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    Hardrada's Hoard
    Hardrada's Hoard
    Hardrada's Hoard
    Ebook215 pages3 hours

    Hardrada's Hoard

    By TONY NASH and Richard Downing

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    About this ebook

    The Reverend John Goode can’t believe his eyes; the lead thieves who beat him savagely the last time they visited are here again, but this time the damage they do is far more devastating: they almost destroy his church by caving in the roof, falling through it to do more damage to the floor beneath, uncovering steps to a previously unknown crypt, mostly blocked off by debris, but there is a small hole, indicating a larger, still hidden area beyond. John looks through and is instantly horrified; he has caught the glint of gold. He quickly blocks up the hole again, believing that he must keep the find secret, for his own and the church’s sake, but eventually his conscience forces him to report the find.
    The massive treasure is that of Harald Hardrada, the ‘Hard Ruler’ of Norway, who had hidden his vast fortune for safety before sailing north to do battle against Harold Godwinson for the Throne of England, and worth an estimated eight billion pounds in today’s terms.
    The British and Norwegian Prime Ministers are at loggerheads concerning the disposal of the hoard, and every major criminal organisation in Europe is looking for ways to steal it. Some try, with varied and interesting results.
    Disgraced ex-special agent Lars Fredricksson is brought in to infiltrate the Norwegian extreme right-wing Odinist Party, seen as the most dangerous threat to the treasure’s equable disposal between the two nations, and becomes close to Egon Hartman, the psychopathic assassin who is the right-hand man of the megalomaniac leader, Professor Herringfors. Lars passes to the Norwegian PM the details of the Odinist plans to steal the hoard. He knows it all – except the actual date, which is different to the one he has been deliberately fed.
    His cover is blown and he is strapped down on a gurney, threatened with emasculation by two crazy women, and one of them is coming at him with a large scalpel in her hand and a leer on her face...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTONY NASH
    Release dateMar 4, 2015
    ISBN9781311807502
    Hardrada's Hoard
    Author

    TONY NASH

    Tony Nash is the author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels. He began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

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      Book preview

      Hardrada's Hoard - TONY NASH

      CHAPTER ONE

      19th August 1066

      The ghostly forms glided silently through the thick mist drifting offshore from the marshes just a hundred yards away on the ships’ stjórnborði side; three malevolent, sinister spectres, their dragon-headed, out-jutting bowsprits and aftenposts deliberately designed to instil instant fear into their enemies; the dragons’ whitened, evilly-grinning teeth increasing the implication of impending doom. More menacing still was the now darkening enemy blood daubed on the points of those teeth; a gruesome detail gleefully renewed by the warriors after every battle.

      Bi-coloured, striped square sails that with a strong following north-easterly breeze had driven the masterfully designed, six metre long, clinker-built oak craft effortlessly from their last port of call at Tynemouth in just three days now hung lifeless in the still air as the ships were driven southwards along the coast by the rowers, their long oars merely dabbing at the water, and the four-knot flood tide. They could have been making another five knots rowing hard, but this close to shore there lurked the ever-present danger of running aground on a sandbank, something the crews were always prepared for but which they naturally preferred to avoid. It was no great problem; the design of the boats allowed for easy refloating; the forward crew merely moved to the stern, lifting the bow and allowing the rear banks of oarsmen to pull the vessel backwards off the shoal with ease, as they did each time they refloated from where they had been beached. They were well practised at the manoeuvre.

      In the leading vessel the imposing six-foot five-inch-tall figure of Harald Hardrada, given name Haraldr Sigurðarson, ‘Hard Ruler’, King of Norway, stood at the stern, next to his senior lieutenant and lifelong best friend, Olaf Magnuson and Bjørn Alvedson, his highly experienced steersman, the calluses on whose hands showed clearly his years of experience on the steering oar.

      Olaf could see how impatient his friend was to see the mouth of the River Yare for the third time in his life and murmured, ‘Not long now, old friend.’

      Harald nodded, ‘Before daylight, Olaf.’

      Twice before they had raided together this low lying, marshy part of England that jutted out into the North Sea; a land of ignorant peasants, the East Angles, and they knew the area well for ten leagues inland. Many were their fair-haired offspring there from the women they had raped after viciously slaughtering their menfolk.

