The Pontiff finished his speech and handed the crown back to the Cardinal who stood beside him. Edgard d’Brouchart stepped forward and held out a round-bottomed flask to the Pope. The vessel was half full of a dark red, oily liquid. Balsam oil from trees that had been extinct for over 1600 years. The oil used to anoint the true Kings of Israel. The Pope pulled the stopper carefully from the flask and then poured a bit of the oil onto the Knight’s head. Simon’s voice filled the eerily silent chapel with a beautiful chant that lasted for several minutes. When the Psalm of Glory was finished, the oil was returned to the Grand Master and the crown was placed on Louis’ head by the Mystic Healer. He kissed his son-in-law on both cheeks and the deed was done.
The Frankish Knight stood up slowly and turned to face the men and women gathered in the chapel.
“The King is dead! Long live the King!” Barry of Sussex’ voice boomed from somewhere near the rear of the building. Louis smiled at the sound of the familiar voice and then scanned the faces nearby for Oriel. His wife was clapping her hands together slightly, smiling at him with absolute joy written on her face. Others took up the chant and he raised his arms in a futile attempt to stop them. He started down the aisle toward Oriel as everyone vied for a chance to shake his hand, kiss his ring or bow before him, depending on who and what they were, but his eyes were glued on Oriel’s face. He had dreaded this day and looked forward to it with equal alacrity. He was immensely relieved that it was almost over. There would be a series of receptions and meetings before they could get back to France and take up the business of the impending confrontation with the Ancient Evil. He reached Oriel and gathered her in his arms, hugging her tightly. Thaddeus appeared from out of the crowd and hugged him as well. He looked up over his wife’s head and smiled at Philip d’Ornan and then caught sight of Izzy and his wife who was waving at him and smiling. He turned his head the other way and heard another familiar voice speaking Italian.
“Che cosa e` esso?” But he could not see Lucio. “Santa Maria! Get back!!”
Someone very near, in the jostling crowd shrieked shrilly and then a commotion broke out as a new type of noise rippled through the congregation. Louis frowned, turned slowly and pushed his wife behind him as he realized that something was not right. A man broke from the crowd in front of him and came straight for him, screaming something in a language that he’d not heard in hundreds of years. At least, he’d not heard it in person and directed at him in particular. The man was screaming in one of the Arabic dialects. Several of the people nearby tried to grab the man, but they were prevented from catching him by those who were trying to get away from him. He held daggers in both hands as he threw himself at the newly crowned monarch. Several more disturbances broke out at once as it became evident that there was more than one assassin in the chapel. Two more of the armed man’s comrades drew their weapons and began to hack their way through the crowd toward the King.
Louis caught the man in the air and they went down together, rolling across the floor beneath the wildly stampeding crowd. Oriel was knocked backwards into the press of bodies and Thaddeus ran to her aid, when she went down beneath their feet. The Vatican guards, the Knights of the Temple, Eduord de Goth’s men and a number of other brave souls were fighting their way through the milieu, trying to reach the downed King. The assailant had managed to plunge one of his daggers under Louis’ ribs and was trying to plunge the other one in his neck as he held the man’s wrist with both hands. Oriel screamed and pulled away from Thaddeus. He rushed after his mother and was caught around the waist by one of the attackers.
The Vatican guards had ushered the Pontiff and the Cardinals and other dignitaries out through the rear of the chapel.
The man pressed a blade against Louis’ throat and dragged him up onto the altar, holding him by the hair, forcing him to his knees, all the while screaming in the same language as the first man.
Lucio Dambretti had made it through the crowd and was about to help Louis when he saw the second man attacking Thaddeus. Lucio’s hesitation allowed the man attacking Louis enough time to push the dagger completely through the Frankish Knight’s neck. Two more of the interlopers took hold of Oriel and drug her to the altar as well. The horrendous noise began to subside somewhat as most of the civilian, governmental and clerical guests, who had been inside the chapel, fled out the front doors. Only the Knights in attendance, some of the Vatican guards and a few civilians were left to face the bearded men, who had now gathered in a tight knot around the altar. Oriel screamed her husband’s name, but Louis lay on the floor in a pool of blood, unmoving.
