The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death

by Brendan Carroll

  She was simply repeating, more or less, what Mark Andrew had said to her in the gazebo. His words had conjured great, heroic images in her demented mind and she had spent the last few days going over Gavin Nash’s collection of books about the Crusades and the Templar Order.

  “Oh? And you do?” Merry asked her, wondering at her words. Certainly she was right about Maxie. But she had never known Valentino to give a damn about anything that didn’t directly affect her comfortable little world. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know enough. I know our friend up there would kill us without blinking. I know he’s seen enough in the past that he’s not really concerned with us one way or the other,” Valentino snorted. “We just have to make him think we are going to let him go. Or else we’ll be in serious trouble. Did you know that the last official Grand Master of the Order was roasted over a slow fire? Can you imagine it? Not just burned at the stake, but roasted alive? It’s no wonder he put curses on everybody. Think about it.”

  Merry said nothing. She was sick to death of the game. She just wanted to get her life back to normal and she really didn’t want anything bad to happen to Mark Andrew. In a strange sort of inexplicable way, she really did care about him, but she didn’t want to go to jail. The situation was not funny or adventurous any more. It was deadly serious and dangerous. She had been accused of being an airhead, being irresponsible and immature often enough that it had to be true, but regardless of her part in this thing, she really did like him. More than she should. Perhaps she even loved him.

  It was almost as if love at first sight were truly possible. The romance novels that she kept stashed under the stairs said that it was possible, but she’d never believed such fairytales. Cecile would have killed her if she found her reading such ‘drivel’ as she called it, but Merry dreamed of things. All sorts of things. Things she didn’t understand. In her dreams she lived an entirely different life that she dared not tell Cecile about. And this fellow, this Ramsay character seemed to embody traits from every romance novel hero she had ever read about in her books. It didn’t seem possible that such a real person could exist. He did have his drawbacks. He was arrogant and bitchy and crude when he wanted to be. His idea of a playful roll in the hay was a bit on the rough side and could use a bit of polish. And he seemed sort of wishy-washy, like he wanted to do something, but could never quite follow through. Merry could only believe that he had a number of unresolved issues concerning sex in general, but perhaps she could help him resolve them, given a bit of time.

  Mark Andrew was different from everyone she had ever met and a far cry more interesting than any of Cecile’s friends. One moment he was all-knowing and arrogant and the next, he was confused even more so than herself. Dangerous was the best word to describe him in general, but there was much more to Mark Andrew Ramsay than even the 'wise' Cecile could know and Merry wanted to know what it was that made him different. What made his faults more severe than an ordinary man’s faults? What made his good points better than other men’s good points? He was certainly better looking than most, but he didn’t seem to know it or acknowledge it. Even the incredibly handsome Anthony was just another one of the ‘girls’. He had been Italian or Sicilian, which had certainly added another dimension to his romantic mystique, but he would never come close to Mark Ramsay. Not in a hundred years… She paused. Not in a thousand years… Perhaps that was it. Anthony was young. Too young for her.

  She was irresistibly drawn to Mark, danger or no, as if fate had ordained it. Add to that the preposterous, but undeniable truth that Mark actually cared for her as well. In her heart, she knew that eventually something awful was going to happen to all of them, but she didn’t know what to do about it. She felt she had betrayed him dreadfully by helping Valentino and she was afraid of Maxie. Cecile had committed a terrible series of crimes and eventually she would have to pay. What about herself? She was, after all, an accomplice to kidnapping and possibly attempted murder. The only one in the house that she was not afraid of was the one that should have terrified her most and that was the so-called Knight of Death imprisoned on the third floor. There had to be some way to fix things…

