Sant’Angelo stepped carefully around its edge before eventually coming up against the back of a towering old wine rack. He pushed it to one side on creaking hinges, and emerged, blowing out his last match, into the wine cellar.
Celeste, a pretty young housemaid, was so startled that he had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming. She was passing dusty bottles to Ascanio.
“I was wondering where you were,” Ascanio said crossly.
The marquis removed his hand, and Celeste fell against Ascanio’s chest with relief.
“How many of them are there?” Sant’Angelo asked, brushing the dirt and cobwebs from his hunting jacket.
“Ten or fifteen. All SS.”
“More,” Celeste said, her eyes wide.
“What do they want?”
“Right now, they want wine.” Ascanio tucked another bottle under his arm. “I was trying to decide which bottles had already turned.”
The marquis smiled, and said, “Don’t do anything rash.”
“You mean like killing them?”
“I mean, anything that will bring the whole Third Reich crashing down on our heads.” Then he mounted the back stairs up to his rooms, where he changed into the houndstooth jacket and trousers of a country squire-a fashion he had adopted when he lived in England-before descending the grand escalier to the main hall… where confusion reigned.
SS soldiers, in pea green uniforms, were poking the muzzles of their machine guns everywhere, ordering the marquis’s staff to open every door, empty every drawer, and pull back every curtain.
In the center of the entry hall, overseeing it all, stood a man recognizable from every newsreel and newspaper in Europe: Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsfuhrer, Hitler’s second-in-command and head of the dreaded Gestapo. In person, he was an even more spindly creature than he appeared in the carefully contrived news footage. He was wearing a dove gray uniform, with boots that came all the way up to his knees; the fearsome Totenkopf, or death’s head, gleamed above the black visor on his cap. He was wiping his wire-rimmed spectacles clean with a handkerchief when the marquis approached.
A soldier immediately interposed himself, but Himmler waved him away with the handkerchief.
“Herr Sant’Angelo?”
“ Oui,” the marquis replied, staying sufficiently distant that any handshake could be avoided.
“You know who I am, no doubt,” he said in German, slipping his spectacles back on.
“ Ich mache.” I do.
“But I doubt you know my adviser.”
A big man with a squarish head stepped forward. He was wearing a green loden coat, far too warm for the weather, decorated with the War Merit medal and the requisite Nazi armband; he carried a bulging briefcase under his arm.
“This is Professor Dieter Mainz, of the University of Heidelberg.”
Mainz bowed his head and clicked the heels of his boots.
“He has been eager, as have we all, to make your acquaintance.”
The marquis expressed surprise. “I live a quiet life, here in the country. How could I have come to anyone’s attention?”
“I will be happy to explain,” Mainz said, in a voice that sounded as if it would be more comfortable booming out in a lecture hall. “We have reason to believe-good reason, based on my own research-that your ancestor, from whom your title descends, was a man of extraordinary talents.”
“How so?” Sant’Angelo replied, knowing full well that this ancestor stood before them at that very moment.
“My investigations,” Mainz confided, “suggest that he was well versed in many of what are commonly-and unwisely-dismissed as the occult arts.”
Sant’Angelo again feigned ignorance. “I come from a long and distinguished family, but I can’t say I know much about that. Are you sure you’ve come to the right place?”
“Quite,” Mainz said. “Quite sure.”
Himmler was squinting at him closely. “Apart from your servants, do you have anyone else here at present?” he asked abruptly.
“No. I have no family.”
“No guests either?”
“No.”
“No woman?” he asked, with a tilt of his pale, anemic face. “Or man?”
Sant’Angelo took his meaning, but he didn’t deign to answer.
“Then you won’t mind,” the Reichfuhrer went on, “if we continue our inspection.” Without waiting, he barked some orders and half a dozen of the soldiers charged up the two sides of the staircase. All of them, Sant’Angelo could not help but notice, were tall, blond, and blue-eyed. He had heard that Himmler, the architect of the Nazi breeding programs, liked to handpick his recruits.
Ironically, Sant’Angelo thought, the Reichsfuhrer could never have met his own criteria.
An adjutant whispered something in Himmler’s ear, and the two of them retired to the adjoining salle d’armes, or armor hall, where Sant’Angelo could see that a command post of sorts was being hastily assembled. The medieval weaponry that lined the walls was overwhelmed by the flood of modern communications equipment-radio sets and decoding machines and rickety antennae-strewn around the room. One soldier was standing on top of the refectory table to loop a wire over the chandelier, while another had opened a casement window to affix a receiver to its frame.
“I’m dreadfully sorry about the inconvenience,” Professor Mainz leaned close to say, “but they have so much to do just now.” He said it as if he were talking about some local burghers who were preparing for a visit from the mayor. “Tonight, as you may be aware, is the summer solstice.”
True enough, the marquis thought, but what of it?
“It’s one of the ancient celebrations that we have reconsecrated,” Mainz offered. “It takes the place of all that Judeo-Christian claptrap. In fact, I’ve written a book on the subject, Arische Sonne-Rituale.” Aryan Sun Rites. “If you like, I would be happy to send you an inscribed copy for your private library.”
Sant’Angelo nodded, as if in gratitude.
“I’m a devoted bibliophile myself,” Mainz confided. “My house is so full of books, my wife says I’d fill the bathtub with them if she’d let me.”
Ascanio and Celeste walked by, with several glasses and a wine bottle on a tray.
“But you must have inherited quite an impressive collection yourself.”
Sant’Angelo shrugged, to suggest he didn’t bother himself with such things.
“Oh, don’t be so modest. Books make the house, don’t you think?”
“I’ve heard that said.”
“But where do you keep your library?” Mainz asked, looking around as if he might have missed it somehow.
Ah, so this was where it had been going.
“I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed,” Sant’Angelo replied.
“Oh, let me be the judge of that. I may be able to share with you things about your ancestors that you never knew. In fact, I believe that when I have told you about the arcane knowledge acquired by your forebears, you will be pleased and astonished. Now,” he said, taking his host by the elbow and steering him back toward the grand escalier, “perhaps you can show me those books, yes? Upstairs? In one of the towers? I thought most of these pepperpot turrets were truncated in the sixteenth century? I wonder how these were spared.”
Sant’Angelo deftly removed his arm.
“Perhaps a bit of your ancestor’s hocus-pocus?”
They were halfway up the stairs when the marquis heard the first explosion outside.
He stopped and was about to run back down, but Mainz said, “Just a safety precaution. No serious damage will be done. Now, let’s go see that library!” It wasn’t a request but an order.