Lucio held up one hand as Barry skidded to a stop on his left and Simon joined him on his right. The Golden Eagle did not take his eyes off the man who was still babbling hysterically while pressing the blade against Thaddeus’ throat. Already blood trailed down the new Prince’s neck below the blade. And though Thaddeus was now almost forty years old, Lucio still thought of him as a child.
“What is he saying, Brother?” Simon asked him in a low voice. Simon had never had the pleasure of fighting in the Holy Wars. Had never had to learn any of the Middle Eastern languages.
“What they all say. Take care of Louis!” Lucio told him without taking his eyes off the man’s face. They wanted free passage out of the city. They were going to kill the Prince and the Queen, if they were not allowed to go free. They had come at the bidding of the Prophet to do the will of Allah. Same old story. Someone had forgotten to tell them that Louis was immune to knife wounds or else they had failed to finish the job out of hysteria, assuming the new King to be permanently dead.
Simon moved away and Lucio began to speak to the men in their own language. The words came out stilted and slow at first as he tried to remember the proper syntax. Understanding was easier than speaking.
“You have failed your mission.” He told them. “You have been led down the wrong path! You blindly follow the false prophet.”
His statements were met with curses and more threats.
“We will do the will of Allah and follow the Prophet Omar until we achieve glory in Paradise or until all that is fallen has been destroyed!” The man shouted at him in badly accented French.
“Allah will not be pleased with what you have done today. You have forgotten the ways of the true Prophet, Mohammed!” Lucio shouted back at him. “You follow an abomination in the sight of God! The man you follow is a minion of Shaitan!”
The spokesman for the group yanked Thaddeus to his feet and then shoved him off the altar, falling down behind him. The knife made a deeper cut on the Knight of the Orient’s throat when the assassin regained his footing. He shouted for them to get back, to let them pass.
“That is probably not the best approach, Brother.” Barry whispered to Lucio and stepped back as the four bloodied men dragged Oriel and Thaddeus along with them, moving backwards toward the door. How they planned to get all the way out of Vatican City was anyone’s guess.
“The wrath of God will be upon you.” Konrad’s deep voice boomed in the chapel and the doors seemed to slam of their own accord. “The evil you have done here will see you roasted in the flames of Gehenna.”
The assassins stopped when the doors slammed against their backs. One of them shouted rapidly to the others and one of them turned around and tried to open the doors. After a few moments of futile struggling against the heavy doors, he spoke quietly to the others, and then the threats and demands began anew.
Simon was on his knees beside the downed King. Louis was dead, at least temporarily and beyond the Healer’s help. When Oriel shouted Louis’ name again and tried to break away, one of the men slapped her head with the hilt of his dagger. The Healer raised his arms toward the Heavens and began to sing.
A strangely familiar humming, buzzing noise erupted behind him as if the chapel were filling with a swarm of locusts.
“Holy Mother!” Barry exclaimed and caught Lucio’s arm, forcefully thrusting him away and then spinning him around in a wild cir
cle.
The golden bees were leaving the King’s mantle one by one, taking flight above Louis’ body. Izzy, Philip, Zebulon and Dan joined their father in the song, kneeling beside him. The assassins’ hysteria was complete as they witnessed what must have seemed extremely bizarre behavior on the part of Simon and his sons. The lead man shouted for them to stop singing and waved his knife about menacingly. In spite of the posturing and gesturing, they did not dare kill their hostages. The doors were locked. There was no escape except by means of Oriel and Thaddeus and if that failed, these men would die for their cause. It had always been so. They would kill Oriel and Thaddeus and then fight to the death.
