The Runestone Incident (The Incident Series, #2) (4 page)

There was also a view of one side, where a shorter bit of text had been carved:

“Can you read it?” I asked Dr. Holm, looking up at her from my chair.

“The runes? Oh, yes, though there are differing opinions about the translation. I’ll give you the gist of it, though.” Running a finger over the poster, she quoted:

Eight Gotlanders and twenty-two Northmen on a journey from Vinland to the west.

We had a camp one day’s journey north from this stone.

We were out fishing one day.

After we came home,

We found ten men red from blood and dead.

Ave Maria save us from evil.

I followed her hand as it moved over the text and spotted the abbreviation that stood for Ave Maria, as that part was chiseled in clearly recognizable letters:
AVM
.

“Gotlanders?” I asked, vowing to study up on my
Scandinavian
history. I had picked up bits and pieces from the historical snippets that accompanied each STEWie run proposal, but I hadn’t come across Gotland before.

“It’s the largest island in the Baltic Sea. Part of Sweden today. And Northmen probably refers to Norwegians. Hypothetically speaking, we can imagine they might have been explorers looking to establish a new trade route, perhaps for fur, which was a luxury item at the time.” She added, “Here on the side, it says:
Have ten men by the sea to look after our ships, fourteen days’ journey from this island. Year 1362.”

“It’s quite a tale,” I said, “if it’s true. On a journey from Vinland…I’ve heard that term before—it’s used in the Norse sagas, right? But where was it?”

“No one is quite sure.” She tugged at her hairband again. “All we know is that there was a settlement at Lancey Meadows—”

“I’m sorry, where?”

She spelled it out for me. “L’Anse aux Meadows. The settlement was built just around the turn of the millennium—early eleventh century—on Newfoundland.”

“Sorry,” I said again, “my geography of the, er, northern part of the Americas is rusty.”

“Newfoundland is the large island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of mainland Canada. Twenty years after his father, Erik the Red, founded the Greenland colonies, Leif Erikson sailed to Newfoundland—or at least we think he did. It hasn’t been confirmed yet with a run. The settlement, with its Viking artifacts, is at the northernmost tip of the island.
It is the only confirmed Norse site in North America
.” She followed the statement with a moment’s pause to underline its significance.

The implication suddenly hit me.

“Wait,” I said. “If there was a Viking village in Canada, doesn’t that conclusively prove that—”

“—the Vikings reached the Americas five hundred years before Columbus? It does indeed. Before L’Anse aux Meadows no one had believed it.”

Thanks to a recent run by the Dr. May she had mentioned, we now had a snapshot of Columbus. The picture showed a man on the tall side with a hooked nose, his red beard and hair shot through with white. It surprised me that I hadn’t heard that a Viking archeological site had been found. My Norwegian ancestry meant there was a high possibility that I had Viking blood in my veins, though I didn’t actually know of any ancestors who had gone pirating, pillaging, and exploring. My
parents
were not big on ancestry and that kind of thing—except for a few family photos, the knickknacks in our house were mostly mementos of the stories my parents had written for the town newspaper over the years. But you couldn’t grow up in Minnesota, where it was impossible to swing a cat without hitting someone of Scandinavian descent, without absorbing some Viking lore.

“When was the settlement documented?” I asked, expecting to hear that it had been filmed on a STEWie run while I was in Pompeii. “Lancey…what did you call it again?” It occurred to me that I should have brought my notepad, if only to list all the new names I was learning.

