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

by Brendan Carroll

  He sat up and leaned against the headboard.

  “Tell me what’s bothering you besides being here with us,” she said as she piled the pillows up for him to lean against. “I brought you some of my favorite. Roast beef.” She picked up the plate and set it in his lap.

  He looked at her blankly.

  “Go on. Try it,” she said and handed him a fork. He wanted to stab her with the fork. Instead he picked up the roast beef with his fingers and stuffed it in his mouth. ‘Meals should be taken in silence’. The same voice rang in his head.

  “Things could be worse,” she continued in spite of his barbaric actions. He stared at her as he tore the bread in half with his hands and stuffed it in his mouth as well. He wanted to tear her in half.

  “I cooked the pilaf myself.”

  He scooped up some of the rice on his fingers and pushed it in his mouth with the bread and beef. He wanted to stuff his fist down her throat.

  “I wish you would cooperate.”

  He picked up the rest of the roast and chewed it viciously. He wanted to chew off her head and put it on a pike pole.

  “I only want the Key.”

  She had a key in her pocket. He could take it from her. He ate the remainder of the bread in one bite.

  “You could make all this very simple,” she smiled at him. He finished the rice. Yes, it would be very simple. Take the key. Break her neck.

  “You eat like a horse.”

  Horses eat grain. He could have eaten her for breakfast. Surely she would have tasted better than a rat.

  “This is my favorite dessert.” She picked up a bowl of yellow pudding with bananas and whipped cream.

  Whipped cream. He could have made whipped cream of her in short order. Minced meat. Chopped suey. Smothered chicken. Cooked goose.

  “You like banana pudding, don’t you?”

  He liked a lot of things. He would have liked to make a pudding of her blood.

  He took the bowl from her and frowned at the stuff. She stuck a spoon in it.

  “I like it with lots of cookies,” she said.

  He didn’t doubt it. Strange cookies. The spoon was not very big. It took three spoonfuls to finish off the pudding.

  “Now, we feel better don’t we?” She asked in her most patronizing tone, infuriating him even further.

  He really wished Maxie would come back so he could fist fight the man. It would have been preferable to this, even if the man beat him to a pulp and shot him three or four times with his cheap pistol.

  “You really are nothing like I expected,” she told him when he put the spoon in the empty bowl. “I have half a mind to find out what my little darlin’ finds so irresistible about you.”

  He leaned forward suddenly and choked as the meaning of her words sank into his brain. What did she think he was? A whore?

  She grabbed up the glass of tea from the tray and handed it to him.

  He took the glass and drank down the tea without tasting it.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” he said when he had regained his voice. “Don’t you realize that keeping me here is a crime? You can’t just hold me here against my will indefinitely. Do you intend to murder me?”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she laughed. “All you have to do is give me what I want and you can be on your way. The sooner, the better. I don’t like what you stand for, but like I said, I had expected some grizzled old bastard with a stinky beard and a bald head.”

  “I’m sorry I disappointed you,” he shrugged.

  “I’m not disappointed at all. I just expected you to look older," she said. "But you're not really my type if I was interested. I prefer men who are more intellectual, stylish, a bit smaller and blond. I like blonds. Men and women. What does d’Brouchart look like? I haven’t been able to get much information about him personally.”

  “If you didn’t even know what I looked like, how do you know you got the right man?” He ignored her question. The image of a large, middle-aged, balding, red-haired man sitting in a high-backed chair loomed in his mind. Not the same man he had visualized earlier when she had mentioned the title Grand Master.

  “We’ve been through this,” she sighed. “I knew you were coming. Anthony told me. He said you would come from the east in a black car. That you wear the red cross and the symbol of the alchemist just like he said. And he said you would have his head on a platter just like John the Baptist.”

  Mark Andrew chuckled at these descriptions which sounded like something one would hear from a Gypsy fortune teller, but the mention of St. John caused him to cringe. Blasphemy.

  “You think it is funny? The poor boy was scared to death of you. He called you the Knight of Death. Chevalier du Morte. The Prince of the Grave. He said you would bring the flaming sword and cut off his head.”

  “Who the hell is Anthony?!” He continued to laugh. Her descriptions were laughable, yet he wondered.

  “I have your sword, Sir Ramsay,” she said quietly and her face took on another, more sinister expression. “It was in that your black car that you drove here from DFW. You came here from the east.”

  “I don’t believe you. My name is John,” he said simply. “I don’t know what your game is, lady, but you’ve got the wrong man.”

  “I don’t think so,” she smiled knowingly. “You were in a black car, you came from the east, you wear the rings, you had the sword. You venerate the name of St. John. Your denials are useless. There is only one point yet to prove out.” She narrowed her eyes. “Poor Anthony. I thought he was immortal.” Cecile toyed with the spoon in the empty pudding dish.

  “What happened to poor Anthony?” Mark asked with some reticence.

  “Why? Do you still want his head? I’m afraid you missed him. He’s gone.”

  “Just like that? Gone?” He snapped his fingers. “And I was so close.”

