I was disbelieving. "They are insane."
He nodded his head.
"Oh, indeed. And something within them must understand that. But they have had total success so far. Perhaps they believe these spells are the reason for it. Clearly whatever supernatural aid they have called upon is not disappointing them. Yet it is unstable magic-in unstable hands. And it could result in the death of everything. Like Gaynor and the rest of their kind, their ignorance and disdain for reality will eventually destroy them. They relish the notion of Gotterdammerung. These people seek oblivion by any means. They are the worst kind of self-deceiving cowards and everything they build is a ramshackle sham. They have the taste of the worst Hollywood producers and the egos of the worst Hollywood actors. We have come to an ironic moment in history, I think, when actors and entertainers determine the fate of the real world. You can see how quickly the gap between action and affect widens... Of course they are expert illusionists, like Mussolini for instance, but illusion is all they offer-that and a vast amount of unearned power. The power to fake reality, the power to deceive the world and destroy it under the weight of so much falsification. The less the world responds to their lies and fancies, the more rigorously do they enforce them."
I began to realize that Prince Lobkowitz, for all his practicality, was a discursive conversationalist. At length I interrupted him. "What must I do when I have the Grail?"
"Very little, " he said. "It is yours to defend, after all. And circumstances will change. Perhaps you'll take it back to its home in what the East Franconians called the Grail Fields. You know them . by their corrupted name of the Grey Fees. Oh, yes, we've heard of them in Germany! There's a reference to them in Wolfram von Eschenbach, who cites Kyot de Provenzal. But your chances of getting to those Graalfelden again are also very slim."
I had the advantage, he said, of knowing Bek. The old armory, where the Grail was held, where I had received my first lessons from von Asch.
"Guarded presumably by these SS men, " I said. "So there isn't much chance of my strolling in calling 'I'm home, ' saying I've just dropped in to pop up to the armory, then tuck the Holy Grail under my jacket and walk out whistling."
I was surprised by my host's response.
"Well, " he said with evident embarrassment, "I did have something like that in mind, yes."
Chapter Twenty
Traditional Values
Which was how I came to be wearing the full uniform of a Standartenfuhrer, a colonel in the SS, including near-regulation smoked glasses, sitting in the back of an open Mercedes staff car driven by a chauffeuse in the natty uniform of the NSDAP Women's Auxiliary (First Class) who, with her bow and arrows in the trunk, took the car out of its hidden garage into the dawn streets of Hensau and into some of the loveliest scenery in the whole of Germany-rolling, wooded hills and distant mountains, the pale gold of the sky, the sun a flash of scarlet on the horizon. I was filled with longing for those lost times, the years of my childhood when I had ridden alone across such scenery. The love of my land ran deep in my blood.
Somehow we had gone from that pre-1914 idyll to the present horror in a few short bloody years. And now here I was riding in a car far too large for the winding roads and wearing the uniform which stood for everything I had learned to loathe. Ravenbrand was now carried in a modified guncase and lay at my feet on the car's floor. I could not help reflecting on this irony. I found myself in a future which few could have predicted in 1917. Now, in 1940, I remembered all the warnings that had been given since 1920.
Years of antiwar films, songs, novels and plays-years of analysis and oracular pronouncements. Too many, perhaps? Had the predictions actually created the situation they hoped most to avert?
Was anarchy so terrible, compared to the deadly discipline of fascism? As much democracy and social justice had emerged from chaos as from tyranny. Who had been able to predict the total madness that would come upon our world in the name of "order"?
For a while we followed the main auto route to Hamburg. We saw how busy the roads, raillines and waterways had become. We traveled for a short while on an excellent new Autobahn with several lanes of traffic moving in both directions, but Oona soon found the back roads to Bek again. We were only fifty kilometers from my home when we turned a sharp bend in a wooded lane and Oona stamped quickly on the brake to stop us crashing into another car, quite as ostentatious as our own, swathed in Nazi flags and insignia. A thoroughly vulgar vehicle, I thought. I guessed it to belong to some swaggering local dignitary.
