The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (34 page)

The Knight of the Sword glanced once more at
Christopher with bloodshot eyes. Christopher quickly averted his
eyes. It would not do to gloat in the man’s face and now he was
without the Italian's aid to protect him from Beaujold’s temper. He
was unsure of the Healer. Another Frenchman.

“Go to bed, boy!” Thomas said gruffly and
jerked his head to one of the beds.

"Allo?" Simon's softer voice was muffled in
the background. "Ahhh, Mademoiselle Martin, how can I help
you?"

Christopher got up and sat on the bed staring
at him a moment before lying back on the pillows with his hands
behind his head. The flowers on the ceiling were almost hypnotic
and though Christopher had no intention of going to sleep any time
soon, he found himself awakening much later to the sound of a
ringing phone.

It was just after six the next morning when a
shrill ring from the elaborate replica of an antique telephone
startled them from their sleep. D’Ornan picked up the phone
gingerly and looked at Beaujold who had gone to sleep in a chair
with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The Frenchman
rubbed his eyes and took time to give Christopher his first frown
of the day before nodding to d’Ornan.

“Oui, allo?” the Healer spoke hesitantly into
the receiver.

“Mr. Boojoe?” Miss Penelope Martin’s voice
was bright and friendly.

“No, ah, no! This is Simon… Mr. D’Ornan,” he
nodded to Beaujold inanely.

“Oh, I’m sorry. You both sound so… French,”
she giggled. “I’m sorry to wake you, but the men here in the lobby
insist.”

“The men? What men?” Simon’s smile faded,
replaced by a deep frown. Beaujold got up and quickly crossed the
room to sit on the bed beside him.

“Two of them are from Paris and one is from
Germany,” she said. “Wait. Let me read their names to you. Monshoor
Dee Villyay, Monshoor Danteen and Herr Schroeder.”

“And what do they want from us?” Simon asked
bluntly. He shook his head at Beaujold and shrugged.

“They are here for Miss Valentino’s
celebration. The initiation,” she whispered these last two words.
“You know. Out at the mansion? Aren’t you here for the same
thing?”

“Ah, oui! Yes, tres bien,” D’Ornan’s face lit
up as an idea suddenly took form in his head. “How many rooms do
they require?”

“Two,” she answered. “The Frenchman are
together. Herr Schroeder is alone.”

“Tres bien. Give them rooms 303 and 304,
se’el vous plait.”

“Of course,” she said. “I hope you are all
coming down for breakfast. Today’s specialty is Belgian waffles…
too bad none of you are from Belgium. I should have changed the
menu to crepes.” She laughed and d’Ornan laughed with her. “Bye,
bye now. See you at breakfast.”

Simon hung up the phone and smiled at
Beaujold who sat frowning at him.

“What is it?”

“We are having Belgian waffles for
breakfast,” Simon told him and then added “and I think that God may
have just intervened in our favor, Brother. Do you like Belgian
waffles, Thomas?”

Christopher yawned and stretched his arms
over his head. Beaujold shot a bleary glare at him and then eyed
the Italian suspiciously. Dambretti was sprawled across the foot of
Christopher’s bed, fully dressed with both arms hanging over the
side. He held the dagger in one hand and an empty cognac bottle in
the other. The phone had not disturbed his rest in the least.
Thomas was quite disturbed to learn that the Italian had returned
to the room during the night without waking him. The man could have
slit his throat. He would have to be more vigilant.

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

“Up and at ’em!” Merry banged through Mark’s
bedroom door carrying a large tray brimming with all sorts of
delicious smelling things.

Mark raised his head… again. He was forever
finding himself waking up from unexpected sleep. He did not
remember going to bed after Tellman left. He lay across the bed,
still fully dressed; face down, both arms hanging over the side.
Cecile’s wine bottle lay empty on the new rug. He didn’t remember
drinking it. The covers were tangled and his shoes were kicked
across the room near the door. He sat up and ran his fingers
through his tangled hair. His head hurt and his eyesight was not
what it should have been.

“You must have had a rough night,” she
commented brightly as she surveyed the condition of the bed and
looked at him in surprise. “I slept like a baby. It’s a wonderful,
beautiful morning. A rare treat from the heat, the weatherman said.
A nice little cool front has moved in ahead of a tropical storm in
the Gulf and we’ll have a bit of respite from the heat today. Don’t
you just love weather? I like clouds, myself. High today 82. Low
tonight 76. It should make tonight’s party just perfect."

