The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (54 page)

“What does she intend to do? Does she expect
you to give yourself over in return for their release?” Montague
asked him.

“She does not want me, Brother,” d’Brouchart
eyed him coldly. “She wants the Tree of Life.”

Montague sighed. After all this time, to be
held hostage by a group of idiots was more than he could
comprehend. He followed his Master out of the pleasant little room
and down the hall. It would be a very long night.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Lucio Dambretti sat on the carpet in the room
where she had held Mark Ramsay prisoner for almost four days. His
hands rested on his knees as he sat straight up, cross-legged,
staring blankly at the wall in front of him. Valentino leaned
against the dresser while Maxie stood nervously near the door with
his shotgun. The Knight had fallen easily under her hypnotic,
lucid-dream technique. Much easier than Mark Andrew.

“Who are you?” she asked the first
question.

“Some would call me Lucius di Napoli. Others
know me as Lucio Apolonio Dambretti,” he answered.

“Where did you get that scar on your face?”
she asked, smiling down at him in satisfaction. First things
first.

“In Jerusalem,” he did not blink at the
absurdity of the question.

“How did you come by it?”

“In the Service of God.”

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“I pulled a dagger from the Knight,” he said
simply.

“What Knight?” She smiled and looked at
Maxie.

The big, ugly man looked bored. What
difference did it make? She’d never asked him about his scar! She
was insane. Next thing she’d be doing was asking the dipshit about
the strange tattoos on his chest. They looked like some kind of
Egyptian stuff with birds and eyes without faces and dogs and cats
and monkeys and stars and moons. All kinds of junk.

“Eques de Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi
Hierosolymilitani, Eques de Mortu, Eques Marcus Andreas Ramsay,” he
told her. “We fell. It was an accident.”

“What was an accident?” she asked. This was
even more interesting than she had expected.

“This,” he raised one hand slowly and pointed
to the scar. “This was an accident. We fell in the water. It was my
fault.”

“The water? What water?” she asked.

“The water in the well. In the catacomb.
Before the death of his brother.”

Maxie cleared his throat. Time was short. She
needed to ask more important questions.

“His brother? Which brother?”

“His brother. Eques Lucas Mattias Ramsay.
They killed him. And the woman was killed.”

“What woman?” Valentino was fascinated by
this revelation. There had been two Ramsays?! One was quite
enough.

“The woman in the palace courtyard. The
Sultan’s daughter. He slit her throat. The company of women is a
dangerous thing!”

“And what did Sir Ramsay do when that
happened?”

“He… killed them... he killed the Infidel
dog. He killed her. All of them. He killed them all. There was
blood. He killed her. Non nobis Domine, non nobis sed Nomini Tuo da
Gloriam.”

“Who?” Valentino glanced at Maxie. The man
shook his head. They were running out of time. “Who killed
her?”

“I will not betray my Brother. One misplaced
word and the world will no longer know me.”

Valentino shivered and then resumed her
former line of questioning.

“Go to Egypt, Lucio. Leave Jerusalem. Where
are you now?” she asked casually.

“In the Temple of the Sun,” he answered in a
matched tone and relaxed visibly.

“What do you see?”

“I see the High Priest and the Light of the
Eastern Heaven.”

“What do you hear?”

“I hear the wind blowing among the
stars.”

“What do you say?”

“I am but a simple priest in the underworld.
I am a prophet in the opening of the Earth. I behold the Mysteries
of the underworld. I direct the ceremonies of Mendes. I am
assistant…” his voice trailed off and then he resumed speaking.
“Good and evil. Light and dark. Life and death. Forgive me, Father,
for I have sinned.”

“And what is the nature of your sin, my son?”
she asked and raised both eyebrows at Maxie.

“Of my crime, sir?” He frowned in confusion.
“I have committed no crime. I am no heretic in the eyes of God. I
worship no idols. I have defended the Holy City against the
Infidels. I serve the Creator. I am but a Poor Knight of the Temple
of Solomon. I proclaim my innocence to the people! I will not deny
my allegiance to God. Rome is the heretic. Rome is the heretic, the
murderer, the whore of Babylon!”

