important news that the monks had agreed to buy their horses and that passage to Ireland had been arranged on the ship of a Breton trader. Its captain, Vulgrin of Brest, spoke little English, but had a reasonable grasp of Irish Danish, a tongue close enough to Einar’s Anglo-Norse to allow arrangements to be reasonably straightforward.
The Great Western Sea to Ireland could be treacherous, and the cold westerly winds of autumn made progress slow on the long crossing. Late into the second night on board, Hereward and Torfida found themselves alone at the prow of the ship. At the stern, with Captain Vulgrin at his side keeping a watchful eye on the skies, the helmsman held the huge tiller hard into the wind as he tacked against it. The waning moon was bright enough to throw silver flashes across the undulating water, while the few clouds that did appear dashed across the night sky. The lunar glow kept most stars at bay, but Venus shone through like a sentinel. Vulgrin was watching its position in the sky and knew where it had risen against the Pole Star, making navigation on such a night relatively easy for an experienced sailor. It was on nights when the elements closed in that seafaring became a challenging, often frightening, experience, when the precious lodestone, which by some miracle always pointed north, became essential in averting disaster.
Vulgrin’s ship sat broad and deep in the water. Like the Viking ships of legend, its elegantly sweeping boarded sides came to powerful points fore and aft in the form of mythical beasts. Its large single sail could be tilted if the wind was against, but there were also rowlocks along the timber-heads where oarsmen could lend their strength and skill in difficult conditions. With its ruby-red sail fully set and the wind behind from the south-west, it was a fine sight, prompting Hereward to imagine the terror that must have been struck into Anglo-Saxon hearts as, generations ago, the ‘dragon ships’ of his Danish ancestors suddenly appeared off England’s coast.
Hereward felt that he and his companions were safe in the hands of their confident and experienced Breton captain. He was a small but sturdy man who reminded Hereward of the Welsh, a similarity that made him think about the mix of blood on board their craft. The captain and his helmsman were both Bretons, but the four oarsmen were taller and fairer men from Caen, in the heart of neighbouring Normandy, and were typical of its Viking ancestry. Despite her dark hair and complexion, which was more a Celtic characteristic, Torfida was an Anglo-Saxon of pure blood on both her father’s and mother’s side, while Martin was a small, dark native Celt from one of the North Wales tribes. Einar was Northumbrian Danish, a true Norseman, like a Viking of legend, whose large ruddy appearance matched perfectly the image of his ancestors who had sailed through the Skagerrak generations ago to maraud the British coastline. Hereward was the only one on board who was of mixed blood; he was equally proud of both his Anglo-Saxon and Danish origins.
He remembered the stories Aidan the Priest had told him as a child of the many historic battles between the Saxons and the Danes. It struck him again how unsettled his native land had been, as its many different peoples vied for supremacy. That struggle continued. The great battle at Hereford had shown only too clearly that, under Gruffydd’s forceful leadership, the Welsh tribes were a formidable force. The Scandinavian kings in Norway and Denmark still had designs on the throne of England, which was also drifting ever closer to Normandy, a dukedom with which King Edward had strong ties.
As a boy, Hereward had assumed that life in the England he knew would always be stable and settled. Now he realized that many forces were at work; his homeland had a precarious future. As the ship sailed on, he occasionally looked back towards his native soil.
Would he ever return?
Was it his destiny to play a part in the turmoil to come?
Torfida suddenly put an end to Hereward’s introspection by handing him the Talisman. ‘You should take this now.’
‘So this is what your father talked of — the thing that made Gruffydd tremble and contemplate his future.’
‘My father told me that it has made many men question not only their future, but also their past.’
‘Is it supposed to frighten me?’
‘Does it?’
‘No.’
‘Then you have your answer.’
‘Gruffydd said it had special powers.’
‘Its power lies in what men think of it.’
Hereward examined it, slowly turning it against the light of the moon. ‘It is the face of the Devil, in what looks like amber. But how can it have the Devil’s face in it, with those little creatures? And is that a splash of blood?’
‘I don’t know. My father said that the ancients believed it to be the blood of the Saviour, spilled by him on the cross, and that it holds the Devil at bay by trapping him in the stone.’
‘But why did your father think it important for us?’
‘He believed that the Talisman was like a key to wisdom, and that only great men could understand its message.’
‘That still doesn’t explain its importance for us.’
‘The Talisman has always had a messenger. You are now the envoy; you must carry the Talisman until you find the leader who should wear it.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘When I was young, my father told me that I was destined to meet the man who would be the messenger of the Talisman and that he would stand at the right hand of kings, be their chosen warrior and lead their armies in battle. The Talisman would become a symbol of trust between the messenger and his lord, a private bond of companionship. You are that man. I know this as my father did; that’s why he sent you to me. He told me that I would need to guide the messenger, that we would complement one another and that together we would succeed in fulfilling our destinies. I understand that now. You know my strengths and my weaknesses, and I know yours. My love for you grows every day. I will be at your side for ever — in spirit, if not in flesh.’
‘Your father has been right about everything so far. I would be foolish to doubt him, but all I want for us at the moment is a settled and peaceful life in Ireland.’
‘A peaceful life is not your destiny. You will become a great warrior; everyone can see it in you. A peaceful life is not my destiny either. I am the guide to a man whose strength and skill will allow us to carry the Talisman to a leader who is worthy of it.’
‘Did your father know where the Talisman came from and why he was entrusted with it?’
‘It was given to him by Queen Emma, the mother of King Edward. Even during his long years in the forest, the Queen found ways of getting messages to him. Early one morning, when I was eleven years old, we heard a mounted housecarl from her private retinue in the distance. He had been sent to summon my father to Queen Emma’s deathbed at the monastery of Glastonbury. That’s when she gave him the Talisman. She said that England would soon face a great turning point in its history, when men would fight for the kingdom. Although a Norman herself, she loved her adopted home and its mixed blood and hoped the future king, whoever he might be, would rule England with wisdom and kindness and be a worthy bearer of the ancient Talisman.
‘She said that it had been passed to her by her father, Richard I, Duke of Normandy, who had inherited it from her grandfather, William Longsword, and her great-grandfather, Rolf, the first Viking Duke of Normandy. Before that, its pedigree was illustrious. The story among the Norman aristocracy claims that it had been passed through the old Frankish kings and that it had even been worn by the great Emperor Charlemagne. Legend says that Charlemagne had been given it when he married Theodora, the daughter of Desiderio, King of Lombardy, whose family claimed descent from the emperors of Rome.’
‘And now it’s in our lowly hands on a ship bound for the edge of the world!’
‘Let me finish, Hereward. Queen Emma married two kings of England and was mother to two more, but she either decided that her husbands and sons were not worthy of the Talisman, or perhaps they refused it, so she asked my father, the only man she could trust, to find a way for it to continue its journey to its rightful inheritor. She believed in its power and that it was important for the future of the realm. My father promised to try but said that he preferred the contemplative life of the forest to a search for wisdom among future kings. “Then it must be Torfida’s task,” was her response. “If she is as beautiful as her mother was and as wise as her father, she will be worthy. Trust in the Talisman; it will find a way.” They were her final words to him.’
Hereward thought about what Torfida had said and what it might mean for their future.
