Injury and Recovery
The Ruins of Valhalla, The Wewelsburg, April RY153
"Do you really have to go to see him this afternoon?" Frida asked, as we enjoyed a late breakfast. The boys were out at their Saturday Reichsjugend meeting - my driver, Unterscharführer Frank, had taken them - giving us the opportunity of a well-deserved lie in and a leisurely brunch.
"He'd think it odd if I didn't," I answered, as I spread some toast and took a drink of coffee.
"But I was hoping we might spend some time together, today," she protested, as if a morning of passion hadn't been spending time together.
"Why not tomorrow? You know well enough that this is a regular arrangement."
"I know, but I don't like it," she answered. She hadn't seemed so concerned about my meetings with Robert before we were married. I wondered what had changed her view, or whether she thought that now she was my wife she had the right to meddle in my private affairs. If she did, she was in for something of a shock, as my private affairs we exactly that.
"Ertti, do you actually enjoy meeting your brother?"
I thought about that for a moment, caught slightly off guard. It wasn't really a question I'd ever asked myself. Still, lately Robert had seemed positively civilised, and while in the early days of our arrangement it had felt like something of a necessary chore for both of us, nowadays I found myself realising that I actually did enjoy the monthly sparring match. That was partly why I'd invited him to the wedding - that, and the affair in the Amazon. And of course his expression when I had given him his gift had been priceless.
"It has it's moments," I answered, with a chuckle "and he behaved himself at the wedding. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when he got home, though. I hear there was something of a punch-up - my favourite psychotic made his presence felt."
"Andrew the Butcher is the most dangerous individual they have. He may not be their best commander, but his dedication and lack of remorse...you should see him ended, my love. He scares me. He scared me when he helped Joss Kennard kill my first husband. And he scares me now."
I paused for a moment, considering my history with my eldest nephew, then finally shook my head.
"No," I said, "it's far too amusing watching him running around like a headless chicken, trying to put right what he sees as all the ills of the world. However good a soldier he is, his feelings towards myself and the SS are an Achilles Heel which there's always the chance we can eventually use against him."
"Don't you fear him?"
I shrugged. "Why would I. He's not done anything except brood and moan for eighty years - the odd cracked rib aside. And of course, if I want to keep brother Robert civilised, it would be unwise to cause any more direct problems for his favourite son. No, for now it behoves me to leave Andrew exactly as he is."
"It still worries me that you head off into enemy territory on your own so often. Can't you take one of Schultz's men?"
"As I tell Rikart every month, he wouldn't be fool enough to lay hand on me," I answered, dismissively, as I finished my breakfast, "don't worry, Frida. Everything will be fine, as always. Now, I should be going. I'm due a flying lesson with the Luftwaffe. My hours have been down lately, and I wouldn't wish to lose my combat status. I'll see you this evening."
And I stood, crossed to her and kissed her, before heading out to get my flying jacket. I took myself (with the inevitable shadows) to Neubrandenburg, where I was due to meet Herr Major Manfred von Kassel, the current individual who the Luftwaffe had assigned to hone my flying skills. Von Kassel seemed to be in a good mood, and we had a most productive three-hour session.
Once my flight certification had been signed as being up to date, I bade him farewell, before heading home briefly to shower and change before my afternoon engagement. As I headed downstairs afterwards, feeling clean and relaxed, I bumped into Schultz, which of course led to the monthly discussion about how my business with my brother was private, and no I didn't need to take one of the Honour Guard with me. We'd had exactly the same conversation once a month for eight years, and it was really beginning to tire. But it was his duty to inform me of the risk, even if I chose not to accept his advice, and he was nothing if not dedicated to doing his duty. So I tried, as always, to seem attentive to his arguments, before rejecting them, as usual.
Then, at exactly four o'clock, I brought Robert's Trump to mind.
"Guten Tag, Mein Bruder," I said, pleasantly, as the link opened.
