Hildur promptly slid her rook down the board: “Checkmate!”
Question fourteen: They chose the spots to fall on. Seventh letter. The Baglar were being besieged by King Sverrir at the rock of Tunsberg. The Baglar saw banners from two armies. One came from Frod’s Ridge, the other from the town. They fought when they met; some fell and others fled. The Baglar then urged Hreidar to abandon the rock and assist their men. Hreidar answered, “Let’s see what they do first and if the Birkibeins are chased to the trench.” And then he added, “There is something odd about the way they are fleeing. It seems to me that they’re playing a trick on us. Do you notice how they choose dry spots to fall on or else fall on their shields? And do you see any sign of blood on their weapons or garments? No! Neither do I,” he said. “This must be one of Sverrir’s ruses.” The answer is “Birkibeins,” and the seventh letter is e.
CHAPTER 31
Sunday, June 5, 1960
The state radio made sure all Icelanders realized Whitsunday was on its way. Psalms bellowed out of Ingibjorg’s radio, filling the district officer’s home. The radio choir was singing Icelandic Whitsunday psalms.
It was still bright and slightly cloudy over Breidafjordur, and the wind had subsided and seemed to be turning. The farmers scrutinized the sky above and forecast good weather for the day and then rain in the evening. That wasn’t such a bad thing, since the fields needed a sprinkle. The wells were also running low. But it would be good if the dry weather could hold up during the day while the church guests were walking about.
A festive atmosphere had spread across the village by the time Kjartan descended from the loft at around ten and peered outside. Grimur had put on his dark Sunday best, and he looked washed and shaven. His mop of hair was combed back, and he had brushed his bushy beard. Ingibjorg was wearing a pretty bodice and had sprayed herself with perfume. Pastries were served with the morning coffee.
The national flag had been hoisted on the high flagpole in front of the church and flapped gently in the warm breeze. Here and there people could be seen strolling about, but no one was working. Days of rest were sacred, especially Whitsundays.
Through the kitchen window, Grimur watched motorboats loaded with church guests from the inner isles approaching the strait between Hafnarey and Flatey.
“It used to be a more impressive sight back in the days when the island boats came to mass under lily-white sails. I think the good Lord probably preferred that,” he said wistfully in between the names of the boats he was rattling off, as well as the names of those who were probably on board. Every now and then he lifted an old pair of binoculars to his eyes to confirm the identity of a person he had already guessed.
“Yes, yes, I knew it, that’s the Skaley boat,” he said smugly.
The travelers made the crossings in the boats in their everyday clothes, but carried church clothes with them in suitcases, as well as picnics in chests and flasks of coffee. People stepped ashore on Eyjolfur’s pier and vanished into the houses of friends and relatives only to reappear in the village again a short time later, dressed in their festive clothes. Some knocked stealthily on Asmundur the storekeeper’s window, and he ushered them into the store through the back door on the eastern side of the building. The store was naturally closed on holy mass days, but he could always make an exception for people in dire need. The co-op, on the other hand, was firmly locked since it was next door to the vicarage and the priest himself was a member of the company’s board.
Hogni, the organist, rounded up all the choir members once all the boats had arrived and walked ahead of the group up to the church. They were supposed to rehearse before the mass.
At one thirty, the deacon, Thormodur Krakur, left his home in his Sunday best and crossed the village towing his cart with his wife, Gudridur, sitting flat out on top of it. When they reached the vicarage, the priest and his wife appeared ready for the mass, and the four of them went to the church.
Ingibjorg was a member of the church choir and had vanished with the organist as soon as she had finished washing up after lunch. Grimur and Kjartan sat in the living room, drinking coffee in silence. Grimur was perusing through the weekly supply of newspapers that had arrived on the mail boat the day before, while Kjartan tackled a puzzle in a Danish weekly and thought of Gaston Lund. He was trying to form a picture of him from the few fragments of information they had gathered.
“Tell me something,” he said to attract Grimur’s attention. “Does anyone know who the father of Gudrun in Innstibaer’s child was?”
