Assignment - Black Viking Page 6

  Beyond Irevik, the road turned east to Farosund. The driver followed dark lanes that twisted across wide moors, marked here and there by old stone towers, a lighted window in a farmhouse, a glimpse of a sheep pasture, then a wild and rocky hillside where the sea thundered below, at work on its eternal rock sculpture.

  At last the driver took his heavy foot off the gas pedal and pointed through the white mist ahead.

  “Miss Elgiva’s place. The road ends here.”

  Durell saw nothing through the fog, and said so.

  “There is a dip in the clifftop,” the driver said. “The house is sheltered from the wind, just above the sea. But one must walk the rest of the way from this place.”

  “All right.”

  Durell got out as the second car halted behind them. He, looked through the window at the peasant face of Mario Ginelli and the sullen handsomeness of his nephew.

  “Wait here. I’ll send the other taxi back.”

  “Si, signore,” said Mario.

  The boy said: “It’s a waste of time. This is the end of nowhere.”

  “Be quiet, Gino. Must I always have my hand ready to teach you manners?”

  The boy was still truculent. “How long we got to freeze out here?”

  “Until I come back. I don’t expect trouble, but if you hear a shot, come running. If anybody has followed us, take them. Stop them. And one of you must let me know.”

  “We understand,” said Mario.

  Durell struck off along the lane that curved north toward Farosund. White fence posts guided him through the mist, and the thunder of the sea shook the ground underfoot. In a moment, the waiting car was swallowed by the unearthly white fog. Durell wondered if Olsen had sent him on a wild-goose chase, and decided simply to play it by ear.

  In five minutes he saw the lights of the house, a modem glass-and-stone aerie perched on the lip of the cliff above the sea. Through the huge windows he could see a cheerful fire on the granite hearth. The house was not large, and consisted mainly of one big room and a gallery at one end that probably contained the sleeping quarters. It was a solitary hideout, built cleverly to conform with the irregular cliffs and grottoes of the area.

  The door stood open.

  “Please come in,” a woman said.

  The voice was deep and throaty, with a quality of dark music in it. Durell paused on the threshold.

  “Come in, Mr. Durell. I am expecting you. Mr. Olsen phoned to say you were coming. I do not welcome you, because you are not welcome. But since you are here, I will give you some time, which is the most precious gift of all.”

  He saw her then, seated in a sling chair to the right of the foyer. The house was cold, as if the chill mist had crept into it; the fire, for all its crackle and glow, did nothing to help.

  “Do not step any farther,” the woman said. “This house is private, and I resent intrusions.”

  “Miss Elgiva Neilsen?”

  “I am she. What do you want of me?”

  She did not rise or offer to shake hands or even take her huge, dilated eyes from the fire. Durell felt a little catch in his throat as he regarded her. He had rarely seen a woman more beautiful, and yet he knew at once she was untouchable, a thing of the spirit, remote from the reach of ordinary men. She was in her late twenties; her face was gaunt, with fine bones under pale skin, but her mouth was rich and wide, and her figure, glimpsed under the folds of her dark cloak, promised a voluptuous contrast to her thin, angular face. Under the cloak she wore velvet slacks, a blue denim shirt; her feet were bare, and they looked practical, not overly large, but firm and evenly callused and somewhat grimed by dark granitic sand. She saw him notice them and her generous mouth might have smiled, but he wasn’t sure.

  “I walk a great deal on the cliffs and beaches. It helps with my poems. Have you read my poetry, Mr. Durell?” “Some,” he said.

  “And as an American, what did you think of them?” “Do Americans think differently than others?”

  “Ah, you are sensitive. So unusual. But did you not find my wording—archaic?”

  “You evoke a time long past and long dead.”

  “The glory never dies,” she said firmly. “We are chained to the past, to the sea roads, the wind and the stars, to the blood of our ancestors.”

  “The Vikings shed plenty of blood.”

