wait. Sleep was the most important item on her agenda at that moment.
***
Up early the following morning Chyna went down her list of things to do.
She had determined that she would spend the first hour or so of each day while she was in Damascus working on getting the Found History East branch up and running. The list was getting shorter: find an apartment, order the cars, give Rashid a call, and talk to Sirita. She decided to call Sirita first. She was Chyna’s next piece of puzzle as far as staffing the Istanbul office went and she would be extremely valuable in helping her make a smooth transition. It would also allow her to turn more of her focus to the reason she was in Damascus.
The New Delhi native had been handling logistics and correspondence for the company on a freelance basis for almost three years and she had been doing an excellent job. Chyna thought she deserved the first shot at a permanent position with them; as long as she wanted to give it a try. Sirita answered the phone immediately.
“Good morning, Sirita,” Chyna said, doing a quick calculation in her head to make certain that it was still morning in New Delhi. “How have you been?”
“Hi, Chyna,” Sirita said, cheerfully. “I’m actually watching the morning talk shows; I’m totally obsessed with Kelly Ripa.”
Chyna laughed. She had forgotten how much Sirita loved American television. There was a time Sirita had confessed to Chyna that her biggest expense was satellite television because she just couldn’t live without watching Grey’s Anatomy.
“I know you haven’t heard from us in a while, but how’s business?”
“It’s a bit slow at the moment Chyna; you know that Found History has basically been my bread and butter the past year. So, on that note, when are you guys coming back to my side of the planet?”
“I’m already here,” Chyna responded. “I arrived in Damascus yesterday afternoon.”
“And you are just getting around to calling me?” Sirita laughed.
“Jet lag,” Chyna retorted and went straight into the reason for her call. “I have a proposition for you.”
“I knew I could count on you. What can I do for you?”
“You should be getting the dossier about our next assignment from Sandra today. She’s been busy trying to find us a new executive assistant for the office.”
“Really? Why? Is she leaving?”
“No, I promoted her to office manager.”
“That’s really great, Chyna, she deserves it.”
“Well, that’s kinda why I called you this morning, Siri,” Chyna continued. “We finally decided to open an eastern office. It’ll be set up in Istanbul by the end of next month, I hope.”
“Chyna, that’s exciting news! Does that mean you won’t need a freelancer anymore? I assume you’ll be taking on permanent staff there once it’s open.” Sirita’s tone changed to one of disappointment.
“Well, I was kind of hoping that you would want to come and head up the offices there as our new office manager. What do you say?”
“Oh, my goodness!” Sirita exclaimed, she was squealing into the phone like a teenager in disbelief. “Of course, I want to do it. I can’t believe you would give me this huge opportunity, Chyna.”
“You’ve proven yourself, Siri. You deserve it,” she replied. “You understand that means you’ll have to relocate don’t you?”
“I realize that and I’m ready to go whenever you want me to.”
“That’s great, Siri. Sandra will be in touch with you soon with the job offer and stuff. Take a read and let me know if you have any concerns.”
“I’ll look out for it, Chyna. Thanks for the opportunity to do this; I’m really excited about it.”
“I’m glad you are Siri, we’re excited to get to have you all to ourselves! Bye, we’ll talk soon.”
“Bye, Chyna.”
***
As Sirita hung up the phone, she realized how stunned she was. Chyna Stone was not a woman who came across as anything but completely professional and she was pleasantly surprised to experience a slightly softer side of her; she’d even called her by her nickname, Siri. For the first time since she’d been working for Found History, Sirita felt that Chyna also liked her as a person rather than just appreciating and valuing the quality of her work; it made her feel special.
Growing up as an orphan in New Delhi, Sirita had known hardship all her life. She had struggled to stay in school while giving full time care to her convalescent aunt who she had lived with throughout her childhood. After passing her high school entry examinations, she had won a scholarship lottery which placed her in a missionary high school for girls, all expenses paid. She found out many years later that it was her aunt who had entered her name in the lottery
and though she died shortly after, Sirita was glad that she had lived to see her in her crisp white uniform, going off every morning to school.
