The Holy Lance - Chapter 6 Part III

“It is the ring of the Order of the Golden Eagle, and I am the master of the Order. Dear Jonathan was my brother in the Eagle, and you are his heir. You see, Simon, if I may call you that, each brother, and there are 12 of us at any time, has the privilege of choosing his successor when we die and, if their choice passes our test, they are accepted into the order as our brother. You, my dear Simon, have passed the test, and you are our newest member. Welcome.”

Oh dear. A pleasant enough dinner had now segued effortlessly into weirdo territory. Doubtless, UFOs and little green men were merely a sentence away.

Doubtless aware of Simon’s scepticism, Herr Schmidt continued. “ You are doubtful I see, and rightly so, so let me tell you my story and see if it makes sense.

As master of the Order, each member deposits with me an envelope. It contains a letter to the one they chose as their successor and a puzzle. Six months after their death, to allow for proper mourning, the letter is sent to their designated heir. The brothers of the order are wise, and none of the successors has ever turned down the challenge. They are chosen well for my brothers are good judges of character.

If the successor solves the puzzle, he is directed to a location where he finds the ring of the Order and the name of another member. It is the duty of this member to reveal the truth to the initiate.

That box you found in the bank, it had two owners. One was Jonathan as you so rightly guessed, the other was myself. As soon as you left the bank, they telephoned me to tell me that you had been and opened it. From that point it was easy. I am not without influence here.” He waved his hand around, indicating not just the restaurant, but Vienna and presumably the whole of Austria itself.

“I traced your route from Oxford to Vienna, to the rather unattractive hotel you chose and merely left the card for you this afternoon, as you were being interrogated by the police over a murder of which you could have known nothing. As you see, Simon, I am not without influence.” This was now getting scary. Who was he? Some sort of policeman, super-spy?

“I see you are finding this difficult. I am not surprised. I was like you once, many years ago. I had a similar conversation myself, in this very restaurant, not long after I left University. You see Simon, I really did go to Wadham. Back then, Austria was a different place, ruined after the war. Bomb damage everywhere. Foreign soldiers everywhere. It has changed over the years, and I am not sure if it is for the better. But these are the meanderings of an old man, forgive me. I am sure you have many questions.”

Simon did have questions, where is the exit being the obvious one. But the old man seemed to know so much, that alone was intriguing. What was the harm? Nothing was going to happen in a crowded restaurant.

“Dr Fleicher, was he a member too?”

“Yes he was. A dear friend and loyal member. We will mourn him. The order does not forget its own.”

“What happened to him?”

“We only know what the police know. He was shot through the forehead, but we will find out. The Order has certain resources.” There was a subtle level of threat in all this. Firstly, Herr Schmidt, and Simon was now beginning to doubt that was his real name, obviously had connections throughout Austria and was not a man to be crossed. As for these resources, Simon could only begin to guess, but the disquieting spectre of violence was once more raising its head.

“How long has all this been going on? The Order I mean? What is its purpose? If I’m joining something, I should at least know what it is. After all, you wouldn’t join a political party without having some idea of what it stands for. And while we’re at it, can I resign?”

Herr Schmidt smiled, and waved to the waiter. “This make take some time. Let us have another drink and let me tell you everything. After I finished, I don’t think you will want to leave.

“The order has existed, in various forms, and in various countries, for centuries. Some parts go back to the dawn of time, others only a millennium, but in its present form, the order was constituted in 1870. March 22nd to be precise.

In the eighteen hundreds, man experienced an explosion of science and learning. Everyone knows of the progress of physics, chemistry, medicine in that time, but in the arts too, huge strides were made. Theology became a proper rigorous discipline, history became a serious field of study, also economics. Philosophy flourished. There have been few times when so many fields were changed so radically, so quickly.

And yet, at the same time, politics had seldom been more unsettled. The uprisings of 1848 had scared the ruling classes across Europe, the growth of America and the opening of Japan were creating new powers and the industrial revolution gave armies more power than they had ever held before. And the founders were right to fear. Only 2 years later, Germany would invade France, Paris would be besieged, thousands would starve.It was clear that this new knowledge would not make the world safer, it would make it more dangerous.

For centuries, the world had been in balance, no power strong enough to dominate the others, except perhaps your own Britain, but you were never really interested in world domination, only in trade. There was now a real possibility that using these new powers and sciences, one country would be able to dominate the others and create a world empire.

Throughout history, there have been objects which man has held in awe, objects that have given power to their owners, objects that have seemed to link mankind to god. With their enthusiasm for science, our Victorian ancestors decided to test these objects with their new methods, and the results were astounding. Some of these items, venerated by myth throughout the centuries, really did seem to possess some sort of power, they gave their owners miraculous abilities. Some gave physical strength, others, the ability to see the future. Some could level armies, others could control minds.

Our forebears were not alone in their interests. A few years later, Henry Sidgwick, who was Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, and Arthur Balfour, who would later be your Prime Minister, founded the Society for Psychical Research, intending to use their modern science to investigate all those strange phenomena which everyone recognised, but no-one could explain. The Society was a great social success. Tennyson joined, so did Freud, but their efforts were handicapped because they did not have access to the unique objects we protect. Secrecy was, from the beginning, the watchword of the Order and even such an august body as the Society could not be completely trusted.

For, it had become clear to our enlightened ancestors, that the political instability brewing threatened a huge change to the world. That was scary enough on its own, but what really terrified them was the prospect that one power should acquire all these objects. You must remember, it was a different time then, war was a natural occurence, nations were constantly vying for land, power and glory.”

As they had through most of human history, thought Simon. The present era of peace, at least in the developed world, was deeply anomalous when you looked further back in time.

“The objects I speak of are spread around the world, no country possesses more than one of them. That lends a natural balance to things. If any one of these countries can get hold of the others, their power could become almost limitless, and the natural state of things would collapse, into despotism and terror.

And so, in 1870, a group of wise men, one from each country met in secret in Paris. They were educated and cultured, diplomats, academics, priests, even a soldier, and they formed the Order, each taking an oath to protect the treasure in their country’s possession. Each determined to defend the natural order of things. And since then, the Order has worked ceaselessly to prevent catastrophe and, until now, it has worked perfectly, just as the Founders intended. Until now.”