This story is almost completely fictional despite the fact that its characters are based on people that might have actually lived. Consequently, no offense is meant to anybody living or dead. This story is a piece of historical fiction and should be treated as such.
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The Puffins had always lived on St Ninian’s Isle ever since man could remember. They had seen it all, and knew the whole story behind The Treasure of the Isle.
The story started in the mid 8th century when the Picts were ruling the isle and surrounding areas of today’s Scotland. The Picts were not the only dominant power in the region and in the past had shared the region with the Gaels for significant stretches of time. As if the persistent military skirmishes with the Gaels was not enough, the Viking empire was slowly gaining in power, prominence and military might.
By the middle of the 9th century, when Ketil Flatnose, the Viking King, is said to have founded the Kingdom of the Isles, the Vikings had destroyed the kingdoms of Dál Riata and Northumbria, greatly diminished the power of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, and founded the Kingdom of York. In a major battle in 839, the Vikings killed the king of Fortriu Eógan mac Óengusa, the king of Dál Riata Áed mac Boanta, and many others.
In the aftermath, in the 840s, Kenneth MacAlpin became king of the Picts. Kenneth was acutely aware of the growing power of the Vikings and instinctively foresaw them becoming a formidable power. This instinct of his was partly based on facts gleaned from his spies and scouts all over the surrounding areas and partly based on the legends that his old nanny had narrated to him about the Vikings and their alliances with the Gods themselves.
He was also aware that if the Picts under him showed any signs of weaknesses, their old enemy, the Gaels, were close enough to their castle walls to breach them and ensure that they defeat the Picts, lynch the ruling family and declare themselves King of the Isles.
While Kenneth was not a King to shy away from a good battle, he was quite the strategist. He was acutely aware of the fact that all the treasures that his grandfather and his ancestors had plundered over the years would be more than sufficient for him and at least three more generations to live in all their kingly glory. What was the icing on the cake was the fact that none of his loyal subjects knew about the treasure save for a couple of squires who had been with the royal family for five generations now and whose loyalty could be assured.
The problem that Kenneth now faced was that the cell in the dungeon where his grandfather had stored the treasure had walls which were prone to collapse anytime now. In the days of his grandfather, the sea had stopped at least 40 meters short of the prison walls, but as time had gone by, the shore had eroded and now the waves were lapping the walls on the outside. The resultant salt, moisture and sea winds had weakened the dungeon walls quite a bit and Kenneth really had to move the treasure.
He therefore ordered the construction of a new series of crypts beneath the church which was located at the highest point of the Isle. While the official Royal Decree read that the crypt would hold the embalmed remains of the royal family, the truth was that it would also hold the Treasure of the Isle in a separate chamber which would be protected by the fact that in those days, crypts were considered haunted and would usually be left untouched even by barbaric marauders.
By the time the crypt was ready, the Vikings after having overrun the rest of the surrounding areas and the Gaels, had arrived at the gates of Kenneth. Coincidentally, the day that Kenneth had decided to move the treasure into the crypt was the day that the Vikings decided to attack the castle. The ensuing chaos meant that while a majority of the treasure was moved into the crypts, the men in charge of moving the treasure did quite a shoddy job of arranging the same in the crypt and it was all a huge mess of gold, silver and other precious stones in the crypt.
While three of the five men who moved the treasure died in the Viking attack, the remaining two were captured and treated as prisoners of war were in those days. They were thrown into the dungeons and left to rot, and this humane treatment was meted out to them because they were squires and not ordinary soldiers. As was the norm in those days, the squires usually knew more about the royal family and their secrets and thus were more valuable to the new King than the other normal soldiers. However, what the Vikings did not anticipate was the loyalty and devotion that was being exhibited by these two squires.
While one of them bit off his tongue rather than succumb to the torture techniques which the Vikings were renown for, the other one held steady despite the absolute worst of tortures they subjected him to. After more than two years of continuous attempts, the Vikings finally had to give up on him as they faced internal strife of their own in the form of a rebellion within their ranks.
This power struggle ensured that the smart squire managed to bribe the prison guards and escape from the Isle. The secret however was safe with him and was passed on to future generations only by word of mouth.
Several generations later, Dr W Douglas Simpson from the Aberdeen University first heard the story of the Treasure of the Isle from his dying grandfather, and was immediately interested. Given that he was an archaeologist by profession and had quite an adventurous life so far, he immediately put together a team of fellow archaeologists, archeology students and managed to get a grant to dig at St Ninian’s Isle.
One of the first things that Douglas procured was a map of the St Ninian’s Isle itself.
The first creatures that greeted them on the Isle were the Puffins. They had not only survived the various marauding races and wars, but if they could talk, they would immediately narrate the story of the Treasure of the Isle to them. But now Douglas had to look for the treasure the hard way.
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This post has been put up for The Mag 186 writing prompt for September 15, 2013 at this link [Link]. The prompt was to write a post using the picture featured there (the map picture used in the story above).
