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3 |Outside Sigtuna, Sweden Present Day
Professor Viggo Karlsson leaned back in his chair, the laptop in front of him showing a picture of a runestone they had discovered only this week, zoomed in on the final line of tightly clustered characters. His yellow ruled notebook, filled with chicken scratches and doodles, contained a quick translation of the ancient Norse inscription.
“Done?”
He flinched, forgetting he wasn’t alone, his top student, Elsa Andersson, sitting across from him in the tight quarters provided by a trailer set up on the dig site. They had been here every day for weeks, excavating an ancient Viking burial ground north of Stockholm that preliminary estimates suggested dated around the turn of the first millennium. It was an exciting find under normal circumstances, but these weren’t normal.
For they had found an anomaly, an anomaly that couldn’t be easily explained. His hope was that the runestone discovered with the aberration could give at least context to what they had found.
His stomach growled.
“Did I forget to eat?”
Elsa tilted her head toward the microwave. “Yes. Do you want me to reheat what you left in there over an hour ago?”
He chuckled. “Would you?”
She rose, hitting the Express button, the microwave kicking in to excite the molecules constituting his forgotten pasta lunch. “So, what does it say?”
“It’s a recipe for penne alfredo.”
“Huh?”
The microwave beeped and she pulled his lunch out. She gave him a look, holding up the thin box. “Penne alfredo.”
He snickered. “Exactly. The translation worked up an appetite, so…”
“It’s a recipe for it. Got it. You know, Professor, you’re not exactly funny.”
He shrugged, attacking his forgotten pasta, then his thermos filled with a smoothie concoction his wife had prepared this morning in the hopes of helping him eat a little better and get his cholesterol under control.
Cholesterol. I’ll die from natural causes before those numbers kill me.
He wiped his mouth clean with a napkin, then tossed the empty box in the garbage can behind him. “I think I’m hysterical, so if you want to get your PhD, you’ll best laugh at my jokes.”
Elsa regarded him for a moment. “You’re an ass.”
He grinned. “I am, aren’t I? But don’t tell my wife. She thinks she’s cured me of my youth.”
Elsa held a hand up. “I swear, your secret is safe with me.” She pointed at his chicken scratches. “So, what does it say?”
He cleared his throat, leaning closer to the pad. “Now, this is very rough, but it appears to be a tombstone of sorts, marking the final resting place of Prince Magnus Hamundarson, and his wife Fatima Halabi.”
Elsa’s eyes narrowed. “Fatima Halabi?”
He nodded. “Yes. It was a phonetic translation, obviously, and I did make a bit of a logic leap based upon what was found on her.”
“I think your leap will be forgiven, Professor. There’s little doubt of its origin, and if you’re right about her name, little doubt of where she came from.”
He had to agree with his student, though he wasn’t willing to commit to their interpretation of what they had found just yet. “We’ll do DNA testing to confirm their ancestry, but I think we can safely say we have found a member of Viking royalty, along with his wife. His Muslim wife.”
Elsa leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. “This is unbelievable. I never thought this could be possible. To be honest, until I took your class, I never knew the Vikings had any contact with Islam. I always thought they were in the north, and the Muslims were in the south.”
“True for the most part, though our ancestors were known to have sacked cities as far down the Atlantic coast as modern-day Spain, where the Muslims had established their Caliphate. As you know, Muslims ruled much of the Iberian Peninsula until they were finally driven out in 1492. Before that, our Viking forebears not only invaded, but traded extensively.”
Elsa gestured toward the dig outside. “What do you think happened? This Viking prince fell in love on one of these trade missions? Or did he take her as his thrall then force her into marriage?”
Karlsson frowned. “I doubt we’ll ever know. We’re lucky to have found the runestone to know as much as we do. If it weren’t for that, there’s no way we’d know they were married, or what their names were. Instead, we’d simply have the burnt remains of him, and hers buried with him, left to wonder what could have possibly put these two completely different individuals together in their final resting places.” He stared at the runestone sitting on a nearby work table. “You know who would love this?”
Elsa shrugged. “Who?”
“Jim Acton.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know who Professor James Acton is?”
She shrugged again. “Should I?”
“Yes, you should. Google him, or whatever it is you kids do, then feel shame for your ignorance.”
She stuck her tongue out at him then pulled out her phone, her thumb tapping away. “If I don’t know who he is, it’s only because you didn’t bother to teach me about him.”
He smiled at her as he dialed his old friend. “You’ve got me there.” His call was picked up on the third ring.
“Hello?”
He smiled as he recognized Acton’s voice, despite it being years since he’d heard it. “Hi, Jim, Viggo Karlsson here.”
“Viggo, you old dog, is that you?”
Karlsson’s smile broadened. “It is, it is. How are you, my old friend?”
“Excellent. You?”
“Fantastic.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure? You sound excited about something.”
Karlsson grunted. “Is it that obvious?”
“You sound like you just had another kid.” There was a pause. “You didn’t, did you?”
Karlsson chuckled. “I’m a little too old to be starting over. But I am excited about something, something I think you’d enjoy seeing.”
“What?”
“A ring.”
“A ring? As in one ring to rule them all?”
Karlsson paused. “Excuse me?”
“Never mind, just my inner geek being channeled, though you do need to get out more, Viggo.”
“My wife keeps saying the same thing.”
“So, what’s this ring you’ve found? What’s so special about it?”
Karlsson picked it up from the table, holding it up to the light. “I found it on the finger of a woman that was buried alongside a Viking prince almost a thousand years ago.”
“Oh? That’s not odd. What is it you aren’t telling me?”
“You’re right, it’s not odd, but there’s more.”
“I knew it.”
He smiled at the eagerness he now detected in Acton’s voice. “There was a runestone near the grave.”
“And being an expert, you translated it.”
“I have. Roughly. I’ll delve deeper into it now that I have the gist, but I have names.”
“Yes?”
“Prince Magnus Hamundarson, and his wife, Fatima Halabi.”
There was a burst of static as a quick breath was drawn on the other end of the line. “Fatima? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Not exactly a Viking name, now is it?”
“Not at all.”
“That’s an Arabic name.”
“It is.”
“Are you suggesting a Viking married an Arab?”
Karlsson smiled. “I am. And I can get even more specific than that.”
Acton groaned. “You’re killing me, Viggo! Spill it!”
He chuckled. “There was an inscription on the ring.”
“What did it say?”
“For Allah.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow.”