"Herr Reichsführer," came the reply, but I could detect a coldness in my brother's tone, an attitude that hadn't been present for a while. It caught me slightly by surprise. Maybe Claire hadn't been giving him his marital dues lately, and he was feeling deprived.
"I detect a lack of bonhomie this afternoon, Robert," I said, mildly, "Problem?"
"Something like that," he answered, and I hesitated slightly before stepping through to join him. He seemed tense, despite the fact that he was dressed for a Saturday afternoon stroll.
It was very obvious that something was different as soon as I arrived. Robert seemed ill at ease, and he hadn't brought me through to his office in Sable Palace. As I glanced around I could feel how thin the air was, and I was looking down on mountains rolling away from where we stood. Behind my brother, I could see the ruins of some kind of structure, possibly a temple, and a well laden picnic table. But something felt off - maybe his tone, maybe his stance - and I vaguely wondered if I'd been foolish to argue with Schultz this time. Brother Robert certainly didn't seem as co-operative as he had at the wedding.
"The Sable Mountains?" I asked: it was one of the areas of Magica Superior I hadn't previously frequented, but it seemed like a good bet, "quite high up if I don't miss my guess. Isn't April a little early to have a picnic at this altitude?"
"It's not as if either of us feels the cold if we don't want to," came his surprisingly prompt answer. Almost as if he'd prepared it beforehand
"True enough," I commented, shrugging, "where are we? I'm not familiar with this place."
"Mount Anglia," he answered, which brought a smile to my face.
"Ah. Mount Vanaheim."
I noticed that he didn't contradict me, and I was curious as to why he would have wanted to meet at a site important to the Reich. It was the legendary site of the Germanenorden's ideal of Germania. Of course, it had been reported to me the over the last couple of days my former protégé, Heinrich Strasse, had been calling contacts in the Reich about the Germanenorden, and so it seemed likely that the two were connected. I made a mental note to figure out what those idiots were up to. They gave the rest of us Aryan occultists a bad name.
"Welcome to the ruins of Valhalla, Rupert. It seemed an appropriate place for this conversation."
That got my interest: and any sentence with both ruins and Valhalla in it was guaranteed to mean something I wasn't going to like. The feeling that something was wrong strengthened and I became more alert for trouble.
"What's going on, Robert?" I said, levelly.
"I wanted to speak to you in neutral territory for once."
"Really?" I said, looking at him, disapproval probably evident in my expression, "might I ask why?"
"I want to talk to you about Andrew."
Oh for God's sake. Did my nephew never quite whining? He was bad enough on his own, with his constant bitching and obvious hatred of me, and his ill-conceived crusade against my men, potential Achilles Heel notwithstanding, but Robert had normally stayed out of it. He'd mentioned concerns on occasion, but I thought I'd allayed them, and I just didn't feel in the mood for an Andrew conversation just then.
"Oh, I'd really rather not," I answered, trying to sound bored, in the hope that he would lose interest in the subject, "your favourite son is an inconvenient individual, and it seems a shame to waste a good afternoon on him. That picnic, on the other hand, looks well worth wasting an afternoon on."
As if to highlight my point, I moved towards the table, but what I hadn't expected was Robert's reaction. It's been a little while since I've seen him lose his rag, and I'd forgotten that he can be just as hot-blooded as I can.
"Inconvenient? Inconvenient? You subjected him to your rituals, and you think he's inconvenient? You captured him and bled him and used him for your purposes - made him what he is now - and you think he's inconvenient?"
I sighed, collected myself, and then turned back towards him, unwilling to be cowed by my brother in a strop. I could outdo him any day.
"That," I said, meeting his gaze unflinching, "Robert, I thought we'd talked about this before. I'd had the impression you'd known about that for a long time, but you'd never made anything of it. Yes, he was my guest. So what? He was Seska's guest, too. Now admittedly, that didn't' work out too well for her...but you've never said anything about this before, so I imagined that you had let it pass in the interest of our civilised relationship."