  She ignored his comment. “And did you understand the kennings, the ancient figures of speech? The art of skaldic verse is lost today. Some say my poems are not distinguishable from those of Ari Thorgilsson’s Landnamabok, or the skald Snori Sturluson. Have you read the Heimskringla, Mr. Durell? Or the Starlunga saga?” She did not wait for his reply. “The language is one of metaphorical compounds, and requires explanation to comprehend the poetry.” She smiled wryly. “They have called me a modern skald, a bard who is closer to the past of nine centuries ago than to the world of today. Perhaps so. Perhaps the world was better then.”

  “I doubt it, Miss Neilsen.”

  “Everyone calls me Elgiva.”

  “Elgiva was the wife of Sweyn Forkbeard,” Durell said quietly. “And he was a man with much blood on his hands, too, long ago.”

  “Call me Elgiva.” She smiled again. “And come walk with me. I love to walk in the mists.” When he hesitated, she added, “There is no danger. I know every step of the way.”

  She stood up and walked out without looking to see if he followed. Durell had no choice but to go after her. The impact of her strange personality did not lessen when they left the house. He was acutely aware of her; she emanated a tingling aura. Her walk was a smooth, gliding motion, her legs invisible under the cloak she now tightened about her. She lifted her face to the fog and said, “Come, follow me,” and went down a flight of steps to the stony beach.

  A half light lingered in the southern sky even at this hour, due to their northern latitude. It came through the mists over Faro Sound to make the night oddly luminescent, as if the rocky beach were touched with phosphorus. The steps twisted steeply down to the water’s edge. The sea thundered and filled the air with the sharp iodine smell of salt and kelp. Durell’s eyes adjusted quickly to the uncertain gloom. The combers raced toward the beach in white smoky lines, like charging stallions.

  “This way, Mr. Durell.” Elgiva’s voice was vibrant, alive. She pushed back the hood on her cape and shook her long hair free. It was pale brown, like the amber that once brought trade from the Mediterranean through the savage Germanic tribes to the civilizations of the North. Her eyes were almost the same color, but there was a mystic, impassioned light in them. “This is my favorite walk.”

  “Do you stay in Gotland much of the year?”

  “I write here. I walk, I think, I dream. They call me a witch, locally. Elgiva the Witch.” Her throaty laugh was a bubble that broke in her long throat. Her bare feet moved over the porous stones of the beach without noting their roughness. “But I go to Stockholm now and then. It is necessary, when I finish writing, and must return to the twentieth century, so to speak. They accuse me of awful things when I release myself from the mood of the skalds. They call me a bad woman. In Sweden, that is difficult to achieve, for women here are equal in ah ways, Mr. Durell. But when it is over, I always come back here. I am happiest in this place.”

  “Are you happy now?” he asked quietly.

  “Such a typically American question!”

  “I was thinking of Professor Peter Gustaffson, who has been missing for some months.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “You know I have been sent to look for him?”

  “He is not here, of course.”

  “I didn’t expect him to be. But I wonder if you’ve heard from him. You were a good friend of Peter’s.” “And Doctor Eric, too,” she said bluntly. “I loved them both.” She paused. “They were both my lovers, Mr. Durell. Both wonderful men, whom I adore, each in a different way.”

  “I’m more interested in Professor Peter’s weather modification control experiments.”

&
nbsp; “Yes, there are rumors—things have been so strong— so wonderful—"

  “Wonderful?”

  “I do not mind winter. It is part of me. I feel united with a storm of wind and snow and ice.” She paused. “It is serious, about Peter?”

  Olsen had not said how much this woman could be told. He wondered if she really meant it when she said she’d been the mistress of both men. They came to a place on the beach where the sea had carved a great bowl of rock out of the cliff. The dark salt water surged and bellowed and then sucked out of the crevice with a long, angry sigh. A narrow ledge led them around the bowl to a cave entrance, where she paused.

