The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (22 page)

Cecile took him to a quaint little Victorian
gazebo set amidst a profusion of climbing pink and white roses.
There were more silk banners bearing strange symbols hung from the
rafters of the little building. In the center of the open-air
structure was a low rectangle made of white marble. She went inside
and he followed her reluctantly up the steps and stood looking
around the interior. The vague sense of dread he had been suffering
spiked, and he felt sure that it was somehow unholy and profane.
Repressing the urge to turn and flee back down the path, he walked
deliberately to the stone and sat down on the marble slab between
two silver candlesticks. The heavy antiques would have made good
weapons. The stone was cold and seemed to penetrate his clothes and
into his flesh with an unnatural chill. Valentino was not happy
with his disregard for the thing that he knew quite well was
probably an altar.

“Well? What do you think?” she asked after a
few moments of silence.

“It’s… very nice,” he lied.

Glass, copper and pewter wind chimes clinked
in the breeze. It occurred to him that he had been to a place like
this before and had destroyed it. Pulled it down with his horse and
razed it to its foundations before setting fire to the resultant
rubble pile. Why would he destroy such a pretty place? Mark Andrew
was having serious doubts about himself. Maybe he really was an
escapee from an insane asylum.

“We only come here on special occasions,” she
emphasized the word special and raised both eyebrows as if he
should recognize some hidden meaning in her words.

He studied the banners on the upper walls
instead, wondering what she wanted him to say. The flags were very
similar to the flags in the dining room.

“You would enjoy one of our ceremonies, I
think,” she told him knowingly and he shrugged. “We like to enjoy
ourselves when we have the chance. Our members are a very jovial
bunch. They are quite… free and easy.”

“Free? It reminds me of a place of ceremony,”
he raised his own eyebrows, matching her expression. “This looks
like a good setting for a chemical wedding.” He laughed without
knowing why and then added “I mean a wedding… a wedding.” He
stammered to a halt and frowned.

“A chemical wedding?” She looked around the
small enclosure. “I suppose it would be, symbolically speaking
perhaps. A play or something for the Spring Equinox. I never
thought about it. I’ll suggest it at our next meeting.” She held
the cup under her nose and took a deep breath.

Finally unnerved by her obsession with the
cup, he got up and took it from her. He drank the last of the cold
chocolate and set it on the marble rectangle, then stood looking
down at her. She waited as if she expected him to do something
more. She almost seemed ready to kiss him. Inconceivable! Even
though a few good kisses might be good for her, he would not be the
one to deliver them. He shook his head slightly as if telling her
no subconsciously. That was not going to happen. Not ever. No. He
detested everything about her and he would not be a whore for these
perverted people. Whatever they wanted of him, he would not give it
and he would not sell it, nor would he bargain with them. They were
an abomination in the sight of the Lord. He shook his head more
vigorously to dislodge these disturbingly religious thoughts and
she frowned at him.

Contempt and hatred filled her expression
with surprising ease.

“I really need to be going,” he said simply
and cupped her chin in his hand. He looked into her dark eyes. “You
need to let me go… peacefully. You can go on with whatever it is
that you people do and I will get on with my life. I think you have
the wrong idea about me altogether and I don’t want to get to know
your people. I am not free and easy, no matter what you might think
to the contrary.”

“Releasing you poses a problem,” she turned
away from him and leaned both hands on the railing. The gazebo
overlooked a crystal clear pool where huge goldfish could be seen
swimming among the lilies. A misting fountain added an ephemeral
touch and he expected to see shimmering wings in the lilies. “We
have committed a terrible crime keeping you here against your will.
We could be arrested and sent to prison if you reported us.”

“I know,” he told her. “I told you that to
start with. But things happen. The world is a very strange place. I
will not report you… for Merry’s sake.”

“I’m not sure I can trust you even on her
account,” she continued, but did not look at him.

He could have killed her so easily at that
moment. One well placed blow from the candlestick would have been
enough, but it would also be murder and he knew she was not his
objective. It was Anthony he had come for and until he found him,
dead or alive; he would need to stay in one piece. The two memories
came to his mind suddenly, with great clarity as if it had been
there all along. Anthony Scalia was his objective. Stay in one
piece. “I believe that if you would agree to stay a bit longer with
us, you might be able to convince me of your sincerity. I mean, the
crime has already been committed. It would make no difference if I
kept you one hour or one year longer. The results would be the
same. I am guilty of kidnapping.”

