GHOST OF THE VIKINGS
MARSALI TAYLOR
Table of Contents
Title Page
Ghosts of the Vikings
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Sunday, 22nd March.
Chapter Two
Chapter Three | Wednesday, 25th March.
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
A note on Shetlan
This book is dedicated to
Ava Bea Emmery
who is as daring and determined as Cass,
and as stylish as Maman,
with love from Granny.
Acknowledgments
Belmont House, where much of this book is set, is a real place. Our writers’ group have had two fantastic weekends there – thank you to Karen of the Belmont Trust for making us so welcome, and to Beth, Claire, Debbie, Doug, June, Marjolein, Nat, Peter, Roger and Vaila for making it such fun.The resulting Wastside Noir anthology is for sale on Amazon. Thank you too to Val Turner, for giving me the opportunity to proof-read Viking Unst and the papers of the 17th Viking Congress, and so learn so much more about Viking Shetland. Val assures me that all the sites mentioned in the book have been swept by metal detectors; the treasure hidden there is only in my imagination, so please don’t go digging.
Maman wouldn’t approve my singing, but I’ve been involved in drama for many years. The theatrical characters are of course not based in any way on Izzy, Barry, Bob, Debbie, Doug, Hilary, James, John, Jonathon, Margaret, Robert, Wendy or anyone else I’ve shared a stage with! Thank you for all the fun we’ve had over the years, particularly to Izzy, who encourages me to wear dresses and jewellery Maman would approve.
Thank you also to my amazing agent, Teresa Chris, for all her encouragement. Thank you to Penny Hunter, my editor, and to Rebecca, Bethan, and the design team of Accent Press for all their hard work.
This is the first of my books to go straight to a mass-market edition. Thank you to all the local museums and shops who have supported me by selling the previous print-on-demand editions, particularly Karen Baxter and her staff at the wonderful Shetland Times Bookshop.
Guddocks is the Shetland name for riddles. Most of these – because I wanted particular answers – have been made up by me, but thank you to Beth for her help in improving them.
Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd March
Hotel Château Savigny, near Poitiers
Nearest tides at La Rochelle, fifty miles away
and not relevant to a woman in an evening gown
A Shetland Guddock
Deep ida darkest eart’ I bide
Set dere by hauns lang turned ta bane
Yet haul me up ta light and fin’
A blaze o’ gold and precious stane.
Chapter One
The last clear notes died away. There was a moment’s silence in the ballroom, then the applause burst out.On my right hand, Dad was grinning broadly, and you could have heard his clapping back home in Shetland. On my left, Gavin’s eyes shone. Before us, Maman led her cast in a bow, twice, a third time, then they filed out. The tumult died away; around us, the ladies in evening gowns and gentlemen in white bow ties rose, murmuring appreciation, and headed for the dining room, where we’d been promised champagne and canapes.
I’d had to borrow one of Maman’s dresses for this gala evening, an off-the-shoulder affair in dark green satin with enough skirt to make my Khalida a new spinnaker. Luckily my sailor’s tan had faded over the winter, but the petticoat kept tangling around my legs, and the low neckline kept my shoulders and back as straight as any sergeant major could want. Gavin gave me an amused look as I stood up, and offered his arm. I took it gratefully, and leant on it while I kicked the layers of skirt away, eased my feet back into the heeled shoes and took an unsteady step. I supposed Victorian ladies had learned to live with this kind of thing.
‘You look amazing,’ Gavin said consolingly.
‘Amazing is as amazing does,’ I muttered. ‘How Maman ever managed to sing in this beats me.’ I clutched the skirt in both hands to squeeze out between the chairs and gained the wide hall at last. A cool breeze blew in from the open doorway, and I steered Gavin towards it. The crush was heading the other way; we had the terrace to ourselves. I leaned against the wide stone lintel and took a long breath.