Mark made no attempt to speak just yet. His
mouth felt full of cotton and he was sure that this new tray
contained some kind of poison. His stomach growled.

"How is the weather in Scotland? I heard it’s
really cold there in the winter and I looked it up on the globe. Do
you realize that Scotland is further north than Newfoundland. Why
it’s right at the Arctic Circle. It’s a wonder you’re not an
Eskimo. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to live up north. I
just don’t understand it. Freezing cold. Snow and blizzards. The
only blizzards I like are M & M’ Blizzards from DQ. What kind
do you like? Oh, I’ll bet you’ve never had a blizzard from Dairy
Queen, have you? You don’t know what you’re missing. Do they have
Baskin and Robbins in Scotland? I just love Baskin and Robbins
lemon ice cream and it’s so pretty, too. Bright yellow. Almost too
pretty to eat. Do you like ice cream, Sir Ramsay?”

Mark shook his spinning head, licked his dry
lips and made a cursory effort to keep up with all the questions,
none of which she paused in the least to allow him to answer. He
got up without speaking to her and went into the bathroom, splashed
water in his face and looked at himself in the mirror. She followed
him inside the small room and wrapped her arms around him from
behind. He wished she wouldn’t do that. It had a most disturbing
effect on him. He needed to shave… among other things.

“Merry,” he spoke to her reflection in the
mirror. “I need to take a shower and I would like to shave and…
and… uh. If you don’t mind…”

“Certainly not. The food will keep,” she
smiled at his reflection over his shoulder, but did not let go of
him. He turned around in her arms and kissed her forehead lightly.
He jerked his head toward the door and raised one eyebrow.

“All right then, first things first,” she let
go of him and went to turn on the water in the shower for him.
“Everyone has gone into town. The entire staff is running around
like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off. This will be our
only chance to be together before… well, for a while.”

He turned back to the mirror and picked up
the razor on the sink. He really had to do something about her. His
feelings for her were a mixture of lust, amusement and something he
did not want to identify. He made up his mind to ignore her for the
moment. He couldn’t continue to just fall into bed with her every
few minutes. It just wasn’t right in any way, shape or form. She
gave him another hug and left him alone. He could hear her
fluttering about the bedroom as she made the bed and picked up his
belongings from the floor. The entire time she worked in the
bedroom, she chattered about the initiation ceremony, the raising
of the Knights and the reception they were planning.

His mind drifted as he shaved. He was
thinking again about the strange dreams from the night before and
the stupid game Valentino was playing out with John Tellman. It was
too early to try to sort out his feelings for the Pixie. His
headache faded and he realized that he actually liked the sound of
her voice though he heard nothing of what she said.

His conversation with Valentino concerning
Merry’s motives for these visits with him was still ringing in his
head. If that was her intent, they would certainly have beautiful
children. If they looked like her and were quiet like their
father…. The thought was still absurd and yet, somehow amusing. He
was about to get into the shower, when she came back into the
bathroom, bumping the door open with her hip, without warning. She
picked up his dirty clothes and dumped them in a wicker hamper in
the corner before beginning to undress.

He opened his mouth to protest, but nothing
came other than a slight whimper at the sight of her tanned body.
What about his promise to himself? Her gauzy cotton dress fell to
the floor exposing a skimpy lace camisole of pink lace and he was
lost beyond redemption. The camisole was even more enticing than
nothing at all. She laughed at his expression and slipped the
spaghetti straps from her shoulders, allowing the soft lace to fall
to the floor with the dress. She grabbed a bar of lavender soap
from the counter and smelled deeply of it.

“This is just heavenly, though vanilla is my
favorite,” she told him and raised both eyebrows. She pushed him
aside gently and stepped into the shower behind him under the
steaming water. He turned around immediately and she held up one
hand, stopping him before he took hold of her. The scent of the
soap filled the tiled shower as she rubbed the soap over her body
covering herself with bubbles. When she successfully coated with
the fragrant stuff, she laid the soap aside and looked at him,
smiling mischievously. He was speechless.

