“The Second World War was a dark period for the Church,” O’Connor said grimly. “The Pope never gave Hitler an excuse to plunder the Vatican. But there have been plenty of others knocking on our doors since then. Zionist fantasists, conspiracy theorists, treasure-hunters who believe they’re halfway to finding the Holy Grail. I can assure you they have all been on a dead-end trail.”
At that moment there was a bustle of activity outside and Costas burst into the room. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said breathlessly, “but I thought you should see this.” He hurried over and handed Jack a piece of paper. “Remember those timbers with the chain in the Golden Horn? You thought they looked a little odd.”
“Overlapping strakes, attached with iron rivets.” Jack struggled to take his mind off the menorah and focus on their remarkable find of two days before. “More in the northwest European tradition of shipbuilding in the early medieval period. Odd for a Venetian galley of 1453.”
“Well, there’s your answer.” Costas leaned forward excitedly, his hands on the table. “The sample we brought back’s just been analysed. It’s Scandinavian oak. And it’s from the prow of a longship, not a Mediterranean galley. It looks as if it broke off in the chain, probably without sinking the vessel. And check out the tree-ring date.”
“Ten forty-two, plus or minus a year,” Jack read, his mind reeling with astonishment.
Jeremy let out a whoop and stood up, unable to contain himself. “It fits perfectly! Harald Hardrada fled Constantinople in 1042. His ship could have been built the year before, on the shores of the Baltic. You haven’t found the chain from the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 at all. You’ve found the chain sunk by a band of Viking mercenaries a century and a half earlier, as they powered their longship out of the Golden Horn.”
Costas glanced at the image of the soldiers burdened with loot in the triumphal procession on the arch. “And now we know what could have given their ship the weight to smash that chain.”
“The menorah.” Jack shook his head and then grinned broadly at Costas. “I’ve got to hand it to you. Another one for science.”
5
Jackpeered out the window as the aircraft banked to starboard and the full expanse of the ocean came dramatically into view. It had been a cloudless early morning, and the sun shimmered off the waves more than thirty thousand feet below. For half an hour since their refuelling stop at Reykjavik they had been out of sight of land, but after passing over the Arctic Circle the sea had become increasingly speckled with white. Some of the shapes were huge slabs of white surrounded by turquoise where each iceberg continued for hundreds of metres underwater. Now the bergs were joined by sea ice, a fractured mosaic of white that extended as far as the eye could see, and Jack could make out the first fingers of land ahead of them to the west. He leaned towards the occupant of the seat opposite him and pointed through the window.
“You can see the Greenland ice cap.”
“It’s breathtaking.”
Maria’s face was ablaze with excitement, and Jack again felt certain he had been right to invite her along. After O’Connor had left for Rome three days before, Jack had put in a call to James Macleod to follow up on Costas’ account of a discovery in the ice. Macleod had revealed more, much more, an exciting development over the last few days that now made Jack’s visit imperative. The ice corer had turned up a sample that made the account of a ship buried in the ice far more than just a local legend. Jack had also learned of another extraordinary find that would call upon Maria and Jeremy’s expertise, and they had both leapt at the chance to join him for a few days on IMU’s premier research vessel in one of the most important projects they had ever undertaken.
Now they all sat in the forward compartment of a customized Embraer EMB-145, the sleek regional jet IMU used for personnel transport around the world. Across the aisle Jeremy was hunched behind a sea of paper and books, tapping on a laptop. Jack closed the introduction to Old Norse he had been reading and stared out the window again. For the past few days he had absorbed himself in Harald Hardrada, reigniting a boyhood passion. On his mother’s side Jack’s family had come from coastal Yorkshire, tall, blond people whose accent even retained a Scandinavian lilt, and Jack had always felt a strong affinity with his Norse ancestors. Harald Hardrada was the greatest of all the Viking heroes, yet his was a life unfulfilled. A man who would be king, whose destiny seemed too great even for him to reach. At the flip of a coin Harald could have won the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and the history of England-of the whole world-would have been different. Jack had driven alone to the battle site near York the day before, had slogged around the muddy fields feeling for the spot where Harald had wielded his battle-axe for the last time. He had felt close, had almost felt a presence, yet had come away strangely unsatisfied. Something was not quite right.
Opposite him in the aircraft Costas was slumped over in his seat, snoring fitfully, his head slowly descending to his chest and then jerking back up again. He had been up all night in the engineering lab perfecting the ice probe, and was still wearing his favourite tattered IMU overalls. With his stubble and tousled hair he looked more than ever like his grandfather, a Greek sponge fisherman who had made a fortune in shipping but had insisted that his family remain close to their roots. It was a legacy that Costas had unwittingly developed to a fine art in his appearance.
Jack grinned across at Maria as Costas snorted and stirred, and the two of them returned their gaze to the window. The coastline of eastern Greenland appeared as an irregular line of rock between the sea and the ice cap, the bare outcrops of granite girding inlets filled with shattered slabs of white. Soon they were directly over the ice cap itself, a carpet of brilliant white that undulated to the horizon, its surface dotted with pockets of meltwater that shone like turquoise gems in the morning sunlight. It was one of the world’s most forbidding landscapes, yet it had a compelling beauty that drew out the explorer in Jack, that made him understand what drove the Norse adventurers who first sailed to these shores a thousand years ago.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand.” Costas had suddenly jolted awake, as if there had been no hiatus in the conversation they had been having an hour before. “Harald Hardrada was killed in England, in 1066. Right? Then how come the map inscription suggests he died somewhere out here?”
Jack gave Costas a bemused look and they both peered at Jeremy, who was ruffling a sheaf of papers and seemed completely preoccupied by his work.
“Jeremy?” Maria said.
“Huh?”
“The Battle of Ragnarok in the map inscription. How does that fit in with Harald’s death at Stamford Bridge?”
“Oh, the wording was probably just figurative,” Jeremy said dismissively. “All Viking warriors slain in battle went to Valhalla, where they served Odin and awaited the final showdown against evil at Ragnarok. Valhalla was perceived as being in the west, beyond the rim of the world. The inscription doesn’t necessarily imply that Harald and his men met their fate there.”
“And the treasure of Michelgard?”
“Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.”
“Jeremy, do you have my copy of Sturluson?” There was an edge of irritation in Maria’s voice as Jeremy held out a book without looking at her, his attention concentrated on his computer. She took the book and held the cover towards Costas. It showed an image of a knight on horseback clad in chain mail, wearing a close-fitting open helmet with a nose-guard and carrying a large kite-shaped shield.
“Looks like a Crusader,” Costas said.
“Not far off,” Maria replied. “This is from a tapestry in Norway dating from the twelfth century, a hundred years or so after Harald died. But in the absence of any kind of portrait of him, it gives a pretty good idea of what Harald and his men would have looked like. The Varangian bodyguard in Constantinople were Vikings by birth and upbringing, and carried the dreaded war axe of the Norse. The axe was the stuff of legends, man-high, single-bitted, terrifying in battle. The Varangians cashed in on the reputation of their forebears, Vikings who had raped and pillaged their way around western Europe, and had even sailed into the Mediterranean to terrorise Italy and France. But the Varangians were also pretty cosmopolitan characters who had spent their adult lives in Constantinople, the most sophisticated city in the medieval world, serving the Byzantine emperors. Their armour and finery wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Crusades, and they would have spoken Greek as well as Norse. Harald Hardrada