"That's because I didn't know the truth," he retorted, still angry, and I realised that I might actually be in trouble, "I didn't know about the Black Friday offensive, and how you guaranteed its success."
That surprised me, although I tried to mask it. I'd come to the conclusion that my favourite psychotic wasn't ever going to come clean to his father about his greatest service to me. After all, it had been nearly eighty years, and no harm had been done. At least none to myself and the Reich. We had thrived. Of course, Andrew had become rather unstable, which was an unintended side effect. The intended one had been his death and burial in an unmarked grave when I was done with him, but I'd been pre-empted by a traitor in his SD guard detail.
"And I want to know if you ever had any regrets about what you did."
If I'd been surprised before, that caught me up short. He wanted to know if I was sorry for what I'd done? Why on earth did he think I had anything to apologise for? I serve the Reich. And what I had done had been for the good of the Fatherland. It hadn't been personal. And the effects had been better than I had possibly hoped for. We'd conservatively guessed that we would achieve half of our objectives in that assault, but we'd actually gained them all, because of the power I could give to our forces that night. I'd almost considered awarding Andrew a medal for his contribution, and it had certainly caused me to prolong his existence longer than I had intended.
Ah well. No good deed goes unpunished.
"The only regrets I ever had, Robert," I answered, my displeasure at his demand in my tone, "were that I used him up too quickly, and that he managed to escape to become so much of a fucking pain afterwards."
He was struck dumb for a second, as if he was trying to figure out if I'd really said that. And then it seemed as if he was concentrating on something, as if he was trying to work Shadow. I mentally prepped a lightning bolt, in case I was about to need to ward him off from some damned fool revenge kick. Then I felt as much as saw a movement off to my side, and a brief use of Pattern, and I heard booted footsteps on the bare rock of the mountainside.
Andrew had appeared out of nowhere, and I could think of no scenario where that was good for me. I even noticed the blade in his hand, but was momentarily too surprised to process the threat.
"Good afternoon, Uncle Rupert," he said, with a humourless smile.
"What the Hell...?" I demanded, looking at my brother, assuming he was the main instigator, but then I realised that whatever it was that he'd been planning - and I was pretty sure he'd been planning something - this wasn't it. I turned back towards my least favourite nephew, with the intention of loosing the spell in his direction, but he moved too fast, and I was too late.
He was on me almost instantly. He always had been a wick little bastard. I saw a flash and felt my shields evaporate, as if overloaded by an Item of Power, and when I looked down, I realised that his blade was sticking into my guts up to the hilt. It was so sharp that I'd hardly felt it cut my flesh. And that was when I was hit with an agonising, searing pain which was nothing like anything I'd ever experienced before. And I realised that the weapon he used had the inherent power of a Pattern blade. Yet from the burning I felt in my guts, it wasn't reacting like one.
Then he looked at me and smiled, and jerked the blade upwards, slicing further into my intestines and I could feel the damage. It was bad. Very bad. But what I couldn't feel was my inherent shifting kicking in. He'd coated the blade with something. As confusion joined pain in my mind, I realised it was probably merasha, and that I needed to get the Hell out of there. I glanced over at Robert, but he seemed genuinely horrified. Of course, unlike my people, he had never seen Andrew the Butcher, at work.
I could feel the blood draining out of my face, and the wounds begin to bleed, and I began to stagger, but as I did, the little psychopath withdrew the blade and caught me on the left cheek, cutting the muscle to the bone. I fell to my knees, instinctively hugging my arms to my abdomen. I had more than half a feeling that my guts were trying to escape from my body, and I looked at Andrew. I felt a combination of surprise that he had finally found the balls to strike back at me, and hatred at him for doing so.