The leader of the little group grabbed Thaddeus’ arm and stabbed him in the stomach just before the swarm of bees reached them. Thaddeus toppled to the floor, clutching at the knife embedded in his midsection, trying desperately to crawl away, but his assailant was no longer interested in him. Oriel was soon free and kneeling beside her son, alternating screaming for help and dragging him along the marble floor as the men swatted at the bees, fleeing the stinging horde that followed them. Simon and his sons rushed forward to help Oriel. They lifted Thaddeus and carried him back to where the King lay on the floor.
The remaining Knights and guards watched in fascination as the golden bees chased the hysterical assassins around the sanctuary, stinging them repeatedly, knocking some of them to the floor and continuing their onslaught while the men screamed and kicked and slashed the air futilely with their knives. The golden bees did not die after stinging like regular beers, but stung again and again. Within a matter of minutes, all four of them were dead.
The front doors burst open and more Vatican guards rushed inside. Barry removed the mantle from Louis’ shoulders and laid it out on the altar. While Simon and Oriel ministered to Thaddeus’ wound, the bees drifted lazily back to the mantle one by one and resumed their duties as nothing more than tiny lumps of molded gold ornaments. Louis took a deep, ragged breath and Oriel abandoned her son temporarily to reassure her husband everything was going to be all right. He remained conscious long enough to ask about Thaddeus and the others before lapsing into the healing coma.
Lucio approached the altar cautiously and ran his hand over the heavy cloth and the tiny works of art Catharine had pried from Mark Andrew’s chapel on St. Patrick’s Island. He only wished that his Brother could have been here to see this. Mark Andrew. They had given up hope of recovering him from New Babylon. Only Mark Andrew could have mounted a successful rescue attempt and it was unlikely that he would be rescuing himself if the rumors were true. The Grand Master would not hear of sending a rescue mission and Lucio had absolutely no connections in New Persia. He had tried to persuade Lemarik to go with him, but the Mighty Djinni assured him the person being held prisoner in the palace at New Babylon was not their Mark Andrew.
Lucio could not understand what the Djinni meant, but Lemarik was adamant. No! No! No! No! No! They could not risk losing another of the Knights. His father would never forgive him if he allowed something to happen to the Golden Eagle and so on and so forth. The inaction was killing him. He felt that Mark Andrew had again been betrayed and abandoned by the Order that he had worked all his life to honor and protect. But try as he might, he could pry nothing from the Djinni other than a few cryptic comments about God’s will. Adalune Kadif knew something that they didn’t and it was driving him mad trying to figure out what it was. Even Catharine had been at a loss to explain what might be happening. He had spoken with Barry in private and Louis as well, but they could offer no solution. Louis had obligations and could not possibly go to New Persia. Barry would not go against the Grand Master. Konrad had no connections in New Persia since the war. Lavon was at a loss and Christopher was no better off than Lucio, given to deep bouts of depression and temper tantrums whenever the subject of Mark Andrew was brought up in private or public. The others had no better answers and no one, not even Vanni could offer him any comfort.
The golden bees were just another reminder of his lost Brother. Tears filled his eyes as he thought of how much Mark Andrew had done for them and how alone he had been for most of the last two thousand years. It wasn’t fair! It just wasn’t fair and he, Lucio Dambretti, had caused him a great deal of unnecessary pain, and only now, was he beginning to understand what it was all about. Mark. His Brother. His father. His best friend. His worst enemy. At that moment, in the ensuing milieu of voices and uproar in the aftermath of the ‘assassination’, he felt the greatest sense of remorse in all his life as grief and despair threatened to overwhelm him completely.
