The Sacred Stone

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘And all because of that sky-stone,’ said Jorund bitterly. ‘I wish Leif had never found it.’

  ‘It is a great gift, if used properly,’ countered Ivar. ‘You were sceptical at first, but even you acknowledged its power when it saved Mother after she almost died giving birth to Olaf. And it has brought us luck.’

  ‘Some very good luck, and some very bad,’ agreed Jorund. ‘But I am glad you are taking it away. It led to fights when the people of the Western Settlement learned about it, and it is unpredictable – it does not always do what one wants.’

  ‘Such as failing to save Leif,’ said Ivar sadly. ‘And Aron’s little son, when he fell in the fire. I suppose it wants to be seen as a boon, not a given. But regardless, the monks will know how to use it wisely, and I do not think we should keep it any longer.’

  Jorund smiled, pleased his son had grown so wise. Would Leif have shown the same qualities? And would his third son, Olaf, who was being groomed as village leader now Ivar was making good his promise to take the cowl? He supposed only time would tell.

  The following day, while the rest of the villagers mended fences and enclosures, Jorund and Ivar removed the stones Qasapi had laid over the bodies of the thirteen men and one boy who had died so long ago, and began the process of taking them to the cemetery.

  Despite the Skraelings’ care, animals had been at the bodies, and rain and snow had done their share of scattering, too. It was impossible to tell which bones belonged to whom, so they buried them in a common grave to the south of the church, placing the skulls in a long line against one side.

  ‘We may have put Brand next to Leif,’ said Jorund anxiously, staring down at what they had done. ‘A killer next to his victim.’

  ‘It does not matter,’ said Ivar comfortingly. ‘And they were all friends once. Let us put the earth over them and make an end of this dismal business.’

  A week later Ivar packed the sky-stone in a bag with some warm clothes and prepared to head south with the traders. He bade a tearful farewell to the parents and brother he would never see again, and watched Brattahli∂ and its little church until they disappeared from sight. Then he turned his eyes to the seas he would have to cross before he reached his final destination.

  In the following days, with his thoughts far away, Ivar did not notice the man from the Western Settlement who watched him intently. Called Saemund, he was not much older than Ivar, and had not dissimilar Norse features. Like everyone from the Western Settlement, he knew all about the sky-stone. He had also heard Ivar telling his father that he intended to give it to a monastery, and he thought it a pity that monks in Iceland should benefit from something that belonged in Greenland. Before they had even sailed, Saemund had decided to kill Ivar and tip his body into the sea; accidents were not uncommon on ships, and it would be assumed that Ivar had been washed overboard.

  And the sky-stone? Saemund would grab it before he threw Ivar’s corpse into the sea, and then he would keep it safe. When he returned to the Western Settlement the following year, he would take it with him. Of course, he might use it to accrue himself a little wealth in the meantime – such a prize could make a man very rich.

  Late one day, with no one else near the stern, Saemund began to edge towards Ivar, but as he pulled out his knife the ship gave a peculiar lurch. He glanced upwards and saw dark clouds scudding towards them. Surely, they had not been there earlier? It had been clear and calm all day, and the captain had been muttering about an unusually placid crossing. Keeping a wary eye on the sky, Saemund eased forward again.

  The squall hit the little ship with tremendous force, dousing those on deck with a vicious shower of rain and spray. Saemund blinked water from his eyes. Were the gods providing a diversion for him, so he could take the stone from Ivar without being seen – knowing he would bring the treasure back to Greenland? Or were they warning him to leave well alone?

  Saemund took a firmer hold on his knife. There was only one way to find out.

  Historical note

  In the 1960s archaeological investigations in western Greenland uncovered the foundations of a tiny church. It has been dated to about AD 1000 and is thought to have been built by Thjodhild, wife of Erik the Red; Erik founded the settlement of Brattahli∂ in the 980s. An unusual mass grave was discovered just to the south of it, containing thirteen adult males and a nine-year-old child. All had been buried at the same time, and, although the skeletons appear to have been deposited fairly randomly, the heads were carefully arranged in a line down the eastern side of the pit. Many show signs of violence, such as hacking injuries to the head and arms.

