Blood Ties

by Warren Adler

  Although the Order was monastic, the vow of celibacy, was reversed by God, or so the family history went, so that the von Kassels could preserve the essence of the Order on earth. The history lesson was litanized at those family dinners, a repetitive obligatory review conducted by his grandfather for every new guest that ever arrived at the table. Once the story began, all chewing had to stop and the new guest would nod politely as each point was emphasized.

  "The first von Kassel arrived here with the Order early in the thirteenth century. He had been recruited by Herman von Salza, the first Grand Marshal, 1239, one of the first to rise to the call and follow the banner. The mission, sanctified by both the Pope and the German Emperor, was to subdue the heathens to the East. They began in East Prussia, a fierce race those Prussians, a worthy match for the Knights who reveled in military action. They were quite bloodthirsty, you know." His grandfather would pause, awaiting the obligatory chuckle. "These lands were inhabited by a race of barbarians. Livonia, the land was called, an inferior, godless, cultureless swarm of humanity, no better than animals." Again his grandfather would interrupt the flow of the narrative, his eyes drifting over some of the servants in the room. "No different from this very day." If the servants understood, they remained impassive. It was not politic on their part to show any reaction to anything.

  "The Danes actually were the first civilized force, but they could not hold their ground and called for the Knights. We came. We conquered. We earned our lands with blood. You have seen the castles we have built? You cannot imagine what they threw at us to dislodge our domination. Swedes, Poles, Slavs, even little pitiful rebellions. But we clung to it. We still cling to it, ladies and gentlemen. The land has been ours now for nearly eight hundred years." His grandfather's eyes would seem to turn inward and although the young Charles and those before him might have shut their ears in boredom, the essence of the blood was being transferred in those moments.

  "They still fight over this land," his grandfather would conclude. "The Russians want it. The Germans want it. The Poles want it. The Estonians want it. We've bartered with the Romanovs with our brains. We could not care less who rules. Other families have been destroyed. Their lands confiscated. Removed. Murdered. We survive now by bartering arms to all sides."

  "But how did it happen?" a guest would invariably ask. It was, of course, the principal curiosity. How did the von Kassels get into the arms business? His grandfather, the old Baron, would roll his head back, the brown eyes would sparkle as the candle flames focused their light in them. He was pointing with his eyes at the huge Battle of Tannenberg tapestry that hung across the entire wall of the dining room.

  "Somewhere in that tapestry you might find the face of a von Kassel who survived. Somehow, after that battle, a von Kassel survivor managed to cart back a cache of weapons. Perhaps they were collected from the bloodied ground on which their dead brothers lay. We have never been able to find a single historical reference. But we know that we were in the arms business from that date on. We have even found authenticated weapons from that very battle in the old warehouse. So you see, a weapon has a longer life than a man. And he who can find the weapons will always survive."

  "So you have been arms brokers for more than five hundred years?" the astounded guest might ask.

  "And we will go on for another five hundred."

  "And the title 'Baron'?" the guest would inquire, knowing it would flatter the old Baron.

  "One of the first bestowed for these lands," the grandfather would say solemnly. There was never any doubt that the von Kassel title had been invested by God. The lesson of the blue blood was the first hard lesson of von Kassel leadership, the use of deliberate symbolic acts as a tactic.

  One night, after the litany, when the guests were allowed to converse with each other again, and the family returned to its normal pursuits, Charles began arguing with his brother Wolfgang.

  "But the Estonian blood is blue," Charles said earnestly.

  "That is the stupidest thing I ever heard," Wolfgang had answered with disgust.

  "That is why the lake is blue. It is made with the blood of the Estonians."

  "You're mad."

  "The lake is blue with the blood of the Estonians," Charles had screamed, self-control gone. But his voice had carried and his grandfather's fierce brown eyes turned his way.

  "Where did you hear that?" There was the snap of anger in the grandfather's voice.

  "Who told you that?" his father insisted. The servants, with heads lowered, seemed to speed up their movements as they cleared the table.

  He could recall being, probably for the first time, the center of attention, and it confused him.

  "Petya," he answered, the heavy "P" sprinkling Wolfgang with saliva. The father turned to the grandfather who nodded, but only after he had fixed his glare on the young boy, filling him with foreboding. Was it wrong? Could Petya be wrong? Not another word was said, although he suffered the smug looks of his brother throughout the meal. By the time the family left the dining room for coffee in the garden, the subject seemed to have been forgotten. Except in the mind of the boy, whose confidence in his knowledge had wavered under the petrifying stare of his grandfather. He would have to go down to the lake the first thing in the morning and ponder the question again. Petya would never lie to him.

  That night his grandfather and his father came into his room. Their voices had awakened him, although he still pretended to sleep. A ring of light from a smoking lantern illuminated their faces, the two bearded ones and the frightened face of Petya, still bloated by sleep, her hair awry, a frightened seated figure huddled in a blanket.

  "...surely someone has put you up to this." It was his father's words, the tone soothing, like one might talk to a child.

