The Dove (25 page)

“Ohhhh!  Ahhhhh!”  Lemarik was up and out the door before the rest of them.  He turned about in the ruins and his dark eyes were wide with wonder.  “This will make a great tale around the camp fire!”

Lucio collapsed onto the stone floor.  His eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out in Vanni’s arms.

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Nicholas and Gregory lifted the Ark into the rear of the troop carrier while Simon stood by, dressed in the regalia of the Temple Priest.  The twelve precious stones on his breastplate glittered in the sun and he squinted against the bright light.  His lips moved in a silent prayer as he watched every move his two extremely disgruntled helpers made.

“Careful.”  He warned them for the hundredth time as Nicholas wobbled under the weight of the unwieldy load.  “Don’t touch it.”

Nicholas drew a deep breath, grimaced and then stepped into the crate.  He walked through the open-ended box until the Ark was in the center of the wooden shell.

“Set it down now, easy!”  Simon called to them and they lowered it very carefully onto the bottom of the box.  Each of the brothers took one of the golden plated rods and then backed away from the thing quickly.  Simon climbed into the truck and they began to wrap the end panels in place with new hemp rope, securing it tightly.

When the task was complete, they climbed out of the truck and stood leaning against the tail gate.

“Are you all right, my son?”  Simon looked into Nicholas’ face.  The elder of the two brothers had taken the Brit Milah much harder than the younger.  He glared at the Healer as if he were crazy.  “Here!  Drink this.”  Simon handed him a canteen.

Nicholas turned it up and then made a terrible face.

“What is that?!”  He asked in disgust.

“Something for the weakness.  It will give you strength and help with the pain a little.”  Simon told him and then took the canteen, offering it to Gregory.

“My grandfather will not be happy about this.”  Nicholas grumbled as he walked away from the truck, pulling the linen robe from his shoulders and throwing it on the ground.

“Are you sure this was necessary?”  Gregory made a face at the bitter taste of the herbal mixture in the canteen.  The younger brother bent carefully to retrieve Nicholas’ robe from the dust and shook the dust off of it.

“Yes, of course.  We cannot leave the Ark here for the Ancient Evil to take.”  Simon took the medicine from him.

“No, I mean the other.  The ritual.  I hardly see how such a thing would be necessary.  What possible difference could it make?  We did not actually use our… I mean, it didn’t have to do anything with our… It just doesn’t make sense!”  Gregory stood up straighter.

“It is the Ancient Law concerning the Ark and the rituals that must be observed in order to be pure enough to handle it.  The old god who had this thing built had a twisted sense of humor.  Apparently, it is what set his people apart from the unclean ones.  A very distinctive honor in its day.”

“I and my brother are very clean, Father. It is something that our mother insisted on… always. They should have simply gotten a tattoo on their noses or something.”  Nicholas told him indignantly.  “I fail to see how any might be impressed by something not apparent at first sight.  I would ask how they displayed their membership in your elite order.  Pardon the pun, Sir.”

“Someday I will explain it better, my son.”  Simon suppressed a smile.  “But now we had best get everyone together.  We need to get out of here before darkness falls.  We have no idea what might lurk in the city and I need to get the rest of the instruments from the Temple.”

Gregory shuddered in spite of the heat and followed after his unhappy brother.

As Simon turned away from the truck he glanced up at the walls of the Temple enclosure where two of Galipoli’s men were manning one of the machine guns mounted on the wall.  They were watching the proceedings in the courtyard in front of the Temple.  Simon waved to them and then froze in mid-wave.  The full moon was rising in the sky behind them in the deepening twilight.  A brilliant flash of light erupted on the face of the yellow orb and then quickly turned dark even as he watched, spreading in a circular pattern across its face, obscuring a goodly portion of the reflected light.  Simon watched in fascination several long seconds before he realized what he had just unwittingly witnessed.  Something very large had impacted the moon’s surface, sending up a great plume of dust and rock.