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  Mark stopped pacing and stretched out on the bed. He would have to play it one minute at a time. One thing he knew for sure was that he was not going anywhere with John Tellman. He thought about the Pixie and wondered where she had come from. How she had become mixed up with Cecile Valentino. There had to be a whopper of a story behind their ‘relationship’ and he wanted to hear it. From Merry. The fact that he wanted to hear it made him pause. One of his returning memories told him plainly that he had always gone to great lengths to avoid becoming involved in other people’s lives. Other people. People outside the Order. Especially women. The company of women is a dangerous thing. Pleasant sometimes, but dangerous at all times. Dangerous in the sense that men simply did not know how to deal with them. They had the uncanny knack of causing reason and logic to melt at the exact wrong moments. Wrong moments that turned into lifetimes of suffering from the consequences. His own actions belied the fact that he had quite a bit of physical experience with them. There was nothing innocent or faltering about his actions once the passion entered his mind and nothing could stop him from taking what he wanted…

  He sat up suddenly in the bed. There it was again. He was a criminal. No wonder no women of interest came to his mind. There were none other than a few fleeting names. He tried to stay awake by conjuring up more ghosts from his past, but when Maxie came to escort him down to dinner, he was asleep.

  Only Valentino and Merry were at the big table when he arrived in the dining room. Maxie took a chair at the far end of the table carefully out of Mark’s reach. The guard dog would apparently not be eating with them and was only there to keep him at bay and the rude awakening prod with the shotgun he had given Mark cried out for vengeance. Mark deliberately sat next to Merry rather than across from her. He did not want a repeat performance of the ‘dessert’ from the night before. But had that been last night? It seemed ages ago.

  “No guests other than our friend Maximillian?” he asked Cecile when the cook arrived with their plates on a wooden cart.

  “Not tonight,” Valentino said pleasantly. She seemed absorbed in some sort of trade paper. She reached around the book and picked up her water, sipping it only after smelling it twice.

  French fries and hamburgers. Mark looked down at his plate and wrinkled his nose. He had hoped for another steak or maybe some roasted chicken. He really liked chicken, cooked any way as long as it was cooked. Or fish. Salmon, in particular. Beef was something he felt sure he rarely ate. He smiled at the mental pun.

  Merry watched him from the corner of her eye, but did not speak. He deliberately looked away from her. He felt that she had somehow betrayed him in the dream or whatever it had been. What was it with him anyway? This woman was a complete stranger on top of being a woman. Why would he expect any help from her? All the same, he felt that she might have done something.

  He picked up the top of the hamburger bun and stacked the fries on top of the meat patty, trying to dilute the huge patty of overcooked beef a bit. He bit into it and it exploded on the plate. Merry sighed as she took his plate and set it in front of her. She spread the bread with mustard and squirted some catsup on the fries, put it back together and set the plate in front of him again with a small smile. Revolting. What was it with the Americans that they put catsup on everything? The meat was greasy and the pickle slices made his eyes water. And the potatoes were lukewarm.

  American food! He’d tried it in Edinburgh at Christopher’s insistence. Christopher Stewart. He smiled at the comfort that the small, insignificant memory brought him. Edinburgh. Christopher. MacDonald’s. Fries and shakes. Chocolate. Drinkable ice cream. What was the point? Forget the special sauce. No special orders here. Just special sauce and buns with seeds on them. Wilted lettuce. Where’s the beef? Where’s the beef? Christopher liked
American television, but that was because Christopher was an American.

  “You will stay a while?” Valentino looked around the paper at him and he nodded.

  She went back to her magazine and continued to read, reaching around it to pick at her food. An improvement.

  Merry sat glumly nibbling at her fries and grilled cheese and avacado on wheat. She eventually gave up on them, leaned one elbow on the table and put her chin in her hand. She sat watching him eat while he choked down the food. His stomach demanded that he eat it and his brain demanded that he avoid looking at her. When he had finished his burger, Merry glanced at Valentino and switched Cecile’s plate with his. He looked at her carefully before taking it. Was this her way of apologizing? But he owed her one as well. He smiled at the burger with one bite missing and then ate the stuff without tasting it until it was all gone. He picked up his tea and smelled it. He was beginning to act like Valentino. Maybe it was poison she was constantly sniffing for. Certainly, if he had the opportunity, he would have poisoned her himself. He set the glass away from him and took Merry’s glass. Maxie cleared his throat loudly and Mark made a face at him before drinking down the Pixie’s tea.