  “This is the place, according to legend, where a great battle was fought, and they say that far inside this cave are the bones of Viking warriors who were buried here. But no one has ever found them. Eric and I often explored here. It smells of the age of heroes and mighty deeds. Eric and I have much in common, loving the past. But Peter was the man I usually preferred. He dreamed of creating the olden days, in fact.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It was a world of ice and snow and bitter wind, and men had to be strong to survive. They had to be giants.” “Peter wanted to bring back that world?”

  “You sound incredulous.”

  “I am.”

  “Peter thought that if he could change our climate, we would all be better for it. Warm air thins a man’s blood, makes him effete, weak, languid. Only in the cold, conquering nature, has man developed to his highest peak.” “It’s a matter of opinion,” Durell murmured. “Was Peter serious?”

  “He made it his life’s work.”

  “And was he successful?”

  “He told me so, the last time I spoke to him.”

  “When was that? And where?”

  She faced the dark sea, her amber hair agleam with drops of salt spray. The night mists shrouded the clifftop and cut them off from all the rest of the world.

  “What will you do to him, if you find him?”

  “We’re not sure he’s responsible for what has happened.” Durell told her briefly what was known and suspected. Elgiva listened attentively, with a small smile. She was strikingly elemental, and he could understand why the local people thought of her as a witch. “We don’t even know if Professor Peter is alive. If so, we think he must be an unwilling captive of people who use his genius for political ends.”

  “But you do not understand dear Peter at all,” she murmured. “He is a dreamer, yes, and a most impractical man in everything but his scientific achievements. He has nothing to do with politics. He shuns the world of today.”

  “He uses today’s technology to tamper with the balance of the earth’s climate. We’re sure of this. It’s too dangerous to be allowed to go on. Surely you understand this, Elgiva.”

  “I am like Peter,” she said flatly.

  He stared. “Does that mean you refuse to help?”

  “Why should I?” she asked. “I want nothing to do with it.”

  “You say you love him.”

  “It is not a love you could understand, however.”

  “Do you want him to die?” Durell asked.

  “Would you kill him?”

  “If I must. If there is no other way.”

  “I see.” She turned abruptly and descended to the ledge which circled the sea pool. The ocean exploded with thunder all around them. “I felt this in you at once, Mr. Durell. You are not a man of this world, either.”

  “I’m very much of this world.”

  “An American agent,” she mused. “And very strong, with a strength of the olden times. Yes, you would kill Peter, if you had to. I believe you.”

  “But I don’t want to. I want to save him. He’s in danger, a prisoner of those who use his climate control techniques for political purposes.”

  “I find that difficult to believe.”

  “Have you heard from him recently?” he insisted.

  “Not for many months. I had a letter—She shrugged. “It was from the East. He was touring the Orient. He was to confer in Manila with Pacific meteorologists.”

  “And he vanished from there?”

  “I have not heard from him since.”

  “Elgiva, he was kidnapped.”

  Again she was silent, staring at the seething maelstrom twenty feet below the ledge. “Peter and Eric and I had this dream. You could not comprehend it.”

  “Perhaps I do.” His voice went savage. “You three are a little mad, trying to retreat into the past to escape the problems of today. You write of ancient times and call yourself a skald. But the old bards are dead. They served a purpose in their day. Now Peter works to recreate a world of ice that existed mainly in pagan myths, and dreams of giants with bloody swords. And Eric is wrapped in the past, too, with his archaeology and recreation of Viking days. All three of you only seek escape.”

  She slapped him with furious strength. Her amber eyes blazed. She said something in Swedish and turned sharply, her cloak swirling about her. Durell caught her arm and flung her back against the cliff wall.

  “Elgiva, Peter is in danger. Accept it and show you believe in what you say, and help me.”

  “I will not help you to trap Peter! You lie to me! Go away! I have heard enough of your schemes! Your people want Peter to use him for your own ends—”

  “We just want him to stop doing what he’s doing to the weather. It’s time you all gave up the past and lived in today’s world.”