“Father in Heaven!”  Simon muttered softly.  The two men, noticing his shocked expression turned and looked up at the moon as well.  Within moments, the entire courtyard was full of running, shouting, panicked men.

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“What do you see in there?”  Benjamin d’Ornan leaned over the Frankish King’s shoulder.

Louis was gazing into the depths of a green crystal ball.  His blue eyes were wide and his face was pale.  He had been extremely affected by the sight of the darkened moon.  The Frankish King was quite convinced that they were all going to die.  That God had finally had enough of them and he was so far from his wife that he would never reach her in time to say goodbye or to die with her.  He had tried to reach her first and had been fairly successful, finding her at the dinner table in France, but the vision had not lasted long and had did very little to comfort him.  He regretted that he could not be with her when this latest disaster became visible in her part of the world.  She would be terrified and there would be no one to comfort her as she tried to figure out what had happened to the moon.

“I’m not sure.”  He whispered.  “It looks like an explosion in the ocean.  I saw the Pacific Ocean as from space and I was falling and falling and I struck the water.  There was a great explosion.”

“Is this thing real?”  Benjamin looked at the glass ball. He could see nothing but tiny air bubbles trapped in the crystal.

“It must be.”  Champlain drew his head back and shook it slightly as if to clear his vision.  The motion of the ship on the water rocked them to and fro slowly.  Benji and his apprentice, Judas Dan, were sharing the cramped compartment with the King.  “I was trying to see Simon.  I’m not very good at it, I’m afraid.  De Goth said it would take practice.  I haven’t had much time to practice.”

“Can I look?”  The Knight of the Golden Key asked him.

“Do you know any magick?”  Louis looked up at him.

“Nothing except what I have seen.”  Benji frowned and looked very much like his father.  “What were you trying to see?”

“I wanted to know where he is, what he is doing, if he is all right.”  Louis got up carefully to avoid cracking his head against the low overhead in the cabin.  It had been built for two officers, but Judas Dan had made a bed in a sleeping bag on the floor.  The Benji’s younger brother was sound asleep on the floor.  Louis stepped over him and sat on the bottom bunk while Benji took a seat in front of the crystal ball.

“I’m his son.  Perhaps there might be a better connection.”  Benji shrugged.  “What do I do?”

“Just look in there and try to relax your mind.  Let your thoughts drift and your eyes blur and then think only of your objective.”  Louis repeated what Eduord de Goth had told him. 

The self-appointed Baron of Wewelsburg had presented the glass ball to Louis as a gift after the coronation, telling him that it had once belonged to the Merovingian kings of the Franks.  The old kings had owned and used many such devices.  Eduord had tried in vain to show the new King how to use the gazing ball, but Louis had no heart for magick.  He had seen too many things go awry in connection with the use and misuse of it.  But what Louis had not told Eduord was that he needed no training to gaze into the ball and see visions.  The first time he had looked into it, the pictures had come as clear as a high-definition, color-enhanced, three dimensional television complete with realistic surround sound and smell.  Whenever Louis looked into the crystal depths, he actually felt as if he was part of whatever was going on there.  It was disconcerting and terrifying.

Benji drew a deep breath and then relaxed.  He gazed into the ball and tried to do what Louis told him to do.  He could hear the bell on the deck of the ship gonging out two bells.  He had tried to sleep, but he was not used to sleeping in a bed that moved.  They were sailing south and east across the sea on their way to one of the ports on the coast of what had been Israel. 

Below them in the bowels of the ship, the horses could be heard from time to time and there were many other noises with which he was unfamiliar.  Creaks and squeaks and running footsteps on the deck overhead as the sailors went about their business.  Louis had never liked sailing, but at least modern ships were a bit more reliable than the old, wooden sailing vessels.  So far, the weather had been good and the winds had held in their favor; they were making good time.
Nicely making way
, the captain had told him at dinner.