The Italian shook his head in wonder as he heard Catharine calling his name desperately and his miserable thoughts turned to his son. His misery at losing Galen was doubly painful now as he thought of the opportunity his son had missed when Lucifer had taken him. Galen would have been Knight of the Golden Key now instead of Benjamin d’Ornan. It didn’t seem fair at all. As time passed, it had become quite clear that Simon’s sons were aging very slowly, but the Grand Master had refused to administer the Tree of Life to them for fear that it would harm them. And now Galen had been denied everything, just as Marco Niccolo had missed out on everything so long ago. Lucio stopped suddenly in his tracks. Marco. Marco couldn’t be dead. Marco’s mother had been Meredith Sinclair… the original Meredith. He could no more be dead than Oriel or Konrad. And Lucia! Lucia was Marco’s twin! How could they have died? But John Paul had died in the underworld and Marco had died there and… no, John Paul could no more be killed in the underworld than could Mark Andrew or Meredith!
He slapped himself on the forehead and turned to stare back Simon, who was helping Barry and Konrad with Louis. Izzy and Philip carried Thaddeus out past him. If Marco was not dead and Lucia was still alive and Mark Andrew was not in New Babylon, then they all had to be somewhere else!
“Santa Maria!” Lucio caught Catharine’s arm and shoved her ahead of him into the press of onlookers outside the doors of the Sistine Chapel.
“Lavon!” Lucio caught sight of the tall, French Knight’s head as he jostled his way through the crowd. “Lavon de Bleu! Wait for us!!”
(((((((((((((
Sophia plumped up the pillow behind Mark’s head and he smiled up at her, holding out one hand. She squeezed his hand and returned the smile before sitting on the bed next to him. She picked up the bowl of cooked cereal from the bedside table and scooted around facing him, cross-legged in the bed, stirring it and blowing on it to make sure it was cool. He watched her with great interest.
“OK, now!” She picked up a spoonful and held the bowl under it. “Let’s try this again. Now, remember what I told you! Don’t bite the spoon and keep your mouth closed after it gets in there. Don’t smile! OK?”
He nodded his head and continued to smile at her anyway.
“Open up.” She told him and leaned toward him, nudging his lips with the spoon. He opened his mouth and she put the warm cereal inside. He clamped down on the spoon automatically. Sophia shook her head and let go of the spoon. “Mark Ramsay!” She admonished him half-heartedly as he wagged his head back and forth with the spoon in his mouth.
Mark raised one hand and took hold of the spoon, turning it over in his mouth before dragging it out again, but he had kept his mouth closed this time and thought this was very funny. He swallowed the gooey cereal and handed the spoon back to her. When she took it from his hand he grabbed her hand, pulled her forward and put one finger to his lips.
“Kiss?” He asked and frowned fiercely at her.
“Mark!” She laughed and then kissed him lightly.
He smiled again. Every accomplishment demanded a reward.
“All right now. More cereal. You need to eat. I heard your stomach growling!” She told him and spooned up more of the cereal. “We can play after you eat. OK?”
“OK.” He nodded and stopped smiling. This meant that he was ready for more serious business.
He managed to finish the bowl without m
aking too much of a mess and she placed it on the serving tray. Mark reached both arms out to her and she helped him slide out of the bed onto the floor.
He sat cross-legged on the floor and waited while she sat down facing him a few paces away.
“OK!” She said and held out both arms. “I’m ready.”
Mark Andrew screwed up his face in grim determination and leaned forward until he was up on his hands and knees. He rocked back and forth unsteadily a few moments and then crawled to where she sat waiting on him. He pushed himself back into a sitting position with her help and then hugged her.
“That was great! Lots better than before.” She told him and glanced at the bars on the open doorway that led to the hall. One of the guards was watching them… as usual.
“Now let’s stand up.” She got up and reached for his hands. He shook his head and looked at the floor.
“Come on now. You have to stand up.” She urged him gently.
“No.” He shook his head adamantly and the silver ornaments in his hair jingled.
“Mark?” She leaned over him and caught his head in both her hands. “We have all fallen from time to time. It is nothing to be afraid of. What matters is that we get up again.”
All That Is Fallen Page 27