I was confused, and losing consciousness fast, and while I was reaching for the Sable Pattern to take me home, my thoughts were sluggish, confused by the pain and the drug that was beginning to circulate in my system. I hoped to Hell that I could stave it off long enough to let me make my escape. But soon kneeling was too much effort, so I let myself sag to the right, so my wounded cheek wouldn't make contact with the ground, and lay there, trying to get my breath and redoubling my efforts to reach for home before I could no longer do so.
Through the depths of pain, I could feel unexpected concern from my brother, as his physician's instincts kicked in, and I thought I heard him try to move towards me, but then I heard Andrew's voice, laden with hatred.
"Don't...you...dare...Robert," he hissed, "let him suffer. I don't think it'll be fatal if he gets treatment quickly enough. He'll heal. It just might take a few days as I accidentally seem to have coated the blade with merasha and a healing inhibitor. Hmm. Must be the one I originally got from the Forstapo, but modified to make it more effective. So sadly, he probably doesn't have an antidote."
I heard booted feet approaching me, and tried to look up, and out of half-closed eyes I saw my nephew standing over me. And then, to add insult to injury, he kicked me hard in the groin. I jerked, crying out with the extra pain and the sheer indignity, but there was no pity in his voice as he said, calmly and coldly, almost as emotionless as Andreas:
"It's good to see you where you belong, Delatz. Grovelling in the dirt. It makes me feel good to be alive. And I hope you're in pain, for a very, very long time. Now get the fuck out of here, as letting you die here would just be too easy for you."
Then he gave me a vicious kick in the ribs on my right side, and I felt them snap. My mind was beginning to succumb, and I guessed I had moments of consciousness left, no more. Desperation spurred me, and finally I made contact with my Pattern. I reached for it and it brought me home to the Wewelsburg Chamber, which felt comfortable, reassuring.
On arrival, I was vaguely aware of the alarms I had set on the place activating, but I could do nothing except lie gasping for breath on the cold marble. I could feel the blood still flowing from the evil wound the little bastard had given me, and I could taste it in my mouth. One of the broken ribs had punctured a lung. I was grasped with fear as I realised that I had no idea what to do next. If I stayed there, I would die. But I was also aware that the merasha in my system wasn't going to let me get out of there under my own power. Somewhere, in the depths of my befuddled mind, something was telling me that I ought to have been able to control the drug, to stop it affecting me, but by now I was too far gone to bring that to play.
I hovered for a while between consciousness and unconsciousness, almost hypnotised as I felt my heartbeat become weaker and weaker, and then I heard someone come in.
"Master...by the gods..."
The voice was female, which meant it had to be Silke von Halle. She was the only woman who could access this place...which involved a few drops of the blood of a Knight drawn with the dagger they used in ritual. I'd learned from Robert's unauthorised visit to the Chamber in Sable's earliest days. And I noticed that she was using my rank in the Brotherhood, rather than my military one.
"Hold on. I'll get you to some help," she said, earnestly, and there was a pause which seemed to go on forever, before she placed her hand on my shoulder and I felt us transfer via Trump. For a moment, I wanted to be back in the Chamber, but then I heard the sound of an emergency medical team swinging into motion. Perhaps I would live after all. Then, trusting my people to do their job, I gave up resisting, and lapsed into a blissful unconsciousness.
* * * * * * *
Pain was also the first indicator that I was returning to consciousness, but at least it was dulled by drugs. I felt light headed as I opened my eyes, as if I'd been dosed with morphine. Of course, if morphine was working, then my shifting wasn't, and sure enough I could feel some kind of shifting inhibitor in my system, which gave me a moment of panic as to whose hands I was actually in. Still, far below me I could feel the Sable Pattern, trying to give me strength, and that gave me comfort.
I could feel that the left hand side of my face was swathed in bandages, as were my abdomen and back, and my ribs had been immobilised: there not being much else that you can do with broken ribs. Breathing hurt, though, and I tried to make do with shallow breaths.
