Free Blood Ties by Warren Adler Page B

had
faced that truth years ago, but he could not confront his father with it. Not
yet. Please, he pleaded silently, his eyes drifting toward Olga. She returned
his gaze and he felt the strength of her response. What did she see? The
Baron's voice crackled, searching for strength.
    "My body is dying," he began, finding the old
timbre. The words had the effect of an acoustical blanket thrown over the
group. Albert felt as if his bodily functions had frozen, leaving him
temporarily suspended in limbo. The silence was total.
    "I will not fear it if our house is in order. I know I
have done my duty. That is what our von Kassel ancestors expect of us, to move
the river of blood along its endless course. That is our only mission, our only
destiny. Let other men grind out their lives in the pursuit of transitory
riches or honors. Let other men spend their strength on the petty joys of the
moment. Let other men pollute their genes with the weak gruel of lesser blood.
God meant us to enrich our strength and substance so as to survive the final
cataclysmic Armageddon, beyond even His control. This is the final manifest
destiny of the von Kassels, to continue the flow of the endless river. Nothing
must interfere with the gravity of its perpetual movement. Von Kassels do not
die in the sense that death is an end. That is why I have no fear of
that."
    The Baron's eyes washed solemnly over the group, lingering
briefly on Albert.
    "We are not our brother's keeper. We do not have
brothers. We have only ourselves. We deal in weapons because they, as our
ancestors knew, were man's only enduring commodity beyond the basics of
sustenance. Men will need weapons as long as they exist.
    "If I have any fear it is only that you who come after
will not be worthy of those who came before. That is why there is much still to
be resolved during this time we will have together, which will be the last
reunion that I will attend. We have prospered in the last three decades, beyond
even the wildest dreams of our forebears. Now we must prepare for the legacy of
tomorrow, without which all the treasure of the von Kassels, all the
accumulated wealth, and the future, will be worthless. There is, as we all
know, the legacy of paper, the passage of property from generation to
generation. That has been adequately arranged. But the legacy of the spirit.
That is quite another thing. We cannot leave these ancient walls without the
resolution of that spirit. Nor can we falter in our understanding of why we are
on this earth. To endure. Only that. The family. The von Kassels." Again
the Baron paused. His eyes had begun to shine. He seemed to have husbanded his
strength for this moment.
    "To be a von Kassel is the only glory, the only
destiny, the only legacy," the old man said, his voice suddenly booming
and echoing in the vaults of the ancient ceiling.
    "It is beyond governments, beyond political or
geographical conditions, beyond wars, or plagues, beyond destruction, beyond
death. One von Kassel passes the flame of his destiny to another, from
generation to generation. It is beyond even God or the Devil."
    The Baron reached out for the glass of champagne, the
fingers steady and sure as they gripped the stem. Gone were the tremors Albert
had observed in them earlier. The old man raised his glass, the once heavily
biceped arm strong again. The group, mesmerized, reached for their own glasses
and rose, as one.
    "We raise our glasses to our destiny. Before we depart
this castle, built with the muscle and sinew of our ancestors, we must be
certain that we have purified ourselves, have put aside all diversions, have
renewed our spirit for the great task that our blood commands." He raised
his eyes. They seemed to glow like coals, whipped from ash into fire, as they
searched each face. Then the voice, summoning its final strength from some
special reservoir, boomed out into the room, and all glasses but that of the
Baron seemed to tremble.
    "This is not the blood of Christ we