A Brief History of Montmaray

by Michelle Cooper

  Veronica frowned and shook her head again. “I’m afraid not. We do not allow visitors.” She was no doubt imagining how violently Uncle John would react if he encountered the men, although I had my own reasons for wanting them to stay at a distance. The troll, for one—he’d finished unloading the boat and was now lurking in the background, eyeing Veronica in a way that made me uneasy. Herr Rahn looked as though he wanted to put forward more of an argument about the library, but just then a gust of wind nearly toppled him.

  “You should put your boat around in the cove,” I said, with an apologetic glance at Veronica. I was starting to like him, if not the troll. “A storm is coming, a… um, tempête.” I pointed to the clouds, then the boat, then gestured around the rocks to the sheltered cove where we usually keep our boats in winter.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Thank you. Hans!” He issued instructions to the troll (it was clear who was in charge) and the troll lumbered off towards their motorboat.

  “We will not disturb you,” said Herr Rahn, turning back to us. “Our ship is gone to take supplies from Brest, but will return … er, for one week.”

  “Well,” said Veronica, with another frown. “I suppose you must stay, then. But you must remain here, in the village. You must not come to the castle. The paths are slippery and the cliffs very dangerous. Vous ne devez pas venir au château. It is forbidden, verboten.” She nudged Carlos with her knee and he gave a deep, threatening woof, the effect spoiled somewhat by his simultaneous tail-wagging.

  “I understand,” said Herr Rahn, patting Carlos on the head. Carlos grinned up at him. At that moment, lightning forked over the sea and the sky started to spit at us.

  “We’d better go,” I said.

  “Au revoir,” Veronica said, and Herr Rahn clicked his heels together and bowed very nicely to both of us.

  Henry was waiting for us behind the boulders, her face shining. “I knew it!” she cried. “I knew they were pirates! I sneaked into Alice’s cottage and—”

  “Oh, Henry, you didn’t!” I said.

  “You told me to spy on them,” said Henry.

  “I said to watch,” said Veronica. “From a distance. What if they’d seen you?”

  “They didn’t notice a thing,” said Henry. “Anyway, listen, one of their bags was open, a big canvas one—”

  “Please don’t tell us you stole from them,” I groaned.

  “Of course I didn’t,” Henry said indignantly. “Well, not anything they’ll miss.”

  “Henry!” said Veronica. “You’re going back there this instant and—”

  “No, wait—there was a gun inside it! A pistol, a black, oily one.”

  Veronica and I stared at her in horror.

  “Oh, I didn’t take that,” said Henry. “I swear, Veronica, I didn’t even touch it. No, there was this paper—blank paper for writing letters, you know, with a secret symbol at the top. I just took one page, so you could figure out where they came from.”

  I leaned into Veronica’s shoulder as she unfolded the thick piece of cream paper that Henry had handed her. The letterhead design consisted of an upright sword with a two-stranded loop around the blade, surrounded by the letters DEUTSCHES AHNENERBE. Below this was a single line of text—“Reichsgeschäftsführer W. Sievers.”

  “Well? What does it say?” asked Henry, tugging at Veronica’s sleeve. “They had all sorts of equipment, radio-looking things. I bet they’re German spies!”

  Veronica stared at the paper a moment longer. Then she pushed it into the pocket of her trousers. “You are not to go anywhere near the village while those men are here,” she said.

  Henry, predictably, began to protest.

  “No!” said Veronica sharply. “This is not a game. Do I have your word that you will stay away from them?”

  Henry pushed out her bottom lip. “But what does it say? Who are they?”

  “Henry!” I said. “They’re armed. It doesn’t matter who they are—if they catch you poking around, they could shoot you!”

  “Do I have your word?” said Veronica again.

  “Yes,” sighed Henry.

  “Good,” said Veronica. Then the rain started to come down in earnest and we ran for it.

  It’s taken me nearly an hour to write this much, thanks to Henry’s interruptions. She keeps popping up beside my elbow with fresh ideas for defending the castle from the men.

  “And there’s the old cannon in the henhouse,” she has just informed me. “We could clean all the rust and droppings off, and hoist it up into the gatehouse with the pulley system.”

