(no subject)

[athelstanthescribe]

It's almost time to leave their little hunting cabin and go back to the town, much as Athelstan and Ragnar might wish they could stay... but Athelstan's dog is nowhere to be seen.

Athelstan stands in the doorway, looking and calling for him, and finally he reappears, carrying something in his mouth.

"Fiachra? What have you got there?"

He crouches for a better look, frowning as it strikes him that doesn't look like a deer bone...

Comments

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Yes," Ragnar says. "A small woman, or an older child."

[athelstanthescribe]

"Wasn't there a boy who disappeared?" he says slowly. "From the village, not long after I came here?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Children will sometimes vanish," Ragnar says. "But yes, the one you were thinking of was taken by Earl Haraldson as a hostage, and never seen again; and never much searched for, as he attack on the village killed his mother, and his father fell in battle, in England."

[athelstanthescribe]

"Perhaps now we can know what became of him." He looks down at Fiachra and whistles the to-attention command, then takes the bone back from Ragnar for the dog to sniff. "Find, boy. Find again."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar leaves the packs for the moment, just taking an axe to follow the dog.

"We might," he allows. "Or this might be a murder victim nothing to do with what we know of, and a new problem for us to solve."

As the earl, justice is Ragnar's duty, even though it's hard to carry out if a dead person has no relatives to accuse potential murderers.

[athelstanthescribe]

"It might. At the very least, we can give some poor soul a proper send-off, not leave them to lie out here all unknown."

Fiachra is already several yards away, waiting for them to catch up.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"We can do that," Ragnar says, "and maybe set somebody's heart to rest, because even sad certainty is better than endless worry."

[athelstanthescribe]

He nods and jogs after his impatient dog, to wherever he wants to lead them.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

It's quite a way off -- the dog has already been roaming today, it seems. Well, he does like to stretch his legs, sight-hound that he is.

Ragnar is jogging alongside Athelstan, worrying where this is going to lead.

Who even cares about a murder if the dead person's relatives don't? That is clearly a gap in their laws. Murder must always be punished.

[athelstanthescribe]

Eventually, they reach a place among a number of boulders, and Fiachra starts scratching at the earth in one spot. As they draw nearer, he looks up at Athelstan and barks.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar joins the hound, and uses the flat of his axe to help dig.

"Good dog, Fiachra," he murmurs to the animal working beside him.

[athelstanthescribe]

"He's a very good dog", Athelstan agrees. He doesn't have an axe, but has no hesitation using his hands to scrape earth aside.

It's not long before they come up with a skull. And something else. It's filthy, but...

"Ragnar, is this gold?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar looks up. His fingers tangle in the earth, and come up with what looks like the bones of a small foot, held together still by dried, withered tendons, even though one toe falls off as he lifts it.

"It is," he says. "We may have found a hoard and its keeper."

Or rather, the dog has.

[athelstanthescribe]

"Wait." Athelstan lifts out another object with great care, and begins knocking the clods of soil off it. "I know this. I polished this once a week for fifteen years."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"This is from Lindisfarne?" Ragnar says.

[athelstanthescribe]

"It is", he says with absolute certainty. "And that means only Earl Haraldsson could have put it here."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"So your gut feeling must be right, as that boy is the one child that vanished around the time when he must have hidden this," Ragnar says. "Others were killed in our village, or lost in the woods, or drowned, but they are accounted for. But they took this boy, and he was never seen again."

[athelstanthescribe]

"All the others' bodies were found?" Athelstan asks. "And here Fiachra has led us to this poor boy, buried here with this treasure. You said a hoard-keeper?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Yes," Ragnar says. "If they bury a hoard, people sometimes take somebody along to help, and then kill them to watch over the secret from beyond life. But it seems the boy, who used to play with Björn and Gyda when they were all mostly toddlers, wants us to have the gold, rather than keep it in the cold ground, for a treacherous master who will never be back."

[athelstanthescribe]

"He could never have wanted to die for such a thing in the first place", Athelstan says quietly. "No surprise that he might have no loyalty to Haraldsson in death. Will he be freed, if we take it?"

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"I hope so," Ragnar says. "Let us dig him up first, shall we?"

He stands and looks around, then takes his axe, hacks a bit off a tree, then splits that to make something like triangular boards, rough and makeshift.

"This will help with digging."

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan nods.

"We'll need something to carry him home in, but there are spare clothes back at the cabin that would do."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar wordlessly unties his belt and takes off the leather jerkin with the raven on that he is wearing over his shirt, and lays it flat on the ground.

"What is that golden thing you recognised?"

[athelstanthescribe]

"A chalice", Athelstan tells him. "It was used for the wine at communion - though a plain and simple cup would have done, this was gifted to us, so it was used."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar is digging very carefully, unearthing small bones.

There is a skeletal hand, impossibly and pathetically narrow wrist bones encircled by a bronze arm ring.