The Red Cross of Gold VI
The Dragonslayer
Assassin Chronicles
by
Brendan Carroll
The Dragonslayer is dedicated to everyone who has ever had the desire to meet or live with faeries.
The characters are fictional and any resemblance to real persons alive or dead is unintentional and coincidental.
Brendan Carroll can be reached at http://redcrossofgold.blogspot.com/ for comments or questions.
The Red Cross of Gold VI:. The Dragonslayer
Published by Brendan Carroll
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 Brendan Carroll
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Preface
Meredith Sinclair-Dambretti stood in the yard of a small cottage made of brown fieldstone. It had a thatched straw roof and a deeply shaded porch along the front. A fence made of smoothly hewn timber surrounded and separated the cottage’s small front yard from the rolling meadow in which it was planted. A covered fieldstone well straight out of a nursery rhyme was situated in one corner of the front yard and along the fence were trailing vines, sporting bright yellow, red and blue trumpet flowers where dozens of iridescent hummingbirds thronged the petals looking for nectar. She could smell honeysuckle, roses and lavender. A row of bright red tulips interspersed with yellow and white daffodils ran down the fence line. A mulberry tree ancient of years stood on the other side of the well, its branches filled with a bawdy group of colorful birds fighting and feasting on the ripe, purple berries. She could also smell the sickly, sweet scent of berries fermenting on the ground under the tree. The faint tinkle of glass windchimes brought her attention back to the porch nearer at hand and she marveled at the beauty and variety of its hand-blown glass ornaments shaped like moons and stars fluttering the breeze. Multicolored glass spheres swayed to and frown. Moving a bit closer, she looked more closely at the nearest one and then drew back when she thought she saw something looking back at her from the swirled filaments inside the glass.
Even though she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there, she felt happy, warm and safe, completely at home here. It was as if this had always been her home and she was unable to remember a time when she did not live here and yet, at the same time, it was all strange and new to her. She had never been here before. Never seen this place. Her recent past was blank. She blinked slowly as she tried to think where she might have been or what she might have been doing. A wicker basket sat on the top step at her feet. It was full of wild flowers so fresh that the bees were still working the blooms. She must have been gathering flowers… but why?
A sudden banging noise from within the cottage frightened the birds in the mulberry tree, sending them flying in a cacophony of noise and made her flinch as the serenity of the scene was shattered. When she turned toward the door, she tripped on the hem of her dress. She was surprised and amazed to find that she wore a long, blue gown with colorfully embroidered ribbons on the trailing hemline. The sleeves were long, tight-fitting on her upper arms, but flared dramatically at the wrist. More of the embroidered ribbon decorated the sleeves and bodice which was low and square cut revealing a good bit of cleavage. She pressed one hand to her breast and saw that she wore several gold rings set with precious stones and a number of intricately wrought gold bracelets on her wrists. Long, heavy earrings brushed her neck when she turned her head. The dress reminded her of the gowns worn by the characters and crowds attending the Renaissance festivals in her youth, but why was she wearing it now? She reached for her hair and found it clasped in a metal basket at the back of her head. Loose tendrils curled around her face. Who had done this?
The vague memory of being frightened, desperate. The chapel. She had been in the crypts below the chapel, but she had no idea how she had gotten from the crypt below the chapel of Glessyn to this quaint little house in the midst of an idyllic meadow. The banging continued from inside the house bringing her once more to the present, causing her to half expect to see Hansel and Gretel come running out.
She picked up her skirt and was surprised again to see matching blue slippers made of the same elegant cloth as the dress. They were trimmed in gold and tied with more of the same ribbon. She crossed the porch cautiously and tiptoed to the heavy wooden door, which stood half open on the dim interior of the cottage. Someone was inside.
Chapter One of Twenty
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me
Grand Master Edgard d’Brouchart spread the sheets of paper across Mark Ramsay’s table almost haphazardly. He was tired. They were all tired. They had been going over the John Paul’s prophecies and the other prophecies found throughout the Arcanum of the Philosophers and everything else they could glean and still things were becoming more and more muddled.
He glared at Lucio Dambretti who sat across the table from him with his eyes closed, his chin propped in his hand, seemingly asleep.
The Ritter von Hetz bumped the Knight of the Golden Eagle and he jerked his head up. His eyes were bloodshot and he blinked at the Grand Master in confusion. A barely healed scar above his eye was a reminder of the car crash in Egypt wherein he had been killed and strangers had abducted his baby girl, Lucia. He had a terrible headache and was suffering from an acute lack of sleep, two bottles of Scotch whiskey from Ramsay’s cellar and the worst case of depression he’d ever experienced. Again, he had disgraced himself and Sir Ramsay to witness it.
“Sir?” he asked, thinking the Master had asked him a question. He looked as bad as he felt, but no one had offered the least bit of sympathy.
“Your attention to these matters is required, Golden Eagle!” the Master growled at him and his face drained of color. The man was already angry enough with him about the loss of the child. He had taken her from her mother without permission, left Scotland without permission and then deliberately remained incommunicado, a cardinal sin for a member of the Council. Then to everyone’s consternation, he had fallen victim to an unknown element who had run him off the road and snatched the child, leaving behind no traces. He was ruined and life had become a greater burden than ever for the Chevalier l’Aigle d’Or.
They still had no word on the whereabouts of the child or who might have taken her. It was quite evident from the brief message left in his wrecked car, that whoever the abductors had been, they knew Lucio Dambretti, what he was and the significance of the child. Their only comfort was the hope that the words written on the paper had been true and that the kidnappers believed in the same God they did. ‘The child is in the hands of God.’ It could have meant a number of things, good or not so good. No ransom demands had been forthcoming. They had absolutely zero to work with.
