At Sword's Point (17 page)

Drummond lay facedown on the bed, just drifting between sleep and awareness. Next to him, he could feel the soft warmth of Maria, one of her long legs thrown across his as she snuggled close in the early morning chill. Maria moved, her leg slowly sliding up his thigh, her hand moving along his well-muscled arm and her cheek resting on his shoulder. Drummond could feel her stretch out next to him, her firm body tense against his own.

Relaxing again, she rolled over onto Drummond and, bringing her legs up along either side of his body, straddled his buttocks and began to slowly massage his back. Drummond could feel himself growing heavy with arousal and shifted slightly into a more comfortable position as Maria caressed his back and shoulders.

"I thought you wanted to go riding this morning," he said, as she slipped her hand around his waist and began to tease him.

"I do," Maria said. "Then we can take the horses out before breakfast." She giggled softly as Drummond rolled over beneath her, his hands coming up to cup her breasts.

"Okay, cowgirl," he said, pulling her face close to his. He kissed her tenderly on the lips, his arms wrapping around her in a fulsome embrace. Slowly they rolled to the side, Maria's legs locking around Drummond's hips.

Pulling away from her, he felt her hand guiding him gently toward her.

As he sank back down on her, Maria cooed to herself and hugged Drummond as hard as she could. Together the two of them made love as the sun slowly made its way above the horizon.

When they had finished, Maria stretched across Drummond and pulled the bell cord next to the bed.

"What's that for?" he asked, as he ran the palms of his hands across her nipples.

"Coffee… umm, that feels nice." She gave Drummond a quick kiss. "I thought we'd have coffee before we got up."

"What will Joachim say when he finds you in my bed?" he asked, as Maria laid her head on his chest.

"Nothing," she replied. "Servants only talk if you try to hide what you are doing."

Just then there was a discreet knock at the door, followed a moment later by Joachim carrying a silver coffee service. Without a word, he carried the coffee over to Maria's side of the bed and set it down on a small table. Turning, he pulled back the drapes to let in the early morning sun and then, as silent as ever, left the room.

"Does Joachim approve of this sort of thing?" Drummond asked, as Maria poured him a cup of strong Austrian coffee.

"He must. He brought out the good coffee service and the best cups." She handed Drummond a pale ivory cup and saucer with gold rims and a tiny von Diels coat of arms on them. "If he didn't approve, he wouldn't have gone to so much extra work."

"I see," said Drummond, sipping his coffee. "And just how would he have shown his disapproval?"

"Paper cups and instant coffee, I suppose." Maria giggled. "Now, finish your coffee so we can take a bath and then go riding."

After a playful bath, Maria went back to her room to put on her riding clothes, leaving Drummond alone to dress. Walking over to the wardrobe mirror, he saw the welts on his back raised by Maria's fingernails the night before. If last night and this morning had been her way of making up for having ignored him at the dinner, Drummond decided that he wouldn't mind being ignored three or four times a week for the rest of his life.

The rest of his life… While he shaved, he wondered just how long that might be. It had been five days since the Mossad had tried to kill him, and by now his nonappearance at Stockholm would have alerted the Feds and the LAPD that something wasn't right. His original plan to return to the castle of the Order of the Sword now looked less secure, with von Liebenfalz, the Prince of Antioch, and some American cardinal aware, at least on some level, of his involvement with the order.

Still, he couldn't sit around waiting for the Mossad to find him. And there was Kluge to contend with as well. Drummond had hardly thought of the vampire since his lunch with Eberle. How long ago was that? he wondered. Two, maybe three days ago? Just one night with Maria, and he had lost track of the time. He shook his head, as if to clear it.

Keep moving. The first rule of escape and evasion. He had to keep moving.

As he pulled on his underwear, Drummond decided that he'd leave after breakfast. But first, another few hours with Maria.

He went back into the bedroom. Looking at the riding kit that Joachim had turned out for him convinced Drummond that the aristocracy never threw anything away. The old-fashioned tan britches fit snug over the knee and then flared out over the thigh. The inside of the leg and the seat were faced with a soft, almost suede-like leather, while the fly was cut like a pair of sailor's bell-bottoms, with a flap front closed with a double row of buttons.

