The Red Cross of Gold I:. The Knight of Death (52 page)

“I do not worship Egyptian gods and I am a
Christian in the sense that I believe in one God. But because
Osiris and Isis are older than the concept of the Christ of modern
Christianity in the sense that they were invented or lived, as the
case may be, before the development of the Jewish or Christian
mythos, they could not be considered at all in comparison to
Judaeo-Christian theology. It would be unfair in every respect to
judge an ancient culture based on the concept of Ma’at to what
modern scholars label Christian or Judaism or even the religious
peculiarities of the Musselmen or the Hindustani peoples. If Osiris
and Isis were real people, they hardly had the chance to know the
Christ, did they? Or did they? But their Mysteries are of God, the
One God. The Creator of the Universe. That they did not call Him by
the same names as we do is a small matter.”

“I see,” she nodded. “And what of the
Muslims? Is not their God the same as your God?”

“Probably so, but they are Infidels,” he
said, smiling at her in obvious amusement. “It is not their
religion that bothers me. It is their infidelity to their Prophet
and his teachings. It is their bastardization of the teachings of
the Prophet Mohammed and their insistence upon killing anyone who
disagrees with them on points of order. But as with all things,
their blindness to the truth is the Will of God. They are living in
the past and refuse to evolve. God allows such peoples to exist in
ignorance as long as they may choose and they are useful in their
own ways. When they grow tired of being sheep of darkness, they
will come to know the Truth. They test our faith, no? It is the
same for Hindus, Buddhists and any other order or sect or faith,
even Catholics, who do not evolve. As for Osiris and Isis, it is
not so strange that men should distort their real identities and
make them gods. It is the same with all legendary figures. Even the
Christian Saints of the Church become holier with the passage of
time. Many of the most venerated figures in the history of the
Church were nothing more than sadistic megalomaniacs. The only
reason that posterity canonized them was a terrible fear that they
would return if not appeased after death. Is this not a pagan
concept? Some of the Saints would be hard pressed to live up to
their own names if they were alive today. They were just in the
right place at the right time. The hand of man versus the Hand of
God. It is a no win situation.”

“And how many Saints have you known, Sir
Dambretti, personally, I mean?” she asked.

He laughed and his dark eyes danced at her
leading question.

“None. No real Saints, as the Church now
describes them, but I have known some very saintly ladies. And we
are all saints by the original definition, if we follow the Will of
God.”

He raised both eyebrows and she frowned. He
was still flirting with her, even sitting at her patio table in
handcuffs! But she did not understand the rest of what he was
saying. She held no particular religious beliefs and cared little
for those who did. Gavin had taught her a great deal about the
history of the Church and the knights that fought in the Crusades,
but that was where her interest in religion died. And when their
studies had turned to the Templars, she had read and learned a
great deal more on her on. But when Dambretti called himself a
heretic, she did not understand. When he talked about the Christ
instead of Jesus Christ, she did not understand.

“Really?” Valentino returned his playful
smile with one of her own.

“For example, that was a very lovely lady who
risked her life to save my dear Brother Ramsay,” he said somewhat
wistfully and sighed. “I’ve never been saved by a lady. I’ve saved
a few, here and there, but I’m sure the return favor would be most…
flattering. He should certainly be grateful to her.”

“And what did you save these ladies of yours
from?” She actually smiled at him, sincerely amused.

“The standard things. Monsters. Dragons.
Brutish husbands. Lonely nights,” he shrugged.

“Lonely Knights?” She raised one eyebrow.
“Are you saying nights as in cold and dark or Knights as in big and
bad?”

“Either one,” he leaned back in the chair. “I
have known both and they are equally bad company.”

“Your words deny the nature of your vows and
you speak with what my mother would have called a silver tongue,”
she said, somewhat surprised at his free manner of speaking to her
on the subject of women. “I thought you guys had all those rules
against associating with women. The vow of celibacy. What about
that?”

