The Red Cross of Gold II
“The King of Terrors”
Assassin Chronicles
written by
Brendan Carroll
Copyright 2010
The King of Terrors is dedicated to everyone who has ever had the desire to meet or thought they may have met an angel.
The characters are fictional and any resemblance to real persons alive or dead is unintentional and coincidental.
Brendan Carroll can be reached at http://redcrossofgold.blogspot.com/ for comments or questions.
Warning copyrighted material:
No part of the contents of this publication may be copied, printed or sold without permission of the author.
The Red Cross of Gold II:. The King of Terrors
Published by Brendan Carroll
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 Brendan Carroll
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Preface
Sir James Argonne, Chevalier du Trône, poor Knight of Solomon’s Temple, Ordo Templi Rosae Crucis d’Or, slapped the surface of the long wooden table with one gloved hand and threw his leg over the bench, sending up a cloud of dust from his mantle. He sat down across from his friend and Brother of the Order, Hugh de Champagne. Hugh frowned deeply at him before finishing off his final crust of brown bread, carefully sopping up the last bit of cold gravy from his wooden bowl. A sad excuse for supper. He would not allow Argonne’s noisy intrusion to disturb what remained of his meager meal if he could help it.
Argonne nodded to him, smiled and then crossed himself reverently as Hugh began his closing prayers of thanksgiving for his supper. As soon as the last ‘amen’ was said, he raised his hand and one of the servants cleared the table and set wooden cups full of red wine in front of them.
James took a long, loud swallow and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand before clunking the cup on the table.
“I smell blood in the air, Brother,” Argonne announced immediately and his smile broadened.
“What are you talking about, Brother?” Hugh asked him and then pounded one fist against his chest, bringing up a rather sizable belch. He looked around the deserted dining hall and lowered his voice. “I should think you would be quaking in your shoes by now what with the Normans moving in with us. A bit crowded, what say? The Master didn’t assign you to quarter with the Scot, did he? Sacre bleu! Makes my neck tingle and my arse pucker,” Champagne laughed aloud and made a slashing motion across his throat. “I don’t know what would be worse, serving the little general or sleeping with the Chevalier du Morte.”
“What? Me? Quaking, Brother?” James shrugged and laughed as well. “I hardly think this Napoleon fellow will make more than a little ripple in the ocean of French history. He is nothing! A commoner with grand delusions. Someone will put a knife in his back soon enough and we’ll be home where we belong. As for sleeping with the Scot... bah! I will sleep with the dogs first.”
“We have no dogs here, my friend. And I’m not so sure about this Napoleon,” Hugh muttered and sipped his wine thoughtfully. “The Master seems to be of another opinion as well. He thinks the man is dangerous. The old man is bringing the rest of the fleet to Italy within the month. Didn’t you know?”
“Ahhhh, but what are boats for if not for sailing hither and thither and thither and hither? It won’t be the first time we’ve had to run on short notice.” Argonne waved one hand in dismissal and then called for another cup of wine. He waited until the servant was out of earshot before continuing in a much lower voice. His normally dull blue eyes blazed with mischief. “What the Master needs to worry about is closer to home.”
“Please, Brother. You must watch your tongue,” Champagne hissed and glanced around nervously. “The walls have ears and the floors have eyes. Your words will bring down the wrath of God on our heads.”
“There is no one here, least of all God,” James smiled and waved his hands around again. Only two servants remained in the hall, scrubbing down the long wooden trestle tables where the Brothers of the Order shared their meals. Just two nameless peasants likely with criminal histories taken in by the Order and glad to have food and a roof over their heads. Neither of them looked up when James shouted “Vive la France! Vive la révolution!”
“There... there you see?!” he smirked and then scowled before adding “No one cares.”
Hugh had arrived late for supper and the leftovers had been not only frugal and cold, but greasy. His stomach growled and he cursed under his breath. He would have to perform penance for missing prayers even though the delay had been unavoidable. A lame horse. What could he do? God would know and understand, but the chaplain would not. He was lucky that he’d had any supper at all.
“These foreigners, Brother,” James continued. “We must be careful. I tell you Dambretti and Ramsay are plotting something. I can smell it. And Brother Barry? What of him? He left for London eight weeks ago and has not returned. What is he doing in London? Joining up with the King’s men no doubt. He will fight against France if it comes to it. And do you think that a Scotsman would not be far behind an Englishman? And tell me... why does the Master take private counsel with the Ritter more often than not? What business does a Bavarian have that could be of use to a Frenchman? Furthermore, you and I both know that von Hetz’ allegiance lies elsewhere. He is Teutonic through and through. He loves to lord it over the rest of us with his dire outpourings and dark prophesies. I detest the man! The blood of Attila runs in his veins and you know what the Hun did to Rome.”
“The Ritter von Hetz is no Hun, Brother. The Austrians have always been enlightened brothers and you have to remember that the Scots have been some of our best allies,” Hugh reminded him. “Have you forgotten Friday 13th? Did you not hear that the peasants were shouting Jacques de Molay’s name when they sacked Paris? If I am not mistaken, Master de Molay was a Templar of some noble standing. The revolution was a good thing for us, but I am afraid of Monsieur Napoleon. He has ambitions equal to that of any blue-blooded monarch. He thinks himself another Alexander or perhaps even Julius Caesar. More like Genghis Khan, if you ask my opinion.”
