Knights of the Blood (7 page)

Having relayed the orders of the prince, Chevalier Humphrey d’Urbot sat down and poured himself a cup of wine.

Slowly standing, de Beq surveyed the faces of the knights present at the table.

“It is not possible that all of us accompany you, Chevalier. Of the thirty men who returned from a mission we undertook last week, at least half are not yet recovered. I would propose that you take the main part of the garrison tomorrow, leaving behind those who are still not recovered from their fever. I will retain an additional complement sufficient to slight the castle, when we are ready to leave, and follow you with the rest, in as many days as it takes to regain our strength.”

Chevalier d’Urbot looked down the table to where de Beq stood, his thick fists resting on the tabletop. “How many would I take with me?”

“About sixty, perhaps a few more. They will be useful to the prince . Most of them are soldiers, only a few are serving brothers.”

D’Urbot looked around the room and decided that his chances of reaching Armenia would be improved if he didn’t have to slow down to nursemaid fifteen fever—ridden men.

“An excellent plan. I shall start out tomorrow with the main garrison, then, and you can follow when you’re fit.” D’Urbot raised his cup. “The Sword of Christ.”

De Beq had no wine before him, but he bowed slightly in answer to the salute.

“The Sword of Christ, Chevalier.”

Next evening, de Beq watched alone from the tower battlement as the garrison rode out, d’Urbot at their head on his swaying camel. De Beq had kept behind all of the men who returned with him from Chalice Well save the archers. When the departing column was only a plume of dust on the darkening horizon, he went back down to the great hall. He wondered if he looked as pasty—faced as the knights who were waiting for him. Even d’Urbot had remarked upon it, before climbing up on his camel.

He stayed the men from rising as he came into the room, suddenly struck by the realization that one of them, Hano von Linka, appeared to be dramatically improved over his fellows. Unlike the other five, Hano had a hint of color in his cheeks, and the brightness in his eyes was different from the look that came from fever.

“Hano, you’re looking almost fit tonight,” de Beq said as he walked around the table to take his seat at its head.

“Ja.
I think the medicine may be working,” Hano replied.

“Medicine?” de Beq asked.

“Well, not medicine, really,” said the lanky blond knight. “When I was a boy in Styria, my father’s surgeon would make us drink pig’s blood if we were ill. So last night and today, I drank a cup of blood from the animals they butcher for the kitchen.” The Chevalier von Linka leaned back against the wall. “It sounds disgusting, I know, but I feel much better.”

An hour later, under Hano’s direction, another pig was brought squealing into the hall and stunned with a blow from a mace before being strung up by the hind feet and having its throat cut. They caught the blood in a pan held beneath–imagery all too reminiscent of the brass bowls in the date shed, to de Beq’s way of thinking–and from there, the dark, frothy fluid was ladled out to the knights and other men remaining at the castle. De Beq misliked the similarity to the other blood they had drunk together, remembering the blood—stained cup he had brought back in his saddlebag, but he ordered them all to drink, and no one disobeyed.

Hano’s homegrown remedy seemed to work. In the morning, the men seemed to have taken on some color, and again that evening a pig was butchered. Fortified by blood, the men’s normal appetites began to return as well, so that after a week, all of them seemed nearly returned to normal health. Even the wounded continued their remarkable recovery, enabling de Beq to set a definite schedule for slighting the castle and readying for their departure.

The methodical dismantling of the castle began. Since the fever appeared to have run its course, there seemed no further need to slaughter animals for their blood, so de Beq ordered that the treatment be halted. Within days, however, symptoms of the fever began to return, and the slaughter of animals for their blood had to be resumed. Not much blood was required–less than a cupful per man, and only every three or four days. But without it the fever came back, and the hunger began to rise, to the exclusion of all other hungers.

Trying not to think about it, de Beq set a rigorous schedule for slaughter, hoping the animals would last, and kept his energies concentrated on finishing the destruction of the castle. By the end of the third week, it was nearly complete. The battlements had been hurled to the ground, and the defensive bawn wall had been pulled down close to the tower. All that remained to do was destroy the gates and set fire to the roof of the tower.

On their last night at Noire Garde, de Beq called a council meeting of all his knights and serjeants. For several days he had been thinking about the situation in the Holy Land, and wondering about the advisability of trying to reach Armenia. Finally he had reached a decision, but one which he felt should be ratified by all of the knights and serjeants.

