Chapter 33

"What do you call this process again?" Stanley asked as he watched with avid interest.

Seated in the opulent cabin of the yacht Roux had chartered in Venice, Annja stared at the photographs from aerial surveys Mario had accumulated. She had them spread out over the table, moving and shifting them as different points caught her interest.

"It's called an archaeological field study," Annja replied.

"These are geographical maps." Stanley sounded confused but eager to learn.

Annja had heard that tone on several occasions in her career. First as a university student, then again from students in guest lectures or seminars that she had taught at different times.

"Geologists and archaeologists tend to use a lot of the same tools and information," Annja said. "We just interpret them differently. An engineer intending to build a factory or a building would look at everything in another way."

"So would a city planner," Stanley said. "I did a book about a guy who was a city planner chasing a serial killer through the metro area he helped design. I had to learn a lot about building cities."

"So did I." Annja sifted through the photographs and made some notes. "I think I may have found the original site of the Curonian village where Thor was supposed to have lived."

"Where?" Stanley asked.

"Here." Annja placed her finger on the coastline near Liepaja.

"Not closer to Riga?"

"The story that Mario was following has been told several times, and most of them agree that when the Vikings attempted to raid the Curonian village it was in early winter, after the first snows had started coming. Liepaja offers one of the only ice-free ports in the Baltic Sea."

"The Vikings would have known this?"

"The Norsemen would, yes. And they were Norsemen, not Vikings. Viking was an occupation, not a culture."

Stanley nodded. "I try to get it right, but there's just so much to learn, and so quickly, when you're a writer. You have a choice of writing what you know about or trying to expose yourself and your readers to new information. It gets tough."

"Archaeology is the same. I don't know everything. My training allows me to know where to start searching for answers faster than a layman. But I've seen people who have made a time period or a piece of real estate so important in their lives that they knew more than a lot of university-trained professionals."

"So you like Liepaja because of the port."

"I do."

"Why not Liepaja itself?"

"Liepaja didn't exist then. At least, not in name. But it held a large population. Fishing, trade and amber – which couldn't be found anywhere else in Europe – all made Liepaja a major crossroads."

"It wasn't a prize Vikings would have targeted."

"Not a lone crew." Annja pointed to a topographical map. "The physical ground sounds about right." She drew her finger along the map to a mark Mario had placed on the map. Neat handwriting spelled out "Erene's village."

"That's where the girlfriend lived," Stanley said.

"Yes. The elevation in the area is 120 feet above sea level. Plenty of room to put in a catacomb. Or they may be there naturally," Annja said.

"Naturally? I was under the impression that catacombs were graveyards that had been built."

"More often than not, catacombs were put in where caves existed. Excavation made the caves bigger and deeper. By the sixth century, though, most cultures had given up the practice of catacombs and were burying their dead in graveyards."

"Are you looking for a graveyard or a catacomb?"

"The history that Mario turned up indicated the presence of Roman soldiers garrisoned there to protect shipments along the

"I'm not familiar with the

"Amber was beautiful and rare in those days," Annja said. "Kings and queens used it in ornaments and paid a lot for it because it was so hard to get. The Roman warriors were there to keep bandits from hitting the caravans that left Riga and went down to Palanga, Lithuania."

Stanley nodded.

"Mario researched several documents and located the Roman fort." Annja opened the book Mario had copied and appended. "He also found a lot of stories about Roman artifacts that had been found in the area since that time."

"That's important?" Stanley was taking notes on a legal pad.

"When you're doing a field study," Annja said, "you want to consult books and journals written in the area as close to the time that you're researching. Tales that people in an area continue to tell each other and each successive generation are valuable. Other surveys and explorations of the area that might have been done are good. Even if the people conducting those weren't looking for the same things you were. All of those things help an archaeologist decide where to look for answers to a question."

"You have to have a question?"

"You don't have to, but it's better if you do. Then you use aerial photographs," Annja said.

"I noticed there were several of those."

"Mario got some of them from others, but some he took himself."

Stanley looked at the collection of photos Annja pushed toward him. "These look really good. But he only looks like he was a hundred feet or so off the ground. I'm surprised they aren't blurred while flying that close."

"He didn't take them from a plane," Annja said. "He used a kite."

"A kite?"

"You don't always get the equipment you need in the field," Annja told him. "The actors in movies always seem to acquire ground radar and other high-tech equipment just by making a phone call. In real life, especially when you're on your own, you have to improvise. Mario and I learned to take photographs using kites. A good camera equipped with a timer and you're good to go."

"What are you hoping to find from the air?"

"Shadow marks, crop marks, frost marks or soil marks."

Stanley wrote furiously as Annja searched through the pictures to better illustrate what she was explaining.