“L’Anse aux Meadows. The name is an anglicized version of the French for Jellyfish Cove. The settlement—what was left of it—was found in 1960 by the Norwegian explorer and archeologist pair Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad. I thought it was worth a shot for a STEWie run. No luck so far, though,” she said. I thought she meant no luck in confirming that it was the Vinland of the runestone and the Norse sagas, but she elaborated by lowering her voice to quote Dr. Payne. “ ‘There is no need for you to go, Dr. Holm, where there are no runes.’ ”

I took another look at the poster, this time with different eyes. “So if the Vikings reached L’Anse aux Meadows at just about the turn of the millennium—”

“—could a small group have made it inland all the way to Kensington some three hundred fifty years later?” She continued with the caution of an academic. “There are linguistic problems with the runes on the stone that point to a forgery. I explained that to Quinn—to Mr. Olsen. I hope you’re not disappointed.”

“Not in the least. Thank you, Dr. Holm.”

As she rolled up the poster and turned back to the cabinet, I stopped her. “Why
did
you want to go to L’Anse aux Meadows if there are no runes there?”

I recognized the hesitation. She didn’t want to share an idea that she hadn’t published yet. “Well—think of all we would learn about the Old Norse language if we planted microphones throughout the settlement. It’s true that most of the conversation would concern ordinary things like
What’s for dinner?
and
I hope the rain will taper off by tomorrow.
But that’s exactly what we need to supplement the meager texts that have survived. It’s unlikely that L’Anse aux Meadows itself was Vinland, the place of wild grapes, but if we should happen to overhear the villagers mention where it might be…” She didn’t finish the thought.

The rolled-up poster in her hand, with its black-and-white reproduction of the runestone, was like a window into the past. I raised an eyebrow at it. “What killed them?”

“Who?”

“The ones who stayed behind at the camp on the runestone. Unfriendly locals?”

“Hypothetically speaking, that’s been the assumption ever since the stone was found. If we knew where to look, perhaps we could find the skeletons of ten men and their effects within a day’s journey on foot or boat from Kensington. Now that would be something… Just think of it—they probably thought they had reached Asia from the west, just as Columbus would assume years later.”

For someone who didn’t believe in the authenticity of the stone, she sure seemed to know a lot about it. As if she could sense what I was thinking, she added, “Still hypothetically speaking, of course. Some of the runes are unusual, like this part here,
opthagelsefarth
.” She unrolled the poster a bit again. “Did the carver mean to suggest a journey of acquisition or a journey of exploration? And the camp where the fisherman left their companions is described as being near two landmarks. In my
opinion
, the word refers to—”

“Wasting your time, Dr. Holm?” a voice rasped. “Don’t you have a department meeting to attend? Or were you not planning to grace us with your presence?”

It was Dr. Payne, a bound book in one hand, his thinning hair combed over an ever-expanding bald spot. The raspiness of his voice was from years of chain smoking in the courtyard of the American History building.

“I’ll be at the meeting, Dr. Payne, I was just showing Julia here the runestone poster—she’s from the science departments. Even though the stone’s not authentic, it’s still a valuable
nineteenth
-century artifact…”

“I expressed an interest,” I explained calmly. “There is a minor connection on my husband’s side of the family.”

The professor sent a look of contempt in the direction of the poster in Dr. Holm’s hand. “All this talk of who discovered America—Columbus or the Vikings—is utter nonsense. Ancestral Indians got here fifteen thousand years ago, or more, by crossing the Bering Strait from Siberia. Columbus didn’t discover America. Indians discovered Europeans on their shores, much to their detriment. A hoax like the Kensington Runestone…well, let’s just say that it only makes a historian’s lot harder.”

He sniffed derisively and went on his way.

4

Sabina came home on the school bus and cheerfully dropped her backpack onto the deck, where Abigail and I were setting things up for her party. Truth be told, I was happy the pair had moved in with me. While I didn’t exactly miss Quinn, the house had seemed empty when I was the only one living there. Sabina greeted me as Aunt Julia, which was nice, even though it made me feel older than my thirty-five years.

Sabina and Abigail went to dig up a Frisbee in the garage. Helen had phoned to say she was running late, but Nate and Kamal arrived a few minutes after the appointed time in our security chief’s Jeep. They had Wanda, Nate’s spaniel, in tow. She ran off into the yard and Kamal sank into one of the deck chairs immediately, already sweating. Nate nodded at me and said, “Where do you want these, Julia?”