With her aunt gone, Sirita had no family left and suddenly, being under aged, she was at risk of being put into a state institution for orphans. She lived in her aunt’s house as if the old woman was still alive, making her neighbors think that she was now in the care of an uncle or older cousin; whatever would convince them so they wouldn’t call the authorities. The years went by quickly and when she finally turned sixteen, she was no longer in danger of being incarcerated. Sirita still lived in the same apartment she had shared with her aunt. It had been the only thing her uncle had left behind for them but it was fully paid for and neither had ever been in need of shelter.
After graduating from a community college with a secretarial degree, Sirita had been one of India’s pioneers in the field of online freelancing. With a good computer and a fairly high speed internet connection, she could interface with multiple clients and companies around the world. She soon built a reputation for honesty and integrity with her clients and they in turn never hesitated to recommend her services to other people. She did data entry work, transcriptions, translations and built databases, until she eventually settled into being a virtual assistant. She did everything for her clients from setting up their appointments and syncing it to their handheld devices to managing the entire digital filing system of small corporations. But she had lost a few clients after the financial crisis began in 2008, when a lot of her clients either downsized drastically or went under completely.
Found History had been her saving grace; she worked for a moderate retainer in addition to an hourly rate once she received an assignment from them. It wasn’t going to give her financial freedom but it was steady work and she enjoyed it immensely. So many times while Chyna and the team had been in Turkey over the last year, Sirita had found herself sitting at the computer daydreaming about all the places they were visiting and the people they were meeting. She couldn’t help but be a tiny bit jealous. Now, she was getting her chance to be a part of it all, to relocate to another country, experience another culture, work for a company she admired and with people she respected. It was her big break!
Chapter Three
Not one of his men saw when the arrow passed through Alaric’s neck.
He made a gurgling sound and his horse came to halt, then he simply tumbled from his saddle and fell to the ground. When Svein got to his side there was blood rushing from a wound in his neck and Jarl Alaric was already dead. He crouched down and looked around them, quickly scanning the tree line while he signaled his men to dismount and prepare for attack. Svein searched the other side of the road looking carefully at the trees that lined it and then he saw the arrow buried deep in the bark of a nearby tree. He pulled it out and studied it. It was made of yew, not a common wood that far North and it was fletched with falcon feathers. The bow and the archer must have both been very powerful as well as skilled to shoot an arrow across the valley, straight through a man’s neck and lodge it firmly into a tree. Only one set of men were known to be capable of such feats; they were Freyja’s Furies, assassins from Scotland who often traveled the seaways from the south up through Scandinavia, attaching themselves to armed forces as mercenaries and plying their trade as killers.
“Jarl Alaric has been murdered,” Svein announced. “We are turning around and going straight back to Drammen.”
The Jarl’s standards were struck and the flagpoles stored, Alaric’s body was lashed to his horse securely and the entire retinue rode hard towards home. They made it there before sunset.
When his brother’s body was brought into the Great Hall on a makeshift stretcher, Ivor came out from the Jarl’s rooms to find out what was going on.
He noticed the faces of the same men who had ridden out that morning with his brother and witnessed the somber expressions they all wore. When he looked past them, he saw the body lying on the wolf furs near the great fire. Gildi, Agartha and Thyri were already kneeling beside it; undoing the braids of his beard and combing the blood from his hair. Ivor found it strange how as dutiful as they all were not one of them shed a single tear.
“Freda!” he called out and waited for her to appear in the doorway behind the chairs of state. When she was seen a few moments later, he took hold of both of her shoulders, and with a grave expression and a low tone, delivered the news.
“Freda, your husband has been killed. Come and look at the body. You have to acknowledge him before the men may take him to be prepared by the völva.”
Freda stepped forward slowly, she was careful not to look into the eyes of any of Alaric’s warriors as she crossed the room. Though she had known that it would have to be this way, the fact that it had been carried out so swiftly and with such finality was still a shock. She seemed to swoon a little at the sight of the body and Ivor’s arm was ready to catch her and hold her up. She put an arm around his shoulder and nodded.
“It is him; this is my husband, Jarl Alaric of Drammen,” she said softly, and then she stepped back from Ivor and bent down on one knee before him with her head bowed. “Alaric has been taken into the Halls of Valhalla; Ivor is now the Jarl in Drammen. Hail him!”
