The Sixth Key(8)
Rahn removed a half-dozen books and a thighbone that looked curiously human from a chair and sat down. ‘Yes, Michelstadt is my home.’
‘Ahh, the forests of Odhinn-Alfadir, home of the grand god of the North, the town of Michael the Dragon Slayer!’
‘My mother used to tell me stories about him,’ Rahn said, with a polite smile, feeling uncomfortable under that mismatched stare.
Weisthor picked up his half-eaten sandwich. ‘Well, the woman certainly inspired you!’ He underlined his statement by taking a bite. Between chews, he observed, ‘You know, a father may be the backbone of a man’s life, but a mother is the voice that encourages him to walk tall!’ He stared for a moment, perhaps remembering his own youth and came out of it with a start. ‘So! You’re a philologist, a scholar of the German Romances, an expert on the Cathars and caves, the Holy Grail, the occult, history and mythology! Impressive for one so young – how old are you?’
‘Thirty-one.’
‘Oh! A fine age, a fine age! And your book on the Grail, I must tell you, has created a sensation, a real sensation. As a matter of fact you’re quite in vogue, and you’ll have to thank my surrogate daughter, Gabriele, for that, because she was the first to tell me about you.’ He leant forwards. ‘You can thank her in person; she is quite a catch, you know.’ He allowed this to hang in the air between them before continuing, ‘At any rate, I have to say, when I read your book tears came to my eyes – tears! I agree with everything you wrote; the Cathars and their terrible struggle against the evil power of the church is an image of our own Aryan struggle. Needless to say, I passed your book on to Himmler, and here you are! The entire book will soon be required reading for every man entering the SS. What do you think of that?’
Rahn quickly came to realise that Weisthor’s questions were purely rhetorical, and in this case, gave him pause to tease out something caught between his two front teeth. ‘As to your task here, your knowledge will be of great help to me. You see, timing is of the essence.’
‘Timing?’
He looked at Rahn with a fiery eye. ‘The Führer has plans. We are to reinvigorate the old cults and resurrect them into a new, all-embracing religion! We’ve been ordered to bring back the gods of the Underworld, Rahn! That is what this department is about. What do you say to that? Your books will help support, through your scholarly research, what we already know – that the German race is superior to all others and that the Grail lineage, the knightly bloodline of Saint Odilie, courses through our veins. In fact, the blood of the German people is the Grail itself! We are the beloved of God, just like the Bogomils and the Cathars! But we have other work . . . yes . . . yes . . .’ He sifted through his papers. ‘As well as coming up with new rituals and festivals, we have to find evidence for our conclusions! We must find the links between our people and the Tibetans, the Romans and the Persians – what do you think of that? And we haven’t much time. We’ll have to create a map library and visit the old pagan shrines, because the Reichsführer wishes us to conduct our research in the most scientific way. Science is everything these days, Rahn! For this reason I will be sending you to many places of interest, so that you can supervise our scientific archaeological work.’
‘But what of the books I have to write for Himmler?’ Rahn asked, tentatively.
‘Books? Yes, those too, you can do them in between everything else. You will see, you will not be idle.’
And he wasn’t.
The weeks turned into months. Rahn travelled to the Odenwald, the Westerwald and to the hilly Sauerland; he trod through the Wildengerb ruin, near Amorbach, where there was a dig in progress. He went to the Leichtweis cave near Wiesbaden and then onto Sporkenburg, where there was an important historical ruin. In between journeys to this place and to that place, he moved into an apartment in Tiergartenstrasse, he was given a small office at SS headquarters in which to work, and a nervous young assistant, Hans, to help him.
Whenever he was in Berlin, Rahn spent a great deal of his time compiling that map library for Weisthor, who had started calling him a ‘surrogate son’ and even invited him to visit the Villa Grunewald, to meet his ‘surrogate daughter’, Gabriele.
Gabriele turned out to be a rather vivacious young woman, highly intelligent and fun to be with but, unfortunately, not at all his type. Thereafter, whenever Weisthor spent a weekend away at the Schloss, the castle on Lake Malchow, he invited Rahn, and Gabriele always seemed to turn up. Rahn began to wonder with some discomfort whether his invitations had been at Gabriele’s insistence. She certainly seemed to be growing quite attached to him, and although so far he’d managed to divert her frivolous advances into intellectual channels, he knew the situation was likely to grow increasingly awkward.