The hum of voices was lost behind us, replaced by the silence of the starry night and the splashing of the fountain in the centre of the courtyard. We were in the most romantic of French fairy tale châteaux, a rectangular facade of white stone, encrusted with mouldings around the square doorway and above the lines of windows. The grey roof was adorned with tall, pointed dormer windows and dunce-capped turrets, two from the towers each side of the doorway, and one on each corner. You expected to hear the hum of a spinning wheel. The flight of steps to the terrace was lit with flambeaux, and the sweep of gravel twinkled with pots of bushes entwined with fairy lights. Below the stone balustrade, the lake glinted. It was very beautiful and completely fake; an Edwardian fantasy castle now turned into a luxury hotel, with Maman and her troupe in a semi-staged version of Hippolyte et Aricie as the star attractions for its reopening.
For an opera, the plot was simple. Theseus (bass) had just conquered his enemies, and ordered Aricia (soprano, Maman), the last of their royal house, to be a priestess of Diana. Aricia was in love with Theseus’ son, Hippolytus (tenor) – cue touching love duet in Diana’s temple. As Phaedra, Theseus’ second wife, started the ceremony, Aricia protested she was being dedicated against her will – appearance of Diana (soprano), to roll of piano chords, to refuse an unwilling priestess. A messenger (Theseus in a different cloak) then came to announce that Theseus had been taken down to the Underworld, to rescue his friend (large piece of story cut, to keep it suitable for a five-person touring company). Believing him dead, Phaedra declared her love for Hippolytus, who resisted her – at which point Theseus returned. Hippolytus (being a gentleman) didn’t explain what had really happened, but Phaedra’s confidante, Oenone (Diana without the headdress) told him that Hippolytus had made advances to Phaedra. Theseus called down Neptune’s vengeance (another piece cut). Final act: Hippolytus and Aricia had just sung another love duet in Diana’s grove, when a sea monster (accompanist working overtime to make up for missing stage effects) appeared and apparently swallowed him. Aricia swooned. Phaedra reappeared, having confessed all to Theseus, and committed suicide. Theseus learned from Neptune (cut again) that Hippolytus was not really dead, but that he would never see him again, and departed with a last sorrowful aria. Diana reunited Aricia with Hippolytus. It was a happy ending, as Greeks go.
‘It was odd having the older couple as the young lovers,’ Gavin said. ‘But as soon as your mother sang, I forgot all about her age. She even looked seventeen again.’
‘Sometime I’ll show you a photo of her really seventeen. She was gorgeous, with this ripple of hair all down her back.’
‘Like yours, right now.’
Maman’s dresser had taken one look at my usual plait, muttered French imprecations and brushed it out, then pinned it with little diamanté stars. I didn’t
dare shake my head, for fear it would all come undone.
‘In fact,’ Gavin said, stepping back to admire me, ‘you look like you’ve come out of an Edwardian painting. All you need is an ostrich plume fan.’
I’d been offered a fan, and as the ballroom had heated up I’d been sorry I’d refused it. ‘You look like a Victorian portrait. The Highland chieftain.’
His scarlet tartan kilt and horsehair sporran had attracted several admiring glances from ladies in the audience. He wore his black jacket, with Bonnie Prince Charlie’s silver button sewn firmly opposite the top buttonhole, and the dagger in his stocking had a yellow Cairngorm stone in the handle.
‘Victorian chieftains had the bonnet with the eagle’s feather. I don’t rank one of those. We’re youngest sons of youngest sons.’ He bowed, and held out his hand. ‘A waltz, mademoiselle?’
‘We’re mad,’ I said, but the combination of fairy tale castle and acres of green silk was stirring dramatic instincts I didn’t realise I had. We walked down, steps matching, and waltzed round the outside of the terrace, from window-square to shadow, light, darkness, light, steps crunching on the gravel, his arm warm around my waist, my skirt swooshing as it swung. Inside the brightly lit windows, there was applause as the singers came out, and we stopped to look: Maman on Hippolyte’s arm; Phaedra with Theseus; and the musical director bringing in Diana/Oenone. ‘We’d better go in. Maman will be looking for me.’
