The Blood Lance (52 page)
'I speak as one who did it, because I had the power to ask for explanations and I was happy instead to look elsewhere whilst the monsters danced.
That ends today, Mr Brand. I cannot undo my silence, but I mean to take responsibility for it.' She nodded toward an old steamer trunk in the corner of her room that functioned as a plant stand. 'Have a look inside that chest, if you will. There is something in it I think you might appreciate.'
Ethan walked to the trunk, removed the potted plants from it, and then opened the lid. He found a tray filled with miscellaneous objects: coins, rings, tiny glass vials, and porcelain knick-knacks. 'Remove the tray,' she told him. When he did, Ethan saw a small gilded container that was not much larger than an ordinary music box. It was bedecked with tiny, misshaped pearls and rubies. The workmanship was disappointing - until one realised it was a nine-hundred-year-old medieval reliquary.
'Open it carefully,' she told him. 'The hinges have rusted away.'
Ethan lifted the lid to have a look and saw a lump of iron the size of his fist. That explained the weight of the box. Tucked into the corner was a card with a typed inscription and the horrible mark of a Swastika stamped beneath. The note read:
The Lance of Antioch: discovered by Doctor Otto Rahn in the Sabarthès caves of the Languedoc, 1936.
At the bottom of the card Ethan recognised the signature of Heinrich Himmler. He looked up at the woman in disbelief.
'When my mother died in 1960 I found out she had kept a lockbox in a Zürich bank from 1939 on - renewed every ten years. Naturally I went to have a look. If you want to know the truth I was hoping for stock certificates in some old Blue Chip that might have gone up in value a hundred-fold, but this and the love letters my father wrote her in the winter before I was conceived are all that I found. The card was buried under the silk. I am not sure she ever saw it.'
'Do you have any idea why Otto Rahn would have given this to your mother?'
'Of course I do. Otto Rahn was my father, Mr Brand. On my birth certificate it states that I am the child of Sarah and Dieter Bachman, but my mother told me otherwise, and the letters she kept confirm it.
'On the day he sent his letter of resignation to Himmler, I am fairly sure he came to our townhouse and gave this to my mother. I remember his visit, because it was the last time I ever saw him. It was a cold winter day and he was wearing the uniform of an SS officer. I had never seen him dressed as a soldier and did not recognise him at first.
'He was my Uncle Ot, a part of the family for as long as I could remember. Unless I am deluding myself with fantasies, I am quite sure he had a package with him that was not much larger than that reliquary you are holding. I thought it was a gift for me. I always got something when he came to visit, but on this occasion he had forgotten to bring me something. He spoke to my mother in whispers. I wish I could tell you what they said. I only know that they were both very earnest and I think frightened. And later she cried.
'A few weeks later my legal father told me Uncle Ot had died - an accident whilst he was climbing a mountain in Austria. Dieter Bachman was killed in Poland a few months later. My mother remarried and, when he was killed in Sicily, his relatives denounced her as a Jew so they could have her fortune. After the war, we were like everyone else - standing in a wasteland and starting over. By the time we had built Berlin back into a city I was married and my mother had passed away. She saw so much in her life, but she never had to look at the Wall.
'I found out about the lockbox a few days after her funeral.
Less than a year later the Russians built a wall around West Berlin, and Hans Diekmann came to me to ask if I would help organise a defence of the city. I had already brought this back from Zürich by then and had been reading about the siege of Antioch at the time of the first Crusade. As Hans was explaining what he and Sir William were planning, he said we were under siege and though it might look hopeless we must keep faith. That got me thinking about what had happened at Antioch, and it seemed to me like a sign from God.
'I told Hans I would do anything he asked of me - seduce politicians if I must. My husband was wealthy and we both had a great many social contacts, so we were well placed to help. On a whim, I suggested to Hans that we call ourselves the Order of the Knights of the Holy Lance, as our situation seemed nearly as desperate as that of the Crusaders at Antioch.
'We were all very modern back then, Mr Brand, and Hans was not inclined to establish an order of knights - not so soon after Himmler's Order of the Skull - but then I showed him my father's treasure. Hans had become a very devout Christian after the war. At the sight of that relic, he told me that he
knew
we were going to make it through.
'We used this amongst the leadership - the paladins - to take our oath. I cannot tell you the fire that built amongst us as we passed it from one to another, swearing by its holy power. When we had finished with our oaths, we made war exactly as the Crusaders at Antioch had done - never for the moment doubting that it was God's will that we should tear apart that Wall one day.
'Now here is the thing, Mr Brand. The paladins have authorised me to dissolve the Order. It is long overdue, and, as you can imagine, there is a great deal of work to be done - including extensive meetings with various law enforcement agencies. All of that, I can handle. My mistake was a moral one. I committed no crimes in a legal sense. I will not, however, try to keep as my own what I have repudiated with my silence.
I don't deserve to keep this, and I will not tempt Providence by pretending otherwise.
'That is where you come in. Giancarlo assures me you will know where it belongs.'
Ethan stirred from his shocked silence. 'I have to be honest, ma'am,' he said. 'I have no idea what to do with something like this.'
'Then I suggest you pray for guidance. Take all the time you need. . . and then do what you must. I do not care to approve or even to know what you finally determine. But do remember this, Mr Brand. There are those who believe that whosoever possesses the Holy Lance can determine the destiny of the world.'
June 15, 2008.