“Of whom the father is a virgin…” Sir Philip read from the sheet in front of him. “This would obviously refer to the child born to Simon of Grenoble, but I can go no further in that regard. We cannot begin to imagine who might be saying ‘Come my well beloved that we may embrace together, and’ so on. I can only speculate that at some point, someone will recognize the child for what she is and will attempt to form a union with her to produce off-spring ‘which shall not be like to his parents’.”
Philip was going over the last prophecy spoken by their prophet, John Paul Sinclair-Ramsay, just prior to the disappearance of his mother and Simon d’Ornan, the Order’s Mystic Healer. They were trying to apply the prophecy to Lucia, Dambretti’s infant daughter. Lucio frowned. Now they had Lucia grown and having children. Apparently, he had missed several years during his short doze. If they did not get this over with, certainly, she would be an old woman by the time he found her. Lucio cleared his throat loudly and glared at the Seneschal as the man peered over the top of his reading glasses at him before continuing, undisturbed.
“The next statement seems to have no connection to the first,” Philip continued, unaffected by his Brother’s attitude. “‘The king therefore whose head is red, the eyes black and the feet white is the Magistery.’ In alchemical terms, magistery would refer to a precipitate substance such as a magistery of bismuth, for example. But we have to assume that this, as it applies to this Order has to do with actual human elements.” He turned his wizened eyes on d’Brouchart. “You, Sir, have a red head, but your eyes are blue, not black. We may not be talking about hair here, but something symbolic such as the redness of the Philosopher’s Stone or the redness of perfection as referred to in the Lapis Philosophorum. Therefore, we might consider that these words could refer to Brother Dambretti who was made red by the flood and in whose body the Stone was made red to perfection. He has black eyes and white feet… I assume?” Sir Philip looked at Dambretti who raised one eyebrow.
“Che cosa e` esso? Of course my feet are white! Or at least they were the last time I saw them. Santa Maria,” Lucio said irritably. “But with all these things going on, who knows? We are wasting time!”
It was Von Hetz’ turn to clear his throat and Sir Philip returned his attention to the paper.
“The rest of the prophecy is straight from the Revelation of St. John. Your purview, Ritter.”
“I have studied it at length and can make no sense of it,” the Ritter said with no small measure of regret. He was sorely vexed over losing the Healer. “At least as far as our current situation is concerned.”
D’Brouchart turned his attention to Mark Ramsay, whose normally careworn face was the picture of serenity as he stared out the window over the sink on the far side of the room. It seemed to the Master that the indomitable Knight of Death had somehow managed to regain several lost years over the past few weeks, looking better now than he had in quite some time. There were very few creases in his face other than a smattering of crow’s feet at the corners of his deep, blue eyes. His dark hair, usually worn loose on his shoulders was pulled back at the nape of his neck and tied with a black ribbon. The Master wondered briefly if this meant anything significant. The Knight had encountered a number of problems associated with his silky locks over the years and d’Brouchart wondered why he didn’t just cut it all off. Was it vanity or something else? The Grand Master attributed the Scot’s current recovery to the partial resolution of the problems between him and Lucio Dambretti. They had formed an uneasy truce since the kidnapping. Sir Philip had lost Ramsay’s attention two hours ago and now the man had taken on the look the Grand Master had come to recognize as dangerous. The Chevalier du Morte was thinking.
Never in all his years would he have ever thought to be sitting in Ramsay’s cold stone house in Scotland, presiding over a meeting of the Council of Twelve which had suddenly and sadly become the Council of Ten with two of its members unaccounted for. Ramsay did not take well to crowds and his idea of the number constituting such would be less than he could count on one hand. The Scot put very little effort into his duties as host, leaving it to the various housekeepers, gardeners and cooks he had employed over the years to supply the amenities, if any were offered. That was off limits to all but the invited. He simply allowed them free reign throughout the house with the exception of the downstairs parlor, which he kept locked, his basement laboratory, which he kept bolted, and the attic area which was nailed shut. Edgard had a habit of sizing up buildings and structures with the fine eye of a seasoned expert. He knew quite well that there was a room between the kitchen and the library, but there was no sign of a door in the hallway and from the outside of the house, a tall set of double windows were tightly shuttered, giving away its presence. Another mystery in the Knight’s dark past no doubt.
“Brother Ramsay?” the Grand Master addressed him almost quietly as if speaking to a sleep walker.
“Aye, your Grace,” Ramsay’s voice matched his expression. Smooth and emotionless. His eyes moved almost lazily in his face as he focused on d’Brouchart.
“Have you asked John Paul about this prophecy as I asked you to do?” Edgard asked him and leaned both elbows on the heavy wooden table.
Philip fell silent with a muffled harrump as this unexpected interruption and quiet conversation opened in the middle of his musings. Michele Sinclair-Ramsay entered the kitchen and made her way quietly to the refrigerator in search of a bottle for the baby. Marco Niccolo, the twin brother of the missing girl baby, whimpered softly on her shoulder. The Master raised one hand and flicked his fingers at the old gardener who got up immediately from his seat near the stove and came to take his cup to the coffee machine for a refill.
“Aye, your Grace,” Ramsay repeated the phrase exactly as before.
