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

by Brendan Carroll

  “There now,” she smiled at him when he looked up. “Isn’t that better?”

  A beautiful, female rapist. He’d never thought it possible. Never given it a thought at all. But she was beautiful and she seemed to have no malicious intent. In fact, she reminded him of a child.

  He nodded again, sighed and closed his weary eyes as he drew his knees up and then sat cross-legged, arching his back to ease the pain there. When he opened his eyes, she was beside him again.

  “Tell me, Chevalier Ramsay,” she knelt beside him and reached to flick a piece of bark from his hair. “Where are your brothers?”

  “I have no brothers,” he told her. He didn’t know if it was a lie or the truth.

  “You have eleven brothers, Sir Ramsay,” she insisted. “No other family. They are well known to us. You are the Master of the Key of Death. The Assassin. The Chevalier du Morte.”

  “You have lost me entirely,” he said tiredly. A cool breeze kicked up beneath the trees and helped to revive him immensely. Even though the titles sounded familiar in a vague sort of way, he refused to admit it.

  “No, I’ve just found you,” she said with a twinkle in her blue eyes. “I intend to keep you for a while. Sir Ramsay.”

  This was not what he wanted to hear. He wondered ironically where she had found him and what he had been doing and what he was supposed to do now. She was obviously insane. Beautiful, but insane.

  “You will tell me everything eventually,” she told him. “I think you would rather tell me than the others. It is only a matter of time. There is no use in going on with your old ways. This is a new century and things have changed. After we have found your brothers, we can get on with a new order that will be much better than the old one. Less restrictive, I think.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about."

  He noticed that his accent was different from hers. He didn’t know which of them were in the wrong place. With a sinking feeling, he had to assume that it was himself who was far, far from home. This place was strange in every aspect. Not home. Too hot. Too dry. Even the trees were wrong. He recognized them. Pecan trees. But where was home? Where were pecan trees grown in such profusion?

  “Your order is dying, Sir Ramsay,” she told him almost sadly. “There is no place left for your kind in the world. It is time to share your secrets with the world.”

  “You and your friend have me confused with someone else,” he tried to tell her.

  She laughed and her laughter reminded him of Pixies or some other faery from his homeland. Homeland? Pixies were legends… of what land? Home. Home! Faeries and Pixies? She was not the only one here who was quite right in the head. He was insane as well. He was quite sure of it. An almost hysterical laugh escaped him, confirming his thoughts.

  “What a fine sense of humor you have, Mark Andrew. So unafraid, just as Cecile said you would be.” She leaned in quickly and kissed his forehead before examining the cut above his eye. “I should think that after all these years and all the horrors you have seen, you would be more… solemn or bitter. But you are nothing like I expected.”

  What horrors? His only horror was still clomping about under the trees. He wondered what horrors she was referring to. Why had she called him an assassin? Was that why he was in this situation? Was he a murderer? He didn’t feel like a murderer. He didn’t feel like anything, but a very confused and abused man in a great deal of trouble and yet, he knew quite well that he'd not heard himself called by Mark or Mark Andrew in a long, long time or perhaps ever.

  The big man popped into view again and stood with his hands on his hips looking down at them.

  “I say we dump him here and be done with it,” he grumbled. "Cut our losses here."

  “That's ridiculous," she objected and frowned. "He's wearing the rings."

  Mark looked down at his hands. He wore two rings. . One on his left ring finger was shining gold, smooth. Was he married then? He turned his hand over and found a triangular white shield on top of the ring with a blood red cross inlaid in the white stone. Something tugged at his memory and another disorienting scene flashed in his head. He saw a line of horses and riders in full battle armor. In front of each rider was the white triangle with the red cross like a scene from a movie. The horses snorted and pranced uneasily, dust clouds rose behind the closely packed line as they advanced. His head swam and the image disappeared. On his right little finger he wore a silver ring with four initials engraved on top accented with black: IAAT. Those were not his initials. The rings meant nothing to him, but they were important clues to his identity.

  “I know he ain’t the right one,” the man argued. “He’s too stupid to be an assassin…. bullshit! He’s probably a Mormon or a Gee Hovah’s Witness or something. If he was so all fired dangerous, how the hell did we get the drop on him like that?”

  "Don't be silly, Maxie. You sound like an old movie," she said and winked at Mark as if the man were an errant child. "He just wasn't expecting us. That's all."

  Mark wiggled his fingers as the feeling returned to his extremities. Already, he was feeling much better and the greater part of his aches and pains had subsided. He had no intention of sitting still while the man carved him up for the buzzards. A very short, but vivid memory of another place and another time flashed in his mind, leaving him with the distinct impression that he could easily dispatch this disgusting brute with his pocket knife, if he could get his hands to cooperate. He could take off his head with one blow and hang it from one of the tree limbs for the birds to eat. He could cut out his heart and leave his carcass for the vultures. He could disembowel him and …. Mark shook his head and the hideous visions vanished, along with his hope, as the man pulled a pistol from his pocket.

  “Don’t get antsy, dipshit.” The man must have read the look on his face. “I don’t have no problem with offin’ you right now.” He turned to the woman again. “You ain’t gonna get nothin’ out of him.”