“Mes confrères,”
de Beq began, calling them to attention once he was sure everyone was there. When it was built, the great hall of the castle had been designed to accommodate nearly a hundred men, but with fewer than a dozen, the very size of the hall became intimidating, and the men clustered together for reassurance around the cold ashes of the fireplace.

“Mes confrères,”
de Beq said again, “as you know, the Prince of Galilee has taken flight, along with the king, to Cyprus. Most of our brothers—in—arms have fled with him, or gone to Armenia where they hope to raise an army to free the Holy Land of the Saracen.”

There was a general muttering of agreement among the men, who were all aware of the situation.

“We have been told to go to Armenia,” de Beq went on, “yet we are only twenty miles from the sea. It’s obvious that the only purpose in sending us north to Armenia was to draw off any Saracens that might have been tempted to foiIow our king and prince across the water to Cyprus. We were,” here de Beq looked around the room to make sure that everyone understood what he was saying, “to be decoys, sent out to die so that the king and our prince might escape.”

William of Etton was quick on the uptake. “Since the king and the prince have escaped to Cyprus, is it not our duty now to join them, rather than go haring off to Armenia?”

“It
would
be, if there was any chance that the king would be returning to the Holy Land,” de Beq replied. “Jerusalem fell forty years ago, and now Acre and Tyre are in Saracen hands as well.” The full import of de Beq’s words was beginning to sink in.

One of the serjeants spoke. “Sire, do you think the kingdom is lost?”

“Only if the king stays in Cyprus.” De Beq’s eyes swept around the waiting faces seated around the table before him. “It will take another crusade to free Jerusalem. Until that crusade is organized, we will return to my castle in Luxembourg and wait.”

He did not tell him that there was another reason for his decision, one which had nothing to do with the possible betrayal by their overlord or even the failing military position in the Holy Land. Not for many a month would he reveal how he had reached his decision–how he had knelt by his bed one night in his private quarters pondering a once—holy cup, now befouled by the blood of an infidel Saracen demon–and how it slowly had come to him how the Turk’s curse was coming to pass, damning him and his men for all eternity unless they devoted the rest of their very long lives to prayer and penance ... .

THE ARDENNES, 1944

THE PALE
ivory face of the Madonna in the triptych above the altar gazed serenely down on the flickering points of light that danced on votive candles. On the walls of the chapel, a fresco of angels poured their blessings upon armored men preparing to do battle with the forces of Satan. The strident colors of the murals were muted by the soft golden glow of the candles, the outward symbol of the burning devotion of the twenty men kneeling before the tortured carving of Christ crucified.

Heads bowed, their heavy white robes offering some protection against the midwinter cold of the small stone chapel, the men were deep in meditative prayer when the door to the chapel was kicked open and one of their number staggered in carrying the naked body of a dead man.

“Master!” he cried as he struggled to carry the body to the front of the chapel. “They’re in the woods. They’ve come again!”

Standing as he crossed himself, the man addressed as master came quickly to where the body had been laid at the foot of the altar steps. Even by candlelight, the body had a waxy bluish tinge to it, the outward sign that it had been drained of all blood. But beyond that, the body had been horribly mutilated, one arm hanging in shreds and a huge wound gaping in its back. Looking closely at the face of the corpse, the master decided that the dead man had been perhaps eighteen years old, certainly not more than twenty. He turned to the man who had carried in the corpse.

“Where did it happen, Pageau?”

“I found him near the edge of the wood, along with many others.”

“Others?” Concern flashed across the master’s face.

“Yes. About twenty. They had been dumped in a pile, by the men with the steel helmets.”

The master turned to the other men in the chapel who had been standing silently listening, his hand dropping casually onto the hilt of the sword belted over his heavy white robe.

“William, take ten men and go with Pageau. The rest of you, secure the castle.” Then, turning to the two men nearest the body, he added. “Take this one to the great hall.”

“Shall we prepare him for burial?” one of them asked.

“No, not until William returns with the leader of the Steel Helmets.”

Outside, a full moon reflected off the snow, making it easy for the white—mantled men to make their way from the castle to the edge of the wood several hundred yards away. Following the footprints made by the man returning with the corpse, the lightly armored men continued on into the wood and had no difficulty finding the pile of fresh corpses Pageau had reported, As they cautiously approached the small clearing, two black—clad men with a stretcher added another victim to the pile and turned back in the direction from which they had come.

