The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (55 page)

If they ran into Maxie, he would just have to
kill him.

It seemed the house was deserted, but she
knew that should not be the case. The cook was in the kitchen
busily dictating a grocery list to one of the maids as if all was
well. She was almost as exhausted as Mark and she desperately
needed a bath. She had blood all over her from his clothes and the
bareback ride had left her feeling numb. They made their way slowly
up the stairs and then across the balcony to her bedroom. She
locked the door securely after depositing him on her bed and then
went to draw a bath. She wanted to check his wounds to see if they
were as bad as she expected. He made no protest when she took off
his shirt. Partially dried blood, sticky and dark covered his
stomach and his back from just below his ribs downwards to where it
disappeared into the horribly stained slacks. She found a ghastly
wound, still very red and about three inches long on his stomach
just below his ribcage and a matching laceration, somewhat smaller
was on his back. Clean through! But the cuts were no longer open.
They were already healing without the benefit of stitches or
bandages. Flakes of blood, sand and debris showered the carpet as
she helped him undress.

“I’m sorry, Merry,” he told her as she pulled
off his socks. Even his feet were covered with blood. “I needed
some time. Three days. Just three days.”

Merry didn’t answer him. They didn’t have
three days. She helped him into the tub, brought the sword as he
requested and then left him to take care of his own business. She
had nothing to give him that he could wear. Glancing back once to
see that he was sitting up and able to continue the bath on his
own, she left him to check on the rest of the household.

They needed food, water and clothes and she
was lost. She felt like a stranger in her own house. Secondarily,
they needed to know the whereabouts of their enemies. Maxie,
Valentino, the other Knights of the Order. If the blond Knight
showed up again and found Ramsay in such a sorry state, he would
not stand a chance. Clothes first and then she would go down to the
kitchen for food and water. She would simply inquire of the cook
and the maid as to Valentino’s location. She needed to warn her
before it was too late… if it wasn’t already too late… of the other
Knight. The one she had not captured.

When she stepped out into the hallway,
dressed in a fluffy bathrobe, the house was eerily quiet.

From the top of the stairs, she could hear
faint voices from somewhere downstairs. A man and a woman. Most
likely Valentino and Maxie in the library. Good. It wouldn’t do to
leave Mark for long. He would need help putting on clean clothes.
When she reached his room on the third floor, she found the door
locked. She tapped hesitantly on the door and waited several
seconds before knocking again. When she heard nothing from inside,
she went to the table at the end of the hall and fished the key out
of a vase. Inside the room, she locked the door again, just in
case, and got down on her knees looking for his bags under the bed.
She grabbed hold of the nearest one and pulled the heavy case from
under the bed. When she hefted the bag onto the bed and looked up,
she almost screamed at the sight of the quizzical face of the curly
haired Schroeder impersonator smiling at her from the other side of
the bed. His chin was propped on his hands and he looked as if they
played peek-a-boo every day.

She caught her breath and fell sitting on the
floor. The key slipped from her hand and bounced across the carpet
under the bed as the blood drained from her face. Ironically, she
had locked herself in the room with this unknown threat.

When she clawed her way back up on her knees,
he held a hammer in one hand. It was the same hammer the maid had
brought them when they had come to install the Oriental rug. He’d
found it lying on the floor under the bed where he had left it,
thinking that Mark might need it. Little did he know then that he
would be trapped here himself. He slapped the head of the hammer
against the palm of his hand and looked at her in amusement. She
made a mad dash for the key, but he was faster and they met, face
to face under the bed. His hand closed over hers and the key cut
into her flesh. He turned her hand over forcefully and she tried to
scream, but he stopped her scream with a kiss. This unexpected
action completely shut her down for several seconds. Long enough
for him to replace his lips with his hand and to pull her kicking
and thrashing from under the bed.

