The container doors opened to the damp gloom of a Norwegian morning. Davila eased the little electric car out into the fine drizzle, and with the remote control, Peter closed the doors behind them. They had been set down in a fenced yard just off the Gudrun's port side. The sea beyond was choppy and brown. Clouds obscured the horizon, but nearer to shore, a little island stood alone in the harbor.
The yard's fenced gate opened automatically. Merging onto a broad boulevard, they coursed through an empty industrial park. A roundabout delivered them to a low bridge. Crossing a narrow canal, they caught sight of the city and its surroundings.
Trondheim was smaller than Peter imagined from his mother's descriptions. A core of drab municipal buildings clustered around a river's bend, while farther out, brightly painted suburban houses and autumn-hued treed offered cheerful counterpoint to the backdrop of brooding mountains and low clouds. Peter could almost hear Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite.
They parked in a central district of quaint specialty boutiques and cafes that probably bustled during the warm tourist season but now sat dormant and shuttered. From Davila's duffel bag, they each took a rain parka and set off on foot toward the cathedral, its weathered green spire towering over gold and red trees. Peter was reasonably sure he had seen Davila take her pistol, and her phone.
A small bridge led across the River Nid to Trondheim's historic district. They paused at the bridge's ornately carved wooden portal, painted fire engine red. The river was a hundred feet at its widest, the sluggish brown water hemmed in on either side by the walls of brightly painted wharves and apartment buildings.
Through narrow and glistening streets they came to a sprawling pedestrian plaza bordered by a modern shopping mall and old government buildings painted muted shades of yellow. So early on a Wednesday morning, few people were out, just mall employees exiting and entering through service doors. Their Nordic faces reminded Peter of his mother's, her strength, her beauty. Davila watched them too, her dark eyes darting from face to face. She alone could recognize Gryphus by sight.
Out in the center of the plaza, a slender stone column rose from the center of a huge inlaid compass rosette. Atop the sixty-foot column stood the weathered bronze statue of a Viking king, sword lowered, scepter held aloft, his helmeted gaze fixed on the western horizon. It was Olav Tryggvason, founder of Trondheim, first Christian king of Norwayâand subject of Daniel Barshman's doctoral thesis.
They approached the cathedral from the west. The Norwegians called it Nidarosdomen, the Cathedral at Nidaros, the old Viking name for Trondheim. It remined Peter of Notre Dame. Its central spire climbed three hundred feet above the river's plain, and its main edifice dazzled with stone tracery and an impossibly large rose window. To either side, the carved statues of saints and prophets stood in sheltered ranks. According to the soggy pamphlet they found on a bench, Nidarosdomen was Scandinavia's largest surviving medieval structure.
Unfortunately, it was closed until ten a.m., so they headed across the courtyard to the visitor's center. It too was closed, but Davila rapped on the glass door to catch the attention of a young female clerk inside. Unlocking the door, she opened it just wide enough to accommodate her pudgy pink face.
She spoke in flawless American English. "The visitor center is closed. We open at ten." Her expression was as inviting as the weather.
"We're looking for the museum," said Davila, pulling back her hood.
The young woman propped the door open with her foot and put up her long, strawberry-blond hair. "Everything opens at ten."
"Might the curator be available?"
"Why don't you check back at ten?" She released the door.
Davila grabbed it before it could close and shoved her official ID into the girl's face. "Look, my assistant and I are here on official state business. We've traveled a long way."
The girl squinted at the card with its Hebrew letters and embossed golden candelabra. "Try the armory workshop. Herr Markussen is usually there." Then she pulled the door shut and locked it.
They walked under an archway and found themselves in a cobblestone square surrounded by low stone buildings roofed with terra-cotta tiles. Two miniature canons, each painted marine gray, guarded steps leading down to the workshop. At the bottom was a heavy wooden door bound with black iron. Above it, a single bulb shone weakly from inside its metal cage.
"Assistant?" said Peter.
Davila knocked hard on the door. "Museums are my turf. Let me do the talking."
When no one answered, she tried the handle. Finding it locked, she reached into her cargo pants, took out a small black case, and unzipped it. Inside was a shiny array of delicate instruments, a lock pick set, probably the one she had used to break into Peter's hotel room back in London. She was done in a flash. Pocketing her tools, she pushed the door inward on its well-greased hinges.
Inside was a dimly lit workshop of sorts, maybe seventy feet to a side, the low ceiling buttressed by vertical steel I-beams. The air was close and piney; a fine layer of wood dust covered the cement floor. Several sturdy worktables bore had been piled with scraps of wood, metal pipes and odd chunks of stone. On the back wall hung an assortment of medieval arms, spears, swords, daggers, shields, breastplates, even a coat of chain mail.
"I don't think we should be in here," Peter whispered.
Davila craned her neck. "Hello? Is anyone here?"
A door at the back of the workshop opened, and out stepped an older man, pale, tall, and thin. His lush white hair was swept back, blue eyes startled behind a pair of bifocals perched on a beak-like nose. Seeing Peter and Davila standing there, he froze.
"Hvem er dere?" he said in what Peter assumed was Norwegian.
Davila stepped forward. "Are you the curator?"
"Who are you?" he replied in clear Oxford English. "And what are you doing in my workshop?" He was inching to his right now, eyes locked on Peter, right hand groping at the weapons hanging on the wall.
"My father studied here at the cathedral, a long time ago. We're just looking for anyone who might have worked with him."
The man's fingers found the hilt of a sword. It was a Viking weapon, brutal and heavy, double-edged with a dense iron pommel at the butt end. Yanking it from the wall, he strode forward, chopping at the air in front of him, swinging the blade in a full arc that brought it around to a ready position over his shoulder. "I warn you. I know how to use this."
Peter raised his hand. "Wait! We just wanted to ask some questions."
"I've been expecting you. But I'll not go down as easily as the others! Kom igjen!â¯" He lunged forward, hair flying wildly.
Peter grabbed the nearest thing he could, a light wooden chair, and held it up to ward off the attack. The blow was pathetic, dull blade glancing off the chair's leg.
Davila grabbed her own chair and held it up, legs out, advancing like a lion tamer.
Undaunted, the Norwegian prepared to run her through.
Davila readied her chair to parry. "We don't want to hurt you!"
The blade trembled in his right hand. His nostrils flared. Then with a yell of til Valhal!, he thrust.
The blade's iron point sunk into the underside of the chair's wooden seat and stuck there. Davila twisted the chair, catching the blade between its legs, wrenching it downward. But the Norwegian refused let go. Instead, he reached over with his left hand and pulled the sword free.
Now! Peter dropped his chair and launched himself at the Norwegian's midsection, arms wide for the tackle. At such close range, the three-foot blade would be rendered harmless. It was a bone-crunching hit. But as he drove his legs, lifting the man off his feet, it occurred to Peter why the sword had a dense iron pommel. Then he felt it smash against the back of his skull, and all went black.
___________________
Author's note:
Thank you for reading Chapter 29!
Not the reception Peter expected. Why do you think the curator reacted the way he did?
The statue of King Olaf in Trondheim's plaza faces west, away from his country and home. I find that intriguing.
-Frode
Photo: Nidarosdomen in early autumn. Image taken from https://www.pinterest.com/ajborstad/beautiful-trondheim-norway/