The Knights of the Temple had split up among the six ships headed for the Holy Lands.  He and a few others had come on the ship with the King and there were many soldiers camped out on the deck above.  His grandfather, Edgard d’Brouchart, had decided to go directly to Jerusalem for the Ark.  Levi, Philip and Izzy were in the next cabin.  Benji wished that Andy was there with them.  Andy could have made a connection with his father, Simon.  They were not so connected in the involuntary sense as they had been in the earlier days, but Andrew had stayed on the islands to minister to the ‘flock’.  If they were all destroyed in this little venture, it would be up to Simeon, Reuben and Andrew to take care of what was left of the Templar families.

“I see something!”  Benji said excitedly and the vision that had started to form in the crystal disappeared.  “Damn!”

“You have to relax.”  Louis told him as he stretched out on the bunk that was much too small for his sizable bulk.  “Just let your mind drift a bit and then refocus.  If you talk, it will fade.”

Benji nodded and tried again.  The vision returned more quickly.  He saw his father dressed in a long brown robe with three others, similarly attired.  They were riding small ponies… no, donkeys, across a deserted landscape.  Then he saw the skyline of Jerusalem with smoke rising from it in places.  Then they were together in a small room with bars on the windows.  A jail?  He saw many more people dressed in black uniforms.  Fox soldiers.  Benji became agitated again at the thought of his father being captured by the Fox and, again, the image was lost.  He calmed himself and waited. 

Now he saw Nicholas and Gregory and Selwig, the Tuathan.  They were eating.  He could see the food clearly.  Bread and wine.  Meals in metal trays.  He could almost smell it.  At least they were being treated well.  Then he saw the destroyed figure of the golden image of Omar in the courtyard in front of the Temple at Jerusalem.  The sun glinted off the golden fragments.  They were at the Temple! 

He saw a long corridor and then Sophia and Mark Andrew Ramsay.  The Knight of Death was down.  He was ill.  Wounded on his hand.  A terrible sore.  Fever and Sophia’s worried frown.  More Fox soldiers and urgent conversations.  He could not hear the words.  And then a disturbing sight.  His father performing rituals.  The Brit!  He jerked away.  Why?  He shook his head and looked again.  He saw the purple and red curtains and the Holy of Holies, instinctively closing his eyes at the sight of the golden Ark sitting between the two cherubim!  Benji crossed himself before looking again.  A truck and Nicholas and Gregory struggling with something.  And then his father with them, securing the box.  They were moving the box and the Fox soldiers were helping them.  He leaped to his feet and cratered his head against the low ceiling beam.

Louis sat up at the commotion and bonked his own head on the bunk overhead.

“Ohhhh!”  Benji rubbed the back of his head and sat down again. Black ghosts drifted in front of his eyes.  “Damn!  I saw him.  I saw him.”  He got up more slowly this time and kicked at Dan.  His apprentice sat up, rubbing his eyes.  “We have to tell grandfather!”

“Tell me first.”  Louis told him.

“My father has moved the Ark.  They are taking it out of Jerusalem.  And the Fox soldiers with him are helping him.  Sophia!  I saw her and Sir Ramsay!  They are with them.”  Benji told him excitedly.

Louis found his boots while Dan scurried about looking for his own boots and cloak.

“Sir Ramsay is ill.”  Benji continued as he headed for the door.  “We have to find the captain and signal King Corrigan’s ship.  The Ark is not in Jerusalem.”

“Where did they take it?”  Louis followed after him.

“I don’t know!  They put it in a truck.”  Benji was already climbing the ladder to the upper deck.

“Wait!  You have to come back and look again.”  Louis caught his leg and pulled him back down the ladder easily.  “We have to know if they were being forced to take it.  We have to know where they are going.  Back to New Babylon?  Somewhere else?”

Benji looked up at the Frankish King from the deck where he had tumbled.

“You’re right!”  He was up again, bowling over his brother as he emerged from the cabin.

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