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

Mark washed the blood from him as best he
could and wrinkled his nose at the rose colored water in the big
tub. The hot water felt like a dream, but the red tinged swirls
feet reminded him of the recurring nightmare about the dead Knight
and the Saracen woman. He closed his eyes and forced the vision
from his mind. He looked down at the new red wound on his stomach
that was very near the older scar he had worn since the crusades.
It would be gone in a day or so, but it was still very tender. He
had a few visible bruises here and there and his head hurt where he
had struck the boulder when Beaujold knocked from the stallion,
probably a fracture there. When he was satisfied that he was fairly
clean, he pulled the plug and got out of the tub, wondering where
the Pixie had gone and why she had not come back. It seemed she had
been gone overly long already.

He checked the door and then combed back his
hair with his fingers.

"Dammit!" he cursed when his fingers got
stuck in his hair.

Something hard was tangled in his hair and
would not come out. He was too tired and his fingers too clumsy to
get it out. He wrapped one of her fluffy towels around his waist
and sat in the chair in front of her dressing table, staring at his
own reflection while he waited for her, drumming his fingers on the
smooth glass. He would not move again. It was too painful.

After a few moments, he got up and checked
the door again. Still unlocked; no one in the hall. He sat on the
bed and pulled the comforter around his shoulders. He would wait
for her here. The minutes ticked by and he began to shiver and
shake again; his eyelids drooped. The soft down comforter was too
tempting to resist. He dropped the towel on the floor and stretched
out between the silken sheets, pulling the comforter over him. He
would wait for her here. He hoped she would find something clean
for him to wear and that she would not be gone much longer.

His body was once more trying to shut down
for healing purposes. It was becoming an annoying habit, finding
himself without his clothes in the wrong place at the wrong time.
His sword lay on top of the comforter, winking at him in the
reflected light from the slowly turning ceiling fan above the bed.
He drew it under the cover, laying it by his side, parallel to his
body. It was not the first time he had slept with his sword. The
feel of its cold presence was comforting and familiar. As he lay on
his back staring up at the canopy, he had the strange notion that
he should be holding the sword more closely. He turned on his side
and pulled the hilt close to his chest, bringing one leg up
slightly and hooking his left foot behind his right knee. That was
better. He could watch the door from this position. The blade was
razor sharp, but was just as comforting as the Pixie might have
been. Perhaps more so. It did not take long for sleep to overcome
him and he drifted away into peaceful, dreamless oblivion. He would
wait for her… here.

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

When Thomas Beaujold burst into the room at
Miss Penelope Martin’s Bed and Breakfast, he was astounded to see
Sir William Montague lying on one of the beds, staring up at the
ceiling. The Englishman turned over slowly and propped his head in
his hand.

“Brother Thomas,” he said in a pleasantly
sarcastic voice. “My Brother, it is such a nice surprise to see you
again. We thought perhaps you were one of the prisoners.”

Beaujold’s mind recovered slightly from the
shock of seeing the Knight of the Holy City, only to be swept away
in terror at the sound of the Grand Master’s voice to his left.

“Where are your Brothers?” d’Brouchart asked
him bluntly.

The accusatory tone in the man’s voice was
unmistakable. The Grand Master’s presence spoke for itself, telling
him that he was in serious trouble and that the Master already knew
of his blunders. The Knight of the Sword turned slowly and then
went to kneel before the Grand Master. He lifted d’Brouchart’s hand
from the arm of the rocker, and kissed the ring on the man’s left
hand before looking up. The rage he felt and his need for haste
ebbed away, like the tidal surge after a storm. He lowered his head
and began to cry uncontrollably. Something he had not done in
almost sixty years.

D’Brouchart stood up slowly and then caught
the smaller man by both arms. He pulled him to his feet and kissed
him lightly on the lips in the Templar fashion then released
him.

“Now tell me what has happened, Sir.” The
Grand Master looked into his tear-filled eyes. To see this one cry
was almost beyond endurance. His news must be grave indeed. "And I
shall see no more tears!"

