CHAPTER 5

Once the clever ploy involving the overly long, full-width planks had been discovered and subsequently negated, the rest of the false floor was soon stripped off without any further problems.

The planks all had a small ridge on the left-hand side and a hollow molding carved into them on the right-hand side. A cunning hook-and-eye locking mechanism that was in a different location on each plank - but obviously adjacent to the one next to it - meant they would have to be put back in sequence. If the planks were simply placed at random, the floor literally wouldn't hook up.

Still resting on her thighs, Janice gathered up the loose planks one at a time and put them on the ground behind her. When she had removed the final fir plank, she clambered to her feet and looked down into the black hole. "Mel… shine the light down there. This is about to get serious," she said while she tried to scrape caked mud off her forehead and out of her hair. A pale-brown layer covered her from top to toe so it was a lost cause from the start, but she was allowed a small victory when she managed to get a nasty clump out of her ear.

As Mel let the cone of light enter the dark entrance at their feet, the howling winds seemed to pick up outside the burial chamber. The oak door gave off a severe creak that made both archaeologists whip their heads around to glare at it. The makeshift dike they had built in front of it continued to hold, but a tiny stream of water seeped through one section near the curved wall.

"This has got to be the worst Goddamned summer ever in the entire age of Homo Sapiens!" Janice growled.

"I don't know, Jan… the students seem to consider it fairly normal summer weather for mid-June."

A few more grumbles followed before Janice rolled her eyes three times in rapid succession. "Yeah, well… they can have it. Naw, it's time for the important stuff," she said and moved down to lie flat on her stomach. Her head and her muddy mop of hair soon peeked over the edge and down into the hole that had been created when the false floor was removed. "Mel, the light…"

Mel inched closer to the gaping hole while trying to hold the flashlight so the cone wouldn't be blocked by Janice's head. "Can you see anything?" she said and craned her neck to get a glimpse of any possible treasures below.

"Yeah… a whole buncha darkness. I need the light, Mel," Janice said and held out her hand without moving her head. When the lit flashlight had been transferred to her bloody, mud-caked fingers, she moved it down into the hole and let the cone sweep over the lower floor.

A moment later, a loud chuckle escaped her that seemed oddly inappropriate given the tension that had run rampant during their enforced stay inside the burial chamber. Instead of explaining the laughter, she got up and simply jumped boots-first into the black hole.

"Jan, no!" Mel cried, but the lightning bolt of worry that had raced through her fizzled out abruptly when she realized Janice's mop of filthy-blond hair was only just below the level of the false floor.

"Haw!" the seemingly daredevil archaeologist said from down below, "the real chamber ain't even six feet deep!  C'mon down, Mel!  And when you're here, you better duck your head, darlin', or you'll scrape it!"

"Why, Janice Covington, that was a little too audacious for my taste!" Mel said and adjusted her glasses in a brief fit of huffiness. "I suppose I should be thankful it isn't a bottomless chasm… very well. Stand back, Jan!  I'm coming through!"

Getting to her feet, Mel pulled her overalls tight before she put a boot over the edge. Although the flashlight provided a modicum of light down below, stepping into the unknown like that was still a large psychological hurdle she needed to overcome. Holding her breath, she took the plunge - not two seconds later, her boots made a gentle impact on the lower floor.

Like Janice had done earlier, Mel let out an embarrassed laugh at her own insecurity when she realized her wet hair, her eyes and glasses, and even her nose were still in the upper chamber while everything below her chin had entered the proverbial underworld. "Goodness me, that was somewhat anticlimactic…" she said as she ducked down to make sure she didn't scrape her head against the ceiling.

"Yeah, no kiddin', Mel. That ride wouldn't last two days at Coney Island," Janice said from further into the lower chamber. She let out a chuckle before she got down to business and let the light sweep across the floor and walls of the newly discovered chamber.

Obviously physically smaller than the upper chamber, it had been built as a square box in the ground rather than the mound's circular design. The lower chamber was roughly twelve feet wide and fifteen feet long; the distance from the floor to the ceiling was only a smidgen above five feet and seven inches as witnessed by Mel's ungraceful posture.

Like above, the walls were made of earth that had been solidified by adding sections of clay that would bind the softer materials together. The room's four corners were all right-angled, and they were each equipped with additional strengthening in the shape of a single, foot-wide oak support beam that held up the ceiling.

If Mel and Janice had expected to find many niches carved into the walls to display various personal effects like Greek customs dictated, they were to be disappointed. Only two such niches were present: one held a small pile of what appeared to be ash, and the other was home to a finely carved pipe.

Janice grunted as she took in the sight of the pipe. "A smoker, eh?  Betcha she wasn't married," she said dryly before she let the cone of light move further on. She repeated the same procedure that Mel had carried out in the upper chamber when they had explored that part of the mound: she moved the cone down to the floor as the starting point, and then let it slide up the wall at such a slow rate they would have time to see everything that came into view.

Although Janice was sorely tempted to let the cone fly over the floor where she expected to see quite a lot of priceless artifacts, she stuck to the tried and tested formula - she and Mel had risked their necks in various booby-traps once too often to ignore the old saying of Always conduct a search of the walls first.

"Jan, go back to the first of the two niches… I want to get a better look at that strange, grayish-white substance," Mel said as she kept a close eye on what the flashlight picked up along the walls.

"What, the pipe?"

"No, the small pile of ash-like material. But speaking of pipes… did you smoke cigarettes last night?  I distinctly smelled smoke on your clothes when you woke me up."

"Ah… I plead the fifth, your Honor," Janice said and let the flashlight do the talking by moving back to the niche in question.

Mel adjusted her glasses and sent her partner a disapproving glare - not that Janice would be able to see it in the darkness - before she moved over to the niche in the earthen wall. Her many years of experience in the field soon explained the nature of the odd-looking pile of ash: "Oh, dear… that's not good news, Jan. I'm certain it used to be parchment of some kind. It's so far gone it's nearly turned into flour. Some of the tiny fragments seem to carry a reddish tone… it's a fair bet that something had been written on it. It's all gone now."

"Dammit!  We just can't catch a break… and even when we do, it ain't a break but a fracture!"

"Ah, quite," Mel said and adjusted her glasses. "At least the size of the pile suggests it was merely a small note rather than a full scroll. Please continue to move the flashlight around, Jan. We may yet get lucky down here…"

"Huh!  I wish," Janice mumbled as she let the cone of light sweep further across the walls of the lower burial chamber. Like Mel had done upstairs, she took a small step to her right and started over from the ground-up each time she had completed a pass of the wall.

On the third such pass, the light reflected off a partially hidden object that had fallen onto the floor. Quickly whipping the light upward showed a pair of rusty hooks that had been hammered into the earthen wall - then she whipped the light down again to shine at the object.

"Holy hell, that's a sword!" -- "Oh, my!  An Amazon sword!" Janice and Mel said at the exact same time.

While Janice kept the light trained on the object, Mel hurried over to it and knelt on the hard ground. Although she didn't wear her special gloves meant to protect the found objects from potential contamination through her touch, her hands were so caked in mud the lack of gloves made little difference.

Much like the first sword she had analyzed up in the open-sided tent, the new one had been reduced to a bare hilt roughly four inches long. Similar to the first find, it also carried a two-inch crossguard and the jagged stump of a rusty blade. The other half of the blade remained on the floor right next to where the rest of the sword had been, and it was obvious it had only broken off at the impact with the floor after the wall-mounted iron hooks holding it up had corroded.

What made Mel's breath truly hitch was the symbol attached to the lower end of the hilt. It was the familiar Amazon tribal mark that was still in use nearly two thousand later: a circle above a vertical bar that featured a smaller crossbar halfway down - universally known as the symbol of Woman. "This is it, Jan… this is Yannberah's sword. We've found her tomb," she said in an awed half-whisper.

"Jebediah Criminy, I never doubted it for a second!" Janice said and joined her partner over at the important discovery. She continued to shine the light at the sword before she briefly moved the cone up the wall.

Mel adjusted her glasses and let out an amused harrumph. "But of course you didn't, dear," she said in the drollest voice she could muster at Dark O'Clock in an ancient burial chamber during a ferocious summer storm.

"So the legend of the Valkyrie's Tomb was true after all," Janice said as she studied the rusty sword and the familiar symbol. "Except that it was an Amazon tomb instead… unbelievable. And Odin didn't cast a spell of invisibility to keep it from mortal eyes… his nemesis Xena did with that false floor!"

Letting the sword be for now, Mel got up and adjusted her glasses again to try to penetrate the darkness using her eyes only. "Jan, let's go on. Keep moving the light around… something tells me there's plenty more for us to discover down here…"

---

Mel had been right. Less than ten minutes later, they had found a pile of round stones that had most likely been used to build a burial pyramid, three bone daggers that were still in surprisingly good shape, a spearhead made of flint, a handful of arrowheads - one of which was still attached to the stump of a shaft - and finally a leather quiver so brittle it quite literally turned to dust and tiny fragments by simply removing a stone that leaned against it.

"Okay, so far so good. Except…" Janice said while she scratched her itching scalp with her free hand. She had so much dried mud in her hair, a pale-brown flurry trickled down onto the floor of the lower burial chamber. Once she had accomplished her task, her beloved - but greatly battered - fedora was plonked back onto her locks.

"There's no urn," Mel added in a discontent voice.

Janice let out a dark grunt as she let the cone of light move away from the items they had found to explore the other sections of the chamber. "Yeah. It's gotta be here somewhere… it's just gotta… Mel, take the flashlight. I got an idea," she said and held out the tool.

Once the flashlight had changed hands, Janice got down on her knees by the collapsed burial pyramid. "Okay… we've both seen enough of these to know the urn was always placed at the top resting on three rocks. Typically here," she said as she clenched her fist to illustrate the point - she held it in mid-air where the top of the stone structure would roughly have been. "Right?"

"Yes."

"But it collapsed and the stones are everywhere. One, two, three, mmmm, ten, mmmm, fifteen, mmmm, seventeen, mmmm, twenty, mmmm, twenty-four, mmmm, thirty, mmmm, thirty-six, mmmm, forty-two, mmmm, forty-eight, fifty. No, make that fifty-one rounded stones of varying sizes. These things didn't usually collapse on their own so maybe the builders were in a hurry… we don't know if Xena made this herself, but I can't imagine she'd be satisfied with such a half-assed job-"

"Language, dear…"

"Aw, who cares!  Are you with me?"

"Always."

"Thank you," Janice said and grinned at the double meaning of the statement. "With Yannberah being an Amazon, this might have been Gabrielle's handiwork now that I think of it. Hmmm…" she continued as she looked at the vast pile of stones at her feet.

Mel scratched her muddy brow - it made the cone of light bob up and down for a moment. "Jan, you said rounded stones were used… that's probably all they could find here. Back home in Greece, they've always used slate. Flat stones. You can build the Cheops pyramid with flat stones, but-"

"Rounded stones will inevitably collapse!  Of course," Janice said and punched her thigh. "Y'know, your clever noggin is exactly why I drag you along on these expeditions, Toots!"

"Why, Jan Covington, I knew there had to be a reason…" Mel said drolly.

Janice chuckled at the inane exchange - the list of reasons was a mile long, but the item at the top of it, 'deep love,' was the most important one. "That's why there's an odd number of stones. One of 'em must be the urn. All we gotta do is to go through 'em one at a time… unless Xena had another trick up her sleeve and hid it elsewhere."

"Well… she couldn't have."

"She told ya that?"

"No. Her outfits usually didn't have any sleeves," Mel said and adjusted her glasses - she snickered while doing so.

Janice turned around to shoot her partner a wide-eyed stare at the highly unusual display of humor. A moment later, she let out a most un-Janice-like giggle. "Yeah, huh?  I guess I better pop a can of elbow grease and get to work. Let's see what happens…"

---

The fiery, but somewhat impatient, archaeologist soon went through the pile of rubble from the collapsed burial pyramid one rounded item at a time. Each of the stones was picked up, weighed and examined with great care in case it was the elusive urn. Once the object in question had been classified as being nothing more than a rock, it was discarded into a second pile that grew larger by the minute.

After sixteen duds, she let out a sigh and wiped her brow with her muddy hand. "Damn… I could go through this a lot faster, but if the urn was cracked or dented or whatever from tumbling down, I'd only end up with a fistful of Amazon. And that ain't no pun!"

"We can't risk it, Jan… just keep going slowly. It's bound to be there," Mel said from somewhere in the inky darkness that ruled behind the flashlight's cone.

"Yeah. With my legendary luck, it'll be the fifty-first stone. Aw, hell, cryin' in my beer won't help me find it," Janice said as she reached for the seventeenth object.

The moment her bloody, muddy, aching fingers came into contact with the item, she could tell by its texture that it was radically different compared to those she had already processed. The surface was smooth rather than coarse, and it was perfectly round unlike the others that had all been shaped by Mother Nature. "Mel… get closer with the light," she said in a tense voice that made Mel carry out the task in a hurry.

The item in question was soon revealed to be a lidded ceramic jar of a vaguely Oriental design. Held in a deep maroon, it was five inches tall and just shy of six inches wide at the center - the bottom and top, near the lid, were rounded off and thus narrower.

Janice held her breath as she used both hands to cup the priceless artifact. Lifting it off the ground as tenderly as she could, she had only just brought it above the level of the neighboring stones when a bright flash zapped through her mind. Whisked away from the burial chamber at the speed of light, she watched herself holding the very same urn over a fountain of some kind. The lid was removed and the contents were about to be poured into the fountain. Then Xena put a hand on her arm to stop her from doing so. A brief, silent argument ensued. Then the contents were poured into the fountain after all.

The flash inside Janice's mind receded as suddenly as it had appeared. She let out a croaking cry before she tilted backwards. As she fell flat on her back, she nearly dropped the artifact she was cupping in her hands, but managed to hold onto it at the very last second - appropriately enough, she ended up pressing it against her heart.

"Jan?!  Jan?!  Oh, my goodness!  What's wrong?!  Jan?" Mel cried, dropping the flashlight as raw, cold terror swept over her. The light rolled across the floor until it came to a rest up against the wall opposite of where Janice had fallen - the cone of light eventually illuminated an ancient amphora that had been put in the burial chamber's farthest corner.

Mel had no time for any of that. She fell down on her knees and reached under her supine lover who continued to let out croaks, groans and even the occasional whimper. "Jan… Jan!  Jan, please don't do this… Jan?  Can you hear me?  Please!  Please talk to me!" Mel cried before she took Janice's battered fedora and used it as a fan.

