But during that time he had also watched the progress of the still-young man now sitting at the desk across the room from him. They’d been associates since the early 1920s, and together experienced, shoulder to shoulder, the abortive attempt to seize power in Munich late in 1923. The man, leader of a new political party, had gone
to prison after the
putsch
had been nipped in the bud, but Ludendorff, already in his late fifties, had got off lightly, given his reputation as a war hero.
He’d admired the way the man had bounced back later, and he’d watched his progress, and the progress of his National Socialist German Workers’ Party, with enthusiasm and interest. Ludendorff had little time for the dithering rule of his former colleague, now Chancellor of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg; and in the Nazi Party he saw a chance of his country redeeming itself from the dishonour and economic chaos it had brought on itself by the disaster of the World War.
Ludendorff stood in front of the desk in the ordinary little office. The office smelt of disinfectant, as if someone had been trying to get rid of a bad smell. There was a faint odour, the general noticed. Like the smell of pants worn for too long.
The man at the desk was a slightly built 38-year-old. He radiated enormous energy. Every muscle in his body was tense. The brown uniform he wore was cheap and badly made, and it hung in creases on him. He didn’t look like a man who’d been awarded the Iron Cross in the war a decade ago. Ludendorff remembered that the recommendation for the honour had been made by a Jewish senior officer.
The man ran a nervous hand over the lank hair which fell across his left temple, and then moved it restlessly to scratch the toothbrush moustache, black as his hair, which grew beneath his strong nose, a little too large for his face.
The moment had come.
Ludendorff had thought long and hard before reaching
his decision. Ten years earlier, he’d refused to give up the Babylonian tablet to the man who’d gone on to create, even without it, an unshakably powerful Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But Lenin had been dead for three years now, and power had passed to Josef Stalin. An unknown but dangerous quantity.
The tablet and the box were in Ludendorff’s briefcase, carefully wrapped.
‘I am glad to see you, General,’ said the man. ‘Please – take a seat. Can I offer you something? Herb tea? A glass of water?’
Ludendorff would have preferred a cigar and a cognac, but he knew the man neither smoked nor drank. It was said that he lived on a diet of fruit and steamed vegetables. And yet his body seemed weak, flaccid. Black, coarse hair, which reminded the general of the hair on an insect’s legs, edged the pale, thin hands.
‘No, thank you,’ replied the general. He sat down.
‘They tell me you have something for me.’
‘As we discussed.’
‘Ah.’ The young man’s eyes glinted for a moment before reassuming a mild look. ‘Yes. I have thought about that. I am grateful to you for your confidence.’
‘It is your cause that I believe in.’
‘The cause is everything. It is my life’s work. The redemption of our country.’ The man hesitated. ‘I know you share that ambition.’
Ludendorff nodded, stiffly. They had had many conversations leading up to this one. What he did now was crucial.
‘May I see this – this artefact – we have spoken of?’
Ludendorff opened his briefcase and withdrew two packages, laying them on the desk, and opening them.
‘The box once contained the tablet. We
believe
. We do not know what it contains now, since we have no means of opening it.’
‘I will find a means,’ replied the man, picking the box up and turning it over briefly in his nervous hands, before laying it aside and concentrating his attention on the plain little slab of clay which lay before him. There was no hiding the expression in his eyes now, as he touched it. ‘And this is –’
Ludendorff knew that the man was convinced of what the tablet could do. He also knew that the man was a believer – no cynic. Any trace of a supernatural dimension to its capacity had been removed through the scrutiny and analysis of minds Ludendorff knew to be as searching as his own, if not more. But, unlike him, the young man was in tune with the occult. He consulted an astrologer, and he believed in his own kind of mystical destiny – something which it was beyond Ludendorff’s imagination to comprehend. But Ludendorff respected the intensity of the young man’s belief. He would have been proud to have had such a son.
‘You must explain to me how it – operates,’ said the man, raising his eyes to meet the general’s.
‘I will tell you all that Koldewey transmitted to me,’ replied Ludendorff. He drew a sheaf of papers, arranged in a grey folder, from his briefcase. ‘Here are the notes I have compiled, which will amplify anything I say.’
