David Gibbins - The Crusader's gold

Jeremy came tottering over the grass carrying two wooden bowls and spoons, and thrust them at Jack and Costas. “Carved them myself when I was a kid,” he said proudly. “Exact copies of Norse bowls from Greenland. And the stuff inside’s authentic too.”

Costas peered suspiciously at the congealed mass in his bowl and patted it with his spoon. “Looks old enough,” he said. “And smells like a resin factory. I take it this isn’t food?”

“My own recipe.” Jeremy affected to ignore him. “Based on the analysis of Norse refuse sites. Coarse barley flour, ground peas and pine bark. A kind of gruel. Quite good really.”

“Where’s yours?”

“Couldn’t wait. Ate it already.”

“Right.” Costas sniffed his spoon and took an experimental lick. “God almighty. Refuse is about right.”

“It’s all you’re getting. The total Viking experience. No modern food allowed at L’Anse aux Meadows.”

Costas grumbled, and Jeremy turned to Jack, who had quickly polished off his bowl and was staring again at the map.

“This was the place of no return,” Jack said. “If they really got this far, none of Harald’s men ever made it back home alive. They were on a one-way ticket to the end of the world.”

“What about their guides?” Costas spoke through a sticky mouthful, his eyes fixed balefully on Jeremy.

“I doubt whether any of the Greenlanders accompanied Harald this far,” Jack replied. “With only the one longship remaining after Halfdan’s burial they would have had no way of returning, and even at Ilulissat they would have had to await rescue by the Norse hunters and fishermen who made their way up to Nor?rseta in the summer.”

“Remind me,” Costas said. “We’re here because of the map, the depiction of Vinland with the reference to Harald Hardrada on the Mappa Mundi. How did the information that Harald had been here get back to England, to the felag and Richard of Holdingham all those years later?”

“From what O’Connor was telling us, that bishop who arrived in Greenland in the early twelfth century, the one who was a member of the felag, managed to coax an account of Harald’s expedition out of the local Norse. The guides who had returned from the icefjord to the western settlement in Greenland must have told of Harald’s departure for Vinland, and the story would have passed down through the generations. If the history of Iceland is anything to go by, the Greenlanders must have had a rich tradition of sagas, some of them passed on secretively. None of the sagas survived the mysterious disappearance of the Greenlanders a few centuries later.”

“What about that cross on the map, X marks the spot?” Costas said. “If that really does mark something out there, how could the Greenlanders possibly have known?”

“Easy,” Jeremy said. “The Norse left way-markers, navigational signposts. They would have been essential to retrace voyages in such a huge area that was hardly explored. Some of the stone cairns around Baffin Bay attributed to the Inuit may in fact have been raised by the Norse. The Greenlanders’ Saga even tells us how Thorvold, the one who was shot down by the Indians, raised a ship’s keel as a marker on a cape somewhere to the north-east of here. It became known as Kjalarnes, Keel Cape.”

“So you’re suggesting Great Sacred Isle was a known way-marker.”

“I think there was more to it than that,” Jack said. “For the island to be singled out so precisely on the map suggests something more, something closely associated with Harald’s progress. It’s just a guess, but I wonder whether Harald promised his Greenlander guides before leaving Ilulissat that he would leave some mark of his progress. An obvious place for the Greenlanders to suggest was their own navigational way-marker for Leifsbu?ir at Great Sacred Isle, a place Harald could easily find. The Greenlanders may never have ventured here to find out whether he made it, but the memory of Harald’s promise lived on.”

“Let’s see if it’s waiting for us then.” Costas handed Jeremy his empty bowl, then gestured towards his rucksack. “Got any mead or beer to wash that down with?”

“Out of luck there, I’m afraid. But what I have got is just as authentic. It’s a kind of sour runny yoghurt, made from cow’s whey left in an open vat for a few weeks. Best served warm. If you’ll just give me a minute with the stove…” Costas was already halfway to the beach, backing off with his hands held up defensively. Jack grinned at Jeremy and jerked his head towards the Zodiac. “I think breakfast is over.” A few moments later they were zipping up the survival suits and life jackets lent to them by the Coast Guard for the trip. They helped push the boat out into the shallows and then hopped aboard, sitting on the pontoons while one of the crewmen cranked up the outboard. As they chugged slowly out through the bay they turned and watched the low coastline receding in their wake.

“The tide’s in,” Jeremy shouted over the engine. “When it’s out, this whole bay is dry land. The Vikings caught salmon by laying traps at low tide, then returning on the next low tide. Harald’s men would have had no trouble stocking up with food.”

The crewman opened the throttle as they left the bay, and they moved from the clear shallows to the greenish black sheen of the open sea. Ahead of them the island was suddenly lit by a brilliant shaft of sunlight, shining through a gap in the clouds that were beginning to fill the sky.

“A shard from Mjollnir,” Jeremy shouted.

“What?”

“The Norse believed that lightning and shafts of light were shards struck off Mjollnir, Thor’s hammer,” Jeremy shouted. “It’s usually a good sign.”

“Not another Norse omen,” Costas replied. “I’m beginning to dream wolf-dogs and blood-eagles.”

“Don’t worry.” Jack grinned at Costas through the spray. “You’ll get over it. And you’ll soon have your feet back firmly on the ground.”

Twenty minutes later Jack, Costas and Jeremy stood on the lee side of Great Sacred Isle off the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, doffing the survival suits, which they left with the crewman beside the Zodiac. The island ahead of them was about a kilometre long and half a kilometre wide, and was made up of rocky outcrops interspersed with patches of bog and meadow. At various points it rose in low ridges that Jack was inspecting with a pair of lightweight binoculars.

“My favourite.” Costas sighed contentedly and kicked on his hiking boots. “A treasure hunt.”

“No sophisticated gadgets this time.” Jack lowered the glasses and glanced at Costas as he laced up his boots. “The terrain’s useless for geophysics, and what we’re looking for probably wouldn’t show up anyway. We’re talking Mark 1 Eyeball. Anyway, it’s the only way I’ve ever found treasure.”

“So what are we looking for?”

“Something on the highest point, or a prominent point on the seaward side. But your guess is as good as mine. A cairn, or courses of stones lying on the ground that look too regular and may be from a collapsed pile. But if it was a wooden marker like that keel in the saga, then we’re probably out of luck.”

The three of them fanned out over a fifty-foot swathe and began to work their way up towards the centre of the isle, Jack in the middle. The terrain was not difficult to traverse, but it was an awkward mix of exposed rock and soggy gullies that reminded him of their walk across Iona a few days before. After scrambling up the first small ridge, Costas stopped suddenly and looked at the ground. Jack caught his movement and spun round. “Got something?”

“It’s about Harald’s Vikings.”

“Go on.” Jack relaxed and looked at Costas expectantly.