“Noble Templar?” James spat the words onto which he fixated, ignoring what he did not want to hear about Napoleon. “Are those words not mutually exclusive? That is what sets us apart, Brother. We are not Noble Templars! We are all equal. But...” he leaned across the table and grabbed Hugh’s arm, blinking rapidly “I tell you, Brother, some of us are more equal than others, no? That Scot would have us moving lock, stock and barrel back to Scotland. He would fill the Council with Scotsmen and haggis-eating whores and he would drag that foul-mouthed Italian with him, bag and baggage. Next thing you know, we’d find ourselves searching the moors for our heads while the Council convenes in a glade full of naked Druids dancing around a bonfire.”
“That is absurd! You are forgetting the Rule of Order. Article 48 commands us to zealously guard against slander, spite and rumor,” Hugh objected and shook off his friend’s hand. “Sir Ramsay is above reproach. I have known him for a long time. He is perfectly happy with what time he is allowed in his homeland, though God knows what he could love about such a dark land, but then that is the way with Scots. They are a dark and brooding bunch.” The Knight of the Wisdom of Solomon tried to lighten the mood and brush off his Brother’s treasonous remarks. Argonne was obsessed with all things French. He was too proud, too impulsive and Hugh wondered if he might not be a bit dangerous.
“Are you chastising me, Brother? Shall we quote the Rule to one another now? What about Article 46 and Article 47? Surely you are jesting with me, my friend, but mark my word,” Argonne’s face darkened as he spoke. “Mark Ramsay... will go too far one day and I will be forced to kill him for the good of the Order. I will kill him and I will kill that damnable Italian as well. The Lord said that we must separate the chaff from the wheat. The Council must be made pure again. It must be so!”
Hugh sat in silence as James finished off his second cup of wine and then left him alone in the dining hall. Someday Argonne’s words would bring them both to grief. The Knight crossed himself and muttered a short prayer asking forgiveness for his Brother and then made a promise to himself and God to avoid the man’s company in the future.
Chapter One of Twenty-Five
How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? Mark, and afterwards we will speak.
Again, so soon? Had another year passed so soon?
Sir Philip Cambrique walked slowly down the long, tiled arcade, carefully avoiding the direct rays of the midday sun streaming in under the arches. His eyes had never quite become adjusted to the bright Italian sunlight and he had forgotten his sunshades again. As he walked, he rolled up the cuffs of his long-sleeved white shirt. A cool breeze wafted along the sunporch when he stepped outside, fluffing his hair, relieving a bit of his suffering. At least he wasn’t wearing chain mail and leather. He found it difficult to believe that he had once lived in much less hospitable climes before the advent of air-conditioning or even electric fans. Midsummer’s Eve. The Feast of St. John the Baptist. It should have been a festive occasion for the residents of the restored Roman Villa only a few kilometers from the ruins of Pompeii. A time of commemoration, a time of mourning and celebrating the life and message of the great Baptist.
Philip paused at the only spot on the stone walkway where it was possible to view the summit of Mt. Vesuvius, looming in the distance beyond the ancient olive groves. It seemed only a very short time since he had made this same walk, carrying an almost identical package in his hands: a rather rumpled brown envelope delivered by private courier to the honorable Chevalier Edgard d’Brouchart, PhD, GMO, Ordo Templi Rosae Crucis d’Or from the honorable Mark Andrew Ramsay, Chevalier du Morte, PhD, MD, MAA, Midlothian, Scotland. In fact, it was the seventh such package he had delivered to the Grand Master of the Order of the Red Cross of Gold in as many years. Each one had arrived precisely at noon on Midsummer’s Eve. The private courier, as always, was one Christopher Stewart, apprentice in training to the Order’s Alchemist and Knight of Death. The only thing that had changed as the years progressed was the appearance of the young man. Each year, he had grown taller, eventually morphing into a very solemn-faced young man with a full, dark beard, and long, thick hair that reached his athletic shoulders. He reminded the Seneschal of one of those glamorous young fellows engaged in what the Americans erroneously called ‘football’. Suddenly, an overwhelming sadness gripped him and he found himself wishing that Christopher Stewart really was a soccer star or a race-car driver... anything, but what he was: in training to be an assassin. He crossed himself, kissed his thumbnail and forced his attention back.
Would it never end? Ramsay’s shunning of the Council was unofficially condoned by the Master’s silence and the Brothers’ feigned indifference. These yearly letters from Sir Ramsay were also duly ignored by the Master. Sir Philip shook his head sadly. It would probably last until some action was taken to close the matter once and for all.
He found the Grand Master sitting near the swimming pool, wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a white tank top that revealed intricate, but faded, almost invisible, tattoos covering his broad shoulders and upper arms.
Perched on the edge of a marble-topped table near the Master’s elbow, Lucio Dambretti, Knight of the Golden Eagle, appeared deeply absorbed in a colorful magazine. Sir Dambretti looked up at the Seneschal’s approach, flipping his dark sunshades down on his nose against the glare. His facial expression slumped visibly when he recognized the package in Philip’s hand. The long scar on his otherwise handsome face crinkled into a frown momentarily before he quickly looked away over the shimmering surface of the pool. He had forgotten to note the date, otherwise he would have been elsewhere… celebrating St. John the Baptist’s Day with the proper grief, solitude and wine... lots of wine. He was not in the mood for the ceremonial Blessing of the Flowers. The same ceremony presented every year by Sir Barry’s students. Nor was he interested in paying homage to Christ’s messenger, the Archangel Gabriel, with long prayers and litanies, much kneeling, suppressed yawning and general misery in the chapel. Gabriel, trumpeter of doom. Basta! What need had he for flowers?
