Peter opened his eyes to a thicket of legsâtable legs, chair legs, human legs. He lay on his side, cheek pressed to the cold concrete, mind a swirl of thoughts.
He jumped to his feet and instantly regretted it.
"Sit down!" said a woman with olive skin and curly black hair. It all came flooding back with a name, Davila. "You've suffered a concussion."
Peter stumbled to a nearby chair and sat, head clanging. Wiping the drool and sawdust from this face, he reached back and felt the throbbing goose egg on the back of his head.
"I told him your name," said Davila. "Your real name."
It was then Peter noticed the older man with the wind-swept hair, pure white. He was sitting on a wooden chair and fiddling with a pair of crooked bifocals, the ones that had been perched on his beak-like nose when Peter tackled him. On a nearby table lay the Viking broadsword with its dense iron pommel.
The man set aside his bifocals and rose, wincing as he pushed himself up from the chair. "Had I known who you were, I would have greeted you far more hospitably." He approached Peter and asked him to stand. "I am Tomas Markussen, curator of the Museum at Nidarosdomen, the great Cathedral at Trondheim."
As he took Peter's right hand, he offered his left beneath, just like captain William Fitzimmin had done. The usual means of identification. Tomas Markussen was a Son of Simon. Peter took Markussen's left hand, their arms forming a cross, and together they spoke the passwords, Davila watching on. When they had finished, Peter asked Markussen why he had attacked them.
Davila answered for him. "He thought we were here to kill him."
"Yes, but this lovely young lady set me straight, although I have yet to forgive her for picking my lock."
"God, how long was I out?"
"Long enough for me to explain myself." Then Markussen repeated what he had already told Davila. The bombing of the British Museum was all over the news. Adrianna Fitzimmin was dead, along with six other museum staff. William and Helena Fitzimmin were also dead, killed in a suspicious house fire that occurred shortly after the bombing. London Metropolitan Police were looking for two suspects, a woman and a man seen by neighbors exiting the house just before it erupted into flames. The male suspect had been linked to the bombing, and both had been spotted on a ferry bound for Ireland. MI-5 had taken up the case.
Peter turned to Davila. "Jesus."
She nodded grimly.
Markussen sighed. "You must forgive me. When you two broke into my workshopâ"
"You thought we were the killers," said Peter.
"Precisely. Someone has been murdering the Sons of Simon one by one, each in the same horrible manner. Yes, I know what happened to your father. Adriana emailed me. I am truly sorry."
"Thank you. Did you know him?"
Markussen nodded. "I was assistant curator when your father came here for his studies. We've corresponded once or twice over the years."
"Then you know what he was working on."
"I do." Taking up his bifocals, Markussen went to the workshop's main door and re-locked it. Then he led them to a low steel door at the back of the workshop, the same door he had emerged from when Peter and Davila broke in. Pausing before it, he turned to Peter and cleared his throat. Then he began to recite a poem: "The Irish fled at Olav's name, fled from a young king seeking fame." Markussen nodded at Peter to continue.
He knew the poem by heart. "In Bretland and in Cumberland, people against him could not stand."
Then in unison they recited the final stanza: "Thick on the fields their corpses lay, to ravens and howling wolves a prey."
Markussen sighed and leaned back against the door. "Until just now, I wasn't completely sure you were Daniel Barshman's son. But I doubt you no more. You are a true Son of Simon. In fact, you may be the last one."
"The last one? What about you?"
"I'm a member of the order, but I've no claim to patrilineal descent from Simon the Apostle, as do you. Come, let me show you what your father was working on all those years ago."
He led them into a cramped reading room and closed the door behind them. Everything was lacquered woodâthe little table, the two chairs, the floor-to-ceiling cabinets and drawers. The smell reminded Peter of the Great Reading room in the library back in Seattle. And like Adriana's document room at the British Museum, the air was kept cool and dry by machinery humming somewhere above the low ceiling. Markussen donned his crooked bifocals and thumbed through a ledger until he found what he was after. From a high drawer, he took an oversized archival envelope and set it on the table. Slipping on a pair of fine white gloves, he untied the folder's strings and reached inside. Reverently, he extracted a page of ancient-looking parchment roughly the dimensions of a sheet of typing paper and laid it on the table. At its center was a block of dense black script written in a fine hand, but unadorned in any way.
"Is this it?" said Peter.
"This single document was the main reason your father came to Trondheim."
Davila leaned close. "It's medieval."
"Late twelfth century to be precise. The page is vellum, split calfskin, the script Caroline-Insular. It's actually written in Old Norse, not Latin like most manuscripts of that time." He paused as if deciding how to proceed. "Is either of you familiar with the Icelandic sagas?"
"I read Njal's Saga at university," said Davila.
Of course she had.
"Excellent. Njal's Saga is considered Snorri Sturluson's finest work, a fantastic example of medieval Icelandic prose tradition. He also wrote a collection of sagas called Heimskringla, which includes Olav Tryggvason's Saga. It's a hagiography, a Christianized account of Olav's not-so-Christian life."
"Does it say he was baptized in Ireland?" asked Peter.
"No. According to the saga, Olav was baptized by a hermit in the Scylli Isles. But this is hagiography, and Olav's story was altered and redacted to shine a light on his Christian qualities, and shadow those that weren't so Christian, like pillaging and murder. Thus, it's in what the Church omitted that we discover the truth. An in the final version of Olav Tryggvason's Saga, there's a chapter so heavily redacted that only two sentences remain."
He angled the document for Peter to see. "This is the original chapter, before it was redacted by the Church. It narrates a fateful encounter between King Olav and a young Viking explorer in the year 1000, the same year Olav died. Your father made the first English translation."
