Shef pulled from the front of his tunic the mappamundi he had taken from the minster wall. “Look at this,” he said. A dozen heads bent over the vast vellum sheet, faces wearing different degrees of puzzlement at the scrawled, inked marks.

“Can you read the writing?” asked Shef.

“In the middle there,” said Skaldfinn the Heimdall-priest. “Where the little picture is. It says ‘Hierusalem.’ That is the holy city of the Christians.”

“Lies, as usual,” commented Thorvin. “That black border is supposed to be Ocean, the great sea that runs round Mithgarth, the world. They are saying their holy city is the center of everything, just as you would expect.”

“Look round the edges,” rumbled Brand. “See what it has to tell us of places we know. If it lying about them, then we can guess it is all lies, as Thorvin says.”

“‘Dacia et Gothis’,” read Skaldfinn. “‘Gothia.’ That must be the land of the Gautar, south of the Swedes. Unless they mean Gotland. But Gotland is an island, and this is marked as being mainland. Next to it—next to it they have ‘Bulgaria.’”

The council broke into laughter. “The Bulgars are the enemies of the emperor of the Greeks, in Miklagarth,” said Brand. “It is two months’ travel from the nearest of the Gautar to the Bulgars.”

“On the other side of Gothia they have ‘Slesvic.’ Well, at least that is clear enough. We all know Slesvik of the Danes. There is some more writing by it. ‘Hic abundant leones.’ That means ‘There are many lions here.’”

Again a roar of laughter. “I have been to Slesvik market a dozen times,” said Brand. “And I have met men who have spoken of lions. They are like very large cats, and they live in the hot country south of Sarkland. But there has never been one lion in Slesvik, let alone many. You wasted your time bringing back this—what do you call it?—this mappa. It is just nonsense, like everything the Christians count as wisdom.”

Shef’s finger continued to trace lettering, while he muttered to himself the letters that Father Andreas had half-successfully taught him.

“There is some English writing here,” he said. “In a different hand from the rest. It says ‘Suth-Bryttas,’ that is, ‘South British.’”

“He means the Bretons,” Brand said. “They live on a large peninsula the other side of the English Sea.”

“So that is not so far wrong. You can find truth on a mappa. If you put it there.”

“I still don’t see how it is going to make us rich,” replied Brand. “That is what you said it was going to do.”