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It's proven so often enough in the past to give me confidence for the rest.
"I wonder have you ever had such dreams, Martell? Your guesses are so often right."
"No, my dreams aren't like that."
"Perhaps you forget them. It would be interesting to hypnotize you. Might I?"
Martell swallowed. "I'd rather not."
"As you wish, but it's a pity. You are a Norwegian, aren't you? How did you get a name like Martell?"
"My great-grandfather's name wasMyrdal . He anglicized it, or thought he did. Martell's really Old
French, of course, but I suppose the extral is sort of English."
"A good name, though. Strong. And honorable, if you care for heroes of Christendom. You have the
true Viking look, Martell, if you'd only put on some muscle. What color is your beard?"
"Red, when I let it grow."
"I suspected so. Would you believe me if I told you that Erling Skjalgsson looked much so? It's a thing I
know."
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"Erling was one of the great ones."
"He fought St. Olaf. That counts in his favor, from my point of view."
"He was a Christian. Olaf didn't want his death."
"So Olaf claimed. Olaf had a wonderful capacity to lie with style perhaps the most underrated
property of sanctity."
"It's strange to hear you talk about Olaf and Erling as if you'd known them," said Martell.
Oski smiled.
Martell's curiosity rose. "What do you know about the runestone?"
Oski set his saucer down. "I know that Paul Knutsson sailed. He and his men found that the worshippers
of the old gods had fled Greenland. The Greenlanders left behind told them the renegades had sailed to
Leif's Vinland. They followed them, but sailed by error into Hudson's Bay, which is easily done. As it
happened, the Greenlanders had also gone that way. Knutsson's party followed the shoreline some
weeks, until they came upon one mad Greenlander, a misfit who had fled the rest. He led them south, by
water and portage as far as they could, then by land. After losing some men to the Indians, they set up
what you call the Kensington Stone. And very near here, they closed with their prey. They made camp,
and one of them, a priest, began carving a second stone. In it he set a rune, for he was a man of lore, and
by that rune he meant to bind the old gods forever. Only the mad Greenlander turned and crept to the
other camp and warned them, and the Greenlanders attacked by night. The priest finished his stone,
dying, and all the Christians were slain. The Greenlanders wandered on, finding no further help from their
gods, and at last were made slaves by the Indians, and came to an end."
"A bloody story, and sad," said Martell. He didn't know if he believed it or not, but he knew Oski was
not making it up.
He thought uneasily of Elaine in the bedroom, afraid to make a noise, listening to them, no doubt silently
screaming to him to get rid of Oski. Or wondering why he wasn't keeping his promise to ask for her
freedom. But what could he say? Oski had declared her free to go. He had lied, but it had rather closed
the subject.
Oski said, "Do you know what happens when you're tortured? Providing you don't let your fear break
you?
"You go mad. When the Nazis set to work on me, they wanted certain information I held about the
Resistance. So I retreated into my dreams. I spent fine days among the Vikings. I watched, I listened. I
was so fascinated that it was some time before I noticed whomI was.
"I was an old man. A wanderer. I looked shabby and poor, and no one paid me mind. I wore a long
black cloak, and I carried a heavy staff. My beard was long and gray, and I kept my wide hat pulled
down low over one empty eye socket. Do you know what my name was?"
Martell said nothing. He felt as if the answer would give Oski power.
"You understand, I can tell," said Oski. "It was odd, though, that I was only the Wanderer. I should have
had another aspect, but him I could not find. And my home I could not find, nor my wife, nor my friends,
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nor my children. Then I remembered that the time in which I walked was shortly after the death of St.
Olaf Haraldsson, and it was about that time that I had been said to have died. So I knew my enemy.
"And knowing that, my reason returned. I found myself transferred to Grini, where I survived until the
liberation.
"I found that I had lost my left eye in one of the beatings I'd taken. And I remembered everything. I
remembered whom I was, and whom I had been, from the beginning.
"I took the name Sigfod Oski it was not the one I was christened with. I wrote my labor camp poems
down. And I began to plan."
"Plan?"
"Do you know that Cerafsky's Comet appeared in the year 1362 A.D.? I lost something then. I was
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