The Unexpected Find Read online

  But William would not be moved. So of course, they had to try it.

  In the kitchen Farmor took the box to the sink and rinsed out the small oblong hole as well as she could. As she did so, she saw marks just below the hole.

  “Oh look,” she said, “there are runes here too!” Then she placed the box ceremoniously on the kitchen table, and they all gathered round.

  William took the forked end of his key and poked it into the hole. It went in quite easily.

  But that means nothing, thought Judy, it’s not exactly a sophisticated piece of engineering. William jiggled the key about a bit, but nothing happened.

  Judy had been thinking. The lock must be simple enough, you could tell that by the key, so how could a simple three-dimensional key engage with a relatively straightforward fastening mechanism?

  “Can I have a go?” She asked William. He handed over the key, with a disappointed look.

  “It’s no good – it isn’t the right key.”

  Judy inserted the key. She didn’t expect anything to happen, but she tried the various possible combinations of movements. On the third try, she pressed the key up a little, felt it catch on something, and pushed. A small gap opened between the lid and the box.

  “It worked – it is the right key!” William was beside himself.

  Farmor gasped. Stefan shook his head in amazement and thumped William on the back.

  “The man said that the key had come home,” gabbled William, “and it has come home to its box. And the box was under a tree, just like the key, wasn’t it? And it was the same storm, wasn’t it? And Mr Balderson said that there were patterns and fate and … and…”

  Judy knew exactly how Mr Balderson would have reacted. It was almost as though he was standing next to them now. She could imagine him nodding his head cheerfully and expanding at length on life’s amazing tapestry, the warp and weft of fate, and a great deal more besides.

  Stefan couldn’t stand it any more.

  “Open it, William, for the sake of goodness, open it.”

  William opened it, and they all peered inside.

  They saw only some dry brown debris, like the sweepings from an outhouse or the woodshed. Stefan pushed his fingers into it, and pulled out a thin, leaf-like wafer, hardly as long as his thumb. It glinted in the light from the kitchen lamp, and there was never a moment’s doubt. It was gold. Only gold emerges after a thousand-year rest as bright and untarnished as the day it was hidden. Stefan laid it carefully on the table, and four heads bent over it, and studied the figure embossed on the surface. William was the first to speak.

  “It’s Mr Balderson! How did he get there?”

  The figure of a man that they were gazing at was simply worked, almost primitive, with long hair, a determined look, and only one eye. There was no doubt who it brought to mind.

  23

  Three days later, after deciding that rather than stand any more of William’s nagging they would take the bus to Timbuktu, never mind the local town, they were standing outside the door of the museum office and knocking politely. Farmor had come along too; it was just too exciting to miss. Erik the archaeologist smiled pleasantly when he saw them, and said,

  “William Parkinson, nice to see you. Your label is not quite ready yet, but I promise…”

  “We’ve found the box. The box that the key opens.”

  A sympathetic look came over Erik’s face.

  “Er, William. I know it was very exciting to make a proper museum find, but it’s the sort of thing that happens once in a lifetime. Sometimes it never happens. It hasn’t happened to me, and I’ve been on digs every summer for ten years. You should be very satisfied.”

  The point of this was lost on William.

  “I am very satisfied. We’ve found the box, of course I’m satisfied.”

  Erik sighed. “Well, let’s see it then.”

  William reached into the carrier bag he was carrying and put the box proudly on the desk. It didn’t look like much, just an old square box, but Erik went very quiet. Then he said brusquely,

  “Provenance?”

  Stefan was prepared this time.

  “South side, thirty metres below the summit, I’ve marked the exact spot with a stick.” There was a large-scale map of the entire municipality on the wall, and he pointed out the place to him.

  Erik picked up the box, took out his magnifying glass, and studied it. Then he put it down gently.

  “Well, William, there seems to be something about you. Obviously it would be beyond ridiculous if your key opened this box, but there is no doubt…” He stopped, for he had seen the runes engraved below the keyhole. He studied them for a moment.

  “Well, that is a surprise.”

  “What do they say?” It was Farmor who asked eagerly.

  “I think, no I’m sure of it, they say ‘Baldr mun koma’ – ‘Balder comes again’. It’s the rest of the line that was on the key – ‘All ills grow better, Balder comes again’. But the key, is it possible?” Now it was Judy’s turn to step forward, and ceremoniously insert the key and open the box.

  Erik the archaeologist looked inside and his sharply indrawn breath told his visitors all they needed to know. Then he got up, went to the door which led to an inner room, and called,

  “Henrik, come here please, immediately.”

  The older bearded archaeologist entered, and Erik gestured to the box. When he had looked inside for a long moment he raised his eyes to the expectant visitors and said,

  “I don’t know what to say. And the box, with its key! I can’t believe this isn’t some kind of hoax.”

  “It certainly is not a hoax,” said Farmor. “What an idea, indeed.”

  “No, no, but it is too much to take in all at once. He addressed William. “As one archaeologist to another, I must ask you for a favour.”

  “What?” said William. He was immune to flattery. He didn’t even know it was happening most of the time.

