“Well, what does it say?”
Jeremy cleared his throat again. “I’ve had to add some connectives to make sense of it, but here’s the gist: Halfdan died here of wounds received in the battle against the King of England near Yorvik. Halfdan will fight again for Odin at Ragnarok. Harald Sigurdsson his king made these runes the winter after the battle. The Wolf takes Halfdan to Valhalla. The Eagle sails west for Vinland.”
There was a stunned silence. “Harald Sigurdsson,” Jack gasped. “That’s Harald Hardrada.”
“The Mappa Mundi inscription from Hereford suggests he was out here,” Maria said. “Now we know for sure.”
Jeremy nodded. “The Wolf must be the name of the ship in the ice. The Eagle, the other ship, sailed on for Vinland. That’s the name of the Viking settlement in Newfoundland, the site at L’Ause aux Meadows, the farthest Viking outpost in the west and the only one known in North America.”
“Wait a minute.” Jack’s mind was suddenly reeling in astonishment. “Yorvik was the Viking name for the city of York, seven miles west of Stamford Bridge. The battle can only be Stamford Bridge in 1066, between King Harold Godwinson of England and King Harald Hardrada of Norway.”
“Correct.”
“But Harald Hardrada died at Stamford Bridge.”
“So the history books tell us,” Jeremy replied quietly. “But remember there’s no firsthand account of the battle. The events of that year were completely eclipsed by the Norman Conquest, and the Norman annals were hardly likely to extol an English victory. Most of what we know comes from a brief mention in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and from the Heimskringla, the semi-mythical history of the kings of Norway written in Iceland almost two centuries later. The copy of the Chronicle we found in the Hereford library mentions it, but only in a few lines.”
“Plenty of scope for omission, even a cover-up,” Costas murmured.
“My God.” Jack slumped back against the railing, his face dripping with seawater and sweat. “So Harald Hardrada survived Stamford Bridge. That changes everything. Somehow he and his remaining warriors made it out here, in the same two ships he had used to escape from Constantinople twenty years before. Remember the treasure of Michelgard, that incredible reference on the Hereford map? Harald must have had his treasure with him when he went to England, ready for a triumphal procession through York and London that never happened. Instead he sailed off after the defeat, taking it with him and his surviving followers far to the west, seeking a new land beyond the edge of the Viking world.” Jack lifted Halfdan’s axe in his hands, then gave a tired but jubilant smile. “I think we’ve just had another piece of battle-luck. I knew I was right to come out here.”
“You might like to have this then.” Costas had reached into the inner pocket of his E-suit lying nearby, and pulled out a small nodule of ice. “I was sure I’d dropped this when the berg rolled, so I didn’t mention it. I found it loose above the burial chamber, near that Nazi dagger.”
He handed the dripping object to Jack, who rolled it in his fingers and then passed it to Maria. A lustrous gold band protruded from one side of the ice, and Maria eyed it closely. “It’s a finger-ring, a Viking design,” she murmured. “Twisted gold, like a miniature arm-ring or neck-torque. But I’ve never seen one with a signet like this.” She clasped the ice in the warmth of her palm and then began rubbing it, gradually revealing the gold beneath. After a few moments she held it up to the sunlight. “I can see the surface of the signet. It’s got an impressed design. It’s…” Her voice trailed off, then she regained her composure. “Jack, tell me I’m not seeing things.”
She passed the ring over and Jack stared through the ice that still clung to the signet. The form beneath wavered, but the outline was unmistakable.
“The menorah.”
Jack stared at the seven-branched shape, his heart racing. Something amazing was happening. First the ship in the ice had proved to be Viking, the funerary vessel of a Varangian warrior. A man who would have served with Harald Hardrada, whose last journey to the far side of the world took place in one of the very vessels Hardrada had used to break free from Constantinople, a ship which had sailed across the Golden Horn on the very spot where Jack and Costas had stood aboard Sea Venture only days previously. And now this, an extraordinary link to the greatest lost treasure of antiquity, something Jack assumed had disappeared forever after Stamford Bridge.