He was carrying a large plate heavy with vegetables, with a stack of metal skewers waiting for them. There were also some plump, pink disks.

I eyed them. “What on earth are those?”

“Salmon burgers.”

“Salmon? I thought you were bringing normal burgers.”

“These are normal. You’ve never had a salmon burger?”

My palate was more of the “grilled meat and potato chips” type, except, oddly, for finger foods—since they were the life’s blood of the fundraisers and other school events I frequently organized, I was well versed in fancy cheeses, fondues, shrimp cocktails, and other delicacies that could be eaten standing up.
Well-versed
in ordering them, that is, not making or enjoying them.

“I suppose I can give the salmon burgers a shot. In here.” I slid the deck door open and he followed me into the kitchen. “How was the team-building retreat?”

“Good. And your summer?”

He was not a particularly chatty person, as if he was the one with the Norwegian ancestry instead of me. His own ancestry was wonderfully mixed, which had resulted in a uniquely appealing set of features, I had to admit—from his jet black hair and eyes to his height. He was so tall and lanky that his campus
security
uniform probably needed to be specially made. I had always meant to ask him about that.

“Sabina started school this week, right?” he added. “How’s she liking it?”

“She hasn’t said much about it,” I explained. “I think she’s reserving judgment.”

“Well, it is high school, and she is the new kid.”

I sighed. “I know. That rarely goes well for anybody.”

Having left the food by the sink, we went back out onto the deck, where Nate turned his attention to lighting the charcoal. Sabina and Abigail had returned with the Frisbee and Sabina twisted it in her hands as, with a mixture of relief and pride, she launched into an account of her first week at school. “This
puella
—girl—she called me ‘pizza lover,’ ” Sabina mimicked, her accent (which seemed to be diminishing day by day) only adding to the tale.

I wasn’t happy that someone had teased her, but at least it sounded like the back story we had come up with, that she was an immigrant from Italy living with Cousin Abigail and Aunt Julia, had been accepted without question. Besides, it was sort of true. “Just try to ignore remarks like that,” I said, moving the deck chairs into the shade. The rain had cleared up, leaving behind a strong afternoon sun. Summer had continued seamlessly into September, and the heat had yielded a fresh crop of boxelder bugs. The black bugs, with their familiar red markings, coated the sunny side of the house, harmless nuisances that they were.

Sabina ignored the chairs and hopped up onto the deck railing. “I wasn’t offended. I like pizza, this is true, no?”

“I can go to school with you if you’d like. I’ll punch anybody who needs it,” Kamal announced, edging his deck chair deeper into the shade. The senior graduate student, who was not athletic in the least and would probably sprain a finger if he
did
punch anybody, added, “Happy to do it.”

“Not to worry, Kamal. I can handle. And I made friend. Kim. She nice.” Sabina fingered the amulet hanging from a thin chain around her neck, a crescent moon made of orange-brown amber. The amulet was a lunula—a symbol of Diana, the goddess of the moon, the hunt, and childbirth. It was Sabina’s one link to home and a source of great strength for her. I hoped she wouldn’t get teased about the odd piece of jewelry at school.

An overweight scruffy dog waddled up the deck steps and curled into a ball by her feet, which she was energetically swinging from her perch on the railing. Celer had also returned with us from Pompeii. The leisure-loving dog’s name, pronounced with a hard
k
, meant
Speedy
in what was clearly intended as a joke. Celer’s opposite in personality and looks was Wanda, who was currently chasing a squirrel up the oak tree that shaded the deck, her tongue hanging to one side. While Celer was grayish and of indeterminate ancestry, Wanda’s silken white-and-chestnut coat could have won her a dog contest. Nate had inherited her from a previous case, back when he had worked in law enforcement in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, by the Canadian border.