  “Leave this box here for a day or two – a week at the most. Then Erik will personally return it to you, together with the key, and you must make your own decisions about what to do with them.”

  It took some persuading from the others to get William to agree. He thought a week was a very long time. But they had seen the look on Erik’s face.

  It was the longest week in William’s life by far. Stefan was at school a lot, and Matilda was approaching her time, so Judy had to keep an eye on her. Farmor took the brunt of it, as usual, telling William all the local tales and legends, particularly those to do with the hill beyond the marsh, where strange sights were seen at midsummer, and on New Year’s night, and strange plants grew that grew nowhere else.

  But at last one afternoon a car drove up the track, now rutted and muddy as the thaw set in properly, and Erik stepped out, carrying a holdall. He was greeted kindly by Farmor and offered coffee, but it was no good imagining he would be able to drink it and chat for a while, William saw to that.

  Judy and Stefan were fetched, from the stables and workshop, and sat in a row on the settle, while Erik laid the box and the key on the table.

  “Now,” said Erik, solemnly opening the box and withdrawing the small gold wafer, “this is definitely the strangest series of events that I or any of my colleagues have ever encountered. If I was not a confirmed rationalist, I would be talking of magic or miracles. This little golden image,” he went on “is known as a guldgubbe – I think there is no proper English word for it, it means simply gold old man. And it is clearly a representation of Odin. In itself these objects are not unfamiliar to archaeologists;two or three thousand of them have come to light. They were made as small offerings to the gods and placed in the sacred shrines to Odin, Thor, and the other deities of the Norse religion. But none has ever been found much North of Uppsala, and indeed there has until recently been very little known about how or where the old gods were worshipped. There is of course a very full description of the temple in Uppsala by Adam of Bremen, but a lot of doubt ha
s been cast on his words, on account of his Christian bias, and since most of the building was in wood, and the early Christianisers of Scandinavia made sure to erect their churches on the old sacred sites, we are surprisingly ignorant…” Erik stopped himself. He could see that his audience was beginning to be a bit impatient. “However, what is of course interesting here is the enormous amount of questions that need answering. Somebody deposits a sacred image on a hill here, but locked in a box, and then apparently goes off on his travels with the key in his pocket. Was he afraid of it being taken from the shrine where it lay? That is likely, if he held firmly to the old beliefs in the face of encroaching Christianity, and did not know what he would find when he returned. And whatever the answer to that question, he cannot have deposited it just anywhere. The place where he hid it must have been special. Was it a place sacred to the old gods, far to the North where the Christian missionaries had as yet made no progress – indeed, had met serious opposition?”

  “A missionary was hacked to pieces by the followers of Thor near here,” said Farmor. “Everyone knows that.”

  “It was under something, the box, it could have been an old wooden floor or something,” Stefan added.

  “As I suspected. The place must have had special significance – a rock formation, a sacred grove, a source of water, for example.”

  “The spring is there, the one that never freezes,” said Judy.

  “We call it Walter’s well,” said Farmor, “but nobody remembers who he was.”

  “That just about clinches it, I would say. Almost certainly a corruption of ‘Valtyr’s’, one of the many names of Odin. It means the slain god. And that connects perfectly with the runes on the box and the key, which of course refer to the twilight of the gods, Ragnarok, when Odin dies, and to the return of life to middle earth, when his son Balder walks again. And to the followers of Odin, every well or spring would represent the well of Mimir, where Odin’s eye lies hidden.”

  There was a lot to take in. William said,

  “It is a proper museum find, isn’t it?” Erik laughed happily.

  “That hardly covers it, William. There are about ten full-scale PhDs to be had from this find, and one of them is going to be mine, I can tell you that. But first, of course, we have to do several hard summers up on the hill where you found this. There might well have been a temple there, the first ever found in the north. There may be indications of connections to Norway, or to the Viking settlements further afield. And that ash tree! Is it the scion of a scion of some sacred tree over there in the North of England? We shall see.”

  William positively glowed.

  “But now I must ask you, Mrs Petterson,” Erik went on, “whether there will be any objection to full-scale investigation starting already this summer. I gather that it is your land.”

  “Well, certainly no objection from me, but there might be from Scandinavian Wood.”

  “What have they got to do with it?”

  “We are selling. They will move in and start clear-felling as soon as the marsh holds next winter.”

  “No! It is impossible! Have you signed your contract?”

  “Not yet, but we don’t have much choice, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh yes you do. This is a national interest – international. There will be a positive pilgrimage up here. It will be worth millions to the municipality, jobs, everything. And the National Archaeological Institute has funds set aside for just this kind of thing. Sign nothing! Promise me. You will not lose by it, I can assure you.” Farmor looked dazed.

  Then Erik turned to William.

  “William, I must now tell you that in view of the importance of these objects, I could find some way of twisting your arm…” William looked worried, because he didn’t want his arm twisted “However, I do not want to do that. So I shall ask you, beg you, to consider leaving them voluntarily in our care. There will not be a glass case…” He smiled at William’s frown, and went on. “There will be a William Parkinson Room in the new museum wing, displaying the finds, and a proper wallchart with information about how they came to light thanks to you and your determined interest.”