“That is what confession is for, no? Besides
the word is chastity, not celibacy. One cannot live in this world
without associating with women. And it is decidedly unhealthy to
repress one’s desires indefinitely. Everyone must find release in
the physical world as well as the spiritual world. It is a common
mistake to believe that spirituality and sexuality do not mix. God
would not make us this way if it our natures were to be in constant
conflict with each other. We have enough to worry about. We are
spiritual, material, sexual, psychical and mental creatures. That
is what we are. God made us that way and we are made that way and
there is nothing that was made that he did not make. And he did not
make anything of vain or profane manner, but everything with
purpose. Therefore, we have a purpose. We simply need to train
ourselves to use our faculties to the fulfillment of God’s Will. To
listen to that little voice, for instance.” He gave up trying to
talk with his hands, shook his head and leaned both elbows on the
table, holding the cup of coffee in both hands. “This is very good
coffee. Is the cook married?”

“Yes, I think he is,” she told him quite
seriously. Valentino did not like being toyed with and this man was
toying with her. Even with handcuffs on, he seemed unconcerned or
unimpressed by his situation as if he were in control and not she.
The humor of the situation was suddenly less appealing and on top
of everything else, he was definitely trying to seduce her, but his
purpose as he called it, eluded her. What would he gain from
it?

“Oh, well, in that case, is the cook’s
employer married perchance?” He continued to smile at her.

“No,” she said growing truly annoyed by now.
“But marriage is not a high priority of the cook’s employer.” Her
voice rose a bit in anger.

“And what is on top of your list, Miss
Valentino?” his said flatly as his smile faded. He set the cup on
the table and looked at her in defiance. “We can be civil or we can
be barbaric. The choice is yours… at this point.”

“You need a shave, Mr. Dambretti.” She took
up the smile he had lost, pleased with having put him on the
defensive. Her curiosity was getting the better of her and her
anger diminished. “Why don’t you allow me to show you a bit of
Texas hospitality and we’ll talk about the cook’s employer’s
priority list. Or would you rather rejoin your friends in the
basement cellar? Don’t you feel guilty at all about leaving them
down there?”

“The Will of God.” His smile returned though
with a bit of sarcasm. “Whatever pleases you, madam?” He slipped
the cuffs from his wrists and plunked them on the table and her jaw
dropped. She hadn’t even seen him working on them.

let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.

Thomas Beaujold had made his way around the big house with the ease
of an honored guest. There was no one to stop him. No one
confronted him. The cook and cleaning woman had completely missed
his comings and goings. He could not believe that his Brothers were
being held in such a weakly defended fortress, but they were not in
the house. Only Dambretti was inside the house and he was now
locked in one of the upper floor bedrooms, and he was not alone.
The Knight of the Sword had searched the house whilst his Brother
shared breakfast with the woman on the verandah. The man with the
shotgun had gone off through the garden, taking his guns with him.
Beaujold found and disabled the monitoring system in the room under
the stairs, listened at the upstairs bedroom door for a few moments
and then retreated after hearing a woman’s voice as well as Brother
Dambretti's.

They were holding Lucio in the same room in
which they had placed the rug. The same one in which they had found
Ramsay’s luggage. It was like a recurring nightmare! Had they now
lost Dambretti as well? Would he be taken in and ruined like his
Brother Ramsay? Beaujold felt that it almost served the man right
since Dambretti had missed his opportunity to behead Ramsay in the
basement and then allowed the girl to interfere with Simon’s
opportunity as well. Dambretti was of no use to him. He was no
better than Ramsay. Italians and Scots! Of course, there was no
honor in either.

His immediate concern was the man with the
shotgun. If he had gone out in search of Ramsay, he might just get
lucky and find him.

Sir Beaujold slipped down the back stairs and
made it outside to inspect the doors to the basement. There was no
way to get past the locks on the doors without setting off the
alarm and it was getting later and later. He would have to go to
town and get the iron-clad box from the hotel. Without at least one
of his Brothers to help him, he would be forced to kill him or else
he would not be able to handle him. He knew that his Brothers would
eventually escape and come back to the bed and breakfast. The keys
to the van were in his pocket and no one noticed as he left the
house by way of the front doors and drove away toward town.