His arm tightened around me. We kissed, and I felt my heart racing at the warmth of his body, with only my silk bodice and his cotton shirt between us. His breathing had quickened. ‘I was wondering,’ he murmured into my hair, ‘if I could persuade you to come and visit me in my flat in Inverness before you head for Norway.’
‘No parents.’ I considered it. ‘No mast.’
He held me away to look at me quizzically. ‘Flats don’t generally have masts.’
I knew I was blushing. ‘They sway as the boat rocks.’ It was impossible to have a private sex life in a marina.
It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but I thought his cheeks were colouring too. ‘It has a very comfortable rectangular bed.’
Khalida’s double berth (such as it was) was in the forepeak, and V-shaped. I tried to sound matter-of-fact. ‘Or we could meet up in Norway, between voyages.’ In less than two weeks I was heading for the third mate/navigator berth I’d been offered aboard my favourite tall ship, the Norwegian, square-rigged Sørlandet. A squiggle of excitement wormed through me at the thought, and Gavin’s arm tightened around me.
‘You’re running away to sea. I can feel you leaving, every time you think of your Sørlandet.’
‘You wait till you see her. She’s beautiful.’ But he was right. Already, the land was retreating. In my head, I was standing with my hands on that metre-wide wheel, with the white sails arching, tier after tier, and the shoosh of the waves under her stern, and the shining sea-road before me.
Gavin’s voice was serious. ‘Don’t leave me behind.’ I understood what he meant; he wanted me to take him with me inside my head, to text and phone and write letters, and I knew that I wanted to, but I also knew how far away he would be, once there was nothing but the world of the ship, dwarfed by the immensity of sea and sky, once I was back in the rhythm of living aboard.
I lifted my hand to touch his cheek. ‘I won’t always be able to keep you in my head on board, but you’ll be the first person I phone as land comes in sight. Promise.’
We kissed once more, then went back inside to the heat. ‘Maman! You were wonderful.’
Maman shrugged the compliment away with one elegant shoulder. Her dark eyes, made huge by the sweep of mascara, were shining. The cast had remained in costume; she wore Aricia’s white tunic, floor length, bound criss-cross over her breasts with ribbon, and decorated with a jangle of tiny gold beads: a necklace; earrings; and bracelets. Her hair was piled up above a gold fringe whose ends curved over her brow, and dangled down to her shoulders. There was something familiar about it, a black and white image tugging at my memory.
‘It was a good start to our tour, and for Vincent’s hotel.’ She turned to the man on her other side. ‘You remember Vincent Fournier, of course, from Shetland? He worked with your father in the early days at BP.’
I vaguely remembered him from my childhood: those ice-blue eyes set under heavy lids in his tanned face, and the dark hair standing up above his broad brow. He had to be in his early sixties now, a James Dean who’d lived to grow old. It was the charm that I remembered best, coming from him in waves still.
‘Cass! What a pleasure to see you again. You’ve grown up a beauty.’ His eyes ignored thebullet scar that bisected my right cheek. ‘Look at these cheekbones, and your mother’s lovely hair. What are you doing with yourself these days?’
He drew me over to the drinks table and gave me exactly five minutes of intense attention before making his excuses and moving to greet a film-star blonde. Out of interest, I listened.
‘Julie! It’s been ages. What a pleasure to see you again, and looking like a million dollars. How good of you to make time to come. What are you doing with yourself these days?’
I grimaced wryly into my champagne glass, and wondered if Maman had ever been taken in by his charm. I wasn’t quite sure where I’d put him on a ship; he’d be better on shore, charming sponsors and organizing shore receptions. He seemed to be entirely at home in this opera milieu, the rich clientele his hotel was aimed at. I looked around, and was glad I had only a small yacht to maintain. The refurbishment must have cost a packet: the moulded cornice and carved fireplace had been repainted, the ceiling was hung with new-looking chandeliers in the antique style, and the windows were draped with acres of opulent red velvet held back with tasselled gold cords. The nibbles included twists of smoked salmon and dabs of caviare on puff pastry. But, I concluded, listening to him doing his spiel to a suited businessman in mirror shades, he would expect to make a profit. He wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.
