Voyage to Coromandel

This is the story of a great voyage made 500 years before Marco Polo, from the green wet kingdom of Alfred the Great to the shores of Coromandel in far-away India. Olaf and Eric were Viking brothers, sent by their uncle as hostages to the court of Alfred. Newly baptized as Christians, they are trained as pages at Alfred's court where they are kindly treated and grow used to English ways. When Alfred decides to send some of his courtiers on a pilgrimage to Rome, to pay his tribute of Peter's Pence, and from there on to Coromandel, where Thomas the Apostle had suffered martyrdom, the roving blood of the Viking brothers makes them long to become members of the mission. The party is composed, and Olaf and Eric are included. Bishop Sighelm is to represent Christianity and the Church. Athelstan, one of Alfred's lords, is to command the knights who must protect the party. The voyage will last three years and be full of dangers. By sea they must contend with fierce Norse raiders and, later, with Saracen pirates. Nor is the land much safer; added to the hazards of disease and exhaustion are bands of robbers who prey on travelers, and the killing heat of desert suns. After leaving Rome and making their way to Alexandria by Venetian ships, the pilgrims face the cunning and treachery of the Moslem Caliph who rules all Egypt. But they eventually triumph and reach their goal, the city of Mylapore in India, where St. Thomas is buried. Thus, the Viking brothers, Olaf and Eric, each achieves his dream, but it is a dream which separates them; only Eric returns to King Alfred's court; his older brother Olaf finds his destiny on Coromandel's fabled shore.