“And what did he say?” the Master asked with the same patience as before. He did not want to provoke the Chevalier du Morte into another murderous rage. They had already had to subdue him three times in as many days. Once when he was told he would not be going out to look for Sister Meredith immediately. Again when he had been told that Lucio Dambretti was on his way to Scotland. And the third time when Lucio had shown up without Lucia Simone. Now his amazing recovery indicated that he had either made himself one of his concoctions or else he had taken up meditation. Or both.
“He said ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep’,” Mark said softly and returned his gaze to the window. “‘And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day’.”
The Knight of Death’s voice was low. His rendition of the scripture made chill bumps stand out on Sir Philip’s arms. Lucio held his breath involuntarily during the recitation.
“Is that all?” D’Brouchart asked when he stopped speaking.
“Yes, your Grace.” The same tone.
Silence reigned in the kitchen while Michele heated the baby formula and the gardener handed out fresh cups of coffee to the six Knights at the table. They would wait until John Paul’s wife finished her business and left them to theirs.
“What do you make of it, Ritter?” d’Brouchart called upon the Knight of the Apocalypse again. “The Revelations are your specialty, surely, but what do you make of this quotation from Genesis?”
“I believe that John Paul does not remember most of his prophecies, sir,” von Hetz shrugged and slumped forward to drag the sugar across the table where he dumped an excessive amount in his cup. He preferred chocolate in the morning. Tea in the afternoon. Coffee was not his cup of tea or chocolate, but there it was. “I have questioned him about them before and he has rarely answered me. His best answer came when we asked him about the name Semiramis and Baal. He told us that the King of Assyria, Sennacherib, was allowed to subdue Israel because they had turned from God. He spoke of the worship of Baal. Now it is alleged that the King of Assyria and Baal, which simply means Lord or Master, is one and the same man or entity and that entity is known to us as the Mad Arab or al Hafiz who still lives unto this day. He spoke of the darkness overcoming us all and he said that the people will not have visions and the prophets will not prophesy. That he mentions this part of Genesis concerned with the darkness of the void is most disturbing. One could assume that he might be trying to tell us that he will not or is not capable of prophesying any longer.”
“You say that Sister Meredith had a vision wherein a Knight on a white horse called her Semiramis, a name given to her by Nimrod?” D’Brouchart frowned as he posited the question.
“Yes, your Grace,” von Hetz nodded. “That is what Simon wrote to me in the e-mail.”
“I cannot believe that you and these fine Brothers chose to keep the existence of the triplets from me!” the Grand Master suddenly exploded into another rage unexpectedly and Von Hetz cringed. It was at least the fifth time the Grand Master had reverted to this topic without warning. The Ritter, Dambretti and Ramsay had agreed that they should tell the Master about the triplets due to the nature of their current state of emergency. They had to consider every option, every path, everything that had happened. But the Master had no idea what the significance of the triplets was, nor what they might mean in regard to the present dilemma. The news had only served to add anger to his angst. Now John Paul had disappeared again in the night without a word and as far as they knew, he, too, may have been abducted. They had four missing persons on their hands and they still had to guard the Chapel at Glessyn day and night. There were soldiers stationed there now under the command of Sir Guy de Lyons, the Chevalier d’Epee. Even Louis Champlain had been summoned to Scotland. Only Sir William Montague and Sir Armand de Bleu remained in Italy to oversee the Villa and Sir Barry’s Academy.
Lucio sighed. He was glad he was not involved in that scandal as well. At least he had no current bastards to deal with. In fact, he had left very few mistakes in his path in that regard and the last of them were long gone and the Order was unaware of them as far as he knew. But his loss of Lucia had been disgrace enough to make up for anything good he might have ever done intentionally or unintentionally and he still could not believe she was gone. Neither could he believe Merry was gone, nor Simon, also kidnapped and keeping in mind who might have taken them, he could not help but think that the same party may have been responsible for Lucia’s abduction. John Paul on the other hand, had a history of disappearing and reappearing without a word to anyone, explanations or apologies. Every time he glanced at Michele who was holding his own son with more care than most natural mothers, he felt his knees go weak. He had been extremely stupid to think that he could steal Merry’s daughter and get away with it. His punishment had come swiftly and now, it seemed, none of them would even acknowledge his right to hold or even touch his son. Michele cast accusing looks at him and Mark Andrew looked at him with an expression he had never seen in all their years together.
It almost seemed that the Scot was afraid of him or perhaps afraid of what he might do next. Mark barely spoke to him unless someone else was present. That was probably good for what would the man say to him? It was entirely possible that Ramsay blamed him for all three abductions. Perhaps even thought that he was an accomplice somehow in one of those bizarre cases of ‘if I can’t have her, no one can’. But Simon was also missing. Taken most likely while trying to defend Meredith. Once again, someone had needed him and he had been far away, engaged in reprehensible activities. If Mark Ramsay was afraid him, he felt the presence of death every time he looked at his Brother. If ever Mark had reason to kill him. One dead Infidel at the church could not begin to fulfill the Knight of Death’s need to commit murder on someone. Lucio did not want to become his next victim. He just wanted to be done with Scotland and get back to Egypt to search for his daughter. At least, Marco Niccolo would take John Paul’s wife’s mind off her own loss. But then John Paul was not actually declared lost… not yet. The priest had simply gotten into his car and driven away. He might just as easily drive back as he had so many times in the past.
D’Brouchart calmed himself forcefully and inhaled a deep breath after downing a tall glass of water.
“Go on Brother Philip,” he said after a moment.