‘Excellent,’ said the man, holding the general’s eyes with his in a way which made Ludendorff uneasy. He held
the tablet firmly in his right hand, which shook slightly even then, with barely suppressed nervous energy, and, having gazed at it firmly for a moment longer, placed it in his left breast pocket, close to his heart. ‘If this does what you say it will, you be rewarded.’ He paused. ‘Let us hope it will.’
‘For the sake of the Fatherland,’ said Ludendorff.
The man continued to look at him. ‘Of course,’ he replied. He slid the folder towards him, over the desk, and riffled through it. ‘Much to learn here.’
‘I will tell you more,’ promised Ludendorff.
‘That will be tomorrow,’ replied the other man. ‘At eleven. I hate the early morning,’ he added, spitting the words out as if the early morning had done something to deserve his personal loathing. ‘The sooner I am able to use this thing, the better. I will set aside two days for us to make a start.’ He stood awkwardly, abruptly, reached out his hand. Ludendorff, standing himself, grasped it then took a pace back. The men exchanged salutes. The new salute. Ludendorff clicked his heels.
‘The future of our country will be safe in your hands,’ the general said.
As he left the building and made his way to his Maybach W5, where his chauffeur stood to attention at his approach, something deep in Ludendorff’s heart suddenly misgave him.
But he ignored it. The die was cast. He would meet Adolf Hitler again, as they’d arranged, the following day.
Corfu, Year of Our Lord 1203
There must be something Dandolo was missing – something defective in himself, for there could be nothing wrong with the power of the tablet which nestled, as always, close to his heart in a hidden pocket of his robe. Had he not delved fully enough into its secrets?
But Zara
had
fallen, that whore city, the army
had
reached Corfu, and the problem which confronted him on this pleasant little island was one he could rely on his own strength to overcome. Of that he was confident. Most of the Crusaders, in any case, were eating out of his hand. Only a handful needed to be brought to heel.
It was already early May. As all years now, this one was passing too quickly for him. His concern was with the journey still before them, the tides, the winds and the passing of the seasons.
‘Consider your position,’ said Leporo. ‘You made sure that Pope Innocent lifted excommunication from the Franks. Why hasn’t he lifted it from the Venetians?’
‘The Crusaders are happy.’
‘Not all of them.’
‘As for the Venetians, I have taught them to regard excommunication for what it is – meaningless. The attack
on Zara has been forgiven, despite the killing of priests, despite the sacking of churches. The pope needed his Crusade.’
Dandolo did not explain to the monk how he, guided by the tablet, had controlled the thoughts of King Emeric of Hungary, making him take no action in reprisal at the destruction of his vassal city. Nor had the pope, the co-protector of Zara. Dandolo’s manipulation had seen to it that the pope’s teeth were drawn. The tablet had shown him how. Its power seemed limitless. He consulted the writing and applied its message. But it was true: Pope Innocent had not revoked excommunication from his men. He knew he hadn’t yet fully grasped the tablet’s potential, but he knew he was within reach of his aim: controlling men’s minds
at will
! To do that, he would have to draw closer to the tablet – become, he thought, one with it.
It didn’t matter. The Crusaders’ share of the loot from the destroyed city had come nowhere near paying what they still owed.
But, for the rebel Crusaders, all the news was good.
‘Boniface has returned from wintering with his cousin,’ Leporo reported.
‘What news does he bring back with him from Swabia?’ Dandolo was alert. The result of the visit was important. Boniface’s cousin Philip was married to the daughter of Isaac, the deposed emperor of Constantinople.
‘Isaac hopes to get his throne back. As you know.’
‘Do we have their support?’
‘Isaac’s son shares his ambition. He is close to his brother-in-law.’
‘But can he be trusted? Alexus Angelus is a callow boy.’
‘He hates the uncle who’s kicked his father off the throne. He hates living in exile at the Swabian court under his sister’s protection.’
‘Where is he now?’
Leporo smiled, eyeing his master. ‘That is the best news of all. Boniface has brought him to Corfu, full of promises – 200,000 marks and 10,000 men – to support the Crusade, if we will only take back the Great City first, and replace him and his father on the throne there, as joint rulers.’