  Elgiva tried to strike him again. Her angular face was twisted in the mist. Durell caught her arm and forced it down. She struggled against him, her body rich and strong.

  “Help me find Peter,” he said harshly. “Come with me, if you like. You’ll see for yourself—”

  The sound of the shot checked him.

  He heard a thin ripping sound, and Elgiva fell away toward the seething, wild pool below.

  11

  HER CLOAK saved her. Durell caught its wide flap and for a heart-stopping instant he held her as if in a sling over the abyss. Another shot cracked through the fog. Stone chipped off the ledge and stung his face and hands. He had no time to look for the source of the attack. For another moment he held Elgiva Neilsen over the brink and stared deep into her wide eyes. There was no fear in her. He couldn’t guess what turbulent thoughts possessed her. The sea thundered, bursting about them with a shower of cold spray, bellowing as if for a sacrifice.

  Then he pulled her in. She fell against him, then flung herself swiftly away and flattened against the wall of the ledge, arms wide against the rough limestone.

  Her face was white. “What happened?”

  Durell tried to see through the fog. “Somebody up there doesn’t like us,” he said wryly. “We were shot at. Twice, so far. Were you hit?”

  “No. No, I’m all right. But who would shoot at you like this?”

  “Maybe you were the target, Elgiva.”

  She looked confused. “Are we trapped here?”

  “Maybe. Stay where you are.”

  “You seem pleased by this.”

  “It means the trail is getting warm at last. It means you know something that can help me.”

  “But I do not. I truly do not.”

  He edged away, looking for a place where he could see to the top of the cliff. The sea turned the pool at their feet into a thundering cauldron again. He took advantage of the noise to take a few more steps to the right.

  The gun cracked again. It sounded thin and far away in the ocean’s roaring. The bullet made a thin splatting sound against the ledge at his feet. He searched again for the sniper. In the strange, pearly light, he thought he saw something stir in the sky above. His gun was in his hand. He fired once, but he knew it was not effective. Yet the movement stopped, and he couldn’t tell if it was a man up there, or just another of the grotesque rock formations created by millennia of winds and seas.

  “Elgiva!”

  “Yes,” she replied quietly.

  “Do you know an
other way back up to your house?” “It is difficult, especially in this poor light—”

  “We’re cut off from the way we came down.” He wondered angrily where Mario and Gino might be. He had taken them along for just this contingency. He reached for Elgiva’s hand. It was cold, but strong. “Let’s go.”

  She led him around the pool, toward the cave. The mouth of the hole yawned with dank blackness. Durell thought he heard the scrape of a shoe on the cliff above, but he could not be sure, nor could he tell how many people were up there. Beyond the cave entrance, Elgiva took his hand again and pulled him after her.

  “It is difficult for a stranger here.” She was calm, considering her narrow escape from death. He felt a twinge of admiration for her. She surely wasn’t accustomed to being ambushed and shot at. “Just follow me, Mr. Durell.”

  She climbed by slow and painful handholds and waited for him in the gloom to take each grip as she released it. There were tall, monumental crags of upright stone, carved by the sea far back in geological ages. Then she stopped.

  “We are just below the top. Listen.”

  Garbled voices came through the mist. Again, Durell wondered what had happened to his two Vesper crewmen. Then abruptly there was another shot, and a woman screamed.

  It was Sigrid.

  There was no time to guess what was happening. With his head just above the lip of the cliff, he saw the muzzle flame as it was fired again. He moved Elgiva aside, clambered over the top, and ran for the spot.

  Boulders were strewn among the rough grasses that grew here. At a vague distance through the fog, he saw the lights of Elgiva’s house. Then the world took on a blinding radiance as a navigation light across Faro channel shone his way. He felt as if a spotlight had been thrown upon him. He threw up an arm to shield his eyes from the glare. Every particle of mist caught the dazzling brightness to reflect it a thousand times over.