Blood Ties (11 page)

"Somewhere in that tapestry you might find the face of
a von Kassel who survived. Somehow, after that battle, a von Kassel survivor
managed to cart back a cache of weapons. Perhaps they were collected from the
bloodied ground on which their dead brothers lay. We have never been able to
find a single historical reference. But we know that we were in the arms
business from that date on. We have even found authenticated weapons from that
very battle in the old warehouse. So you see, a weapon has a longer life than a
man. And he who can find the weapons will always survive."

"So you have been arms brokers for more than five
hundred years?" the astounded guest might ask.

"And we will go on for another five hundred."

"And the title 'Baron'?" the guest would inquire,
knowing it would flatter the old Baron.

"One of the first bestowed for these lands," the
grandfather would say solemnly. There was never any doubt that the von Kassel title had been invested by God. The lesson of the blue blood was the first hard
lesson of von Kassel leadership, the use of deliberate symbolic acts as a
tactic.

One night, after the litany, when the guests were allowed
to converse with each other again, and the family returned to its normal
pursuits, Charles began arguing with his brother Wolfgang.

"But the Estonian blood is blue," Charles said
earnestly.

"That is the stupidest thing I ever heard,"
Wolfgang had answered with disgust.

"That is why the lake is blue. It is made with the
blood of the Estonians."

"You're mad."

"The lake is blue with the blood of the
Estonians," Charles had screamed, self-control gone. But his voice had
carried and his grandfather's fierce brown eyes turned his way.

"Where did you hear that?" There was the snap of
anger in the grandfather's voice.

"Who told you that?" his father insisted. The
servants, with heads lowered, seemed to speed up their movements as they
cleared the table.

He could recall being, probably for the first time, the
center of attention, and it confused him.

"Petya," he answered, the heavy "P" sprinkling
Wolfgang with saliva. The father turned to the grandfather who nodded, but only
after he had fixed his glare on the young boy, filling him with foreboding. Was
it wrong? Could Petya be wrong? Not another word was said, although he suffered
the smug looks of his brother throughout the meal. By the time the family left
the dining room for coffee in the garden, the subject seemed to have been
forgotten. Except in the mind of the boy, whose confidence in his knowledge had
wavered under the petrifying stare of his grandfather. He would have to go down
to the lake the first thing in the morning and ponder the question again. Petya
would never lie to him.

That night his grandfather and his father came into his
room. Their voices had awakened him, although he still pretended to sleep. A
ring of light from a smoking lantern illuminated their faces, the two bearded
ones and the frightened face of Petya, still bloated by sleep, her hair awry, a
frightened seated figure huddled in a blanket.

"...surely someone has put you up to this." It
was his father's words, the tone soothing, like one might talk to a child.

"You are too gentle," his grandfather said,
apparently in exasperation. The boy could not tell how long they had been
talking with her. His grandfather grabbed her hair and pulled her head back.
She did not scream. The boy's heart began to pound, but he remained rigid, his
eyes opening to a thin slit, just enough to see what was happening.

"You insidious bitch. Who put you up to this? Trying
to win the boy's mind. So you want to characterize us as butchers." He
pulled her hair tighter. "Is your blood blue? Have you shown the boy your
blue blood?" He drew a knife from his pocket. There was a flash of light
as the blade caught the lantern's reflection. The boy watched it touch Petya's
face.

"We still have to prove that your blood is not blue,
won't we?" the grandfather said. They were whispering, but the words were
clear to the boy.

"Here, Father?" the voice of his father asked. He
looked toward the boy, but the ring of light did not reach the boy's bed.

"They have tricks. They are clever. They have been
trying to dislodge us for hundreds of years. Show them one bit of mercy and
they will put an axe in your brain."

"We'll wake the boy."

"He should see it," the grandfather said.

"But she is his nursemaid, Father. Why don't we just
get rid of her? Send her away."

The grandfather ignored the entreaty. His voice rose. He
was apparently inflamed by the weakness of his son.

"Is your blood blue?" the grandfather asked, his
voice rising.

"No Sir," Petya gasped, followed by a brief
scream. The boy became frightened. He closed his eyes tightly.

"Bring the boy," the grandfather said. There was
no more protest from his father, who removed him from the bed and brought him
to the center of the ring of light.

"You must watch this, Charles. You must learn the
extent to which these people will go to destroy us. There is only one language
they understand, one authority." He showed the knife. The boy began to
shake. Petya screamed. "The blade. The bullet. Is your blood blue,
woman?" the grandfather hissed into the woman's face.

"Please," Petya screamed.

"Answer that question," the grandfather
commanded. He had never seen her defiant. Save yourself, the boy remembered
thinking, although he believed still that Petya had not been lying.

"You are beasts," the woman cried. "Someday
we will have our revenge."

"You see," the grandfather said, as if the
woman's belligerence was proof of his need to destroy her. "Won't we ever
learn." He brought the blade down and slashed a line in the woman's face
from her forehead to her cheek. The blood oozed red from the wound. She did not
scream now, her breasts rising with pain and indignation, determined to
withstand their torture.

"You see, Charles, she has lied to you. Lied. Her
blood is not blue."

The boy could not speak. His knees had grown limp. Then the
grandfather put the knife in his hand and held the tiny fist around it. He
guided the blade, now tightly lodged in the boy's hand, and slashed another
line across the cheek, making a cross.

"Mark her," the grandfather said. "Let them
see how we have marked her."

Finally, they let her go, although they added to her
humiliation by watching her dress and pack her things, while the blood dribbled
down her cheeks, spotting her clothing and the floor. She did not look at them
and only once at the boy, and he could detect the spirit of defiance behind the
mask of helplessness and pain. They followed her out of the room, the boy
listening from his bed, until their steps had disappeared. When they had gone,
he vomited over the bed's edge.