  Several explanations have been offered for why so many men should have died at the same time. Vikings were a seafaring people, and so it has been suggested they were victims of a shipwreck on Greenland’s treacherous coast. Alternatively, they may have been the losers in a skirmish, either with a rival clan or with indigenous people. But no one knows, and the fate of these people remains a mystery.

  A number of iron meteorites are recorded as having been discovered in Greenland. They were highly prized by the Greenlanders, who fashioned knives, harpoon heads and engraving tools from them. Three large ones landed east of Cape York about a thousand years ago, and, although their whereabouts was a closely guarded secret, rumours of an ‘iron mountain’ reached the British explorer John Ross in 1818. The American explorer Robert E. Peary found the meteorites in 1894, and the next year took two of them back to the United States. In 1896 Peary led an expedition to remove the largest of the meteorites, which was known as ‘Ahnighito’ and weighed between ninety and a hundred tons. Peary had it excavated but could not transport it all the way to his ship, so he returned in 1897, when he was able to take it with him back to New York. It is now displayed in the American Museum of Natural History.

  Act One

  Estrighoiel (now Chepstow), summer 1101

  The weathered recluse was frightened. Ever since he had used the sky-stone to save Cadowan’s wife, people had been trying to find him, demanding cures. And demanding answers, too. They wanted to know how he had been able to wrest a woman from the jaws of death. Was it by God’s grace or the devil’s? All that most of them knew was that Nest claimed he had put a curiously shaped stone in her hand and urged it to heal her – and it had. Was it true? Where was this stone? Surely, if it had truly helped her, it should be in a shrine, not in the care of a grizzled, cantankerous hermit in a cave in the woods?

  Ivar knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that someone was going to try to take it from him. Nest and Cadowan were good people, which was why he had helped Nest when he had come across her, twisted and broken, after her fall down the cliff. She had promised to keep silent about what had happened, but there had been witnesses – those who had chased her and driven her over the precipice in the first place – and they had accused her of being in league with Satan. To save her, her husband had told the truth, and then Nest had followed suit. Ivar did not blame them; he would probably have done the same.

  But it meant that now, after years of solitude, Ivar’s sanctuary was under siege. People flocked to him with their questions, pleas and demands, and he knew he could not stay in his refuge much longer. Nest and Cadowan had tried to buy the stone from him, and when he had refused to part with it they had urged him to take it to the monastery in Estrighoiel, where Prior Odo had offered to keep it safe and use it wisely.

  Ivar grimaced. Of course he had! The sky-stone would bring the little foundation great wealth, and monks, like the indolent Aidan and the fiery Marcus, would be only too grateful to spend it on themselves. Ivar had learned years ago that the inhabitants of such places were not gentle saints who dedicated their lives to God, as he had been led to believe, but were men with the usual human failings of greed and ambition.

  Then there was the constable at the castle, arrived within the last few months – the constable was the man in charge of the fortress and its troops, who held his command directly from the King. Walter de C
lare would love to lay his hands on the sky-stone, so he could dole out its favours to those he needed to impress. He was already regarded with fear and suspicion in his new domain, partly because of his ugly character, but mostly because of the mysterious and convenient ‘accident’ that had killed his predecessor – like Nest, Sir Drogo de Hauteville had gone over a cliff.

  Walter would not come for the stone himself, of course: he was too cowardly. He would send his henchmen, battle-honed Norman knights, who would stop at nothing to carry out his orders. Two stood out to Ivar as particularly dangerous: Pigot, who was huge, strong and had a reputation for cruelty, and the angel-faced Revelle, who was too intelligent to serve a man like Walter, and so represented something of an enigma.

  Ivar thought back over his life, sorry he had wasted so much of it. He could have achieved great things – it was not as if he had been short of dreams as he grew up on the Greenland farm. But after the shipwreck that had washed him up on the wild Hibernian shore so far from where he had intended to go, he had been confused and frightened. The sky-stone had saved his life, he was sure of that, and he knew it had been for a reason. But what? Everything that had once been so clear to him had become vague and uncertain.