“Your Eminence,” Philip uttered the usual greeting and bowed his head slightly, holding out the parcel to the bulky, red-haired man sitting in the chaise lounge.
Before taking the envelope, Edgard d’Brouchart scowled at Philip for several long moments as if it were his fault another letter from Ramsay had arrived. After a long sigh, he took the package and turned it over in his meaty hands, examining the address on the front. Ramsay’s handwriting. He didn’t have to read it. He knew what it said. With a derisive snort, he tossed the package to Sir Dambretti, who caught it deftly just before it shot past him into the water.
“Again!” d’Brouchart’s voice, full of disgust, echoed across the water. He turned another scowl on the Italian. Philip backed away.
Lucio laid aside his magazine, pulled open the flap of the envelope and took out the flattened roll of paper within. He could not help but smile at the sight of the ‘scroll’. His dear Scottish Brother was such a stickler for propriety, seemingly caught somewhere between the eleventh century and the 1920’s. The Knight had retreated to his big, drafty house in Scotland directly after his devastating affair with the American woman. The Italian was surprised that d’Brouchart had tolerated his absence in Council for seven years. It was unprecedented and as far as Dambretti knew and entirely unnecessary. No one blamed Ramsay for what had happened. The horrendous punishment the man had suffered had surely cleared his name on Earth and in Heaven. Lucio shuddered visibly at the memory.
The scroll was a bit smashed, but neatly tied with a red ribbon and sealed with a dollop of green wax imprinted with two short wavy lines in the center. Aquarius. The alchemical symbol for Dissolution. Ramsay was the ‘dissolutionist’, the Alchemist. The man lived and breathed mercury and sulfur, concoctions and decoctions. Working like a hermit in his dark lab, day after day... year after year, producing the gold ingots that kept the Order running in style. Dambretti owed him everything, including the means to buy the expensive sunshades he pushed back into the dark, curly hair on his head. Like the Grand Master, Dambretti didn’t have to read the letter. Each time the letter came, he was reminded painfully, of the last mission on which he had been sent and what had transpired during those short, but fateful days in America. The mission had been a debacle in every sense of the word, resulting in four unnecessary deaths and a few more close calls. One or two of them involving himself. In fact, the Alchemist had saved him twice: once from a knife-wielding maniac and once from his own cowardice. Ramsay, himself, had been ‘killed’ at least three times during the mission, but who was counting? Nothing good had come of it and though he had a habit of seeing the Hand of God in everything, he could not find the la mano divine in their last mission abroad. Lucio crossed himself subconsciously.
The losses they had suffered on that occasion had affected him worse than many such disasters in the past, but he attributed it to his advancing age. As the rest of the world progressed, he found himself less and less accepting of death and its attendant horrors. He did not like to think of his primary vocation as one of Christ’s ‘warriors’. Every war, every battle was worse than the last. New weapons guaranteed new and improved ways to die. What could they possibly do now to stem the tide of impending destruction that mankind seemed bent upon drowning in?
But these letters… surely there was something that they could or should do for their Brother in Scotland. Invariably, thoughts of Ramsay turned to thoughts of Meredith Sinclair. He had a bit of unfinished business in Texas himself, but he had never really pursued the possibility of making the trip back just yet. Ramsay’s letters kept him from going. They were like yearly reminders of how fragile life really was and how quickly it could end. How it would inevitably end for Miss Sinclair if he could but hold out long enough. She had to be mid-thirties by now and in a few years, she would be middle-aged and then elderly and then...
Dambretti practically worshipped the Scot. Ramsay had been God’s instrument in Jerusalem, saving him from certain death just as the Holy City had fallen to the Muslims under Saladin’s control. Ramsay could have left him behind to perish with the rest of the rabble, but he hadn’t. During the Templar trials of the fourteenth century, Ramsay had again been God’s instrument, saving him from the hands of the Inquisitors, paying an exorbitant bribe just prior to the interrogation. Ramsay who saved him on the field of battle at Bannockburn and again during the French Revolution when he had been on his way to the guillotine after he had run afoul of the Committee of Public Safety. And again Ramsay had been sent to retrieve him after a bungled mission in Poland during WWII when he had ended up in a concentration camp in a case of mistaken identity. And who could forget the ugly affair in Berlin, let alone Morocco and the Sinai?
But revenge had been sweet in Texas when he had watched the Chevalier du Morte cleave the knife freak’s ugly head from his body with a single swing of his broadsword. Lucio liked to think that there had been just a ‘wee bit’ of vengeance paid on his account in that blow, though he knew that Ramsay had killed the man for a dozen better reasons than revenge on his behalf. Regardless of the reasons, such actions weighed heavily on Sir Ramsay’s soul and these thoughts of blood and revenge were blots upon his own, which would have to be confessed.