  “I got him to talk to me. That’s more than you can say.”

  The Pixie squared off with him in Mark’s defense. The man was ready to murder him and dump his body in the ditch.

  “Oh, yeah?” The man’s voice grated on Mark’s ears. “I guess I shoulda fucked him then? What did you get out of him besides a poke and a moan? I bet you didn’t even get yours.”

  The Pixie’s face reddened with anger and she slapped the man’s face to Mark’s surprise. “Watch your mouth, sir! How dare you speak to me in such a manner? You will remember who pays your salary.”

  “Oh, yeah. Yeah, right.” The man backed off a bit and rubbed his cheek. “Excuse me, your preciousness. I thought we brought him here to interrogate him, not scr… sit in his lap.”

  “There is nothing wrong with a little kindness, Maxie.”

  She seemed to calm down a bit and then looked down at Mark He felt extremely guilty about what had happened in spite of having been helpless to do much about it. He suddenly wanted to kill the man and take the girl to a convent. A convent? What was wrong with him? He rubbed the back of his head. The blows to his head must have caused extensive brain damage. His stomach growled and he stretched his legs out flexing the muscles in his calves and thighs. The tingling had subsided.

  An alarm went off in his head and he remembered stopping at a small store looking for potato crisps or some biscuits. That was when he had seen the one called Maxie for the first time. The man was waiting for him in the parking lot. The man had thrown something in his eyes. The pain had been excruciating and he’d been blinded by whatever it had been. Where was his car? A mangy, black rat with sickly yellow eyes ran across his feet and he jerked his knees up involuntarily and wrapped his arms over his head. Where had the rat come from?!

  He looked up again and saw that his captors were still arguing. Mark Andrew Ramsay. That was his name. He grabbed at the rat when it ventured near enough, snuffling at toes, but it was gone again. He crawled after it in the debris under the stone stairs. He was so hungry; he had to catc
h the rat. The stone was cool on his palms. His boots made loud noises in the dark, dank chamber.

  He stabbed at the rat with his dagger and pain exploded in his side as he fell over on his back, staring up at the leaves above his head. Maxie's ugly face bobbed into view. The big man’s nostrils flared with anger and he drew back his foot in preparation of kicking him again. Mark rolled on his side and curled into a ball, expecting the blow that never came.

  “Leave him alone, Maxie. Can’t you see he’s hurt?”

  The Pixie’s voice cut through his panic and he felt gentle hands on his shoulders.

  “Get up, dipshit!” Maxie growled at him and waved the pistol menacingly.

  “Don’t touch him again, Maxie. Come on, Mark. We’ll see what Cecile has to say about this.”

  She helped him up and he limped across the rocks, twigs and leaves, each step jarring his aching side. He rubbed his ribs and ran his hand through his hair. He could feel the blood drying on his face in the hot breeze.

  The white car loomed in front of them and he stopped to pick several tiny pebbles from his socks as he leaned one hand on the roof of the car. The woman bent down and helped him dislodge the irritating pieces of debris. She was still talking to him and he had not been listening. He tried to focus his attention on her words. He needed all the information he could get, no matter what the source.

  “I think she'll be pleased to meet you,” the Pixie was saying. “She's been looking for you guys a long time. She kept telling me about the Order. I never really thought much about it. Now here you are, just like she said. You don’t seem so dangerous to me. I guess I was expecting a vampire or something. You have no idea how worried I was, but now I feel a lot better.”

  Mark looked at her in disbelief. What was she talking about now? Vampires? And why would he be dangerous? But, he was the assassin; the Knight of Death she had called him. Of course, he was dangerous if he was an assassin. What had he been thinking? He would certainly assassinate the big fellow if given the chance. He had many questions he wanted to ask her, but not with an extra set of ears paying attention. She was certainly friendly enough. That stuff about women being dangerous had come from his lips, not hers. He didn’t mind her company. It was the presence of the goon with the big knife that bothered him. They would simply have to get rid of him and things would be much improved.

  She opened the Lincoln’s back door and allowed him to get in first. He slid into the cool leather comfort of the back seat. He leaned back, sighing in relief as her guard dog climbed into the driver’s seat. The man was handy after all. He could curse, snort, kick, slap, punch and drive. What a guy! The door locks clicked and he automatically tried the door handle while she made herself comfortable beside him. Locked and controlled from the driver's seat, of course.

  He laid his head back and closed his eyes. She was talking to the driver, telling the man strange things that meant nothing to him. Every time the man spoke, Mark Andrew’s hatred for him grew. He was foul-mouthed, rude and ungodly. It would have been so easy to climb over the partition and break his neck, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea at the time. They were traveling down a narrow, two-lane highway in the middle of God-knew-where and it would have been very difficult for the man to drive with a broken neck. At least he would stay dead, if he could kill him; he was sure of it. Mark snapped his eyes open at the absurdity of that thought. Of course, the man would stay dead if he was killed! He closed his eyes again. So tired...

  The Pixie rummaged in her bag and came up with a cell phone. She punched a couple of buttons and he could hear the phone ringing and then a voice answered abruptly. A female voice.