Markussen traced his gloved finger around the edge of the paragraph and began to read. Peter had heard his father speak Old Norse on occasion, but it never sounded anything like this, so rich and alive. The throaty vowels and sturdy consonants rolled off the Norwegian's tongue.
Leifur sonur EirÃks rauða, þess er fyrstur byggði Grænland, var þetta sumar kominn af Grænlandi til Noregs. Fór hann á fund Ãlafs konungs og tók við kristni og var um veturinn með Ãlafi konungi.
Then in English:
Leif, a son of Eirik the Red who first settled Greenland, came that summer from Greenland to Norway. And as he met King Olav, he adopted Christianity, and passed the winter with the king.
"Now, in the surviving version of the saga, the chapter ends right there, after two short sentences. Let me read to you what the Church removed." He seemed to know it by heart.
In the spring, Leif desired to see again his home in Greenland. As Leif made ready to sail, King Olav asked if he desired to serve his king.
Leif replied, I desire to serve my king but also to see my kinsmen again.
Then the king said, That is good, because I ask you now to do both things.
Leif was puzzled and wondered how a man could both serve his master and leave his side.
The king replied, Hear my confession and you will understand. He reminded Leif of Halfred Vandraskald's famous verse:
The Irish fled at Olav's nameâ
Fled from a young king seeking fame.
Thick on the fields their corpses lay,
To ravens and howling wolves a prey.
Then Olav recounted to Leif the sins he had committed prior to his baptism, the churches he had plundered and the priests he had murdered.
And Olav said, Ever after have I sought to bring Christ to our people. Norway and Iceland I have baptized. But you, Leif, will take the Seeds of Salvation across the sea and baptize the people of Greenland. Thus may you serve me and see your kinsmen again.
For this Leif was glad, and he sailed from Norway to Iceland and thence to Greenland, his home.
Peter gripped Davila's arm. "You know who this is, right?"
Markussen nodded. "Indeed. The most famous of all the Viking explorers, Leif, son of EirikâLeif Eirikson. According to other sagas, Leif Eirikson pushed his ships far past Greenland and in the year 1001 set foot in North America, almost five hundred years before Christopher Columbus. And the Vikings were in North America. We have archaeological proof."
"L'ans Aux Meadows in Newfoundland," said Davila.
"Precisely."
Peter jabbed his finger at the document. "Seeds of Salvation? That's a reference to the Mustard Seeds, right?"
Markussen nodded. "That's what your father believed."
Peter turned to Davila. "How could he read this and think they were anything but a metaphor for Christianity? I meanâ"
Davila silenced him with a raised hand, her head cocked. Now Peter heard it too, a thumping sound coming from the workshop.
She sprang to the door, opened it a crack and peered out. Someone was pounding on the workshop's main door, shouting in what sounded like Norwegian.
"It's the police," said Markussen.
"Shit, someone must have reported us," said Peter.
Markussen slipped the document back into its folder. "Shall I let them in?"
Davila whipped around. "No! That may not be the police out there. We have to get out of here, all of us!"
"She's right," said Peter. "There's no time to explain."
All at once the pounding and shouting ceased. They stood in silence, waiting.
Boom! Something heavy struck the door.
"Entry ram!" said Davila, turning to Markussen. "Is there another way out of the workshop?"
Markussen pointed to a set of drawers along the room's back wall. "Pull them out, starting with the bottom one."
Boom. Splinters of wood clinked against the workshop floor.
Peter yanked out the bottom drawer, and the two above it, until he could see a rough hole in the floor just wide enough for a person to slip through.
"You first," he said to Davila.
She lingered by the steel door. "Does this lock?"
"Only from the outside," said Markussen.
With Peter's help, Davila slipped down the hole and landed on a stone floor not far below.
"Now you," he said to Markussen.
The man winced and held his bruised ribs. "No! You first. I'll need you below to catch me."
Peter slid down the hole and landed hard on the stone floor, head throbbing now. He reached up for Markussen, but the drawer slammed shut above him, nearly taking off his hand. He tried to push it open, but Markussen held it closed from above. "What are you doing?" Peter yelled.
Boom.
Markussen's muffled voice filtered down through the drawer. "I won't be able to make it. The way is too difficult! Go and warn my uncle. There's a passage running through the catacombs to a boathouse on the river. Take the boat to Munkholmen, the only island in the harbor. My uncle is in a cottage at the northwest edge. Greet him as a Son of Simon, and he will tell you more than I can. Go!"
Another drawer slammed into place, then the last, leaving Peter and Davila in total darkness. Above, the workshop's main door gave way with a muted crash. Heavy footsteps followed. Then came the unmistakable ring of an iron sword clattering on the concrete floor.
______________________
Author's note:
Thank you for reading Chapter 31!
Olav Tryggvason's Saga was written around the year 1230 by the Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson. It chronicles Olav's life, from his birth around 963 to his death at the Battle of Svolder in the year 1000. After his baptism in the Scilly Island's (ca. 984), Olaf made it his life's mission to bring Christianity to his pagan brethren, often by force. The chapter in Olav Tryggvason's Saga narrating his fateful meeting with Leif Eirikson is brief, only two tantalizing sentences, suspiciously brief for a work of over thirty-thousand words. It makes you wonder.
If you get a chance, check out the Icelandic sagas. They're wonderfully written, full of drama, intrigue and heroics. We often think of the culture that produced the Vikings as being brutish and simple. It was certainly violent, but at the same time complex and socially advanced. In Njall's Saga, for example, you'll discover a tenth century legal system that supported religious freedom and women's rights. No wonder the Scandinavians are so progressive!
-Frode
Image: Medieval Icelandic Manuscript
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