Gunnar looked at her with surprise on his face. “No, of course not. This was written by your father. It is signed by him here — Henry Donovan.”
Lea felt like the world had stopped spinning. As Gunnar’s words sank in, the astonishment she felt grew like a tidal wave until she thought she was going to drown. The implications of his words immediately struck her like an ice-pick. “But… how did Dad know all this? It all sounds so far fetched.”
“Not at all! As I say, that part of Newfoundland was raided and looted by the Basques in the 1650s. This is common knowledge. It’s perfectly possible that they discovered Sigurd’s cloak, left behind by the Vikings centuries earlier, and took it back to their homeland.”
“So where exactly did they take it?”
“That’s why this script is so important. It says that when they returned to Spain they sold the cloak to a very rich merchant.” Gunnar peered at the screen as he made the translation. “A Francisco de la Cosa.”
“Never heard of him.”
Gunnar carefully finished the script and smiled. “Me neither — he doesn’t seem to be an historical figure, but according to the script he was a very rich man and over the years he bought many interesting and exotic items from both raiding parties and legitimate explorers. This says that he kept them in a vault at his castillo in northern Spain, and guess what?”
“Surprise us,” Lea said.
Gunnar checked the script one more time. “At the time your father wrote this the castillo was still standing and there’s a better than good chance that it’s still standing to this day, and I would bet it’s still in the hands of the de la Cosa family! Your father seemed to think that they were considered to possess one of the finest private fine art collections in the world.”
“So you think they’ve still got the cloak?”
Gunnar shrugged. “I don’t know, but would you give something like that away?” He paused for a moment and stared unblinking at the text. “Woah!”
“What’s up, Gunnar?” Hawke asked.
“There seems to be an oblique reference here to the Axe of Baldr.”
“What’s that?”
“Baldr was Thor’s brother — another son of Odin and Frigg. A fragment of what is supposed to be his axe is in Sweden today, but most of it is missing. According to this, it claims the axe was reputed to contain an inscription which would lead to Thor’s… this can’t be right.”
“Don’t tell me,” Hawke said. “Thor’s tomb, right?”
“Yes, but perhaps my translation is wrong. Surely they mean temple.”
“No, Gunnar,” Lea sighed. “They surely do not mean temple, believe me.”
Hawke rubbed his eyes. “Just what the hell do these maniacs want with Thor’s tomb? Gunnar, does it say if that raiding party ever got hold of the axe?”
“No, but…”
“But maybe there’s a chance,” Lea said.
“In other words…” Victoria’s words drifted into the crackling fire.
“In other words,” Hawke said coolly, “if we want to find the rest of this cloak, and maybe even this axe — and wherever that leads us — then our best shot is Basque country.”
“So let’s get out of here,” Lea said.
“Wait,” said Gunnar. “If you’re researching Thor and Valhalla you’ll need a copy of the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum.”
Hawke looked at Victoria. “Is he speaking English or Icelandic?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s the Deeds of the Bishop of Hamburg.”
“What’s Hamburg got to do with it?”
“You’ll find out,” Gunnar said, and rummaged around on his shelf before handing them a thin document. “Here it is.”
Hawke took it from him and glanced at it. “Right… excellent… brilliant. But this is written in Latin.”
Gunnar frowned. “I couldn’t find one in Icelandic. Read it before you get to Spain because it could be of some use. It describes Thor’s temple at Uppsala in great detail and might have some other important clues. If you have any problems, then call me.”
“No need for that, Gunnar,” Hawke said. “You’re coming with us.”
CHAPTER NINE
The drive from Bilbao Airport to the Castillo de la Cosa was long and winding, and took them deep into the hills of Gipuzkoa Province. They drove through the town of Urretxu before finally driving north into the mountains where the castle had been nestling away for hundreds of years. Known as the Euskaldunak in their own language, the Basques had lived on the Iberian Peninsula since before the time of agriculture, and since 1978 Basque Country had been an autonomous region in the north-west of Spain.
The castillo was an imposing building of honey-colored stone hidden among dogwood, oak and ash, and a thick grove of hazel trees. Two turrets towered above them as they emerged from the car and walked toward the foreboding entrance in the warm Spanish air.
With no small thanks to an introduction and bribe from Sir Richard Eden, the owner of the property welcomed them warmly and invited them inside. They were shown through to an enormous hall in the center of which was a large table covered in food and wine.
Javier de la Cosa smiled broadly and extended his arms to emphasize his generosity. “Please, you must sample some of our local cuisine before we talk business!”
“That’s very kind,” Lea said. “But we have so little time.”
“Nonsense, you must eat!”
Lea looked at the others.
Hawke shrugged his shoulders, and soon they were all sitting around the table tucking into various Basque dishes like kokotxas, marmitako and pintxos.
“This really is very generous, Señor de la Cosa,” Lea said. “But we need to talk — you could be in danger here.”
“Danger? Rubbish! My family has defended this castle for seven hundred years.”
Ryan closed the notebook full of symbols that the Icelandic professor had given him to study and stared at a dish in the center of the table. “What’s this?”
Javier peered over his glasses at the dish and smiled. “It’s bacalao — a sort of salt cold.”
“Salt cod?” Ryan said, recalling Martha’s bubbling pots and pans back on Bell Island. “Interesting.”
The Spaniard waved a meaty hand at the generous spread. “Try some!”
“Thanks, but I ate in Canada…”
The rest of them tucked in with gusto, and toward the end of the meal, which included plenty of Spanish wine, Javier turned to Hawke and his tone was suddenly all business. “Now — Sir Richard told me you have something of great historical significance that might be of interest to the collection here at the Castillo de la Cosa.”
Hawke and Lea shared a glance. “We think so, yes, and we also think you might be able to help us with something as well.”
“In that case, I’d better see what you have.”
Lea pulled Martha’s small ring box from her pocket and gently pushed the lid open as she slid the box across the table.
Javier stared down into the little ring box. His face straightened and for a few tense moments Lea was scared she had somehow lost the precious artefact, but then a broad grin appeared on the tanned face of the Spanish millionaire and he began to nod his head with unmitigated pleasure.
“I see you have in your possession exactly what Sir Richard described.” He carefully picked up the small invisible bead and held it between his thumb and forefinger. Its strange, watery appearance sparkled for a moment, yet Hawke could only see the indentations made by the bead as it pressed into Javier’s fingers and pushed the blood away from the surface of his fingertips. The object itself was gone from the world.