“Don’t get your hopes up yet,” Costas said quietly. “This might not be all it seems.”
“What do you mean?”
Costas had sidled up alongside and was peering inside the ring, at the interior face of the signet. “As Maria said, tell me I’m not seeing things.”
Jack flipped the ring over and let out a gasp. It was a shape as old and familiar as the menorah, but this version of it could only be modern. They had been looking at it on the dagger only minutes before. It was a swastika.
Jack looked up slowly, his elation replaced by blank puzzlement. Maria glanced at him and then turned to Jeremy, her face set. “The time is now,” she said to the young man firmly. She squatted down between Jack and Costas while Jeremy remained standing, fidgeting slightly and looking paler than usual.
“Jack,” Maria said quietly, “about that Nazi expedition. There’s more you need to know. There are forces at play here far darker than we could ever have imagined. Jeremy’s got something to tell you.”
12
Maria and Jeremy led Jack and Costas through the imposing west entrance of Iona Abbey and down the worn flagstones of the nave. It was cool inside, a refreshing break from the tepid summer air outside, and the east window above the altar bathed the interior in a rich light. Standing off to one side was a tall, blond man gazing contemplatively at the window, his arms folded across his chest and one hand on his chin. When he saw Jack he seemed to know who he was and pointed towards the doorway opposite him. Jack nodded in acknowledgement and followed the others through a low stone entrance into the open courtyard of the cloister beyond.
“Father O’Connor is waiting for us,” Jeremy said. “He’s a long-standing member of the Iona community, and he has a room in the north range where he retreats for research and writing when he can get away from the Vatican.”
“Do we trust this guy?” Costas said, his voice sounding loud in the cloister. “I mean, he’s a bit of an unknown quantity.”
Maria stopped and turned sharply on him. “You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust him.”
“Okay.” Costas saw Jack gesturing at him to back off. “Sorry. It’s just a hell of a long way to come.”
“He insisted that we meet him here.” Maria’s voice was still curt, and she stopped and took out her cellphone. “I’ll join you. I’ve got to make an urgent call. Jeremy knows the way.”
That morning they had flown in the IMU Embraer from Greenland to Glasgow in Scotland, and then taken the waiting helicopter one hundred miles northwest to the island of Mull. It had only been twenty-four hours since Jack and Costas had escaped from the perils of the iceberg, and both men had slept soundly most of the way. On Mull they had joined the well-worn pilgrim route to the holy isle of Iona, taking the ferry across the narrow channel to Port Ronain, then walking up through the village to the abbey buildings in their setting of meadows with the sparkling blue sea beyond. As they gazed at the abbey Jeremy had explained that a building had stood on this spot since the time St. Columba arrived from Ireland almost fifteen hundred years before, had survived Viking raids, the Reformation and abandonment, and was now once again a thriving monastery and one of the holiest sites in the British Isles.
They passed along the sunlit alley of the cloister to another small door and ascended a wooden staircase to an attic corridor with windows overlooking the abbey. Jeremy knocked on a door and a moment later they heard the clatter of a bolt being unlatched and a chain withdrawn.
“Gentlemen. Welcome.” Father O’Connor ushered them in, then locked the door again behind him. He had discarded his Jesuit cassock in favour of the plain brown robe of a monk, and with his cropped white hair and the simple wooden cross hanging on his chest he seemed straight out of the Middle Ages. He looked pale and worn, older than when they had seen him a few days before in Cornwall. The room was small, piled high with books and papers, and they could see where O’Connor had been working at a laptop on a desk in the corner. They picked their way across the floor and sat down on wooden chairs arranged in a semi-circle in front of the desk. Above the small fireplace opposite, Jack recognized a scaled-down reproduction of the Hereford Mappa Mundi. Propped up beside it