In spite of his feelings of deep gratitude, Brotherly love and undying respect for the Chevalier du Morte, there was a considerable measure of keen spiritual suffering leftover from a number of adventures and misadventures they had shared over the years. Things that clung to his mind and his soul and made a chill run over him even in the heat of the midday sun. These were unresolved issues. The most recent and by far, the most painful of them was his cowardice when faced with entering a water-filled cavern in order to save their trapped companions from a horrible fate. No one knew of the incident save Ramsay and possibly the Ritter von Hetz. The fact that Mark Andrew had forced him to help at the tip of his sword had not made it into the official reports, thanks to Ramsay’s inflated sense of honor and propriety. Mark would never intentionally make him look bad, but then Mark didn’t have to do it. He managed to do it for himself on a regular basis. To add insult to injury, his guilt on that particular occasion was twofold and he had failed to ask forgiveness for either trespass. He also needed to make peace with his Brother concerning a remark he had made about spending time with Meredith Sinclair. A remark that might have been innocent enough except that he had supported it with malicious intent, implying that much more than time had been spent. The act had been a spiteful, horrible thing and probably one of the worst transgressions he had ever committed. Furthermore, he had made his lie even greater by keeping the one kiss he had stolen from her foremost in his mind for seven years, wishing that he had indeed spent time with her, moreover, plotting and planning the day when he would go back and attempt to make it a truth. His lust was a choking weed masquerading as a rose and as the years progressed, it had grown and evolved until he sometimes felt that he truly loved her, although he knew it was illusion.
An illusion. The blatant truth was that Sir Ramsay was hopelessly in love with her and that was the only thing that made him want to take her. To take her from Mark Andrew so that no one could be closer to the Knight of Death than he, Lucio Dambretti, friend, Brother, comrade-in-arms. Certainly no woman should come between them and no woman ever would, if he had anything to do with it. It had always been so. If Mark Andrew suffered from some horrid disease of the mind, so did Lucio suffer a similar disease. And though he loved his Brother, he was jealous of him and at the same time, he coveted Mark’s attention. He was torn between doing the right thing and going back to America to prove his point. Meredith Sinclair was not good enough for Mark Ramsay. Not worthy of his attention. Not deserving of his love. Afterwards, he would present the lovesick Chevalier with some personal memento belonging to her, something that would attest to her infidelity and that would be the end of it. Lucio knew exactly what it would be: a certain silver ring that had suddenly gone missing from Brother Ramsay’s finger for seven years. He also knew that it was no coincident that the ring had been missing since they had returned from America. Ramsay wore Meredith’s silver in his hair and Dambretti would have bet his life ten times over that Miss Meredith was wearing Mark’s silver on her finger. If he were to bring that little piece of silver home, it would be all over. Then they could get on with their lives. But… there was danger there. Grave danger.
The letters broke his heart and, at the same time, infuriated him. Ramsay had no right to fall in love and humiliate himself to such an extent over a woman! Lucio had never understood the Scot’s propensity for suffering. Sir Ramsay was everything he wanted to be and to think that his ‘hero’ could fall so hard and so shamelessly for a pretty face was beyond belief. Why could he not simply take a lover and be done with it? Surely some local ‘lassie’ could satisfy his need for companionship. Ramsay had enough money to support an entire harem in style. He could have had a mistress tucked away in every town and village in Scotland. The situation was unbearable, a constant war raged in the back of his mind like the proverbial itch that he could not reach. Though he had asked God for forgiveness, he could not ask his Brother to forgive him because he did not truly feel penitent and he truly wanted her.
“Read! Golden Eagle, your work,” d’Brouchart’s voice startled him from his reverie. The Master leaned back in the chair with a pained look on his face.
Dambretti cringed. He hated it when the Grand Master referred to him in such a fashion. It usually meant he was in trouble, which seemed to be most of the time lately. The Master had been after him to read and translate an entire work recently discovered in an ancient, fourth century crypt in Jerusalem and he had been too slow in his translations according to d’Brouchart. Coptic was not his language of choice. He wished the archaeologists would stop with their damned digging. They already knew the truth. It was right in front of their noses and they refused to see it. Refused to acknowledge the literal fact that Jesus Christ as portrayed by the damnable Holy Romans was a fraud and a deception perpetrated on the masses. Why search for proof of things that had never existed? And before the Coptic scrolls, he had been hounded incessantly about a tablet unearthed in Iraq near the ancient site of Babylon, inscribed with Sumerian script and before that had been another of the frustratingly incomplete Dead Sea Scroll fragments written by some one named Jehosephat. The latter had turned out to be nothing more than a tally of food stores kept at one of the ruined retreats used by Essene monks who had lived thereabouts around the time of the crucifixion of Jesus. It had taken him almost six months to translate that one. A complete waste of time. D’Brouchart was driving him crazy. At least this piece of text would be easy enough to read.
He broke the wax seal on Ramsay’s letter and several small pieces fell onto the tiles near the pool, melting on the hot surface almost immediately. Lucio wiped one hand across his sweaty forehead and squinted at the carefully formed letters, the perfectly aligned margins, the conscientiously spaced lines and the elegantly executed slant of the script.
“Most Excellent Master and Honored Brother of the Order,” he began to read from the thick parchment paper. Dambretti failed to understand how one man could be seemingly perfect in everything he attempted, but this one thing. One little four letter word: Love. He cleared his throat dramatically, eliciting an impatient grunt from the Master.