      On this visit their aim was not to plunder and rape, though if women were foolish enough not to flee before them Harald and his men would certainly engage in the latter. In the hard world of the warrior one took one’s natural pleasures where one could, and anything belonging to an enemy was the victor’s spoils, to do with as he thought fit. Instead, the task now was to hide safely Harald’s immense treasure, accumulated for the most part when he was Commander of the Byzantine Varingian Guard of Varslav the Wise in Asia Minor. This, he had decided, must be done before he went into battle against the newly chosen English King, Harold Godwinson, in a bid to win the Throne of England. If he won, the bullion and other items would become his royal treasury and highly necessary for the purpose of buying the allegiance of the important noblemen. The treasure must not fall into Harold’s hands. It belonged to Norway, and Harald knew that if he fell, as well he might, either Olaf or another of his senior lieutenants would retrieve it and return it to his homeland. Not that he intended falling. There was more than a fair chance of victory, for Tostig Godwinson, Harold’s brother, angered at not being chosen King himself, had promised Harald allegiance and the aid of his own men in overcoming his brother Harold to win that Throne. It was Tostig that Harald had met at Tynemouth, along with Malcolm III of Scotland, after calling at Shetland and the Orkneys, where he was joined by the Earls of Orkney, Erlend and Paul Thorfinnsson, with their personal troops, some two thousand men, bringing the strength of his army up to almost thirteen thousand.

      Despite that hope of victory, Harald was no fool. A battle-hardened veteran, he had been wounded and defeated in enough of the eighty-three battles he had fought to know that it was not possible to win them all, and the odds against him winning this time, even with Tostig’s help, were marginal at best as he well knew, though he had to engage this enemy, since he desired the Throne of England even more than he had desired that of Denmark, for which he had battled so hard and so unsuccessfully these last years, despite his dozens of annual raids, and he had a certain dubious legal claim to the Throne, since Harthacnut had promised it to Harald’s nephew, Magnus, shortly before Edward the Confessor, son of Ethelred the Unready became king.

      If he were to lose the battle he needed to be sure that his treasure was safe. Once that was achieved to his satisfaction he could rejoin the fleet of almost three hundred ships he had left beached along the north shore of the Wash, awaiting his return, and head north towards his fate.

      He knew precisely where he would hide the treasure.

      CHAPTER TWO.

      The Reverend John Goode slid out carefully from beneath the duvet, trying not to awaken his wife, Muriel. He stood and stretched his arms up to the Heavens, glancing idly out of the window, still half asleep, and then opened his eyes wide. Something was badly out of kilter with his normal morning view. From his bedroom window in the rectory at that time of the morning the sunlight, reflected off the lead roof of the church, almost blinded him when the sky was clear, as it was that day. Now he saw patterns that were strange and irregular instead and realised that what he was seeing was only part of the roof. What was worse, the wall on the near side of the church appeared to have collapsed in on itself. There was a gaping hole in the middle. It looked like something he might see in a war film, as if a shell or a bomb had landed on the church, and he quickly dressed, left the house and ran the three hundred yards until he came to the area leading up to the church that was known as ‘Drakenmat’, waking Muriel suddenly from a deep sleep as he threw the bedroom door back on its hinges, making her wonder what had disturbed her normally complacent husband.

      She slipped out of bed and looked out of the window. John was running down the path. She considered for a moment following him, but decided that, however urgent his present business, he would tell her when he returned. He seemed to be in full control of himself.

      Climbing back into bed and closing her eyes again was an attractive option, but she knew sleep was out of the question and went into the bathroom to carry out her ablutions. Then, she thought, she would have a cup of coffee and wait for John’s return before cooking breakfast. Knowing of her husband’s love for his church she knew that might take some time, but she had no reason to fear that he might be in danger; it was broad daylight.

      In the churchyard, just past the first of the dragon heads, John stopped to look at the damage.

      Local legend had it that the battered and damaged heads of the six stone dragons there dated from the end of the tenth century and had been placed at different points in the church grounds to ward off evil, the idea being that the dragons would eat any bad luck which might come the way of the village before it could have any effect.

      It was a wry joke in that part of rural Norfolk that the price of lead had ‘shot through the roof’, and isolated village churches such as this one in Donsaxby were prime targets for lead thieves. It was impossible to guard the churches around the clock and the robbers, working in the dead of night, would have the lead stripped from the church, loaded up onto a van and halfway back to London or Manchester before three in the morning, leaving leaking, dangerous roofs behind them.

      The police and the clergy had unsuccessfully tried a number of methods to deter the thieves. Goode’s own church had been targeted seven months before. He had foolishly surprised the robbers in the act and had spent four days in hospital nursing three cracked ribs, a broken nose and a fair amount of bruised pride for his trouble, but he had saved the roof, at least temporarily. The robbers had departed in haste after beating him, believing that he had alerted the police before going to the church.

      There was one sure way of solving the problem, and the clergy in one of the neighbouring villages had taken that route, dismantling their fine roof and selling the lead themselves before installing a new roof made entirely of slate but John Goode loved the fine patina of the lead and was not looking to follow their example.

      He could hear groans long before he saw the men and one glance was enough to paint him the sad picture: the two thieves had weakened the roof by stealing the lead; as a result part of it had collapsed with them on it and it had taken the wall, which was already in a parlous state, down with it.

      One of the men lay at an unusual angle in the dust. Goode knew from his service as an army paramedic in Korea that it was highly unlikely the man would ever walk again. The other had incurred less serious injuries, but still his condition looked grim; broken bones were sticking out from both legs and his jeans were caked with blood.