"Ugh… anybody got the number of that truck?" came the inevitable reply from the stricken woman.

"Wh- what happened?"

"I ain't got a clue, Toots…" Janice croaked while she stared up at Mel's face that was almost fully engulfed by darkness - the only points of light came from the lenses of Mel's glasses that reflected the flashlight. "I… I… saw my- myself with the urn- the urn!  Is it all right?"

"Yes!  Yes, it's safe!"

"Thank the Gods," Janice said and only then noticed that she was still holding onto the ceramic jar - she let out a sigh of relief that nothing had happened to it. "Hey, get- get me up from here. This floor is damn cold…" she croaked as she tried to sit up. She finally succeeded with Mel's help, but she needed to be held steady or else she'd end up on her back all over again.

"Janice Covington, will you please tell me what happened!"

"It was the weirdest deal… I saw myself holding this urn… but it wasn't here… it was somewhere else. Near a fountain of some kind. I'm… I'm not sure, but I think I was on a mountain top… perhaps. There was- Holy Mother of God!  Mount Fuji!  I was back there… and it was Gabrielle holding Xena's urn!  I saw her emptying it into the Goddamned Fountain of Strength!"

The implications weren't lost on Mel who stared wide-eyed at Janice and the urn. "But… but she didn't… I translated those two scrolls so meticulously. It took me weeks and weeks to get them right!  After Lord Yodoshi had been defeated, Xena prevented Gabrielle from-"

"They had an argument and Gabrielle dumped the ashes!  I saw it as clearly as I see you now… uh… yeah, I know it's pitch black in here!"

"I was about to say that-" Mel added; then she adjusted her glasses like she often did when she wanted to make a point.

"You know what I mean. Oh, never mind that now," Janice continued at unabated speed. "Holy mackerel!  Toots, we need to reassess the entire Goddamned set of final scrolls… every paragraph of 'em. It makes sense… doesn't it?  If they wanted to keep a lower profile after all their endless suffering, they would have told the world that Xena had died in Jappa-"

"Yes, but-"

"Mel, I'll bet you the entire gold deposit at Fort Knox that Gabrielle deliberately faked the ending. Xena didn't die in Jappa!"

Mel stared blankly into space. She could still feel the cramp in her arm and the rock-hard neck muscles from spending countless hours, days and even weeks without end translating the scrolls that told the tragic tale of Xena's demise in the land beyond Ch'in. "Why, that's… goodness me. I don't know if that's good or bad news," she mumbled as she adjusted her glasses all over again.

"And," Janice continued, "Gabrielle wanted to honor a fallen Amazon so she used the urn she had been carrying for show ever since returning from the Far East. Up here in Jutland, nobody knew who Xena was… don't forget, everything in the Rhinegold scrolls happened either south of the border in Germany or over on the island of Zealand."

"But-"

"Which in turn means that all this took place a long time after the events in Jappa," Janice said as she finally clambered to her feet. She continued to hold the priceless urn close to her, but she soon put it down into her beloved fedora hat that was the softest thing in the chamber. "For cryin' out loud… I didn't expect all this when I woke up this morning… or yesterday morning, or whatever," she said and tried to scrape some of the crusty mud off her hands.

By now, Mel had given up trying to butt into her partner's rambling speech. Instead, she moved over to the flashlight with the intent of picking it up so they could continue exploring the lower burial chamber. She came to an abrupt halt when she realized what the cone of light was illuminating.

Janice hadn't noticed a thing as she focused on scraping the evil mud off her hands and out of her hair. "It's weird, though… I've handled Xena-related artifacts for nearly twenty-five years, but I've never experienced anything like that before. I wonder if it means that some of what we've uncovered have been fakes after all?  Or-"

"Jan…"

"-maybe it's because we know that Gabrielle used the urn. We've found so little of the bard's possessions. Like her sais or the silver pendant that was a gift from Xena."

"Jan…"

"Those things just haven't survived-"

"Janice Covington!  Pay attention!  Please!"

"Uh… yeah?"

"There's something over here you need to see."  Mel's voice was tense to the point of nearly being strangled; a surefire sign that another major event had just occurred. "In the corner… look what the flashlight is shining at…"

"An amphora!  Man-oh-man, Toots!" Janice said and flew into the corner. Getting down on her knees, she waved the light closer to her so she would have a better view of the container. At first glance, the amphora was of the regular type that had been used in Greece and indeed all over the Mediterranean for thousands of years.

Leaning against the wall, the ceramic container was just over two feet tall which was on the small side compared to the standard sizes. Like all amphoras, this particular specimen had two rounded handles and a funnel-like opening. A cork had been squeezed into the funnel to protect whatever it contained, but the years hadn't been kind to the material as it had crumbled greatly.

Once Mel held the light steady, Janice ran her filthy hands down the sides of the amphora to check for cracks or other kinds of age-related imperfections. "It's in one piece. Pretty solid, too. The cork is finished, but the rest is ready for another two thousand years. Okay… how do we proceed?  I'll bet this is where we'll find Gabrielle's new scrolls."

"Why, Janice Covington, that's merely wild speculation… or did you see that in your vision as well?" Mel said in an only slightly sarcastic voice.

"Nope. Xena told me when she stopped over before," Janice said while flashing a broad grin.

Grunting, Mel scratched her temple where pale-brown mud occupied a large section of her skin. "Oh… in that case, I concede the point."

"The amphora itself is of zero value today 'cos they made hundreds of thousands of 'em, but I don't think we should smash it open. No, I better dig into the crumbled cork instead," Janice said while she started doing just that. "I can't imagine it'll- yeah, okay, that took even less time than I had imagined it would!" she continued with a grin when the entire cork dissolved between her fingers a second after touching it for the first time.

"Are there any scrolls down there?" Mel said hoarsely; now that her field of expertise was once more called for, the tension within her rose exponentially and she could barely control her heartbeat.

"Don't know yet… shine the light down the funnel, Mel," Janice said and pulled the amphora free of the earthen wall it had leaned against for close to two thousand years. It only took the briefest of glimpses for Janice to let out a whoop. "Yep!  Yep!  A large one!  All right!  Mel, we've found a brand new Xena scroll!"

"Let me see… hold the light… hold the light!" Mel said excitedly as she dropped down on her knees to take a closer look into the amphora.

"Yeah, yeah… there's plenty 'nuff for everyone here, Toots!" Janice said with a grin. She held the flashlight so it shone past Mel's mud-caked hair and into the opening.

A series of increasingly excited grunts followed before Mel leaned back. "Why, I do believe there are two scrolls down there, Jan!"

"Oooh!"

"The larger one that you saw and a smaller one off to the side… it's possible it could be an addendum of some kind. I think I can reach the smaller one with my fingers… it's not too difficult to get to."

"Without damaging it?"

"Well, obviously. I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise," Mel said and adjusted her glasses. "A quick count says the larger one has been rolled up nine times, and that means it's quite lengthy. I don't want to risk extracting that one down here… I need all my tools and far better light. But like I said, I think I can get the smaller one out."

Janice rubbed her filthy chin with an even filthier hand. She chewed on her lips a couple of times before she shook her head. "No. It's too risky. We'll just take the entire amphora back to the inn. I got that covered. Do you have room in your canvas bag for the urn?"

"Yes. And all the other artifacts as well. Don't forget, we asked the students to bring all the secondary indexes and catalogues back to the inn… we might as well work from there."

"Good thinking, Mel… okay," Janice said and looked up through the gaping hole in the ceiling. Getting to her feet, she lifted the surprisingly heavy amphora up through the gap and gave it a slight push so it wouldn't tumble back down. "I wonder how the outside world looks… it sounds like it's still pouring down and blowin' a damn gale out there," she said before she grabbed hold of the upper edge and pulled herself up into the original burial chamber.

A moment later, Janice reached back down to hand Mel her canvas bag. Though the fabric had turned slightly muddy on the outside, it was still dry inside and would thus offer the arrowheads and the rest of the important artifacts a proverbial safe port in the middle of the literal storm.

"Quite. With our luck, we'll need a canoe to return to the inn…" Mel said and let out a dark chuckle as she collected the artifacts they had uncovered.

Their first find down there, the rusty Amazon sword, was far more fragile than the other things they had uncovered, and it made Mel furrow her muddy brow as she weighed her options - she ultimately decided to let it remain in the lower chamber until they could handle it with the care it deserved.

The pipe that had rested in the niche in the wall may not even have belonged to Yannberah, but Mel put it into the canvas bag for later analysis. The three bone daggers were still lethally sharp, so she wrapped them in her lavender-laced handkerchief to prevent them from shredding the canvas bag. The flint spearhead came next with the arrowheads bringing up the rear; the one that was still attached to half a shaft came last.

Mel's experienced eye told her the rotten wood might not survive the trip back to the inn. She grimaced at the thought of losing any kind of find, but compared to the priceless urn and the scrolls, bog-standard arrow shafts were quite literally a dime a dozen - even one that had possibly been handcrafted by an Amazon.

Once she had sealed the canvas bag to the best of her abilities, she swung it over her shoulder and crabbed over to the gap in the ceiling. "I'm all done down here, Jan," she said as she stood up straight and put her filthy hands on the edges to push herself up. Janice gave her a helping hand by pulling under her arms, and it wasn't long before she was fully back in the upper burial chamber.

---

Re-connecting the fir planks that made up the false floor proved much easier than taking them apart had been. Although the planks had to be laid out in the proper sequence to snap together, it had looked far more difficult than it actually was and the job had soon been accomplished - the clever floor proved that Xena had lost none of her many skills in trickery and deceit that she had learned on the battlefields of Thrace and elsewhere.

"We oughtta put the stones back as well, but…" Janice mumbled. Her bruised and bloodied fingers that had suffered a great deal when she had moved the heavy stones away from the unused burial plot told her she needed to forget all about it, and in an almighty hurry, too.

Not one to ignore her body's requests, Janice got to her feet and went over to help Mel scoop aside some of the piles of soil and mud they had stacked up inside the oak door. The makeshift dike had held up remarkably well with only a small breach here and there, but now it needed to yield to the greater importance of going back to the inn.

The splishing-splashing of raindrops outside proved the wet stuff was still coming down though the frequency of the splashing suggested the intensity was less severe than it had been earlier in the evening. The gusts of wind seemed to have eased off as well: nary a howl, whistle or creak could be heard which suggested that the worst of the invisible enemy's hitherto relentless attack on the small town of Jelling and the long-suffering trees in the region had come to an end.

As Mel and Janice grabbed hold of the oak door and pulled it open, a small lake of muddy water entered the chamber. Though it temporarily swamped their boots, it wasn't too bad all things considered. The cause of the odd-sounding rain soon came into view: the runaway blue tarpaulin once again protected the excavation site in front of the burial mound - the normal tent pegs had become useless as a result of the mudslides, and they had been replaced by heavy rocks that weighed down each corner.

"Great!  General Rikki pulls through… and she musta dealt with the fallen branch as well," Janice said with a grin; her grin faded when she realized the tarp couldn't be swept aside from below like it usually could when it was held in place by the pegs. "Aw… bull crap. Now ain't that typical?  We survived the muddy waters of the Styx only to be stopped by a blue screen of death!"

"Quite," Mel said and adjusted her glasses.

Janice moved up to the nearest edge of the tarp to see if she could push aside the boulder-sized rocks that held it in place, but her angle of attack was completely wrong so she had to give up. "Rikki?  Olrickah?  Rikki, you better be around here somewhere!  General?" she cried while she held up her filthy hand to act as an amplifier.

'Doc?' Ulrikke's voice could be heard to say from somewhere out in the rain.

"Over here!  Or down here!  Hell, you know where we are!"

'Doc, I'll be there in a flash!'

"Thanks!" Janice cried before she moved back to Mel who had decided to stay inside the burial chamber for the time being - the tall woman had to duck her head to fit through the door. "She'll be here in a flash," Janice continued at a regular volume.

Mel didn't offer any reply other than a crooked eyebrow and a slight "Hmmm?"

It only took the guard a short minute to arrive and drag away the three rocks that weighed down the corner nearest to the oak entrance. Once that particular section of the blue tarp had been liberated from the weight that pinned it down, it tried its worst to break free all over again by flapping around in the breeze like a propeller run amuck.

Ulrikke tried to wrangle the errant corner so it wouldn't smack Janice and Mel over the head when they exited the chamber and climbed up the metal stepladder, but she was only partially successful - and Janice received a fair whack as a parting gift.

The veteran archaeologist clutched the heavy amphora that had her beloved, but somewhat misshapen, fedora covering the opening so no water could come into contact with the valuable scrolls. After slipping, sliding, splishing and splashing over to the open-sided tent, she put down the amphora on the square table and immediately reached up to rub her neck - where she had been slapped by the tarp - while letting out a constant stream of grumbles.

With the important amphora safe and on dry land, Janice went back outside to glance up into the black night. Her face and hair were soon even wetter than they had been before, but even the free water from above didn't seem to be able to dislodge much of the crust of mud she carried all over.

Sighing, she splashed back to the dig to help Mel with the canvas bag. The entire area around the ancient burial mounds, the white church and Professor Granfeldt's excavation camp had turned into a soggy mess where the ground bore far closer resemblance to Far Eastern rice paddies than Danish meadows. Several more branches had broken off the trees nearest to the three burial mounds, and one trunk even looked as if it had cracked all the way down from the force of the wind.

Mel cradled the canvas bag with the precious artifacts so she had a hard time finding her balance on the slippery stepladder. Ulrikke noticed at once and came to Mel's assistance by grabbing hold of her elbow.

"Why, thank you, Olrickah. Goodness me, that was more heartstopping than the rest combined!" Mel croaked once she put her filthy boots back on solid ground.

"Oh, you're very welcome. Did you find what you were looking for?" the guard said as she guided Mel around the worst lakes on their journey over toward the open-sided tent. Halfway there, they were intercepted by Janice who took over escorting duties.

"We did. We found something very, very important. It's right here in the bag," Mel said with a tired smile. The adrenaline that had been a constant companion from the moment she had bolted out of bed and up to the intense satisfaction of finding the urn and the scrolls started to leave her system; a tidal wave of fatigue followed that threatened to drown her.

"That's fantastic news, Miss Pappas," Ulrikke said before she let out an embarrassed chuckle. "I'm sorry for saying it, but you look awful. Both of you. I mean, you're downright gruesome to look at…"

Janice laughed out loud at the blunt - but undeniably true - statement, but Mel was too tired to notice much of anything. "Goodness me… I'm getting a bit unsteady, dear. I need to lie down… preferably in a soft bed… but the footpath would do as well," she said after a short while of carefully treading through the puddles and crossing the lakes.

