The Crusader's gold jh-2

by David Gibbins

  “And then heading south,” Costas said.

  “Down the coast of Newfoundland, across to Nova Scotia, maybe along the eastern seaboard of the United States,” Jack said. “You remember the simulation programme Mustafa used to model the Black Sea exodus, the daily progress of the refugees from Atlantis? I had Lanowski use it to model the likely progress of a Viking ship along this route, factoring in everything we know about the longship, the likely season and the weather conditions in the eleventh century. Our new Canadian captain of Seaquest II knows these water like the back of his hand and was able to add his invaluable expertise. They were like ancient Mediterranean seafarers, the Vikings. They measured their progress in daily runs, doegr. With the Labrador current behind them and favourable winds, they would have been able to progress south. If they stuck close inshore and avoided the Gulf Stream, within three weeks they could have rounded the Panhandle of Florida and been in the Caribbean.”

  “The Caribbean?” Costas whistled. “Incredible.”

  “It’s just conjecture,” Jack said. “Wherever they got to, they would have needed to put ashore to replenish water and food within a week or ten days of leaving this place. Let’s say they encountered native peoples again where they put ashore, and were discouraged from trying to stay longer. Then another week or ten days and they were down opposite Georgia and Florida. The shoreline would have looked increasingly inhospitable, an unfamiliar terrain of tropical vegetation and dense scrub. But there would have been no easy turning back, against the currents and wind, with reliance on their sail and too few fit to man the oars for sustained rowing. With increasing desperation they may have continued south. It’s pure speculation, of course, but they could even have sailed through the Florida Keys and into the Caribbean. If that happened, the prevailing winds could have blown them south-west, even as far as Central America.”

  “That’s a hell of a long way from Constantinople.”

  Jack suddenly remembered his precious days with Katya six months before in Istanbul, the two of them absorbed in the labyrinthine past of the city, their discussion of how the back alleys of history could lead to the most extraordinary adventures of discovery. For a moment he felt a pang of regret, but then was overtaken by a surge of excitement. “A very long way indeed,” he said. “But look where we are now, how far we are already from their homeland. The Viking presence here at L’Anse aux Meadows is fully documented, corroborated by archaeology. Anything’s possible.”

  “Half crazed with thirst and exhaustion, some of them still crippled by their wounds from Stamford Bridge,” Jeremy murmured. “It’s an incredible image. They would have been terrified but exhilarated, fearful any moment of dropping over the edge of the world yet every day getting closer to Ragnarok, to the showdown where they would join Odin and Thor battle-girded for the last time with their great war axes. To us the tropics seem benign, but to the Vikings they would have been a vision of hell, a gathering aura of crimson that would seem to be drawing them ever closer to their destiny.”

  Costas stood and gazed towards the north-eastern horizon, through the strait towards the shore of Labrador and the open Atlantic. Clouds were building up, and a sea mist was beginning to shroud the coast. Suddenly he pointed to a white form that appeared in and out of the mist on the horizon. “It’s Seaquest II,” he said excitedly. “And the Lynx is on the way.”

  Jack looked out to sea. He had gambled a little bit of his reputation on persuading Macleod to call a halt to the icefjord project and sail south to meet them, in the expectation that they would be going somewhere farther after L’Anse aux Meadows. Jack never normally exerted authority over his colleagues in the other IMU departments, and fortunately Macleod had developed a keen interest in the archaeology after having brought Jack to Ilulissat in the first place. The conditions for taking ice cores were rapidly becoming untenable as summer drew in, and there had been serious rumbles of discontent among the invited scientists. Jack pursed his lips and for the next few minutes watched as the dark speck of the helicopter became recognisable and the thud of its rotor filled the bay. It flew lazily overhead and then settled down on its pontoons in the shallows close to the Zodiac. After the turbine had powered down they watched the helmeted figures of Ben and Andy emerge and wade across to greet the two Canadian Coast Guards.

  “Where do we go from here?” Costas asked. “Looks to me like the trail’s wide open.”