“The rest of the prophecy concerns the four Apocalyptic horsemen. The pale horse, the red horse, the black horse and the white horse. Also there is the passage about the beasts, one like an eagle and one like a lion. We have always associated these two beasts with the Knight of the Golden Eagle and the Chevalier du Morte, water and fire, begging the pardons of those present,” he added an apology. They had usually referred to these things in the absence of the two Knights in question. Philip’s cheeks flushed under Lucio’s baleful stare. “He speaks of the dragon, also associated with Sir Ramsay, of course and the bottomless pit. But of all his words, the most disturbing are the words about the priest removing the Ark of the Covenant. The word priest does not appear in the scriptures. Neither does the phrase ‘eye of the serpent’ where the Ark is supposed to be taken by this priest. Now we have two options. Brother Simon is the Chevalier du Serpent and he is a priest. But al Hafiz is also a priest of his… religion and he is associated with the serpent which is another name for the dragon and please remember, he has but one eye as well. So we may assume that either Simon or al Hafiz will move or try to steal the Ark. The fact that al Hafiz wants the Ark is manifest.” The Seneschal fell silent, apparently waiting for comments.
D’Brouchart nodded. They had covered this ground before. The Grand Master did not want to mention the associations he had made on his own connecting Simon and the son of Solomon, Menelik, who had indeed stolen the Ark from Solomon’s temple and taken it to Ethiopia. It was a feat unparalleled in Jewish history. The Ark was a deadly object when mishandled and only those properly instructed and prepared could even attempt to move it. Menelik had help and plenty of it. If Simon was indeed guilty of tampering with the relic, he had also had help. He preferred to believe for the moment that it was al Hafiz who wanted to take or had already taken the Ark from them. And with good reason, since Mark Andrew had actually caught the man in the act of trying to open the sealed crypt at the Chapel of Glessyn. This was a given.
“Your Grace?” Mark Andrew’s voice cut through the silence.
“Yes, Brother.”
The Knight of Death tore his attention from the window again and met the watery blue eyes of the Master for the first time.
“I would respectfully request permission to take a leave of absence,” he said calmly.
“For what purpose?” D’Brouchart was taken aback by the request.
“I would like to travel. I need a holiday,” Mark Andrew said almost distractedly.
“Travel?! A holiday?” D’Brouchart almost rose from the table, but the Knight of Death looked at him blandly. “Are you requesting another trip to Rome, du Morte?! Do you need a haircut or, perhaps, another tattoo?”
“That is unfair, your Grace,” Mark Andrew said calmly. Too calmly. “I believe that it was your idea that I should take time off when I returned from the Abyss, was it not? And it was at your insistence that I indulged myself in Rome for R & R, no? Now I ask for a few weeks and you are surprised? I believe that my service merits a holiday now and again.”
D’Brouchart’s ruddy complexion deepened.
“I did not intend for you to go off to Rome and spend thousands of Euros in shameless debauchery, Brother. I did not expect you to return with your body painted like a temple eunuch at Thebes! And I did not expect you to wind up your holiday in a mental ward!”
Mark Andrew crossed his arms on his stomach and then placed his left fist in front of his face to tap his thumbnail on his bottom teeth. Another idiosyncrasy that the Master had learned the man possessed when he had spent several days at the infirmary with Lucio in Italy. It was a sign that he was biting his tongue.
“I take that as a no, your Grace?” he asked after a moment, tilting his first one way and then the other.
“Brother Ramsay,” d’Brouchart resumed command of his emotions once more. “I fail to see why you would want to leave just now. Where would you go and what would you do?”
“There something that requires my attention,” he said. “It may be helpful to us in the long run.”
“And what is that?” the Master asked him and everyone at the table waited to hear the answer.
“I would like to consult with a friend of mine… in Ireland,” he said softly.
“Oh, Santa Maria!” Lucio blurted in disgust. “Not the Monachicchio!”
Mark Andrew stood up and leaned both hands on the table to look at the Knight of the Golden Eagle before speaking very slowly and deliberately.
“I dunna know wot a Monachicchio is, Brother, but I wud warn ye not t’ be speakin’ ill o’ me friends!”
Lucio stood as well and glared at the Scot before turning on the Grand Master.
“I need to get back to Egypt, your Grace!” Lucio addressed the Master angrily. “I cannot see the purpose of sitting around here in Scotland, discussing the vagaries of prophecy and the existence of faeries when my daughter… my legitimate daughter… is in danger!”
“Sit down!” d’Brouchart ordered and looked from one of them to the other rapidly. “I will say what we discuss, where we sit and what is important!”
Lucio let out a long sigh, but resumed his seat.
Mark Andrew stood up straight and then folded himself onto the bench beside Sir Barry of Sussex.
The Knight of the Baldric watched his Brothers intensely. He had not realized that such a breech had formed between them. They had always been companions as well as Brothers. What had happened to them? Barry remembered well a time only a few decades prior that Lucio Dambretti had taken one hundred and two blows of the rod on Mark Ramsay’s behalf. What had he missed? Why had Lucio been in Egypt with one twin and his wife been in Scotland with the other one with Mark Ramsay? It didn’t make sense to him. Surely Lucio was concerned about his wife as well as his child. He knew very well Lucio’s murderous temper and blatant jealousy. Temper, envy, arrogance. A dangerous combination and yet here they were sitting together at the same table. Barry had yet to witness Lucio even so much as touching the boy since he had arrived in Scotland the morning of the day before. Barry thought the baby a fine boy and had played with him several times… at least as much as one can play with a new infant. A boy! An heir! Someone to pass along all your hopes and dreams to and yet, here was a situation, the Knight of the Baldric could not understand. Sir Barry glanced at Philip and Philip gave him a very slight shrug. Sir Barry ran his hands over his closely cropped dark hair and stretched his muscular arms over his head, vowing to review the records for the past few years. Perhaps he had kept his head in the sand too long. One of his old injuries in his left shoulder popped and a pain shot up his collar bone, reminding him of a battle he’d almost lost. He was not used to so much sitting and talking.