Once they reached the open-sided tent, Janice quickly righted one of the lightweight lawn chairs that had been blown onto its side; then she helped Mel sit down on it. "Catch your breath, Toots… you really do look bombed out," she said for Mel's ears only. Smiling wistfully, she reached up to caress Mel's filthy cheek with an even filthier hand.

"That's exactly how I feel, too…" Mel said as she leaned into the tender touch. She mirrored the wistful smile as she gazed into Janice's concerned eyes. "Wasn't this supposed to be an easy expedition?  I distinctly remember Chester Coyne saying there'd be nothing to it…"

"Yeah, he did, that smug sonova- when we get back home, I'm gonna kick his ass all the way around campus!"

"Didn't you say you wanted to bop him over-"

"I'll do that afterwards!  Sit tight, I'm just gonna talk to the General, and then we can head back to the inn."

While Mel and Janice spoke, Ulrikke had moved over to the square table to look at the ceramic amphora. She let out an impressed grunt at the quality of the old object. "Amazing," she said once Janice joined her.

"Oh, that's just someone's lunch box. The real prize is inside… mail from two thousand years ago!  General Rikki… I have to ask you two huge favors. One, I can't carry this big-ass amphora here-"

"Language, dear," Mel said in a flat voice, but she found herself ignored.

"-and my heroine Mel at the same time… so would you mind helping Miss Mudcake here back to the inn?"

A mumbled reply of "I can walk," from Mel seemed not to register with her two companions.

"No problem, Doctor Covington. No problem whatsoever," Ulrikke said at once. "And the other favor?"

Janice held up a second, equally muddy digit. "Two… and I know this is gonna suck-"

Mel snorted loudly at the blue language but once more found herself thoroughly ignored.

"-but would you mind spending the rest of the night by the pit?  Just to be able to catch that Goddamned tarpaulin if it decides to take off again," Janice said with an apologetic smile on her lips. "The oak door was damaged by the landslide. It won't close fully. We can't risk getting too much mud and gunk inside."

Although Ulrikke certainly made a face at the request, her sense of duty took over at once. Standing up straight, she put her hand to the soaked beret to salute. "All right, Doctor. But it'll cost you just a little more than a single pack of cigarettes this time."

"Deal!  I'll buy you a whole damn truckload of Green Cecils," Janice said and broke out in a broad grin as she slapped Ulrikke's shoulder. "C'mon, General. Let's brave the shitty weather one more time."

*
*
CHAPTER 6

What had to be the most unusually-looking trio of women since Xena, Gabrielle and Yannberah had traveled much the same path two thousand years earlier walked along the road to get back to the historical inn. The uniformed Ulrikke Jensen assisted a mud-caked Mel Pappas safely through the incessant rain while the indescribably filthy Janice Covington had her arms wrapped around the heavy and bulky amphora - her hair was flat against her head and soaking wet since the ceramic container still used her fedora as a literal stop-gap measure.

Mel let out a sigh of relief as they finally reached the inn's main entrance. Though the canvas bag she clutched had no weight to speak of, the items it held were of such extreme value and importance that her body had been as taut as an Amazon longbow the entire way there.

The lights were on in the lobby indicating the door was still open - no doubt a result of the four students having already returned to the inn. The tough guard and the dead-tired archaeologists had barely taken a step into the well-lit, toasty and above all bone dry lobby before Janice laughed out loud at their extraordinarily messy appearances.

"Laugh all you like, Doctor," Ulrikke said while she helped Mel over to sit on an eighteenth-century replica chair that had been put up next to the wooden reception desk, "but if I were you, I wouldn't look in a mirror right now."

"I don't doubt that for a second, General… but damn!  Mel… I gotta say, that muddy look just ain't you," Janice said as she put down the heavy amphora to rest her back. Donning her beloved fedora, she ran a finger along the brim like she had done for many a year - but the grunt she let out was dark and dissatisfied when she realized her hat had lost all its coolness. All that remained was a warped, soggy mess that the world's worst dresser wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Mel chuckled as she looked at Janice and her sorry excuse for a hat. "Why, thank you, dear. I must say you look like you always do when we're out searching for buried treasure. You always find the biggest mud holes to play in."

"True!  But you gotta admit I clean up well," Janice said with a wide grin.

Commotion behind the door to the restaurant turned out to be the portly innkeeper Svend-Aage Lindholm who came into the lobby wearing tweed slippers and a baby-blue bathrobe that he hadn't had time to put on properly - the left side was far lower than the right which meant the left sleeve reached past his wrist while the right one stumped halfway up to his elbow. His white hair and beard were both kept under tight wraps by two pieces of hairnet that gave his face a strange, contorted quality.

The wispy-haired owner of the historical inn fumbled with the knot on his belt while he stared at the two archaeologists and the uniformed security guard. Shock and horror was written all over his doughy face as he took in their disheveled looks. "Jamen, jøsses ka'neser da!  Hvordan er'ed dog I ser ud?  Frøken Jensen, hva' i alverden er der sket?"

"Det er en lang historie, Hr. Lindholm," Ulrikke said before she turned back to Mel and Janice to translate: "He's asking what in the world happened to you."

"Half the Goddamned apocalypse hit us over the head is what happened!  All we're missing is a swarm of locusts or a damn earthquake to have a full set," Janice growled as she reached down to pick up the heavy amphora. "Okay, I'm gonna haul this big-ass-"

"Language, dear…" Mel interjected but found herself ignored for the umpteenth time.

"-thing into the restaurant 'cos I'll be good and Goddamned if I have to carry it up the stairs by myself," Janice continued as she staggered past the flabbergasted innkeeper to enter the restaurant.

Ulrikke scratched her neck before she turned back to Svend-Aage to give him an abbreviated, and far cleaner, version of what Janice had grumbled about. "Det er et frygteligt vejr derude. Regnen er nærmest dommesagsagtig, Hr. Lindholm."

"Nå da!  Så forstår jeg bedre hvorfor de unge mennesker var så våde… jamen, så må min kone hellere sætte lidt kaffe over. Og måske et glas brændevin eller to. Vil det passe herskabet, Frøken Jensen?"

"Det vil det helt sikkert, Hr. Lindholm," Ulrikke said with a smile. Once the portly innkeeper had lumbered back into the kitchen, she moved over to Mel to help her up once more. "The students were soaked too, but he didn't think much of it. Mrs. Lindholm will serve a dram and make us some hot coffee," she translated.

"Ah… coffee… just what I need," Mel said and got up from the chair while she still clutched the canvas bag to her chest.

---

Anne-Marie was even more flabbergasted than her husband when she saw the horrendous state of the two archaeologists - all she could do was stare in a gap-mouthed stupor at the cakes of pale-brown mud that clung to every last fiber of their clothes and every section of their skin and hair.

Instead of finding a bottle of brandy like Svend-Aage had suggested, she went straight back to the kitchen to fire up the largest pot she had. As any housewife in Jutland had learned from childhood, the best remedy for weather-borne misery was a full stomach, and the best way to achieve a full stomach was to make a gigantic potful of oatmeal porridge.

After she had tipped half a sack of rolled oats into the pot and added the appropriate amount of whole-milk and salt, she paused for a moment to ponder the possibilities. After weighing the pros and cons for a bit, she decided to lift the spirits of their two foreign guests by adding plenty of butter to the mix. The butter would melt and soak into the oats as they gradually heated up, and that would elevate the oatmeal porridge from an everyday dish to a rare treat by giving it a creamy, full-bodied taste.

While the porridge was being prepared in the kitchen, Janice commandeered two tables at the back of the restaurant for the priceless items they had found. The tablecloths would serve her well as soft underlay, but even so, she grabbed several cloth napkins and refolded them to give the artifacts an even softer, and thus safer, cradle to lie in.

Mel bumped down on a dining chair by the table Janice worked at. Fatigue was etched onto her face as she finally gave up the possession of the canvas bag so the items could see the light of day for the first time in far too long. Sighing, she rolled her shoulders to get rid of some of the tension that had built up on the rainy journey back to the inn, but she was only partially successful - and she winced at the cracking, popping sound the gestures produced.

Janice offered her partner a smile of sympathy as she took the muddy canvas bag and began to pull out the items. She had to chuckle at the sight of the ordinary pipe, but she treated it like she would a precious gemstone by placing it ever so gently on one of the cloth napkins. The flint spearhead and the arrowheads came next. As feared, the wooden shaft had suffered damage from being moved even despite the baby-soft handling of it. The handkerchief that contained the three bone daggers came last. As Janice unwrapped the weapons, their lethal qualities were plainly evident even two thousand years on from the day they had been carved and whetted.

One of Anne-Marie's helpers - who wore a hastily assembled and highly mismatched outfit - came out of the kitchen carrying a tray that featured no less than three of the characteristic pale-blue metal coffee pots that were so common in Denmark. The tired youngling soon realized it would be best for all involved if he provided milk, sugar cubes, spoons and a stack of mugs as well, so he was soon back in the kitchen to gather up the next set of items.

As the youngling came back with a second tray, he was suddenly swamped by Henning, Torben, Hanne and Ellen who all stormed into the restaurant to see what the senior archaeologists had brought back. Grumbling out loud, the kitchen staffer needed to make a third trip back for even more mugs and accessories.

"Hi de ho, everybody!" Janice said with a big grin as she took in the look of the wide-eyed stares that were pointed at the items on the table. "Yup, it's what I always say. In our line of work, we need patience, patience, patience. Patience and persistence will always pay off."

"So sayeth the most impatient woman I've ever met…" Mel added under her breath.

Janice conveniently ignored the comment and concentrated on the ancient artifacts instead. "In addition to these items, we recovered an Amazon sword as well. A real beauty… if a little rusty. It was too delicate to move so we left it behind for now."

Like Hanne Nielsen's fellow students, she continued to stare wide-eyed at the remarkable finds. "But where on Earth did you find them, Doctor?  The burial chamber was empty!"

"Yep. It sure was," Janice said before she paused to add to the excitement that was already at boiling point. She moved her hand across the artifacts like a salesperson at a summer fair. "The upper chamber was empty… but the lower chamber had all these goodies and more. There was a false floor inside the stones that formed the outline of the empty plot."

The students could only shake their heads at the amazing discovery, but before they could comment on it, Anne-Marie strode out of the kitchen carrying the huge pot of special porridge. "Så' der luksus havregrød, allesammen!  Der er godt med smør og sødmælk i, så I skal bare tage en ordentlig skudefuld!" she said in a cheery voice that only lasted until she caught an eyeful of the bone daggers. "Gud bevar mig vel, sikke dog nogen rædselsfulde mordvåben… hvad er det dog for nogen fittejavvertusser?" she said as she placed the large pot on a wooden, heat-resistant mat on one of the vacant tables.

"Det er krigerdolke fra den fjerne oldtid, Fru Lindholm. De er sikkert lavet af dyreknogler," Hanne translated to explain the nature of the fearsome-looking weapons.

"Nej, fy da!  Og så ligger de på mit spisebord!"

"Øh, ja…"

"Nå, det skal jeg ikke gøre mig klog på. Jeg håber havregrøden smager jer. Velbekomme," Anne-Marie continued before she went back to her kitchen.

Hanne looked back at Mel and Janice who were both waiting patiently for a translation. "Uh… feel free to dig into the porridge. It's a special one because there's butter in it. And then Mrs. Lindholm asked about the bone daggers. I explained what they were… I don't think she liked seeing such weapons here, especially not when I said they were made of bone."

"Well," Mel said and adjusted her glasses, "that's understandable. They do look frightening, indeed."

While Mel and Hanne continued to speak, Janice shuffled over to the huge pot of oatmeal porridge and peeked into it. She happened to stand next to Ulrikke Jensen who had already helped herself to a large portion with a teaspoonful of sugar on top. "So… oatmeal, huh?  I haven't had that since the war… and I hated it with a vengeance back then. Is it any good?"

"It's great, Doctor," Ulrikke said around wolfing down several spoonfuls of the pale-gray dish. "It's wonderfully creamy because there's butter in it. You should try… you might like it."

"Huh… yeah, well… ah, if I can eat deep-fried roadkill in Cancún or a rice dish with bugs in it in Shanghai, I can eat butter oatmeal in Yelling," Janice said and took a plate. Grabbing a wooden ladle, she scooped up a smallish portion to begin with so she wouldn't overload on it in case she didn't approve of the taste. After sniffing the porridge to get a vague picture of what awaited her, she added a dash of sugar from a bowl that had been put next to the huge pot. "Well, here goes," she said and dug in using a tablespoon.

The initial look on her face leaned toward the horrified rather than the ecstatic, but as she tried another spoonful, the creamy, full-bodied nature of the butter oatmeal porridge grew on her. "Hey," she said around a mouthful, "you're right, Rikki… it's pretty good… and it's definitely nothing like the gross papier-mâché I had during the war. Yeah… this is pretty good. Mel needs to try this," she continued as she scooped up a small glob of porridge on another plate. After adding a dash of sugar, she nabbed a clean spoon and zig-zagged through the crowd of eating students to get back to her partner while the dish was hot.

---

Even the huge pot of special oatmeal porridge didn't last long when the seven hungry people who were present started digging in. After eating, Ulrikke Jensen went back to guarding the excavation site for the rest of the night like she had promised she would, and Ellen Chrone returned to her room warming her hands on a mug of tea with plenty of rum because the inclement weather had given her a bad case of the sniffles.

Mel's energy levels had been given a solid boost by the exquisite butter oatmeal, so she was back at work once more. The two tables that carried the precious artifacts had been pushed together to ease the access, and Mel studied the findings with her magnifying glass seemingly glued to her right eye. She kept a running commentary while she took in all the fascinating details of not only the flint spearhead but also the pipe.

Henning and Torben were busy updating the master index and the catalogue based on what Mel said, and they and Hanne all maintained a silent presence so they wouldn't disturb the master at work.

Down the other end of the restaurant, Janice was less inclined to keep silent about anything, especially considering that she was arguing with Svend-Aage Lindholm about turning the central heating back on so she could grab a much-needed shower. "Mr. Lindholm," she tried for the umpteenth time, "I know it's in the middle of the damn night, but do you really expect me to take an icy shower or wait until dawn to wash this crap off me?  I mean, really?"