Joachim had also provided a soft golden-brown hacking jacket and a rust-colored cashmere turtleneck, the latter of which Drummond pulled on. Standing in the corner of the room were a pair of well-polished brown riding boots, and in a small wooden box next to them were ivory-handled boot hooks, spurs, and a can of talcum powder.

Drummond dusted the inside of the boots with talc and then slipped the hooks into the flat canvas tabs inside the boot tops to pull them on. Unlike the night before, the boots fit remarkably well, and after stamping his feet a few times to loosen the stiff leather, Drummond was ready to ride. Pulling on the jacket and pocketing his spurs, he headed out to the stable yard.

Maria was already there and waiting for him, looking, Drummond decided, as desirable in her riding clothes as she had in the bath, with the suds clinging to her firm, up-turned breasts.

"I hope you are a good rider," she said, as a groom led over their mounts. "Both of these horses seem to be full of themselves today."

Drummond bent down and buckled on his spurs, then took the reins of his horse from the groom and looped them over his arm. Lifting the flap under the stirrup leathers, he checked the girth before adjusting the stirrups to their correct length. Finally he looped the reins back over the horse's head and adjusted the curb chain under the horse's chin. Satisfied that everything was as it should be, he grinned at Maria, then vaulted into the saddle without the aid of the stirrups.

"John, that's like in the cowboy movies," Maria laughed. "You must be a marvellous rider."

"There isn't a horse I can't ride," Drummond said in a mock-serious voice. "It's just that I can ride some of them a lot longer than others."

They both laughed at his joke, and then Maria turned her horse and led them out of the stable yard.

A dirt road led from the castle to the fields and vineyards beyond. Touching his horse in the flank with his spurs, Drummond trotted up alongside Maria's horse so they could talk.

"So, where are we headed?" he asked, as he drew even with Maria.

"The vineyards at the far end of the estate. I have to see that the vines have been pruned for next season." She gave Drummond a mischievous smile. "Let's race," she shouted, and was off in a cloud of dust.

Touching his spurs to his horse, Drummond galloped after her.

* * * *

The man strapped to the chair in the sand-strewn arena watched with terror and uncomprehending fascination as the horse thundered toward him, its hooves churning up dust as it lengthened its stride in an all-out gallop. The rider, like the other riders drawn up in a row at the far end of the yard, was dressed all in black, from cap to boot—a uniform that conjured up unpleasant associations, though the man in the chair could not quite remember what they were. His name was Martin Kelber, and he had no idea how he had gotten here.

Something flashed in the rider's hand as he leaned low out of the saddle, and in the split second before he galloped past, the man in the chair realised that it was a sword, its blade arching down towards his skull. He screamed and tried to throw himself to one side, but only succeeded in spooking the horse and deflecting the rider's aim. The steel bit into his flesh and lifted his scalp, carrying away only a bit of his skull and exposing a small part of his brain to the sky.

"No, goddammit! No!" Baumann shouted at the young postulant reining in his horse at the far end of the tilting yard. "That man is still alive! A live man can kill you— even you, who think you are beyond death!"

"But the horse shied," the rider began lamely.

"Bullshit!" Baumann roared. "That horse didn't shy; you failed! Fail again, and you fail forever." He trotted his horse over to where the postulant sat on his blowing mount. "Now, watch how I do it. And when we have another target ready, I want you to do the same. Or else!"

Baumann kneed his horse around to face the wounded man, strapped to a chair lying on its side in the dusty arena. The victim lay sobbing in the dirt, blood pouring down his face and into his eyes from the saber wound he had just received, soaking into the sand.

"Set that man back up!" Baumann bellowed.

Two postulants dismounted with alacrity and ran over to right the chair, deaf to the sobs of the victim.

"Good," yelled Baumann, drawing a Cossack saber from the scabbard strapped to his saddle. "Now, get out of the way!"

With a shout, Baumann dug his spurs into his horse, causing the animal to rear before plunging to earth in a flat-out gallop. Baumann sat bolt upright in the saddle, the perfect picture of a cavalry soldier at the charge. As he thundered down on his target, he leaned forward slightly in the saddle and swung his saber in a perfect arc aimed at the victims neck.