“Perhaps we should adjourn for a bit, your Grace?” Sir Barry suggested.
“Perhaps you are right,” d’Brouchart agreed. “We will meet again after the noon meal. Ritter, attend me on the patio.”
The Grand Master stood and they all stood with him. He trundled down the hall toward the back door and the Ritter followed him out.
Sir Barry reached for Philip’s arm.
“A word with you, Brother,” the English Knight jerked his head toward the front of the house and Philip nodded. Lucio followed them as far as the stairs, leaving Mark alone in the kitchen with old Thomas, the gardener, a retired Templar soldier from Dublin.
“Sir,” the gardener addressed him immediately. “If ye wud talk to th’ clurichaun, ye wud know how. He told me to come and visit him in Kilkenny sometoime. He said thot his house was easy t’ foind.”
“I know where he lives, Tom,” Mark Andrew nodded and smiled at the old man. He should have been tired. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours in the past several days. Not since Merry and Simon had disappeared, but he felt somehow more alive and invigorated than usual.
(((((((((((((<O>)))))))))))))
Merry set her basket of flowers on the porch and pushed the door open cautiously, unsure of whether she should turn and run, knock or… she peeked around the door facing and found Simon d’Ornan sitting on a short, three-legged stool beating the heel of his boot against the planks of the floor.
“Simon?” she asked softly.
“Sister!” Simon almost shouted and threw down his boot. He tripped bootless to where she stood and grabbed her shoulders. After hugging her tightly and kissing her on both cheeks, hugging her again, he asked “Where have you been?!”
“I don’t know,” she answered and looked around, bewildered. A dream, perhaps. “I don’t know that I’ve been anywhere.”
Simon was dressed in very strange clothes indeed. He wore a tight-fitting, long-sleeved black shirt beneath a loose tunic made of white cloth. His pants were yellow and ended just below his knees in a slightly flared hem with two buttons on each side. His legs were encased in black stockings of some sort. He looked like a little Dutch boy or an antique doll or some such. His blonde hair was somewhat longer than she remembered and the crown of his head was shaved.
“What have you… done to yourself?” she asked and reached to touch his bare head, but he shrank from her touch. “What is this you are wearing?”
“I have no idea. Please don’t look at me, Sister. I looked like a damned Raggedy Ann doll,” Simon looked down at himself, obviously chagrined by his appearance. His pale cheeks flushed deep red. He went back to pull on his other boot. They reached almost to his knees and were also black in color. “I’m so glad to see you. I thought I was the only human here.”
“Here?” she looked about. “Where is here, Simon? You don’t look like Raggedy Ann to me.” Was it a dream? Why couldn’t she wake up?
Simon only shrugged in answer, but she did not quite feel put off by his seeming lack of concern for their immediate dilemma. In fact, she didn’t feel overly upset about the situation herself and asked no more questions for the moment, feeling quite content to have found him safe and sound.
The house was extremely cozy and well-made with big, exposed rafters of solid wood, replete with knots and a few short, stubby branches still intact. The interior walls seemed to be made mostly of wood covered with white plaster. A huge stone hearth completely filled one end of the room and a low fire burned under a hammered copper kettle hanging from a spit. A wooden butter churn stood by the hearth and several large, crockery jars. Simon’s footstool, three roughly made chairs with colorful cushions, a long table covered with a white tablecloth, two benches, a rocking chair made of willow boughs and two smaller tables rounded out the rustic furnishings. The lighting consisted entirely of white candles in silver candlesticks. An open doorway led to another room the same size as the front room. She could see a large wooden tub on the floor and a bed beyond it that was so tall it needed a short set of steps to get up into it. Another set of windows that looked out over the meadow behind the house was set in the far wall beyond the bed. She was startled momentarily by her own reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall by the window.
“How long have you been here?” She asked as she wandered around the room looking at the furnishing. A number of copper pots and stoneware vessels hung on wooden pegs embedded in the plaster and mortar between the stones of the fireplace. The fireplace tools were made of brass and wood. A well-worn straw broom leaned against the churn. Numerous silver spoons, forks and a fascinating collection of antiquated cooking utensils filled a willow basket on one end of the table. She used one finger to sort through the remarkable array of tools. Everything seemed to be made of silver or pewter and copper. She identified a number of common household items such as scissors, a paring knife, a garlic press, tweezers, butter knives, soup spoons, bits of string and yarn, a packet of black needles, hat pins. A junk drawer without the benefit of a cabinet.
“I have been here three days,” Simon said suddenly sounding aggravated and stamped his foot down in his boot. “I have been looking for you.”
She didn’t like his tone and so ignored him.
A small, leather-bound book lay on one of the tables by the rocking chair. A magnifying glass lay on top of the book and next to it was a clay bowl with some small chunks of an amber colored substance. She picked up the book.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Simon objected and took the book away from her. “It’s full of witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft?” Merry frowned at the Healer and opened the book. “Is this a witch’s house then? It reminds me of a fairy tale.”
“I don’t know whose house it is,” he said and looked about frowning. “I just know that this is the only house in this godforsaken land than I can find and it’s the only safe haven at night.” He crossed the room and took the book from her hands, clamping it shut with a knowing little smile that irritated her.