“You’ve never showered with a woman?” she
asked him. “I have the strange idea that you will like it.”

She rubbed herself against him like a silky
human sponge and ran her hands down his back. It was more than he
could stand. Suddenly there was no time for thinking about silly
promises, no time for worrying about ulterior motives or even
frivolous ideas like soap and such. He had an idea of his own as
she wrapped her arms around his neck. It would be a clean exchange
of ideas.

He was too weak to resist this much
temptation and he hardly thought that any other man could have done
it either. There was no sense denying it; he was a failure as a
Knight of the Temple. The revelation almost made him laugh. He felt
guilty for one more moment and then his mind was on other things.
He pushed her against the tile wall and she wrapped her legs around
his waist. She was very slippery and giggly at first, but the
silliness did not last long when he pressed the urgent issue at
hand. She had no trouble getting down to business without further
ado. His resolve was lost for the next several minutes at least.
And as soon as it was over, he knew that he had lost more than his
resolve. The guilt that she’d wiped away so completely for a few
scant moments of pleasure, washed over him and made him feel weak.
She literally slipped out of the shower and left him alone with his
dark thoughts while she took up her running commentary and endless,
unanswered questions again as she dried and dressed. She had no
idea what suffering was going on behind the frosted glass door. He
took extra pains to wash his hair until she left the bathroom and
then stepped out cautiously on the wet floor. He felt a mixture of
guilt, anger and bewilderment that caused him to collapse onto the
toilet seat with one of Merry’s big towels draped over his head. He
felt that he would suffocate and actually wished that he could.

After several minutes, he pulled himself
together enough to get up again and stood in front of the mirror
trying to comb his hair without looking at himself. Mercifully, she
left him alone for a while. He could hear her in the other room
fussing with the meal she had brought up for him. He had just
finished combing his tangled hair when more of his lost memories
came back to him in a jumbled flash.

An entire series of images fell into place in
one blinding jolt and he had to catch the edge of the cabinet.
Anthony had deserted his post at the Villa near Pompeii and
disappeared over six months ago, just after the Grand Master had
announced his plans to raise him to the rank of Chaplain Brother. A
great honor. It was apparent that d’Brouchart had big plans for the
young man. Cambrique had even intimated that the Master planned to
make the apprentice next in line for Seneschal… some day. An
unusual thing. Unprecedented. The Grand Master had never simply
raised one of the apprentices without having lost one of the
Council Knights and had reason to shuffle apprentices. He would
have received full knighthood and everything that went with it
except for the Tree of Life. Estates in France and England with
house and servants in both countries. The idiot had betrayed the
Order just when he was about to have everything any young man could
have dreamed of. He would have been set for life. For life!

He had been dispatched to find the apprentice
and return him to the fold or kill him. There was no other way. The
search had taken him to Spain, thence to Norway, back to Spain and
then finally to America. Now he was here with the same group of
pretenders to whom Anthony had betrayed them all. The Order of the
Rose. The only thing that Ramsay could attribute the failure of the
apprentice to was the fact that the young man had been having
trouble with his vow of celibacy and his choice of sexual partners
was not exactly in keeping with the Order’s tenants though they
tried to be ‘modern’. Twice they had found him guilty of breaking
the vow in Rome. Rome. And with one of the Vatican officials at
that! Anthony apparently had the same problem that he did with the
exception that the apprentice preferred the company of men.
Dambretti had tried to tell him about Anthony several times.
Dambretti always knew these things, but Anthony’s troubles were
over in this lifetime and Mark always tried to make it his business
to stay out of other people's business.

And now he had followed Anthony’s example,
broken his own vows as well and come very close to betraying the
Order. He was no better than Anthony. The two men fighting in the
dream… it had not been a dream at all. They were here and they were
not Ninja warriors or cat burglars. His Brothers were here and they
had come to kill him, not Anthony. Not only was he in danger from
the insane Valentino and her ugly watchdog, he was in real danger
from his own Brothers. But he was immortal just as Valentino had
said all along. How dare they presume to think he would stand by
and allow them to take his head? He needed his sword. He would be
defenseless without it. But these memories as good as they were,
were still incomplete. There were still gaps. How had he become
mixed up with these Brothers in the first place? They didn’t own
him. He had served them long and well. And what about Merry? What
would he do about her?