  Within days of the four survivors finding themselves thrown on to the shore, an entire army had appeared at the coast to take sail. But its leader lay near death, wounded by a battleaxe. The sky-stone had made him whole again, and suddenly the four were viewed as great healers and men of God. In appreciation, the now-healthy Rhys ap Tewdwr took them with him across a narrow sea, to where he reconquered his lost homeland and reclaimed his title as Prince of Deheubarth.

  For five years they remained in Rhys’s court at Dinefwr Castle – and Ivar often pondered the safety of the sky-stone – before the Prince was killed by the Normans. Two of the shipwrecked survivors also died in the conflict, and Ivar and the other disappeared into the deep forests and crags near Estrighoiel. There, a quiet, reflective life in a hermit’s cave had not always kept the tension from building between the two. So, having always fancied himself something of an explorer, Ivar finally departed, leaving the sky-stone behind only because he sensed it did not want to leave the wooded hills.

  He had travelled far and wide, but the sky-stone was always in the back of his mind. It had taken years, but he had returned eventually, and had wept for joy when the stone lay in his hand again. It had not changed – it was still glossy, with the curious shape that might be a bird or a ship. Or even a cross, perhaps. And although he was now the only survivor, the cave was still there, hidden among the ferns and the trees. He found it was a good place in which to live, especially to a man used to polar winters.

  When times were very hard, he would venture into Estrighoiel and sell remedies for various minor hurts. But he was always careful to keep the stone hidden when he applied them, so no one would know the real reason why his cures worked. It was better that way, because he sensed there was a limit to the sky-stone’s powers – use it too much, and it might not perform in the event that he needed it for himself.

  And then, one day, he had happened across Nest and the men who were stalking her with lust in their eyes. Ivar could not be certain, because they kept themselves concealed, but he thought they were knights from the castle. Nest was beautiful, with long black hair and perfect features, and Ivar knew people had been bemused when she chose the plain Cadowan for her husband. But Ivar understood: Cadowan was wealthy, and well able to afford the clothes that showed off Nest’s lithe figure and the jewellery that sparkled at her slender throat and on her fingers.

  Ivar had watched the men prepare to pounce on Nest, but she had heard the crack of a twig and, sensing danger, had bolted. He had shouted a warning, telling her that the summer rain had turned the track treacherous, but terror had turned her deaf. She had lost her footing near the cliff and fallen, and, appalled, her dissolute pursuers had melted into the trees.

  She was dying by the time he reached her. She was so lovely that he found himself wanting her as well, and, determined that such beauty should not perish, he reached for the sky-stone without thought of the consequences. Unfortunately, the men were still watching, and they had reported to Walter de Clare, who immediately launched an investigation. Unsurprisingly, no soldiers were ever brought to book for the intended rape, although Ivar and Nest were taken to the castle and questioned.

  His memories were suddenly interrupted as a figure materialized in the entrance to his cave. He was angry and distressed in equal measure. Why would they not leave him alone?

  ‘Go away!’ he cried. ‘I do not want to see anyone.’

  ‘You must come with me,’ came Revelle’s breathless, gasping voice. It was a stiff climb to the cave. ‘There has been an accident, and you are needed. Hurry!’

  ‘No!’ declared Ivar querulously. ‘I do not want to.’

  ‘The victim is a child,’ pleaded Revelle, his smooth, angelic face desperate. ‘Walter’s six-year-old daughter. She fell in the river, and now she does not breathe. You must help her.’

  ‘I cannot,’ cried Ivar, alarmed. ‘You credit me with altogether too much power.’

  ‘You bring folk back from the dead,’ argued Revelle. ‘Nest said so. Please cure Eleanor – Walter is beside himself, and you are the only one who can help.’ He hesitated, then forged on. ‘He dotes on her, and her death will turn him bitter. The whole town will suffer if Eleanor dies . . .’

  Against his better judgement, Ivar followed Revelle to the town, where a crowd had gathered. There was absolute silence, except for Walter’s broken weeping. The townsfolk might not like the constable, with his vicious ways and unruly henchmen, but everyone adored the little girl with the gap-toothed smile and dancing eyes.

