Crusader Gold

by David Gibbins

  Maria was flushed with excitement. “But if this is truly the hand of Richard of Holdingham, then it dates more than two centuries earlier than the Vinland Map.

  You can forget early English history for a while. You may just have discovered the oldest known depiction of North America.”

  They stared at each other in amazement. The Mappa Mundi and this sketch dated from the thirteenth century, almost three centuries before the first European voyages of discovery to the New World, hundreds of years before the first maps of the American shoreline were thought to have been drawn.

  “There’s more writing farther down.”

  Maria had been focussed on the upper part of the depiction and had failed to register a second faint inscription beyond the drawing. She moved her magnifying glass a few inches lower.

  “This definitely isn’t on the Vinland Map,” she said. “It’s in the Roman alphabet, but it isn’t Latin or French. It looks like Old Norse.”

  She passed Jeremy the glass and took the map to hold it for him, tacitly acknowledging his greater expertise in the language of the Vikings.

  “There’s a curious rune here,” he murmured. “It’s set at the beginning of the inscription like the illuminated letter of a medieval text. A single stem with branches on either side, angled up. It looks symmetrical. Five, maybe seven branches altogether, including the stem. Very odd.”

  “Can you make out anything else?”

  “Harald Sigurdsson.” He paused and looked up. “That’s Harald Hardrada, Harald Hard-Ruler, king of Norway. Killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in his attempt to take the English throne in 1066, only weeks before the Norman Conquest.”

  “It’s not possible,” Maria whispered incredulously. “Go on.”

  “Harald Sigurdsson our King with his thole-companions reached these parts with the treasure of Michelgard,” he slowly translated. “Here they feast with Thor in Valhalla and await the final battle of Ragnarøk.”

  He looked up and eyed Maria with disbelief.

  “Isn’t Michelgard the Viking name for Constantinople?”

  For a moment she was too stunned to speak. Then she let the scroll roll up and passed it over.

  “Guard this with your life. Don’t breathe a word of it to anyone.” She picked up the Bede and scrambled hurriedly towards the wall, extracting her cellphone as she went. Just as she was about to crouch through, Jeremy called out excitedly.

  “That rune,” he said. “I knew I’d seen it somewhere before. It’s not a rune at all.

  I can’t work out why on earth it should be here, but there’s only one thing it can be. It’s the symbol of the Jewish menorah.”

  3

  IT’S INCREDIBLE,” JACK SAID. “I KNEW HARALD Hardrada and the Vikings had been in Constantinople, but I never dreamt he’d been across the Atlantic. It puts Christopher Columbus in the shade once and for all.”

  “You’ve lost me already,” Costas replied. “Vikings in Constantinople?”

  Jack took a gulp of his coffee and stood up. “Wait here.”

  The two men had been in England for less than an hour, having taken a dawn flight from Turkey direct to the Royal Naval Air Station at Culdrose and transferring by Lynx helicopter to the campus of the International Maritime University nearby. Costas had scheduled his return to England several days before, knowing that once the sub-bottom excavator in the Golden Horn was fully operational, he would be needed to provide technical backup for another IMU field project off the coast of Greenland. For Jack the decision had come only the previous evening, following the extraordinary phone call from his friend Maria de Montijo in Hereford. He had summoned an emergency meeting of the excavation staff and had asked Maurice Hiebermeyer to take over the archaeological supervision on Sea Venture, knowing that his friend would be delighted to accept a role well beyond his usual remit in the deserts of Egypt.

  “You’d better make it quick.” Costas extracted a cellphone from his oil-spattered overalls and checked a text message. “They’re due in any time now.”

  Jack nodded and made his way from the patio where they had been sitting to the open door of his office. He paused to look back over the broad sweep of Carrick Roads, the sinuous estuary which led out from the tip of Cornwall towards the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. From here generations of his ancestors had set sail to shape the destiny of England and make their fortune. Howards had fought with Drake against the Spanish Armada and under Nelson at Trafalgar, had brought back the riches of the Indies and had mapped the farthest reaches of the oceans.