Gavin echoed my thoughts. ‘Is he an opera enthusiast?’
I remembered I was drinking M. Fournier’s champagne. ‘He’s been a friend of Maman’s for years, from when I was growing up, so he probably is. He negotiated the Scottish venues.’ I looked over at him schmoozing his clients. ‘And it’s wonderful publicity for his hotel.’
I tried to remember what Maman had said about how he’d organised her tour. He’d gone from Sullom Voe to be business consultant for the National Trust for Scotland – that was it – and so when Maman had talked of a tour, he’d got back to his former colleagues and persuaded them to use her company as advertisement for their stately homes. They’d shared advertising costs, with a photo of the company superimposed on the various baronial piles, and even run a TV trailer with a soundtrack of Maman singing –spending to bring in, and it had worked. The tour was a sell-out, with a waiting list for even the most remote venues, like Castle Fraser and Haddo House, each a forty-minute drive out into the wilds of Aberdeenshire, Cawdor Castle in Inverness-shire, or Broughton House, right down in the bottom left corner of Scotland, looking across the Solway at the English shore.
They’d had a bit of luck too. The promising young mezzo that Maman had suggested for Phaedra two years before, at the planning stage, had suddenly become the latest celeb singer, whose face was so plastered over the newspapers that even I recognised her. Kamilla Lange, she was called, blonde and pretty, with a round, dimpled face, huge blue eyes framed by spiky dark lashes, and a swirl of curls held back by a diamanté clip. She was constantly in motion, like a swarm of tropical fish, facing forward to gaze at the person she was talking to, then turning her head to toss a smile over her bare shoulder. Everything about her glittered like a jewel box under the chandeliers: her hair; her earrings; the sequins on the scarlet tunic that curved across her cleavage and fell in folds on her lower back. I realised now, close up, that it was one of those stage costumes with a net back and front, but from the audience it had looked daringly sexy, as if
one pin pulled out would have the whole dress falling at her sandalled feet.
‘Austrian,’ Maman had said, ‘from a village halfway between Vienna and Graz, and determined to become a star.’ She’d smiled at me. ‘Almost as ambitious as I was, my Cassandre, her career is her whole life.’ A shrug. ‘It is the way of the world these days. When I was young it was enough to sing very well. Now, these young singers, they must sing very well and be sexy on the cover of the album as well. They must party, and be seen by the papers, and tweet, and Facebook, and all these other things I am very glad I escaped, because nowadays it is fame that sells tickets.’ She almost managed to sound convincing. ‘I just hope that the fans who have bought tickets realise that Hippolyte et Aricie is a serious opera.’
Even as I watched, Kamilla swept an arm through that of the young American who’d sung Theseus, and handed her phone to someone else to snap them together. She pouted up at him, eyes inviting, but his smile was pure professional charm, and his arm didn’t go round her waist. A moment uploading, and the shot was whizzed – I presumed – round her followers. Theseus took the chance to slip away, and his place was instantly taken by Hippolytus. It was funny, I reflected, how the young lovers, Hippolytus and Aricia, were played by the older couple, Maman and this Adrien Moreau, with Theseus and Phaedra, the older couple in the story, being played by a pair in their early twenties.
‘Schliemann,’ Gavin said in my ear. ‘Helen of Troy.’ I turned to give him a blank look, and he tilted his chin towards Maman, with her dark hair piled up in the gold headdress. The photo I’d half-remembered became clear in my memory: a sepia photo, with Schliemann’s wife decked in the jewels he’d found. ‘Of course! I was wondering why it looked so familiar. The designer must have copied the real ones.’
‘If they were ever real in the first place,’ my policeman said. ‘He found them during everyone else’s lunch break, and smuggled them off the site.’
‘Wasn’t that because anything he found was the property of the Turkish government?’
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