“We will simply have to teach him. Barry has seen similar cases, I believe. Barry would be the best bet. I'll speak to the Grand Master. It wouldn't be wise to leave him here or send him to St. Patrick’s.” Mark Andrew told the distraught Knight.
“Then you will be able to visit him daily. You could participate more directly in his training, yourself. You could work with Barry on his curriculum. It will just be a bit more in-depth than the other boys. He is like a baby and a grownup combined from what I can see. You might consider keeping him at the Villa for a while. He could live in your quarters with you and you could undertake more rudimentary training. That would shield him from the ridicule and teasing associated with attending school with boys. You know how cruel they can be to each other and if he has your temper, he might hurt someone. When he is sufficiently schooled in normal behavior for human boys, he can move into the barracks and take his place with the rest of the students.”
“That sounds reasonable.” Lucio sighed. He had poured out his fears and desperation to his Brother. He had not mentioned the strange remarks that Vanni had told him that Joel had made about Mark Andrew being an angel and seducing his own mother. It was just too much. He would look into that peculiarity later. “That sounds very reasonable. Do you think d’Brouchart will go for it? He told me not to bring him back to Italy! Why?”
“I don’t know.” Mark Andrew shook his head, puzzled by this bit of information. “But surely he meant Naples. You would not be able to keep him there. You could not put him in school and he needs school. If he is at the Villa, he will have de Bleu and Barry and the others to help look after him. Nicholas and Gregory are there and they share a bit of his same problems. I could speak to them about him and tell them to keep an eye on him. I am told that they are adapting quite well, but then they were quite a bit older than Vanni when they came here. And don’t forget Michey.”
“Ahh. Michey! She kicks Apolonio out of their apartment every other night, Brother,” Lucio lamented. “Apolonio is very indulgent of her, but I do not think she is adapting very well.”
“All right then, forget Michey. Apolonio can help you with him and if you like, you can ask Stephano to go down for a while. He is good with the boy or so I’m told.”
“Perhaps.” Lucio slumped onto the sofa. “What about Bari… Joel? Vanni related some very disturbing things about the boy.”
“Omar will have his hands full with that one,” Mark said quietly. “He is very disturbing as you say. I have had several conversations with him. I believe that he is already a master of deceit.”
“Oh?” Lucio’s eyes widened. “Did he say anything about me?”
“Not particularly. Why?” Mark frowned at him and shoved Scooby away from him.
“Just wondering. Vanni told me that he is evil. He apparently knows a great deal about the Order though I have no idea how he learned anything. Reuben is not the type to be telling stories to someone he would consider a complete stranger. You say that Reuben had no idea who he was?”
“That’s what Luke Matthew tells me. Luke Andrew has had some very interesting encounters with him as well. He says that the boy wanders about the estate at night and has scared him witless on more than one occasion and he said some things about Meredith.”
“Merry? Luke’s Merry?” Lucio swallowed hard.
“Nay. Meredith.” Mark Andrew met his gaze. “Sister Meredith. He told Luke Andrew that she was not dead.”
The blood drained from the Italian’s face as he turned up the bottle of beer in his hand and discovered that his hands were shaking.
“I will be going to America soon, Brother,” Mark Andrew told him and he dropped the beer on the tip of his boot.
“Santa Maria!” He grabbed up the bottle before it could spill. “What?! Why?! You can’t go there. It’s dangerous! Every time you go there, something terrible happens.” The Italian was up again.
“Did you ever come up with the word, Lucio?” Mark Andrew asked him and raised both eyebrows.
“No! I mean, no. I have tried. I don’t know the word. It’s not there. Everything is there, but the word. It’s like it was deliberately left out… why? What does this have to do with the Emerald Tablets? I thought we’d given up on that!”
“Who said we had given up on that?” Mark asked him. He pulled the picture of Meredith from his pocket and wiped the glass on his sleeve. “I have to have that word.”