"Shadow marks are better suited to finding aboveground features rather than buried ones. I looked for shadow marks, but I didn't find any. Neither did Mario. But he did find crop marks." Annja pulled out a photograph and pushed it over.

Stanley looked at the photo.

"Here. These pictures were taken in the summer. Crop marks show a difference in growth patterns. Places where the ground has been worked or that have buried ditches will hold more water."

"Promoting better crop growth because of the extra irrigation," Stanley said.

Annja smiled. He was a fast learner. "Exactly. Places that have buried structures, or only had the walls left standing when dirt covered it, don't allow the same amount of irrigation."

"The bigger the object, the more it affects the area."

"Yes."

"And what we're looking for is big."

"That's right. Also, it's been partially found."

Stanley looked at her.

Annja took out more photographs. "The Roman soldiers stationed at the fort took advantage of a small cave system located nearby. According to the reports Mario found, the Romans located the caves while digging wells for water. They chose to open the caves and bury their dead."

"They were stationed there long enough to get old and die?"

"Some of the legionnaires were. A posting lasting several years wasn't uncommon. Rome was spread out in all directions. Swapping manpower around was a logistical nightmare. Also, there were bandit attacks and sickness that claimed lives."

"What do you mean it's been partially found?" Stanley asked.

Annja brought out more photographs that showed the excavation of the Roman catacombs. "They were found and explored by British tomb raiders in the 1920s. That's how a lot of the Roman artifacts that turned up in the village where Mario was staying got there. The tomb raiders kept whatever gold and silver they found, then used the trinkets to trade for beer and supplies."

Stanley sat back on the couch. "If the catacombs have already been found, then there's no treasure there."

Smiling, Annja said, "The grave robbers found the Roman catacombs, but I don't think they found Thor's final resting place."

"Why?"

"Because the hammer was never found."

"It might never have existed," Stanley said.

"The problem with archaeology is that you have to believe in something until you prove it or disprove it," Annja said. "Maybe we're just chasing a local legend. But it's been a persistent one. I'm going to believe the story for a while longer because I choose to." She picked up the original book Mario had "borrowed" from the Vatican City archives. "And then there's this, from Ozolini's journal."

Though he will not admit it because he is blinded by his own desperate greed, Baron Frederick of Schluter is a fool. He came here chasing improbable lies and legends of a Norse god who lived among Curonian fishermen and defended them against Norsemen.

The legend says that Thor's people burned him at sea in a captured Norseman's ship. The baron will not hear of that, though. He chooses to believe that Thor was given a grave to sleep away all of time, and his fortune to sleep with him.

I have talked to some who have talked to the Curonians, but not much has been said. They are still a warlike people and not open to friendship, only save enough to maintain trade. My father was alive when they killed the Catholic priests who served the small church by the old Roman fort.

The priests weren't good men, but they were God's chosen. There was talk of forming an army and driving the Curonians from their village, but the Brotherhood of the Sword recently reclaimed that church. Those that were not killed by the German knights died in winter's cruel embrace. Thor may have saved them then, but their hero was not with them ten years ago.

I was with one of those Curonian warriors when he was delirious with fever after taking a German arrow through his lung. My father was the physician and felt no man should be untended. I did not agree with him, but I did not disobey him when he bade me to help. Also, I was curious about those fierce warriors.

The man coughed and spit up blood throughout the night while my father and I tried to care for him as best as we were able. I could tell that my father could do nothing for the Curonian. I had seen that helpless look on his face often enough.

During the warrior's ravings, the Curonian said that he had been one of the men who put Thor in his final resting place. He talked to me as though I were his brother. He told me that the great warrior's treasures are hidden beneath those who are already dead.

Though I am familiar with this area, having grown up here and lived all my life in this town, and I have known of some of the Roman graves that were disturbed, no one has ever claimed the sleeping god's bounty.

Thor and the treasure may never have existed, but Baron Frederick's villainy does. I pray that God is with me on my long journey, for I fear that I have been too vocal in my intolerance of the baron's abuses.

"Even Ozolini didn't believe the legend at the end," Stanley pointed out.

"Ozolini may never have believed in the legend," Annja replied.

"Where do you think Thor's tomb is? Beneath the Roman catacombs?"

Annja picked up one of the photographs they'd already looked at. She traced the discrepancy in the ground that Mario's photography had discovered. "Do you see it?"

Stanley peered more closely. "See what?"

"Off to the right." Annja tapped the photograph. "Mario shot this in the winter, on a day that was freezing but the ground wasn't covered with snow. These are frost marks."

"They're like the ones that show the Roman catacombs," Stanley said softly.

"Exactly. But they're hard to see because there's a lot of space open under there."

"You think there's another cave system down there?"

"We're going to find out."