At Sword's Point (21 page)

A quarter hour later, de Beq stood watching with his back to the fire, grim-faced and silent, while William of Etton and five of the remaining knights unloaded Drummond's car, bringing the boxes and packages and luggage across the drawbridge and into the great hall.

"Gosh, John," Father Freise said, "it looks like you bought out the store."

"Just a few things I thought I might need. I don't know how long I'll be staying," Drummond said.

"Pray God it will be for a long time," de Beq said, his deep voice rumbling up from within his chain mail shirt. "We will need your help if we are to catch this rogue knight."

"And to finish off Kluge," Father Freise added. "Tell us you won't be going back."

"Well, I can't make any promises," Drummond said uncertainly. "But this much I can tell you: having seen that 'thing' in the dungeon, I can't leave until all of our work is finished."

"That thing," de Beq said in a harsh whisper, "was Hano von Linka."

He turned away at that, staring into the fire. Drummond, after an awkward moment, walked over to where his belongings were neatly stacked and rummaged through one of the boxes until he came up with a stack of magazines and a wrapped package.

"Here, Frank," he said, trying to retrieve a lighter tone as he handed the magazines to Father Freise. "I brought you some copies of
Guns
&
Ammo
, just in case they don't forward your mail from New Hampshire."

"Well, thank you. I do have to admit that we're a little short of reading material here at the castle." Father Freise settled down close to the fire, not looking at de Beq, and began thumbing self-consciously through one of the magazines.

"And this," Drummond said, coming up beside de Beq, "is for you." He held out a package wrapped in dark mauve paper printed with tiny golden hunting horns. "Take it, please."

After a moment's hesitation, de Beq took the package from Drummond's outstretched hands. Turning, he slowly sat on the edge of the hearth and carefully examined the paper for several minutes. Finally, he slipped the dark green ribbon from the package and delicately tore open one end of the paper wrapping. A look of rapt attention came over the knight's face as he slid the red Moroccan leather case from the paper.

Drummond was puzzled at first by de Beq's reaction to the gift; then he realized that it probably had been more than seven hundred years since anyone had given him anything. He watched as de Beq sat, childlike, in front of the fire, balancing the leather case on his knees, hefting its weight. There was a sense of wonderful anticipation on de Beq's face as he stared at the case, working up the courage to see what lay within. Finally, unable to resist any longer, he opened the box.

The ivory-hilted dagger seemed to glow in the firelight, and it was several seconds before de Beq lifted it almost reverently off its pale blue watered silk cushion. He held the knife close to his face, studying the finely wrought scene backed by dark blue leather on the scabbard.

"I know this," he said with satisfaction. "This is Parzival!" He turned to Drummond, who nodded reassuringly.

Pulling the blade from the scabbard, de Beq let out a gasp of amazement as he saw the Damascus blade with the hammered gold inscription.

"This is from heaven," he whispered. Then, looking at the inscription, he turned again to Drummond. "I can read this, John Drummond! It is the writing of my youth."

For a moment de Beq's eyes misted over, then he regained his composure.

"A True Knight," he said, gazing off into the fire. "A True Knight."

"What?" Father Freise asked, looking up from his magazine. With a word, the spell was broken.

"Sir John has given me a great gift, Father. One I must repay." De Beq stood up and walked quickly from the room.

"What was that all about?" Father Freise asked.

"Nothing that I could explain," Drummond said, wishing to keep the moment private.

"Oh." Father Freise buried his nose back in the pages of
Guns
&
Ammo
.

De Beq returned a few minutes later carrying a small doeskin bag.

"There is a tradition that says a knight must pay for a dagger, lest it cut the bonds of friendship." De Beq sat beside Drummond and dug into the bag, pulling out a small gold coin about the size of his little fingernail. "Here," he said, pressing the coin into Drummond's palm. "This is for friendship."

Drummond nodded, reminded of another friendship sealed the same way in Vienna.

"Thank you, Sir Henri," he said with a slight bow.

De Beq looked at Drummond with a twinkle in his eye. "Did you return with my sword?" he asked.

"Certainly," Drummond replied. "I would not have come without it."