  “We need something more,” Jack said, his brow knitted. “I’d hoped there’d be something extra, some small clue. But at least there’s nothing for anyone else to go on. It means I can get back to Father O’Connor and give him the go-ahead to break his story to the press and Interpol. He and Maria should have finished compiling the dossier on the felag by now, and we haven’t got enough here to justify delaying any longer. As long as the discovery of the menorah was likely, O’Connor’s overriding concern was that we get there first and prevent it falling in the wrong hands. Now we must focus everything on stopping that character Loki. O’Connor’s life may depend on it.”

  “I don’t want to be there when you have to tell Macleod to turn right round and sail back to the icefjord.” Costas squatted down to adjust his boots and leaned back against the grassy verge below the slab of rock. Suddenly there was a tumbling sound and a stream of Greek expletives. Where Costas had once been all they could see were his boots emerging from a mound of turf.

  “Are you all right?” Jack spun round and peered anxiously into the black hole that had formed beneath the rock. He and Jeremy began frantically heaving away the turf and stones that had trapped Costas’ legs.

  “Just the usual shattered pride.” The voice was muffled, and was followed by a pause. “But I’ve found a new friend.”

  As Costas’ upper body came into view, they were met by an astonishing sight. In the small cavity in front of his face was a crouched human skeleton, the skull tucked down beneath the knees and the feet buried in earth. Hanging off the bones were the tattered remains of animal-skin clothing, and the scalp still retained patches of long white hair.

  Jeremy leaned forward for a closer look. “My palaeopathology’s a little rusty, but I’d say we’ve got a male, maybe late middle age.”

  “Scraeling?” Costas said.

  Jeremy shook his head. “The physiognomy’s European. And this guy’s tall, well over six feet. He could be one of the early English or French explorers, but I’d say these bones are older than that, really old. I’d say we’ve got ourselves a Norseman.”

  Jack closed his eyes and swayed slightly. This could be it. He prayed that his luck would hold.

  “Those are some pretty impressive scars on the bones,” Costas said.

  “I’ve seen that before in Viking warrior burials in England,” Jeremy said. “Battle injuries caused by axes and swords. Not the kind you’d get from an encounter with Scraelings, who had no edged metal weapons. This guy was pretty severely hacked about. There are some odd scars that may be later injuries, particularly those ring marks around his wrists, as if he’d been shackled. But all the battle wounds I can see look well healed, a long time before he died.”

  Jack looked pensively at the skeleton. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Remember there were other Norse out here,” Jeremy cautioned. “But it’s possible, just possible, that we’ve got another of Harald’s men, another one to add to Halfdan. The thing that baffles me is the age of the injuries. If he died on their voyage down from the icefjord, the slash marks from wounds at Stamford Bridge the autumn before would still be fresh on the bones. These ones had healed up years before, even decades.”

  “And this isn’t a burial,” Jack said. “This guy crawled in here and holed himself in with those rocks. That’s why his bones haven’t been scavenged.”

  “This might help.” Costas’ muffled voice came from under the rock, where he had squeezed his upper body into the space in front of the skeleton and was gingerly feeling in the darkness under the rib cage. He
carefully prised out two objects and held the larger one out. Jack took it without thinking, his mind still on the puzzling enigma of the skeleton.

  “Well, what is it?”

  Costas re-emerged to see the other two staring agape at the object in Jack’s hand. It was a flat pendant, about the size of a small saucer, and was carved in a lustrous green stone, unmistakably jade. The curvilinear, undulating surface seemed abstract in design, but as they stared at it they could make out eyes, a beak, stylized wings.

  “Holy shit,” Jeremy whispered. “It’s the Maya eagle god.”

  Costas crawled out and brushed himself off. “Maya,” he said phlegmatically. “Mexico, the Yucatan. Temples in the jungle, human sacrifice. Am I right?”

  “Impossible.” Jack carefully brushed a film of dirt from two silver discs that formed the eagle’s eyes. He stared at them, shook his head and passed the pendant to Jeremy. “It’s impossible. Tell me I’m not seeing things.”