  "You are too gentle," his grandfather said, apparently in exasperation. The boy could not tell how long they had been talking with her. His grandfather grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. She did not scream. The boy's heart began to pound, but he remained rigid, his eyes opening to a thin slit, just enough to see what was happening.

  "You insidious bitch. Who put you up to this? Trying to win the boy's mind. So you want to characterize us as butchers." He pulled her hair tighter. "Is your blood blue? Have you shown the boy your blue blood?" He drew a knife from his pocket. There was a flash of light as the blade caught the lantern's reflection. The boy watched it touch Petya's face.

  "We still have to prove that your blood is not blue, won't we?" the grandfather said. They were whispering, but the words were clear to the boy.

  "Here, Father?" the voice of his father asked. He looked toward the boy, but the ring of light did not reach the boy's bed.

  "They have tricks. They are clever. They have been trying to dislodge us for hundreds of years. Show them one bit of mercy and they will put an axe in your brain."

  "We'll wake the boy."

  "He should see it," the grandfather said.

  "But she is his nursemaid, Father. Why don't we just get rid of her? Send her away."

  The grandfather ignored the entreaty. His voice rose. He was apparently inflamed by the weakness of his son.

  "Is your blood blue?" the grandfather asked, his voice rising.

  "No Sir," Petya gasped, followed by a brief scream. The boy became frightened. He closed his eyes tightly.

  "Bring the boy," the grandfather said. There was no more protest from his father, who removed him from the bed and brought him to the center of the ring of light.

  "You must watch this, Charles. You must learn the extent to which these people will go to destroy us. There is only one language they understand, one authority." He showed the knife. The boy began to shake. Petya screamed. "The blade. The bullet. Is your blood blue, woman?" the grandfather hissed into the woman's face.

  "Please," Petya screamed.

  "Answer that question," the grandfather commanded. He had never seen her defiant. Save yourself, the boy remembered thinking, although he believed still that Pe
tya had not been lying.

  "You are beasts," the woman cried. "Someday we will have our revenge."

  "You see," the grandfather said, as if the woman's belligerence was proof of his need to destroy her. "Won't we ever learn." He brought the blade down and slashed a line in the woman's face from her forehead to her cheek. The blood oozed red from the wound. She did not scream now, her breasts rising with pain and indignation, determined to withstand their torture.

  "You see, Charles, she has lied to you. Lied. Her blood is not blue."

  The boy could not speak. His knees had grown limp. Then the grandfather put the knife in his hand and held the tiny fist around it. He guided the blade, now tightly lodged in the boy's hand, and slashed another line across the cheek, making a cross.

  "Mark her," the grandfather said. "Let them see how we have marked her."

  Finally, they let her go, although they added to her humiliation by watching her dress and pack her things, while the blood dribbled down her cheeks, spotting her clothing and the floor. She did not look at them and only once at the boy, and he could detect the spirit of defiance behind the mask of helplessness and pain. They followed her out of the room, the boy listening from his bed, until their steps had disappeared. When they had gone, he vomited over the bed's edge.

  Petya was never replaced. Babyhood was over now, and the lesson driven home. The household servants were not the benign bovine work animals they appeared to be, but enemies to be watched and cruelly punished for any infraction of von Kassel edicts. The villagers who tilled their lands were plotters and saboteurs. It was the duty of the von Kassels to keep them all captives to fear.

  "Show them kindness and they will put a knife in your guts," his grandfather had intoned, concentrating his gaze on Charles. For some reason his grandfather had singled him out as a favored grandson.

  Even as an adolescent, Wolfgang displayed rebellious tendencies and was argumentative and combative. And the fact of Charles' favoritism seemed to exaggerate these traits. Whatever the origin of the favoritism, it destroyed any intimacy between the brothers and set them on different paths.

  Charles found himself spending more and more time with his grandfather. He loved the old man, and he had no doubt the old man loved him. Yet he was never permitted to express his affection, not even to hold the old man's hand or embrace him. Some gesture or internal warning always sounded a death knell on any acknowledgment of what was considered weakness.

  "Beware of intruding emotions," he remembered his grandfather saying. "They inhibit judgment." It was a discipline that required continuous vigilance. Even now.

  The relationship between his father and grandfather was one of supplicant to deity. And yet no amount of condescension or mimicry could bring his father any but the most paltry return. It was not that his father was ridiculed. That would be a cleavage of faith, an example of weakness. Under watchful eyes such an attitude could be a weapon. Rather, the father was subjected to a never-ending perpetual lecture, like the dinner litany, as if the words were needed to hammer home interminable reminders. They were warnings, actually, and once Charles picked up the rhythm of what seemed at first like pedantry, confirmation came quickly. The warnings were meant, as always, for Charles.

  For the grandfather feared that the nine lives of the von Kassels were running out. That, coupled with his very obvious feeling that his son had not the qualities required for crafty survival, had fixed his hopes on the grandson, Charles. It was clear to everyone, especially his own father and Wolfgang, that he had been chosen. If they were jealous, Charles was more frightened than honored, for he was only a teen-ager when the clouds of impending destruction gathered ominously over them.