‘Good news indeed!’ If it hadn’t been for those fucking malcontents. He squeezed the tablet under his robe. What was he missing? Almost full control, and yet …
‘They’ve set up a separate camp, and they have established their own Council. They’re obstinate bastards,’ said Leporo.
‘Their forces are too weak to attack the Holy Land by themselves. They will never drive a path through Egypt, never even get there, without a fleet.’
‘They are desperate men. Our spies report that they plan to travel through Syria. The strait between here and the mainland is narrow. Many of the defectors who left us at Venice have reached Syria in Genoese ships or vessels hired from African corsairs. The rebels here plan to join them. If, together, they can get up enough of a force to mount a Crusade, the pope may shift his blessing from us to them.’
‘They are still weak!’ said Dandolo.
‘If those that are here get away …’ Leporo let his voice trail off, watching his master keenly.
But Dandolo was not looking at him. He caressed the tablet with his thumb. It
had
to hold an answer for him. But he didn’t want Leporo around when he consulted it. He always, now, imagined that his work with the tablet took the form of conversations. Frid, with his doglike devotion, he could trust, because he did not need any more power than his own to control the Viking. Leporo was a different matter. Leporo was too like himself.
‘Leave me,’ he ordered. Already the ghost of an idea was occurring to him. But was it coming from him, or the tablet? ‘Go and summon the leaders. Bring Alexus with them.’
Leporo bowed, gathering his papers together. He wanted to stay, wanted to see what his master did when he was alone, but had not yet found a way of spying on him with success. That Viking bastard Frid was always there. Dandolo’s eyes, these days, far more than Leporo had ever been. The Norseman was standing in the shadows by the door now, immobile, but missing nothing. Why should he have the master’s trust when he, Leporo, who had saved him, who had rescued the sight of his left eye, had not?
But he didn’t believe his master had ever used the tablet to control him. Dandolo was too intelligent not to know he needed to share some of the knowledge.
But, he reflected grimly, he could be certain of nothing. He would only be that when he had the tablet in his own hands and could bend it to his own will. Universal Christendom under his iron dominion!
Once the monk had gone and Dandolo heard the heavy door close behind him; once Frid had moved to stand in front of it, arms folded, impassive, silent, the doge plucked the tablet from his sleeve. Holding it in both hands, arms crooked, raised above him, he peered up at it through the faint light in the room. And, as he looked, the room darkened. He concentrated, forcing his eye to focus on the letters which had been stamped on the clay two thousand years before.
The letters began to glow – a dark, dull red, so softly that Dandolo couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t a trick of his dying eye. But he understood its signal well enough.
He remained, rapt, alone in a universe inhabited only by himself and the thing he held before him, for twenty minutes, under the watchful eye of Frid. And as Frid looked at his master, he saw that a strange light enveloped the seated figure and sequestered him from the world, a light of so deep a crimson that it blended with the shadows of the room, dark as wine, and somehow alive.
Frid waited, patiently, confidently, for the time to pass. An old proverb came into his mind then: ‘Man says,
Time passes.
Time says,
Man passes.
’ And then, without warning, he felt a strange impulse shudder through him – what another man would have recognized as fear. Dandolo must not die. The doge must achieve what Destiny had prescribed for him.
Frid did not know that the power which swept through the room was affecting him too. Only his simple nature, his innocence, protected him.
Then, disappearing more quickly than it had arrived,
the strange light dissolved. The room resumed its normal appearance.
Frid shook himself like a water-spaniel. Dandolo faced him. The blind eye was a withered socket, a scar, the opening of a narrow cave in a yellow rockface.
But the other eye held him with a milky regard.
The camp of the rebel Crusaders was on a low hill, sloping down to the sea, four kilometres north of the town. It was late afternoon, and the sandy countryside turned golden in the light of the setting sun when the procession arrived at its gates.
All were on foot, their rich garments and their boots dusty from the road. At its head was the doge, stooping, weary with the effort of the walk, leaning on a stick, supported on his other side by the giant Norseman. Behind him, bareheaded, Count Baldwin of Flanders, the Marquess de Montferrat, and the emperor-elect, Alexus Angelus, walked, overshadowed by a giant cross, carried by five monks, with Leporo leading them. Twenty choirboys followed, chanting, their voices tossed away in the breeze, but singing on. No military retinue. No one bore arms.