'You're absolutely sure it's not genuine?' Kate asked. She and Ethan were sitting at an outdoor cafe in the village of Kufstein, Austria. Otto Rahn's Lance of Antioch lay on the table between them like an ugly paperweight. Ethan had already sent the reliquary to the curator of a private institution in Texas. Despite Ethan's detailed reservations about the reliquary's provenance, Dr North had been excited to receive it and had asked Ethan to write a monograph, which North's organisation proposed to publish. He had said he would be happy to do it and had already begun the work. The fate of the relic itself, however, still needed to be settled. So he and Kate had come here. 'You don't think it is even
remotely
possible you could be wrong?'
'The Crusaders needed a miracle at Antioch,' Ethan told her, 'and Raymond of St. Gilles came up with one.'
'But
this
was the miracle. He saved the army by calling this the Holy Lance. That makes it a piece of history - something people would like to see.'
Ethan could not decide if Kate really believed her argument or if she only wanted to play the devil's advocate so he would have no second thoughts afterwards. 'Faith in God saved the army. This was just a prop for a stage play.'
'How do you know it was a counterfeit? I thought you said they found it buried under the floor of one of the churches?'
Ethan shook his head and smiled. 'The priests had workers tear away the floor. Then they spent the better part of the day digging through the sub-flooring and dirt. Once it was clear that there was nothing to find, they ordered the men out. That was when Peter claimed he saw something and jumped in to have a look. A few seconds later he brought a piece of iron up out of the mud. Raymond was right there to take it from him and kiss it and praise God for the miraculous sign from heaven.'
'Peter had it in his pocket?'
Ethan shrugged. 'Even by medieval standards the scam was transparent. Of course anyone smart enough to understand what had just happened was also smart enough to realise that a miracle was the army's best chance at getting out of Antioch alive.'
Kate picked up the corroded knot of iron from the table and turned it in the sunlight to have a closer look. 'What doesn't make sense to me is why Peter Bartholomew would submit to a trial by fire - knowing this was just a piece of iron.'
'The trial by fire occurred almost a year after the siege of Antioch. By then Peter was directing all of the military decisions o£ the army. The barons flattered him when they weren't actually offering him gifts and bribes. The priests deferred to his judgment - much as they hated doing it - and the rank and file exalted him as the expedition's holy man. It was heady stuff for a commoner, but he knew that if he refused the challenge he was going to lose everything.'
'And if he accepted it he was going to burn to death.'
'He believed the Holy Lance would protect him.'
Kate let the object drop on the table with a dull thud. 'He didn't have the Holy Lance. He had this thing.'
'In Peter's mind it had become what he said it was.'
Kate shook her head. 'I think his willingness to walk through fire proves he actually found something in the mud. That's the only way his action makes sense.'
'Then you have to accept that he was visited by a vision of
St. Andrew, who told him where this was buried.
Of
course
that would mean this is the lance head that pierced the side of Christ.'
Kate was quiet. She wasn't ready to go that far.
'Magical thinking was a way of life in the Dark Ages. Rational thought was still about three or four hundred years away. Given the general level of naïveté and superstition in the culture it wouldn't have taken much effort for Raymond to persuade Peter that the Lance - not their scheme - had made Peter a great man in the army. Once Peter believed that, it was easy enough for him to imagine that it would protect him from fire.'
Kate offered a wry smile. 'The first step into the pit ought to have shown him otherwise.'
'He put himself into an ecstatic trance before he ever touched the coals. It's likely he didn't feel much of anything until he was almost through, but as he was leaving the pit, the priests apparently turned him around and sent him back the way he had come. That's what killed him.'
'They
wanted
him dead?'
'The Lance wasn't the problem. Peter's visions were getting in the way of good military tactics, and no one had the authority to shut him up. So they baited him into a trial by fire to get rid of him.'
'You think he actually believed this was going to protect him?'
'All I can tell you is he was still holding it when they pulled him out of the pit, and he kept holding it all through the thirteen days it took for him to die.'
Kate shook her head at the pathos of it. 'Why would Raymond talk Peter into killing himself ? Or was
he
deluded as well?'
'Owning a relic of the Passion made Raymond first among equals. No other leader of the Crusade could boast anything like it. And it wasn't just prestige. As long as people believed it was genuine, it had tremendous material value. Debunked, it was worthless.'
'You're telling me Raymond sacrificed Peter's life for money?'
'Some things never change.'
'But after Peter died this ought to have been discredited.'
'Once Peter was eliminated the priests were more than happy to declare the lance head genuine. They had their authority back. More importantly, Jerusalem still needed to be taken, and the legend had already set root among the rabble that an army carrying the Holy Lance in its vanguard could never be defeated.'
Kate looked around the village thoughtfully. 'What brought Otto Rahn here? If he had friends in France and Switzerland, why not go there?'
Ethan shook his head. 'All anyone really knows is that an early morning hiker found his body at the base of the Wilder Kaiser on 16 March 1939. As soon as the Austrian SS found out what they were dealing with, they called in the German SS troops stationed at the Berchtesgaden. They drove in that morning and took the body away.'
'At which point it disappeared?'
'The public heard about the climbing accident of the Reich's pre-eminent Grail scholar, but those inside the SS got an object lesson about the fate of anyone daring to betray Himmler.'
'Do you think Rahn was a decent man - as his daughter imagines?'
'I don't know, Kate. I expect a great many
decent
people got mixed up in the SS. I don't think any of them purposefully set out to be monsters. From their perspective, they belonged to something that was noble and pure. In the end those who were still alive were probably not much different from Peter Bartholomew - holding on desperately to the lie, even as they burned.'
