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!'
Confidingly he leaned towards me. 'Hitler, they say, knows the heart of Germany. But I know her soul. That is what I have studied.'
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, supereducated-the 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 know-for 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 Judaic-Bolshevik 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 self-discipline once: when I restrained myself from throwing the glamorous deputy Fuhrer 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 Fuhrer-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 set-all 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