“A day or two.” Omar’s face fell. There were so many things to attend to. So many loose ends, but he knew, or felt he knew, when he left this time, he would not be back in his capacity of the Prophet or as Supreme Leader of the New Order of the Temple. The New Order was crumbling around him. Ahmed would have his hands full just trying to hold onto Persia Major.
“Make it one day,” the Grand Master told him sternly. “And have your man make arrangements for passage. I believe, we should go by train if there is one to be had. We can travel up through Germania and across the Alps. We can stop in Switzerland and pick up whatever is left at Sir Hetz’s chalet before traveling on to Denmark. We can avoid England altogether by going to Norway, and then by boat from Norway through the Orkney’s and come home from the North. I don’t believe, the King would be expecting us from that direction.”
“We should be able to fly out of Ankara to Romania.” Omar frowned. “The Turks are still in pretty fair shape, and the full impact of the war has had very little effect on Romania and Moldavia. Of course, the Russians and Georgians are still friendly, but their transportation is rather unreliable. It should be possible with a bit of juggling.”
“We will travel as monks. It seems there are as many of them now as there have ever been,” D’Brouchart told them disdainfully. He had never cared for the brothers of the religious orders. They caused more problems than they cured. “Pack sparingly.” He looked about the room. “Send Simon and the Golden Eagle, see me in my quarters, Brother.” He nodded to Barry, who was smiling broadly. “Louis, please see if you can find something a bit more secure in which to carry your treasure, and let Barry have a look at it before we leave. And Omar, have your man tell no one about our plans… he will be coming with us, no?” He looked at Curtis, and the man’s face lit up brightly.
“If he is willing,” Omar said and turned to his assistant.
“I could think of nothing, I would rather do, Your Grace!” The young man fully worshipped his employer. Another of Omar’s rescue projects.
“Then you understand what the Master wishes to do?” Omar asked him.
“I do, Your Grace. It will be my pleasure. Don’t worry, I’ll arrange everything.” Curtis stood up very straight. “Would you wish to meet with the Prime Minister? I’ll see to your packing, Your Grace. Will you also be a monk, sir? If so, what sort of monk?”
“Yes. Yes, I’ll be a monk, but let Sir Barry worry about it. Tell the Prime Minister I need to see him as soon as possible.” Omar nodded. “With your permission, sir, we owe it to Ahmed to let him know, we are leaving… abandoning him.” The Prophet’s voice was full of bitterness.
Edgard nodded absently. His mind was already racing ahead of them. It would be long journey, and they had to avoid England and Scotland at all costs. It went without saying this most recent news would almost prove their suspicions concerning King William Henry’s loyalties. The Chevalier du Morte had run afoul of William Henry somehow, and it smacked of treason and treachery on the King’s part.
“Oh! And Your Grace!” Curtis turned back at the door and a look of pain crossed his freckled face. “I almost forgot. I’m sorry, but I had a call from Sicily, the Carlotti family executor.”
“And?” Omar frowned in confusion. Another reminder of Ruth. Just what he needed. The prospect of returning to St. Patrick’s, where Bari was incarcerated, did not sound appealing to him.
“It’s time, sir.” Curtis’ frown deepened.
“Ahh! Oh… I’m not sure what I can do.” Omar looked about, and his face drained of color. “God save me from this.”
“What?” D’Brouchart stopped in his tracks.
“Ruth. It is time to move her to her final resting place,” Omar told him quietly.
“Send someone else.”
“I can’t. I promised… it is my duty to be there.”
“For God’s sake, man, you can’t mean to go off bone-picking at a time like this!!” Edgard drew himself up.
Omar’s mouth fell open, then closed again, as his face darkened.
Barry caught the Master’s arm lightly. “Your Grace, you must remember who we are talking about. The Prophet’s wife.”
“My wife.” Omar nodded his head rapidly. “Sir, I gave my oath as a Templar and I mean to uphold that oath, but I would ask you speak with respect when referring to my wife. I will go to Sicily and meet you at a pre-arranged point.”
“Your Grace,” Louis spoke up. “Perhaps we should split up. It would attract less attention if two smaller groups were to travel along different paths. The state of chaos on the continent will serve to shelter us as well. There should be no problem, if we are careful.”
D’Brouchart stifled his first response and reconsidered their position briefly. King Richard had sought to return from the Holy Lands by a route similar to what he had proposed, and he had been captured and held prisoner for years while his Kingdom languished. The possibilities were endless. If they traveled in two groups and one were captured, at least the others would stand some chance of ransoming or rescuing the captives or, at the very least, carrying on the business at hand, should they be destroyed in some part.
“Well spoken,” he nodded after a moment. “My apologies, my son. It was inexcusable.”
Chapter Ten of Fifteen
Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof
The arrangements were made, and the two parties set out from New Babylon the following night, in different directions, by different means. Lucio, who was more acquainted with Sicilian customs and personally attached to Ruth, accompanied Omar, along with his administrative assistant, Curtis Franklin. Simon, much to his father’s chagrin, Christopher Stewart and Lavon de Bleu were also in this group. They left New Babylon by private bus on their way south toward the Arabian Desert. They would travel to Egypt and then fly to Sicily from Alexandria. The rest of them set out by train toward Ankara. They planned to meet the following week at Konrad’s chalet on Lake Leman in the Alps near Geneva and then travel on together, if all went well.