Svend-Aage - whose bathrobe was still crooked - wrung his hands as he stared at the guest with a worried expression on his doughy face. "We always turn the heating off at night, Doctor… it costs too much to keep it running all the time…"

"We're not talking about 'all the time,' Mr. Lindholm, we're talking about half an hour… an hour, tops… so Mel and me can use some hot water to get this mud off!"

"But… but my wife won't like it… she's very strict on those kinds of things…"

Janice let out a few untranslatable grumbles, but her annoyance was spared from entering a stage generally known as anger by the arrival of Anne-Marie Lindholm who came out into the restaurant to gather up the pot and the used plates.

The moment the innkeeper's wife glanced at the filthy Janice, she stomped over to her husband instead. "Svend-Aage, hvordan er det dog du behandler vore gæster?  Ka' du så få skruet op for varmen igen!  Doktoren kan da ikke se sådan ud hele natten!"

"Jamen, skattetøs… det koster jo mange penge-"

"Nu!"

"Javel, min skat," Svend-Aage said and shuffled off to the staircase leading to the basement to turn the central heating back on.

Smiling apologetically, Anne-Marie went over to Janice to explain: "Ah… Svend-Aage turn the warm on now. Soon hot water. Ten minutes. Yes?"

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Lindholm. Chalk another one up for the Amazons," Janice said with a grin before she helped the innkeeper's wife to stack the filthy plates on one of the trays. "Hey, Mel!"

"Yes, dear?" Mel said without removing the magnifying glass from her right eye - one of the arrowheads had an interesting array of carved lines on it that she studied intently.

"Indoor hot spring!  Upstairs in ten minutes!"

"Oh, thank the Gods," Mel said in a mumble. Finally removing her gaze from the arrowhead, she looked down at her left hand where she could barely flex her fingers because of the thick clumps of mud that covered them - it almost looked like she was wearing leather gloves.

-*-*-*-

A short fifteen minutes later in Mel and Janice's room in the inn.

"One, two, three… one, two, three… one, two, three," Janice said and pumped her fist up and down in the ancient game of rock-paper-scissors - or in this particular case, rock-parchment-chakram. "Ha!  Chakram tears parchment… that's two out of three, Toots!  I get to shower first."

"Darn," Mel said and adjusted her glasses. A quick look at Janice's horrendously filthy exterior proved it might be the right decision after all. "While you do that, I'll collect all the things I need to translate the scrolls," she continued as she glanced over at the amphora. The ceramic container had been placed in the center of the room as far away from the glowing-hot cast-iron radiator as possible to keep the ancient parchment cool and out of harms' way.

A chuckle escaped Janice as she shuffled over to the bed to get her spare set of clothes. Though the threadbare shirt hadn't become less so since the last time she wore it, it was all she had unless she wanted to emulate Aphrodite and strut around in lingerie - not that a pair of granny-bloomers and an old khaki undershirt could have matched any of the Goddess Of Love's outrageous outfits. She chuckled again as she took her dungarees as well. "I just can't get over how red-faced Henning and Torben were when they dragged that damn amphora up here… they were on the brink of a coronary!"

"Quite. I think they were disappointed not to be invited up here to watch us get started on the scrolls. I just can't work with an audience… present company excluded, of course."

"Of course," Janice said with a grin as she shuffled over to the door. "Aw, I can't wait to soak in hot water for a change… I think I'll need a pot-scrubber to get that damn mud off. Perhaps I shoulda asked Mrs. Lindholm about borrowing one of hers!"

Mel smiled at her partner who continued to chuckle at her own joke even while she swung the door open and left for the bathroom. Once silence claimed the guest room - save for the constant tapping of rain on the windows and the occasional strong gusts of wind that made the inn's woodwork creak and the roof tiles knock - Mel moved over to their luggage to find her tools and books.

After readying a chair next to the table, she dragged over the heaviest suitcase to put it onto the chair. Though sturdy and uncomfortable when used for sitting, the chair's wooden frame groaned under the weight. The suitcase was soon unlocked and opened.

Looking at the contents, she verified that everything was ready to be used: her own compendium, four large tomes that covered the finer points of Ancient Greek - meter, symbolism, epochal context, and political and cultural meanings - and finally the book she had compiled herself that contained the hand-written transcripts of those of Gabrielle's scrolls that had been recovered.

The latter in particular always filled her with awe whenever she looked through it. It had been a great honor for her to write down the words and stories that had originally been written by a simple peasant girl from Potaideia who had evolved into one of the ancient world's finest bards - that she was also a highly skilled warrior was all the more astonishing.

Many of the stories were tragic and heartbreaking, but an equal number were humorous, playful or even silly in nature. Some were front-line diaries of fraught battles or large-scale wars, and some were serene, romantic and sweet. There had even been one that had been downright erotic. Mel had spent several days debating with herself on whether or not she should add that particular one to the rest of the transcriptions. Ultimately, she had decided against it since she felt in her heart and soul that she herself would not want to have such a deeply private story published even after she had passed away.

Now that everything she needed to translate the scrolls was in place, she could focus on getting the fragile pieces of parchment out of the ceramic container. Taking a pair of felt-tipped tweezers, she went to work on extricating the smallest scroll first. Unfortunately, it didn't take her one minute to figure out she needed more light than what the farthest corner of the room could provide. A brief attempt of holding the flashlight in one hand while using the tweezers with the other turned messy when she first dropped the flashlight and then the tweezers - at least the small tool didn't fall into the amphora.

In short: she would need to drag the amphora over to, and subsequently up on, the central table to get the full effect from the lamp above it. Sighing deeply, she adjusted her glasses a couple of times while she gauged the distance she needed to cover. She could in theory wait for Janice to return from the shower, but that would most likely take a while. She didn't want to wait that long, so she took a firm grip around the amphora's handles to get it across the room.

---

By the time Janice returned to the guest room with a merry whistle on her lips and a spring in her step - not to mention water-combed hair and squeaky clean skin, ears, nostrils and everything else - it was readily apparent that a calamity of Olympian proportions had taken place in the room.

Not only did Mel sit on the floor with a sublimely grumpy look on her face, she was surrounded by a pile of potsherds that had a faint resemblance to the amphora that had been in the lower burial chamber.

"Whoa!" Janice said as she took in the odd sight of the stately translator sitting flat on her rear on the carpet. Closing the door behind her, she threw her wet bath towel over a part of the cast-iron radiator so it could get dry; then she moved over to where Mel sat to crouch down. "What happened, sweetie?" she said as she picked up one of the round handles that had been at the top of the ceramic container's neck.

Mel adjusted her glasses and let out an insulted huff. "There wasn't enough light in the corner. I needed light so I had to get it over here. I couldn't carry it, I couldn't drag it… but I thought I could make it roll on its lower rim. That's what dock workers have done for thousands of years, after all. Well, I couldn't. I dropped it. It fell over and was smashed to bits," Mel said and pointed at the undeniable evidence of her detailed damage report.

"Huh… we might as well have done that downstairs, then. You know, I don't think we should tell Henning and Torben… we gave them a hernia for nothing," Janice said with a grin as she put down the handle and picked up another of the potsherds - it happened to be the rim at the base that Mel had tried to utilize. "It's no big loss. This was nothing more than a throwaway tin can to the Ancient Greeks. It had zero value. Zero. And that's no exaggeration."

"I know… but it still hurt my professional pride," Mel said and adjusted her glasses again. She furrowed her brow when she looked down at the mess around her. "If nothing else, it'll be far easier to retrieve the scrolls now. Look," she continued as she pointed at the two pieces of parchment that had come into view. One was a true scroll in that it was attached to a pair of wooden handles. That particular one was thick and seemed to have been wound up fairly often; the other was a smaller piece that offered the impression it was a hastily scribbled afterthought.

"Yeah. See?  All good things come to those who break amphoras. C'mon, Toots, there's still plenty of hot water left. It'll help you relax," Janice said while she got to her feet. She put out her hand and helped Mel up as well.

As the clean and the muddy archaeologists stood close, the need for sharing a kiss couldn't be ignored any longer. Despite the differences in height and filthiness, they duly came through to carry on the tradition that had started several thousand years earlier. Smiling, Jan let her clean fingers caress Mel's muddy cheek. "Love ya, Toots," she whispered before she added a little wink.

"Love you too, Jan," Mel said in a similar whisper; then they shared another kiss.

After walking over to the door on slightly stiff legs from sitting on the hard floor, Mel put her hand on the door handle but stopped before she manipulated it. "Goodness me, Jan… we actually found new scrolls. We found Yannberah's urn… we found several artifacts… and we even found the Valkyrie's Tomb. That it turned out to be an Amazon tomb was just icing on the cake. Quite extraordinary. We did well, didn't we?"

"We sure did. If only it would stop raining all the damn time, it would be perfect. G'wan, Mel, get that sculpted gloriousness of yours under the shower," Janice said before she sent her partner a kissy.

---

The freshly scrubbed - and generally much-improved - Southern Belle who returned from the shower twenty-five minutes later was far too good to ignore, so the two ladies spent an additional twenty-five minutes by the warm radiator snuggled up in each other's arms. To quell Mel's gentle protests that it was high time to get back to work, Janice stood firm on the fact that Xena and Gabrielle would have approved had they been there.

After a few kisses, they both felt the moment had arrived to begin working on the scrolls. As they moved away from the pleasantly warm radiator and over to the wooden table at the center of room, they did so in silence to get into the right mood.

Janice had used the break while Mel showered to drape the table in a white tablecloth she had found in the guest room's five-drawer bureau. Once the proverbial infrastructure was in place, she had moved the priceless scrolls up onto the tablecloth using Mel's compendium as a makeshift tray. Thus, the two pieces of parchment were now ready to surrender their contents to the expert translator.

Working with the utmost care, Janice transferred all the hefty tomes from the suitcase to the table, and the books were soon lined up, opened and ready to be used.

Mel drew a deep breath as she sat down and pulled the chair closer to the table. She readied her notepad and several different pencils before donning a pair of gloves made of white cotton so she could handle the ancient parchment. "I'll start with the small one… there isn't much text on it so it won't take nearly as long as the other one," she said and moved the scroll in question into position.

"Work your magic, Mel… I'll keep my mouth shut and watch ya from way over there," Janice said and moved over to sit on the bed so the important process wouldn't be disturbed by her presence.

As Mel spread the note-like piece of parchment out in front of her, she observed it only had three lines of text on it. The handwriting was familiar, but not overly so. Though it appeared to be Gabrielle's hand at first glance, the sloppy way some of the symbols had been drawn suggested she had been in a hurry when writing it.

From years of thorough research, Mel knew that Gabrielle had often re-written her major scrolls after the first draft to fix typos, omissions or faults in the logic. The original first drafts - of which only four remained - typically featured a similar, hasty handwriting simply because they had frequently been committed to the parchment in the heat of the moment; Gabrielle had even crossed out several paragraphs on one of those originals after an unforeseen turn of events involving Xena, her Chakram and the fate of a slave trader had negated what she had already written.

This particular note didn't seem to be an early version of a major scroll, but more like a 'note to self' of some kind. The theory was supported by the fact that both the upper and lower edges were jagged like it had been torn from a longer scroll. Mel turned the parchment over to look for traces of handwriting on the rear, but it was blank.

After rolling her shoulders to relieve some of the tension that had begun to build up, she hunkered down to begin the painstaking process of translating the ancient symbols into contemporary English.

---

Forty-five minutes later, she leaned back on the chair with a deeply worried expression on her face. She stared at the lines of translated text she had jotted down in her notepad; then her eyes inched over to the three-line note that had suddenly gained a sinister quality. She tried to chew on the pencil, but it was so chewed-up already she would only get splinters in her lips if she continued. "Jan?"

ZZZZzzzzz…

"Jan, dear?"

ZZZZzzzzz…

When no reply was forthcoming except for the rhythmic snoring, Mel turned around to shoot her partner a stern gaze. Janice was flat on her back on the bed. She had taken off her boots which had let her tan socks come out to play. Even while sleeping, she continued to hold onto one of the books in her favorite pulp series Adventures Of Sally Swackhamer, Private Investigator. It appeared to be volume twenty-four - The Case Of The Lusty Heiress - and the lurid cover art proved it was rather pulpy indeed.

ZZZZzzzzz…

"Janice Covington, you can sleep later!  This is important!"

ZZzz- "I'm awake!  I'm awake… where am I?" Janice said before she looked over at the table. She winked at Mel who had already found time to shoot her a pre-emptive crooked eyebrow. "I musta dozed off…"

"You think?" Mel said and adjusted her glasses.

"How's it going?"

"Not too well," Mel continued before she put away the ruined pencil. She took a fresh one of the same type at once so she didn't need to waste time finding one later on. "We may have made a mistake, Jan…"

That kind of news piqued Janice's interest. After swinging her legs over the edge of the soft bed, she bookmarked her progress in Sally's latest adventure before she left it on the duvet and shuffled over to the table. Leaning down, she rested a hand on the backrest of Mel's chair while she glanced at the ancient parchment. "A mistake?  How so?"

"Judge for yourself. Here's what the three lines say… and I quote. 'Here rests Yannberah of the Langobardi. The ones who break this tomb will be eternally plagued by nocturnal terrors until Celesta takes mercy upon their soul.' Unquote."

Janice let out a long whistle at the thinly veiled warning. "Okay, that does sound kinda bad, I agree. I don't think it applies to us, though… I mean, we didn't break the tomb-"

"That's not what it means in this context, Jan. Here, 'break' means to remove items. We removed the artifacts for scientific purposes rather than greed, but the principle is the same," Mel said and began to chew on the new pencil until she realized what she was doing.

"And Gabrielle wrote this?"

"I'm ninety-eight percent positive, yes. Though I will say she was either in a hurry or had to write it without a proper scribble pad. Look," Mel said as she used the pencil to point at the three lines of ancient Greek text, "some of the Deltas and Omicrons are skewered while others are-"

"That's your department, Toots, not mine. I dig, you translate. We each have our gifts," Janice said with a grin - it earned her yet another crooked eyebrow. "Naw, I'm pretty sure Gabrielle didn't mean that it should include later generations of their own families."

A few grunts escaped Mel before she put away the pencil and took off the cotton gloves. "Perhaps not, but I just can't help thinking about the curse that befell Howard Carter and the members of his team. Remember how they were all struck by illnesses after they had discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun back in 'twenty-two?  I remember my father being greatly concerned about those incidents."

"Mel," Janice said and leaned down to place a kiss on her partner's neck, "this is the Ancient Greek version of 'Trespassers Will Be Shot', or 'Beware Of The Dog.' "

"But-"

"There are no curses. Trust me."

