saga in particular. Although my father became a doctor, he was the most obsessed of the lot. He was convinced that the ring mentioned in the saga still existed and he used to go on expeditions all around the valley of the River Thjorsa, which is where Gaukur’s farm was, to look for it. He never found it, of course, but that’s how he died. He fell off a cliff in bad weather.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Magnus. And although Ingileif had lied to him, he was sorry.
‘That put the rest of us off Gaukur’s Saga. My brother, who until then had been brainwashed by Dad to a level of obsession that matched his, wanted nothing more to do with it. My sister was never very interested. I think my mother had always found the saga a little weird and held it responsible for Dad’s death. Of all of them, I was perhaps the least put off: I went on to study Icelandic at university. So when I found I needed money desperately, it seemed to me that I was the only one who would really care if we sold it.
‘The gallery is going bust. It is bust really. I need money badly – a lot of money. So when my mother died last year I spoke to my brother and my sister about selling the saga. Birna, my sister, couldn’t give a damn, but my brother Petur argued against it. He said we were custodians of the saga, it wasn’t ours to sell. I was a bit surprised, but eventually Petur relented as long as it could be sold privately, with a secrecy clause. I think he might have his own money problems. Everyone does these days.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He owns bars and clubs. Do you know Neon?’
Magnus shook his head. Ingileif frowned at his ignorance. ‘It’s one of the most famous clubs in Reykjavik,’ she said.
‘I’m sure it is. I haven’t been here very long,’ said Magnus.
‘I know it,’ Arni chipped in.
‘I could see you were a party animal,’ Ingileif said.
Now it was Arni’s turn to blush.
‘So, once you had decided to sell it, why did you approach Agnar?’ Magnus asked.
‘He taught me at university,’ Ingileif said. ‘And, as I told you, I knew him quite well. He was sleazy enough to agree to sell the saga on the quiet away from the Icelandic government, but he liked me well enough not to rip me off totally. And it turned out he knew just the right buyer. A wealthy American Lord of the Rings fan, who was willing to keep the purchase private.’
‘Lawrence Feldman? Steve Jubb?’
‘I didn’t know his name. You mentioned the name Steve Jubb before, didn’t you? But you said he was English.’
‘That’s why you said you had never heard of him?’
‘I hadn’t heard the name before. But I admit I wasn’t very helpful. I was desperately trying to keep the saga secret. As soon as I had told Agnar about it, I had second thoughts. I even told him that I wanted to take it off the market and keep it in the family.’ She pursed her lips. ‘He told me that it was too late. He knew all about it, and unless I went through with the sale, he would tell.’
‘He blackmailed you?’ Magnus said.
‘I suppose you could call it that. I deserved it. And it worked. I thought it would be better all round to sell the saga secretly and split the proceeds between Petur, Birna and myself, than allow Agnar to broadcast its existence to the whole world.’
‘How much did he say it would bring?’
‘He was in the process of negotiating the price. He said it would be millions. Of dollars.’
Magnus took a deep breath. ‘And where is this saga now?’
‘In the gallery safe.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you want to see it?’
Magnus and Arni followed her through to a store cupboard at the back of the shop. On the floor was a combination safe. Ingileif twiddled the knobs. She pulled out a leather-bound volume, and placed it on the desk.
‘This is the seventeenth-century copy, the earliest complete copy.’ She opened up the book at a random page. The pages were paper, covered in a neat black handwriting, clear and easy to read. ‘You know when you asked me whether the saga had been kept a secret, I said there was one lapse?’
Magnus nodded.
‘Well, this was copied from an earlier version that was bought from one of my ancestors by Arni Magnusson, the great saga collector. The rest of the family was furious that he had sold it. Arni Magnusson took it with all the others to Copenhagen, and it was one of those that was destroyed in the terrible fire of 1728, before it was catalogued. There is only one mention of Gaukur’s Saga in existence today, to our knowledge, with no details as to what it contains. The majority of the collection went up in smoke, especially the paper copies. Within the family, we believe there was a reason the fire started.’
‘Arson? Someone wanted to destroy it?’
Ingileif shook her head. ‘That’s not what they meant, although knowing how obsessive my family were, I wouldn’t have been surprised. No it was more bad luck, fate, call it what you will.’
‘The power of the ring,’ said Arni.
‘Now you are beginning to sound like my father,’ said Ingileif. ‘But when Agnar was murdered, I couldn’t help seeing the parallels.’ She turned back to the safe. ‘And then there is this. The original, or what’s left of it.’
She carefully extracted a large old envelope, lay it on the desk, and slipped out two layers of stiff card, between which, separated by tissue paper, were perhaps half a dozen sheets of brown vellum. She pulled back the tissue so that they could see one of the sheets closely.
It was faded, torn at the edges, and covered in black writing. This was surprisingly clear: the initial letters of chapters were decorated in fading blues and reds. Magnus could make out the word ‘Isildur’.
‘Amazing,’ Magnus said. And indeed it was. Any doubts he had had about the authenticity of the translation he had read in Agnar’s summer house were dispelled. He had gawped at the old sagas in the Arni Magnusson exhibition, but he had never seen one this close. He couldn’t resist reaching out with his fingertip to touch it.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ Ingileif said, a note of pride in her voice.
‘Do you know who wrote it?’ Magnus asked.
‘We think it was someone called Isildur Gunnarsson,’ Ingileif said. ‘One of Gaukur’s descendants, of course. We think he lived in the late thirteenth century, right when most of the major sagas were written.’
‘But if this was such a great family secret, how did Tolkien ever see it?’ Magnus asked. ‘I mean, the links to the Lord of the Rings are so strong, it can’t just be coincidence. He must have read it.’
Ingileif hesitated. ‘Wait a minute.’ She returned to the safe, and returned a moment later.
She placed a small, yellowing envelope on the desk in front of Magnus.
‘May I look?’
Ingileif nodded.
Magnus carefully pulled out a single sheet of paper, folded once.
Magnus unfolded it and read:
20 Northmoor Road
Oxford
9 March 1938
My dear Isildarson
Thank you so much for sending me the copy of Gaukur’s Saga, which I have read with great pleasure. It is almost fifteen years now, but I remember very clearly that meeting of the Viking Club in the college bar at Leeds when you told me something of the saga, although I had no idea that the saga itself would prove to be such a wonderful story. I look back on those evenings fondly – a repertoire of Old Icelandic drinking songs is something that no student of Anglo-Saxon or Middle English should be without!
I am very glad you enjoyed the book I sent you. I have recently begun a second story about Hobbits set in Middle Earth, and I have written the first chapter, entitled ‘A long-expected party’, with which I am very pleased. But I expect that this book will be a much darker work than the first, more grown up, and I have been searching for a means of linking the two stories. I think perhaps you might have given me that link.
Please forgive me if I borrow some of the ideas from your saga. I can promise absolutely that I will continue to respect your family’s wish that the saga itself should remain secret, as it has done for so many hundreds of years. If you do object, please let me know.