  “And then what?” I asked. “Drop the whole thing on their heads as they pass under the murder hole? Do you even know how it works?”

  “There’s a cannonball in the Great Hall,” said Henry. “Under the piano—Jimmy used it to squash that big rat. All we’d need is gunpowder. What is gunpowder, anyway? Can you make it out of things from the pantry?”

  “Go and brush your teeth,” I said.

  “Isn’t Veronica back from the library yet?” Henry asked.

  “Bed, Henry,” I said. “Now.”

  “Well, Carlos can stay here to guard you,” she said, trailing towards the stairs. “Stay, Carlos.” Even though Carlos, curled up in front of Vulcan and steaming slightly, had showed no sign of moving. I can’t say I blame him. It always takes a while for the seasons to penetrate the castle walls, but winter seems to have finally managed it. Veronica, over in the library, must be freezing. I’d better take her another hot brick for her feet.

  No, I’ll be honest—I just want a chance to talk to her properly, now Henry’s out of the way.

  When I knocked, Veronica was sitting on the chaise longue, surrounded by piles of newsprint and stray sheets of writing paper. The uncharacteristic confusion should have given me an indication of her state of mind, but I was too anxious to find out about the men to pay much attention.

  “So, did you figure it out?” I said. “‘Ahnenerbe’?”

  “What?” said Veronica. “Oh. That.”

  “That?” I said. “Isn’t that what you’ve been looking up?” I glanced at the mold-spotted English-German dictionary by her elbow.

  “Oh. Well, yes, it means ‘ancestor’ or ‘heritage’ or something,” said Veronica. “I knew that. But I was sure I’d seen that word somewhere before. So I went through all these newspaper clippings.” She gestured at all the paper.

  “Where did all these come from?” I asked, staring. It’s not as though we can afford newspaper subscriptions.

  “Oh, Daniel sent them,” said Veronica, leaning over the arm of the chaise longue and starting to gather them up.

  “Daniel?” I said. “Who’s … you mean Daniel, our old tutor?”

  “He’s not that old,” said Veronica, looking a bit pink when her head finally came up. “He’s only twenty-six.”

  “Daniel Bloom? He’s the one who’s been writing to you? Sending you all those mysterious packages?”

  Veronica affected unconcern. “Well, who else could it have been?” she said. “The Basque captain?”

  “I can’t believe Daniel’s been writing to you all this time!” And that you didn’t tell me, I failed to add. I sat down abruptly next to her. “Oh, Veronica.”

  “What does it matter whether he’s been writing to me or not?” She gave me the sort of look she gives Henry when Henry is being particularly obtuse. It had more of an effect on me than it ever does on Henry.

  “Well,” I said uncertainly. “And… and you’ve been writing back?” I shifted a bit and there was a rustling sound underneath me. I retrieved the bit of writing paper I’d accidentally sat on, began reading the first line (“Dear Veronica …”), then dropped it at once, embarrassed.

  “It’s not a love letter,” said Veronica. “You can read it if you want, but I doubt you’d be interested. Politics and history, that’s what they’re all about.”

  I took a deep breath. I was trying to be Sensible—trying, in fact, to be Veronica. I decid
ed not to think about Daniel for a moment. “All right. But what does this have to do with the Germans?”

  Veronica leaned forward. “Daniel sent me a monograph published by the Ahnenerbe. It was about genealogy, about how the Nazis are looking for historical evidence of a superior Germanic culture.” She gave a sudden smile. “Daniel has a theory that all historical study is motivated by political ambitions. He teases me about my Brief History sometimes. This was more proof for him, you see—the Ahnenerbe is funded by the Nazi government.”

  “So?” I said. “Don’t most governments employ historians?”

  Veronica had stopped smiling. “The Nazi government is not most governments. Hitler is the worst kind of dictator. The Nazis burn books, censor the press, murder their enemies—”

  “You don’t know that,” I said.

  “The Nazis burnt down the Reichstag.”

  “They didn’t,” I said. “That was the Communists. I remember, that was why all those Communists were expelled from the German parliament …”

  Veronica was shaking her head. Was she listening to me? Or was I too unimportant for her to pay me any attention at all? I felt my face heat up.