“Anna knows the word,” Lucio told him. “She said that John Paul had taught her the word.”
“She was talking about the scripture.” Mark Andrew shook his head.
“Was she?” Lucio stopped to look at him. “I have given this much thought. I think it was something else.”
“It doesn’t matter. I have to go after the Emerald Tablets,” Mark Andrew told him blandly.
“They are not in America, Brother. They are buried under the Sphinx or the Great Pyramid.”
“Says who?”
“Says Thoth. Thoth the Atlantean.”
“That was a long time ago. Things change. Have you ever heard of a man called Joseph Smith?”
“No!” Lucio took up his pacing again.
“Joseph Smith, the Prophet.”
“The Prophet? A prophet named Smith? No! Who is he?”
“The founder of a certain cult in America.”
“A cult? Not another one! You remember what happened in Romania.” Lucio sat down momentarily and was up again.
“The Mormons.”
“The Mormons? Santa Maria!! That is not a cult, Brother. That is a worldwide religion like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are everywhere. At least they were before the New Order of the Temple.” Lucio’s face fell again. “What has that got to do with anything?” He drained the lukewarm beer and set the empty on the floor.
“Everything. Joseph Smith combined religion with Freemasonry. Most people argue the point, but it is the truth.”
“And what does Freemasonry have to do with us?”
“We are their legends.”
“That’s preposterous. It has always been preposterous.”
“Everything is connected. Freemasonry is an attempt to perpetuate chivalry and honor. An attempt to protect certain secrets and artifacts. The Templars were made into legends and myths by the Scottish Freemasons. They claim a descent from Solomon himself right down through the ages, through the crusades, through the Templars, the mystics of the east, the mysteries of the Egyptians and the Babylonians and the Sumerians, the Kabbala, the Cathars, the Jews, the Zoroastrians, the Atlanteans, the Aryans, even the Buddha. All intertwined and confused. All that and much more. Even the Nazis are thrown in the mix. The Master Race. The Masters. It all goes back to Atlantis. Who can sort it out?”
“They all start out with the best of intentions. You know as well as I do that one of the deepest desires of the Templars was, at one time, to unite the Muslims, the Jews and the Christians under one religious canopy. Just like Omar, the Prophet, wanted to do and almost did with his New Order of the Temple. The Temple! Always the Temple. And why? Because the Temple embodies the sacred geometry. The root of everything. Geometry. Not my strong point, Brother. The Freemasons have made some sort of religion of sacred Geometry. The compass and the square. It has nothing to do with building edifices. It has to do with the creation of the Universe. Take our good friend, Aristoni, for instance. Do you know where he is now?”
“No! For God’s sake, no, I don’t know where he is and I thought you didn’t know either.” Lucio was astounded.
“He is in Germany. At Wewelsburg Castle. Do you know anything about Wewelsburg Castle?” The Knight of Death stood up. He walked across the room to the windows and looked out at the setting moon.
“Wewelsburg Castle? It sounds familiar. From the war. Something to do with the Nazis?”
“Exactly. It was Himmler’s project. He built a room there. A circular room with a depression in the center. Around the room was a series of twelve stone pedestals in front of twelve
niches in the wall. It’s been the subject of much speculation what Himmler had in mind when he built it.”
“Si`! I saw it once. On television.” Lucio nodded. “W's pronounced like V's. German of course! And you think you know what it was for?”
“I don’t think anything, I know.” Mark Andrew turned to smile at his Brother.
“And it has something to do with the Mormons?”