He stood up and went back over to the boxes and luggage that had been brought in from the Range Rover. Picking up the golf bag, he returned to where de Beq stood admiring his new dagger by the fire. He unzipped the bag's cover, then reached into the folds of the towels he had wrapped around the sword, searching for the hilt.

"Here you are, Sir Henri," he said, drawing the sword from its scabbard and the golf bag with a flourish. For just an instant, the image flashed in his mind of King Arthur drawing the sword from the stone. "Forgive me for not having returned it sooner." He laid the blade of the sword across his arm, hilt toward de Beq. "Your sword, sir."

De Beq took the sword and studied it carefully for a moment, as if reacquainting himself with the heft and balance of the weapon as Drummond pulled the empty scabbard out of the bag and laid it on the bench between them.

"This was my father's sword," de Beq said after another moment. "His father carried it on the first great crusade, and when my uncle sent me off to the Holy Land, this was all he gave me, besides a few hundred ducats, two horses and my armor." He laid the sword across his arm and presented it, hilt first, to Drummond. "I give it now to you—less, of course, the two horses and armor." He laughed. "Besides, I find the balance less suited since I have been using one of the swords captured from the Order of the Nazis."

Drummond was struck speechless. De Beq had just given him his most prized possession: his family sword. All of his honor was embodied in that one possession, and he had just passed it over to Drummond.

"I—I am honored, Henri," Drummond stammered, searching for something to say that would convey how much he understood this gift meant to de Beq.

Then he remembered the tradition of paying for the blade to prevent its cutting the friendship. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a symbolic coin—an American half-dollar.

"Here," he said. "In honor of the tradition that binds all warriors together as brothers."

De Beq gave Drummond a sly grin. "A good tradition as far as it goes, John Drummond, but one that does not apply to brothers or sons." He upended the doeskin bag and shook out a gold signet ring set with a large carnelian.

"Give me your left hand," he commanded, and Drummond obeyed.

"Sir John Drummond, Knight of the Order of the Sword, I hereby name you as my successor to the lands and estates of the Barony of Beq, and as seigneur of the manor, castle, and lands of Marbourg." He shoved the ring on Drummond's index finger.

"The sword I have given you is yours by right of inheritance, and no edge, no matter how sharp, can ever sever those bonds." De Beq smiled at the bewildered look on Drummond's face. "Tomorrow," he said, "I will have the priest draw up papers and send them to Rome. In the meantime, show us what other treasures you have brought back with you. Only, please—no more knives. That coin I gave you was the last one we have."

De Beq and the other knights proved to have little or no interest in most of what Drummond had bought at Kettner's, although there was universal acclaim for the crossbow. William of Etton shouldered the weapon and stared down the scope attached to the stock. Not, perhaps, the most technically minded of the lot, he nonetheless immediately grasped the value of a telescopic sight.

"By Saint Sebastian!" William declared. "You'd put a bolt in a mouse's ear hole at a hundred paces with this."

"Aye," one of the other knights said, taking the crossbow and sighting through the scope. "Or bury it in a Turk's nipple at four hundred paces, I wager."

They continued to pass it among themselves, admiring its workmanship, now turning their attention to inspection of the various bolts he had bought for it to fire—bolts that might even stop one of Kluge's vampires. Drummond was willing to let the knights examine the crossbow all night, if they wanted, but he was starting to feel the strain of the day, and especially the evening. As discussion continued, in a variety of languages, most of which he could not understand, he found that all he wanted was a place to sleep.

"Frank," he said, as the priest wandered over to look at the crossbow. "Where can I bunk?"

"The tower is the best place," Freise said after a few seconds' thought. "I've got a room ready for you."

"Where are you sleeping?" Drummond asked, not wanting to put Father Freise out of his room.

"Oh, my room is above the chapel. There's a little stair that leads up to it from behind the altar." He grinned at Drummond. "I've got a fireplace, bed, bookshelves—even got a bar and color TV."

Drummond shook his head. "I dunno, Frank. Sounds pretty wild to me."

"Come on. I'll show you," Father Freise said with a grin.