  Jack felt a surge of certainty as he surveyed the scene, knowing that he was maintaining a family tradition that stretched back a thousand years to before the Norman conquest of England. It was Jack’s father who had decided to donate the Cornwall estate to the fledgling International Maritime University, but IMU

  had been Jack’s dream and he had seen it to fruition. With generous financial backing from Efram Jacobovich, an old friend who had become a software tycoon, the mansion and outbuildings had been transformed into a state-of-the-art research facility that rivalled the world’s best oceanographic institutes. Beside the estuary the old shipyard had been expanded into a sprawling engineering complex, complete with a dry dock facility for the IMU research vessels as well as an experimental tank for submersibles research. On a wooded hill adjoining the complex was the elegant neoclassical building of the Howard Gallery, one of the foremost private collections of art in the world and also a venue for travelling exhibits from the IMU Maritime Museum at Carthage in the Mediterranean. Only a few weeks earlier Jack had inaugurated one of their most stunning exhibits yet, a dazzling display of finds from the Bronze Age Minoan shipwreck they had excavated the previous year. A banner advertisement showing the golden disc and the magnificent bull’s-head sculpture from the wreck adorned the wall facing Jack as he entered his office, a former sixteenth-century drawing room which was now the hub of IMU research and exploration worldwide.

  A few moments later he was back outside with a map of Europe which he unrolled and pinned down on the patio table using their coffee mugs. Costas drew his chair up as Jack swept his hand from Scandinavia to the Black Sea.

  “The Byzantines called them Varangians,” Jack said. “Tall, blond, terrifying barbarians from the north who served as mercenaries in the Byzantine emperor’s legendary Varangian Guard, the successor of the Praetorian Guard of ancient Rome. In Hardrada’s day the Varangian Guard were mainly Vikings, Norse warriors from Scandinavia whose behaviour fully justified their reputation. They pillaged and burned their way around the Mediterranean, thinly disguised as standard-bearers for the Christian emperor but in reality pagan heroes who returned to their homelands in the north full of tales of bloodlust and booty. By the time they were wiped out by the Crusaders during the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, many of the Guard were English, descendants of Anglo-Saxon warriors who had fled England following the Battle of Hastings in 1066

  when William of Normandy defeated King Harold of England.”

  “You mean the other Harold?” Costas queried.

  Jack nodded. “There was Viking blood in all the contestants to the English throne in 1066. The Normans were north-men, descendants of Vikings who had settled in France the century before. King Harold of England’s Anglo-Saxon ancestors were themselves migrants from Denmark and northern Germany. But the only thoroughbred Viking among the contestants in 1066 was Harald Hardrada, King of Norway. He was the most feared of them all, and had learned his trade decades earlier as chief of the Varangian Guard in Constantinople.”

  Costas measured the distance with his hand and shook his head. “That’s over two thousand miles from Norway.”

  “Just as the Vikings were beginning to explore west, to the British Isles and beyond, they were also going east,” Jack explained. “From as early as the eighth-century AD Scandinavian traders were penetrating the rivers of central and eastern Europe, from the Vistula on the Baltic to the Dnieper on the Black Sea.
They were seeking untold wealth, the fabled treasures of the Orient, a hunt for silver and precious stones that took them to Central Asia and deep into the world of Islam. Eventually they founded the Viking kingdom of Rus, the origin of modern Russia. From their stronghold at Kiev they were within striking distance of the place they called Michelgard, the Great City, a perilous journey down the Dnieper but the key to riches beyond their dreams.”

  “That’s how they got to Constantinople?” Costas said.

  Jack smiled. “It’s true. If you don’t believe it, you only have to look at Viking treasure hoards discovered in their Scandinavian homeland, full of Arab silver coins which the Vikings acquired in exchange for furs and slaves and amber.”

