'No, it's not yet complete. It's a great upheaval that's being planned. It's believed in, it's the new heaven and the new earth. That's what's been promised by leaders for thousands of years. Promised by religions, promised by those who support Messiahs, promised by those who come back to teach the law, like the Buddha. Promised by politicians. The crude heaven of an easy attainment such as the Assassins believed in, and the Old Man of the Assassins promised his followers and, from their point of view, gave to them.'
'Is she behind drugs as well?'
'Yes. Without conviction, of course. Only a means of having people bent to her will. It's one way, too, of destroying people. The weak ones. The ones she thinks are no good, although they had once shown promise. She'd never take drugs herself — she's strong. But drugs destroy weak people more easily and naturally than anything else.'
'And force? What about force? You can't do everything by propaganda.'
'No, of course not. Propaganda is the first stage and behind it there are vast armaments piling up. Arms that go to deprived countries and then on elsewhere. Tanks and guns and nuclear weapons that go to Africa and the South Seas and South America . In South America there's a lot building up. Forces of young men and women drilling and training. Enormous arms dumps — means of chemical warfare –'
'It's a nightmare! How do you know all this, Renata?' 'Partly because I've been told it; from information received, partly because I have been instrumental in proving some of it.'
'But you. You and she?'
There's always something idiotic behind all great and vast projects.' She laughed suddenly. 'Once, you see, she was in love with my grandfather. A foolish story. He lived in this part of the world. He had a castle a mile or two from here.'
'Was he a man of genius?'
'Not at all. He was just a very good sportsman. Handsome, dissolute and attractive to women. And so, because of that, she is in a sense my protectress. And I am one of her converts or slaves! I work for her. I find people for her. I carry out her commands in different parts of the world.'
'Do you?'
'What do you mean by that?'
'I wondered,' said Sir Stafford Nye. He did wonder. He looked at Renata and he thought again of the airport. He was working for Renata, was working with Renata. She had brought him to this Schloss. Who had told her to bring him here? Big, gross Charlotte in the middle of her spider's web? He had had a reputation, a reputation of being unsound in certain diplomatic quarters. He could be useful to these people perhaps, but useful in a small and rather humiliating way. And he thought suddenly, in a kind of fog of question marks: Renata??? I took a risk with her at Frankfurt airport. But I was right. It came off. Nothing happened to me. But all the same, he thought, who is she? What is she? I don't know. I can't be sure. One can't in the world today be sure of anyone. Anyone at all. She was told perhaps to get me. To get me into the hollow of her hand, so that business at Frankfurt might have been cleverly thought out. It fitted in with my sense of risk, and it would make me sure of her. It would make me trust her.
'Let's canter again,' she said. 'We've walked the horses too long.'
'I haven't asked you what you are in all this?'
'I take orders.'
'From whom?'
'There's an opposition. There's always an opposition. There are people who have a suspicion of what's going on, of how the world is going to be made to change, of how with money, wealth, armaments, idealism, great trumpeting words of power what's going to happen. There are people who say it shall not happen.'
'And you are with them?'
'I say so.'
'What do you mean by that, Renata?'
She said, 'I say so.'
He said: 'That young man last night –'
'Franz Joseph?'
'Is that his name?'
'It is the name he is known by.'
'But he has another name, hasn't he?'
'Do you think so?'
'He is, isn't he, the young Siegfried?'
'You saw him like that? You realized that's what he was, what he stands for?'
'I think so. Youth. Heroic youth. Aryan youth, it has to be Aryan youth in this part of the world. There is still that point of view. A super race, the supermen. They must be of Aryan descent.'
'Oh yes, it's lasted on from the time of Hitler. It doesn't always come out into the open much and, in other places all over the world, it isn't stressed so much. South America , they say, is one of the strongholds. And Peru and South Africa also.'
'And what does young Siegfried do? I mean, besides being handsome and kissing his benefactor's hand?'
'Oh, he is a great orator. When he speaks, his admirers follow him even to death.'
'Is that true?'
'He believes it.'
'And you?'
'I think I might believe it.' She added: 'Oratory is very frightening, you know. What a voice can do, what words can do, and not particularly convincing words at that. The way they are said. his voice rings like a bell, and women cry and scream and faint away when he adresses them — you'll see that for yourself.'
'You saw Charlotte 's bodyguard last night all dressed up — people do love dressing up nowadays. You'll see them all over the world in their own chosen get-up, different in different places, some with their long hair and their beards, and girls in their streaming white nightgowns, talking of peace and beauty, and the wonderful world that is the world of the young which is to be theirs when they've destroyed enough of the old world. The original Country of the Young was west of the Irish Sea , wasn't it? A very simple place, a different place, a different Country of the Young from what we're planning now — It was silver sands, and sunshine and singing in the waves…
'But now we want anarchy, and breaking down and destroying. Only anarchy can benefit those who march behind it. It's frightening, it's also wonderful — because of its violence, because it's bought with pain and suffering –'
'So that is how you see the world today?'
'Sometimes.'
'And what am I to do next?'
'Come with your guide. I'm your guide. Like Virgil with Dante, I'll take you down into hell, I'll show you the sadistic films partly copied from the old SS, show you cruelty and pain and violence worshipped. And I'll show you the great dreams of paradise in peace and beauty. You won't know which is which and what is what. But you'll have to make up your mind.'
'Do I trust you, Renata?'
'That will be your choice. You can run away from me if you like, or you can stay with me and see the the new world — the new world that's in the making.'
'Pasteboard,' said Sir Stafford Nye violently.
She looked at him inquiringly.
'Like Alice in Wonderland. The cards, the pasteboard cards all rising up in the air. Flying about. Kings and Queens and Knaves. All sorts of things.'
'You mean — what do you mean exactly?'
'I mean it isn't real. It's make-believe. The whole damn thing is make-believe.'
'In one sense, yes.'
'All dressed up playing parts, putting on a show. I'm getting nearer, aren't I, to the meaning of things?'
'In a way, yes, and in a way, no –'
'There's one thing I'd like to ask you because it puzzles me. Big Charlotte ordered you to bring me to see her