  “Is this what Daniel says?” I exclaimed. “He sent you that dreadful book about Hitler, didn’t he?” Groping for something that would wound, I hurled an accusation that even I, as hurt and angry as I was, didn’t really believe: “He’s why you’ve suddenly taken against the Fascists! He always did go on and on about them. And you’re just blindly following him!”

  Veronica stared at me, her eyes slitted, her mouth tight. I felt a sudden thrill of fear. We never fought. Not like this. But something in me wanted it. It was like sitting shivering at the window, watching a storm close in, longing for the first terrifying flash of lightning to be over.

  Then Veronica’s shoulders sagged.

  “You’re upset because I didn’t tell you about the letters,” she said flatly.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Because I don’t think you could be jealous, not of Daniel,” she said, glancing away. She sighed. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you, Sophie. But I knew Henry would tease, and I really didn’t think it was that important.”

  “That’s … all right,” I said. I took a deep breath. “And I’m sorry that I said that you were… following him. I know you wouldn’t. Only he’s not… Veronica, he isn’t a Communist, is he?”

  Veronica folded her arms. “What does that matter?”

  I could think of several reasons why it could matter, starting with the murder of the Russian royal family, but I kept my mouth closed. I’d just had another thought—what if Veronica … Could she possibly be in love with him?

  “I’m not marrying him,” she said, reading my thoughts. “We’re merely exchanging letters. Truly, I doubt he’s even noticed I’m female. Now, do you want to hear about Herr Rahn?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly, even though I was certain Daniel was well aware Veronica was female. It was difficult to miss, and had been even when she’d been fourteen and he was our tutor.

  She stood up and went over to the desk. “In the monograph, they made reference to a historian called Otto Rahn. He wrote a book a few years ago called, called …” Veronica shuffled through her papers. “Here it is—Kreuzzug gegen den Gral. Crusade Against the Grail.”

  If Veronica had wanted to divert me from the subject of Daniel, she’d succeeded admirably. “The Grail?” I said. “You mean, the Holy Grail? As in King Arthur and Tennyson and … That Grail?”

  “Possibly not what we imagine to be the Grail, but yes, Herr Rahn is searching for the Holy Grail.”

  I goggled at her. “And he thinks it’s here?” I said. “At Montmaray? Wouldn’t someone have found it by now, or at least mentioned it to someone?”

  “I suspect that’s why he wants to see the library,” said Veronica.

  “Unless he thinks those people, the heretics from France, had it with them when their ship sank. Imagine, the Holy Grail at the bottom of South Head!”

  “There is no Grail,” said Veronica. “Really, Sophie, think about it. Christ was a carpenter. He would have drunk wine, even at Passover, from a clay cup or a wooden one—how could a cup like that possibly have survived two thousand years?”

  “How do you know what God can or can’t do? Anyway, perhaps it’s something else—not a cup.”

  I shouldn’t have said the word “God”—Veronica was getting that peevish look she gets whenever religion is mentioned.

  “Perhaps it is,” she snapped. “Perhaps Herr Rahn would agree with you. Nevertheless, Herr Rahn’s quest is part of the Ahnenerbe research, which is funded by the Nazis. And that enormous blond man with Herr Rahn is no more a medieval scholar than Henry is. I believe he’s a member of the SS.” She took in my blank look. “Hitler’s personal army. And Himmler, the head of the SS, is said to take a close personal interest in the activities of the Ahnenerbe.”

  “Oh,” I said in a small voice. I was thinking of that dreadful book of Daniel’s, the tortured enemies of Hitler staring miserably out of its photographs.

  “Yes,” said Veronica grimly. “Oh.”

  “But … but have you ever come across anything about the Grail in here?” I asked, turning to look at the bookshelves.

  “I haven’t read everything in here,” said Veronica. “And I haven’t been looking for anything about the Grail.”

  “Yes, but…,” I said.

  “No,” said Veronica. “I’ve never seen any reference to it.”

  I gave a half laugh. “Well, except for Edward de Quincy’s poem.”

  “What?” said Veronica, frowning.