“Wanda, behave yourself,” he called out, then went back into the house to prepare the food.

Sabina, watching Wanda, commented, “Most hard word…
sk—skoo
…”

“
Sqwo-ral
,” Kamal said helpfully. His parents were diplomats, and he spoke four languages fluently, including his native Arabic.

“Skoo-ral.” Sabina added, “I forgot to say. We get in school—what is it…
lah-kers
, yes.”

“Shoot, sorry, I forgot to explain about those,” Abigail said. The two had bonded during the few days we had spent in the past, and their bond had only grown stronger in the four months since our return. “Did you get a combination for it?”

“Yes, three numbers. I memorize.”

Abigail’s short hair changed color so frequently that Sabina and I joked that it was like living with a different person each week. The current, somewhat odd shade of green made her look rather like a hungry insect as she untwisted the top of a salsa jar. Sabina hopped off the railing and, following Abigail’s example, tentatively scooped up some salsa with a corn chip. She looked at it for a moment, then popped the whole thing in her mouth.

“Good,” she said after some crunching.

“I know, right? Julia and I bought something new for you to try for dessert, too—
cheesecake
. It’s yummy. Not for you, Celer, sorry,” Abigail added as the dog stirred at the familiar word. “It’s made from chocolate, which, as you found out, is bad for dogs.”

Chocolate, corn, pizza—these were all newfound tastes for Sabina (and Celer); the Roman world of their time had been a place of grapes, figs, and olive oil. I felt a twinge of sadness as I watched the girl dig into the chips and salsa, wondering if she missed Pompeii fare like the flavorful goat stew we’d eaten with hearty bread, or the pungent but popular Roman sauce
garum
. Her father had manufactured it in large sunken jars in the
garden
behind his shop, just next to the pear tree, by fermenting fish for months at a time. Well, it wasn’t likely we’d be able to
duplicate
that one, but the others we could try at future get-togethers. I headed back inside, sliding the screen door behind me quickly so that no boxelder bugs could get into the house.

Nate was by the kitchen sink with his sleeves rolled up as he popped vegetable chunks onto metal skewers. I offered to help him prepare the food and received a friendly chuckle in return. “For everybody’s safety, perhaps you’d better not. Some things are best left to the chef.”

“Hey, I’m only dangerous to the food, not to my guests.”

“You want to do the wine?”

“I was about to.”

As I reached for a bottle of red wine on the countertop, the front door opened and Helen hurried in, maneuvering a thick bunch of balloons in with her.

“Sorry I’m late, Julia. My lecture ran longer than I expected, then I had to stop to pick up these. I wasn’t sure which would be the most suitable for Sabina’s first week of school in the
twenty-firs
t century, so I got them all. Hello, Chief Kirkland. How was your retreat?”

“Good. And your summer, Professor?” Nate asked from the sink.

“Most productive. I managed to recover a copy of
Shakespeare’s lost
Cardenio
.”

“Well done.”

“Is Dr. Mooney with you, Helen?” I asked. I hoped she would remember to not let it slip that Quinn was back in town. “I thought he was coming.”

“Xavier texted to say he got held up at the conference and missed his plane. He was showing them his new and improved Slingshot.” She tossed her silver hair, which she kept long for STEWie runs to Shakespeare’s time, behind her shoulder with her free hand as if she was irritated at Xavier for changing his plans without consulting her. Xavier Mooney was a senior
professor
of Time Travel Engineering. He and Helen had been married once, and our shared Pompeii ordeal had rekindled their somewhat stormy relationship. The Slingshot was the
laptop
-size device that the professor had used to bring us back from Pompeii; he had been perfecting it ever since. “He won’t be back until tomorrow,” Helen added.

“Can’t he just use the new and improved Slingshot to get back?” Nate suggested half-jokingly.

“I guess it’s not quite ready for that sort of thing.”