“Why? What happens at night?” She asked after deciding not to fight with him about the book. She backed up and sat down in the rocking chair, crossing her legs and arranging her gown primly over her legs. Her mind refused to focus. She felt like a little girl again, playing make believe with her imaginary friends. What had happened to them? Where was Mark Andrew?
“They come and stand around,” he said vaguely. “They just stand around, beating their drums and making all sorts of noises before they attack. Would you like a glass of buttermilk, Sister? It’s all I have except for water.”
“Buttermilk,” she repeated the word. “No, but some water would be nice. Attack? Attack who?”
Simon retrieved a wooden cup from a shelf over the table. He filled it with water from a wooden bucket on the table, using a carved ladle.
“It’s very good water,” he nodded as he handed it to her and then drew the little stool over close to her feet and sat down. “We can only go out in the daylight,” he added abstractedly. “There are lots of things in the cupboard in the bedroom that I don’t understand. I don’t think you should touch any of it. Sacre bleu!” He looked pained. “As a matter of fact, I don’t understand any of this, Sister. I can’t remember how I got here, but the food is fare and plentiful. The bed is soft and the fire is warm. Of course we don’t need a fire since it seems to be springtime or early summer. I can’t tell which because I don’t know how far north we are. That is, assuming latitude and longitude exist in this place.”
Merry sipped the water while she listened to him ramble. It was very good, just as he said. It almost tasted sweet. She felt of the metal ornament in her hair and looked again at the dress she wore, admiring the exquisite workmanship. The dress would cost a fortune back home. She owned no such dress. In fact, she didn’t even wear colors anymore, only shades of gray or brown and black or white.
“We have nothing to take our bearings on if you know what I mean. There are no recognizable landmarks and I’m only guessing the sun rises in the east. I don’t suppose we’ve left earth. I mean I don’t believe we were abducted by aliens or anything like that. I remember the chapel and something was wrong there. I don’t know what. Are you hungry?” He asked suddenly, as if just remembering his manners as a host. “I have some bread and cheese or honey, if you like.”
“No, thank you, Brother,” she smiled languidly at him. She felt light-headed and silly, almost intoxicated. It was as if they were children, playing some make-believe game.
“Sister.” Simon took her hand. “They left me my sword. It is all I have. When they come at night, they try to take my soul. I really need some armor or at least a leather coat…” His sad blue eyes were full of fear and his voice trailed off before he smiled again.
Merry’s mind seemed to click into place for just a moment and the strangeness of her mood vanished as his words sank in.
“Who?” She sat up suddenly and looked about with renewed wonder. The house seemed familiar to her, yet she knew she had never been in such a place. “Who comes, Simon?”
“I don’t know who or what they are.”
“How do you know they want your soul?” she asked. This was not good. This was not good at all. The memory of the man with one-eye returned to her suddenly. He had been so very nice to her and she had felt she knew him at once, but on thinking back, she could not remember his name.
“I just know,” he said and wrung his hands together nervously. “I can scare them away with my sword, but it is hard to stay awake all night every night. Every time I close my eyes, I wake up to find one of them inside the fence or nigh upon me. Are you sure you don’t want a bite to eat? Some cottage cheese and fruit? I have some apples left over from yesterday.”
“No, thanks. Do you remember anything at all of what happened after… the Chapel?” She asked him in mounting panic. “Are we still in Scotland? What are those glass balls on the porch. They’re beautiful, but I think something is living inside one of them. A bird maybe?”
“I don’t know where we are. I don’t know where you’ve been. I only remember seeing you briefly at the Chapel and then nothing. I woke up here… in there,” he nodded to the bedroom. “Dressed like this. No explanation and I haven’t seen anyone since… until now. At least no one completely human. Spes mea in deo est. What is it your Dorothy said? We’re not in Arkansas anymore.” His face darkened and he squinted at her suspiciously.
Arkansas? What did Simon d’Ornan know of Arkansas or Kansas or Dorothy for that matter? She thought perhaps this was a dream after all. How did she even know this was really Simon and how did he know it was really her if, indeed, it really was him? They looked at each other in silence as the desperation of their situation became evident.
“Those are not birds,” he said after a long pause. “Believe me.”
(((((((((((((<O>)))))))))))))
Mark Andrew glanced at his watch. Two hours before noon. He just might have time if he hurried.
He let himself out the front door quietly, making sure the two wolfhounds did not follow him and then cut straight across the meadow in front of the house. He’d had enough of dragons and prophecy and the Grand Master and Lucio Dambretti. If Lucio had not run off with Lucia, the baby would not be lost and if Lucio had been there to go with him to the Chapel, perhaps the outcome would have been more favorable. They had faced many challenges together in the past and despite their differences, they had always made a great team. Like black and white and up and down and in and out and light and dark and…. Where was his son? Why had the boy run off again and left Michele? Left him? Did he have no sense of responsibility to the Order or his family? And with his mother gone less than four days! He needed Lucio and he needed John Paul, but he had neither. He had nothing. As usual, he felt entirely cut off and alone against the world. He’d been alone ever since he’d last his brother, Luke, during the fall of Jerusalem. He slowed to a limping walk as a sudden cramp grabbed his side where the old scar remained even after 800 years. According to Simon, there were most likely internal scars that caused these infernal cramps from time to time. Simon had suggested that he allow the surgeon at the Villa to check into it, maybe correct the problem, but Mark wouldn’t hear of it. The scar and the pain it occasionally gave him was the only tangible reminder he had left of his brother. Besides, whatever it was would probably grow back and he didn’t like doctors or hospitals. He stopped and looked around his beloved meadow, wishing that everyone would just go home and let him do what he did best. If d’Brouchart would just give him the mission and let him go…
The meadow had always been a refuge for him in times of trouble. Long walks, misty nights, cold winds, sunny summer days. All the same. The meadow was his refuge when the old house became too cramped to hold his misery. Now the sky was pale blue, rain-washed and sweet-scented with wild flowers. If he did not look over his shoulder, he could transport himself back eight centuries. His brother’s slightly deeper voice echoed in his ears, calling him back from the chase. If only things had been different. If only his father had not hated him so… His troubles would be nothing more than dust in a moldy grave by now. He was still grieved when he thought of his brother never having even a decent burial. The Infidels had burned some of the dead and buried others in mass graves like dogs. Some had been hung over the walls as a warning to any who would oppose the great Saladin. What had happened to Luke Andrew after he’d left him at Lucio’s begging, he had never learned. He had lost his brother utterly on that fateful day in 1187 and he had never been the same afterwards. Always alone. Always. Even in the midst of a crowd, he was alone.