  “Yes, you were,” she nodded slightly. “I thought he was crazy at first and then he gave your name in a trance.”

  “He gave my name? In a trance?” Mark rolled his eyes. “He said ‘Mark Andrew Ramsay, Prince of the Grave, is coming to behead me’. Is that what he said?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She was becoming irritated with his flippant attitude. He wanted to make her as angry as she made him. He wanted to make her choke on her anger. He wanted to choke her himself. How dare she keep him there?

  “But that was the way it happened, basically. You underestimate me, Sir Ramsay. Your holy order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon are not the only possessors of the Mystic Secrets. I have my resources and I am well versed in the Ancient Mysteries or at least most of them. I’ve studied the Corpus Hermeticum and the works of all the great alchemical masters. It was very dark, very hard work, but I excelled without a penis.”

  “What?” He was taken aback by her obscene remark. “What has that got to do with anything?”

  She got up from the bed and began to pace the floor beside the bed. “Everything!” She raised her voice. “It was probably easy for you.” She put her hands on her hips and swaggered about the room. “Look, my brothers. I, too, possess the Mystical Staff and the Magickal Jewels.” She grabbed herself in a most profane manner. “Look what I can do. I can piss against the wall, my brothers. Here, here, my brothers, would you like to measure it? I can fuck a cow and make her beg for mercy.”

  “Stop it!” Mark climbed out of bed and stood looking at her aghast. “Above all things, whoever is a Knight of Christ chooses only Holy conversation! I will not listen to this. It is unholy. It is obscene and impure. It is a sin against God!”

  “A sin against God? Listen to you! A Knight of Christ. You admit it yourself,” she stopped her antics and raised both dark eyebrows at him in surprise. “And is it not as great a sin to use your Mystical Staff at random on whomever you please? Or is that some privilege a Knight of Christ retains from some higher power? You are a murderer, an assassin and a rapist. I have read about the heresies committed by you
r holy order, Sir Ramsay. I don’t know how you escaped the Inquisition, but you can rest assured that I know all about your secret rule and your obscene rites of passage and your sacred sex. How many times did you participate in the rituals of initiation with all those young boys? How many of them did you personally ‘raise’ to a higher degree?”

  He crossed the space between them and slapped her before he realized what he was doing. She spun around and grabbed the edge of the dresser to keep from falling. He grabbed her arm and swung her around, slamming her against the bathroom door. She looked up at him in shock as he advanced on her and wrapped his hands around her neck. He would have snapped her neck in one instance, but for the sudden sensation of pain where none should have been. He looked down to see a rather sizable dagger between them. She held it in a very delicate position and that was the source of the pain. She pushed it a bit more and he hesitated. He could probably kill her before she did irreversible damage.

  “Back off,” she told him in a low voice. “Back off or I will cut you in some very small pieces and feed you to the crows. And I’ll start with your Mystical Staff!”

  He raised his hands in the air and backed away from her as she stood rubbing her face where his hand print was showing up quite well already.

  “I deserved that, I suppose,” she said unexpectedly. “You shouldn’t have pissed me off with your holier-than-thou attitude, but I am glad to see that there is some fire in you after all. I do have a reputation to uphold just as you do. I will try to hold my peace, if you will hold yours.”

  She closed the space between them and took his face in both of her hands. The hilt of the dagger was cold against his skin. He frowned down at her as she kissed him almost as brutally as he had kissed the Pixie only a short while before. The action was not one of affection and he thought it fitting that he was being treated so, in light of his own thoughts and actions. But this was not right and this was not proper and his mind rebelled from her instantly. If she was the cobra, he would have to be the mongoose. He grabbed her hair and returned the kiss in the same manner. It was going to happen again and he didn’t even care, he would leave her with her throat cut on the floor. But as she had warned him, he had underestimated her abilities. She was not as fragile, nor nearly as easy to subdue as other women had been. She eluded his attempt to take the knife from her hand and brought it up between them in the same manner as before. What other women? The press of the dagger against the same part of him as before brought him up short… literally. He wondered briefly where she had learned to defend herself so capably. If he were going to disarm her, he was going to have to think of her as a real adversary. She was as cocky as any fighter he’d ever faced and though he couldn’t remember the particulars of those mysterious fighters, he knew that she would make a mistake… eventually and he would not underestimate her again.

  “I’ll be back, as Arnold would say,” she told him when he moved away. She looked him straight in the eyes and he wondered how she managed the feat since she was at least a foot shorter than him. “We still have to have our little talk,” she continued and lowered her eyes to the appropriate region of his anatomy, “Don’t ever presume to think you can use that on me unless I want it or you’ll find yourself on the short end of the stick. You understand what I mean, Sir Ramsay?”

  He nodded to her and bowed slightly as she unlocked the door. She turned to look at him once more before leaving.

  “I suggest you get some rest. You look tired,” she smiled crookedly at him. “And get ready for dinner at five. You will be joining us downstairs. I have some people interested in meeting you.”

  She left him alone and the silence rang in his ears louder than her words had before.