Crouching low, the knights followed along behind, drifting invisibly in and out of the shadows, their white cloaks enabling them to blend in with the crusty snow on the ground.

Another twenty yards beyond the small clearing was a larger one, the scene of much activity. A field generator chugged away at the near side, providing electricity for two outside work lights as well as a small field hospital set up in a tent not far away. From the far side of the clearing came a slow but steady stream of stretcher bearers bringing wounded men under the work lights, where a medical triage team inspected the wounded, directed some to the hospital tent, and treated those they could. Those men too badly wounded–or who were already dead–were sent to a sideless shelter at the edge of the clearing nearest the generator.

Here the bearers stripped the uniforms off the dead and dying and placed them naked on a crude table. A bored—looking medical orderly then inserted a large needle into an artery in the arm–or, if the arms were too badly mangled, in the leg–and attached it by rubber tubing to a small vacuum pump. Another tube ran from the pump to a rack of glass bottles, and the medical orderly would attach this tube to a new bottle before starting to turn the hand crank on the pump. The blood thus drained from the dying or dead soldiers could be used for immediate transfusion in the field hospital just a few yards away.

To avoid any possible error in typing, each soldier had his blood—group tattooed under his left arm, as well as stamped into the metal disc worn around his neck on a string, and it was the job of one of the stretcher bearers who brought each man in to copy this information onto an appropriate number of adhesive strips used to label the bottles, before returning with his partner to pick up more wounded men.

In shock, or delirious from the pain of their wounds, most of the dying only moaned softly as they were slowly bled to death by the medical orderly who methodically turned the handle on the pump, pausing only to change bottles when they filled. A few, however, realized what was happening to them, and had to be held by the stretcher bearers for the first few minutes, while they screamed and wept and pleaded for their lives to be spared. That was why the table was located near the generator; its unmuffled chugging drowned out the cries of those men still clinging to the hope of life.

The figures in the white robes stood transfixed, unable to comprehend the technological efficiency of the slaughter they were watching. Nor did they grasp the difference between the khaki—green uniform of one of the stretcher bearers, staring in horror at the spectacle under the work lights, and the black uniform with twin lightning bolts as worn by the medical orderly.

On a given signal, the knights silently fanned out along the edge of the clearing, their swords at the ready. The orderly removed his needles and tubes from the dead man before him and labeled the last bottle of morbid blood. Two more stretcher bearers brought up another dying soldier, lifting the body of the dead man clear of the table before hoisting up the next to give his all for the fatherland. The young man in the khaki—green uniform fell to his knees beside the dying man on the table, pulling a strip of purple ribbon from the pocket of his battledress jacket, and was about to make the sign of the cross on the man’s forehead when the knights attacked.

With a shout of
“Deus Veult!”
the knights crashed into the clearing behind the hospital tent, hacking and slashing at the German soldiers. Father Francis Freise, Chaplain, 3
rd
US Army, still on his knees beside the dying soldier, watched in frozen horror as the knights cut down those medics who tried to defend themselves with their blunt—pointed medical daggers, throwing up empty hands and offering no resistance when one of the knights roughly jerked him to his feet and marched him off at sword point. Within the space of less than a minute, the knights had captured Father Freise and three of the Germans as well, pummeling two of them into silence with sword hilts before hurrying all of them into the woods.

* * *

Torches blazed in their sockets in the great hall, casting more than enough light on the body lying partially under a blanket on the long table in the center of the room. De Beq and another knight stood over the body, deep in conversation.

“What do you think, Henri? Is it the
broucolaque?”

“I’m not sure, Hano. The blood is gone, look.”

De Beq took a dagger from his belt and made a deep incision on the arm of the corpse. “No blood. None. I’ve never known a
broucolaque
to take so much.”

The other knight leaned closer. “Perhaps it was drained out by the wounds?”

“I think not. Have you ever known any wound that would take all of the blood from a body?”

Just then the doors of the great hall opened and the returning party of knights entered with their captives, shoving them to their knees in front of their commander.

“So,” said de Beq, “these are the
broucolaques.”

“Some of them,” said William of Etton. “We killed several back in the woods.”

“Please tell me everything,” said de Beq, as he examined the Red Cross dagger of one of the Nazis.

* * *

SS
Sturmbannführer
Wilhelm Kluge ignored the moans of the wounded as he and his men quickly surveyed the clearing behind the field hospital.