After helping Helen tie the balloons to a kitchen chair (there were ten of them, with a variety of messages, from
Congratulations!
to
Good Luck!
), I returned my attention to the wine bottle and opened it with a sharp twist of the corkscrew. I poured the wine halfway up a large pitcher, then went to the sink to top it off with cold tap water, a procedure that probably would have puzzled anyone who hadn’t gone to Pompeii with us. If serving watered-down wine to a thirteen-year-old girl was odd, well, so were many things at our house.

“How are the coals looking out there?” Nate asked as I poured the rosy mixture into two glasses, passing one to Helen and leaving the other on the counter for him.

“They always look the same to me, pink-gray. I don’t know how you decide when they’re ready.”

“Years of grilling experience, Julia.”

As Helen held the deck door open for me, I noticed a twinkle in her eye and mouthed
Stop it
at her. I set the pitcher down next to the lemonade already sitting on ice on the deck. Lukewarm had been the Roman way of serving the watered-down wine, but I didn’t think Sabina would mind on such a hot afternoon. She and Abigail were on the sunny part of the lawn, tossing the Frisbee around, Wanda nipping at their feet as she ran back and forth following the path of the Frisbee. Kamal was slumped in a lawn chair with a glass of lemonade in his hand and Celer in his lap. “I’m exhausted. It’s a lot of work putting together a thesis defense. Celer, get off. You’ve gained too much weight.”

It was true. The dog hadn’t been exactly lean and energetic when he’d arrived in the twenty-first century in Kamal’s arms, and he’d only gotten chubbier since. Used to eating scraps in the Pompeii shop run by Sabina’s father, he had turned his nose up at the notion of pre-bagged dog food and simply shared ours—a lot of it.

Luckily, Sabina hadn’t followed suit. Though she was no doubt eating more food than she had grown up on, her habit of moving around most of the day countered the extra calories. She helped with chores, tended to the yard, and spent afternoons exploring the campus; with her height, she could have easily been mistaken for a college freshman instead of a high school student. Hers was a familiar face at the TTE lab, where she often hung out by Dr. Mooney’s workbench watching him tinker with STEWie parts.

Right now, her jeans and T-shirt made her look like a typical American teenager as she sent the Frisbee flying above Wanda’s head. She wasn’t. Having worked at both a laundry business and her father’s garum shop, she was used to hard physical labor. Just a few days earlier, I had caught her stockpiling empty shoe boxes and pop bottles. Sabina had explained that she thought that they might come in handy for something or other. Why give them to the truck that came down the street every week and drove away with the neighborhood’s discarded possessions? I felt a rising tide of anger toward Quinn. How dare he let himself in to snoop around, interfering with the fragile peace Sabina had made with her situation?

“Does Chief Kirkland need any help in there?” Kamal asked as his stomach gave a low growl. He nudged Celer off his lap and the dog gave the senior graduate student a look of profound hurt before settling down in the shade against the deck railing.

I set aside my concerns about Quinn and said, “He seems to have things under control. Here, have some corn chips.”

Kamal hailed from the more well-known Alexandria, and his Mediterranean coloring was similar to dark-eyed, dark-haired Sabina’s. His hair was on the long side at the moment and stubble covered the bottom half of his face. No need to shave for STEWie runs to the Neander Valley of so long ago that the notations in STEWie’s roster were not in AD
or
BC. He’d been spending time in 30 ka, as in thirty kilo-annum, as in thirty thousand years ago. I imagined that his thesis defense next week would find Kamal with his chin baby smooth, his black hair trimmed to a fine degree, and his somewhat stocky frame clad in a suit. The T-shirt he was currently wearing announced
√
-1 2³
∑
π
…and it was delicious
, which had puzzled me until I’d heard him explain to Sabina that the symbols on the shirt, which spelled out
i 8 sum Pi
, had a second meaning
.
Sabina was an avid reader of math textbooks, and knew all about pie and
π
.