  “Oh, you know, that line in ‘The Voyage of King Bartholomew’:

  And hoisting brave Benedict o’er his head

  Gazed down upon glimmering gold and red,

  The Holy Grail ris’n from the depths to aid,

  And with fresh strength—the sea monster was slayed.”

  Veronica’s frown deepened. “I’d forgotten that bit. But no historical scholar could possibly take anything Edward de Quincy FitzOsborne said seriously. Hardly anyone even reads him nowadays. How would Rahn know about him? I can’t imagine he spends much time reading obscure English poetry.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right …,” I started to say when I had a horrible thought. I remembered Toby’s letter, his note to me about the poetry game and the German Ambassador being so impressed with Simon. But surely Simon wouldn’t have said… and the German Ambassador couldn’t have believed him … could he?

  “Anyway, for some reason, Herr Rahn and his Nazi employers think they can find the Grail here,” said Veronica.

  I looked down and saw that my hands had somehow twisted themselves into a knot. “What will they do when they don’t find it?” I whispered. “If they think we’re hiding it from them?”

  Veronica only shook her head.

  “Then shouldn’t we… I don’t know, let them at least look through the library?” I said.

  Veronica stared at me. “Have you gone mad? Think about—”

  “Just so they can see there’s nothing here!” I added hurriedly. “We could make sure Uncle John’s out of the way when they arrive, tell Rebecca so she keeps him locked in his room.”

  “Absolutely not,” said Veronica shortly. Then she sat down at her desk with her back to me and began to sort through the papers on it with quick, sharp movements. I sat there, waiting, but she didn’t say anything further. After a while, I got up and went to the door. I could see Veronica reflected in the dark windowpane, one of Daniel’s letters clenched in her hand. She didn’t look like a girl in love, I have to say. She just looked very tired.

  28th December 1936

  I awoke this morning with a plan, of sorts. First, though, I went to the library and found Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. It had been a while since I’d read it. “The Holy Grail” was in the middle, brimming with fantastic visions and mad knights and castles being torn asunder. The Grail,
Sir Percivale claimed, had been carried by Joseph of Arimathea from the Holy Land to Glastonbury. I suppose Joseph’s journey could have taken him via the Bay of Biscay and Montmaray, and his ship could have sunk or its cargo been washed overboard. Except Percivale said the Grail had actually reached Glastonbury safely “and there awhile it bode,” until it disappeared years later due to the general wickedness of the population. So Tennyson wasn’t much help.

  Then I flipped through Edward de Quincy FitzOsborne’s Collected Works, but it was just as I’d remembered—one brief reference to the Grail that came out of nowhere and disappeared immediately. And one can be certain that if there’d been a shred of evidence that the Grail had come anywhere near Montmaray, Edward de Quincy would have written a hundred pages about it in bad iambic pentameter.

  The awful thing was that I could well imagine Simon trying to impress the German Ambassador and making Montmaray seem more important than it actually is. Montmaray is important to us, of course, but not to outsiders—we have no citizens of historical note (Edward de Quincy doesn’t really count), and there is no unique wildlife, no highest mountain or biggest waterfall or longest river. All we have is a lot of rocks and shipwrecks, and while some of the shipwrecks probably do contain treasure, anything down there on the seabed is quite irretrievable. But Simon is a true patriot, no matter what Veronica says, and I must admit he seems ambitious. So why wouldn’t Simon be tempted to embroider a little, to choose to be entertaining rather than strictly accurate in what was, after all, a social gathering, not a conference for history professors. Perhaps the German Ambassador, aware of the Ahnenerbe research, had asked specifically about the Grail; perhaps Simon, wanting to please, had given a response that was not wholly based on the known facts …

  I can just imagine what Veronica will say and do if she discovers this. Not that it’s Simon’s fault if the Germans have put two and two together and come up with fifteen, but she is just itching for an excuse to annihilate Simon. All it would require is one of her acerbic letters to Mr. Grenville, asking why he permits his clerk to run around in Society impersonating a diplomat, and Simon would lose his job. I can’t allow this to happen. I am going down to explain things to Herr Rahn. Or at least find out what he’s up to.