“His Excellency’s undivided attention and unimpeachable consideration is urgently and humbly requested by his devoted servant and Brother, Sir Mark Andrew Ramsay, Chevalier du Morte, Assassin, Alchemist, Order of the Red Cross of Gold, Knight Templar concerning a matter of grave importance. The Honorable Chevalier du Morte would respectfully request that the Esteemed Grand Master should convene a full table discussion of the Primitive Rule of Order in respect to its immutability in light of its ancient age and the prevailing conditions of the modern world which would, in this humble Knight’s opinion, seem to indicate some possible revisions must needs be in order.”
Dambretti stopped reading and cleared his throat again, buying time while checking the letter to make sure that nothing had changed from the previous year’s letter. The words were the very same he had been called upon to read every year on Midsummer’s Eve. He wondered if Mark had a copy of it that he simply retraced again and again. The Italian looked up at the Master who glared at him balefully before continuing his recitation.
“In particular, article number seventeen ‘For if any brother does not take the vow of chastity he cannot come to eternal rest nor see God, by the promise of the apostle who said: 'Strive to bring peace to all, keep chaste, without which no-one can see God,’ wherein the definition of the word ‘chaste’ can be defined in more ways than just that currently accepted by the Order to mean expressly, to the exclusion of all other possibilities and having regard to the preserving of one’s virginity, and, in seeing that few, if any, of us may be justly called by that Divine Title, i.e. a Virgin, that the Council may have the wherewithal to evoke a change so that the word ‘chaste’ may indeed be defined as decent, modest, nice, pure, virtuous, etceteras, etceteras, none of which words may necessarily be withheld from a person or persons engaging in the natural affections formed by, and resultant of, love between a man and a woman and blessed by God the Father in the bonds of Holy Matrimony. Further did Paul not also say ‘It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.’? And this same apostle did also say ‘if thou marry, thou hast not sinned’. Is it not required of our Hebraic Brothers who wish to take up the duties of the priesthood that they should be married? Was this not the law as handed down by our forebears? Was not our Lord Jesus also married? If this law was good enough for Israel, why is it that the Order should question the wisdom of Moses? Of Solomon?
This humble Knight must assume that his Excellent and Honored Brother, knows by heart that article twenty-two states that the hair should not be worn ‘too long’, but none have been able to define what measure constitutes ‘too long’; hence, how chaste does one have to be to be considered chaste? By this request, the Chevalier Ramsay does not assert that article seventy, concerning the company of women as a dangerous thing, etceteras be stricken nor altered. Nay, not at all, as this article clearly refers to accepting women into the Order as Sisters, but this humble Knight would wish to point out that going strictly by the wording of article seventy, this humble Knight does not see the need for Sisters in the Order… no. And as regards this, is it not true that the Holy Mother was as well a beloved apostle and follower of the Christ whilst he yet walked the hills of Galilee unlike our esteemed Brother Paul who saw fit to convert only after chastisement from our Lord after his crucifixion? Brothers, should we desire to take women into the Order, there should be no fear lest we should appear so weak. However, Chevalier Ramsay would contest the accepted meaning of article seventy-one as pertaining to looking overlong upon the face of a woman, to be modified that a Brother should not look overlong upon the face of a woman to whom he is not married. Why does the Order follow the whims and wishes of an impostor, a false prophet who taught many things contrary to the tenets of Christianity without ever having had the benefit of knowing the Christ or receiving the Word from the Master’s lips? How is that a group of disgruntled old men in papal robes now dead for almost nine hundred years dictate how modern men in a modern society must needs conduct themselves?”
Lucio’s voice went up an octave subconsciously. Dambretti paused. These last two sentence were new… He glanced up at the Master and d’Brouchart’s eyes narrowed sharply. He had noticed the change as well.
Lucio finished the letter without looking at it in a tired, sing-song voice.
“Honored Master and Venerable Brother, I implore you to consider my request with some measure of gravity and the expediency due a request made by the office of a Brother in Good Standing. Indulge to me your ears but for a moment. I make his request with a pure heart. ’ Signed ‘Mark Andrew Ramsay, Chevalier du Morte, etceteras, etceteras… etceteras.’”
Lucio’s voice trailed off into a yawn. The sunshine was making him sleepy. He longed to stretch out on the tiles like a well-fed cat and sleep in the rays of the life-giving Sol. If he had his druthers, he would be in Scotland enjoying the cool, misty mornings and beautiful rolling countryside as he had done for countless years when there was no war in the wings.
D’Brouchart leaned forward in the chair, reaching for the letter. Dambretti handed it over and the man held it close, squinting at the signature and then reading over the new information inserted in the body. One was clearly a reference to the 1128 Council of Troyes wherein the papal legate, et. al., set up the original, Primitive Rule of Order for the Templar Knights. The other remark was even more surprising. Ramsay was aggravated enough to express criticism of the Pauline teachings of the Church of Rome. Brother Ramsay, like most of his Brothers agreed that the Roman Catholic Church and the author of nearly half the accepted New Testament had ultimately erased most of what the Christ Jesus had taught His disciples. True followers of Christ were deemed heretics by the Church. For all intents and purposes, the Order of the Temple was, indeed, heretical by Roman definition.
“How long has it been since our Honorable Brother Ramsay has graced us with his company?” he asked as he always did.
“Seven years running now, your Grace,” Lucio sighed and amended his answer slightly from the previous year. “He has not been back since Twelve of Twelve, your Excellency.”