      He looked at Goode dully and grunted. ‘Call us an ambulance, mate.’

      The Reverend, a local man by birth, sighed heavily. Londoners! It was bad enough that the wealthy ones invaded the county in droves, buying houses in the pretty villages, including his, pushing up prices so that local people could not afford them, and then using their purchases only as weekend retreats and holiday homes, with the result that the villages became little more than ghosts of their former selves; the butchers, bakers, post offices and pubs which made up the vital heartbeat of any community gone, unable to make a living from the few permanent residents. Now thieves from the big City were coming here too, desecrating more beauty. Like these two brutal lead thieves, hoping to make a quick killing.

      Goode nodded to himself. They had got their just desserts all right and the retribution, doubtless in his mind an act of the Almighty, had been just about fair in his eyes; he loved his tiny church with a passion, and when it was desecrated he felt personally sullied.

      He peered through the dust. The damage was far worse than he had at first imagined, for not only had the outer wall caved in, but two inner walls had fallen too.

      The nearest thief pleaded, ‘Come on, mate, hurry up. We din’t mean to hurt you last time, honest.’

      Goode shook his head in disbelief, ‘So when you told your accomplice over there, Go on, Bill, give ‘im another one! Kick ‘im in the teeth again you didn’t really mean it?’

      ‘A’course not! We was only foolin’, or you’d be dead. Get us that ambulance.’ John Goode deliberately turned away to look more closely at the damage, ignoring the thief’s plea. He would let him and his accomplice suffer for a few more minutes before phoning the hospital and the police.

      He moved through the rubble, morosely thinking of the expense of repairing the church and possible ways he could ask the villagers to make donations. A summer fete and an auction of some sort perhaps might raise a little of the money needed, but where was the rest to come from? His regular parishioners numbered not much more than a dozen, and the diocese might very well decide to write the church off. It had happened in other small parishes in East Anglia and was a sign of the times. He could not claim that he had a full house on Sundays, even at Easter or Christmas, and the collection rarely amounted to five pounds.

      He took out his mobile and was in the process of making the call to the emergency services when he noticed a hole in the floor near where the first criminal had landed, and what looked like part of a rotting staircase. He peered down it and the hairs on his neck began to rise. He made his way to the hole, inadvertently standing on the heel of the younger of the robbers in his haste; rewarded with a yelp, followed by a string of vile curse words. Immune to the bleats, moans and blasphemies of the robbers he climbed carefully down into the depths. The falling rubble had filled most of the space, apart from where the stairs were, but there was a small clearing at the top where he could see through into a much larger area. He suddenly realised that underneath his church there had been a crypt he had known nothing about. He moved his head from side to side, trying to see as much as he could, and suddenly recoiled in horror. The sunlight reflected off his spectacles had shown up a glint he recognised instantly and one he wished heartily he had never seen.

      CHAPTER THREE

      They entered the mouth of the river just before dawn, surprising two fishermen in a ramshackle, twelve-foot, homemade boat, who had just reached the rough sea at the harbour bar. The sudden appearance of the dragon-stemmed boats panicked them so much that they clambered to their feet and tipped their unsteady craft over. Harald’s crew saw their heads for a few moments before they disappeared beneath the waves. His men gave a loud cheer; two more ignorant peasants gone.

      As they progressed towards the point where the river broadened into a mere before narrowing again they saw figures appear from the wooden hovels built near the banks, take one look at them and flee. On a normal raid the men would have been chased and killed and their womenfolk raped and perhaps taken prisoner for later use, but on that day the local peasants were able to bless their good luck.

      The boats hurried on, the oarsmen now rowing with all their might against a fast ebbing tide. Harald wanted to be at his destination well before dark.

      By mid-afternoon they reached the bend in the river where the three ancient elm trees grew and pulled into the bank. The sleds they had brought with them were unloaded, and then the weighty, thick boards that had been hewn specially and the treasure, secure in heavy leather bags, were piled upon them.

      Moving the sleds across the marsh was desperately hard work, but every man with Harald was a hardened warrior at the peak of fitness and they progressed well. There was just one habitation on the marsh, a rough wooden shack with a thickly thatched roof. No smoke was rising from the chimney and the shack appeared unoccupied.

      Though not expecting trouble they approached as they always did, carefully and suspiciously, leaving the sleds as they did so. Harald himself pushed open the wooden door, his huge, trusty sword Skelva in his hand, and went inside. Half a loaf of bread lay on the roughly hewn table, showing that the dwelling was indeed occupied. He went back outside and told his men to search the area.

      There were few trees and little cover and they set to, checking the dykes.

      At the junction of two of them, Baldur Olafson, one of Harald’s bastard sons, and only one inch shorter in size, unacknowledged by him and adopted after birth

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