"Master?" said a male voice, and I turned my head slightly to see Dominik Gerlinde, now Head of the Forstapo and one of my Knights, standing nearby in a white coat with a clipboard. I tried to smile, but it hurt too much and I gave it up as a bad job. "Who did this to you?"
"Andrew de Lacy," I croaked - and realised that speaking too loudly hurt like Hell, as it involved moving my damaged face. I could see anger cross his slightly irregular features.
"Robert of Sable betrayed you?" came von Halle's voice from the end of the bed, outrage in her voice, but I tried to shake my head.
"No. I don't believe he did," I answered, pretty sure in myself that it was true, "this was the Butcher on his own. Thank you, Silke. You saved my life."
"Any of us would have done the same for you, Master," she replied, with a certainly which we both knew was true, and their devotion to me, as Master of the Brotherhood and mentor to them, was obvious, "I just got there first. I called Dominik, and he helped me to bring you here."
"Then my thanks to you both," I answered, feeling positively paternal towards them both. But then, I had caused them to come into existence. They, like several others of the Knights, were products of Andrew's captivity, albeit that to my knowledge they were unaware of their sibling relationship.. "How long have I been unconscious?"
"Three days, Master," Gerlinde answered, "I was getting worried, because nothing I was doing seemed able to bring you around."
"You're my doctor?" I asked, surprised, "what about Frau Doktor Steinbrück?"
"All things considered, it seemed wiser for one of us to look after you, and I volunteered, as I'm the best qualified."
If I remembered rightly, he did actually have a medical degree, albeit he hadn't practised a great deal before joining the Forstapo, but I had a feeling he was meaning something else. Of course, in my drug-induced confusion, I just couldn't place what.
"I've also been responsible for your drug regimen. I hope that is acceptable to you, Master?"
"I'm sure it's fine, Dominik," I answered, hoping that whatever it was he was implying would make sense when I was more with it, because it certainly didn't now. Slowly, I looked around the room, but the three of us were alone. Outside the open door, I could see two men on watch, and I guessed they were Honour Guard. But I didn't see my wife or children.
"Is Frida here? The boys?"
"The Herzogin von Bremen is sedated," Gerlinde answered, promptly, "Silke contacted her once we'd brought you here, and she's been at your bedside ever since, although she decided that your sons should stay at Panenske Brezany, as to see you like this would distress them. But she was exhausted, so a couple of hours ago I ordered her to rest."
"And where is Obersturmbannführer Schultz?"
"He has surrendered his weapons and placed himself under house arrest in his quarters, until you can rule on whether he is guilty of dereliction of duty. "
"Oh, the bloody fool," I said, quietly, "if I'd listened to him, I wouldn't be lying here. He's never been anything but a consummate professional."
"As you say, Master," von Halle said, gently, "sir, you need to rest. We will tell your wife that you have spoken when she awakes. She will be relieved."
I nodded, and Gerlinde prepared a syringe, which he placed into the IV drip and depressed the plunger. Soon I could feel the sedative effect working slowly through my body. My eyes closed and I drifted away once more.
* * * * * * *
I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next couple of days, but when I woke properly again, I was alone and it was night. I could see darkness through a crack in the curtains of my room. My mind felt clearer, and while the pain was still there, it had lessened to a degree. I gently hauled myself up into a semi-sitting position, and then ran through a self-diagnosis, to see how bad a state I was in. I'd obviously been in surgery, as where my intestines had felt torn and perforated before, the damaged sections had been removed, and had been expertly joined back together. Everything was clean, and there was no sign of infection - I was half aware of having had nightmares about dying of septicaemia, although I was sure that Gerlinde's pharmaceutical cocktail included antibiotics...it would have if I'd prescribed it to a patient.
In addition, my ribs were still broken, but they'd been set back into position, and I could feel the stitching in my face where someone had painstakingly reattached the muscles and skin and bound them to the bone. But every single treatment had been mundane, not even magical, and the shifting inhibitor was still in my system, which after three or more days meant it couldn't still be anything to do with the drugs my thrice-cursed nephew had doctored the blade with.