Two hours later found the three men speeding
down the highway toward Cecile Valentino’s mansion in the shallow
valley west of town. They passed the drive to her house and
proceeded down the blacktop for several kilometers before turning
the Range Rover across the open terrain between the highway and the
dry wash running west from Valentino’s property. Beaujold was
behind the steering wheel and d’Brouchart sat stone-faced in the
passenger seat.

Montague sat in the back seat with one arm
propped on the wooden chest in the seat next to him, wondering what
they would find when they arrived at their destination in this
Godforsaken wasteland. His anger at what Beaujold had told them was
fading, but it left his face burning like the aftermath of severe
sunburn. The red-orange sun was sinking rapidly over the horizon,
and several times they were forced to brake for the coyotes and
jackrabbits that darted across in front of the vehicle. Large gray
deer simply stood in their path, mesmerized by the lights of the
Rover as it bounced over the rocky terrain. Montague shuddered,
thinking about his Brother lying in the desert all day under the
heat of the sun and now the damned coyotes added to his terrible
visions. The sheer number of creatures they flushed from the
underbrush was staggering. God knew what else might be out there
looking for a meal. How could Beaujold have left Ramsay in such a
terrible position? And how could the Grand Master have made them
wait so long before going out to look for him?

Beaujold had paced the room, wearing out the
carpet in his anxiety, alternating between bouts of mumbling to
himself and fitful prayers. Perhaps d’Brouchart was trying to teach
the man a lesson, but at Ramsay’s expense? It was heartless and
cruel. The Grand Master must have been angrier with the Knight of
Death than his unreadable countenance betrayed. To Montague's eyes,
Edgard did not give a whit about Ramsay’s plight, but Montague held
his tongue, unable to think of anything to say that would describe
the way he felt at that moment. And nothing he could say would have
helped. He wished desperately that he was back home in his London
cottage, having a sherry before bed.

The Grand Master’s face had remained
unchanged as Beaujold had unfolded the tale of the mission’s
misfortunes and misadventures. It was inconceivable that one woman
had been able to capture four of five Templars sent against her.
And a fairly well-trained apprentice in the mix. Inconceivable!

William glanced at the wooden chest on the
seat next to him and shuddered again, dreading what he would be
expected to do, if they found what they were looking for. This sort
of thing was not in his job description. That the Knight of Death
should be in need of his own services was something Sir Montague
had never considered. He hoped against hope that the Grand Master
would not expect him to take on the Mysteries of the Final Rites
from the Chevalier du Morte for long. If worse came to worse, he
would ask to transfer the mysteries to someone else after a
reasonable time. He was an accountant, not an assassin, but, by
God, he would do it gladly before allowing Beaujold to take on the
duties of the Chevalier du Morte. He would be damned if he would
stand for it!

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

Mark opened his eyes as someone sat on the
bed next to him. The room was dark, but not totally so. The
indirect lighting from the track lights over the Pixie’s marble tub
spilled across the floor, illuminating the room in soft, lavender
hues. Lavender. Purple. Lavender. There was someone… ‘Did you miss
me?’ a ghostly voice echoed through his mind and was gone. His mind
awoke more slowly than his eyes and he wondered where he was. His
grip on the sword tightened automatically as he looked up into the
dark eyes of Cecile Valentino.

“Imagine this!” she said in mock surprise
when he looked at her. “Where’s Merry?”

“I would ask you the same thing,” he said and
pushed himself up very slowly before leaning against the headboard.
He moved the sword closer to him under the cover with his left
hand.

“I haven’t seen her since last night after
you stole my horse,” she told him coldly. “I thought she was here
asleep, but I see she has been busy again. I cannot believe that
you would escape, steal my horse, circle back and go to bed with
Merry. How clever. No one would look for you here, would they?”

“That is not true.” He closed his eyes
briefly. He wondered what the time was? How long had Merry been
gone? And what, if anything, should he say to this woman?

“I don’t know where she is,” he said
simply.