“And how long would I need to stay to do
that? To convince you?” he asked.

“Long enough for you to get to know us.
Understand what we are about.” She turned to lean on the railing.
“We are not bad people. Just ambitious, perhaps.”

Her tone was conciliatory, but the contempt
was still visible in her eyes though she refused to meet his
gaze.

“Not a bad lot of kidnappers. I see.” He
smiled ironically. Had they also kidnapped Anthony Scalia? And, if
so, why? To find d’Brouchart. The same man they kept asking him
about. Scalia sounded like a mafioso name. Did this have anything
to do with the mafioso? Was he a mafia hit man or a member of one
of the families? What did he know about such things? Memories of
Italy and especially Rome filled his head. He had been in Rome, not
Sicily. The Italian mafia came from Sicily, didn’t they? But they
were just sophisticated criminals. Not like… not like… what? Not
like what? He would have to ask Dambretti… his thoughts trailed and
then he slapped his forehead. Dambretti. Dambretti. Right. His
Italian brother.

“I should think that this morning proved my
desire to make you happy.” She tilted her head to one side and
studied his face. “It was a sort of apology, if you know what I
mean.”

“Of course,” he nodded and pulled his
attention back to the immediate situation; he hadn’t heard a word
of the last three or four moments of her commentary. Only the last
few words had caught his attention and he didn’t know what she was
talking about. At first, he thought she meant breakfast, but then
his thoughts took a darker turn. Had she actually sent Merry to him
in the night? Did she think he could be paid off with sex? How dare
she use Merry in such a manner as befitting a prostitute? His anger
began to make itself known as his face flushed deep red.

“That is all well and good, but I am not that
easily bought off. I need to be going. You can show your gratitude
by allowing me to leave… with all my possessions, of course… and I
will forget about this place. I am not given to frequenting
bordellos, and I resent your attempt to use Merry as a bargaining
tool. It is nothing more than prostitution.”

“You really should watch your mouth, Mr.
Ramsay,” her own temper flared and her eyes snapped with anger.

“I do not barter in flesh,” he told her.
“What was given to me was given. It is not negotiable.”

“Those are high-sounding words from a natural
born rapist. Do not lecture me about giving, sir. You took what was
not given. In this country, in this day and age, when a woman is
unwilling, it doesn’t matter what stage has been attained. If she
withholds at the very last moment before consummation and her
partner continues until the act is consummated, it is rape. Cut and
dried,” she said in a low voice full of venom. “Of course, it is
very hard to prove, but the woman knows and so does the man. If you
thought you could get away with it, you would do it again right
here and now. You would have done it yesterday when I came to your
room, if I had not stopped you. And this morning only proves that I
am right about you. Whatever you may think you are, whatever you
truly are, you may want to add sexual assault to your list of
accomplishments. I really don’t see what Merry sees in you.”

Her words made him shrink back from her. It
should not have surprised him to hear it. But more than that, he
knew that her words were true. He already knew what he felt and he
remembered the dreams very clearly. But how did she know about this
morning? Maxie must have cameras in his room. Of course, Maxie had
cameras in his room! The man was probably watching them right now.
But the storm….there was no light, no electricity... generators?
Batteries

“If you think you can stand here in the
bright morning sun and accuse me of such crimes to excuse your own
behavior, so be it."

“I didn’t bring you here to fuck you to
death, Mr. Ramsay,” she said almost casually.

Her crude language still shocked him. He
thought perhaps that he was not used to having people speak to him
in such a manner. Perhaps he was not just a man of some means, but
possibly a man of some importance, political or clerical, he had no
idea.

