The Dove

The Red Cross of Gold XXVII:.

“
The Dove”

Assassin Chronicles

By

Brendan Carroll

Copyright 2012

The characters are fictional and any resemblance to real persons alive or dead is unintentional and coincidental.

Brendan Carroll can be reached at
:
[email protected]

Follow on Twitter: @BrendanCarroll7

Follow at Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BrendanCarrollRCG

Brendan Carroll blog at:

http://brendancarroll.wordpress.com/

If you enjoy reading the Assassin Chronicles, do not be discouraged, the series is not quite over yet.  Three more to go after this one.

If you enjoyed Brendan Carroll’s writing style, have you checked out his other works also available in eBook format and paperback?

Hounds of Oblivion
:  A small town is plagued by a string of gruesome murders and mysterious abductions.  When the evidence begins to point to a local murder/mystery writer, things get kind of weird.  Fortunately, his long time friend and local constable thinks there is more to it than meets the eye.  The unlikely pair must solve and the mystery surrounding the murders and abductions before the FBI catches up with them.

Tempo Rubato ~ Stolen Time: 
A tribute written to Brendan Carroll’s favorite classical composer: Wolfgang Mozart action/adventure style with a touch of sci-fi and romance. 
Tempo Rubato
is an epic story about a corrupt, clandestine corporation using Einstein’s accomplishments and modern technology to make money in a somewhat less than legal manner.  Murder and mayhem ensue when a Mozart scholar and NYC homicide detective get in volved.  Check it out on Amazon, available for Kindle and also in paperback.

And to Lori Ann, who has been with me all the way, offering encouragement and valuable input for the series. 

Cover image courtesy of Sue Guerth,The Dove, who is a wonderful friend and great fan of the Assassin Chronicles.  Long life and happiness, my Friend!

The Red Cross of Gold XXVII:. The Dove

Published by Brendan Carroll

Copyright 2012 Brendan Carroll

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.  If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Prologue

“My Lady!” the old man cried as he almost fell on the stone wall. 

The lovely, dark-haired woman looked up from her work with the sheep and frowned at her smith.

“What is’t, Jack?” she asked, her lilting brogue held no small measure of aggravation.  If her new shepherd did
n’t learn how to shear faster, they were never going to get the job done.  They had been at it for half a day and he’d only managed to mangle six fleeces.  It would take years for him to match the speed of old Dugger.  Dugger had once shorn 306 sheep in the space of one day’s work.

“Thair’s a mon in th’ bairn, m
y Lady!” Jack gasped.  He looked as if he’d seen a seven-headed dragon.

“Fur God’s, mon,” Morna Ismay Ramsay sighed and let go of the sheep’s forelegs and straightened up, pressing one hand against the small of her back.  Aiden was killing her. 

The young shepherd stepped back and wiped his face on the back of his hand.  The sheep scampered away into the holding pen with its five brothers and sisters. 

“Hold up on th’ sheep, Morgan!” she shouted to the boy in the pen with t
he unshorn animals.  The boy released a shaggy specimen and climbed onto the stone wall.  “Go on and bring bock some water, Aiden.  Take Morgan with ye.”

Morna brushed her hands on her formerly white apron and let herself out the gate. 

“Could ye not shoo ’im on, then, mon?” she asked when Dugger caught up with her.  “Is ’e a briggand then?”

“He moight be most anything, mum,” Dugger told her.  “He acts moighty peculiar.  Willna stop mumblin’ and talkin’ to ghosties.”

“Oh? Talkin’ to ghosties, is he?” she turned a doubtful eye on her crotchity old blacksmith.

“Aye, mum,” Dugger said.  He twisted his black wool cap in his gnarled hands nervously.  What few hairs he had left on his freckled head stood straight up, giving him a comical appearance. 

Lady Ramsay, wife and companion to Laird Timothy Ramsay, walked determinedly across the barnyard, shooing aside the chickens as she went.  A pair of geese honked and came running to her heels, thinking feeding time had arrived.  They honked along behind her, making further conversation impossible.  When she reached the barn, she shushed the geese and Dugger shooed them away with a long stick.

Inside the dim recesses of the barn, she blinked and waited until her eyes grew accustomed to the light.  She could hear a man’s voice mumbling or singing or chanting somewhere near the back wall.  The cracks between the boards there allowed strips of sunlight to fall across the straw and farm implements stored in the tack room.  A big, gray cat brushed against her legs.

“Scat, Molly!” she hissed and then proceeded more carefully toward the sound of the voice.  As she drew nearer, she realized the words were spoken in Latin.  A desperate prayer it seemed.

“Oh, God, our Father, I beg you, give me this day, give me this day and I will give you my services through all eternity.  Oh, Jesus, our Lord and Master, grant me this favor and I will devote my life to your teachings.  Oh, God, our Father, I beg you, give me this day, give me this day…”

“Hello!” Morna interrupted the prayer.  “’ere now.  How come thee t’ be in me bairn?”

The praying stopped and a shadowy figure rose up in the straw.  He was tall, taller than her husband, Timothy. 

“I beg your pardon and forgiveness,” he said in a low, quiet voice.  “I am far from home and lost.”

“Aye, thot be th’ truth of it, I’d say,” she answered and then narrowed her eyes.  His silhouette indicated he might be naked.  “’ave ye no clothes, mon?”

“I’m sorry, I think not,” he answered.