He had moved to another location without
being instructed. He was, it seemed, as unpredictable as Ramsay and
he was not in a pleasant place. His face was covered with sweat and
he had lost much of his healthy color.

“You are guilty of the sin of
fornication.”

Maxie grumped in disgust and shifted on his
feet uneasily. Why was she toying with this dangerous man? Hadn’t
she learned her lesson from the first one? Had she not bemoaned the
loss of her virginity to him, of all people! Why did she think he
would care? All he wanted to do was get the hell out of her life
before he ended up dead, but payday was still three days away.

“I have sinned, it is true. I have committed
adultery, not fornication. I am a married man,” he lowered his head
and then got to his knees, placing his hands behind him. He waited,
perfectly still as if for her to do something physical to him.
Maxie moved apprehensively, expecting something more.

Cecile pushed herself off the desk. “Married?
Who are you married to?”

“I am married to the Order, my lady,” he told
her in a whisper that now sounded desperate. He had moved again. “I
cannot marry you. I cannot help you.”

“You must repent and receive your penance.”
Valentino smiled and shrugged. She had no idea what she was saying.
She was not even Catholic. The Italian seemed to have a number of
skeletons in his closet.

“I beg forgiveness, Father. I accept the
penalty for my transgressions,” he answered.

“What is the nature of your sin?” She
frowned.

“I have lain with a woman,” he confessed and
appeared to be truly upset. “I am ready to receive the punishment,
Master. I accept the penalty for my sin, but do not punish her. She
is ignorant. Her soul should not be on my conscience.”

Valentino’s frown deepened. Was he referring
to her? Was she now just a sin for him to regret? What punishment
was he waiting for? The thought made her angry, but didn’t she now
regret the same ‘transgressions’?

“For penance, you must…” Valentino tapped her
front teeth with one finger. “Say ten Hail Mary’s and twelve Our
Father’s and reveal the secrets of Osiris and Isis to purge your
soul of this terrible sin and the weight of your burden. You cannot
enter the kingdom of Heaven with the burden of these secrets on
your heart.”

The Knight of the Golden Eagle raised his
head very slowly looking directly at her before raising his eyes to
a point on the wall somewhere above her head. This action unnerved
her and she pushed herself off the dresser, ready to run, but he
was still in the trance-like state, half awake, half asleep.

“Oh great Hermes, thou wert right when thou
spake saying unto them ‘O Egypt, Egypt! A time shall come, when, in
lieu of a pure belief, thou wilt possess naught but ridiculous
fables, incredible to posterity; and nothing will remain to thee,
but words engraven on stone, the only monuments that will attest
thy piety.”

“Who is Hermes?” she asked, surprised by this
outburst.

“I cannot say,” he raised his chin
slightly.

“Unburden your soul,” she told him.

“My soul is not burdened, Father.” He smiled
the same smile he had used so well to pique her interest to begin
with. “My spirit is pure, but I see that yours is less than
righteous.”

“You stand accused of idolatry, witchcraft,
heresy, blasphemy and sodomy.” She played the part of the
Inquisitor, naming the horrendous crimes of which the Templars had
been accused during the Dark Ages. Her tone clearly betrayed her
growing aggravation with him. He frowned in confusion as the scene
in his mind apparently shifted again.

“Your Brother Mark Andrew is accused of rape
and murder,” she said. This was more fascinating than useful. Maxie
cleared his throat again loudly.

“He is sick. He is not himself. There was
blood. She had the dagger.” Dambretti lowered his eyes and looked
at the floor frowning. “It is not for me to say. It is the Hand of
God. One misplaced word and the world will no longer no me.”

“And what of you? Will you divulge your
secrets to save your Brother Ramsay? Tell me your secrets, my son.
The confessional is sacred. The priest cannot tell what is said
here.”

He turned his head to the right as if
listening to someone she could not see. “Shrive me, Brother, for I
am innocent and I would go to my death free of sin,” he spoke to
his unseen companion. “I have dedicated my life to the Service of
the Temple and now, if I must, I will sacrifice my life to preserve
the sanctity of the Order. My Brother will kill me, if I betray
him. Give me my sword, Master, and I will cast myself upon it, but
do not ask me to betray my Brothers. That I cannot do.”