D’Brouchart nodded. He already knew the answer and he needed no reminder of that distasteful incident, but Ramsay had brought the damned thing on himself. If he had not become careless and allowed himself to become a victim, none of it would have happened. The tryst with Meredith Sinclair, the loss of Sir Thomas Beaujold, none of it would have occurred. Dambretti wondered if it was his imagination or if the furrows in the Master’s forehead were growing deeper. It was not possible. While the Master sat silently eschewing the situation, Lucio could almost hear the sweat running down his own back under his shirt. The only other sounds in the courtyard were the songs of birds from the olive groves and oaks further away toward the barracks. He wondered how long it would take before the Master finally made a response of some kind to Sir Ramsay’s request. His pleadings could not be ignored indefinitely. The Knights had the right to request an assembly of the Council whenever serious matters were perceived to exist, no matter which of them made the request, nor the nature of the grievance. Ramsay had the right to be heard in the Council chamber, yet year after year, his request was simply ignored.
“How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? Mark, and afterwards we will speak,” the Grand Master quoted a scripture emphasizing the coincidental inclusion of Ramsay’s first name, surprising the Knight of the Golden Eagle. The pun on Sir Ramsay’s first name was almost blasphemous, but the scripture’s question seemed custom made for the present situation. D’Brouchart was not given to quoting the Holy Bible, especially in such an indelicate manner.
Lucio leaned on both hands and arched his back, stretching out the kinks. The request from Sir Ramsay came every year, painfully reminding them all of unpleasant memories. Personally, Lucio thought that some of the blame for what had occurred should be laid on Edgard d’Brouchart himself. The Grand Master had been forced to abandon the safety of his hideaway in Italy and travel to America in order to recover his six Templars, five of whom were members of the Council of Twelve, including himself. He had come prepared for the worst, but upon finding the situation much less volatile than he had feared, he decided to show off a bit of his power, just to scare Cecile Valentino into giving up his Knights. As far as d’Brouchart had been concerned, they had been captured as a result of their own arrogant incompetence. By the time he had arrived on the scene, all but one of them had already escaped. None of them had ever seen the Master wield the ancient baculus, as far as Lucio knew. The Golden Eagle had been properly amazed and terrified, but the staff itself had left him curious. How could a red cross pattee that appeared to be made of finely wrought metal have become embedded in a tree sap fossil dating from the age of the dinosaurs? The cracked amber ball atop the staff was an anomaly worthy of study, but the Italian had pried very little information out of the Master-at-Arms in charge of antiquities and ancient relics except that he had personally examined the staff on several occasions, whenever new scientific methods for dating rocks and crystals had developed at the behest of the Master. Never once had he been able to explain how the medal might have become trapped in Jurassic amber, nor could he explain how the stone had been carved into a perfect sphere, but a tiny sample taken from the globe near one of the staff’s claws had shown the stone to be somewhere between 65 and 70 million years old. According the beliefs held by the Brothers, it was not unreasonable to believe that skilled metal workers were around at that particular time in geological history. Though they may not have been actual men, they had been metal workers and craftsmen of great renown. One thing that they all knew for sure was that time was simply a Frankenstein monster that had turned on its creator and devoured him whole.
The Brothers in attendance that day in the scrubby countryside of west central Texas had been surprised and horrified when the Master’s plan had gone totally awry with deadly results. In fact, the Brothers in attendance had previously had no idea that the Master possessed the ability to call up mythical beasts from the bowels of the earth. Even now, Dambretti scarcely believed his own vivid memories of the occasion. Researching the baculus and its powers in the Order’s archives had revealed very little information. A brief description of the staff and a reference to King Solomon’s use of the baculus to summon the legendary Worms of Sherma to cut the stones used for building the first temple in Jerusalem was all he could find. Lucio could only surmise that the original nine Brothers of the Order had found the baculus hidden amongst a number of other treasures they had unearthed beneath the ruined temple around the year 1120. Whatever and wherever those treasures were was something known only to the elder members of the Order. Dambretti assumed that Edgard d’Brouchart knew where the Templar treasures were and he suspected that von Hetz also knew. He sometimes wondered whether Mark Ramsay might not know the answer, but Ramsay seemed much younger that d’Brouchart. Surely Ramsay’s membership in the Order could not have predated the fall of Jerusalem in 1287 by much. Ramsay could not have been more than 25 or 26 when he’d first met him. Another ten years had passed before Ramsay had joined the Order within the Order, the Red Cross of Gold, and brought him along at first as squire and then as apprentice.
Sir Ramsay had never been the same after his encounter with Cecile Valentino and he suspected that the Chevalier du Morte had lost much more of his memory than at first suspected. Further, Dambretti thought that he had yet to recover fully. In addition, he had noticed that Ramsay’s relationship with the Grand Master had changed drastically after the incident. Ramsay’s respect for the Master had grown somehow, whereas d’Brouchart’s regard for Ramsay seemed greatly diminished.
Each year the letter came and d’Brouchart’s disdain for the Scot seemed to double. Each year, its punctual arrival reminded them all of the strange turn of events that had brought them to that portentous day in America, Land of the Free, Home of the Brave. The Italian smiled. Freedom? What was it anyhow? He didn’t know. Dambretti wanted to shout and scream at the Master. Make him do something about Ramsay’s obsession, but he bit his tongue, almost bringing blood in the effort to remain quiet. He had no right to counsel the Grand Master. It was not his job. It would not be appreciated and would most likely give him a great deal of grief. He shrugged and squinted up at the clear blue sky.
