“I didn’t mean that. Why didn’t you tell me it was your grandson who was murdered? He showed me this photograph,” I said. “He was looking for it.”
There was a significant pause. “I do not have a grandson,” he said. “Dead or alive.”
“But your wife, in the photograph: he was her grandson, but not yours? Is that it?”
“Let me make myself perfectly clear. Neither I nor my dear and much missed wife, who is the woman in the picture, has a grandson. I have two sons, one of whom you have met, who has no children, nor will he ever, I suspect, and my other son has two daughters. I have great-grandchildren, but they are too young to be participating in this farce, and besides, all of the family with the exception of Thor and me, live in America. I had only two children conceived before the war, and after my war injury, a land mine explosion, let us just be polite and say I wasn’t going to have any more. I loved my wife, but I wasn’t much of a husband for her.”
“So Magnus Budge wasn’t your grandson. Do you know Magnus Budge?”
“Magnus Budge? There are a lot of Budges in Orkney, and I’ve taught quite a few of them. I’m not sure I recall a Magnus Budge, but my memory is not what it used to be.”
“How about Percy, Arthur Percival? He used that name, too.”
“Is that what he called himself?” He sat very quietly for a minute before he started to shake. I thought he was having a seizure of some kind and was about to yell for help, but then he actually guffawed. He laughed so hard, tears were rolling down his cheeks. I just stood there and watched him roar. I did not find any of this amusing.
“Come now,” he said at last. “Give me a little smile. You must get it, surely. You strike me as being reasonably well-educated. Percival. Parzival. Arthur. The chalice. Think, young woman!”
All that young though I might not be, I thought as instructed: Percival, Arthur, the chalice, The Wasteland, the maze, the wounded king. “The Grail,” I said at last. “The Holy Grail.”
“Well done,” he said. “The Quest of the Grail. In legend, the chalice from the Last Supper is brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea and hidden somewhere. Its story becomes bound up in Arthurian legend, with Avalon. All the Knights of Arthur’s Round Table seek it, including Sir Perceval, spelled with two e’s, and in some versions known as Parzival, in still others Peredur. I suppose if your fellow had called himself Lancelot, or Galahad, you wouldn’t have been taken in. The Grail is to be found in the castle of the wounded king, the fisher king, a castle at the center of a wasteland, its entrance obscured by a maze. No one knows where this castle might be. Perceval finds it, though, more or less by accident, makes his way through the labyrinth, and is served dinner at the table of the king. A beautiful maiden brings the Grail into the hall. But Perceval does not ask the right question, and the next day the castle and the Grail are gone. If he had asked the question, the spell would have been broken, the wounded king restored to health, and the wasteland would bloom again.”
“Whom does the Grail serve?” I said.
“The question that Percival doesn’t ask,” he agreed, nodding. “You have redeemed yourself. I’ve always liked Perceval. He always seemed to me to be an average knight, unlike Lancelot who caused a lot of trouble, and Galahad who was just too pious. I suppose I’m the wounded king, am I, guardian of the Grail, also referred to as the Chalice? The wound is supposed to be of a sexual nature, hence the wasteland, so that’s about right. In my case the land has been laid waste because of a brush fire, a lack of money, and my inability to keep the place up, all, I suppose, due to my injury in some way. Your Percy, Magnus, whoever, was looking for the Grail.”
“Isn’t everybody?” I said. I was tired and discouraged. Percy couldn’t possibly have been killed because he was looking for the Holy Grail. Locked up in an institution maybe, but not murdered. “Are you looking for it, too?”
“No. My quest is much more prosaic, I regret to say. I’ve always felt that the tomb of the orcs and Bjarni’s cauldron are nearby, but I’ve never been able to find them, and I don’t suppose I ever will. I will have to sell this house soon, and go someplace that can deal with my medical condition and my advanced years. I should have done it long ago. Too stubborn, that’s all, and I was afraid it would be too much for my wife, too confusing for her in her mental state. All I seek now is somewhere with kind people where Thor will be happy. That would be my Holy Grail.”
“I’m sorry I’ve bothered you,” I said. “Thank you for telling me about Bjarni the Wanderer. It’s a wonderful story. I promise I will try very hard to persuade the people who have your scroll to return it to you. If they don’t do it voluntarily, I’ll think of something. Enjoy the rest of the scotch.” And then I turned, patted Oddi, who got up when I did, and dragged my sorry rear end out the door.
The house was quiet when I got back. The only person who saw me come in was Drever, and I had a sense he’d been waiting for me. I was pretty sure he knew where I’d been. Perhaps he didn’t like the idea of my fraternizing with the neighbors any more than he liked the dogs and Thor visiting the Alexanders’ place. In my opinion it was none of his business. There was a note telling me to help myself to whatever I felt like from the kitchen. I found myself some cold salmon and a salad, and took it up to my sitting room, only to discover that in my absence the Gaudi chair was gone, replaced by another. I wondered how stupid the Alexanders thought I must be.
Chapter 10
It is here that Bjarni’s tale diverges from what one might expect in a journey of this sort. In other words, it ceases to be consistent with the facts. Up until now, his journey would be similar to that of many Vikings, like Earl Rognvald, for example, who went as far as Constantinople just a hundred or so years later. But Bjarni’s was different, very different from this point on.
Despite Svein’s entreaties, Bjarni and Svein did not return the way they had come, nor did they go directly home. Rather, from Jerusalem they went overland to Baghdad. Baghdad under the Abbasids was the marketplace to the world, a place where the camel caravans from the east came loaded with silks and spices, and men from the north and west, including many Vikings, came to trade, where silver and gold were to be found, along with gems and pearls from the Persian Gulf No doubt Bjarni, flush with his wages and the other loot he’d acquired in his years in the Varangian Guard, and having heard of the riches there, had some trading to do. From there Bjarni and Svein joined a camel caravan for the overland route to Gorgon on the edge of the Caspian Sea. They crossed the Caspian, and then undertook a perilous journey on the Volga River, thence overland on the trade route that took them through what is now Poland and Germany, at that point heading for the north. It was in northern lands that something very strange occurred.
According to the tale, Bjarni became separated from the rest of his group in a storm, not to be reunited with Svein and the others for several days. He wandered in the forest for days, foraging for food, before he came upon an encampment. He found the people there passing strange, but they fed him well, and gave him shelter. In the evening he drank with them, offered a bitter liquid from a large silver cauldron by a beautiful woman. According to Bjarni, while he was in the forest with these people, he had very strange dreams about a disembodied head that spoke to him. Brought before this head, men were stabbed and beheaded, then thrown into a stream. Bjarni, who may not have been well-educated, was not a stupid man, and he began to think that perhaps he hadn’t been dreaming, and furthermore that he was to be a victim. That evening, when a drink from the communal cauldron was passed to him, he only pretended to sip it. Frenzy gripped the group, all of them but Bjarni, and soon the woman who had served him the drink began a dance around him. Bjarni decided this did not bode well. He leapt up, grabbed the cauldron, and ran with it into the forest. For three days he fled, until, exhausted and hungry, he happily came upon his companions.