Viking Gold (50 page)

“Perhaps Sinead is right,” he
said, glancing over to where she sat laughing with Ragnar and Olaf. “What difference
does it make if I ever find him, or even who he is? It won’t change anything. I
need to start planning for myself.”

Then he saw it, barely
visible among the natural lesions in the bark. He looked again. His eyes did not
deceive him. He stood. Raised himself on tiptoe for a better look … etched into
the trunk, faded and worn, but definitely there, was the crude outline of a
unicorn followed by a series of what Redknee now knew to be Latin script. 
He called to Sinead before he could stop himself.

She rushed to his side and he
pointed to the carving, surprised no one had seen it before.

“It’s Latin all right,” she
said.

Ragnar joined them, a piece
of half-cooked fish in his hand. “What does it say?”

Sinead squinted. “It’s faded.
It’s a long time since Saint Brendan came here –
if
he wrote it. But I
think it says
Deus providet
.
”

Ragnar frowned. “Speak Norse
girl, we don’t all have the advantage of a monastery education.” 

“I think it means … ‘God
provides’.”

“What does
that
mean?”
Ragnar asked.

Brother Alfred opened his
mouth to speak, but Mord cut him off. “It means,” Mord said, picking up his
spade and starting to dig again with renewed vigour, “that not only are we in
the right place, but we’re going to be very, very rich.”

“Well, everyone,” Ragnar said
turning to the others, who by now were all listening. “This is confirmation.
You’ve seen the Christian monasteries. How wealthy they are. Their God
provides. It says so here. What are you waiting for?
Fall to!”

Mord
threw his hand in the air. “Look what I’ve found!” He held up a stone, as big
as a man’s hand and so black it shone in the gathering dusk. Everyone stopped
digging and crowded round. Silver’s tail wagged.

“What is it?” Sinead asked,
taking the piece from Mord and examining it for herself.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he said.

Sinead looked at her newfound
brother with a blank expression.

Mord turned to Ragnar, his
face aglow. “Father, I have found the first piece of Saint Brendan’s treasure.”

Ragnar frowned. “Why does it
have such a sharp edge?”

“Because it’s a spear head,”
Sinead said. “It’s not a jewel at all.”

Someone in the small group
sniggered. Redknee thought it was Skoggcat. Mord snatched the stone back.
“You’ll see,” he said, slipping it into his leather pouch and picking up his
spade, “this is just the first of many.”

“The Irish girl is right.”

Everyone turned. Hawk stood
at the edge of the clearing. Running Deer, her brothers and Hiawatha were with
him.

“Who is this speaking the
Norse tongue?” Ragnar demanded.

Hawk stepped forward, his
hand placed lightly over the hilt of his sword. “I speak the Norse tongue
because I was once a Northman,” he said. “I sailed to this place two winters
ago with my fellow Icelanders. I too came looking for Saint Brendan’s treasure.”

Mord’s eyes narrowed. “Did
you find it?”

Hawk shook his head. “And I
doubt you will either.”

“You lie,” Mord said. “Tell
me where you have hidden it, or I’ll slice you open from nose to knee.”

Hawk fastened his hand round
his sword and grinned. “I’d like to see you try.” As Hawk spoke, a band of
about twenty warriors carrying tomahawks and bows filtered into the clearing
behind him.

Ragnar’s own men-at-arms
stepped up behind Mord. “Enough of this,” Ragnar said, waving Mord down. He
turned to Hawk. “Did you follow us here?”

Hawk shook his head. “Hardly.
This tree has been known to the Kanienkehaka – the Flint People – for many
years. It is sacred to them. A peace council has been called—”

Running Deer placed a hand over
her husband’s arm. “This concerns my people,” she said, “I should explain.”
Hawk nodded reluctantly, and Running Deer turned to face Ragnar and the other
Northmen. “Many years ago, my ancestors … and the ancestors of the other
peoples that live in this land … were always fighting. Many died, until a great
man whose name has been lost to memory, convinced the six great chiefs to agree
a peace. As evidence of their intentions to keep to their promise, the six
chiefs agreed to bury their weapons beneath the tallest tree in the forest.”
Running Deer looked up at the White Pine. “This was the tallest tree.”