“Not exactly, but it is as I said. It is all intertwined.” Mark Andrew looked up at the ceiling. “I love this place, Lucio. I would not want to see it destroyed,” he said whimsically before continuing. “Joseph Smith claimed descent from the Israelites and the stories surrounding his discoveries of his golden tablets in a hill in America closely follow certain Masonic legends associated with the master builder or mason employed by Solomon to build his Temple. You put me in mind of it all when you called me Laban on the plane, Brother. Legend has it that Joseph Smith had three witnesses to his translation of the gold tablets into the Book of Mormon. There was a reference to some sort of arch villain that was supposedly trying to block Smith from obtaining the secrets of the doctrine. This Laban had his head cut off by his own sword. Sound familiar? And Joseph told everyone that an angel appeared to him telling him where these golden tablets were buried. Three times he went to get them and three times he was prevented by a ‘spirit’. Mainly because he laid the tablets down to see what else was in the box. There was something else in the box, Lucio. And where do you think this box came from, Lucio? From the treasures of the Templars.”
“Santa Maria,” Lucio muttered. “Who are you taking with you?”
“Konrad.”
“Konrad? Why him?”
“You have your son to worry with now. I will speak to the Master. Rest assured. You will be taking him back to Italy, Brother.”
(((((((((((((
Luke Andrew had retired to his room as soon as dinner was over. He was extremely glad that Lucio had come to take charge of his son. The boy had disrupted everything and he had been forced to give up his search for the elusive truth of the situation which he felt was hovering just on the brink of discovery. There had to be a reason why Guy de Lyons had inexplicably collapsed for no apparent reason. Some clue that they were all missing. He had discussed his feelings in depth with Luke Matthew, but his uncle had merely told him that such things were best left to the Will of God and trying to second guess the Creator was not particularly healthy. Luke Andrew, however, was a firm believer that God gave men minds to use. He began to make another of his endless lists of the remaining Knights and their histories. Going through the archives and gleaning personal information about the Knights was tedious work and required a great deal of concentration and time. Instead of writing the information out by hand, he opened a folder on his computer and began to make a coherent list of the Knights and their basic attributes.
Louis Champlain, oldest perhaps of the remaining immortal Knights, was the first name on his list. The Knight of the Golden Key had been around since before the fall of Jerusalem. That meant that he was born sometime around the middle of the twelfth century apparently in the southern part of France. Barry of Sussex was next in line by age and had shown up first after the fall of Jerusalem while the Templars were setting up shop on Cyprus. He had to be very near the same age as Louis, but he came from Sussex in England. No connection by birth to Louis Champlain. They had served in many campaigns together through the centuries, fighting in the Thirty Year War, the Napoleonic War, the French Revolution, World War I and World War II, the list went on, but Champlain had spent much more time with Simon of Grenoble than Barry during the centuries following Simon’s induction into the Order in the fourteenth century.
The two Knights had been on only one mission together as a duo and that had been during the second World War when they had been sent to Germany to infiltrate Himmler’s super elite SS. According to the records, they had worked undercover as actual members of the SS at Himmler’s castle. A place called Wewelsburg. There they had amassed a great deal of interesting, but gory records of Himmler’s atrocities concerning the persecution of the Jews and the search for the Master Race. An obvious dead end.
Luke sat back and rubbed his eyes and turned his attention to another topic: Immortality. Golden apples. He had been trying to piece together the origins of the immortality of the members of this convoluted family. Lydia and Merry Ramsay had eaten the golden apples of the Hesperides. All the rest had either been born immortal such as himself, Lavon de Bleu, Oriel, Konrad von Hetz, Jozsef Daniel and Omar or they had been given the Tree of Life elixir made of a mysterious brown powder mixed with wine during some sort of ceremony. He knew that his father could not have been made immortal by the Tree of Life. It was common knowledge that the powder was extremely toxic to those who had already consumed it once. It was also toxic to the ‘natural’ immortals as evidenced by the extremely debilitating amnesia suffered by his father and further evidenced by the condition in which Simon of Grenoble was found after purposefully ingesting it.
Corrigan could not possibly have partaken of the Tree of Life. It was lethal to members of the faery races. That meant that Edgard d’Brouchart had known not to administer the stuff to them. He wondered how many more of the immortal Council members had not received the Tree of Life. How many more of them had come from sources other than strictly human?