  “Tomorrow is a special occasion,” Valentino said finally and laid aside the paper. She frowned at the near empty plate in front of her. She cleared her throat and smoothed down her blouse before continuing. “We are going to induct two new members.”

  “I see,” Mark said for lack of anything else to say. “Will I be there?” He imagined them sacrificing several goats and chickens along with himself on the marble altar in the garden under the watchful eye of the Virgin.

  “I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “You are not initiated.”

  Mark nodded and then laughed. Initiated. A joke. He had invented initiation. No, he hadn’t. Had he? The last thing he wanted to do was go to one of their initiations and watch them profane the Cross. He was impatiently waiting for dinner to be over so he could find out what John Tellman was up to and try to make his move while he still could, before he did get a real sword run through him or worse. “Oh, and how does one come to be initiated? In your Order, I mean,” he asked, attempting to sound interested.

  “You laugh, sir, but it is a serious matter,” Valentino sniffed.

  “You have to be recommended,” Merry answered.

  “Interviewed. Checked out,” Valentino added. “All that.”

  “Do you have an opening for an assassin?” he asked sarcastically, unable to help himself.

  “We do have a degree for an assassin, but it is merely symbolic. His title is the Knight of Truth. His duty is to assassinate prejudice, superstition and ignorance. Why do you ask?”

  “You accused me of being an assassin and worse,” he told her nonchalantly. “This fellow you are looking for. He is really an assassin? A rapist?” He pushed the envelope a bit. It was incredible that she could simply expect him to ignore the fact that the last time he’d spoken to her, she’d drugged him. Expect him to overlook the fact that Maxie sat at the foot of the table most likely concealing a weapon of some sort in his pocket. Worse yet, he noticed the date on the paper she had been reading. Almost three days had passed since their talk in the garden. Monday. She had told him it was Friday in the gazebo. Where had he been for three days?

  Valentino looked at him sharply. “Yes. He is. And worse, I’m sure. But even if you are the wrong man, you still haven’t told me what you do for a living. Perhaps you are something just as bad.”

  “I’m self-employed,” he said and another forgotten memory suddenly occurred to him. He remembered working… somewhere. In a laboratory though not one like Valentino’s. The one in his memory was darker and more foreboding and there were no stainless steel tables. Just firelight and shadows. So he did not always just go about waging war, getting kidnapped, tortured and killed. “I make… metal. I work with metals,” he concluded almost as if speaking to himself. "I'm a metal worker."

  “How interesting,” Valentino perked up. “What kind of metals? What do you make?”

  “Oh, whatever needs to be made,” he smiled at her as the image of melted gold pouring from a glowing iron cup into a series of tiny rectangular molds flashed in his mind. The alchemist. IAAT. The Philosopher’s Stone. What was it? It was just out of reach.

  “I could recommend you for membership,” Merry offered suddenly and looked at Valentino hopefully. “He could come to the reception after the initiation, couldn’t he? If he wants to join, I mean, if he’s going to stay with us awhile? We have lodges in Europe. Germany. Switzerland. Even England. He could be presented here before the assembly and when he goes home to Scotland, he could be initiated into the London Chapter.” Merry’s eyes lit up with false hope. If it could be so easily remedied, all would be forgiven and she wouldn’t lose contact with him, but…

  Valentino picked up her paper again and glared at Merry from behind the pages causing her to fall silent.

  “We’ll see,” she said aloud. “Maybe. I’ll speak to Mr. Petrie about it.”

  Merry smiled at him and he put his index finger against her lips and winked. It had only been a dream. He had no intention of being presented to anyone, much less an assembly, but the food had gone a long way to improve his outlook. Merry would never do anything to hurt him… would she? She had cried when they had poisoned him the first time. He distinctly remembered hearing her cry. She had run away the second time. He remembered hearing her say that she wouldn’t do it, whatever it was. The sword thing must have been a dream. Another of Valentino’s botched hypnosis sessions. Whatever drugs she had used on him had left him unconscious for almost three days! He hoped it was not addictive.