Mel and Janice exchanged a long look before Mel finally nodded and flipped her notepad over to a fresh page. "Unless they called in a favor from Odin…" she mumbled under her breath before she donned the cotton gloves once more. Soon, she moved the warning note aside to have room for the longer scroll.

Janice returned to the bed to heed Sally Swackhamer's pulpy siren call, but she had barely placed her rear end on the mattress before Mel let out a startled "Oh, my goodness!" that made her jump to her feet and run over to the table once more.

"Jan, look!" Mel said as she continued to unfold the large scroll. Holding onto the top handle, she allowed the parchment to roll further and further along the tabletop which allowed a third scroll to see the light of day for the first time in countless centuries. The top-left corner including most of the first line was missing from the hitherto unseen piece of parchment. "It's the elegy!  It's Yannberah's elegy!  This is the scroll the fragment came from!  Look!"

"I'm lookin', all right… and I'm thinking…" Janice said and rubbed her forehead. "So… that's gotta mean the amphora and the scrolls were found at some point in the seventh century… but the amphora and the scrolls were in the lower chamber… and the false floor was untouched… damn, my brain's gonna explode!"

"Not necessarily-"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure it's gonna explode!"

"No, silly!" Mel said and swatted at Janice's stomach. "I mean, the fragment might have been torn off by accident just after Gabrielle wrote the scroll. It happens all the time, doesn't it?  I know for a fact you've done it… and don't try to deny or downplay it."

"Aw," Janice mumbled, "like I've said a million times, I couldn't know that-"

"Not now, Jan!"

"Right." - Instead of rolling out all the old excuses for tearing an important document from the Byzantine Empire in half when she needed to write down a telephone number, Janice stared at the jagged corner of the scroll that contained the elegy; then she glanced over at Mel's pale-blue eyes behind the black frame. A smile spread over her face before she let out a chuckle. "Always the voice of reason, Toots. Good thing too, or else we woulda needed to scrape my brains off the ceiling with a spatula!"

"Why, thank you for that charming visual, dear…" Mel said and adjusted her glasses. "All right, you and Sally can go back to bed now. I already have a series of notes on the elegy so I'll start working on the large scroll," she continued as she turned back to the table so she had the best possible access to the two pieces of parchment that shared the single roll.

"You betcha!  Sally Swackhamer, I'm all yours!" Janice said and strolled back to the bed to spend a little more time between the soft mattress and the hard private investigator.

---

As any experienced translator knows all too well, there are no shortcuts when it comes to parsing ancient languages. Even if the basics like stock phrases or oft-repeated wordings are known, like in the case of the works of Gabrielle of Potaideia, situations will frequently arise that will challenge even the best. Occasionally, familiar words will appear in a new context or new words are seen in an otherwise familiar context; both require a great deal of creative thinking on the part of the translator who nevertheless should refrain from straying into pure fiction, or coloring the extrapolated text with personal opinions, or even viewing the text in a contemporary light.

All those issues and challenges were present in the new scroll. Thus, three hours and fifty minutes went by before Mel had a rough sketch of the first part of the lengthy text - and that included an unwanted, twenty-minute power nap that had seen her simply fall asleep with her nose buried in her books.

Bleary-eyed, she leaned back on the hard chair to run over the first draft of the translation for the umpteenth time. After reading her notes yet again and making a few corrections or clarifications here and there, she broke out in a jaw-displacing yawn that she couldn't be bothered to even try to conceal - Janice had been snoring merrily for the past two hours which hadn't been helpful at all.

Mel got up from the chair and hobbled around the room to get her circulation going. Her legs and neck were as stiff as the chair she had just left behind, so she needed to make three full laps of the living room floor to feel comfortable. When she could finally sense her body again, she realized that a wet blanket of fatigue had claimed her. Yawning, she shuffled over to the bed and sat down on the side she always used.

As always, Janice took up most of the space in her customary messy sleeping style, but she moved aside in her sleep when she was given a gentle nudge. Mel sighed several times before she took off her glasses to rub her tired eyes. The very last thing she wanted was to repeat the mistake from the other night of not brushing her teeth before she went to bed, so she pushed her glasses back up her nose and shuffled off to the central bathroom in the hallway to take care of business.

---

By the time Mel came back, Janice leaned over the table peeking at the scrolls and the copious amount of notes that had been jotted down during the process of translating the ancient text into modern-day English.

The mess on the table proved that it hadn't all been smooth sailing: the graphite tips of three pencils had been worn down to hardly anything at all while a fourth one had broken clean off when the pencil had fallen onto the floor. A pile of scrap paper littered one end of the table while a large wad of densely-written pages from several notepads took up room down at the other end. The precious scrolls were still unfurled all along the center, and a bookmark had been placed between two paragraphs of the largest one to show how far Mel had come and how much still needed to be done.

" 'Morning, Toots," Janice said when Mel entered the room.

"Is it morning already?  What time is it?"

"Oh, it's ten to six. I've heard Mrs. Lindholm rummage around in the kitchen downstairs. I think we can persuade her to make us some coffee and toast if you need it."

Mel stopped to consider the offer for a moment. Her stomach could use some nourishment, but the leaden shackles of fatigue that had been cast around the rest of her being told her otherwise. "It'll have to be later, Jan. I need some sleep first."

"Yeah, no wonder," Janice said and pointed at the mess on the table. "Looks like you've made some progress. What did the Battling Bard say?"

Mel moved over to her bedside table to put the small bag that contained her toothbrush and toothpaste into the upper drawer. Sighing, she sat down on the soft bed. "Oh, she said plenty… the large scroll is a travelogue. I have a first draft ready of the opening part if you're interes-"

"Hell, yes!"

"Why did I even bother to ask?" Mel said and adjusted her glasses. Although she didn't look forward to introducing her rear end to the hard chair all over again, she shuffled over there and sat down. Taking her notes, she made yet another small correction before she looked over at Janice. "All right… Jan, please remember this is a first draft. I may change a word here or a phrase there once we get home."

"Sure, sure!"

Mel cleared her throat before she began to read aloud: "Prior to our third journey to the lands of snow and fur-clad people, tit-for-tat skirmishes between city states in Thrace meant we had to travel by ship from Piraeus to Sardinina and then further onto Corsica and Massilia in Narbonensis. There, we bought steeds and rode north for days until we reached the Rhenus near Augusta Rauricorum in Germania Superior. The Romans had Legions posted everywhere so we needed to proceed with great caution. We decided to sell our steeds and seek hire as simple deckhands on a… Jan, I'm not sure of the next word, but logic suggests it should be 'barge.' "

"Okay… this is excitin'!  Go on!"

"Ah… all right. Seek hire as simple deckhands on a barge that shipped bales and crates north along the Rhenus. After countless stops, we reached Mogontiacum before we changed barges to continue along the river onto Bonna and Colonia. There, we disembarked and bought two steeds that we used for the next part of our interminable journey. Xena had heard of the healing waters at Aquae Granni and insisted that we-"

"Ha!  Didn't I tell ya!  Didn't I tell ya that Xena was gonna skinny-dip in those hot springs come hell, high water or a Roman garrison?" Janice said with a laugh.

"You did," Mel said and adjusted her glasses. While Janice continued to chuckle, Mel returned to her notes. "Uh… uh, Xena insisted that we carried onto the settlement so we did. At Aquae Granni, we met a noble Germanic warrioress by the name of Yannberah of the Langobardi. She and her clan lived east of the border, and she knew a way through the Roman-controlled region that would help us avoid direct contact with any Legions. Yannberah's blood ties with the Langobardi would also help us on the next part of our journey, so we joined forces and traveled further north-north-east. When we arrived at Vetera Castra five leagues further north near the border to the barbarian lands, we learned that no less than three Legions were stationed there with further reinforcements expected to arrive soon. We needed to move on with great haste…" - Stopping, Mel put down the notepad. "And that's it for now, I'm afraid."

"Haw, that's fantastic, Toots!" Janice said and promptly leaned in to place a resounding smacker on Mel's cheek. "We've learned a helluva lot. So… it sounds like Yannberah wasn't an Amazon like we know 'em from Greece, but a noble warrioress with blood ties to a clan or tribe. That makes me think of nobility. Royal blood."

"I had the same thoughts. And I can confirm that Gabrielle used the exact same term when describing Princess, later Queen, Diana of Treus," Mel said and rummaged around on the table to find an additional set of notes she had taken from her hand-written transcriptions of Gabrielle's scrolls - they escaped her for the time being, so she decided to look for them later. "In the first century, AD, a tribe or clan like the Langobardi would most likely have been staunchly patriarchal, so to theorize, Yannberah could have been the daughter or perhaps sister of the chieftain rather than the chieftainess. But, of course, it's hard to say. Maybe the rest of the scroll will give us some answers."

Janice grinned and shook her head in delight at the same time. "Amazing… nothing short of amazing. Here's another smacker for ya!  You've earned it, ya gorgeous dame!" she continued and dove down to place another, equally resounding kiss squarely on Mel's lips.

"Why, thank you, dear. And now, I've earned a nap as well," Mel said and broke out in a wide yawn.

"While you rest your beautiful gray matter, I'll swing down to get some morning grub. I can hear the coffee and the toast yellin' my name already!" Janice said before she bounded over to the door.

Mel tracked her eager partner with her tired, blood-shot eyes before she got up from the hard chair, clicked off the ceiling lights and staggered over to the bed for a well-deserved rest.

-*-*-*-

The early morning hours gave way to high noon before Mel had overcome the fatigue that working through the night had caused. At a quarter to twelve, she returned to the room carrying a tray loaded with a pale-blue coffee pot and all the typical accessories as well as a pile of sandwiches that Mrs. Lindholm had made for the important guests. Janice had continued onto Professor Granfeldt's room to check up on the elderly man and to inform him of the successful excavation.

For Mel, trying to make herself understood while deciphering Mrs. Lindholm's somewhat poor English proved to be as stressful as translating the new scrolls. The conversation between them had revolved around the highly important topic of what kind of filling the sandwiches should have, so it needed to be one-hundred percent free of misunderstandings.

Mrs. Lindholm had never heard of peanut butter and Mel had a strong aversion to liver paté, even if it did feature fried mushrooms and slices of crisp bacon. An innocent question about getting a mild cheese spread with a slice of tomato on top earned Mel a puzzled look in return, and an offer to cut a nice chunk of rolled joint roast with plenty of herbs and juicy prunes in the center had caused the puzzled look to fly back in the other direction.

When Mel had suggested roast beef with a dash of pickles, Mrs. Lindholm had rolled her eyes just thinking about the cost. Similarly, Mrs. Lindholm's suggestion of salted beef with onion rings or finely minced, spiced horse-radish fell on unfertile ground. Mel had finally looked so horrified at the suggestion of getting the most classic of all Danish sandwiches - thick slices of smoked baloney on a hefty layer of salted pig lard, all nested between two slices of dark rye bread - that it became obvious for all that a compromise was urgently needed.

They had finally reached common ground by agreeing on the good, old-fashioned ham-and-cheese sandwiches - a combination that everyone knew and that would never go out of fashion.

After putting down the tray of sandwiches on the messy table, Mel unwrapped and wolfed down the first one to subdue the hunger that had begun to gnaw on her bones. The first mug of coffee of many soon followed before she sat down at the table and donned her white cotton gloves.

The door to the hallway opened a moment later to reveal Janice. "Hanne told me the old fella's sleeping. We can visit him later," she said as she came inside and walked over to the table. Nabbing a sandwich, she unwrapped it and stuffed half of it into her mouth in one go. After chewing so vigorously that her facial muscles were given a solid workout, she quickly finished the rest of it in world record time - and it didn't even bother her that Mel shot her a crooked eyebrow.

"Okay," Janice continued after she had swept the inevitable crumbs off her shirt, "I'm just gonna go down and get the cigarettes I promised General Rikki. Did you know that a carton of cigs is called a stick over here?  It took me a while to figure out what Mr. Lindholm meant when he promised to get a stick of Cecils. I thought he meant chewing gum or something…"

"I wonder what the Danish National Museum thinks when they see that on our expense account," Mel said and adjusted her glasses.

Janice's reaction was all too predictable - she shrugged and broke out in an: "Eh… not my concern. Anyway, once I have 'em, I'm going over to the burial mound to see how Rikki's doing. Y'know, we really need to highlight her efforts when we release the report on this excavation."

"Agreed. She's come through for us several times."

"Yep, she's a swell one, all right. A real dynamite dame. I'm just gonna steal one more of these," Janice said as she reached onto the tray to scoop up another of the wrapped sandwiches, "then I'll get outta your hair for a while. See ya later, Toots… and don't work too hard."

"I'll try…"

Once Janice had left, Mel made sure that her most important aids - the notepad, her pencils, her books and her compendium - were within easy reach. Sitting down, she picked up where she had left off. Soon, she shared the page with Xena, Gabrielle and Yannberah as the trio was about to leave the Roman-controlled region and travel to the barbarian lands on the other side of the border.

---

Five minutes to two in the afternoon, Mel's neck and back once more cried out for a break. Staggering away from the table, she took and unwrapped the final sandwich. The coffee had long since turned cold so her urge to get something warm and sweet to drink would have to remain a dream. The pitter-patter of raindrops on the window panes proved that Mother Nature had once again found it necessary to rain on everyone's parade, but the intensity was less than during the night and the wind was modest as well - at least so far.

Janice had returned a short hour after leaving; she had been wet and in a foul mood because of it. Now, her best set of pants were once again hanging above the hopping radiator to dry out. Instead of walking around in her bloomers which would most likely have caused quite a stir among the local population, she had hopped into her dungarees and had gone over to the students to see how the cataloging was coming along.

Mel continued to eat in silence while she contemplated the things she had translated. Gabrielle's travelogue was fascinating and offered plenty of insight into the tribes and clans that ruled the so-called barbarian lands in the first century, AD. There hadn't been any major surprises or shocks yet, but since the end was literally near and Yannberah was still with them, high drama was bound to enter the pages soon.

Sighing, she finished her ham-and-cheese sandwich and returned to the strenuous task of updating the Bard of Potaideia's words into a language the contemporary world could understand.

---

Two and a half hours later, she put down the well-worn pencil after having finished the rough first draft of the translation. The Ancient Greek travelogue had been turned into modern-day English, and it had ended as dramatically as she had expected. Her neck had once again frozen up, and she let out a brief whimper when a lightning bolt of pain raced through her abused muscles. Taking off her glasses, she rubbed her weary eyes before she pinched the bridge of her nose.