Martin Kelber screamed in terror, but to no avail. The timing was perfect, and Baumann's blade sliced through Kelber's open mouth, the momentum of the horse carrying the blade through his jaw bones and severing his head. A fountain of blood gushed skyward, and Kelber's body jerked spasmodically against the leather restraints that held it upright in the chair. A few yards away, the head bounced along behind Baumann's horse.

Wheeling his charger at the far end of the tilting yard, Baumann galloped back, this time laid low over the neck of his horse, his saber held in front of him on point. As he drew even with the still-rolling head, he leaned out of the saddle and drove the point of his sword into the head, with a sweep of his arm bringing it up above him with a flourish.

Reining in hard in a cloud of boiling dust, Baumann slid his horse to a stop in front of the awe-struck postulant.

"Now, you miserable piece of pig shit, until you can do that, your horse does not shy!
Verstehen
?" Baumann shook the grisly trophy off his saber. "Set up the next target! Next man, get ready!" he shouted to the postulants at the far end of the field.

From an upper floor of the hunting lodge, Kluge watched Baumann's demonstration with pride. Baumann was the best horseman he had ever known, and it gave Kluge deep satisfaction to watch him train their young knights in the ancient skills of the mounted warrior. In this place that the world had become, they were not the specific skills that would be needed in the war Kluge proposed to renew, but the skills taught discipline. That was essential. Kluge watched with approval as Baumann trotted in and out among the young knights, bullying them into becoming cavalry soldiers who could perform any feat on horseback and would obey every command.

Turning from the window, Kluge closed his eyes and conjured up a memory of the first time he had seen Baumann on a horse, galloping through the trees—and later, scattering a Soviet patrol in the forests above Telavi.

It had been late April, and a light snow was falling as Kluge and the other prisoners were herded toward the kitchen by their guards. Out in the woods, far beyond the barbed wire fence, Kluge thought he saw movement somewhere in the trees. Trying not to look as if he cared, he caught a glimpse of horsemen galloping along the perimeter of the forest. As he watched, the horsemen moved back into the woods, out of sight of the prison.

One of the guards hit Kluge in the back.

"Get moving, Nazi swine," he said, shoving Kluge in the direction of the kitchen.

Stumbling forward, his chains dragging at his ankles, Kluge wondered if the riders were Cossacks or merely a band of nomads moving from Turkey to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea. It was not until much later that he learned that Baumann was among them, and had tracked him down at last…

* * * *

Sitting motionless on one of the tough, wiry horses that the Cossacks favored, Baumann surveyed the hospital camp with a pair of binoculars, watching men move from one building to another. Some of them were camp personnel, others prisoners. He still had not yet determined if Kluge was among them, or if he was even still alive, but this was the best lead he had yet uncovered.

"So," he said to the man beside him, still watching the prisoners. "These men are Germans?"

"
Da
. Prisoners." The Cossack sat easily on his mount, absently flicking the lash of his knoud against his soft leather boots.

"And this is where your man said the
wampyr
is?" Baumann looked directly at the hetman.

"
Da. Hier. Wampyr. Hier
." The Cossack chief nodded vigorously up and down, punctuating the word
hier
with a downward jab of his knoud.

Baumann swung his leg over the neck of his horse and dropped onto the thick loam of the woodland floor. Walking away from the small group of Cossacks, he partially sheltered behind a tree and gazed out across the long expanse of snow-silent meadow to the prison hospital in the valley. If Kluge was here, and Baumann could free him…

It was good to be free. Baumann himself had escaped from a Soviet prison hospital in the Crimea nearly four years earlier, when the camp was being closed down and the prisoners were being transferred. It had been snowing then, too, and Baumann had used the confusion created by the loading of the prisoners on trucks to make his escape.

Like most successful plans, it was simplicity in itself. For one brief moment Baumann had found himself alone and, almost without thinking about it, had stepped behind a huge oak tree. Incredibly, no one missed him. After eight years, the Russian guards no longer bothered to count their prisoners, figuring that all initiative to escape had long since been beaten out of them.