Grimur was taken aback. “No. The boy was grown up and had gone off to sea by the time Gudrun moved here to live with Hallbjorg. I’ve never heard the father mentioned.”
“Valdi in Ystakot wrote in his diary that Gudrun’s son came on a boat the day before Gaston Lund went missing.”
Grimur cleared his throat and shook his head. “You’re taking this a bit too far now, pal,” he said.
“And then there’s that word- lucky,” Kjartan said, growing more excited. “That’s the word we think Lund tried to write with the pebbles in Ketilsey, and it also happens to be the name of Sigurbjorn of Svalbardi’s boat. Isn’t he related to Gudrun somehow?”
Grimur seemed apprehensive. “I hadn’t really made that connection, but we should tread very carefully with this and not go blabbing about it to the Reykjavik police.”
“Why not?” Kjartan asked.
“It’s all so far-fetched, and it would go down very badly with the locals here if that kind of gossip were to get around. False accusations can do so much damage.”
Kjartan suddenly shut up. The district officer’s words hit him hard. He should have known.
A second round of church bells prompted the district officer to put down his papers and stand. Clearing his throat again, he said it was time to go. Kjartan followed him. The assumption had been that he would attend the mass like everyone else, and he saw no reason to fuel any controversy by declining to go, although he wasn’t too keen on the idea. He hadn’t been to any masses since his confirmation, apart from some funerals. Maybe this would give him a good opportunity to observe the islanders without being the center of attention.
He walked toward the church with Grimur in a slow and dignified stride, in unison with other groups that were heading the same way. People then huddled around the church entrance and greeted each other on both sides with handshakes and kisses.
Immaculately dressed children were playing on the slope below the church when the Ystakot clan came strolling over. They showed no signs of having dressed up for the occasion. Two boys broke out of the scrum and yelled out, “Nonni dung boy! Nonni dung boy!”
Their fun came to an abrupt end, though, because Hogni, who had just stepped out of the church to catch a breath of fresh air after the choir practice and was standing a short distance away, angrily snapped at them and they fell into a shamed silence.
“What was that they called the boy?” Kjartan asked.
“Dung boy,” Grimur answered.
“What do they mean?”
“Cow dung is an excellent fuel that used to be used as tinder for fires with dry bird skin. Nowadays most houses use paraffin oil, but not so long ago dung was the most common local tinder. They still use the old method in Ystakot, and little Nonni’s job in the spring is to go around the sheds collecting cow dung to make tinder. He leaves it out in the fields in small cakes and allows it to dry. Everyone of my generation did the same as kids, and it was regarded as a perfectly respectable task. But now they’ve nicknamed him ‘dung boy.’ Hardly what you’d call progress.”
The church bells rang again, and people squeezed through the narrow doors. Kjartan felt this was a completely different building to the one that he and Johanna had stepped into to examine the body in the casket just a few days ago. He hadn’t taken the time to look around it back then. There were many candles glowing here now, and the altarpiece had come to life-a beautiful fresco of Jesus and two of his disciples painted in the same style as the pi
cture cards he used to get at Sunday school when he was a kid. Grimur ushered him onto a pew where he sat beside Sigurbjorn the farmer. Gudjon had obviously finished cutting his hair after Kjartan had left them, but it was still a bit uneven over his cheeks. Kjartan involuntarily started to study the necks of the people sitting in front of him. A gallery of heads extended before him. Different stages of baldness and hairdos had been executed with varying degrees of success, and most of the women had plaits. Everyone was spic-and-span, and a strong scent of soap fused with the faintly stale air of the church. Sigurbjorn gave off a faint odor of alcohol and seemed to be half hungover.
The organ now sounded from the balcony, and the choir launched into the psalm. Kjartan listened and found the music strangely soothing. This might not have been the best choir in the land, but there was a pleasant harmony between the singing and the organ.
