“Get the hell out of here,” Valdi barked in a rage and stepped menacingly toward Bryngeir, who grinningly backed off but then tripped on a tussock and fell on his ass.
Benny stepped between them. “I’ll take him with me,” he said to Valdi, “and make sure he doesn’t come back again.” He then helped Bryngeir to his feet and led him away. When they had walked a few yards away from the croft, Benny said, “You better not make Valdi angry. He gets totally out of control. Once in the olden days he almost strangled a stranger in a fight. The man only saved himself by sticking a finger in Valdi’s eye. That’s why he’s blind in one eye.”
Bryngeir didn’t seem to be too happy about his awkward retreat. “Then he can lose his other eye if he has to,” he said, vexed.
Question twelve: Who cut King Sverrir’s ear? Third letter. A man lay seriously wounded close by. His name was Brynjolfur, the son of Kalf of the Faroes. He hoisted himself to his knees and struck the king with his sword, aiming at his neck. The king deflected the blow with the rim of his steel helmet, which the edge of the sword struck, but his ear was grazed, and his neck was seriously wounded. In the same instant, swords and halberds fell so heavily on Brynjolfur that he could barely sink to the ground. The answer is “Brynjolfur,” and the third letter is y.
CHAPTER 29
After dinner and the radio news, Grimur fetched a deck of cards and dealt them on the dining table where Hogni and Kjartan were seated with cups of coffee. He then called Ingibjorg, who was clearing up in the kitchen, and the game of whist began. Kjartan enjoyed watching the islanders, who mostly played in silence, apart from their bidding and moderate exclamations according to how the game was going. There were all kinds of facial expressions and glances. Grimur was a zealous player and a poor loser. Ingibjorg, on the other hand, was cunning and knew how to handle her husband.
“Do people play a lot in Flatey?” Kjartan asked.
“Not in the summer,” said Grimur, peering at his cards. “But a lot in the winter. Passes the time.”
When there was a break in the game, Kjartan told them about the discovery he had made in the library earlier that day. Professor Lund had cheated in his struggle with the Flatey enigma and had written the clue down on a piece of paper and took it out of the building. And then Kjartan remembered the library key, which he still had in his pocket.
“I’ll pass it on to Hallbjorg,” said Ingibjorg. “I’ll be going to Innstibaer later on to give the ladies some cookies to have with their coffee on Whitsunday.”
“Do they live alone?” Kjartan asked.
“Neither of them ever married,” Grimur answered, “but Gudrun has a son out of wedlock. The boy is a sailor now in Akranes and occasionally comes over on visits. Gudrun is slightly mentally unstable and not always the full shilling. Hallbjorg took her in out of kinship and takes good care of her. And the islanders are fond of those good- hearted women and slip them little treats every now and then. They knit nonstop, and that helps them to get by. Hallbjorg also takes good care of our library and gets a fee from the municipal fund for that. I think it was the price of two lambs this year. On top of that they’ve got Hallbjorg’s pension. Gudrun and Sigurbjorn in Svalbardi are closely related. He also keeps a good eye on them.”
After two hours of playing, Grimur and Kjartan walked across the island to fetch the cows. Temperatures would drop during the night, and it was therefore best to bring them into the cowshed. But that wouldn’t be for long now. The nights were bright and the summer would soon be here to stay. Then the milking could be done in the pastures and the cows would be kept outside.
On their way to the pastures, Grimur lectured Kjartan on cattle breeding in Flatey, both now and in the future. The problem today was the shortage of good breeding bulls. No bullocks had been bred on Flatey for quite some years now, and bulls had to be brought in from the inner isles. Transporting them in little boats could be a tricky business, although they generally managed to do it without any mishaps. The bull just needed a bit of time to recover after the sea journey before he could be of any service to the cows.
“The farmers are thinking of pooling together to buy some good bullocks on the mainland this summer. No harm in improving the stock a bit,” said Grimur.
The cows expected to be rounded up and waited mooing by the gate to the pastures. Thormodur Krakur had already collected his two, although Gudjon of Radagerdi’s cows were still grazing.
“We’ll take them all with us,” said Grimur. “We take it in turns to collect them, my brother-in-law Gudjon and I.”
On the way home, they crossed the Ystakot clan on the road. Valdi was pushing an old wheelbarrow, and as they drew closer, they saw that it contained a dead sheep. Its angular head dangled over the rim of the wheelbarrow, and its gray wool was completely drenched and smudged in sand and seaweed. Valdi gave way to the cows that filed down the road and then put the wheelbarrow down when the men met.
“Grimur,” said Valdi, taking out his pipe.
“Yes, Valdi?” said Grimur, pausing.
“Listen to me. I remember now why I didn’t write it into my book when the mail boat sailed south on September the fourth last year. And you should have remembered why, too.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, because on that day I took the mail boat myself over to Brjansl?kur to meet my wife, Thora. So I wasn’t on the island when the boat sailed back south that day. I asked Dad to keep an eye on who was traveling on the boat, but of course he forgot to and didn’t write anything down.”
“Oh,” said Grimur. “And why should I have remembered that you went to the mainland?”
Valdi lit his pipe with a match and answered: “When I came back a week later, all of the fuel had been stolen from my boat. I reported it, don’t you remember?”
“Yes.” Grimur looked apologetically at Kjartan. “I remember that now. I never found the thief.”
Valdi stuck his notebook back into his pocket, picked up the wheelbarrow, and with his smoldering pipe clenched between his teeth, walked off without saying good-bye. Little Nonni and Jon Ferdinand walked after him.
“Oh, we’re always in such a rush,” they heard the old man muttering.
“Those were memorable days,” Grimur said, once the family was out of earshot. “Valdi went over to the mainland to collect his wife, Thora, from her roadworks job, but she categorically refused to come home with him. She can’t take them anymore. She could just about put up with it when the old lady, Valdi’s mother, was still alive. She was a wonderful person and good to everyone, but after she died the men turned into semi-ogres. You can’t expect a young woman to live with that. Valdi, of course, was completely crushed when he came back with no woman, and he felt ashamed in front of everyone. He hit the bottle in the end and was drunk for days. To be honest, I didn’t take that fuel theft story very seriously, but it’s obviously still bugging him.”
“What are they doing with the carcass of that sheep?” Kjartan asked.
“Sigurbjorn of Svalbardi lost that sheep and two lambs on a skerry in the high tide on Monday,” Grimur answered. “The sheep was washed ashore in Sund this morning. That’s one of the disadvantages of farming on an island; so many ewes get lost in the sea. In one high tide many years ago, a hundred sheep were lost in Eyjahreppur. That was a lot of damage for small farms to have sustain.”
“But what will they do with it?” Kjartan asked again, glancing toward the men over his shoulder.
“They’re allowed to keep the carcass. They’re going to make some sea stew with it,” Grimur answered.
Kjartan wasn’t sure he had heard right. “Sea stew?”
“Yeah. They boil the meat and the fat. It’ll be well salted and tender after marinating in the sea and can taste quite good. There aren’t many people around who’ll do this kind of thing, but it makes a big difference to the Ystakot men.”
Question thirteen: Drank from the keel. First letter. Egill, Ragnar’s son, fought against the Wends on ships. At the end of the battle, Egill jumped onto the Wends’ ship and axed the chieftain, dealing him a deadly blow. After