Janice had come and gone twice while Mel had worked - she had no idea where the other half of her soul was at present, but finding out would be a great excuse for getting away from the work so that's what she planned to do. After rolling up the travelogue scroll with the greatest care she could muster, she took her notepad and went off on a search for the missing Doctor Janice Covington.

---

She found Janice downstairs in the restaurant where she and Ulrikke Jensen sat at a table drinking beer out of bottles. Alcohol would only send Mel to her knees, figuratively speaking, so she asked one of Mrs. Lindholm's staffers for a mug of strong coffee instead. A moment later, she carried the steaming mug over to the table where she bumped down next to Janice and let out a long sigh.

"Hello, Miss Pappas," Ulrikke said. Like always, the tough security guard wore her military-issue boots and pale-brown uniform, and her dark-green beret had been folded up and was pushed under the shoulder strap.

"Hello, Olrickah…" Mel said in a flat voice that made Janice reach up and caress the long, tense back next to her.

"Pardon me for saying so, but you look dead on your feet," Ulrikke continued before she took a swig of her beer.

Mel let out a tired chuckle before she took a probing sip of the hot coffee. "Oh, that's quite all right, Olrickah. I feel even worse. I can hardly move my neck. But the pain is worth it… the first draft of the travelogue is done."

"Awright!" Janice cried loud enough for Mrs. Lindholm and several of the other patrons and staffers to shoot her puzzled looks. "Melinda Pappas for the 'fifty-two Nobel Prize for Literature!  Did it end like we expected it to?"

"Yes, it did. How is the professor?"

"Dunno. Haven't seen Hanne for a while… she's volunteered to be his nurse. Why?" Janice said and upped the pace of the hand that caressed her partner's back.

"Because if he's up to it, I'd like to read my translation aloud to him. After hearing the facts, he'll have to concede that our theory has been proven right."

"Mmmm," Janice said and furrowed her brow. "Careful, Toots… you know how fact-resistent some of the older fellas can be. I'm sure you remember how difficult it was to persuade the Dean of SFU to even acknowledge the existence of the Xena Scrolls… even when we showed him one of 'em."

"That's true, but I'd still like to read parts of the travelogue aloud."

Nodding, Janice chugged down the rest of her beer before she got up. "I'll go upstairs and ask. General, d'ya have your rifle ready?  I mean, just in case I need to call in the Leathernecks…"

"It's up in my room, Doctor," Ulrikke said with a grin that faded at once when she took in the gloomy look on Janice's face. "Wait… are you serious?"

Even Mel needed to check, so she turned around to shoot her partner a curious glance.

"Well, the 'fessor ain't an easy man to get along with at the best of times… and now we're gonna challenge what he believes to be the Truth with a capital T," Janice said and let out a dark chuckle. After saluting Ulrikke, she winked at Mel before she walked out of the restaurant.

---

Janice returned ten minutes later whistling a jaunty tune. When she noticed that Ulrikke Jensen had left in the meantime and that Mel was sitting by herself at the table nursing the same mug of coffee, she strolled over to her and put a hand on the chair's backrest. Smoothing down her hair to look her best, she added a fat layer of butter to her voice to say: "Hey there, gorgeous gal… you seein' someone?"

"Yes, and she'll be right back so you better forget all about it," Mel said with a chuckle before she drained the mug of coffee. "Were you able to speak to Hanne?"

"Better still, I parleyed with the professor. He's still coughing but he looks healthier today. He's agreed to see us in five minutes."

Mel nodded as she pushed her chair back and got up. "All right. That gives me a little time to get everything sorted. There's a lot we need to go through…"

*
*
CHAPTER 7

Professor Thorkild Granfeldt had indeed looked healthier as he had welcomed the two foreign guests into his room at the historical inn, but his expression had gradually turned darker until it had ended up as being downright repulsed as the conversation moved from describing the actual findings and into the details regarding the travelogue scroll - or rather, Mel's interpretations and logical deductions of the original text.

Similar to the first time Mel and Janice had visited the poorly professor, several pillows propped up the elderly man's back so he could sit more or less upright in his sickbed. He had shaved recently which had left his chin and cheeks mostly bare, but his hair hadn't seen a comb for quite a while and his swooping mustache was still dull and flat.

His flushed face stood out in great contrast to the bright-white bedlinen, and it was no secret that his complexion hadn't come from coughing alone - though it had worsened since the last time they had spoken to him.

To stay out of range of the frequent coughing and occasional sneezing, Mel had dragged a chair over to the bed instead of sitting on the mattress like she had done the first time. Reacting off the professor's fiery complexion, she and Janice shared a long, highly telling look. It was painfully obvious that some people just refused to change their mind about pet theories even when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

"Professor Granfeldt," Mel tried though she knew it was a lost cause, "despite your repeated objections, I would very much like to read aloud from the travelogue. Doctor Covington has yet to hear it beyond a certain point, and I have a feeling it might convince you to-"

"Miss Pappas," the professor said in a sharp voice; before he could go on, he needed to cough into the handkerchief that he soon slipped back under the duvet. "While I certainly admire your work ethic and your stamina, your conclusions are wrong and your understanding of the facts is severely lacking."

"I beg your p-"

"I must be truthful and say that your myopic obsession with this mythical Princess Warrior is becoming a chore to sit through."

"Why, I-"

"The original translation of the runestone was not colored by any kind of feministic twaddle. It stated quite clearly that the names of the men were Amphius of Xanten and Garriallus Batticus of Polmus. Not Xenes and Gabriel or whatever you claim it to be. Need I remind you that Gabriel is a Hebrew name?  And yet you claim it to be Greek. If that is all you have, Miss Pappas, I have heard enough."

The tirade made Janice suck on her lips while she cast a sideways glance at her partner. She almost expected Xena to blast onto the scene to give the old, pig-headed professor a Chakram haircut he wouldn't forget in a hurry.

Mel's chin quivered at the stinging rebuking of her work; it lasted exactly five seconds, then her face fell into a stony mask and her eyes shot blue fire at the man in the bed. Drawing a deep breath, she was on the verge of releasing a sixty-cannon broadside, but she didn't get a chance to as Janice jumped up and took a gentle - but decisive - hold of her arm instead.

"I think that closes this particular chapter, Mel… we better break it off here. Yeah?" Janice said for Mel's ears only before she turned back to the professor who appeared to be just as seething as Mel. "Nice talking to ya, 'fessor. We can find our own way out."

---

Back in their own room, Mel paced around the central table a staggering fourteen times before she took off her glasses and strode over to the bed. There, she fell down onto her back and promptly put an arm across her eyes. "Why, that… that… that… stubborn, narrow-minded, opinionated, obdurate son of a-"

"Flea-bitten mule?" Janice suggested.

"No!"

Chuckling, Janice strolled over to the bed and got down on her knees so she could be close to the boiling-hot Mel. She took hold of the long, slender and above all graceful digits and began to play a silly variation of 'This Little Piggy' just to relieve some of the stress and tension that visibly rolled through the frustrated Southern Belle. The tactic worked as Mel eventually let out a deep sigh that came from the bottom of her soul. "Forget him, Mel. He's a lost cause. Even if Xena and Gabrielle showed up in person to tell their tale, he'd refuse to believe them."

"Why does it continue to be this way?" Mel said in a voice muffled by her sleeve that reached down to cover parts of her mouth. "I really, really thought we had made a breakthrough after the new cache of scrolls we uncovered last year near Kalithea. Those scrolls were verified by some of the world's leading scientists. Even the staunchest detractors at the SFU had to admit they were wrong in doubting our research…"

"True, but I'll bet the professor has never heard of any of this before. He's not a field man anymore… he's a lecturer. A desk jockey," Janice said and moved her caressing fingers further up Mel's arm. "Maybe not even that. He can't be far off an Emeritus at his own university. I'll betcha he's been in this game since the nineteen-tens… just think of how much has changed since the war alone. His generation will all be gone from the universities within the next decade. Then Xena and Gabrielle will get their just rewards."

"My dear Jan, I wish I had your confidence," Mel said and let out another sigh. "But all right. I can't lie here and weep about it the whole day. I promised you I'd read the next section once it was done… well, it's done."

Grinning, Janice got to her feet and leaned over the bed. Once there, she placed a quick kiss on the visible part of Mel's lips. "And I'm all ears, Toots."

---

Like Mel would always do before she read aloud from any of her rough drafts or unfinished translations, she went over the densely-written pages of text in her notepad one more time to make a few corrections, clarifications and additions. Instead of sitting on the uncomfortable chair at the central table, she and Janice had relocated to the steaming-hot radiator to get the most out of the wonderful heat it produced.

"Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm… no, that's probably… hmmm, hmmm. Hmmm. And if I… no. All right," Mel said while she prepared to relay the last part of the old tale. "We left Xena, Gabrielle and Yannberah as they crossed into the lands of the barbarians."

"I'm ready to be awed, sweetheart," Janice said and snuggled up to her partner's long torso.

Mel chuckled and adjusted her glasses so she had a good view of her rough translation. After clearing her throat, she began: "We traveled north-north-east for twelve days and twelve nights through the terrain controlled by several different kings, chieftains and warlords. Yannberah's connections with the Langobardi proved valuable as we were allowed free access through Kellus instead of being forced to ride around it. A few days later, we were briefly detained by long-range militia from Wallesrodus, but Yannberah's standing in her clan prevented matters from growing worse than merely wasting a day-"

"Ah, Xena woulda wiped them out with one hand tied behind her back," Janice said with a chuckle.

"Probably… where was I… ah, yes. After we had crossed the river Visurgis that marked the southern border between the Cherusci and the Langobardi, we were escorted to Leuphana by a detachment of horse soldiers who carried the same clan symbols as Yannberah. In Leuphana, the ancestral home of the clan, we met Chieftain Wulfgann who proved to be Yannberah's older brother."

"Oh!" Janice said in an excited tone. "I guess that settles her family relations, then. Ooops, I'm sorry… go on."

"Are you sure?" Mel said and adjusted her glasses. When Janice nodded hard, she continued: "Xena, Yannberah and I were treated to a grand feast that night at the chieftain's residence in Leuphana before we set off on the next part of our interminable journey toward the land to the far north. We were joined by Wulfgann and eighty of his best horse soldiers. Xena, Chieftain Wulfgann and Yannberah rode at the head of the column. I must admit I could not interpret the look on my dear friend's face. Upon-"

"I'll bet she looked orgasmic," Janice said decisively. "Xena's warrior blood always pumped the hardest whenever she could lead men of war… Gabrielle told us that herself in several scrolls. And a column of eighty rough and ready horse soldiers?  It would have made her blood catch fire, no doubt about it. Oh… I'm sorry, I did it again. Go on."

Mel blinked several times while she waited for Janice to interrupt her again. When nothing further came from the enthusiastic archaeologist, she continued: "Upon reaching the border into the land controlled by the Jutes, we were met by King Wermund of the Jutes who welcomed Chieftain Wulfgann to his realm. A camp had been set up at the border and we spent the first night there. Nobody was cheerful and the mood in the camp was tense as the threat of war loomed large. Late on the next day, we reached the village of Jallinganha where the Gathering Of Kings would take place."

Mel paused expecting Janice to interject that Jallinganha would later be called Jelling, and that they were sitting plum in the middle of ancient history - but Janice didn't even let out a peep. "Uh… King Wermund of the Jutes introduced us to the kings and chieftains who had already arrived with their armed escorts. I would be hard-pressed to recall seeing a hairier, smellier and more frightening group of warriors. Xena seemed at home among the crude men which concerned me. The-"

"Ha!  Didn't I tell you?  Oh…"

"Jan-"

"I know, I know… I'll shut up from now on," Janice said and moved her fingers across her lips in the age-old gesture known as 'Zip It.'

"That'll be the day," Mel mumbled under her breath before she returned to her translation: "The Gathering commenced the same night. King Wermund of the Jutes pleaded his case to the kings and chieftains present: Prince Adelperth of the Myrgings had amassed a large army of mercenaries that threatened King Wermund's eastern flank. Adelperth had apparently already occupied several of the islands to the south of Daneland so all knew his threat was real. If Adelperth would be allowed to roll over the land of the Jutes, the northern flanks of the lands of the Saxones, the Chauci and ultimately the Langobardi would be open for attack. Negotiations over various alliances were plentiful but produced few results-"

Janice drew a breath to interrupt yet again, but she caught it in time and settled for grinning instead.

Mel just sighed at her partner's legendary impatience. "Chieftain Wulfgann was willing to join King Wermund. King Ilias of the Saxones already waged war against a peasant uprising among the Frisii in the west so he could not commit any men or even supplies to a new front in the east. King Slavka of the Rugii did not feel threatened by Prince Adelperth's advances and made his position clear to the others. The negotiations continued for nine days and nights before an agreement seemed imminent. Alas, on the final night, with everyone too tired to remain vigilant, Yannberah was slain by mercenaries belonging to the party of Chieftain Aubirung of the Varibi."

"Bastards," Janice growled, and for once, Mel didn't mind the interruption.

"Quite. Ah… oh, yes… Chieftain Wulfgann demanded blood for blood or he would leave, but King Wermund called for patience and wisdom so the fragile alliance would not crumble on the eve of war. The Langobardi cremated their dead so Xena and I spent the entire night preparing Yannberah's pyre while Wulfgann tended to his sister. We lit the fire as dawn broke and Xena sang her burial chant so beautifully. Once the ashes had grown cold, they were collected into the urn that carried so many hideous memories for me. Though Xena was pragmatic as always, I found it cathartic and poetic to use it on a kindred spirit. Yannberah was a true Amazon so I honored her with my sword that had been crafted by the forge-master of my tribe-"

"Whoa!  Whoa, the Amazon sword was Gabrielle's?  Sweet Jezebel, I didn't see that one coming!" Janice said and stared wide-eyed at Mel. Two seconds went by in stunned silence before she let out a snicker. "I wonder if the pipe was Xena's, then?"

Mel abstained from making a verbal comment; instead, she let out a dramatic sigh, adjusted her glasses and shot Janice a crooked eyebrow - the trio of pointers seemed to work as Janice grinned and zipped her lips once more.

"Xena and I," Mel continued, "spoke at length with Chieftain Wulfgann. We promised we would deliver swift retribution for the murder of Yannberah who had become a friend. He agreed to stay at the Gathering to sign the documents detailing the alliance. With our task there complete, Xena and I set off for home. Wulfgann offered an armed escort, but Xena declined as she suspected the mercenaries of the Varibi responsible for Yannberah's murder would try to silence us as well. Xena's plan worked as we were attacked by the same men not a league south of the Gathering. They had thought two women riding alone would be easy targets. When the dust settled, they were dead and we were untouched."