  “They’re coins,” Jeremy said quietly. “Okay. Let’s be clinical about this. The one on the left’s a Viking coin from England, a quatrefoil penny of King Cnut. Look, you can read CNVT REX ANGLO, with the crowned bust.” He flipped the pendant over. “You can see the reverse on the other side. ARNCETEL OEO, minted by a man called Arncetel at York. Cnut ruled from 1016 to 1035, but his coins were valued for their purity and are found in hoards across Scandinavia to at least the 1066 period.”

  “And the other one?” Costas said.

  “That’s Roman. Over to you, Jack.”

  Jeremy passed back the pendant and Jack peered closely at the right-hand coin. “It’s a silver denarius of the emperor Vespasian,” he said. “IMP CAESAR VESPASIANVS AVG. A particularly fine portrait head of Vespasian, warts and all, with a laurel crown.”

  “You’ve just lost me again,” said Costas. “Did you say Vespasian? The Roman emperor?”

  “Old Roman bullion coins, gold and silver, sometimes found their way into Viking hoards,” Jeremy said. “Looted from old treasuries, brought back as curiosities by the Varangians from the Mediterranean.”

  Jack raised his eyebrows, then turned the pendant over. He brushed the reverse of the coin gently with his finger and then stifled a gasp. “Good God. It’s a Judaea Capta coin. One of the coins issued by Vespasian after the Roman conquest of Judaea, in AD 70 or 71.” He angled the pendant towards the light and they could clearly see the seated figure of a woman in front of a Roman legionary standard, and below it the single stark word IVDAEA.

  “Isn’t this what we’re after?” Costas said. “I mean, the lost treasure of the Temple in Jerusalem?”

  “I may be wildly wrong,” Jack said fervently, “but I think we’ve got two coins from the treasure of Harald Hardrada. How they got into this pendant is a total mystery. Something extraordinary happened, something that brought this man back here years later, to a place he had first come to on Harald’s ship. And yes, this is what we’re after. It’s fantastic. This coin may have been minted from silver vessels looted from the Temple along with the menorah. Who knows, it may even have been touched by the emperor Vespasian himself. It could be pure coincidence that Harald had this coin in his hoard, but I doubt it. Harald knew his history, had been to Jerusalem. In his own mind and those of his followers, anything associated with the menorah and the Temple treasure may have added lustre to his name. I really feel we’re standing in Harald’s footsteps now. This is our best find yet, maybe the closest we’ll ever come to the menorah itself.”

  “Maybe not quite the best find,” Costas said with a twinkle. “Take a look at this.” He reached into the shadows under the rock and picked up the second object he had found with the skeleton. “I think it’s another runestone.”

  Jeremy excitedly took the flake of rock and peered closely at it. One side had been crudely smoothed and was covered with faint lines. “Similar to the runestone found by the Nazis on the longship,” he murmured. “Same basic futhark and time period, but different hand. The runes have really just been scratched on the surface, maybe the last act of this guy as he squatted under the rock.”

  “Maybe that’s what he came back here to do, to leave a record,” Costas said. “Maybe he was keeping true to Harald’s promise to the Greenlanders.”

  “Anything legible?” Jack asked.

  “It’s easier for me to transliterate the runes into Old Norse, using the standard alphabet.” Jeremy whipped out a notebook, and they watched as he quickly penned a neat line of symbols across the page, occasionally backtracking to make emendations: ?ar var or?fi ok strandir langar ok sandar. Rak?a skip?eirra um haf innan. Sandar hvitir vi?a?ar sem?ier foru ok os?bratt.

  “I can’t read the first line completely, but it has the word d?gr, runs, and the rune for the number twenty. I think it means they sailed for twenty runs, along a coast with long beaches and sands. Then their ship, the skip, was driven all about on the inner ocean, um haf innan. Then they came to a flat land, covered with forest, with extensive white sands wherever they went and shelving gently to the sea. The last two lines are also unclear, but the first of them seems to say a land of fire and light.”

  “It’s just like you said, Jack,” Costas exclaimed. “Twenty runs, twenty days, takes them along the eastern seaboard. It’s a coast with long stretches of beaches and sands, especially when you get to Florida. Then the inner ocean. That sounds exactly like the Caribbean.”