  Jack could see Costas looking dubiously at the distance between Norway and present-day Istanbul. “If you still need convincing, take a look at this.” Jack handed him a black-and-white photograph showing a polished marble railing, its surface covered with ancient graffiti. “Those linear symbols on the edge? They’re runes, Viking letters, probably eleventh century. They’re too worn to decipher completely, but a name can be made out: ‘Halfdan was here,’ or something like that. Any guesses where it is? Thousands of tourists pass within touching distance of it every year. It’s in an alcove high above the nave of Hagia Sofia, in the heart of ancient Constantinople. Halfdan was almost certainly one of the Varangian bodyguard, and given the date, he could even have been one of Harald Hardrada’s men.”

  As he finished speaking, a thudding noise from the east that had been increasing in volume became a reverberating clatter, and a Lynx helicopter appeared out of the clouds, descending towards the helipad near the shoreline.

  “I’ll take your word for it.” Costas grinned and handed back the photograph.

  “Right now I think we need to greet our guests.”

  A few minutes later the two men stood at the edge of the helipad as the twin Rolls-Royce Gem turboshafts powered down and the main rotor of the Lynx shuddered to a halt. The first figure to step out of the passenger compartment was a strikingly attractive woman wearing a leather jacket and jeans, her long brown hair swept back into a loose bun. Maria de Montijo was one of Jack’s oldest friends, part of a close-knit group including Maurice Hiebermeyer and Efram Jacobovich who had first met as students at Cambridge. Maria and Jack had helped each other through difficult times and had forged a close bond. He had involved her in the Golden Horn project from the outset, and it made sense that he was the first person she would call with news of the astonishing discovery in Hereford Cathedral.

  Maria’s dark Spanish features creased into a smile as she embraced Jack and Costas in turn. “Jack, you’ve met Jeremy, my American graduate student.” The tall young man who loped behind Maria swept his blond hair from his face and proffered his hand. They had met several weeks earlier when Jack had visited the Institute of Medieval Studies in Oxford to have a translation made of the newly discovered Topkapi manuscript, the eyewitness account of the Crusader siege of Constantinople that contained the crucial position-fix for the chain across the harbour. Jack had been impressed by Jeremy’s facility with the medieval Greek, and had no reason to doubt Maria’s enthusiastic judgement of his potential.

  “How long have you been out of the States?” Costas asked amiably.

  “Three years.” Jeremy peered down at the shorter man through his glasses. “I’ve got a fellowship waiting for me at Princeton, but I just don’t seem to be able to get away from this place.”

  “I know the problem,” Costas said. “I keep trying, but every time I do he finds some reason to keep me here.” He jerked his head towards Jack and grinned.

  “Luckily, working for an international outfit means I’m not trapped in English drizzle all year long.”

  “Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Father Patrick O’Connor.” Maria gestured towards the helicopter, and they turned to watch the figure being helped down by the pilot. In startling contrast to the flight suit and helmet of the crewman, he was wearing the distinctive black cassock of a Jesuit priest and was carrying two battered leather briefcases.

  After nodding to the pilot, he strode confidently across the helipad, dropped his cases on the tarmac and shook Jack’s hand firmly. “Dr. Howard. Delighted to meet you at last. Maria’s told me all about you, and of course I’ve seen you on TV following your remarkable discoveries last year.”

  Jack eyed the other man keenly. The accent had a hint of Irish brogue, but could as easily have been Boston. He guessed that O’Connor was a youthful fifty-five, his remaining hair grey and cropped close but with the weathered face and fit body of a man who had not spent his entire life in the cloisters.

  “Maria tells me you have a PhD in early Church history,” Jack said.

  “Trinity College, Dublin, then Heidelberg,” O’Connor replied. “Then I found my vocation. Twenty years in Central America, mainly Mexico, doing what we Jesuits do best, building schools, ministering to the sick, trying to bring humanity to places where there’s sometimes hardly any left at all.”

  “And then you found academia again.”

  O’Connor nodded. “Five years ago. I’d done my tour of duty and applied for a vacancy in the Vatican library. To my delight they offered me a tailor-made position in the Antiquities Department, as inspector of early buildings and archaeology. My remit covers everything in Rome under Vatican control up to the time of the Renaissance, with plenty of time for my own research. I was in Oxford to hear Maria’s seminar on Richard of Holdingham and the Mappa Mundi, one of my special areas of interest. I believe I may have something to offer.”

