Free Wrack and Rune by Charlotte MacLeod

the fragment of helmet and pronounced it without hesitation as having come from Uppsala circa A.D. 900. He also said, in Swedish so as not to hurt her feelings, that one could always find a willing woman but a runestone in this benighted wilderness was a treat he hadn’t expected and what were they waiting for?
    Thorkjeld, fired with enthusiasm, clamored to drive the party over to the Horsefalls’. Shandy said him a loud and final nay. He’d do the driving himself. He was simply not up to riding with a berserker tonight.
    On the way over, Uncle Sven studied the rubbing, which Cronkite and Helen had patched together at dinnertime with cellophane tape. He agreed with Thorkjeld about Orm and thought the next word was “Tokesson,” which would mean, obviously, “Orm, son of Toke.” He granted the curse but reserved judgment on the rest of the inscription. At least they were now sure this was not one of those geological freaks that had aroused false hopes in the area before.
    Helen had predicted Peter wouldn’t find the Horsefalls mourning alone on his return trip, and as usual she proved right. A fair number of relatives and neighbors had gathered, bringing cakes, cookies, condolences, and curiosity. Miss Hilda had changed into what had no doubt been her best summer dress for the past thirty years or more: a lilac print, set off by a handsome amethyst brooch that must date from an earlier, more prosperous era. At sight of her, Uncle Sven’s mustache ends began to curl upward.
    She shoved forward two fiftyish men who might have been twins. “This here’s Eddie, Professor, and this is Ralph. They’re the great-nephews we was tellin’ you about.”
    Both were tallish and spare, with the stooped shoulders, the weather-beaten faces, and the resigned but resolute “What’s Ma Nature and the government going to soak us with next?” expressions that betoken small farmers everywhere. Shandy felt favorably disposed toward both by instinct, though he knew he shouldn’t. Both had large families, iron-jawed wives, and a general aura of not being quite able to make ends meet. Already he could detect murmurs about which of them would get to move in with the old folks and run the farm, and he recognized one of Ralph’s sons as having been a prime troublemaker at the college’s Grand Illumination two years ago, before he himself had taken over that disreputable role.
    Ralph Junior was fifteen or so, big for his age, and, it would seem, already angry enough with an unfair world to do the sorts of damage Henny Horsefall had been plagued with. He probably owned a bike and didn’t live far away. He must know his folks were in the running to get the farm; perhaps he’d decided to hurry matters along by scaring old Henny into feeling the need of protection. Or perhaps somebody else, such as that grim-looking aunt of his, knew the boy’s record as a public nuisance and was operating on the principle of “Give a dog a bad name and hang him.” Shandy began to feel overburdened with likely suspects.
    “Sorry, President,” he muttered. “I might have known there’d be a mob here as soon as word about the hired man got around. We’d better not mention the runestone for the moment. It might start a stampede.”
    “Then what in hell did you lug us over here for?” Svenson growled back.
    “Don’t worry, we’ll get to it one way or another. Would you mind pretending for the moment that you’re here as emissary from the college’s Agricultural Laborers’ Assistance Fund?”
    “We don’t have one.”
    “Yes we do. Tim and I founded it this afternoon.”
    “Oh.”
    Svenson didn’t need to be told any more. He went properly and sedately to pay his respects to Miss Hilda and her nephew, thus elevating them in the local social scale beyond their wildest dreams. It was a hitherto unheard-of honor for President Thorkjeld Svenson, renowned academician and holder of the Balaclava County Senior Plowmen’s Trophy since God knew