We began to move again but then a high-ranking officer in a brown SA uniform emerged from the other side of the car and flagged us down.
We had no option. We slowed to a stop this time. We exchanged the ritual salute, borrowed, I believe, from the film Quo Vadis?, supposedly how Romans greeted a friend. Once again, Hollywood had added a vulgar gloss to politics.
Noting my uniform and its rank, the SA man was subservient, apologetic. "Forgive me, Hen Standartenfuhrer, this is, I regret, an emergency."
From out of the closed car now emerged an awkward, rather gangling figure in a typical comic-opera Nazi uniform favored by the higher ranks. To his credit, he seemed uncomfortable in it, pushing unfamiliar frogging about as he walked over to us, offering a jerky salute, which we returned. He was genuinely grateful.
"Oh, God be thanked! You see, Captain Kirch! My instincts never let me down. You suggested no suitable car could come along this . road and get us to Bek on time-and voila! This angel suddenly materializes."
His eyebrows appeared to be alive. His eyes, too, were very busy and he had an intense, crooked smile on his puffy, square face. If it had not been for his uniform, I might have taken him for a typical customer of the Bar Jenny in Berlin. He beamed at me. Raving mad but relatively benign.
"I am Deputy Fuhrer Hess, " he told me. "You will be well-remembered for this, Colonel."
I recalled that Rudolf Hess was one of Hitler's oldest henchmen. In accordance with the papers I carried, I let him know that I was Colonel Ulric von Minct and that I was at his service. It would be a privilege to offer him my car.
"An angel, an angel, " he repeated as he climbed into the car and sat beside me.
"It is the von Mincts, Colonel, who will save Germany." He hardly noticed the case containing the sword. He was too concerned with shouting urgent orders to his driver. "The flasks! The flasks! It would be a disaster if I did not have them! "
The SA man reached into the trunk of the car and carefully took out a large wicker basket which he transferred to our car. Hess was greatly relieved. "I am a vegan, " he explained. "I have to travel everywhere with my own food. Alf-I mean our Fuhrer-" He glanced up at me, like a small boy caught in some forbidden act. Clearly he had been admonished before for making reference to the Nazi leader by his old nickname. "The Fuhrer is a vegetarian-but not strict enough, I fear, for me. He runs a very lax kitchen, from my point of view. So I have taken to carrying my own food when I travel."
The deputy Fuhrer saluted his driver. "Wait with the car, " he instructed. "We'll send help from the first town we reach. Or from Bek, if we find nothing else." He sat back in the car beside me, a signal for Oona to put the Mercedes into gear and continue the journey. He was a mass of tics and peculiar movements of his hands. "Von Minct, you say? You must be related to our great Paul von Minct, who has achieved so much for the Reich."
"His cousin, " I said. I found it very hard to be afraid of this man. Hess insisted on shaking my hand.
"A great honor, sir, " I said.
"Oh"-he removed his elaborate cap-"I'm one of the old fighters, you know. Still one of the lads." He was reassuring me. Sentimentally he continued, "I was with Hitler in Munich. In Stadelheim and everywhere-he and I are brothers. I am the only one he truly trusts and confides in. It was always so. I am his spiritual adviser, in many ways. If it were not for me, Colonel von Minct, I doubt if any of you would have heard of the Grail story- or understand what it could do for us! "
As the huge Mercedes bowled along familiar country roads, I continued to speak with the man whom many believed the most powerful man in Germany after the great dictator himself. If Hitler were killed today, Hess would assume the leadership. For the most part his conversation was as banal as that of most Nazis, but laced through with a melange of supernatural beliefs and dietary ideas which marked him for a common lunatic. Because he understood me to have an affinity for the Grail and all the mysticism surrounding it, he was more forthcoming-about how he had read the Bek legends, how he had read books saying the Grail was the lost Holy Relic of the Teutonic Order. How the Bek sword was the lost sword of Roland, Champion of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne the Frank. The Franks and the Goths founded modern Europe, he said. The Norsemen were stern lawmakers, with no respect for the Old World's superstitions. Wherever their influence was felt, people became robust, masculine, vital, productive. Latin Christianity weakened them.