Now he’d lost Simon and Merry and his only friend had gone home to Ireland. Mark was well aware of the fact that the rage directed at Lucio was magnified beyond reasonable bounds by the loss of Meredith and the Healer. He blamed Lucio for all of it. All of his own misfortunes. If Lucio had not pulled him out of that damned well in Jerusalem, he would have died the same day as Luke and they would have been together in death just as they come into life in their mother’s womb. Only the presence of the Grand Master and the other Knights kept him from taking the Italian’s head.
The Knight of Death picked up his pace again and half ran across the meadow toward his destination. It was a place he had found ages ago when he had first come to live at the house. A small grassy hillock with a few exposed rocks surrounded by a rath of darker green grass in an almost perfect circle. There were numerous flint arrowheads embedded in the roots of the grass and odd pieces of colored glass, crystals and lumps of what looked like jade and obsidian. He never bothered the artifacts, preferring them to remain as they lay, just as the ancient warriors who had dropped them, perhaps even died there, in the shrouded mists of the past. Mark liked to imagine that the meadow had once been the scene of a fierce battle where his Celtic ancestors had fought and won through their cause, whatever it might have been, but he knew that these artifacts pre-dated even the Celts. Whoever had left them there had been even more mysterious. J
He jumped across the shallow ditch-like structure surrounding the hillock and climbed to the center of the mound where he sat down cross-legged in the sweet-smelling. Turning his face up to the sun, he stretched out his arms and then fell backwards on the ground with his eyes closed. Almost immediately, he could hear the faint sound of bagpipes, whistles and drums. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. He lay there with the sun on his face and felt sleep overtaking him. As he drifted off, he hoped he would never wake again.
He saw John Paul as a six-year-old again. The boy was sitting in a garden with a small, gray box in his hands. He was poking at the box with his thumbs and forefingers, leaning over it, intently absorbed. Mark stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked casually down the garden path, stopping beside the boy.
“Daddy!” John smiled up at him and dropped the toy on the ground. It made blipping and beeping noises. “The wizards here are very powerful.”
“Where?” Mark Andrew looked about the garden. He recognized it as the garden behind Merry’s house in Texas.
“They are everywhere. Don’t you smell them?” the boy’s eyes widened as he spoke and it seemed a shadow fell across the sun. “They don’t like us, Daddy. We’ll have to use all our magick to defeat them.”
“What kind of magick, son?” Mark asked as he knelt beside him. The boy put his arm around his neck.
“Powerful magick, Daddy,” John Paul whispered in his ear. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. Let my father and my mother, I pray thee, come forth. Now therefore, come down according to all the desire of thy soul to come down. Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee, but remember thou the story of Bathsheba and David, the King, that he destroyed himself for the love of the woman and murdered her husband? Repent thee now of this murderous heart and seek forgiveness lest ye fall from grace. For ye have been cleansed again and again of sin and yet the powers of darkness overcome thee and thy will is broken again and yet again.”
Mark Andrew opened his eyes and realized that he had been sleeping far too long, that he had surely missed a meal and was now late for the meeting. He got up and jogged back to the house. He would tell no one of this dream and he would need to confess his anger or else he would never be able to do what he had to do. ‘Come down according to all the desire of thy soul’. Come down where? The stairs?
When he reached the kitchen, he paused in the back hallway to wait for Brother von Hetz to finish the closing prayers and then took a seat at the table beside the Apocalyptic Knight. Sirs Champlain and de Lyons had returned from the Chapel and were now assembled with the rest of the Knights. Mark Andrew’s home had been invaded and he did not like it at all. Could not get used to it. He wanted them all gone and he wanted to do something. Anything! This sitting around the table moaning and groaning over what was said and not said and what it all meant was driving him mad. Visions, dreams, gossip and old wives tales. His nerves were growing thin.
“Now where were we?” d’Brouchart asked and held up his glass. Thomas came to fill it with wine and Edgard turned up the wine and took a swallow. His face lit up and he looked at Mark Andrew approvingly. Apparently he liked Paddy Puffingtowne’s choice of wines. Mark Andrew’s face darkened at the thought of his missing friend.
“We were discussing John Paul’s last prophecies.”
The Seneschal picked up the dog-eared notepad from the table and squinted at the writing over the top of his glasses. “But we concluded that the identity of the king he mentioned was clouded in obscurity. And we also decided that it is possible that he may be coming to the end of his prophecies.”
Mark Andrew almost said something in contradiction to his remark, but remembered his vow not to tell them about his dream of John Paul.