Valentino was getting nowhere. Just when she
thought she was making some headway, he would unexpectedly go off
on a tangent as if he, or someone else, were controlling the
session. Now she had brought him to the brink of suicide. It was
obvious that her dream therapy would not work on him any more than
it had worked on Ramsay though this session was much more
interesting. She would have given anything to get into his mind and
see what was there. What was so important that he would give his
life before revealing it to her even under hypnosis? He was willing
to talk, but his thoughts were disjointed, it would have taken
weeks of therapy to sort it all. She didn’t have weeks to spend
with him. The few hours had been enough to tell her that she could
not afford to be around him at all, if she were to retain her
detached objectivity.

“Go in peace, my son,” she said disgustedly
and placed one hand on his dark hair. He crumpled to the floor,
sound asleep. “Damn it all, Maxie. Well, at least d’Brouchart is
here. We will see how much these Knights are worth to him. Leave
him here for a while. Maybe you can do better with him. He really
pisses me off.”

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

How Mark Andrew could manage to hang onto the
prancing stallion for the slow, hard trip back was beyond her
comprehension, but the longer they rode, the better he got. The big
horse refused to behave as she pulled him along by the reins. She
walked the bay as slowly as possible, but the black horse swerved
back and forth behind her in a zigzag pattern, obviously wanting to
take the lead. It seemed the horse was much like its owner, Cecile
Valentino, self-centered and unsympathetic to the troubles of its
rider. It wanted only to get back to the stables for a rub down and
a bag of oats. Halfway back, Mark Andrew took over the reins and
their progress improved. By the time the two riders got back to the
house, the sun was slipping down the western sky.

They rode into the stable where she
dismounted quickly and pushed her bay into her stall. The stallion
pranced about nervously; his rider was unable to dismount without
her help. Merry pulled on Mark and he half fell from the saddle,
but it was not nearly as bad as the first time she had tried to
help him down. He caught himself on her shoulders and then stumbled
away from her. He grabbed one of the support beams and purposefully
stretched himself up. She was amazed when he actually did two chin
ups before dropping to the hay strewn floor in agony. He did not
scream, but his faced belied his condition as he pulled himself up
again and stood leaning on his knees, gasping for breath and
clutching the sword’s hilt in a death grip. His eyes rolled back in
his head and she thought he would faint before she could catch him,
but he held out one hand, stopping her. He focused on her face and
nodded.

“It’ll be all right,” he said.

“You won’t be going anywhere tonight,” she
objected and shook her head.

“Just get my car,” he whispered and managed
to straighten up again. The pain was now a throbbing burn, front
and back. Nothing like it had been before, but he still felt weak
and was afraid to take a deep breath. His breathing was limited to
shallow, open-mouthed gasps. Incredibly enough, he was hungry, but
not terribly so. What he needed was rest and water.

“Let me take you inside first,” she insisted.
“You can rest before we go. I am not going to allow Valentino to go
on with this stupid plan. She’s already caused too much trouble.
I’ll call the police, if need be. I know how to handle her when I
have to. And the first thing I’m going to do is fire Maxie. I pay
his salary, you know. I can fire him. And,” she lowered her voice
to a whisper. “I have a pistol in my room.”

“I thought she was in charge here,” he told
her. He could not trust her words, but he was in no shape to run
around hot wiring cars or fighting off the Knight of the Sword, who
was still lurking around somewhere. “You could drive,” he suggested
hopefully. “I’ll let you drive me. How about that?”

“I could, but I need to change clothes and so
do you. We’re covered with blood. We’d attract too much attention
wherever we went,” Merry said and took his arm. “Come on now. Don’t
worry. I’ll take care of everything. She owes me a few favors.”

Mark shook his head. He had worked so hard to
get away and now he was back where he had started. But he couldn’t
stay in the stable. The horse that Beaujold had been riding was
still missing and that meant that Beaujold might be out there on it
somewhere. Even his fingers betrayed him as the golden sword
slipped from his grasp into the straw on the floor. She picked up
his sword awkwardly and then wrapped her arm around his waist. They
limped slowly across the yard to the side door. No one was in sight
as they entered the back service door.