  Events had always been chaotic in Estonia, although in the nineteenth century a certain calm had descended. The Germans had consolidated their power under Bismarck and, although there was much intercourse between Germans of the new State and those of Ostland, little unrest was developing. The Estonian Germans were willing tools of the Romanov dynasty, who found in them the skills. that the less educated and culturally deprived Russians could not muster to man the Romanov bureaucracy. Von Kassels could be found among the civil servants of the era, ambassadors, even military men. And, of course, the von Kassels' special stature as arms dealers was always the trump card of their prestige. During this century of unparalleled technological advancement, the rush to modernize armies brought the von Kassels enormous influence in both the courts of the Romanovs and the coteries of the Hohenzollerns, as well as among the royal houses of the Hapsburgs and the lesser houses of other tributary dynasties.

  The realities of European politics were an integral part of the von Kassel business. That, and the ever present possibility that the native Estonians, held by force in peonage, would rise up and remove their German masters. But even that possibility did not prevent the von Kassels from selling to dubious sources, even when they knew that the arms would fall into the hands of their impatient vassals.

  "They will turn on us in any event," his grandfather had instructed them. "When we suspect we are not needed that will be the end."

  "Then what will we do?" his father had asked.

  "We will move on."

  "Out of Estonia?"

  "Don't ever get sentimental about geography," his grandfather had admonished, another warning. "But we will hold on here as long as we can."

  How could he know then that the demise of the eight-hundred-year reign would fall to his generation? But his grandfather had suspected.

  "Nothing will ever be the same after this war," he had told his grandson as they watched endless lines of Russian troops heading toward the Russian front. They had traveled for three days to watch the procession, finding themselves a vantage so that the older man might see the equipment and weapons the armies were carrying to the front.

  "They will be crawling backwards in a few months," the old man told his grandson. "Their equipment is inferior, and what they have is poorly maintained. They are doomed. I warned them."

  He had told the armorers of the Czar that they did not move fast enough after the Japanese defeat. The Germans were far ahead of them in firepower. He would imitate the arrogant Russian officers, whose obsolete military tactics required that more and more men be forced into the line. Nevertheless, the von Kassels had made a fortune in the rearming, and arms had been transshipped into Baltic ports from German factories as well as those from Britain and Belgium. Arms manufacturers were never loyal to the governments on whose soil they operated. The business of war is business, his grandfather had said.

  "In a few months our warehouses will be choked with stuff." If the remark was cryptic, it did not remain so for long.

  * * *

  His father had shaken him awake and ordered him to get dressed. Moving quickly, chilled by the cool night air, he found his grandfather and father on horseback in front of the house. A groom had readied his own horse and the three rode for two hours in silence to the edge of their land where the main road intersected their property.

  A grimy man in a mud-spattered Russian Army uniform rode up and saluted them. They followed him deep into the forest edging their land, over a dirt road that showed signs of recent activity. In a huge clearing they stopped. More than a hundred Russian Army wagons were parked in neat military rows, the drivers huddled under the trees, stretched out in exhaustion. In the darkness one could barely make out the occasional red flashes of their pipes.

  "I have four thousand Gatlings for sale."

  It was the most efficient small-machine weapon of the day.

  "And rounds?" his grandfather asked.

  "Ten thousand each."

  The man's face was overgrown with beard and his breath smelled of vomit. Obviously a deserter, the man could not disguise his sense of authority. He was certainly an officer.

  "It's futile out there. It is all over. A gun is a gun." He shrugged, feeling the need for some explanation. "Every man for himself."

  His grandfather
observed the man closely.

  "Gold," the man said. "I will only take gold."

  "And those men?" his grandfather asked.

  "They are my concern."

  "They are witnesses."

  The man spat into the ground. They watched him ride into the darkness, stopping at one of the wagons. He barked an order, and they watched the wagon move into sight, toward the cluster of men who rested near the trees. The wagon moved slowly, meandering, as if the four horses who pulled it were merely heading home to the joys of barn and stall. Dawn was just beginning and the wagon's outline became clearer as it moved toward the apparitions who lay helter skelter on the grass. There were more than a hundred men in various stages of exhaustion and dishevelment.

  Suddenly the wagon stopped and activity began. Canvas was removed. They could see the outline of men and gun barrels, then the bark of fire, spitting red, as three manned guns sprayed the resting men. A few screams punctuated the staccato urgency of the gun's mechanism. Then, as quickly as they had rumbled, the guns were silent, and the men stepped down off the wagon and walked among the corpses, providing the coup de grace with pistol fire. Then all four walked to where he, his father, and his grandfather stood mounted. It had all happened swiftly with little time for reaction.

  "Gold," the original negotiator told his grandfather.

  The old man jumped off his horse and walked with the negotiator out of earshot. In a few moments he was back on his horse and they were heading back to the house. Later the gold had been exchanged for the guns and the bodies buried in a huge pit.