Omar’s party traveled under the prophet’s auspices perhaps for the last time. The Fox was growing thinner and thinner, and his own presence was attracting less and less attention as people struggled to cope with the devastating results of the collapse of the west. He knew, once they had reached St. Patrick’s, they would never again have the means to come and go at their fingertips, and his heart was very heavy at the thought of losing everything he had worked so hard, and suffered so much, to build. The world’s latest and greatest Prophet, since Mohammed, was passing from it, and the world was hardly taking notice of the event. They arrived in Sicily much sooner than anticipated, but the farther west they traveled, the more apparent the destruction became.
The war had not come here, but everything and everyone had been affected in some way or another. No one had escaped the oppressive mood that had fallen over the world in general. They encountered a few problems in Egypt where many of the refugees from North America had eventually come to ground, out of food, out of money, and out of luck. The Egyptian government simply could not cope with them, and they were literally starving behind thick curtains of barbed wire fence, without the benefit of adequate provisions, and some without even a ragged tent to shade them from the sun. Omar brought as much hard money in the form of gold bullion he could manage. By the time he left Alexandria, it was all gone, and he left behind a miserable multitude with barely enough money to get them through the rest of their trip.
Lucio had almost given up eating altogether. He could not force down the meager bread and wine they were able to buy at exorbitant prices in the barren marketplaces. The normally crowded streets were virtually empty. The plague had come with the refugees in the forms of cholera, influenza, dysentery and the re-emergence of Bubonic plague, and though, almost every one of these maladies was perfectly treatable, thousands had died without even an aspirin to relieve their sufferings. Omar had tried to heal as many of them as possible wherever he went
, but he knew, he was only prolonging the inevitable in most cases. Healing them of one malady in order they might shortly catch another. Even the divine Prophet of Allah could not help them, and at that moment, he ultimately realized he could not save the world, he had never possessed the power to save the world. He had been unable to save even his own wife and was reminded of the story of Nostradamus who, while he had been out saving people from the disease, had lost his own family to the plague in another place and another time. He felt, he could truly understand what the famous prophet of old must have suffered.
The Egyptian authorities had quickly, but quietly, asked them to leave when news of his presence spread through the camps. They were having enough trouble trying to keep the infected victims away from the healthier populace. They simply could not handle the added burden of the near riots the Prophet’s presence was causing, and thus, they had come to Sicily sooner than expected, and so, their delayed departure was moved up drastically as passengers were bumped from the precious seats available in order to facilitate their journey more readily.
They were greatly relieved to arrive in Sicily where the war’s effects and the plagues associated with it seemed to have passed by with little or no outward effects. The island was as beautiful as Lucio remembered, but the familiar sights and sounds of Monreal, on the island’s northern coast, brought back memories he would just as soon forget. The last time he had been to the small town located on the slopes of Mount Caputo, had been during the Twenty-Seven-Year War when he had rescued three of Ruth’s brothers from the local jail where they had been awaiting execution for sedition and treason. The town, itself, had changed very little. Even that war had left very few visible reminders on the sunny slopes of the great devastation wrought upon the continent. The small entourage rode in two very cramped electric cars to the outskirts of town where Ruth’s family owned a sizable tract of scenic property overlooking the sea. The place was a bit overgrown, but virtually unchanged, though the numerous members of Ruth’s once sizable family were no longer in evidence. Lucio remembered this place being overrun with barefoot, laughing children. Cousins, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters of the workers and servants who once tended the winery, vineyards and fields. Instead, they were met at the gate by an old man, who could barely manage the mechanism that would swing the heavy iron portal inward to allow their cars to pass. They were met at the door by an equally ancient woman, who seemed afraid to speak to them. They were escorted directly through the house to the garden, where Ruth’s great-nephew Burl waited for them at a small patio table under a colorful, but tattered umbrella. Burl had been raised in America and had only just recently retired from his post at a university in Illinois to this rustic estate, that he had inherited quite by accident, it seemed. Even with all her brothers, cousins and distant relations, there seemed to be nothing left of Ruth Carlotti’s family other than this old man who did not even speak the local native tongue. He had no idea who Ruth had been other than she had sent money to keep the place in good repair and she was married to Omar Kadif. Furthermore, Burl didn’t really seem to care.
He was cordial, but uninterested. Ruth had meant nothing to him. As an American, the Prophet exerted very little effect on him, and now, that his life was drawing to a close, he wanted only peace and a bit of bread and wine to eat and drink. He had money, but there was nothing to buy, nowhere to go.
“I can hire the work to be done by the locals,” he said, after the introductions were made, and they had crowded around the small table to receive rather cheap portions of wine in stained plastic cups.
“That would be appreciated if it is a reputable organization,” Omar told him. The Prophet was quite put out by his wife’s only remaining relative. The man was almost rude, but not quite. “Money is no object.”