The destiny of the German nation, he told me, was to lift its brothers back to glory-to rid the world of all that wretchedly bad stock and replace it with a race of superbeings-superhealthy, superintelligent, superstrong, supereducatedthe kind of breed which would populate the world with the best mankind could be, rather than the worst.
The more I listened to Hess, the more skeptical I became, the more convinced that he was a low-level lunatic with dull dreams and a psychological inability to consider any "truth" but that which he invented for himself.
However, as the man was so fundamentally amiable and clearly trusted me so completely, I had an opportunity to see what he knew of my father. Had he ever met old Count von Bek? I asked. The one who went mad and was burned alive. Killed himself, didn't he?
"Killed himself? Perhaps." Hess shuddered. "A terrible crime, suicide. Betrays us all. On a level with abortion, in my view. All life should be respected."
I had discovered quickly the trick of steering him gently back to the subject.
"Count von Bek?"
"He lost the Grail, you see. He was entrusted with it. Father to child-son or daughter-down the centuries. 'Do you the Devil's work! ' is their ancient motto. They were at the Crusades. The oldest blood in Germany-but tainted by decadence, madness, Latin marriages ...
"Legend had it that the von Beks always protected the Grail, until such a time when Satan was reconciled with God. All stupid Christian nonsense, I know, and a corruption of our old, muscular Nordic myths. Those myths made us successful conquerors. It has always been our destiny to conquer. To bring order to the whole world. The myth still retains its power." His eyes were focused on me now, burning into me. "The power of myth is the power of life and death, as we knowfor we have restored the power of the Nordic myth. And again we are successful conquerors. We shall challenge that other Nordic race, our natural allies, the British, until they turn with us against the evil East and defeat the tyranny of communism. Together, we shall bring civilization to the whole planet! "
A typical sample of his droning, pseudophilosophical nonsense. It explained why the Nazi chiefs in their lunacy placed such value on the Grail and the Sword. These things represented a mystical authority. Only with them in harness with their political power were they confident they had secured their victories. Triumph over the admired British Empire would be a kind of epiphany. An armistice achieved, together they would restore the purity of blood and myth to its proper place in the order of things.
"We only have to complete the destruction of their air force and they will call for a truce."
"I am impressed by your logic, sir."
"Logic has nothing to do with it, Colonel. Logic and the so-called Enlightenment are Judeo-Christian inventions, deeply suspect by all right-thinking Aryans. Those Nazis who cling to their pro-Christian beliefs are working for the JudaicBolshevik cultural conspiracy. The British understand this as well as we do. The best kind of Americans are also on our side..."
I think that in all my adventures I have only shown real courage and selfdiscipline once: when I restrained myself from throwing the glamorous deputy Fiihrer out of my car.
"How, " I asked, "did old von Bek lose possession of the Grail?"
"As you no doubt know, he was an amateur scientist. One of those prehistoric gentleman scholars. He knew of the family's trust, to guard the Grail until we, its true inheritors, should come to claim it. But he was curious. He wanted to examine the Grail's properties. Which meant that first he had to master the laws of magic. Of necromancy. His studies drove him mad, but he continued with his examination of the Grail, and in doing so, he summoned a certain renegade Captain of Hell..."
"Klosterheim?"
"Just so. Who in turn brought the help of another renegade. One of the company of Law. The immortal, extremely unstable Miggea. Duchess of the Higher Worlds." Hess grinned. He was in the know. He swelled, full of his own secrets. He twitched with supernatural intelligence. "Alf-our Fiihrer-told me to find Gaynor, who was already an adept, and offer to blend our strength with his. Gaynor agreed and, rather later than he'd promised, brought the object of power back to Bek. With it we shall control history-the war against Britain is already won."