Petya was never replaced. Babyhood was over now, and the
lesson driven home. The household servants were not the benign bovine work
animals they appeared to be, but enemies to be watched and cruelly punished for
any infraction of von Kassel edicts. The villagers who tilled their lands were
plotters and saboteurs. It was the duty of the von Kassels to keep them all
captives to fear.

"Show them kindness and they will put a knife in your
guts," his grandfather had intoned, concentrating his gaze on Charles. For
some reason his grandfather had singled him out as a favored grandson.

Even as an adolescent, Wolfgang displayed rebellious
tendencies and was argumentative and combative. And the fact of Charles'
favoritism seemed to exaggerate these traits. Whatever the origin of the
favoritism, it destroyed any intimacy between the brothers and set them on
different paths.

Charles found himself spending more and more time with his
grandfather. He loved the old man, and he had no doubt the old man loved him.
Yet he was never permitted to express his affection, not even to hold the old
man's hand or embrace him. Some gesture or internal warning always sounded a
death knell on any acknowledgment of what was considered weakness.

"Beware of intruding emotions," he remembered his
grandfather saying. "They inhibit judgment." It was a discipline that
required continuous vigilance. Even now.

The relationship between his father and grandfather was one
of supplicant to deity. And yet no amount of condescension or mimicry could
bring his father any but the most paltry return. It was not that his father was
ridiculed. That would be a cleavage of faith, an example of weakness. Under
watchful eyes such an attitude could be a weapon. Rather, the father was
subjected to a never-ending perpetual lecture, like the dinner litany, as if
the words were needed to hammer home interminable reminders. They were
warnings, actually, and once Charles picked up the rhythm of what seemed at
first like pedantry, confirmation came quickly. The warnings were meant, as
always, for Charles.

For the grandfather feared that the nine lives of the von
Kassels were running out. That, coupled with his very obvious feeling that his
son had not the qualities required for crafty survival, had fixed his hopes on
the grandson, Charles. It was clear to everyone, especially his own father and
Wolfgang, that he had been chosen. If they were jealous, Charles was more
frightened than honored, for he was only a teen-ager when the clouds of
impending destruction gathered ominously over them.

Events had always been chaotic in Estonia, although in the nineteenth century a certain calm had descended. The Germans had
consolidated their power under Bismarck and, although there was much
intercourse between Germans of the new State and those of Ostland, little
unrest was developing. The Estonian Germans were willing tools of the Romanov
dynasty, who found in them the skills. that the less educated and culturally
deprived Russians could not muster to man the Romanov bureaucracy. Von Kassels
could be found among the civil servants of the era, ambassadors, even military
men. And, of course, the von Kassels' special stature as arms dealers was
always the trump card of their prestige. During this century of unparalleled
technological advancement, the rush to modernize armies brought the von Kassels
enormous influence in both the courts of the Romanovs and the coteries of the
Hohenzollerns, as well as among the royal houses of the Hapsburgs and the
lesser houses of other tributary dynasties.

The realities of European politics were an integral part of
the von Kassel business. That, and the ever present possibility that the native
Estonians, held by force in peonage, would rise up and remove their German
masters. But even that possibility did not prevent the von Kassels from selling
to dubious sources, even when they knew that the arms would fall into the hands
of their impatient vassals.

"They will turn on us in any event," his
grandfather had instructed them. "When we suspect we are not needed that
will be the end."

"Then what will we do?" his father had asked.

"We will move on."

"Out of Estonia?"

"Don't ever get sentimental about geography," his
grandfather had admonished, another warning. "But we will hold on here as
long as we can."

How could he know then that the demise of the
eight-hundred-year reign would fall to his generation? But his grandfather had
suspected.

"Nothing will ever be the same after this war,"
he had told his grandson as they watched endless lines of Russian troops
heading toward the Russian front. They had traveled for three days to watch the
procession, finding themselves a vantage so that the older man might see the
equipment and weapons the armies were carrying to the front.

"They will be crawling backwards in a few
months," the old man told his grandson. "Their equipment is inferior,
and what they have is poorly maintained. They are doomed. I warned them."

He had told the armorers of the Czar that they did not move
fast enough after the Japanese defeat. The Germans were far ahead of them in
firepower. He would imitate the arrogant Russian officers, whose obsolete
military tactics required that more and more men be forced into the line.
Nevertheless, the von Kassels had made a fortune in the rearming, and arms had
been transshipped into Baltic ports from German factories as well as those from
Britain and Belgium. Arms manufacturers were never loyal to the governments on
whose soil they operated. The business of war is business, his grandfather had
said.

"In a few months our warehouses will be choked with
stuff." If the remark was cryptic, it did not remain so for long.

* *
*

His father had shaken him awake and ordered him to get
dressed. Moving quickly, chilled by the cool night air, he found his
grandfather and father on horseback in front of the house. A groom had readied
his own horse and the three rode for two hours in silence to the edge of their
land where the main road intersected their property.

A grimy man in a mud-spattered Russian Army uniform rode up
and saluted them. They followed him deep into the forest edging their land,
over a dirt road that showed signs of recent activity. In a huge clearing they
stopped. More than a hundred Russian Army wagons were parked in neat military
rows, the drivers huddled under the trees, stretched out in exhaustion. In the
darkness one could barely make out the occasional red flashes of their pipes.

"I have four thousand Gatlings for sale."

It was the most efficient small-machine weapon of the day.

"And rounds?" his grandfather asked.

"Ten thousand each."

The man's face was overgrown with beard and his breath
smelled of vomit. Obviously a deserter, the man could not disguise his sense of
authority. He was certainly an officer.

"It's futile out there. It is all over. A gun is a
gun." He shrugged, feeling the need for some explanation. "Every man
for himself."