  Revelle pushed the hermit forward. ‘You know what you must do, Ivar Jorundsson.’

  Estrighoiel, summer 1103

  Sir Geoffrey Mappestone had not wanted to travel to Estrighoiel, but his wife had insisted. Geoffrey was not normally a man who could be bullied, but Hilde was a formidable lady, and they had not been married long – he was loath to turn their relationship turbulent with a confrontation. And it was not far to Estrighoiel from Goodrich, especially in summer, when the Wye Valley track was hard, dry and good for riding. He estimated it was no more than thirty miles, and it was not as if he was needed at home anyway – a lifetime of soldiering overseas meant he had scant idea how to run an estate.

  A bird flapped suddenly in the undergrowth, and he reined his horse to an abrupt standstill, listening intently as his hand dropped to the broadsword he wore at his waist. It was unlikely that anyone would risk attacking a fully armed Norman knight, but Geoffrey had not survived twenty years of combat by being cavalier about inexplicable noises.

  ‘It is nothing,’ said his friend, Sir Roger of Durham, who rode at his side. He had also stopped, one hand on his sword and the other ready to grab the cudgel that was looped behind his saddle. ‘Just another nervous pigeon.’

  Roger was an enormous man, with a head of long black curls, a bushy beard and expensive clothes that had suffered from being worn too long: they were grimy, smelly and repairs had been made with clumsy stitches. By contrast, Geoffrey, with no mean stature himself, was neater and kept his light brown hair short, in soldierly fashion.

  He and Roger had little in common, including whatever the other held dear – Roger was fond of wars and money, while Geoffrey, unusually for a knight, was literate and liked books and art. Nevertheless, they had forged a friendship when they had joined the Crusade to the Holy Land years before. Geoffrey had gone because Tancred, his liege lord, had ordered him to, and because he had had a yearning to learn Hebrew and Arabic, although he had never been convinced of the wisdom of causing trouble in foreign countries. Roger had gone to loot himself a fortune and fight anyone who tried to stop him.

  The two had been reunited a few weeks before, when Roger had arrived to enjoy the hunting in his friend’s woods. He was a demanding, wearisome guest, with
his rough, ebullient manners and unpredictable aggression, and it crossed Geoffrey’s mind that Hilde might not have been quite so insistent that her husband travel to Estrighoiel if Roger had not been visiting.

  ‘Why did Hilde want us to come here?’ Roger asked as they started moving again. ‘I know you have already said, but I was more interested in the lasses in that village of yours, who came to wave us off. I did not listen to you.’

  Geoffrey suspected it had been relief that had encouraged the girls from their homes to bid Roger farewell – and that they were hoping his departure was permanent. None were safe from his clumsy advances, and he was regarded as something of a menace.

  ‘Her uncle is a monk at Estrighoiel Priory,’ began Geoffrey obligingly. ‘And someone tried to kill him with a dagger. He wrote asking her for money, to hire a bodyguard.’

  ‘I can see why she was not very keen on that,’ said Roger, who hated parting with cash. ‘And your manor is hardly wealthy, anyway. She will not want to squander good gold on keeping some old man alive.’

  ‘Actually, she thought it would be better if we investigated why someone meant him harm in the first place,’ said Geoffrey somewhat tartly. Hilde might leave a lot to be desired in a wife, but miserliness was not one of her failings. ‘She will find the funds, if necessary.’

  Roger sniffed. ‘And there was me thinking she is sensible! So that is all we must do in Estrighoiel? Find out why someone tried to murder a monk? With your sharp wits and my sharp sword, we shall have answers in no time, and you will soon be back in the marriage bed.’

  He winked salaciously, and Geoffrey winced. He had not wanted to marry Hilde – she was his senior by at least five years and was more manly than most men – but it had been politically expedient to form an alliance with the locally powerful Baderon family. Moreover, Goodrich needed an heir, and the whole manor was watching intently for signs that he had done his duty. He only hoped it would not take long, because going through the necessary procedures was awkward for both of them.