“Dugger!” she snapped and clamped her mouth shut in anger.  “Get th’ mon a blanket!  Can ye not see ’e’s in need?”

“Thank you kindly, my Lady,” the man answered.

“Air ye clean?  ’ave ye anny distempers o’ th’ flesh?” she asked.  There were plenty of rumors circulating about another outbreak of
the Black Death and plague was not the only thing laying waste to the unwary.

“No, my Lady,” he said.  “I am a man of God.”

“Ooooh, a mon o’ God, air ye?  Then wair ye set upon by highwaymen?”

“No, a devil’s plague has sent me here,” he said.

“Plague, mum!  ’e said plague!”  Dugger said hysterically and threw a horse blanket at the man.

“D’ye mean a plague or a curse?” Morna asked him.

“A curse,” he said.  “I’m afraid I made some enemies in the Orient.”

“Oh, a missionary then,” she smiled.  Her Timothy so wanted to ride off to the crusades, but his monarch would not hear of it.

“Yes, of a sort.  To the infidels.”

“Ye sound foreign enough, thot’s th’ truth,” she said.  “I’m not above showin’ a bit o’ charity.  Stay where ye air and I’ll send out some things fur ye.  Then we’ll have
a bite and see th’ lay of it.”

“Thank you kindly.”

Morna practically dragged Dugger back to the house and upstairs to her husband’s bedchamber.  She rummaged in his trunk for clothing that might fit the stranger in her barn.  Her husband was rarely home and would surely not miss a few articles of clothing if things went badly.

“Now take these out to th’ bairn and stay with our guest.  When ’e is presentable, bring ’im insoide.”

“Aye mum,” Dugger answered sullenly.  “Twud nae be advoisable t’ bring a beggar inta th’ ’ouse, mum.”

“Oh?  I brot thee in, did I not?” she asked and raised one dark eyebrow.  Her dark blue eyes snapped with amusement.

“Aye, mum,” Dugger mumbled and hurried away with the clothing.

Within ten minutes, she was sitting in the kitchen with the ‘man of God’.  He was a stri
king fellow, with large, dark blue eyes like her own, long, black hair and a winning smile.  His beard showed streaks of gray, but he somehow seemed ageless. He could have been forty or sixty.  It was hard to tell.

“So,” she said as she poured him a cup of buttermilk and nodded to the cook.  The old cook brought him a wooden bowl full of mutton stew with a chunk of crusty bread on top.  She laid a spoon on the table and glared at him in disapproval before retiring to the hearth.  “Tell me, Sir, what is your name?”

“Ambrosius,” he said and dug into the stew without further ado.

“Do ye not thank God fur yur victuals before ye indulge?” she asked.

“Only when I have time.”

“Air ye in a hurry, then?”

“My innards have no time for faith at the moment, my Lady,” he said between chews.  “I will ask forgiveness when I am no longer starving.”

“Ooooh.  Thot’s a practical mon.  From whence dost thee hail, Ambrosius?”

“From afar.  Too far.  Where is this place?”

“Ye’re a day’s roide from Edinborough to th’ southeast a bit.  Air ye from London, then.  Ye sound like a Londoner.”

“Yes, yes, I believe so.”

“Yur nae sure?”

“I don’t remember clearly.”  He stopped chewing and picked up the break.  He looked her in the eyes as he broke off a bite-sized piece of bread.

Morna felt a sort of electric shock when he looked at her and she reached automatically for her throat.  Timothy never looked at her that way.  In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time Sir Timothy had looked at her.  They had been married only four years and already, she felt old at twenty-five.  Her father had declared her an old maid at seventeen and when Timothy had come along four years into her spinsterhood and offered three horses as a wedding gift, her father had readily agreed.  Of course, she hadn’t been consulted, but neither had she been unhappy to have found a husband in close friendship with
King William, the Lion.  A good match, even though Timothy was more than twice her age. 

After a year without heirs, he had abandoned her bed and sought the company of his
King once more, leaving her in charge of the rambling farm in the lowlands.  Something, Timothy, as a former Highlander had no use for.  He was always dragging her back to his original home in the mountains.  She, on the other hand, hated the Highlands.  Cold, rocky, hard land full of hard close-lipped people.  He came home from time to time with some injury or another, stayed until he was mended and then left again.  It seemed to matter little to him that he even had a wife and properties.

“May I ask where your good husband might be?”

“What?” she jumped and blinked at him.

“Your husband.  I would like to thank him for his hospitality and commend him on the charity of his good wife.”

“Oh, well, ye’ll be waitin’ a loooong toime t’ do thot,” she laughed nervously. “He’s with King William.”

“Ahhh, a
King’s man, then.  A good man, for sure.”

“Ye’re a strange fish fur a Londoner,” she said and watched him eat with growing curiosity.  “If ye be a true mon o’ God… a Catholic, mind ye.  Then I moight need yur sarvices in retarn fur me ’ospitality.”

Ambrosius stopped eating, smiled and bowed his head to her.

“I am at your service, my Lady, for as long as you might need me.”

Morna smiled at him and then remembered the old cook.  She resumed her somber mode and ordered more bread, butter and wine for him.  The cook mumbled under her breath about Englishmen, immorality, devils and treachery as she set out a bottle of mead and another wooden cup.

“A glass, if you please, Myrna,” Lady Ramsay told her.  “And one for me.”

Ambrosius bent his head over his bowl, but she could see he was still smiling.

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.