Reverend Hannes emerged from the sacristy and turned to the congregation. He coughed twice and said, “Dear parishioners, brothers and sisters, I would like to start this holy ceremony by giving you the sad news that Bjorn Snorri Thorvald, the father of our good doctor, Johanna, passed away in his sleep last night. As you all know, the old man had been very ill for some time, and now the good Lord has called him back to Himself and put an end to his suffering. His loving daughter was sitting by his side when the call came, and I went there this morning to commend his spirit to God. The removal will be on Tuesday and the funeral on Wednesday. Let us join our hands in prayer.”
The congregation bowed their heads, and the priest led the prayer. Kjartan wondered whether the doctor was at the mass. The entire population of the islands seemed to have crammed into the church. He swiftly scanned the congregation but could see no sign of Johanna anywhere. At the very back of the church, however, he saw little Nonni of Ystakot standing up and sneaking out through the open church door. Yes, he probably would have done the same himself if he’d been given half a chance. It was swiftly getting hot and stuffy in there.
The organ erupted, and another psalm was sung.
Question fifteen: Cut in two by the prow of a ship. First letter. Sorli’s Tale narrates how Hedin, the king’s son, was slain by a spell. Blinded by magic, he allowed King Hogni’s queen, Hervor, to be taken and placed in front of the prow of his ship, so that she was cut in two when the ship was launched. Hedin and Hogni then fought in a duel. It is said that there was so much evil attached to this curse that even when they had sliced each other in two from the shoulder down, they were able to stand up again and fight as before. A hundred and forty years were to pass before one of King Olaf’s courtiers broke this pitiful spell. The answer is “Hervor,” and the first letter is h.
CHAPTER 32
Fridrik Einarsson didn’t seem particularly pleased to be visited by Detective Dagbjartur on a Whitsunday afternoon for the second time in two days. Nevertheless, he invited him in and offered him a seat, but he anxiously glanced at his watch.
“My wife and I are off to a wedding. I don’t want to be late,” he said.
Dagbjartur tried to keep it brief: “We compared the list you made of Gaston Lund’s Icelandic acquaintances and another list of the inhabitants of Flatey, which we got back from them yesterday. Bjorn Snorri Thorvald’s name appears on both lists.”
“Yes,” Fridrik answered. “I could have told you that straightaway yesterday. I knew that Bjorn Snorri and his daughter Johanna were there on the island, but I couldn’t see how that was relevant. I heard on the radio at lunchtime that Bjorn Snorri just passed away. My old colleagues seem to be fading.”
“Did Bjorn Snorri and Gaston Lund get along?”
Fridrik looked at Dagbjartur in bewilderment. “How do you mean?”
“You said that the professor sometimes got into arguments about manuscripts with his Icelandic acquaintances.”
Fridrik smiled. “Bjorn Snorri didn’t argue about the manuscripts. He was one of the few Icelanders who was virtually indifferent to where the manuscripts should be preserved. He just wanted to know they were in a good place and that there was easy access to them…”
Fridrik suddenly shut up and frowned. “Easy access to them,” he repeated hesitantly, lost in some thought.
Dagbjartur sensed there was more to this and calmly waited for Fridrik to continue. “But that was the problem. Bjorn Snorri lost his job in Copenhagen at the end of the war and was barred from accessing the manuscripts after that. I remember very well how unhappy he was with his Danish colleagues, including Lund. He’d been thrown out of the house with unnecessary force. But those were special times at the end of the war, and a lot of errors were made as a result of pent-up anger. My family and I took the father and daughter in some days after he was fired, and they came home with us to Iceland a few weeks later. Johanna and Einar, my youngest son, were half engaged in high school until Einar died in a sudden accident.”
Fridrik’s voice faltered a moment before continuing: “I think Bjorn Snorri must have gotten over his misfortune in Copenhagen, but he was ill for many years. I imagine it’s the cancer that finally crushed him.”
“Can you describe Bjorn Snorri a little bit better for me?” Dagbjartur asked.