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

“Good afternoon, Penelope,” Valentino said
curtly and sat down behind the desk with a heavy sigh.

Miss Penelope Martin paced the floor of the
library in front of her desk. The woman wrung her hands in
agitation and nervous perspiration beaded above her top lip.

Whatever this problem was, it had better be
good and not just another round of whining about the bed and
breakfast. Valentino had already made two personal loans to the
woman in support of the bed and breakfast in which she was a silent
partner. She fully intended to foreclose on the place when it
finally went under and reopen it as a guest house for the members
of the Order of the Rose... but then, she might not need the house
after all, if things went well.

The three hours spent with the Italian were
much more pleasant than the few minutes spent with the Scot, but
Dambretti was the second man that she had willingly allowed to
touch her and she did not want to pick up a new habit at this late
date. She did not need men in her life, especially dangerous ones.
Her thoughts traveled back to what Ramsay had told her about
relationships between men and women. Well, now, at least, she had a
common frame of reference to work from, but men were just too
unpredictable and just too… what? Masculine, for her tastes?
Besides, Dambretti had almost talked her into letting them go. Very
charming, he was, but not quite charming enough.

“Miss Valentino.” Penelope stopped her pacing
long enough to speak coherently. “I am sorry to bother you, but two
more men arrived this morning at my hotel and they are asking about
some of the gentlemen who came out here last night. They paid me
quite well to drive out here and tell you that they are in town.
Why didn’t they just call you? It’s not that I mind coming out… I
mean they did pay me, but those men they’re asking about didn’t
come back and neither have the other three. The first three, you
know? Dombrittie, the pretty one with the scar and those two
Frenchman? They had another young man with them at breakfast. I
thought that the one called Boo Joe was awful, but this new one?
The man really scares me, Miss Valentino. There’s something about
him. I don’t know. He’s just…well I just wish…” her voice trailed
off and she began to pace again.

This was an unexpected development. Seven
missing, not counting Ramsay. Three members of the Order of the
Rose. Three Knights. One apprentice. So Herr Schroeder had come to
America after all. But where was the original Grand Master from
Germany? She had not considered what might have happened to the
real Herr Schroeder as well as d’Antin and deVilliers. This Boo Joe
she talked about must be the dark Knight in the basement. So Miss
Penelope thought he was scary too.

“Who are they asking about? Which ones?”
Valentino tried to keep a note of lightness in her voice.

“They asked about Mr. Doornan, Mr. Boo Joe,
Mr. Dombritti, the Eye-talian and someone called Vonnets and oh!
Yes, a boy named Stewart,” she said, mispronouncing their names
terribly. “They don’t seem to know Mr. Deevillay, Mr. Dantine or
Mr. Schroeder. The others all had breakfast together and then I
didn’t see Mr. Deevillay, Mr. Dantine or Mr. Schroeder again after
they left my place before your party. I don’t understand it. They
are your friends. I don’t like this at all. If they are still here,
will you please tell them to call their friends at the hotel?”

“They are all still here, Miss Martin. I’m
sorry that none of them contacted you. I asked them to stay in case
the burglars returned,” Valentino explained and waved one hand
nonchalantly as she tallied the names against the numbers. So she
had four Templars in the house, counting the apprentice, Ramsay was
still out there and that made five, but there was another horse
missing and Penelope had supplied another name: Vonnets! She had
assumed that Ramsay had taken both horses. If there had been
another Knight… yes. She remembered now! Dambretti had arrived with
three others. The ugly, skinny, blond one was missing. That made
six. Six plus the two new arrivals made eight. Eight! Her heart
rate quickened. This was not good news. From what she had read and
what Gavin had told her, eight Templars constituted a small army,
especially on horseback and they had already done away with three
relatively innocent bystanders. “You say there were six of them at
breakfast?” she asked the nervous woman.