"Awright!  Let 'em have it, Xena!" Janice said and punched the air.

By now, Mel had become so used to the constant interruptions she didn't even bother to slow down. "A pinch-interrogation of the leader of the men revealed they were in fact agitators sent by Prince Adelperth to destabilize the negotiations. Though Yannberah's murderer had already been slain in the attack on us, Xena let the leader die as well to make a statement."

"Whoa…"

"We brought the bodies back to the Gathering so Wulfgann could see we had been true to our word. Chieftain Aubirung of the Varibi threatened to withdraw from the new alliance, but seeing how men loyal to Aubirung had been involved, none of the other kings and chieftains had much trust in him. The widespread distrust meant his threats had no weight and the new alliance remained strong-"

Janice shook her head. "Ancient Gods, warlords and kings… buncha palookas… hell, not that our politicians are any better…"

"Quite," Mel said and adjusted her glasses.

"So… was that it?"

"No, there's another paragraph. If I may?" Mel continued in an overly sugary voice while glancing at Janice over the rim of her glasses like she was asking for permission to break into the stream of comments.

Janice grinned and nodded.

"Xena and I had lost patience with their petty squabbling so we set off for home once more. The last I did here was to write an elegy for our friend and store that as well as this particular scroll in the amphora. Upon our safe homecoming, I will conclude the chronicles of our journey. We may have prevented a war, but we lost a true Amazon. I cannot say if one was worth the other. G."

Mel let out a sigh as she put down the notepad. Silence fell upon the two women as they digested the words and the actions that had taken place not too far from the historical inn they were staying at slightly less than two thousand years earlier. "And that's it, Jan. That's the entire scroll. I'll need to go over it another half a dozen times when we get home, but everything Gabrielle wrote is there," Mel said quietly.

"Unbelievable. I mean un-be-lievable. You've really outdone yourself this time… Gabrielle was here, and she spoke through you," Janice said and shook her head. "Hell, just when I thought I couldn't love you more, you create another dose of magic," she continued as she leaned in to place a tender kiss on Mel's cheek.

"I was merely the translator," Mel said and broke out in a blush that was accompanied by a tired grin.

"You brought ancient history back to life. Un-be-lievable. We learned a helluva lot through that scroll alone… I mean… so much. It's enough to fill our scientific publications for the next six months. I'll bet funding won't be hard to come by now."

"Well, let's hope so. This trip was quite expensive for us and the university," Mel said and adjusted her glasses.

"Yeah. Hell, look at the time!" Janice said when she happened to catch a glimpse at her wristwatch. "Supper's about to be served downstairs!  Man, I'm hungry…"

"So am I, actually… oh, I hope Mrs. Lindholm hasn't used any more of that vile salted pig lard," Mel said and made a horrified face. "I mean, who in their right mind would eat that?  Or those… those… abhorrent cabbage-things…"

Chuckling, Janice strolled over to the bed to get her leather jacket and her beloved fedora - being exposed to all that rain had given the latter an unfortunate permanent peak that made it resemble a dunce's cap rather than a movie star's favorite accessory. Nevertheless, she plonked it down on her fair locks and ran a finger across the rim to make sure it sat properly. "You coming?  It could be delicious."

"Or it could be horrendous," Mel said under her breath. Sighing again, she got up from the chair by the radiator to fix her hair and get ready for dinner.

-*-*-*-

Supper turned out to be mostly acceptable to the refined tastes of the visiting Americans: A Danish fried-sausage specialty known as medisterpølse accompanied by mealy potatoes and a hefty dollop of white gravy featuring sweet peas and square chunks of carrot. The accessories were thick slices of dark rye bread and a glass of golden pilsner beer.

Mel wasn't in the mood for beer or any alcoholic beverage, so she asked for easy apple cider. Once again, the innocent request nearly pushed the poor Mrs. Lindholm to the brink of despair over the curious eating habits of their foreign guests. First of all, bottled apple cider contained alcohol, fresh apple juice didn't - and if Mel wanted fresh apple juice, she would have to come back in August when the first batch of apples had been harvested. Reaching another unexpected stalemate, Mel ultimately settled for a glass of tap water.

Janice wolfed down the greasy sausage and soon went up to the counter to get a second helping. That she had offloaded all her potatoes and most of the chunky vegetables swimming in the white gravy onto Mel's plate was another story altogether. A second glass of beer soon followed as well, and all in all, Janice was happy and content.

She ate like she always did by cutting the sausage into small slices so she could scoop them up with her fork alone. As she did so, she glanced over at her partner who dined like she had been invited to a state dinner at the White House or any of the world's royal palaces. Her slender digits handled the cutlery with sublime panache and elegance, and she never took too much or too little at a time. As a result, she never lost as much as a single drop of the white gravy or any of the vegetables on the way up to her graceful mouth - the only term that Janice could think of that fit the scene was 'poetry in motion.'

Once Mel had finished eating, she put the cutlery onto the empty plate and pushed it away from her so she wouldn't accidentally dip a sleeve in it. After dabbing her lips on a cloth napkin, she folded it up and shoved it under the used plate. "In my breaks from translating the travelogue, I researched the Danish law on uncovered artifacts. It appears we need to hand over everything we've found to the National Museum. They'll process it further and eventually display it in Copenhagen."

"I expected as much," Janice said before she took a long swig of her beer. "They can have the bronze clasp and the rotten sword from the upper chamber as well as the pipe, the flint spearhead, the arrowheads, the bone daggers and the Amazon sword from the lower chamber."

Mel furrowed her brow at the suggestion that seemed to have come a little too easily. "Why, Jan… even Gabrielle's Amazon sword?"

"Yes…" Janice said before she leaned in to speak in a far lower voice: "Because we'll keep the urn and the scrolls. There's no way in hell they'll get those. No way."

Nodding, Mel leaned back on the dining chair. A moment or two of silence went by before she reached for her glass of water to take a sip. "I agree. The scrolls are vital to our research, and the urn is… well… it's personal. Why, it's practically a family heirloom."

"Yep. So… I've been thinking," Janice said and toyed with her glass of beer. "We're done here anyway, so how about we went south into Germany?  We could use Gabrielle's travelogue as a guide. We'd obviously be going in the opposite direction of what they did back then."

"To Germany?  And do what?" Mel said and shook her head in puzzlement.

"Visit Aquae Granni… Aachen. We've been in a lot of places that Xena and Gabrielle visited, but never there. Maybe try to figure out where the Langobardi had their home and make a stop-over there… wasn't it called Leuphana?  You know, to honor Yannberah and Chieftain Wulfgann."

Furrowing her brow, Mel began to fiddle with her napkin. "I don't know, Jan," she said after a short pause. "My gut tells me it'll be very, very hard to find anything of historical value in Aachen. The war reduced the city to nothing but piles of rubble. I doubt there's anything at all left of the ancient Roman settlement."

"Hmmm. True. You're the voice of reason as always," Janice said before she drained her second glass of beer. As she put down the empty glass on the tablecloth, it was clear by the distant look in her eyes that she was thinking hard about something. "And even apart from that, we'd need a permit from a bunch of departments. I'm not sure which military zone Aachen is in… maybe it's controlled by the French or Americans, but either way, we'd have to go through the British zone to even get there. Damn, I'm gettin' heartburn just thinking about all those bureaucrats whose asses we'd hafta kiss…"

"Language, dear."

"Yeah. But ass-kissin' is how the world works these days, Toots. You know that. Like the New Year fundraiser at the universi-"

Mel let out a grunt and shuffled around uncomfortably at the mention of one of the most stressful evenings of her entire professional life - she could still feel the aftereffects of the fundraiser whenever the weather turned. "Jan, please don't remind me of that fiasco. Every last one of those wealthy individuals who asked for a dance crushed my poor toes. Every. Last. One. I practically had to learn how to walk again afterwards!" she said while she adjusted her glasses.

"I know, sweetheart. I'm sorry for bringing it up," Janice said and reached out to give Mel's hand a little squeeze. They held onto one another for a short while before their hands slid apart once more. "The Langobardi… I wonder where their homeland was. Gabrielle said they traveled north-north-east for nearly two weeks-"

"Yes, and not even on foot but on horseback."

"Huh?  On horseback, yeah. After crossing the border, they must have gone through some pretty bad terrain. There are plenty of hills, valleys and dense forests in that region… probably even more so back then. Hmmm," Janice said and leaned back on the chair - her eyes soon gained the same distant look as before.

Mel let out a dark chuckle. She knew that look well; it was always a prelude to a grand adventure of some kind that saw them face impossible challenges, work through impossible odds and ultimately recover impossible treasures of a historical nature that they were never allowed to keep.

The moment of contemplation was interrupted by Mrs. Lindholm who came over to their table carrying an empty tray. "Så, mine damer… jeg håber De kunne lide medis- oh… oh… I hope you like medister sausage… like the sausage?"

"Yes, it was wonderful. Thank you very much, Mrs. Lindholm," Mel said though she had only been able to eat half of her first helping - it had simply been too greasy for her. At least Janice had wolfed down the other half in nothing flat.

"You need anything now?  More water?" Mrs. Lindholm said after she had loaded all the filthy dishes and empty glasses onto the tray. When Mel shook her head, the innkeeper's wife smiled and left the table once more.

"Janice Covington, you're awfully quiet all of a sudden. You could at least have thanked Mrs. Lindholm for the fine dinner," Mel said in a tone of voice that was perhaps a tiny bit sharper than she had wanted it to be.

Janice knew that when Mel called her by her full name, it was high time to pay attention. Moving out of her customary slouch, she put both elbows on the table and sent her partner a focused look. "I think we should travel south and explore the lands of the Langobardi. Aachen may be out of our grasp right now, but Yannberah's homeland may not be. I remember seeing a Roman map in your bag upstairs… right?"

"Well, I did bring a reproduction of a Roman map from the first century, AD. It shows the deployment of the various Legions- oh!" - Mel suddenly sat up straight and opened her eyes wide; it soon became obvious the gears in her mind were moving along at high speed - "The Roman cartographer who drew the original map added the names of the various barbarian tribes and clans who controlled the lands beyond the Rhine!  That's why the 'Langobardi' name was familiar to me… goodness me, I never thought of that…"

"And!  And if we compare the old map to a newer map of Germany, I'll bet we can figure out where they used to roam… then we can go there directly. Even if we have to apply for work or tourist permits from the British Military Command, we'll have a precise destination. And, of course, we used to work for Uncle Sam, so… Mel!  This could work. This could actually work!"

The puzzled look on Mel's face proved that although the plan might work, she had little idea of what that plan would actually entail. She tried to think of various scenarios of what they could do south of the border, but eventually drew blanks on all levels. "Well… I suppose it possibly could… but I haven't quite caught up yet. What do you expect to find there?"

"Anything!  We know Xena and Gabrielle stayed a night at the chieftain's court in Leuphana, so… so… we'll know when we get there. Jumpin' Jehoshaphat, Mel… this could work…" Janice said and thumped her fist onto the tabletop.

Mel adjusted her glasses a couple of times. It was clear by the glowing look on Janice's face that she was ready to embark on another grand adventure at a moment's notice, but they were nowhere near that point yet. "Well… don't you think we ought to wire the British Military Command Headquarters… or perhaps even the US Embassy before we set sail?  Permits take time, you know. A long time."

"Always the voice of reason… always!  Yep, we should probably do that," Janice said and got up from the chair. "Okay… okay, I'm just gonna zip up and get the Roman map… it's in the leather bag, right?"

"No, it's on the table somewhere… never mind, I'll get it. Actually, aren't we done here?  It would be much easier if we just looked at it up in our room," Mel said and adjusted her glasses.

"Hell, I couldn't put on my bloomers without ya, Toots!" Janice said with a grin that prompted a horrified look and a crooked eyebrow in return. "Okay, you go ahead. I'll find Mista Lindholm and ask him if there's a wire office here in Yelling. Five minutes, tops, and I'll be there," she continued before she moved over to the counter to look for the innkeeper.

---

Five minutes became ten, but Janice soon bounded into the upstairs guest room. The reason for the delay was that she had been unable to find their host at first, and when she had run across his portly shape, it had taken several minutes not to get their wires crossed - literally. It had been the cause of much head-scratching when Svend-Aage Lindholm hadn't understood the concept of a wire office until it dawned on him that the American guest probably didn't ask for a hardware store but a telegraph office.

He had informed her that while they didn't have one of those in Jelling, he was sure the post office in Vejle offered a telegraph service for members of the public - they would need to look for a sign that read Kgl. Post og Telegram once they got back to the larger city.

As Janice zoomed over to the central table - still wearing her leather jacket and her fedora - Mel had already spread out the reproduction of the Roman map. She had even found a newer map in an atlas that she hadn't even realized she had brought along. Though the two maps had been drawn to vastly different scale, the archaeologists were soon busy comparing the place names.

"Here we go," Janice said and used one of Mel's pencils to point at the Roman map. "According to the cartographer, the original homeland of the Langobardi was located between the Visurgis river to the south and the Albis river to the north. What's that in modern lingo?"

Mel peeked at the Roman map before she turned to the atlas. "Ah… that would be the Weser to the south and the Elbe to the north."

"Noted. And the major cities in the area?"

"Let me see…" Mel said and leaned down further to get a better view of the modern-day atlas. "That would be, ah… a triangle between Bremen in the west, Hamburg in the north and Hanover in the south-east… smaller towns would be Celle, Walsrode and Soltau. Might one of those be Leuphana?  Gabrielle called that the ancestral home of the Langobardi and it was where Chieftain Wulfgann held court. It didn't say in the scroll, but I'm speculating it's where he had his winter seat. It couldn't just have been a two-hovel town."

"Celle… one of the towns mentioned by Gabrielle was Kellus. That's gotta be the same one. It's on the southern tip of the Luneburg Heath. Okay… a heath. Flat as hell. It might be sandy so it's gotta be poor farmland… but good for sheep and grazing livestock. Not easy to defend. Hmmm."

"A walled city?  Or more specifically, a walled stronghold?" Mel said and moved over to the Roman map. The cartographer hadn't written any town names in any of the regions controlled by the so-called barbarians, so it didn't help her much. "Xena and Gabrielle were escorted by eighty horse soldiers so we know Wulfgann had more than that under his command. Cavalry could strike fast across flat terrain."

