To the Grafters, wiping out such a priceless body of knowledge represented the grossest of superstition. The Gruwels were even killing some of the servants — men and women who’d had nothing to do with the Broederschap’s work beyond occasionally cleaning up the laboratories or taking delivery of a consignment of sheep.
Finally, after their people had been killed and their life’s work obliterated, Ernst, Duke of Suchtlen, and Gerd, Count of Leeuwen, were escorted at blunderbuss-point from their cells to the scaffold. Black ashes from the bonfires of books still blew about, settling on the wigs and hats of the great and the good of the land. All the significant nobility of the country had been gathered to witness the execution of their convicted peers.
The crimes of the two men were unspecified but clearly involved an outrage against Charles II, by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., since His Majesty the King had traveled to Brussels to observe the proceedings. He sat close by the scaffold, next to the governor-general, and the two noblemen were marched before him in shackles. The condemned evinced no fear; indeed, they gave no sign of knowing where they were or what was happening.
Was it terror? wondered the watching nobles. Or perhaps they had bribed the guards and drowned their fears in strong drink? There was some unsteadiness in their steps, and they both looked around blankly at the crowd. A priest offered to administer last rites, but the two men acted as if they did not hear a word. It took a soldier’s firm hand to get them to their knees.
Chains were passed around the men’s shoulders and secured to heavy iron rings on the floor of the scaffold in front of them and behind them, holding them upright. The massive executioner drew out a long sword and held it in both his hands. He looked to the King, who nodded assent.
The blade swept out and passed through Ernst’s neck without pausing. Blood jetted messily in the air, but the blade was clean.
Again, the executioner raised the sword, and again it came down to behead a Grafter lord.
The heads fell from the bodies, and the crowd let out a breath. They were uncertain how to react. It was a time when executions were entertainment, but the presence of the kings and the status of the condemned made cheering inappropriate. It was meant to be a solemn occasion, but in fact the whole thing had an air of the absurd about it, with the chains still holding the bodies upright on their knees. And then the executioner raised his massive sword again and cut the left arm off the corpse of Graaf van Suchtlen.
This time there were gasps from the crowd, but he continued along like a workman, methodically chopping off the bodies’ remaining arms. As the blade whipped up between strikes, blood flicked onto the crowd, and there were shrieks and cries of outrage. There were no true screams, however, until he swung the blade back over his shoulder and brought it down with unbelievable force to slice the duke’s body in half with one inexorable blow.
Blood burst forth in a torrent; bits of torso thumped onto the platform. The same was done to the body of the count. And that was the indisputable end of the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen.
*
Except, of course, that it wasn’t.
Everyone stood and swarmed ingratiatingly around the King and the governor-general as they were ushered away to the carriages. Everyone except two gorgeously dressed men standing off to one side. They each held a flask of something alcoholic, and as they watched the dismembered corpses being gathered up into baskets, they both took a swig.
“Well, that was thorough,” remarked one of the men. To anyone looking at him, it was abundantly clear that he wasn’t Gerd de Leeuwen.
“Yes,” said the other, who looked nothing at all like Ernst van Suchtlen even before he had been cut up into little pieces. “Although not really thorough enough.”
They had been stripped of their estates and their wealth, and even of their bodies, but as Ernst had remarked, “You don’t live as long as I have without learning that there’s always someone who slashes your throat or your budget at the least convenient time possible.”
Since the creation of the Broederschap, Ernst had been under no illusion that they would always be permitted to operate. The Belgian lowlands were strategically valuable, and different powers had claimed the territory over the years. When the brotherhood had begun, they’d actually been working for the Burgundian Netherlands, but power had shifted and the territory had become the Spanish Netherlands, and it looked as if it would become the Austrian Netherlands pretty soon. Admittedly, Ernst had not anticipated that the force to bring them down would be monstrous English bureaucrats, but the end result was much the same.
Accordingly, they had been prepared. Though they’d lost the bulk of their assets, there were resources and hidden monies that had never gone down in the books. Backup libraries of texts and of genetic stock had been established in facilities hidden in other cities, in other countries. And if one planned to kill a Grafter, one had better make truly certain that the body one was executing held the right brain. The majority of their scholars had been killed, but not all. Some had been working at secret remote facilities. A couple had escaped the British through luck or cunning.
The Broederschap regrouped and retreated, moving back even farther into the shadows. It would take decades for them to rebuild, but they had learned several vital lessons that would define their future.
First, they now knew that despite all their abilities and knowledge, they were not the ultimate force they had believed themselves to be. The world contained creatures of unfathomable and inexplicable power, creatures outside God’s pattern that could destroy them easily. The British Isles possessed such monsters, but the Grafters could not be certain that similar demons did not dwell on the Continent. From then on, the brotherhood would operate under the strictest secrecy. No public profile, no seizing of power, nothing that might draw the attention of the Gruwels or something like them.
Second, Ernst and Gerd were determined that they would never again be subject to the authority of an earthly government. The invasion of the Isle of Wight had been done at the command of a man with no understanding of the brotherhood’s value. Far from being a worthy leader, he was a greedy coward who had tossed them to the dogs when they became inconvenient. It was clear that if normal people learned of their abilities, they would try to use the Grafters as tools or weapons.
The Broederschap now had a new purpose, a mission that would burn within them and push them to far greater works: revenge upon the abominations that were the Gruwels.
They began to rebuild, establishing houses in various cities across Europe. Over the years they grew quietly in wealth, numbers, and knowledge. The wealth came from sensible investments augmented by substantial fees for discreetly curing wealthy individuals of incurable ailments. If they had revealed and marketed even a fraction of their abilities, they would have become stupendously rich, but there were several things that stood in the way of that. The most pressing deterrent, of course, was that if medical technology several centuries ahead of its time was suddenly to emerge, it would serve as a beacon to the Gruwels. There was also the fact that Grafter art was incredibly difficult to implement, expensive to fund, and labor-intensive. Besides, after watching themselves be executed without anyone raising any objections, they were not feeling particularly well-disposed toward mankind.