  “It’s me,” the Pixie answered. “Great news!” “Uh, huh.” “We have him. He’s asleep.”

  Mark opened one eye and looked at her as she talked on the phone excitedly. She winked at him when she saw him looking at her. “Yeah. He’s great. You were right. Yes. About everything.”

  Mark frowned at her and she winked at him again, squeezed his thigh and patted him like a small boy or a new puppy.

  “On our way. Yeah. Uh, huh. OK. Bye, now.”

  She closed the phone and turned around sideways in the seat. He closed his eyes again and felt her snuggle into the seat beside him. Her touch was electric even though his shirt. She began talking to him again, calling him Chevalier and Sir Ramsay, telling him all about how much he was going to like the place they were going as if they were going on a blind date or more like he was a child and she was taking him to a surprise party. She climbed out of the seat and found him another bottle of water, crisp and cold in the fridge when he licked his dry lips. He sat up straighter, took the little bottle from her and drank the entire thing down. Her bag produced lip balm and she applied it to his lips with one finger while he stared at her in wonder. A complete stranger she was and she acted as if they were old friends or lovers. His stomach growled again as the hunger he’d felt earlier returned with a vengeance.

  Almost all his pains had faded away except for the stinging cut on his forehead. He was tired, but not so much so that he couldn’t have slit the man’s throat from ear to ear before taking a nice nap.

  She stroked his arm and his face, telling him what they would eat when they got ‘home’. Even though her hand was silky smooth and cool, he cringed under her touch. She continued to talk trivial subjects while moving her attentions to his leg. Almost before he registered her intent, she redirected her attention became much more intimate in nature even as her monolog continued unabated. Mark ignored his best first impulse to push her away and glanced up at the rear-view mirror. The driver was watching them more than the road. The pixie leaned against his shoulder and kissed his ear. Then she licked his neck under his earlobe and moved around to kiss his eyelids and then his lips and he felt himself responding to her attention in spite of their audience. She reminded him of some of the royalty he had known. Servants were simply part of the furniture.

  He returned the kiss while still looking at the man in the mirror, but when she moved her hand again, he grabbed her hand with the intention of stopping her. Then, to his own consternation, he pressed her hand against himself and closed his eyes. She began to repeat the same process she had executed in the pecan orchard. Predictably enough, his stomach, the driver and the locked doors were soon forgotten as she climbed into his lap and sat facing him with her hands on his shoulders. It was happening again. And he seemed utterly powerless to stop what he felt was very, very wrong and this time, he had full control of his arms, his legs, his hands and his brain, but not his senses.

  He rose up slightly and looked over her shoulder once more. If he couldn’t kill the brute, he could at least make him miserable some other way. Only one downside presented itself to his muddled brain: If she was a prostitute and this man was her pimp, he was going to have an immense bill. He didn’t think that such a thing would have been something he might normally do, though he had no idea what he might do, normally or abnormally.

  Mark’s reticence evaporated and he responded more animatedly to her attentions than previously, by taking a much more active part. He caught her hair in his hands and pulled her close, kissing her long and hard, while keeping one eye on the mirror. The guy looked really pissed. When the man looked again, he winked at him and then turned his attention fully to the very energetic Pixie in his lap. It was the least he could do for the bastard in the front seat. Mark was quite sure that the situation would change very soon and had no idea what might be waiting for him at ‘home’. The second episode was over almost as quickly as the first, but they took up the same subject on the deep black carpet of the floor in front of the seat. Between the second and the third, he had a slight bout of guilt when he wondered if he had a wife and perhaps a dozen children somewhere waiting for him, wondering what had happened to him. The fridge produced sweet, white wine to drink. Despite the danger of his predicament and the uncertainty of his immediate future, he temporarily forgot the ugly brute and everything else he
couldn’t remember.

  Chapter Two of Twelve

  I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

  “Sir Ramsay?” a whisper very close to his ear woke him up with a start. “We’re home.”

  Mark Andrew snapped his eyes open and found the Pixie on her hands and knees above him. To his astonishment, he was lying on the thick carpet in the rear of the limousine. A terrible sense of guilt flooded over him as one of the only memories he had washed over him. Well, he really couldn’t hold himself responsible for the first time, could he? And the second time had been motivated more by revenge than by desire. But the third time, which had lasted a good bit longer than the first two had been unmitigated lust. A sin in and of itself.

  Another feeling asserted itself immediately following the guilt. Hunger. It must have been days since he’d eaten solid food and again he wondered how long he’d been their ‘guest’. Following that unpleasant sensation was fear, then disgust and then regret. The car was no longer moving and he realized too late that he had missed any chance he might have had for escape when the Pixie crawled out of the car leaving their driver pointing the muzzle of a double-barrel shotgun at a spot between his eyes. Muggy night air quickly replaced the air-conditioned comfort in the car with an oppressive heat that matched his mood.

  The Pixie stood waiting for him while he leaned over and tried to look up at the house before stepping out onto the very uncomfortable white rocks filling the drive in front of her ‘home’. There was nothing to do but get out. He moved slowly and groaned loudly, pretending to be suffering from injuries that had all but disappeared.