“You can see the Greenland ice cap.”
“It’s breathtaking.”
Maria’s face was ablaze with excitement, and Jack again felt certain he had been right to invite her along. After O’Connor had left for Rome three days before, Jack had put in a call to James Macleod to follow up on Costas’ account of a discovery in the ice. Macleod had revealed more, much more, an exciting development over the last few days that now made Jack’s visit imperative. The ice corer had turned up a sample that made the account of a ship buried in the ice far more than just a local legend. Jack had also learned of another extraordinary find that would call upon Maria and Jeremy’s expertise, and they had both leapt at the chance to join him for a few days on IMU’s premier research vessel in one of the most important projects they had ever undertaken.
Now they all sat in the forward compartment of a customized Embraer EMB-145, the sleek regional jet IMU used for personnel transport around the world. Across the aisle Jeremy was hunched behind a sea of paper and books, tapping on a laptop. Jack closed the introduction to Old Norse he had been reading and stared out the window again. For the past few days he had absorbed himself in Harald Hardrada, reigniting a boyhood passion. On his mother’s side Jack’s family had come from coastal Yorkshire, tall, blond people whose accent even retained a Scandinavian lilt, and Jack had always felt a strong affinity with his Norse ancestors. Harald Hardrada was the greatest of all the Viking heroes, yet his was a life unfulfilled. A man who would be king, whose destiny seemed too great even for him to reach. At the flip of a coin Harald could have won the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and the history of England-of the whole world-would have been different. Jack had driven alone to the battle site near York the day before, had slogged around the muddy fields feeling for the spot where Harald had wielded his battle-axe for the last time. He had felt close, had almost felt a presence, yet had come away strangely unsatisfied. Something was not quite right.
Opposite him in the aircraft Costas was slumped over in his seat, snoring fitfully, his head slowly descending to his chest and then jerking back up again. He had been up all night in the engineering lab perfecting the ice probe, and was still wearing his favourite tattered IMU overalls. With his stubble and tousled hair he looked more than ever like his grandfather, a Greek sponge fisherman who had made a fortune in shipping but had insisted that his family remain close to their roots. It was a legacy that Costas had unwittingly developed to a fine art in his appearance.
Jack grinned across at Maria as Costas snorted and stirred, and the two of them returned their gaze to the window. The coastline of eastern Greenland appeared as an irregular line of rock between the sea and the ice cap, the bare outcrops of granite girding inlets filled with shattered slabs of white. Soon they were directly over the ice cap itself, a carpet of brilliant white that undulated to the horizon, its surface dotted with pockets of meltwater that shone like turquoise gems in the morning sunlight. It was one of the world’s most forbidding landscapes, yet it had a compelling beauty that drew out the explorer in Jack, that made him understand what drove the Norse adventurers who first sailed to these shores a thousand years ago.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand.” Costas had suddenly jolted awake, as if there had been no hiatus in the conversation they had been having an hour before. “Harald Hardrada was killed in England, in 1066. Right? Then how come the map inscription suggests he died somewhere out here?”
Jack gave Costas a bemused look and they both peered at Jeremy, who was ruffling a sheaf of papers and seemed completely preoccupied by his work.
“Jeremy?” Maria said.
“Huh?”
“The Battle of Ragnarok in the map inscription. How does that fit in with Harald’s death at Stamford Bridge?”
“Oh, the wording was probably just figurative,” Jeremy said dismissively. “All Viking warriors slain in battle went to Valhalla, where they served Odin and awaited the final showdown against evil at Ragnarok. Valhalla was perceived as being in the west, beyond the rim of the world. The inscription doesn’t necessarily imply that Harald and his men met their fate there.”
“And the treasure of Michelgard?”
“Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.”
“Jeremy, do you have my copy of Sturluson?” There was an edge of irritation in Maria’s voice as Jeremy held out a book without looking at her, his attention concentrated on his computer. She took the book and held the cover towards Costas. It showed an image of a knight on horseback clad in chain mail, wearing a close-fitting open helmet with a nose-guard and carrying a large kite-shaped shield.
“Looks like a Crusader,” Costas said.
“Not far off,” Maria replied. “This is from a tapestry in Norway dating from the twelfth century, a hundred years or so after Harald died. But in the absence of any kind of portrait of him, it gives a pretty good idea of what Harald and his men would have looked like. The Varangian bodyguard in Constantinople were Vikings by birth and upbringing, and carried the dreaded war axe of the Norse. The axe was the stuff of legends, man-high, single-bitted, terrifying in battle. The Varangians cashed in on the reputation of their forebears, Vikings who had raped and pillaged their way around western Europe, and had even sailed into the Mediterranean to terrorise Italy and France. But the Varangians were also pretty cosmopolitan characters who had spent their adult lives in Constantinople, the most sophisticated city in the medieval world, serving the Byzantine emperors. Their armour and finery wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Crusades, and they would have spoken Greek as well as Norse. Harald Hardrada even campaigned in the Holy Land.”
“In the Holy Land?” Costas sounded incredulous. “But I thought the Crusades didn’t begin until the end of the eleventh century. That’s a generation after Harald died!”
“You could call Harald Hardrada the first Crusader,” Maria said, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. “He was born a pagan, and certainly wasn’t seeking redemption for his sins, but he did serve the interests of the Christian Church in the Holy Land. You have to understand, Costas. The Crusades as we know them were only part of the story, told from a western perspective. The Byzantine Church and its warriors had been trying to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Arabs for centuries. In the year 1036 the Byzantine emperor Michael concluded a treaty with the Arab caliph of Egypt to allow the restoration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the shrine raised over the site of Christ’s grave in Jerusalem. A year later Harald Hardrada led the Varangian Guard to escort the Byzantine craftsmen to Jerusalem. The scene could have been straight from the Crusades, tall, blond horsemen weighed down with armour sweeping across the desert, except Harald was actually successful in pacifying the Holy Land. All of the towns and castles of Palestine surrendered to him without a fight, and he cleared the roads of robbers and brigands. He gave treasure to the shrine of the Holy Sepulcher, presumably on the instructions of the Byzantime emperor. He even bathed in the river Jordan, like any good pilgrim.”
“You can shore up the case even further.” Jeremy had abandoned his work and was now fully focussed on Maria. “After Jerusalem, Harald Hardrada campaigned for three years on behalf of the Byzantine emperor in the central Mediterranean, in Sicily and Italy. At the time, Sicily was an Islamic emirate, captured by the Arabs in the great jihad which saw Muslim armies take the Holy Land and sweep as far west as Spain. Harald was leading an army under the banner of the Cross against the infidel, to reclaim lands for the Church. The Byzantines called their enemy Saracens, the same opponents the Crusaders would face a few generations later. Harald’s war was one of Christian against Muslim, the first major flaring of the conflict that ignited the Crusades and is still with us today. Hardrada was the most feared leader of all the Christian forces, even more so than Richard the Lionheart or Baldwin of Flanders in the Crusades. To the Arabs Hardrada was Ra’d Shamaal, the Thunderbolt of the North.”