Wednesday, June 8, 1960
It was past midnight by the time Grimur started to undress in the small bedroom of his house. Ingibjorg seemed to be asleep, but she stirred as he slipped under the quilt.
“Did you remember to give water to the cows, Grimur dear?” she asked sleepily.
Grimur sat up on the edge of the bed again. “No, of course not. I’ve been so preoccupied, or maybe I’m just going senile,” he said, stretching out for his clothes.
“These are bad times. I haven’t been myself these days, goddamn it,” he said as he walked to the cowshed. He fetched some buckets from the shed and lowered them into the well. The water level was reasonably high after the rainfall, so it was easy to fill them. He took two trips, but as he was passing the shed door, he noticed that Thormodur Krakur was also fetching water in the well by his shed.
Grimur walked across the field to him. “Are you still up, Krakur?”
“Yeah, got to take care of the animals,” he answered heavily.
Grimur was silent a moment. Finally, he said, “These are bad times for us on the island.”
Thormodur Krakur silently nodded.
Grimur continued: “The inspectors think that Kjartan, the magistrate’s assistant, and Doctor Johanna killed the reporter and dragged him up to the churchyard.”
Again, Thormodur Krakur silently shook his head.
“Then they got news from Reykjavik that the reporter drowned,” Grimur added, “not at sea, but in freshwater.”
“Oh, in that case the police must realize they’re innocent,” said Thormodur Krakur eagerly.
“No, they say that Kjartan and Johanna drowned the man in the bathtub in the doctor’s house,” said Grimur.
Thormodur Krakur shook his head again. “Bullshit. They haven’t harmed anyone,” he said.
“I happen to agree with you, but who did it then?” Grimur asked.
Thormodur Krakur didn’t answer.
“Hogni and I were wondering if Valdi in Ystakot might have lost control of himself. Do you think that’s possible?”
Thormodur Krakur looked at Grimur and suddenly started to cry, the silent, tearless weeping of an old man.
Grimur stared at the broken man in astonishment.
“It’s all my fault,” the old man yelled into the night in a cracking voice, as if he wanted the whole island to hear his confession.
Grimur struggled to understand. “Your fault?” he asked.
“Yes, it was me, it was me,” Thormodur Krakur uttered through his heavy sobs.
“How do you mean, Krakur?”
“It was me, and now everyone else is being blamed for it.”
“Did you murder that man, Krakur?”
“Murder? No, not at all. He drowned helplessly, but then it was me who did those things to him.”
“Did you place him in the churchyard?”
“Yes. I had to do it because of the dream.”
Grimur patted Thormodur Krakur on the shoulder. “Come on, pal. Tell me the whole story.”
Thormodur Krakur got a hold of himself, wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and then started to talk: “The reporter came up to me in the shed on Sunday evening and asked me for some milk to drink. Then he offered me a sip of rum and we started chatting.”
Thormodur Krakur pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose before continuing: “The man wanted to hear some good stories, so I told him stories, old dreams, deciphered and undeciphered, as I usually do. Then I told him about the calf dream, which is about the three eagles over the church and the eagle that sits in the churchyard and has blood on its wings and the distinguished-looking men leading the calves up the pass. D’you remember?”
Grimur nodded. He had often heard Thormodur Krakur describe that dream.
“The man said he could decipher the dream. He said that when a blood eagle perches in the Flatey churchyard, it would be a sign that the Flatey Book was on its way back home out of its exile.”
“Huh?” Grimur wasn’t quite following.
“Yes, the distinguished figures are the ancient Norwegian kings and the calves symbolize the 113 vellum sheets of the manuscript. Then the reporter said these exact words to me: ‘If you ever have to kill anyone or stumble on anyone who’s already dead, take him up to the churchyard, place him on a grave there, and carve a blood eagle on his back. Then see what happens.’ That’s what he said, and that’s what I did. Obviously the bird with the bloody feathers meant a man cut into a blood eagle, as described in the Flatey Book. Bryngeir could see that, but I was so blind that I never made the connection, even though I’d read about blood eagles many times. It was the most ingenious decoding of a dream I’d ever heard. Then, after we’d been chatting for a while, I had to take the milk to the priest, and the reporter was going to visit Doctor Johanna.”
“Yes, I know.” Grimur nodded.
“From the vicarage I went home for dinner and then up to the shed again in the evening to give water to the cows for the night. But as I was fetching the water, I saw the man there at the bottom of the well. He was lying on his back at the bottom with his legs sticking out of the water.”
“How the hell did he end up in there?” Grimur was aghast.
Thormodur Krakur shook his head. “I don’t know. The old lid was smashed, and pieces of wood were floating around the man in the water.”
Grimur looked at the path that led from the shed to the well. It pointed to the southwest of the island in a direct line to the doctor’s house. “Maybe he intended to take the shortcut across the island from the shed,” said Grimur, “and the path just led him across the field to the well. Then he stepped on the old lid of the well and broke it.”
Thormodur Krakur nodded and shook his head alternately. “The man was stone dead when I finally managed to hoist up him with my long hook. My first thought was to go and get you, Grimur, but then I remembered what he’d said. ‘If you ever have to kill anyone or stumble on someone who who’s already dead, take him up to the churchyard, place him on a grave there, and carve a blood eagle on his back.’ That was his final wish, and I couldn’t deny him that. The man had said it to me in all seriousness, and I didn’t dare to disobey. He could have started to haunt the shed here, and the Flatey Book was at stake. I grabbed my slaughtering knife in the shed and took the man up to the churchyard on the cart. I placed him on a grave there as I’d been instructed to do and carved his back. Then I dug my hands into the wounds and pulled his lungs out and all this blood came out. Then I just left him there and went home to sleep. The man didn’t mention how long he’d have to stand there like that for the prediction to come true.”
“Didn’t anyone see you doing this?” Grimur asked.
“No, no. It was so late.”
Grimur peered into Thormodur Krakur’s eyes. “You’re not just saying this to save Johanna and Kjartan and get them out of this mess they’re in, are you?”
“No, no. God forbid. I’m telling you the truth.”
“Very well,” Grimur gasped. “I remember you were making a new lid for your well on Monday. So the old lid was destroyed by the reporter?”
“Yeah, it was smashed to pieces.”
Grimur shook his head. “I’m not sure you did the right thing in all of this, even if the man did say those things to you.”
Thormodur stood dejectedly, fiddling with some wool between his fingers. “I guess I better tell the police about this. I just can’t bear stepping on that pier,” he added.
Question thirty-nine: A smaller steak than the king. First letter. Ali Hallvardsson was dressed just like the king. He rode into the woods with just a few men. The yeomen swiftly came to him and killed him. They stripped off his armor and loudly exclaimed that the king was dead. But when the king heard of this, he ordered a battle horn to be blown and defiantly rode on, and the yeomen realized that they had a smaller steak on their spit than they had imagined. The answer is “Ali,” and the first letter is a.