“So … there’s no treasure
buried here?” Mord asked. “Just some old weapons?”

Running Deer nodded.

Mord’s lip curled in anger.
“You lie. You
have
followed us here. You want to keep the treasure for
yourselves.” He stamped over to Sinead, grabbed the
Codex
from her and
held it up. “It says in here,” he said, shaking the
Codex
. “It says
Saint Brendan travelled to a land in the west where he buried a great treasure
beneath a white pine marked with Irish runes.”

Running Deer glanced at
Hiawatha. “My father …” she began hesitantly, “he … he didn’t want me to show
you this at first. But I think … well, you should see it for yourselves.” She
reached into a beaded pouch and a pulled out a piece of crumpled vellum. 

“What’s that?” Sinead asked,
stepping forward.

Running Deer handed the page
to her. “I don’t know what the patterns mean. It has been in my family for many
years. Some say it was left by the man who made the peace here all those years
ago. When you brought out the book, the one that led you here, I remembered. I
thought you should see it … in case it explained.”

Redknee watched Sinead as she
scanned the page. She frowned as she reached the end.

“What does it say?” Mord
asked.

Sinead looked up. She smiled
slowly.

“Don’t hold us in suspense,”
Ragnar said. “I’ve waited over sixteen years for this.”

“It’s a list … an inventory,
if you like.”

“
What?”
Ragnar marched
forward and grabbed the sheet from her.

Mord grinned hungrily. “Does
it list the treasures buried here? Swords inlaid with rubies, brooches of
purest gold—”

Sinead shook her head, her
curls bouncing from side to side.

“Tell us,” Redknee urged,
unable to hold his tongue any longer.

“It is certainly in the hand
of the scribe who wrote the
Codex
. But this is a more …
prosaic
document. Laughably so. It lists the items needed to build an Irish
curragh
.
There’s even a drawing.”

“What’s a
curragh
?”
Redknee asked.

“It’s a boat made of leather.
It must be what Saint Brendan used to sail here. Remember, I told you about
them before? They’re stronger than you’d think.”

Mord rubbed his hands
together in glee. “This means Saint Brendan was really here.”

“But not that he buried any
treasure,” Sinead said. 

“Why else would he go to all
the trouble of writing such a long book?” Mord scoffed, picking up his spade.

Redknee
didn’t recognise her at first, so much had she changed. She stood at the very
edge of the clearing, behind Hiawatha’s warriors, half hidden by greenery,
seemingly unsure whether to stay or go. Once lustrous skin hung dully over
sunken cheeks, grey circles ringed her eyes and her lips were bitten raw.
Astrid was a changed woman. But it wasn’t this that sent a shiver through
Redknee’s spine; it was the fact that since he had noticed her … not once had
her eyes left Hawk.

Mord
dug long into the night. He found five axe heads, four spearheads, a wampum headdress,
a deerskin drum, six flint knives, a leather sling, four bows, two woven
quivers and maybe fifty or sixty flint arrow tips. Ragnar remained unimpressed.
He lit a fire, told everyone else to stop digging, and sat down.

Sinead joined him, the book
open in her lap. Her new bronze pendant glimmered in the firelight as Redknee
took his place opposite. Hiawatha and his warriors sat a little way off. They
hadn’t tried to stop the excavation, merely watched from a distance, wry grins
twisting their faces.

“Tell me, daughter,” Ragnar
said gently, “tell me again what the book says about the treasure.”