  “That would be very nice, but it must say that Judy and Stefan found the box.”

  “Of course. Everything will be true and right.”

  24

  Judy was in the loose box talking to Matilda, who was less interested in her than she used to be. Most of Matilda’s attention was focused on the wobbly, ridiculously long-legged thing that was butting at her underneath, trying to find somewhere to suckle. Judy was tired and dishevelled. She had been up most of the night to help out, though it had turned out not to be necessary really. Matilda had managed quite well on her own. Now Judy said,

  “So you’re all right too, aren’t you? There’s some stuff left to sort out, like what on earth we’re going to tell the police when William finally shows up at home, but basically it’s end of story. As for me…” She wiped off her hands, picked some straw out of her hair, and went out to join the others. They sat on a low plank bench with their backs to the timbered gable of the barn, the sun full in their faces, warm at last.

  Stefan was in his shirtsleeves, Farmor bareheaded, her wrinkled features at peace. She was not planning her funeral, as she was just a short time ago, but planning her vegetable garden. Runner beans this year, and something new perhaps, that she hasn’t tried before – there are always new varieties turning up, especially in the world of beans and brassicas.

  Judy sat down beside her. She was not planning anything, but she was among friends. Farmor left her vegetables for a moment and thought about the girl who was now leaning her head against her shoulder. She would live on, grow up, do something different and decent. She would carry the indelible marks, tattooed on her soul, and it would set her apart. People would recognize her as fearless; she had always been that, but now she would do what had to be done with no heed to the consequences to herself, unattached. Bad people will not love her. Good people will follow her.

  The sound of a rattling, wheezing engine broke in on Farmor’s thoughts. Stefan sat up. A diesel, but in a terrible state – a lot of gear changes as it struggled up the track. Aristeas the camper limped up the hill. He was not well. Stefan heard the uneven piston strokes – three cylinders at the most. The engine was done for, the suspension wrecked, the whole vehicle listed horribly. Clutch and gearbox not much better, Stefan guessed, the windscreen cracked right across; and as the camper rolled agonizingly into the farmyard, he saw a horizontal gash right along its side, as though it had met a snowplough coming the other way on a narrow road. Stefan knew that this time it would be the scrapyard.

  They all stood up, except for Judy. She watched the camper coming into the yard. Here he comes again. Mr Balderson, the oddest person she had ever met. She had never understood him, and never would. What was he planning now? Stefan walked forward as the cab door opened. The sun was in Judy’s eyes, but she saw a tall figure clambering out and heard a voice, speaking very correct English, not loud but very clear on the still air.

  “Excuse me, but I was told that a Stefan Petterson lived here.”

  “I am Stef…”

  Stefan didn’t get any further, for the man had been suddenly assaulted by a tornado of arms and flying dark hair, a tornado that now wept and sobbed and seemed to want to strangle him. There were no words for quite a long time, and when at last they came they were gently murmured Persian words, answered only by gulps and sniffs, while a hand stroked the dark head. They were spoken by a man with well-cut features, dark eyebrows and a beaky nose.

  Nobody else spoke. The man fell silent, but he didn’t try to move. He seemed to think it would be perfectly all right to be hugged to death.

  And then high above them, an abandoned, free, heart-stopping cry that echoed and echoed and echoed across the still valley, and was answered by another, and another. There is no sound like it in the world. There cannot be.

  “Oh God bless us all,” said Farmor, “th
e cranes have come.”

  Every face, even Judy’s, turned upwards, and they saw two great long-necked, long-legged birds glide on wide wings low over the farm, crying their wild greeting. “We have come back. We always come back. It is spring.”

  And they sailed on, to settle on the marsh.

  25

  It took a very long time, in William’s view, before he could get answers to some of the more important questions. There were the ones that everybody wanted the answers to, such as why Rashid had said Mr Azad was dead when he wasn’t, and where Mr Balderson had gone, and also some of his own, such as whether Judy’s father really was the only other person in the world who never cheated and never lied, as Judy had said, and also, if they were going into the town to talk to Rashid, whether he could come with them and see how they were getting along with the William Parkinson Room. He had started to ask almost immediately, when Judy had got herself a bit untangled from him, but Stefan had said, “End of conversation,” in a very determined voice, and he and Farmor had taken him inside, while Judy and her father sat on the bench.

  But in the end they came in, and Judy introduced everybody, and Farmor sat them all down at the kitchen table and produced buns and biscuits and coffee.

  Judy’s father was pale, and hadn’t shaved for quite a long time, but William could see in his eyes, which were dark brown just like Judy’s, that he was very happy, especially when he looked at Judy. She had been crying quite a lot, and her face was puffy, but she was happy too.

  Mr Azad took a cup of coffee from Farmor’s hands and sipped it.

  “Ah, coffee. Real, honest, strong coffee. Now everything really is perfect.” And he thanked Farmor, and Stefan and William for looking after his daughter and giving her so much, although William was quick to point out that he hadn’t given Judy anything, it was she who had given him the box, and then Judy said, “William, you have given me lots and lots,” but when he wanted to ask her what things, then it had to be end of conversation again. But she did say that she would explain later. Then Mr Azad started to talk.