“It was a woman, young man,” he answered without looking at Benny. “A woman did this to me after I seduced her one midsummer’s night. She said that from now on I would be marked out from other men and that this would serve as a warning to all women. The next time I looked into the mirror that’s what I saw. You better be wary of the female species, young man-you never know when you’ll meet a witch.”
The pair walked past the fish factory, and the doctor’s house soon came into view.
“This looks like a nice home,” said Bryngeir. “Reckon I might be able to crash here?”
Benny had his doubts. “I don’t think so, not unless you’re sick. The doctor lives here.”
Bryngeir halted. “And what’s his name? The doctor’s?” he asked.
“The doctor’s a woman. Her name is Johanna,” Benny answered.
“Doctor Johanna? Not Johanna Thorvald, surely?”
“Yeah, exactly. Do you know everyone?”
“It’s uncanny. My adversaries seem to be swelling around here,” said Bryngeir pensively, seemingly oblivious to Benny’s question. “No, we won’t look for any accommodation here. On we go, my dear friend Benny Ben.”
Bryngeir walked away from the doctor’s house with long strides, while Benny traipsed behind him with the case.
“Hey,” said Bryngeir. “Didn’t he stay with the priest, the late Gaston Lund?”
“Yeah.”
“Shouldn’t I try to stay there then?”
Benny looked at the case he was holding. “That could be a problem. They’re both teetotalers and they can’t stand boozing.”
“Good point, pal. Let’s avoid any hassles. So what does that leave us with then, young man? Isn’t there anyone around here who’s partial to a drop of rum, is hospitable, has a free bed, and knows something about the old Flatey Book?”
Benny broke into a smile. “Yeah. Sigurbjorn in Svalbardi.”
Question seven: What made it possible to ride around the coastline? First letter. That winter there was so much ice in Iceland than the sea froze all around the coastline so that it was possible to ride between the promontories of every fjord. The answer is “ice,” and the first letter is i.
CHAPTER 24
A creaking sound penetrated the doctor’s house from the road as the handcarts were dragged past the building on their way down to the village. Johanna peeped out the kitchen window and watched them moving away and eventually disappearing down the slope behind the graveyard. The mail would therefore soon be reaching the telephone exchange, and she would be able to collect her newspapers. It was best to wait a bit, though. Stina, the postmistress, was pretty quick at sorting out the mail, but some of the islanders were bound to show up early to collect their mail and just have a chat. Johanna, on the other hand, was in no mood for socializing that afternoon. She heard more footsteps passing the house, and then silence descended on the neighborhood again. The redshank that nested on the edge of the road grew calmer and stopped twittering in alarm. Strange that it should have chosen to build itself a nest in such an inconvenient place when there was no shortage of undisturbed nesting ground nearby. And it had laid its eggs in the same place the spring before.
Half an hour later, Johanna looked up from the book that she was leafing through when she heard a faint moan from the next room. She stood up and walked in to her father.
“Are you in pain, Dad?” she asked.
“Not too much, but it would be good to get the afternoon dose now,” her father answered. He lay under a white quilt in a high medical bed, looking shriveled and emaciated.
She glanced at her watch and fetched the dose from the pharmacy, which was a little room off the infirmary. He flinched slightly as she injected the dose into the intravenous drip connected to his arm, but he swiftly felt the effect of the opiate and closed his eyes again.
“Would you like me to read for you for a while?” she asked.
“No, I’m going to rest a bit.”
“The mail boat has arrived. I’ll go get the papers soon. We can read them when I come back. I won’t be long.”
He braved a smile and said, “I somehow feel I’ve read enough. I think I’ll soon be meeting my namesake, the late Snorri Sturluson and the mysterious author of Njal’s saga.”
He closed his eyes and dozed off. She adjusted his quilt and gently kissed him on the cheek.
Question eight: Greatest skiing champion. First letter. They ended up on a big mountain. It was a steep, narrow slope, which ended abruptly in a precipice dropping to the sea. King Harald Sigurdsson said to Hemingur, “Entertain us now with your skiing.”
Hemingur answered, “This isn’t a good place for skiing because there is little snow now and it’s stony and there is hard ice on the mountain.”
The king answered that he would not really be putting his skills to the test if conditions were perfect. So Hemingur put on his skis and zigzagged down the slope. Everyone agreed that they had never seen anyone ski so well. He skied down the slope at such speed that it was a wonder he did not fall. The answer is “Hemingur,” and the first letter is h.
CHAPTER 25
Bryngeir and Benny continued on their walk down the road toward the village. Benny was curious and asked the visitor what had brought him to Flatey, but Bryngeir was slow to answer and seemed to be more interested in taking in the surroundings. “Benny Ben, my friend,” he finally replied, “the Reykjavik gutter press isn’t in the habit of sending its best hacks out on long trips just because a heap of bones has been found on a deserted island. But as soon as it transpired that they were the bones of that Danish manuscript speculator who’d spent the winter in the remoteness of the fjord and forgotten to ask someone to pick him up, people started to sniff a story. And when I heard that the deceased was Gaston Lund and that this whole mystery was somehow connected to my old pet love, the Flatey Book, I immediately asked to be sent out here to solve the crime.”
“What did you think was so significant about the Flatey Book?” Benny asked.
Bryngeir looked at his companion. “Have you read the book, young man?”
“No, it’s too long. I started once, but I found it boring. And some of the words are written in a weird way.”
Bryngeir shook his head. “Then I can’t explain the magic of the Flatey Book to you, boy. No more than I could describe a Rembrandt painting to a blind old bag or a great Wagner opera to a deaf loan shark or a sexy young whore from Morocco to a eunuch. But I don’t see why that jewel should be named after this pathetic dump of an island just because it was kept here under some lousy mattress for a few decades. It would have been more appropriate to call it the Hunvetninga Book, Tunga Book, or Vididalur Book in honor of the men in Vididalstunga who actually put the manuscript together and wrote it. They were geniuses, my boy, absolute geniuses. Let’s drink to them, Mister Benny Ben!” Bryngeir took a swig from the bottle of rum.
Benny had no interest in the subject. “I don’t give a damn about what they call the book. Maybe I’ll just read it later sometime,” he said, staring at the bottle with thirsty eyes.
They paused on the ridge overlooking the village, and Bryngeir scanned the houses below. He asked Benny about the crofts and the people who lived in them. Benny answered with some reluctance, since he found it a pretty unexciting topic for discussion.
Bryngeir was particularly interested in the district administrative officer.
“He’s an OK guy, good at hunting seal and puffin but lazy when it comes to making hay,” said Benny. “Hogni,