In spite of my direct experience of realities he had only heard of, I still found him hard to follow, exhausting in the way mad people often are. Therefore I was deeply relieved when the car began its final drive towards the gates of Bek. Because the deputy Fuhrer was with us, our papers were never inspected. All I had to hope was that Gaynor did not recognize me. My hair was hidden under my military cap and I wore the dark glasses, which were an unofficial part of the uniform, to disguise my albinism.
Chatting easily with Hess I lifted the encased sword from the car. "For the ceremony, " I told him. Hess was by far my best cover and I was determined to stick with him as long as I could. As I moved through my old home, however, it was difficult to restrain myself from exclaiming at what had been done to it. I would rather Gaynor had destroyed it as he threatened. The house had been thoroughly violated. The place had been redecorated like a Fairbanks film setall Nazi pomp and circumstance: gold-braided flags, Teutonic tapestries, Nordic plaques and heavy mirrors, freshly made stained glass in the old Gothic windows, one of which showed an idealized portrait of Hitler as a noble knight-errant and Goring as some sort of male Valkyrie. A Rheinejungen perhaps? Swastikas everywhere. It was as if Walt Disney, who so admired fascist discipline and had his own ideas for the ideal state, had been hired as Bek's interior designer. The Hitler gang's passion for the garish trappings of the operetta stage was demonstrated throughout. In so many ways Hitler was a typical Austrian.
I, of course, said none of this to Hess, who seemed rather impressed by the house, enjoying his reflected glory as every SS officer stopped to click his heels and give him the Nazi salute. I luckily stood in Hess's reflected glory and Oona in mine, and so we passed as if charmed through our enemy's defenses while the deputy Fuhrer spoke warmly of King Arthur, Parsifal, Charlemagne and all the other Teutonic heroes of legend who had borne magic swords.
By the time we reached the armory, deep within the castle's oldest keep, I was beginning to wish Hess would return to his earlier topic of Nordic veganism. All in the repressed fear of my own imminent discovery and destruction! The deputy Fuhrer asked me to hold his canisters of food while he took a large key from his jacket pocket. "The Fuhrer gave me the honor of holding his key, " he said. "It is a privilege to be the first to enter and to greet him when he arrives! "
He inserted the key in the lock and turned it with some difficulty. I thought it wise of Hitler to have his friend go ahead of him like that. After all, the Fiihrer could never be sure it was not an elaborate plot to end his life. Thus, as members of Rudolf Hess's entourage, we passed into the high-ceilinged armory which had been spared redecoration and was lit by a high, circular window. A sunbeam pierced the dust and fell directly u
pon a kind of altar, square granite carved with the Celtic sun cross, which had recently been placed there.
Involuntarily, I moved towards this new object. How on earth had they carried such a weight of granite through our narrow corridors? I reached out to touch it. But Hess held me back. Clearly he thought I was eager for other reasons. "Not yet, " he said.
As his eyes became used to the dim light, he looked around him in sudden puzzlement. "What's this-what are you men doing here before I ever crossed the threshold? Do you not realize who I am and why I should be here first?" The shadowy group seemed unimpressed.
"This is blasphemy, " said Hess. "Infamy. This is no place for ordinary soldiers. The magic is subtle. It requires subtle minds. Subtle hands." Klosterheim, automatic in hand, came grinning into the sunlight. "I assure you, sir, we are nothing if not subtle. I will explain as soon as possible. But now, if you don't mind, Deputy Fiihrer, I will continue to save your life-"
"Save my-?"
Klosterheim pointed his pistol at me. "This time my bullets will work, " he said. "Good afternoon, Count Ulric. I had an idea you would be joining us here. You see! You're fulfilling your destiny whether you wish to or not."
Hess remained outraged. "You are making many mistakes, Captain. The Fiihrer himself is involved with this project and will be arriving shortly. What will he think of a subordinate pointing a gun at his deputy and one of his top officers?"
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