  “Driven all about.” Jack spoke with mounting excitement. “July, August, that’s the beginning of the hurricane season. They could have been blown right across the sea, lost all sense of where they were.”

  “Then the flat land, covered with forest,” Jeremy said. “When I was a kid we sailed across to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. That’s exactly what you see. It’s incredibly flat, a limestone plateau only a few metres above sea level, covered with dense scrub and jungle and surrounded by brilliant white beaches.”

  “And hot as hell in summer,” Costas said. “A land of fire and light.”

  “This is not just a wild guess. It’s all beginning to add up.” Jack lifted the jade pendant, then eyed Jeremy intensely. “And what about that final line?”

  Jeremy let out a low exhalation and gazed back at Jack, his face flushed with excitement. “I can make out three words. The first one is the standard Norse word for the underworld, the watery abyss at the edge of the world, Ginnungagap. The second is Ragnarok. The third I’ve never come across before in Old Norse. It’s a proper name, a place-name. Ukilabnal, or something close to that. It looks like Harald and his men reached their day of reckoning at this place, their final showdown at the edge of the underworld.”

  “It didn’t work out for our friend.” Costas jerked his thumb at the skeleton. “I bet he wished he’d gone to Valhalla along with his buddies.”

  “Does the name mean anything to you?” Jack asked.

  “Oh yes.” Jeremy’s voice was hoarse, and he could hardly get the words out. “Anthropology 101. Luckily my undergraduate adviser forced me to keep my options open. Introduction to Mesoamerican Civilisation.”

  “Go on.”

  “In the eleventh century, Uukil-abnal was the name of Chichen Itza, the greatest ceremonial centre of the Maya, smack in the centre of the Yucatan jungle.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Costas let out a sigh of satisfaction. “At last.” He stood up, arched his legs stiffly where they had been pinned down and looked with distaste at the drizzle that was enveloping him. “You guys with Viking blood may have some kind of yearning for all this misery, but it just leaves me cold.” He turned to Ben and Andy, who had been loitering nearby, and grinned broadly at them. “Pack your bags, boys. We’re going to Mexico.”

  16

  The first inkling Maria had that something was wrong came just before midnight. She was hunched over a laptop computer in a monk’s cell three doors down from Father O’Connor’s study in the medieval cloister on the isle of Iona. They had decided to stay up late and get the job d
one, two long days after she had waved Jack and the others off in the helicopter. She had been glancing at the photograph pinned on the wall in front of her, the extraordinary image of the jade pendant with the two coins that Jack had emailed her from L’Anse aux Meadows the day before. She was itching to be back, to be alongside Jack again. For the third and final time she was working through the document that she and O’Connor had prepared on the felag, straining her eyes to keep focussed on the screen. In a few minutes she would be able to copy the file to O’Connor and join him for a final proofread, and then they would email it off to his contact at Interpol in Austria. She was tired, as drained as she had ever been, but she was beginning to feel a glimmer of relief. They were not out of danger yet, but at least she had persuaded O’Connor to leave the monastery the next morning and accompany her back to the safety of Seaquest II.

  The first sign of trouble was a dull thumping in the corridor. No obvious cause for alarm, but Maria was edgy with exhaustion and nerves. She turned towards the door, slightly ajar, and the dark corridor beyond. It had gone quiet again. She had grown accustomed to the stillness of the monastery, but something was different. She felt a sudden chill, a presentiment of fear.

  Then without warning the door swung open. A gloved hand reached in and snatched its edge, stopping it from crashing into the wall. Then a dark figure advanced on her with lightning speed, head held low. Maria had no time to react. One hand slapped her head aside and savagely twisted her ear, another clamped her mouth. The table was hurled against the wall and a foot crushed her laptop. She was dragged violently backwards, through the door and into the corridor. The hand was wet against her mouth, sticky and warm. Her ear was twisted again and she was blinded by pain, her eyes watering, unable to breathe. Suddenly she was released and slammed face forward against the wall, her arms pinned behind her. Tape was slapped over her mouth and her wrists. Her assailant held her body tight to his and yanked her hair back. She could feel the coarseness of his skin against hers, the metallic smell of his breath.