When the men took Alaric’s body from the hall, Freda returned to her rooms and lay on her bed. It wasn’t long before the tears were heavy in her eyes and streaming down her face. She couldn’t believe her luck and her unborn child’s good fortune; and it wasn’t long before she was laughing hysterically. Those around her thought that she mourned for the loss of her husband but at the same time she was happy that he had died a good death and had surely passed into the portals of Odin’s Great Hall. But Freda cried and then laughed in gratitude for her freedom.
I must be carrying a boon baby in my womb, she thought, perhaps I have been visited by the gods.
Ivor followed the stretcher to the home of the völva, where they placed Alaric’s body on a long, narrow table in a shed that was attached to the building. He took up knives and began to cut away his brother’s clothing. The men tried to take him away so that they could leave the medicine woman to do her work, but Ivor threatened them with the knife he held tightly in his hand. They turned and left him there to do what he felt honored his brother; after all it was not unheard of for a ruler’s successor to help with the preparation of the body. It was believed by some that the humility involved in preparing the body facilitated a complete transfer of power from the deceased to the new ruler and that there was a communion of their souls as the living performed those honors for the dead.
The next day, Ivor helped the medicine woman to carry the stretcher bearing Alaric’s body down the hillside to the edge of the fjord where the men took it from them and placed it on the pyre in the ship. They shoved it off from the pier and the current took it swiftly out towards the middle of the waterway. Ivor raised the bow to shoot the fiery arrow, but he could not set it loose. He handed the bow to Svein to fire the arrow but before anyone could stop them; Agartha, Gildi and Thyri stepped forward with their bows and arrows in hand. They lit their arrows from the torches and fired them out over the water, striking the ship and sending it up in flames. They were magnificent; everyone was admiring them in the torchlight. They had all been shield maidens before they married Alaric, women who were skilled and trained with weaponry and who went to fight in battles alongside the men. Their leather vests and britches glittered with brass buckles and iron studs, the swords that hung at their sides were as long and as sharp as any man’s and across their backs were slung the round painted shield of the Norse warrior. They stood there watching their husband’s funeral ship burn with a magnificent pride akin to that of goddesses. Freda could not bear to watch their pride for long; she turned away from the spectacle and returned to the Great Hall.
“Are you well, my love?” Ivor whispered to her, as he stood close by her chair.
“Your child makes me ill, Ivor,” she replied. “I can neither eat nor
drink too much at a time otherwise I vomit uncontrollably; and yet I am famished all the time.”
“You cannot go hungry if you are growing my son inside you,” Ivor said to her sternly. “He needs food to be strong.”
“So it is a son, is it?” she joked back at him. “I have to make do with broths and teas, sometimes I can eat fruits, but I cannot even stand the sight of meat. The völva cannot come to see me until after the moon is full because she has been attending to the dead but she sent some herbs that are helping with the nausea.”
“That is good then,” he said.
“Sit beside me, Ivor,” she said suddenly. “Please. This is your chair now that you are Jarl.”
“No, Freda, you know the rules,” he replied. “You must sit here and rule this place as Alaric’s widow for one night; tomorrow will be soon enough for us to be seated here together as we should be.”
She smiled up at him but her attention was taken from his face by the striking of shields inside the hall. The three lesser wives were now entering the hall. Freda frowned openly at them. They were so magnificent in their fighting clothes; they were admired, respected and desired as shield maidens, what did she have to compete with that?
“Will you keep them as well?” she asked Ivor bitterly. “Will you want to try out Alaric’s other women?”
“Freda, do not talk like that. Why would I do that to you? When of all people, I know most how their addition to your home hurt you. What I have done to make you safe, I would do for no one else; remember that Freda. I doubt you will ever know how much I would do to keep us together and out of harm’s way.”
“What are you saying, Ivor?”
“I am saying that I will set them free tomorrow.”
At sunrise, Ivor was standing at the edge of the sacred river between two priests of Odin. He was not looking forward to stepping into the freezing water but it was what had to be done. He jumped in quickly and the others waded in and washed him from head to feet. When they were finished he was dried of quickly and briskly rubbed with rosemary, lavender and meadowsweet, to perfume his body and also to get the blood flowing again. When he was dressed, Svein placed the black wolf’s pelt of the Jarl across his shoulders and fastened it by its silver chain.