“Where is von Hetz?” d’Brouchart asked suddenly and looked up at Sir Philip, who stood waiting upon the Grand Master’s pleasure for dismissal, sweating profusely in the heat.
“He is in Switzerland, your Grace,” Philip answered, frowning slightly.
Sir Philip wondered why his Master would be thinking of the Knight of the Apocalypse at this particular time. Was it because the Ritter von Hetz had also avoided their company since the night of the Twelve of Twelve coming only once a year for the annual meeting of the full Council. How long did it take to recover from such a thing? Seven years? Seventy-seven years? Seven hundred years? The last time Sir Philip had been in Mark Ramsay’s company had been the night he had been obliged to administer twelve blows to the Knight’s head with his gloved fist. He wrapped his left hand over his right fist, ashamed suddenly of owning it. His participation in what he privately considered an atrocity was something he was not proud of and probably qualified as the most distasteful duty he had ever been called upon to perform in his entire life. As far as he was concerned, the crimes that Ramsay had committed were surely covered by any number of mitigating circumstances. They were committed when Brother Ramsay had been much younger. They had been committed in the distant past when laws and rules of engagement had been different in times of war. When life had been much less valuable than today. Last, but certainly not least, Ramsay’s crimes were no worse than those committed by a number of Brothers who had gone before him. If ever a crime would have been considered past any reasonable statute of limitations, Ramsay’s crimes, some committed almost a millennium ago, surely qualified for some consideration. But the Master had ruled that there were no statutes of limitations in the Rules of Order and the General Rules of Conduct which the Templars, especially the Knights, were expected and sworn to uphold. What made it worse was the fact that Ramsay asked no quarter and made no plea on his own behalf. He had accepted the decision and punishment without so much as one raised eyebrow. The man had been truly penitent, which was a damned sight more honorable than the vast majority of the Brothers similarly accused. The Templars had gained a reputation, sometimes well-deserved, as being nothing more than elevated criminals with perpetual get out of jail free cards through lenient papal authority. They answered to none but the Pope and God, Himself, though some had been found guilty by their own councils and punished accordingly.
Philip closed his eyes and wondered why the memory of that awful night chose to haunt him now in the bright open daylight. The night that Ramsay had received his punishment had been hot, stuffy, airless, even though the ancient crypt below St. Simon’s chapel had been cool, almost chilly. The loathsome duty to ‘mete justice’ had fallen to all of them, thanks to the Ritter von Hetz who had plead Ramsay’s case with the Master, requesting the Twelve of Twelve as a lesser punishment. A shudder passed through him and he could still hear the ominous sound of twelve voices calling count upon the blows delivered to the Chevalier du Morte’s head. Those voices had rung in his ears for days afterwards and he still heard them in his dreams. The majority of the punishment had been delivered even after the man had long lost consciousness and perhaps even died… Philip shuddered again. His turn had come late. Next to last, in fact, when the hood covering the Knight’s head had been soaked with blood. The Seneschal had burned his gloves in the Villa’s incinerator, fished out the metal portions and buried them in the olive grove, trying to rid himself of the grisly, blood-stained reminders. They had been the seventh pair of gloves he had treated in such a manner. He hoped they were the last. At any rate, the Ritter had been right, the punishment had been less severe than excommunication and permanent banishment or execution.
That night had been the last time any of them had seen Ramsay, except for Lucio Dambretti who still spent week long visits with the Knight in Scotland whenever he could get away. Sir Ramsay had spent only two and a half days in the Villa after that night, recuperating from his injuries, attended only by his apprentice in one of the more secluded rooms in the Knight’s quarters, which occupied the renovated Villa urbana where the original Roman farmers had lived. On the third day, when he should have been in the last stages of the healing coma, he had gotten up and left, much to everyone’s surprise. He’d spoken to none, but the Grand Master before leaving, and that only because he was required to beg leave before retiring to his estate in Scotland.
Philip would never forget his last fleeting glimpse of the Knight. He had been reading his newspaper, sipping coffee beside the pool just as the first rays of the sun touched the ancient oaks in the courtyard. His favorite time of day and he loved to sit outside, listening to the multitude of birds rising to their daily duties while he scanned the little newspaper from the French village in which he had spent his childhood. A peculiar little vanity, reading about the lives of total strangers, but it kept him somehow rooted to the ground. He had just finished glancing through the obituaries when he had seen the door of Ramsay’s quarters swing silently inward, exposing the dark interior of the room. He remembered quite well how the hairs at the nape of his neck had stood up and all the blood had drained to his feet. And then, there he had been, rising early in the morning like a negative portrait of the Christ Jesus coming out of his tomb on the morning of the third day. Instead of shining white raiment, Ramsay had been dark, dressed in black from head to toe. His face, though obscured in the deep shadows under the porch, had exhibited a mass of bruises and healing gashes visible even in the gloomy light. Christopher Stewart had followed close behind him, dressed in a dark gray three-piece suit, carrying two black bags slung over his shoulders then, after speaking briefly to the Master in the conference room, they had disappeared like two ghosts in the early morning mist. That had been, as they say, that. He had not been back to Italy since then. Scotland had embraced her son, wrapping him securely in her misty lowlands and kept him safe from the world for seven long years.
