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as he began talking a new gleam appeared in his eye.
    “The fields that you see all around here, which to the naked eye look like ordinary fields and meadows, conceal a Viking Age settlement extending over what we estimate to be a hundred and twenty thousand square yards. In other words, the area is huge. Excavations have been carried out here since the late eighties, and so far we’ve explored only a small section.”
    “How did you know that this would be an interesting area to excavate in the beginning?” asked Jacobsson.
    “Several reasons. A farmer who was planting his crops discovered something glittering in the soil. It was a bracelet from the tenth century. In addition, the location of the church interested archaeologists.” He pointed toward the lovely whitewashed Fröjel Church, which stood on a hill. “It wasn’t built in the middle of the parish where people live, like other churches. Instead it’s on the edge of Fröjel parish, near the sea. Archaeologists pondered that and came up with the idea that it was probably because there was a harbor down here that was very busy, with people coming and going, and so the church was built nearby. You can also tell from the color of the soil that people and animals have lived here. It’s rich in phosphate, which manifests as a darker color in the soil. After the discovery of the bracelet in the field, we initiated some test digs, and that led to the discovery of traces of a trading site with a permanent settlement—rather like Birka on Lake Mälaren on the mainland. We’ve found the remains of houses, several gravesites, a picture stone, coins, tools, and jewelry. Since we started excavating , we’ve found a total of thirty-five thousand artifacts.”
    Jacobsson whistled.
    “From what time period?” asked Knutas.
    “Mostly the Viking Age, meaning around A.D. 850 to 1050, but we’ve also found artifacts from the seventh century and the twelfth century, so altogether we’re talking about a period of five hundred years.”
    “How do you know where to dig?”
    “When we start an excavation, we decide on a specific area that we think is interesting. Then we divide it into various pits that are each twenty-four square yards, as you can see here.”
    The quadrants were marked off with string.
    “Each participant is given several areas, and then we dig until we reach a depth of ten to twelve inches. That’s necessary if we’re going to find the artifacts at their proper location; everything above that has usually been disturbed by working the earth, by plowing, for instance. After we’ve dug down a ways, we slice off the earth, almost like using a cheese slicer, very carefully, half an inch at a time, so as to minimize the risk of disturbing anything. It takes a few weeks to reach the level where it starts getting interesting.”
    “I had no idea that you had found so much,” said Jacobsson, fascinated. “Of course, we’ve all read and heard about the excavations, but I at least hadn’t realized the extent of them until now.”
    “Good Lord,” said Mellgren with a sigh, looking at Jacobsson with amusement. “Nowhere else in the world have there been as many Viking Age coins discovered, for instance, as here on Gotland. The island was in the middle of the trade route between Russia and the Continent, after all, and the islanders were masters at trading goods from various regions.”
    “What did they trade?” asked Jacobsson.
    Knutas was beginning to get a tense look on his face. They weren’t here to listen to a lecture on archaeology. They were here to find out facts that might help them locate Martina Flochten. He made a deliberate show of leaving the others to get a firsthand look at the area. Jacobsson seemed completely captivated by Mellgren, hanging on every word he was saying. Knutas hadn’t realized that Jacobsson was so interested in history. Yet another side of her that he knew nothing about.
    He sat down on a bench that stood next to the area. Below him gaped a pit with a skeleton that lay completely exposed to the air.
    It was incredible to think that he was sitting here looking down at the skeleton of a human being that hadn’t seen the light of day for a thousand years. How many people had walked across this field since then? Even he felt a certain fascination with the whole thing.
    So this was where Martina had sat, scraping away at the earth with the others a few days ago. Where in the name of heaven had she gone? Had she