Fridrik reflected a moment before starting: “Bjorn Snorri had a particularly sharp mind. He was a great scholar, and few contemporaries could stand up to him when it came to his knowledge of Icelandic manuscripts. Instead of focusing on the text, he started off by forming a picture of the scribes. By placing himself in their shoes, he could guess which manuscripts they were copying. Was the scribe in the habit of cutting his quill as he was leafing through a manuscript? When was the scribe in the best form, at the beginning of the work or later? Was there a greater danger of making mistakes at certain times? Did he think the text was fun and did this make him rush the work so that he could swiftly move on? Or was the text boring and did that give him cause to labor on the calligraphy and adorn the letters? In what environment did he learn his craft, and what were his specialized skills? Bjorn Snorri tried to form a picture of these men for himself and look over their shoulders as they were working, as it were. But he was so absorbed by his quest to define these many centuries-old acquaintances of his that he neglected the present. His contemporaries were too close to him for him to give himself the time to consider them. He never asked anyone how they were today. Instead, he could trace back various versions of the same paragraph in different manuscripts and talk about their evolution from the perspective of the personal characteristics of each scribe. But he was incapable of relating to the circumstances of his fellow travelers in space and time. He just assumed that if anyone had any issue to raise with him they would step forward and say so. Body language and gestures were simply beyond his understanding. The mundane faded into insignificance when he was struggling to analyze and understand a seven-hundred-year-old margin label on a torn vellum manuscript. He accumulated enormous knowledge. And he needed an outlet for that. He was a writer of only average ability and compiling reports bored him, but he could stand and talk about his interests for hours on end. And he could speak all the Nordic languages with ease. German came to him quite easily, too. He used his lectures to formulate his opinions and findings, put some order into them, and place them in a logical context. Talking was, therefore, the final phase in the formulation of his theories, and it didn’t matter to him whether anyone was listening or not. If the issue was above the heads of the university students who sat with him, then he would just talk to himself or the one listener who was always close by and never flinched, little Johanna. And he used the time to explore new angles on his subject matter and could even make original discoveries in the middle of lectures in unknown cities. But as soon as that was all taken away from him, he withdrew into himself. He couldn’t find peace anywhere, because he’d lost his outlet in the mundane world. He sank into depression and numbed his pain with alcohol. It could only end in one way.”
Fridrik looked at his watch and stood up, but Dagbjartur remained seated. “How do
you suppose Bjorn Snorri reacted when Gaston Lund showed up in Flatey?” he asked.
“To be honest, I haven’t the faintest idea,” Fridrik shrugged. “He might have treated him with disdain, he could do that, or maybe they were both delighted to have found each other again. I’d say that’s more likely.”
“Is it possible that Bjorn Snorri would have wanted to harm Lund in some way?”
Fridrik sat again at stared at Dagbjartur in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe by dispatching Lund to that island.”
“Bjorn Snorri had been too ill to travel over the past years,” said Fridrik.
“But his daughter?”
“Are you asking me if Johanna Thorvald could have harmed Professor Lund?”
“Yes.”
Fridrik suddenly rose to his feet. “Johanna was like a daughter to me when she was my son’s girlfriend. I won’t tolerate that kind of talk about her,” he said, walking toward the door.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, my wife is waiting,” he said.
Dagbjartur stood up and said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, and I won’t delay you any longer. But could you direct me to someone who knew them well?”
“Thorgerdur, my daughter, studied medicine at the same time as Johanna. They’ve been in regular contact ever since. Thorgerdur is a doctor at the National Hospital. Try to find her.”
Dagbjartur was on the way out, when he turned at the door and apologetically asked, “But what about the mother of Gaston Lund’s child? Any ideas on where I might find some information about her?”
Fridrik looked at him gravely. “Have you spoken to Arni Sakarias about the Flatey enigma?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask him about Gaston Lund?”
“No.”
“Then you better.”
Question sixteen: Drowned in a deep bog. Second letter. He told her that when she got there, he would give her a wedding with all the honors. Gunnhild liked this arrangement and traveled to Denmark with a fine retinue. But when King Harald heard of her arrival, he sent slaves and guests to her. They grabbed Gunnhild with a lot of commotion and jeering and drowned the wretched queen in a terribly deep bog. This brought an end to the cruelty and crimes of Gunnhild, the king’s mother. The answer is “Gunnhild,” and the second letter is u.
The Flatey Enigma Page 14