The disembodied voice that seemed
ever-present in the back of his mind pronounced more strange words
to him ‘Above all whoever is a Knight of Christ choosing only holy
conversation…’ Whatever he was, it was certainly a strange mixture
of holiness and wickedness. He didn’t talk when he ate and he
didn’t drink during meals and he didn’t participate in profane
conversation, but it was all right to kill and to rape? His mind
could not encompass the contradictions. Surely somewhere, someone
was looking for him. His friends? His family? His… brothers? Were
they also murderers? If he were a Templar Knight, were they so
vicious and brutal? How could the Knights of Christ be so unholy?
The Soldier of Christ kills safely, and dies more safely. He is the
instrument of God for the punishment of evil doers and for defense
of the just… and he is considered Christ’s legal executioner. How
does one die more safely? And did the Christ really have legal
executioners? If he was an executioner, who had appointed him?

And, further, who were his victims? Who
decided whom he would execute and when? Somehow the idea that
Christ had legal executioners did not ring true. The Holy Wars. War
was never Holy. The Creator was love, not hate. The Creator would
never condone war and killing. These things were not true. They
were shams, farcical facades invented by the enemies of the Order.
Enemies of the Order. Valentino was an enemy of the Order. Yet, so
many of them had died. The Order had a great number of enemies.
Again, his mind filled with thousands of disconnected images filled
with blood and gore and dust and heat. The fire scorched the barren
earth and the smell of burning flesh was not one soon forgotten. He
would never forget, but he had forgotten. He squeezed his eyes
tight and then they were gone.

Mark Andrew crossed himself before saying
anything further. His hands were shaking and his vision was unclear
when he opened his eyes again. She was still talking beside him,
oblivious to the turmoil in his mind. Yet another of the scriptures
sounded in his head: Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not
sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the
deep waters.

“You can’t mean to compare lust and unbridled
passion to love,” she was saying though he didn’t remember making
any sort of comparisons at all. “Our order is based on love. We use
what God gave us to please ourselves and each other, not as
bargaining tools, but as a means of expressing ourselves as loving
individuals. If it pleases us and it is a mutual exchange of
pleasure, then what could be more natural as long as it is not an
act of violence? And we have found that in the Orders of old there
were many such instances of sacred love and sacred sex. What you
did last night was not love. It was a violation of another human
being in the most degrading manner possible. Is that how you
Templars consummated your so-called sacred sex rituals?”

Sacred sex? All acts of sex were sacred,
guided by the very Hand of God! Even rape had been used by the gods
to achieve destiny. But he was not a god. He could not excuse his
actions, but neither did she have the right to spout moralistic
rhetoric at him. Her order was Heretical. Her accusations stung him
with a physical force he’d not thought possible. She was the
criminal here. Merry had come to him of her own free will. Merry
had initiated every one of their liaisons.

Merry was his first thought and his last
since he had come to this place, but she spoke heresy. What she
described was free love, not Sacred Love. Not even Sacred Sex. That
was the Celtic way. Pagan. No, not Pagan. Sacred. Holy and not
rape. Not criminal. Not Heresy. He saw many more images of times
long past and then his mind jumped forward. Not Celtic. Roman. That
was the Pagan Way. The path to Gehenna was through Rome. The Roman
Church was the Great Babylon. The Cathars were Heretics. No. Not
the Cathars, the Catholics. Perhaps his victims were Heretics with
a capitol H. Heretics? Was he a damned Inquisitor? No, the
Inquisition was over and he had been on the wrong side of the rack,
but he was Catholic, wasn’t he? Did he not cross himself? Did he
not pray the Rosary? His slapped his forehead in frustration.

“Sweet Mother! You don’t know what violence
is, madam,” he said her in a very low, barely controlled voice that
sounded strange even to his own ears. “You have never seen
violence. You have never seen your companions hacked to pieces,
stretched on the rack or disemboweled in front of a howling mob.
You have never seen your precious Brothers roasted over a slow fire
while the mob laughs and shouts insults at their anguish. You’ve
never seen innocent women and children hacked to pieces until the
streets filled with blood. So much blood that your horse’s hooves
slipped on the stones and could go no further. You’ve never smelled
it. Never heard it. You have never felt violence.” His vehement
tone caused her mouth to fall open in shock. He grabbed her by the
arms and picked her up slightly, speaking directly into her face.
“You are profane and obscene. You would do well to watch your
tongue, lady. I have killed men for much less than what you have
done.” He released her and turned away from her, looking out at the
garden, shaking with rage and trying desperately to keep from
breaking her neck.