  Maxie made a snorting noise at the end of the table.

  Mark ignored him and sat eating the rest of Valentino's soggy fries and smiling at Merry thoughtfully. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Six of Twelve

  And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.

  The fidgety, middle-aged blond woman behind the white wicker desk looked up in surprise. “The whole floor?” she asked, and then quickly added. “There are six rooms on the third floor. That would be…” she ran her perfectly manicured pink nails over the keys of her adding machine. “Eight hundred and twenty-one dollars and seventy cents per night plus tax. I could give you a ten per cent discount if you stay for a week.”

  She surveyed the faces of the three men sitting across from her. Their presence filled her small office to over-flowing and made her feel extremely uncomfortable. However, the dark one with the flashing white smile was particularly appealing with his curly black hair and big dark eyes. He had a long scar running from the corner of his left eye down to his jaw that only added to his rakish sort of charm when he smiled at her. The shorter one seemed very solemn and just looking at him depressed her. He had beautiful blond hair, like a child and crystal blue eyes, but they exuded profound sadness mixed with wonder. His eyes traveled constantly about the room as if he were memorizing every thing in the small space and when they fell on her, he seemed utterly fascinated by her every word. He reminded her of one of the dying children at the hospital where she did volunteer service once a month. The older of the three, which she guessed was more nearly her own age, had thinning dishwater-blond hair and weak hazel eyes. His expression was one of cold calculation and he never took his eyes off of her, as if he expected her to cheat him somehow. His only positive attribute was his heavy French accent, but other than his voice and his smooth, almost slurred English, he was downright scary to Miss Penelope Martin.

  She opened a drawer and took out an ornate ledger. While she was looking down, the smaller man filched a crystal pansy from a pink vase on her desk and slipped it in his pocket. When she looked up again, he smiled at her and nodded. No one had seen his little theft.

  They were a very mismatched trio of conflicting personality types and Miss Martin was a very good and quick judge of character. She felt as
if they might actually be dangerous in some way. Her lovely Victorian bed and breakfast had never seen the likes of such men. Her first impulse had been to tell them she was booked up and turn them away, but then the man with the baleful eyes had told her that whatever the cost, he would pay double if there was some problem. Business had not been that good, but of all weeks, why now? She had hoped to have a full house due to the initiation out at Cecile Valentino’s club that was scheduled for Wednesday. But what the heck? Cecile's people should have made reservations and stopped taking Penelope Martin for granted. The man who called himself Boo-Joe or some such, pulled sevenfteen one-hundred dollar bills from his exceedingly fat wallet and laid them on the desk. They were not new bills, but old and crumpled. He smoothed them out very carefully and then looked at her expectantly.

  “That should cover any inconvenience for the short notice, Madame,” he said. “We do not know how long we may require your services. If more is needed, we will pay tomorrow.” The voice did not match the face.

  “Why yes, of course, Mr. Boo-Joe,” she sucked in a sharp breath, smiled and picked up the money, tucking it into her pocket. She turned the faux-antique leather registry book around and shoved it toward him. He looked down at it disdainfully, before shoving it on, with one finger, toward the dark-eyed man. He flashed one of his heart-melting smiles at her before picking up the antique fountain pen, examining it with some amusement. She smiled at him in return and felt herself actually blush. He seemed so much older than his apparent age, which was considerably younger than her own years. While he was signing the ledger, she went into the little alcove off the office and plucked the six keys from the hooks on the wall. When she returned, he was laying down the pen with a slight flourish as if he had accomplished some great deed. He looked up at her and his eyes danced with the same expectant amusement as if flirting openly with her. She felt her heart flutter and wondered that such a thing could be possible. She had not had that happen to her in at least fifteen or maybe even twenty years.