  “That’s the reason we’re here now,” Jack said. “Let’s get down to business.”

  After a quick coffee on the patio, Jack led them into his office. Almost the entire length of the old drawing room was occupied by a massive wooden table, its gnarled oak surface made from timbers reputedly salvaged from the ships that had brought the Norman invaders to England. Every time Jack sat at the table he felt the power of his own ancestry, as if his forebears who had plotted wars and voyages of discovery from this very table were keeping him ghostly company and egging him on. Now, instead of nautical dividers and parchment charts, the table was covered with the instruments of twenty-first-century exploration, computer workstations and communications consoles. To these Maria added a large black manila folder, which she laid at one end of the table.

  At the other end Jack raised a video screen linked to a laptop he had opened up beside the folder.

  Costas arrived breathlessly after a rushed visit to the engineering complex, and Jack closed the door behind him and dimmed the lights. Maria and O’Connor sat down at the end of the table, with Jeremy on one side and Jack and Costas on the other.

  “There was something I didn’t tell you on the phone, the reason why I wanted to show you this in person.” Maria spoke slowly, her hands laid flat on the closed manila folder. “Father O’Connor was in Oxford when I arrived from Hereford the night before last, and I took him immediately into my confidence. He is the world’s leading authority on what you’re about to see.”

  Just as Maria was about to raise the cover of the folder, O’Connor put his hand on hers. “What we discuss here must remain secret,” he said quietly. “The time may come when this story will be headline news, but until then even the slightest leak could jeopardize everything. And I’m not just talking about archaeology. Lives are at stake here, perhaps countless lives.”

  He released his grip and looked at the others, who all nodded in turn. Maria glanced at him again and then lifted the cover, folding it back to reveal a protective sheet of tissue paper over a hard white board. She slid away the paper and they saw the image that had transfixed her in the lost chamber of the cathedral the day before. Costas let out a low whistle as he and Jack stood up and craned over for a better view. The vellum, about three feet square, had been rolled out and pressed under a transparent polyurethane sheet. Even after seven hundred years in the dusty cathedral chamber
the ink was still dark and clearly preserved the outline of the map.

  “Fantastic,” Jack murmured. “I haven’t seen the Mappa Mundi for ages, but this is all familiar. You can clearly make out the T-shape of the Mediterranean and Red Sea dividing the continents, with Asia at the top and Jerusalem in the centre. And Europe and Africa are even labelled correctly.”

  O’Connor nodded. “I’ve no doubt this is Richard of Holdingham’s exemplar. His sketch made in Lincoln and then copied and embellished by the illuminator in Hereford. Now look at the lower left corner.”

  Jack had already seen the delicate lines of text and drawing Maria was pointing at, but had wanted to take in the whole map first. Now he peered closely at the image beyond the western rim of the world, an image so different from the dedication inscribed in this place on the finished map.

  “My God, they really are runes,” he said excitedly. “I’m a little rusty, but this must be it.” He pointed at the smaller of the two inscriptions and glanced at Jeremy, who nodded and recited from memory.

  “Harald Sigurdsson our King with his thole-companions reached these parts with the treasure of Michelgard. Here they feast with Thor in Valhalla and await the final battle of Ragnarøk.”

  “Ragnarøk is the mythical battle at the end of time, when the warriors in Valhalla will seek final glory,” Maria said. “The second inscription and the drawing are virtually identical to the Vinland Map, showing the coastline discovered by Leif Eiriksson beyond Greenland around the year AD 1000. Sigurdsson was the family name of Harald Hardrada. The implication is that Hardrada and his companions reached America a generation or two after the first Vikings blazed the trail.”

  “With the treasure of Michelgard, of Constantinople,” Jack murmured excitedly.

  “That’s why we’re here. I only wish I knew what he’d taken. It’s hardly likely to have been a shipload of classical bronzes.”

  “Look closely at those runes,” O’Connor said. “Then you’ll see the real reason we’re here.”