“We were down to the section about the ‘eye of the serpent’,” Philip continued. “We were uncertain as to the significance of this reference. But you say that one of the triplets had a note attached to it that asked a question concerning the ‘eye of the serpent’, Brother Hetz? Is that correct?”
Von Hetz picked up another yellow pad from in front of him and read from his notes “What locks the Gate beneath the serpent's eye? This child is Simone Elizabeta. Or at least that is the translation Sister Meredith gave for the original name on the tag that was something of a mystery at the time. The spelling escapes me now, but it was attached to the girl child who was wrapped in a blue blanket. If Sister Meredith were here, perhaps she might have more to say about it…” the German’s voice trailed off and he cleared his throat nervously. Meredith’s absence was one of the reasons that they were sitting at the table.
“The blanket was blue, you say?” Champlain mused. “I remember the reference to the color blue in regard to the identity of the Quinta Essentia which was the member without the Zodiacal sign. That would have been Simon of Grenoble. The child you speak of is supposedly Simon’s child?” The Frankish Knight turned his quizzical blue eyes on the dark Knight.
“That’s absurd!” Sir Barry spoke up. “Simon of Grenoble cannot be the father of that child or any other. Everyone knows that!” He blurted the words and then looked extremely embarrassed when all eyes turned in his direction. “I am out of order. Forgive me.”
“This is the work of the devil,” Sir de Lyons muttered under his breath. “What kind of thing is this, Brother that you have brought upon us?” He directed this question to Mark Andrew.
Mark frowned slowly as he turned his attention from the kitchen window to gaze at the Knight of the Sword in disbelief. Now he was being personally attacked in his own kitchen by another of Thomas Beaujold’s hand-picked French influences. Did it never end? Had the man also ruined his apprentice before his death?
“Brother Guy, a bit more discretion might be in order here,” Champlain admonished the younger Knight and held up one hand as the Grand Master shifted in his seat. “I do not believe that these events are to be blamed on any one of us. Surely Brother Ramsay did his best to restore our Brother and Sister to us. You will remember that he is only one man. These things are all the will of God. Whatever His plan is, it is but our mission to be wherever we are required to be, doing what we are required to do, when He desires that we should be doing it. Brother Ramsay is no more to blame for these current conditions than you or any other of us.”
“As far as your remarks, Brother Barry,” the Grand Master turned his attention to the Knight of the Baldric “if you believe that any of what you have been hearing during these meetings is true, then you should know that nothing is discountable. We are not working with ordinary circumstances, nor are we able to draw any fast and sure conclusions. Would you have believed me if I told you twenty odd years ago that Sir Ramsay was alive and living as a dragon in the underworld? I hardly think so! I am still at a loss to understand all the implications of what we have experienced and what we have learned over the past several years.” The Master smiled slightly and then turned a frown on the Knight of the Sword. “We are not here to present our personal grievances, Brother de Lyons. Please refrain from making anymore such remarks.”
De Lyons turned his head away from them and raised his chin slightly, reminding Ramsay of his former master, Thomas Beaujold, who had tried his best to kill him in America only a few decades earlier.
“Your Grace,” Mark Andrew addressed the Master. “I would like to know what this business about the Hesperides and the golden fruit has to do with our present dilemma. I would also ask what you might know of this Semiramis… this name. What does it have to do with anything? These were the last dreams of Sister Meredith and Brother Simon. And they also spoke of stairs. Going up the stairs and down the stairs.” Mark Andrew glanced at Lucio. The words belonged to an old Italian saw.
“Semiramis is associated with the Babylonian mystery religion and cult,” Sir Philip answered him. “Semiramis and her son, Tammuz, a mother and child cult. A common thread in most world religions of the past and the present. They later became Isis and Osiris in the Egyptian mythological realm as Brother Lucio knows them and then in the old Greek and Roman religions as Venus and Adonis the goddess and god of Love. It has also been compared by some modern theologians to the Madonna and Child of the various sects of Christianity.”
“Sacrilege!” De Lyons muttered again and then fell silent under the Master’s stern gaze.
“Baal usually occurs in the Holy Scripture in connection with place names or with other names as a title such as Baal-Zebub which literally means Lord of the Flies which is another name for Satan and also as Baal-Zephon which is another name for Triton, the lord of the black north. The black north is also called the Black Void. What references in the Holy Scripture correspond with these, Brother Hetz?”
“The Black Void is most likely another name for the ‘deep’ referred to in Genesis upon which the spirit of God moved. This Marduk or Mad Arab was said to have been leading a rebellion of the Gods against ‘Tiamat’. ‘Tiamat’ is ‘Tehom’ in Hebrew, which is used, in the original script, to describe the ‘deep’ as we read it in Genesis. In the Jewish tradition it is said that God imprisoned part of this ‘Tehom’ in the bowels of the earth. It is from this imprisoned ‘Tehom’ that God brought up the waters at the same time he brought down the waters during the flood of Noah’s day. All of these legends, scriptures and descriptions, whether biblical or from other sources, seem to be intertwined and point to the same series of events involving the same characters, if you will. Good versus evil. God versus Satan. Marduk. Baal. Al Hafiz. But keep in mind, Brothers, that Marduk or al Hafiz as we know him is not a god. He would set himself up as a god, but a demi-god at best. He is not impervious to harm. He is neither omnipotent, nor is he infallible. Sir Ramsay’s experience at the chapel would bear this out as the man obviously did not expect to see him there. And the fact that he aborted his attempt to enter the crypt, would seem to indicate that he is susceptible to error.”