“That is certainly true.” The old man raised his cup and saluted the Prophet. “Money is nothing at all if you have no market in which to spend it. Did you happen to bring any tobacco with you or a bit of beef? They would build her a monument fit for a queen for a side of bacon.”
The conversation went down hill after this last remark. They left shortly after with a promise to return for the disinterring, which required the presence of the closest living relative. Omar was beside himself. He did not want to see her. Not after she had lain in the grave for some nine months, but it had been her wish to be buried here with her family if, indeed, she ever died. Omar had never given it much thought. He had expected her to simply live forever and still could not believe she was dead. Further, her head had been cut from her body and now, he would have the rare privilege of viewing her once more after the fact. Luke Andrew had spared him the first time, but he could do nothing for him now.
He simply wanted to run into the hills screaming and never come back, but he had promised her, and this was the last thing he would ever do for her. They spent a morose evening together at a small local inn. The food was much better and there was more of it here in Sicily, though there was no meat. They ate in silence and retired to their rooms early. The proprietor was ecstatic to receive payment in gold, but he was the only happy soul in the inn.
The following day, they arrived just at nightfall and walked again through the old man’s house behind his silent cook. Four strangers and Burl waited for them in the garden, and they walked along a rocky path to the small plot of ground used for the above ground burials of the Carlotti family. The place was enclosed by a rusted, but ornate fence. Inside were several stone crypts set on concrete pads, weathered with age, carved with classical Greek images and embossed with the family crest and name. A wealthy family of expert businessmen. The Carlotti’s had not been nobility, but they had been fairly influential in the local sense of the word. Ruth was currently the only occupant of the family plot. Her coffin had been placed in one of two relatively unblemished vaults. Omar stood back near the gate while the four men Burl had hired for the occasion, strained and pried on the heavy stone lid. Simon stood on one side of the Prophet and Lucio on the other. Christopher, Lavon de Bleu and Curtis Franklin waited outside the fence. Her body could have been left here forever at rest in the above ground tomb. Burl could have occupied the other and the Carlotti family would have gone the way of numerous old families, but local custom denied him that ease. They would place her bones in a neat little pile next to her mother’s remains in the catacombs.
The stone slide to one side and struck the ground with a resounding hollow thud. The crypts where her cleaned bones would be placed were directly under the cemetery. Omar would not be here for the second interment. The process of cleaning the bones would take too long. They could not stay in Sicily; they had to get to Switzerland. Omar was secretly glad, he could not tarry. It would be bad enough to see her decomposed body now, without waiting around to look at her bare bones. Lucio, on the other hand had seen this done before. It was also a custom in many parts of Italy as well as other places where the populations were large and the civilizations ancient.
Of course, it had been years and years since he had been associated so closely with the deceased. He knew Omar would probably have a heart attack if he knew what would be done with Ruth’s body once the bone-pickers Burl had hired carried her coffin away. Her body would be cleaned of most of what remained by hand, and then, her bones would be placed in a sort of tank where flesh-eating beetles would clean the bones further. Then the bones would be left in a water bath for several days or even weeks until all remnants of the flesh were finally gone. The cleaned bones would be painted with a preservative and carefully arranged and stacked like flowers in a florist shop, and then brought back here to be placed with her ancestors in a small niche in the catacombs below the cemetery. If the Prophet knew what was about to happen to his beloved wife’s body, he would have probably halted the process and bought the entire estate just as a resting place for her coffin, but Omar had very little experience with the mechanics of death. He had seen plenty of it, but it was quite unlikely tha he had ever attended many funerals,
and even less likely he’d ever given much thought to what happened to the bodies of the deceased. Lucio shook his head as the men reached into the coffer and unfastened the latches on the bronze coffin.
Burl motioned Omar forward, but the Prophet did not move. Lucio pushed him forward gently from behind.
“Go on, Brother. It is almost done.” He whispered to him and then walked along behind him. It would be Omar’s job to open the coffin. Lucio would help him with this chore.
They stood momentarily looking down at the shining metal, and then, Lucio took the lead, reaching down to take hold of one of the brass handles. Omar grasped the other one. They raised the lid and one of the workers stepped forward to shine his light in the interior of the coffin. The smell buffeted them with an almost physical intensity. Lucio held up the lid with one hand and snatched the light from the man.
“Step back, sir,” he spoke to the man in Italian. “You, too, he waved the light at the other men and Burl who stood nearby, apparently drawn out of morbid curiosity for what would soon be his own fate.
The workmen moved back quickly and the old man followed more slowly. Someone was coughing and gagging behind the fence, apparently from the smell. The interior of the coffin was completely dark. The sky was overcast, and there was very little natural light here.
Lucio glanced at Omar who stood holding the lid as if frozen in place.
“Are you ready?” he asked and Omar nodded minutely.
Lucio played the light over the interior of the coffin, starting at the head. Ruth looked surprisingly well. The head was in the proper place and the severed neck had been carefully concealed beneath a high-collared, lace blouse of white silk and appliquéd pink satin flowers. Her hair was dark and luxurious around her face. She was very pale, the morticians work had faded. Her eyes were sunken slightly and the bones in her face were quite prominent, though, not enough to destroy her beauty completely.
The Jealous God Page 23