"Not a bad observation, Toots. Hmmm." Janice took a step back from the maps and let out a noise that could mean absolutely everything. Keeping silent, she went over to the bed and shed her fedora and her leather jacket. While Mel watched her with an increasingly puzzled expression on her face, she moved over to the windows and looked outside. She rolled her eyes when she realized it was still raining.

"Jan, dear… is something wrong?"

"Bremen, Hamburg, Hanover… those cities were leveled by the Eighth Air Force and the RAF. I doubt we can find a whole brick in Bremen even now. And you saw how Hamburg looked when we flew over it… in seven years, they've only rebuilt maybe eighty percent. Who knows how Celle looks… I doubt it's much better."

"Well, perhaps not, but…"

Smiling wistfully, Janice returned to the table and wrapped her arms around her taller partner. As the two women embraced, Janice leaned her head against Mel's upper chest. "I'm just worried I'm asking too much of you, Toots. Heading off into the unknown all over again with no guarantees we'll ever achieve anything. It might turn dangerous… a swell dame like you deserves a helluva lot better than a-"

"Janice Covington, let me be the judge of what I deserve!" Mel said as she held Janice out at arm's length so she could look her in the eye. "We're the best team since Xena and Gabrielle. Aren't we?  Whatever we do, we do together. Wherever we go, we go together. If that means going to Germany and the Luneburg Heath to search for the origins of the Langobardi, then that's what we'll do. End of discussion."

"Well-"

"Silence, for I have spoken!  You don't want to make me mad now, do you?" Mel said and added a series of sly winks that earned her a silly snicker in return. To underscore her words, she leaned down and claimed Janice's lips in a warm, loving and above all lengthy kiss.

*
*
EPILOGUE

The next morning, the restaurant of the historical inn was busier than it had been for years. It seemed everyone had showed up to say goodbye to their foreign guests including a few of those residents of Jelling who had only heard of the tall, elegant Southerner and her strangely-clad Yankee associate. There was so much merry yakking in the restaurant that it bore a striking resemblance to the popular annual cattle show in the next town over.

Anne-Marie Lindholm and her helpers had all their ovens, pots and pans going at full steam to make enough buns, sweetened breakfast bread and hot coffee for the influx of people. While that went on in the kitchen, the portly Svend-Aage had been pressed into performing serving duties, and he carried trays around with great aplomb - even if his bulk meant he had problems fitting between the tables and the many visitors present.

Ulrikke Jensen had arrived too late to find a vacant chair, so she enjoyed a well-buttered raisin bun and a mug of coffee while leaning against the wall at the back of the room. As always, the tough guard wore her military-issue boots and the impeccable khaki uniform. Her dark-green beret had been folded up and tucked under her shoulder strap as the dress code dictated.

When Mel and Janice entered the restaurant, they nearly spun around to leave again when they were faced with such a wall of yakking people. Some clapped at them, some tapped cake forks or spoons against their mugs, and others let out congratulatory cheers.

"Goodness gracious me!" Mel said and adjusted her glasses. "Why, I'd never expected anything like this!  Hello… hello, everybody!" She hurriedly dug into the pocket of her tailor-made travel dress to find her phrase book. "Good dakk!  Good morr-ken, alli samman!"

Another round of cheers rose from the guests before everyone settled down to allow the two Americans to get some breakfast. While Mel made her way over to the last remaining vacant table that had been held in reserve for that exact purpose, Janice finally stepped into the restaurant itself with a sour look on her face.

Ulrikke chuckled at the sight as she moved over to the leather-jacket wearing Janice. "Good morning, Doctor. That's what I call a frown… didn't the night go well?"

Janice at least tried to screw a smile on her face, but it never went that far and soon disappeared altogether. "The night was fabulous, General, but the morning turned to shit in a hurry. Mel and me just said goodbye to the professor. Goddamn, he's the most pig-headed fella I've ever dealt with… and that says a lot, lemme tell ya… that says a helluva lot."

Mrs. Lindholm soon came out of the kitchen carrying a tray that held another stack of fresh buns and slices of sweetened breakfast bread. It only took a flash before the stacks were gone, but she kept a few buns in reserve for her foreign guests. "Would you like a bolle, Doctor… uh… undskyld, Frøken Jensen, men ved De hvad en bolle hedder på engelsk?"

"Det hedder 'a bun,' Fru Lindholm," Ulrikke said before she turned back to Janice. "Raisin buns. They're great, Doc. Slap a ton of butter on it and you take a bite of heaven."

"I could use it," Janice said and reached for the halved bun that had already been buttered and put on a plate. "Thank you very much," she continued, making sure to speak slowly and pronounce every word clearly so Mrs. Lindholm could understand her.

"Åh, det forstod jeg godt!  Selv tak, Doktor!" Mrs. Lindholm said before she left for the kitchen.

"You're welcome," Ulrikke translated - Janice grinned and took the first bite of her buttered raisin bun.

A minute or so of simultaneous chewing went by before a darker look fell over Ulrikke's face. "Say, Doc… a little bird told me you'll be going to Germany next?"

"That's right. Well, that's the plan, anyway."

"I can't recommend it. In fact, I'd advise against it," Ulrikke said decisively. "It's only been seven years since the end of the Thousand Year Reich. I've heard from reliable sources that many still pine for the good, old days. And then you have hundreds of thousands of lice-infested refugees… not to mention hundreds of thousands of interned German soldiers around."

"Well, yeah, but they gotta be twiddling their thumbs in P.O.W. camps?"

"Yes and no. They're interned, all right, but they aren't officially prisoners of war. They're called surrendered enemy personnel. They have enough manpower in the camps to form three full-sized infantry divisions if they'd want. It would only take a spark to ignite the powder keg all over again, Doctor. They're not to be trusted. Mark my words," Ulrikke continued in a sharp voice.

Janice grunted as she took another bite out of the tasty raisin bun.

"If you don't mind me asking, where are you planning on going?"

"To the Luneburg Heath. It's not too far south of Hamburg."

Ulrikke matched Janice's earlier grunt with one of her own. "I know where it is. That's going to be difficult, Doctor. Most of the heath is strictly off-limits for civilians. The British use it as a staging area and training grounds for their tank and artillery crews."

"What?!  Goddammit!" Janice said and looked up in a hurry. Her face scrunched up into an annoyed mask before she bit off another bite of the bun with a little more force than necessary.

"Is it really worth it to expose your elegant lady friend to all that bother?" Ulrikke said and looked over at Mel who held court for Hanne Nielsen and Ellen Chrone while she enjoyed a thick slice of sweetened breakfast bread in her typically classy style.

"I had some of the same concerns, General. Mel told me to shut up and pack my bags," Janice said and broke out in a shrug. "Now, I'm not so sure…"

Ulrikke needed to digest that for a short while; then she mirrored the shrug and drained the last few drops of her coffee. "Well, who am I to argue with that?  In any case, I have a gift for you-"

"Men Frøken Jensen, da!" Anne-Marie Lindholm exclaimed right next to the two unusually-dressed women - she had just returned from the kitchen and carried two pale-blue metal pots of coffee in her strong hands. "Doktoren skal da ikke have gift!  Hvad er det dog for noget pjat?"

Ulrikke did a double-take at the exclamation before she let out a dry chuckle. "Gift betyder gave på engelsk, Fru Lindholm."

"Nåh… jamen, så er jeg mere rolig. Undskyld forstyrrelsen… sorry for… for… disturbing," Mrs. Lindholm said before she moved around the room offering fresh coffee to the guests who had already finished theirs.

Ulrikke chuckled again before she turned back to Janice. "In Danish, gift means poison…"

"Oh… okay," Janice said and echoed Ulrikke's chuckle.

The tough guard glanced left and right before she leaned in to speak for Janice's ears only: "It also means married."

"Huh!  Poison and married are the same word. Now there's a laugh for ya."

"Anyway," Ulrikke said and reached into one of the pockets of her uniform jacket. "Here's one of my regimental ensigns. Not that we ever got to know each other or anything, but… you know. I've enjoyed these last few days working with you and Miss Pappas," she continued as she held up a brass emblem identical to the one on the front of her beret - it depicted a laurel wreath and pair of crossed bayonets.

"Wow, that's great, General… Olrickah. Thanks a whole bunch!  I really appreciate it," Janice said and studied the ensign. Even beyond the fact it was an unexpected gift, the weight and the texture of the brass gave it importance. Smiling at the show of friendship, Janice tucked the gift into her leather jacket's liner pocket so it would be safe. "Oh, I hope the cigarettes were the right kind?  It said Cecil on the carton, but I noticed the logo was a little different compared to the individual packs…"

"Yes, they're just fine. Green Cecils. No filter, only the full taste," Ulrikke said, quoting the famous cigarette brand's old advertising slogan.

"That's great," Janice said and reached out to thump Ulrikke's shoulder. Looking past the tough guard, she noticed that Mel had finished her helping of sweetened breakfast bread and was about to say goodbye to the four students who were still lined up at the table. "It's been a hoot, Olrickah, but I hear my Mel callin'. See ya sometime, yeah?"

"Stay in one piece, Doctor," Ulrikke said and stood to firm attention. Though she didn't wear her beret, she still gave Janice a proper salute as a parting present - it was responded to in time-honored fashion by the tipping of the somewhat battered fedora.

As Mel pushed her chair back to the table, she was joined by Janice. "What a lovely breakfast. The sweetened bread was just as good as the lemon-flavored sponge cake. Did you get any of it?"

"I had a raisin bun. It was neat," Janice said before she turned to Professor Granfeldt's four assistants. As she took in their somber expressions, she couldn't help but feel sorry for the young people who had to endure another few years of the professor's dictatorial rule before they could escape his clutches and go out in the real world: The intellectual-looking Henning Mikkelsen with the round glasses and the sandy hair, the angular features of the more boorish
Torben Kjærsgaard whose English skills left a lot to be desired, and finally the two young ladies Hanne Nielsen and Ellen Chrone who may have shared a few gossipy whispers about private matters but who were enthusiastic and dedicated to their field. "Well, gals and guys… it's been interesting. Thanks for all your hard work. If Mel and me ever take another swing up through here, we'll be sure to look you up. Hi de ho, ladies… fellas," Janice continued and tipped her misshapen fedora.

"But Doctor Covington," Henning said, "I'm supposed to drive you back to Vejle…"

Janice momentarily reeled at the thought of repeating the eon-long trip crammed into the back of the old sedan next to the heavy luggage and with the inexperienced Henning behind the wheel. "Naw, tell ya what, bub… is the sedan gassed up?"

"Uh… I don't kn- oh… oh, yes, I put petrol in it yesterday…"

"Okay. No problemo. I'll drive. We'll just park it somewhere by the train station," Janice said and pushed her fedora back from her brow. Next to her, Mel let out a long grunt of surprise while she adjusted her glasses. "I've been driving since before you were born, Henning. I have a Harley-Davidson back home and I've never had a wreck-"

"Except-" Mel said, but she didn't make it further than the first word.

"That wasn't a wreck. I drove into the hedge on purpose to avoid that drunken jerk in the Studebaker, Toots. But anyway, I've driven military trucks and jeeps and… shoot, ambulances!  Your sedan won't be a problem, Henning. Yeah?" Janice continued and waved her hand in dismissal at the unsaid protests.

Henning Mikkelsen offered her a wide-eyed stare through his round spectacles. He turned to look at the other students who all shrugged. "Well… I suppose that's… uh… all right."

"You betcha, Henning. Whaddaya say, Mel… is it time to blow this popsicle stand?"

For the second time in less than a minute, Mel was interrupted before she could reply - this time, the interruptee was Mrs. Lindholm who hurried into the restaurant holding a large knapsack in her hands. "Nu skal I bare se her!  Jeg har lavet… uh… I made sandwiches. Yes?  Good sandwiches. Many kinds. Ham and cheese and all the good things."

"Why, thank you very much, Mrs. Lindholm," Mel said and took the large knapsack. She had barely taken hold of it before her sensitive nose picked up the familiar scent of baloney - she didn't dare ask if Mrs. Lindholm had used the dreaded salted pig lard on those sandwiches. Nodding and smiling for all she was worth, Mel swapped the knapsack to her free hand so she and the expert matron of the kitchen could perform the traditional handshake.

"Farvel, farvel… og mange tak for besøget!  Uh… uh… farewell, farewell. And many thank you for the visit. I hope you can come back one day."

Janice grinned and tipped her fedora at Mrs. Lindholm and the four students who all offered their goodbyes as well. Once she and Mel had escaped the crush in the restaurant, they went into the lobby where all of Mel's luggage was already lined up - the urn and the new scrolls had been wrapped in several layers of protective cloth and put into her leather bag so no harm would come to them.

Svend-Aage Lindholm sat behind the reception desk reading an old brochure, but he got up and lumbered around the corner to shake hands with the foreign guests as well. "Goodbye, Doctor. Miss Pappas. I hope you've had a nice stay all in all."

"Goodbye, Mr. Lindholm," Mel said. "Yes, it's been pleasurable. All in all."

After Mel had shaken hands with the innkeeper, Janice stepped forward and mirrored the gesture. "It's been neat, Sven-Owa. Kinda. You can definitely keep your shitty weather, though," she said with a grin - it earned her a dramatic sigh from Mel.

---

Wonder of wonders: the sun was out, the sky was painted in a fetching shade of blue, and the temperature was pleasant for the first time since the two Americans had arrived. White, fluffy clouds drifted peacefully across the heavens like no weather-related dramas had occurred over the past few days at all.

Janice dragged her duffel bag and the heavy suitcases out to the waiting Opel Super Six that Henning had parked near the main entrance. Once the luggage had been sorted by size, she stored it in the trunk and onto the back seat to fully utilize the space available.

Another half a dozen goodbyes needed to be exchanged before Mel finally sat down on the passenger seat up front. The first thing she did was to roll down the window and stick her head and her phrase book out. "Farrr-well!  Farrr-well!  Ha' dey good!  Ha' dey good, alli samman!" she said while waving at the people they had come to know during their stay.

"All set?" Janice said as she started the pre-war Opel. The engine ran a little rough to begin with but soon settled down into a steady rhythm.

"All set, dear."

"Good. Olrickah told me something that we need to discuss on the way. I'll fill you in later."

"I see. Bad news?"

"Eh… too early to say. It might be."

"Well, even if it is, I'm sure we can overcome it. All right… next stop Vie-la," Mel said and took full use of the final opportunity to wave at the mass of people who had flocked out to the front of the historical inn.

As the old car drove off en route for Vejle, Janice broke out in a grin. "And after that… watch out, world, 'cos Melinda Pappas and Janice Covington are coming your way!"

*
*
THE END

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