Life was fairly uneventful in Brjansl?kur when there was no mail boat on the way. On this particular Thursday, however, a young stranger stood on the wharf, watching an open motorboat approaching the shore, long in the distance from the south. The man was dressed in a coat tied with a belt at the waist. He was of average height, slim, and sported a conspicuous scar on his forehead. He squinted his gray eyes at the glaring sunlight, as if he were unaccustomed to light, and the cool breeze ruffled his thick, dark hair. A metallic oblong box with handles on the side lay at his feet.
The man stood alone on the wharf, watched from a short distance away by two old men under a shed who were intrigued by this unusual guest. A small truck was driving up the road, away from the wharf, and it soon vanished from sight to the west in a cloud of dust.
This was clearly an alien environment to the young man, and he anxiously scanned the broad fjord and islands in the distance. Two ravens hovered high above his head, croaking at each other. Down on the sea, some arctic terns fluttered and screeched. These riotous birds brought back memories, and they weren’t good ones either, so he instinctively blocked his ears with his hands and closed his eyes a moment-until he realized that it was pointless trying to shut them off like that and decided to shrug off the feeling. He dug his hands deep into his pockets and clenched his fists.
The boat was pulling into shore now. The engine had been turned off, and the vessel was being steered toward the wharf. The stranger caught the rope tossed to him by the men on the boat and held onto it as the two men climbed onto the edge of the wharf.
“Hello there,” said the man who stepped up first-a vigorous man in his sixties, chubby, with a round, ruddy face, a collar of white beard that lined his big cheeks, and a stubby nose. He was wearing thigh-high boots, an old woolen pinstriped cardigan, and a black cap on his head.
“I’m Ellidagrimur Einarsson, administrative officer of the district of Flatey; call me Grimur. I guess you must be the district magistrate’s representative from Patreksfjordur?”
“Yes, I’m Kjartan,” the man who had been waiting on the pier answered, taking the hand the officer was holding out to him. It felt thick and the skin was rough, but it was a warm and firm handshake.
“This is Hogni, our teacher from the Flatey primary school and our church organist,” said the local officer, indicating his partner, a tall, spare man in neat blue overalls and high Wellingtons. “Hogni works with me during the seal-hunting season in the spring and helps out with the hay when the harvesting starts,” the officer added.
Hogni gave the young man an equally vigorous handshake. He had a large gray moustache, well-groomed to the sides, but otherwise clean-shaven cheeks. The teacher seemed to be of the same age of his companion but bore his age well. A bright peaked cap perched over the back of his head.
The local officer observed the district magistrate’s man for a moment and took out a tin of snuff.
“So you’ve only just started to work for the magistrate, have you?” he asked, offering Kjartan some snuff.
“Yes, I took the coaster to Patreksfjordur the day before yesterday,” said Kjartan, declining the offer with a wave of his hand.
“And they’ve thrown you straight into the deep end!” Grimur grinned roguishly, handing Hogni the tin of snuff.
“Yes, this isn’t exactly the kind of assignment I was expecting. They told me working for the district magistrate would be a clerical job, and that I’d be dealing with notarizations and things like that.”
“So this isn’t a long-term career move then?” Grimur asked.
“No, just until the autumn.”
“Are you training to become a district magistrate?”
“No, I just graduated in law this summer, and I wasn’t planning on any district commissioning job.”
“So what are you going to do then?”
“Well, I might be able to join a lawyer’s practice in the fall, so one of my tutors got me this summer job. I’d like to work in property law in the future, so it’ll be good experience for me to audit some mortgage pledges this summer.”
The local officer glanced at the box that lay at their feet. “Right then, let’s just get this box on board and pick up the corpse. But let’s stop off in Flatey to grab a bite to eat from my wife, Imba, on the way. She should have some lunch ready by one if I know her right.”
“Have you identified the deceased yet?” Kjartan asked. He was hoping for a yes to make his job a little bit easier, but his wish wasn’t to be granted.
“No, we haven’t,” Grimur answered. “The only thing that Valdi from Ystakot could tell us was that his boy found a dead man in Ketilsey and nothing more. Those lads sure talk a lot, not that they ever make much sense, and they normally repeat everything twice. As far as I can make out, though, the poor wretch had been dead for some time. Might have been shipwrecked or something in the winter and got washed up by the spring tide. As far as I can tell, it’s basically just a heap of bones, and our job is just to collect them, though I guess we better be prepared for anything. Then we’ve got to log it all and file a report, of course. You must be pretty good at that.”
Kjartan couldn’t remember any part of his law education that covered chores of this kind, but he imagined he’d be able to throw something down on paper. He instinctively dug his hand into his coat pocket and fished out a notebook and pen. He tested the pen on a blank sheet, and it seemed to be working. The islanders watched with interest.
“Yes, I can write the report,” said Kjartan awkwardly, shoving the notebook back into his pocket again.
The islanders stepped down onto the boat and grabbed the box that Kjartan eased over the side of the wharf. A small suitcase was passed down in the same way, and then finally Kjartan himself, once he had loosened the moorings. Hogni tied the box tightly to the thwart with some old string while Grimur cranked the engine. Throwing the engine into reverse, they backed away from the wharf until they were out in the open sea. Then they pressed forward, heading south at full speed.
She browsed through some pages of the Munksgaard edition of the Flatey Book. Occasionally, she would stop and read a sentence out loud. Every page of the book contained a facsimile photograph of a vellum leaf from the original manuscript. The images were clear and legible, even though the full coloring of the original was missing. The pages were white and well preserved.
She finally closed the book, then opened it again to the front page and started to tell the story in a low, confident, and unwavering voice: “The Book of Flatey contains a variety of writings: it starts with the Eddic and the Hyndla poems, the tales of King Sigurdur Slefa, and genealogies. All of these writings were probably set down at the end of the book but then moved to the front of the manuscript before it was bound. The history of Eirik Vidforull starts to take off on the fourth page, followed by the saga of the mighty King Olaf Tryggvason. Olaf ruled Norway from 995 to 1000, and his story forms a large part of the manuscript and is interwoven with many other accounts and tales, such as the Jomsvikings saga, the sagas of the Faroe Islands, sagas of the Orkneys, sagas of the Greenlanders, and many more…”
CHAPTER 3
As soon as they had passed the skerry by Brjansl?kur, Hogni moved to the bow and lay down on a canvas bag that was spread over a pile of nets. He drew his peaked cap over his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, and stretched out his legs. Kjartan sat on the thwart opposite Grimur, who was steering. The engine growled noisily, and the conversation was spasmodic.
“Not the most comfortable place to sleep,” Kjartan said when Hogni had settled down.
“The man’s tired,” Grimur answered, “and he likes to have a lie down on sea trips. The working hours in the hunting season are long, and he isn’t used to hard labor. He’s a boarder at my wife Imba’s place and pays for it by working for me in the summer.”
“Is he a bachelor then?”
“He’s a widower; his wife died a few years ago. He sleeps in the school building and has two meals a day at our place.”