The Master had received regular reports from Sir Montague in London with reference to Ramsay’s alchemical activities. Philip, as Seneschal, was privy to the contents of these reports, looking them over for errors and/or questionable items before handing them over to the Master for final approval. William Montague, who also served the Order by carrying out double duty as the Order’s chief accountant and broker, as well as, holding the title of Knight of the Holy City at the Council table, had confided to him that he, like Ramsay, preferred to live away from the Villa, firmly ensconced in London’s bustling business district. Sir William reported that Ramsay was making considerable contributions to the treasury each quarter in the form of gold bullion. Christopher Stewart also delivered these tidy little packages personally, making the drive down to London in a variety of expensive rental cars. The time, date, make and model of his car were reported on sticky notes attached to the ledgers as if it made any difference what the apprentice chose to drive or exactly what time he arrived. Montague was fastidious. He reported every penny spent by every member, every commander, every entity, endeavor and outpost down to the amount of money they spent on postage stamps.
But money was no object for the Order. William claimed it was due to his vigilance. D’Brouchart was always pleased to hear that none of his Knights were overly extravagant. Dambretti, again, was the exception. There were always a number of questionable expenses on his monthly expense report, but they suspected that a woman or, more likely, women were responsible for the bottom line on the Italian’s credit card statements.
Nothing had been going on of major consequence over the past several years that may have required the personal involvement of the Knights of the Council. The so-called Global War on Terror enacted since the horrific attacks on America in 2001, had resulted in military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the Americans were doing a fine job without their help. Ultimately, the Americans would spend a great deal of money, lose no small number of servicemen and nothing would change the mindset of the Infidels. Iran was the true threat in the region. The growing fanaticism there could not to be ignored, but there was nothing to be done about them just yet. There had been several subsequent attacks in Russia, France and Indonesia, but none of them required Ramsay’s particular talents and, apparently, the Master no more wanted to see Ramsay than the Knight wanted to see him. They had received nothing from the Knight personally other than the annual letters begging pardon for missing the meeting without any real explanation for why he chose not to attend due to some urgent vagary or other. It seemed that Mark Ramsay had retained his status as Chevalier du Morte as well as his head, but the Order had lost him all the same. Christopher Stewart attended the meetings in silence, speaking only when spoken to as a good apprentice was expected to do. The apprentice would arrive at the Villa the day before, attend the meetings and leave with a mental report in his head, handwritten notes in his hand and a personal message from Simon d’Ornan in his pocket, all to be given to his Master upon his return to Scotland. What it boiled down to essentially, was that they needed him more than he needed them.
Ramsay’s functions within the Order were vital to its basic operations. His duties in Scotland were extremely important to the survival of the Red Cross of Gold to the extent that they would have an extremely hard time finding financial backing for their endeavors without him. Gone were the days when young men and their families stood in line, waiting to hand over huge properties and assets simply for the honor of serving in the Order. They still held vast tracts of real estate throughout Europe, Asia Minor and Africa, some of it more productive than others and their investment portfolio was impressive, but their expenses were enormous. Supporting a covert army in the twenty-first century was no small undertaking. Keeping it covert and useful for the furthering of the Order’s goals and objectives was indeed an accomplishment worthy of global praise, but they received no recognition for the work they did keeping the Western World free of religious oppression. As imperfect as the world was, it might have been a much darker place without their continued efforts and unsung heroes. Ramsay’s contributions to the Order made him only slightly less important than the Grand Master himself. He had been training his apprentice for ten years and the young man had only barely scraped the surface of the immense body of knowledge he would need should the occasion arise in which he would someday step into Ramsay’s shoes. The apprentice could have trained another hundred years and fallen short. In fact, Philip could not imagine anyone stepping into the Chevalier du Morte’s shoes or boots. The idea was appalling. He firmly believed that ultimately it had been Mark Andrew’s monetary worth that saved him from exile or execution upon his return from America seven years ago. The Grand Master was nothing if not shrewd. Ramsay’s loss, to say the least, would have had devastating results; however, he could not simply be allowed to continue without some form of punishment for the string of appalling crimes that had confessed at the hearing. Philip had known Ramsay for years upon years and never would he have suspected him of such heinous activities. But did one man ever really know another?
If Ramsay had not fallen, they might never have known about his disease and he might never have come forward. It had been Ramsay’s own overblown sense of honor and duty that had led him to offer his head on a platter to the venerable Master once the thing was revealed. Edgard d’Bouchart could have rid himself of the one serious threat to his own mastery in all the rank and file of the Order. But even Edgard needed pocket change and he had been not a little bit worried that Ramsay’s execution might have caused an irreparable breach in the cohesion betwixt the members of the Council of Twelve. Ramsay’s supporters and friends were staunch and loyal to the man, but for the most part, though all the members respected him, they also had a deep-seated fear of him and everything he represented. When missions arose, Ramsay’s name was usually at the top of the list of possible choices for mission commander. The Scot was straightforward and practical. His knowledge of military operations, especially covert operations, was second only to the innate knowledge possessed by the Chevalier d’Epee, the Knight of the Sword, but regrettably, the venerable Chevalier d’Epee had been replaced by his apprentice a mere seven years ago and the former Knight of the Sword had been dispatched into the ether with the Golden Sword of the Cherubim wielded by none other than Mark Ramsay himself. The thing had apparently been unavoidable, but with Thomas Beaujold out of the way, Ramsay’s seniority was equaled only by the Ritter von Hetz and the Seneschal. With one blow, Ramsay had elevated himself to the most valuable player on any potential team.