Drummond picked up his sleeping bag and a few of his things, including de Beq's sword, and followed Father Freise across the hall and into the stairs that led to the tower. As he trudged up the stone spiral, he realized how quiet a castle could be. They had hardly climbed any distance at all, and yet the sound of the knights in the great hall was completely lost. Only the muted sound of their shoes on the stone treads broke the stillness.

The other thing that Drummond noticed was how dark the castle was, as if the stones drank in the light, swallowing it up. Both he and Father Freise had flashlights, but for some reason, perhaps a trick caused by the upward spiral of the stairs, it seemed as if the beams were unable to penetrate the blackness. It reminded him of when he was first a policeman, working the waterfront. There had been a report of a dead body under one of the piers, and Drummond had been detailed to retrieve it.

After climbing into his wet suit and scuba gear, he had rolled off the deck of the police boat and swum on the oily surface to the pier. It had been dusk. Turning on his lamp, he dove down ten or twelve feet and began swimming further under the docks. The wet darkness seemed to swallow him up, his lamp barely able to penetrate the inky water.

Under the docks, Drummond had found himself floating in total darkness. Suddenly he sensed panic rising up in him. He was disoriented, and for a wild moment thought he was upside down, drowning. He took a deep breath, trying to control his panic. That was when the body appeared, its face against his.

In the darkness, his lamp failing to penetrate the black water that surrounded him, Drummond hadn't seen the body of the drowned surfer until its bloated face bumped against his own. His scream was lost in the hiss of bubbles escaping from the regulator on his tanks, and in his terror he would have lost his light if it hadn't been secured to his wrist by a cord.

He had broken the surface of the water and ripped off his mask gasping for air as a column of vomit erupted from his throat. Only after a few minutes on the surface had he regained his composure enough to dive again, this time to recover the corpse.

Trudging upwards in the closing black silence, Drummond sensed the same panic beginning to rise up in him, surging higher as he suddenly realized that Father Freise was no longer ahead of him.

"Frank?" he called out.

"I'm here," a voice said almost next to him. "My flashlight died."

Drummond swung his light toward the sound of Freise's voice, illuminating the priest in front of a heavy door with ornate brass hinges.

"Come on, John," Freise said, gesturing into the darkness. "This one will be yours."

The room Freise opened for him was small, not more than nine by twelve feet, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, all whitewashed. A narrow lancet window pierced one wall, and beneath it a round hole in the stone floor angled down toward the moat.

"All the latest conveniences," Drummond muttered, as he shone his flashlight around the room and then tossed his sleeping bag on the box bed shoved up against one wall.

"There are a couple of candles and some matches in the aumbry by the door," Father Freise said, nodding towards a cupboard built into the thick stone walls beside a little fireplace. "I disinfected the walls and floor and bed, and one of the knights helped whitewash the walls. I hope you like it."

"Where's the bar and color television?" Drummond asked with a deadpan voice.

"Sorry, John, I got here first," Father Freise replied with mock seriousness. "You'll just have to rough it."

"I guess I will at that," Drummond said, lighting one of the candles.

"In that case, I'll borrow your flashlight and turn in," Father Freise said. "Good-night, John."

" 'Night, Frank," Drummond said, as the priest left his room and headed toward the chapel.

By the flickering light of the candle, Drummond spread out his sleeping bag and undressed, folding his clothes into a neat pile on the foot of the bag. He decided that he'd have to get some furniture in the morning—a chair and perhaps a chest.

Straddling the hole in the floor, he felt slightly awkward about standing in front of the small window while he urinated. As he stood there, gazing out across the clearing from high up in the tower, he thought he saw movement at the edge of the woods.

Was it the rogue vampire, he wondered, or merely a breeze moving through the underbrush? Extinguishing his candle, Drummond crawled into his sleeping bag and closed his eyes. He had stood de Beq's sword in a corner, near the head of the bed, and as he tried to drift off to sleep, he realized he was still wearing the signet ring de Beq had given him. He found himself absently rubbing his thumb over the coat of arms cut into the surface of the ring's carnelian seal, and that was the last thing he remembered before he drifted off.