And I finally realised what Gerlinde had meant when he had referred to my drug regimen.
I reached for the bell, and rang it, and Gerlinde came in moments later.
"How are you feeling, Master?" he said, quietly.
"How long have you known, Dominik?"
"About what, sir?"
"That I was a shapeshifter," I answered, quietly.
"You pay me to track our kind down," he replied, "so I've become quite adept at spotting the symptoms, especially the markers in our blood. I've known since you first accepted me into the Brotherhood and we shared the chalice of welcome."
"Nearly thirty years?" I said, surprised. Of Andrew's Reich-born children, he was the oldest, and I had welcomed him as a Knight before the others. "And you've never told anyone?"
"Why would I, Herr Reichsführer," he answered, using my more formal title for the first time since I had come under his care, with the innocence of a man to whom the thought to tell would never have crossed his mind, "I know that it is your secret, and that you would never forgive anyone who let it become known. That's why I offered to take charge of your treatment. Because I was best qualified to protect you from exposure."
"So you've been dosing me with the inhibitor, so that if anyone other than you comes to examine or treat me, they don't realise?" I asked, and he smiled, "very clever. Do the other Knights know?"
"I think Silke has realised, but then, I'm aware that she has the inherent ability herself, so I'm confident that she isn't going to tell anyone. The others, no. They've been helping stand vigil over you, but only since I undertook your treatment. If you are interested, Master, they have also been offering ceremonies for your recovery, the tantric rituals being an affirmation of life. They will be pleased to hear that their efforts have been successful. The Herzogin is next door. Shall I get her?"
"Thank you, Dominik," I said quietly, inwardly thanking the powers that be for his forward thinking and his discretion, and wondering what I could do to reward him for his faithfulness.
He left and a few moments later, Frida came in, looking pale and drawn. She crossed to me and kissed me on the lips - although reciprocating was a little difficult - and tears started pouring down her face onto mine.
"You promised me that you'd be safe," she said, quietly.
"I may have miscalculated," I admitted.
"I'm going to get your bastard brother, if it's the last thing I do," she promised, but I shook my head.
"He's not the one to blame, Frida. But don't worry, I'll find a way to get even with the one who is. Revenge, however, is a dish best served cold."
Then I moved slightly to the side to give her room the opposite side from my damaged ribs, and she lay down beside me, still fully clothed. Comforted by her presence and basking in the unusual feeling that someone actually cared for me, I put an arm around her shoulder to hold her close. Then together, we drifted slowly back to sleep.
* * * * * * *
I was in the medical wing of the Wewelsburg for the next two weeks, before Gerlinde finally discharged me. Thankfully, my inherent healing ability as a member of the Family was not affected by the inhibitor drugs, and while it was probably a long and painful convalescence by our standards, by those of a normal mortal who had suffered similar injuries I was up and about relatively quickly. I tried not to think of the fact that a normal mortal wouldn't have lived long enough to get treated.
As I dressed for the first time, I was still feeling pain from my ribs, but it was more of a dull ache than it had been. I wouldn't be fit for active duty for a while, but I could probably put myself on desk duty, and I didn't want to think about the stack of paperwork I was going to be going back to. Nearly three weeks of inactivity, when I was used to exercising every day, had taken its toll, too, and I felt horribly unfit. Hopefully, though, I would soon be well enough to return to my usual regime.
I crossed to the mirror, and looked at my reflection, to see a tired-looking, pale man with a dark scar on his cheek. I hardly recognised myself in that face. I would try to heal that most visible sign of the attack away once the inhibitors were fully out of my system, but I had a feeling that, like the ones on my abdomen and lower back, it was there to stay. Frida had said it looked distinguished, but I had the distinct feeling that she was being polite. Curse Andrew bloody de Lacy to Hell, anyway.