Partisans!
he thought.
Butchering bastards who can only be heroes by attacking hospitals!
Well, they wouldn’t get far, and by God, they’d pay. He looked around and saw the reassuring bulk of
Scharführer
Baumann glowering at him from behind his eye patch.

“Well,
Scharführer,
where are they?”

“Headed northwest, sir. I think there are eight of them, maybe ten. With possibly two or three prisoners.” Baumann glanced around the clearing at the bodies. “Shall I organize a patrol,
Herr Sturmbannführer?”

“No. Take three men and come with me. We won’t need a patrol to deal with this lot.”

Baumann saluted and trotted off to where several SS privates stood shivering in the cold. He singled out three of them, and then returned to Kluge. Without another word, they unslung their weapons and began to follow the tracks left by the knights in the fresh snow.

* * *

De Beq set down the Nazi dagger and walked over to one of the captives. On the man’s left sleeve was an eagle similar to the one cast into the cross guard of the dagger, and clutched in its talons was a wreath surrounding a cross similar to the gammadion that was set between each of the arms of the cross of the Order of the Sword. But where the gammadion of the Order was of polished gold, with its arms curved to embrace the true faith of the Lord, the cross worn by the captives was black, with flat, angular arms.

In the symbolism of his time, this subtle difference spoke volumes to de Beq. Gold, the color of Light, had been replaced with black, the color of Evil. And where the gammadion of the knights curved like loving arms embracing the most noble of all ideals, the harsh angular arms of the black cross turned it into a hammer, meant only to destroy. De Beq decided that it wasn’t an eagle clutching the wreath and swastika on his captive’s sleeve, but a vulture, poised to devour.

“Tell me, William, what language do these men speak?”

“I’m not sure. The ones in the black uniforms speak something like German. The other one was mumbling in bad Latin when we took him prisoner.”

De Beq turned and faced the man in khaki—green. “Who are you?” he asked in flawless medieval Latin.

Father Francis Freise sensed, rather than understood, the question, but he did his best to answer in the same language. “I am an American soldier, and a prisoner of those men,” he said, indicating the Germans next to him.

“You’re right,” de Beq said to William. “His Latin is horrible. Did you make out what he said?”

“Something about being a soldier. I think he’s probably their prisoner,” he inclined his head toward the SS men.

De Beq grunted and walked over to the table where the dead soldier was covered with a blanket. “What do you know of this?” he asked, ripping the blanket from the body.

Father Freise crossed himself, and the three SS field medics stepped uneasily closer to one another.

* * *

Kluge and his men had reached the edge of the forest that surrounded the castle and, following Baumann’s signal, spread out to five—meter intervals. Baumann pointed to the man on the extreme left of the group, who immediately trotted along the edge of the shadows until he was opposite the gates of the castle. After a few moments’ wait, the moon was swallowed by clouds and the SS man sprinted to the gates.

Waiting in the dim glow of the half—hidden moon, Kluge studied the castle through a pair of Zeiss field glasses. Even in the half—light of the night, he could tell that the castle was in excellent repair, the stone well—pointed and the massive gates set well on their hinges. Scanning the silhouette of the keep, Kluge thought he could make out a thin spiral of smoke climbing skyward from one of the chimneys.

A light snow started to fall, and Kluge put his binoculars back in their case and pulled out a map. Using his pocket torch, he scanned the sector, looking for some reference to the castle, but found none. German maps were precise in their detail, yet here was a major castle not marked on the map. It could only have been left off on purpose. But why?

Somewhere in the back of Kluge’s mind there stirred half an answer, trying to gnaw its way into his consciousness, but for the moment it would have to wait. The soldier at the gate flashed his signal to the men in the woods, and Kluge and the others sprinted forward to the gates of the castle.

Kluge was in excellent condition and crossed the one hundred or so meters to the castle ahead of his men, throwing himself into the shadows of the gate house, his P—38 pistol ready for action. Rolling into a seated position against the wall, Kluge dug his heels into the hard ground and, pushing with his legs, slid up the wall to a standing position.

Baumann and the other two SS privates were halfway across the clearing when the moon burst out from behind the clouds, flooding the open space between the castle and the woods with a flat incandescence. Instantly, the three men threw themselves down on the ground and lay perfectly still, waiting for the moon to vanish once again and hide them under a cloak of darkness, before crossing the remaining fifty meters to the castle, As Kluge also waited, he took the opportunity to have a closer look at the heavy gates before him,