Sinead turned the pages,
stopping when she found the right part. “It says …
‘They came to a great
white pine, so tall, Saint Brendan could not see whence it touched the sky, but
he was certain that it did. The youth said: ‘This tree lies in the centre of
the Promised Land, so that all peoples may reach it, and none are further away
than the other.’Saint Brendan nodded, for he understood. He took his most treasured
possessions and buried them beneath the roots of this tree, the greatest of
them all.’”  
Sinead stopped reading and scratched her head. “Wait, I
don’t think that translation is quite right. It’s not his most treasured
possessions that he buried, but the things he treasured most.”

“What’s the difference?”
Magnus asked, his calm steersman’s eyes unblinking in the flickering firelight.

Sinead sucked in her cheeks.
“I’m not sure … shall I read on?”

Ragnar nodded.

“‘Then he turned to his
fellow monks, and told them to do the same. And, so it came to pass that many
treasures lay beneath this tree, treasures great enough to bring peace to all
the Earth.’
”

Ragnar wearily massaged the
spot just above his blind eye, as if that blank orb was the source of all his
pain. When he looked up and saw that Running Deer was tentatively approaching
the fire, he waved her over.

“There is no mention of Saint
Brendan brokering a peace,” he said.

Running Deer nodded slightly.
“We think of this tree as precious because of what it stands for. I think that
is what your book is trying to say. It’s not real treasure.”

Ragnar inhaled sharply. He
turned to Sinead. “Is that what you think?” he asked, his lips curling in
disgust. “That this has been a … a
symbolic
journey?” He spat these last
words.

Sinead bit her lip and stared
at the open page in front of her. A tear began to trickle down her cheek.

“Pah,” Ragnar said, standing.
“I never should have trusted Sven. He’s still leading me a merry dance, even from
beyond the grave.” He called to Mord. “Come, son,” he said. “It is time to
rest. You can try again in the morning, but I think we have to accept defeat on
this one.”

Mord looked up from the pit
in which he stood. Mud splattered his face and clothes, only the whites of his
eyes shone clean in the moonlight. He gave a low, desperate growl.

Ragnar sighed. “There will be
other journeys, and other treasures. We will be rich yet. And King Hakon will
keep his promise to us about the jarldom. I’ll make sure of it.”

Mord climbed out reluctantly,
as if his limbs were made of stone. Ragnar threw his arm round his eldest and
led him to the warmth of the fire. Mord slumped to the ground, fished a small
piece of bone from his pocket and began working it, almost obsessively, with
his knife.

Redknee
bedded down near Hawk and watched the others. Even with Silver at his feet, he
couldn’t fully relax. Something was wrong. Ragnar had accepted defeat too
easily. Had he known all along that there was no treasure? What about the
stories in the
Codex
about a land where the flowers were made of rubies,
raindrops of pearls and the rivers flowed blue, the product of a hundred
thousand sapphires?

Had it all been lies? Or, as
Running Deer called it –
symbolic
. Which, if you asked him, was just
about as good as lies.

Redknee listened to the
rumble of Olaf’s snores, worse now they were no longer at sea. He turned over,
trying to block his ears. Mord had moved a little way from the others. He was
still awake, still working on his piece of bone, carving an intricate design on
its smooth face. It looked like it was going to be the handle for a small
eating knife or dagger. Even from this distance, Redknee could see the
workmanship was good. Mord held it up. It caught the light. Redknee saw the
design clearly – a pair of interlaced snakes.

Suddenly he realised where
he’d seen such craft, such a design, before. His head spun with the revelation.
He slid from his sleeping fur, grabbed a discarded spade and pressed the iron
tip into Olaf’s throat.

“You!” he whispered, shaking
with anger. “
You
were the traitor all along.”

Olaf’s eyes flew open.

“
You!
My uncle’s
right-hand man. You have been in league with Ragnar from the beginning and I
can prove it.”

“What’s happening?” Ragnar
demanded, stumbling groggily to his feet.

“I know who your snake was,”
Redknee called back, pushing the sharp tip of the spade into Olaf’s throat
until a droplet of blood sprung forth.