In the mirror, I saw Frida approaching, and she put her arms over my shoulders and kissed the damaged cheek.
"I love you, Ertti," she said quietly.
"I love you too," I replied, strangely knowing it was true.
"Come on. It's time we went home. The boys want to see you."
"I've missed them as well," I answered, and turned to face her, kissing her hard on the lips, "but there's something I have to do first."
She looked curious, but said nothing, instead moving to walk beside me. As I left the room, Gerlinde was waiting outside, holding my uniform jacket, which he helped me into.
"Thank you for everything, Herr Oberstgruppenführer," I said to him, meaning every word.
"It was my duty and my honour, Herr Reichsführer," he answered, and saluted - as did Doktor Steinbrück and those others of the castle medical staff who were present. I noticed Marius Waldemar fall into step beside me, Kurt Geiger shortly behind him, and the four of us headed for the door.
"Frida, why don't you wait for me down here. I won't be long," I said, and she nodded.
"I'll be in the Hagal Room," she answered, and moved off down the corridor.
Waldemar, Geiger and myself headed up to the first floor, to the rooms Rikart Schultz was entitled to as one of the Knights. Alyse Dietrich was on duty outside, and snapped to attention when she saw me.
"Where are Obersturmbannführer Schultz's weapons?" I asked, and Geiger offered to fetch them for me from the armoury. He returned about five minutes later, but of sword, honour dagger and pistol, for now I only took the dagger. The others I left with Dietrich. Then I knocked on the door.
"Enter," came the tired voice from inside, and I walked in, indicating for Geiger and Waldemar to stay outside with Dietrich. This encounter I could be damned certain wasn't going to end up with me bleeding. Schultz was sitting in an armchair in the lounge of his suite, dressed in uniform trousers but only in shirtsleeves, rather than his jacket and no tie, and his handsome face looked drawn. A large volume on runes was open on his knee, but he looked as if he was barely taking in its contents.
As soon as he saw me, he almost leapt to his feet, and saluted, suddenly painfully aware that he was out of uniform.
"Herr Reichsführer..."
"At ease Schultz," and in one smooth movement he stood with his legs slightly apart and his arms with hands linked behind his back, looking ahead as I approached. "I'm told that you've taken yourself off active duty."
"I failed you, Herr Reichsführer."
"In what way?"
"I did not insist strongly enough that one or more of the Honour Guard accompany you to the meeting with Robert of Sable. I therefore feel I was derelict in my duty to you."
I smiled, trying to look reassuring, but somehow it didn't come off and I gave up the effort.
"Obersturmbannführer Schultz. Did I not refuse to accept one of the Guard as my companion to attend the meeting?"
"Yes, sir."
"And have I not refused to accept protection every month that I have met Robert of Sable since you became commander of the Honour Guard."
"Yes, sir," he said, quietly, looking down as if ashamed.
"I'm sorry?"
"Yes, Herr Reichsführer," he snapped more loudly and looking at me this time.
"Then you have not been derelict in your duty, Schultz. I have been foolish to ignore your advice. He will be here next month. You will secure the site as if you would any other meeting I attend, and you will remain nearby when we meet."
He looked at me, obviously wondering if I was going to say something else - or whether he had understood me correctly, and as he met my gaze, I handed his dagger to him, hilt first. He took it, and clipped it to his belt.
"Return to duty, Standartenführer Schultz. And next time I disagree with your security assessment, you have my permission to argue with me until you're blue in the face. Hauptsturmführer Dietrich has the rest of your weapons."
"Yes, Herr Reichsführer," he answered, standing tall and proud, and saluting. I returned the salute and then turned and headed out. I nodded to Geiger and Waldemar, and we returned downstairs, to where Frida was waiting.
"Ready love?" she asked.
"I am," I replied, and offered her my elbow. She linked hers with it, and then I transported the four of us back home to Panenske Brezany, where I was looking forward to seeing my sons.