Had Simon of Grenoble been immortal from birth? If so, why had he been so profoundly affected by his abuse at the hands of the Inquisitors? The Knights were not impervious to severe injuries. If they lost a limb or an eye, it stayed lost. Simon had lost considerably more than an arm or a leg as far as Luke was concerned and the thought made him shudder.
The Knight of the Baldric had lost the tip of his left index finger in some battle. There was an account of one of the former Knights who had lost a hand and another that had lost an eye. The former Knight of the Sword who had been killed in Italy during World War II had also lost a foot to a cannon ball during the French Revolution. Luke made a mental note to hang on to his extremities. He sat back and looked up at the light fixture above his head thoughtfully.
His mind wandered back to the previous topic. Wewelsburg Castle kept ringing a gong in the back of his mind. Someone had mentioned it only recently. Somewhere… He stood up and stretched his arms over his head, trying to force his mind to remember who and where and why the place had been mentioned.
“Aha!” He sat down again. “Aristoni!”
Aristoni had mentioned Germany and Wewelsburg. Luke had the tendency to pronounce the W’s as W’s instead of V’s. He distinctly remembered the enigmatic Aristoni mentioning Vevelsburg in one of his conversations with Mark Ramsay. He had invited them to join him there. Why had his father allowed Aristoni to escape? Surely they could have followed him to Germany, but his father had called off the mission and Luke knew for a fact that Wewelsburg had not been mentioned in the official report that his father had made upon their return to Scotland. There was something very screwy about Aristoni and his father’s reticence to pursue the man, but Mark Andrew had been very adamant about the entire affair and after beating Lucio half to death for falling into bed with the man’s sister, they had come home. He would have to look up his father’s report and read it again, but not tonight. His eyes were crossing. He picked up the letter that his father had forgotten in the pocket of his cargo pants and carefully began to unfold the tattered, wet paper.
Chapter Five of Twenty
Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God
“Do you realize what time it is?” Edgard d’Brouchart rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock beside his bed. Just before dawn.
“I dunna care wot toime it is, yur Grace,” the voice of Mark Andrew Ramsay was as cold as steel. The tone of his voice made Edgard shudder.
“I asked ye a question. Whair wair ye in th’ year o’ our Laird twelve hundred and forty-four?”
“This is
ridiculous, du Morte! How in hell am I supposed to remember that at this time of day and what difference does it make?” D’Brouchart climbed out of bed and carried the phone with him to the toilet.
“Ye know verra well whair ye wair!” the Knight of Death raised his voice somewhat. “Ye wair in th’ Languedoc! At Rennes-le-Chateau. Ye wair with th’ Cathars. Wot wair ye doin’ thair, Edgard?!”
“Look, Ramsay, I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you called to…” He reached to flush the toilet and almost dropped the phone in the process.
“Ye’d best get yur knickers on, Sair!” Ramsay was growing more angry by the moment. “Ye’d best explain t’ me why th’ divvil ye sent me t’ Budapest! Whattar ye hoidin’? Wot d’ ye know o’ th’ Holy Blood?”
“Would you please calm down, du Morte?” Edgard’s tone became more conciliatory. He should have known that the Knight would eventually put two and two together.
“Ye warna lookin’ fur vampoires! Ye wair lookin’ fur th’ gurl!” There was a brief moment of silence and then Ramsay’s voice again, much calmer. “What is she to you, Edgard?”
D’Brouchart stood in the bathroom door with the phone pressed against his ear, listening to the sound of Mark Ramsay’s breathing on the other end of the phone.
“Du Morte… what happened in Budapest?” he countered with a question of his own.
“We need to talk, Sir,” Mark resumed a more normal tone, more understandable than the heavy brogue brought about by his agitation and more than a few drams of Scotch.
“Yes. Oui`! Is Simon there yet?” The Grand Master heaved a sigh of relief and went to sit down at his desk, turning on the lamp.
“No. We’re expecting him in the… this morning.”
Thoth, the Atlantean Page 8