  “Spes mea in Deo est,” he said aloud though he had no idea what the words meant. The mongoose had learned something very useful about the cobra. He would have to do much better if he wanted to take the key from her. He sat down on the bed and looked forlornly at the devastated tray. Lunch had been very disappointing. His stomach growled again. Perhaps supper would be better or at least more voluminous. He collapsed onto the springy mattress. And who the Hell was Arnold?

  ((((((((((((()))))))))))))

  His escort to dinner was a solemn-faced young man in an expensively cut gray suit. He eyed Mark appraisingly and frowned slightly. Mark tossed his hair over his shoulder and smiled at the man sardonically, wondering what it was about him that met with the man’s disapproval. He thought it was the same young man he had seen rifling his belongings in the trunk of the El Dorado, but couldn’t be sure. He wondered who these people were and what they thought of Valentino keeping a prisoner on the third floor of her country mansion. It didn’t make sense. The man allowed him to walk ahead of him and kept one hand in the pocket of his jacket as if he carried something there. Mark Andrew assumed that there was some weapon hidden there. He could have easily taken the man, he thought, but there was a nagging half-memory in his mind that told him that he was right where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing. Furthermore, his encounter with Valentino earlier on had left him doubting his abilities. He went down the stairs and past the Pixie’s bedroom, where he paused momentarily to look at the closed door. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked casually down the stairs with the silent young man on his heels. At the foot of the stairs, he paused, unsure of which way to go. The man passed him and took the lead.

  “This way,” he intoned the only two words he had said the entire time and Mark was sure that this was the man who had rifled through his car. Another mechanic? American mechanics must have been paid very well. He looked more like a doctor or a barrister.

  They passed through a dimly lit sitting room decorated in Country French. Very cold and uninviting to the Scot. He had the distinct feeling that he disliked French. The double doors opened into a brightly lit dining room with a long, cherry wood table under an immense crystal chandelier. More of the strange banners hung on the high walls above the sideboards and cabinets full of China and crystal dishes. They reminded him of the Standards that ancient familial lines had carved over their hearths, their doorposts and painted on the shields of their knights. It seemed that he had seen many of them somewhere before. The guests were already in place and the first course was well underway when he arrived and he understood immediately why the young man had frowned at him. His clothes. Everyone at the table was dressed in Sunday finery and he had worn the tan shooter’s shirt and dark brown trousers.

  Chevaliere Valentino rose from her chair at the head of the table and smiled broadly at him. The number of diners at the table surprised him and Mark drew up short as they all stood as one, following her cue. He blinked at them in the bright light of the chandelier and cringed inwardly as his eyes fell on the Pixie. He looked around at the men and women who stood staring at him silently as if waiting for him to perform for them like a trained monkey. He actually felt his face flush with embarrassment.

  The young man took up a place near the middle of the table and Valentino held out her left hand to an empty chair next to the head of the table. As he drew nearer to the proffered seat, he saw the distinct outline of part of his hand in dark red and purple on her left cheek. He wondered what she had told her guests about it. More importantly, he wondered what she had told Merry about it. The Pixie stood beside the chair across from him at Valentino’s right hand. He noticed Maxie, decked out in a very nice suit, standing near the swinging doors apparently leading to the butler's pantry. The suit, most likely ‘assigned’ to him by Valentino, did nothing to soften his harsh profile and lumbering physique. At last he and the idiot had something in common: they were both out of place here. As soon as he caught Mark’s eye, he nodded and then disappeared through the door as if he had been waiting just to make sure he knew that he was being watched.

  Their hostess, or host, Mark couldn’t tell which role she was affecting at the moment, wore a closely tailored, three-piece black suit and a red tie without a shirt vi
sible under the vest. She sat down and the rest of them followed suit. Mark sat down as well to keep from standing alone.

  Apparently, she had no intention of introducing him to any of them. Merry shot him one fleeting glance and picked up her fork. He glanced down the table and saw that most of them were eating salads. There was a salad in front of him and beside it was a small glass goblet full of red sauce with six peeled shrimp hanging over the rim. Shrimp cocktail. Stewart loved them. Stewart? Who the hell was Stewart? He gingerly pushed the shrimps into the sauce with one finger and picked up the glass. Raising the goblet, he saluted Valentino and then poured the entire cocktail in his mouth, shaking the very last drop of cocktail sauce from it. Her dark eyes widened slightly as he tossed his head slightly and swallowed the whole thing without chewing. A trick that Louis had taught him. Very useful when trying to un-impress. Who the hell was Louis?

  His hostess remained very cool outwardly, but the strange action had the desired effect on the stuffed-shirts sitting around her table. Some stared in surprise, others tried not to look at him. Someone cleared his throat and the guests resumed their light conversations and their salads. He was quite pleased with himself. The old trick that he and Louis used to use to shock the bishop’s regal guests still worked. The bishop? Which bishop? And why would he be sharing a table with his Eminence? His expression changed and he closed his eyes briefly. Another fleeting memory gone. He looked at Merry and winked at her as he sipped his wine. He would ignore the no drinking with meals tonight. It was permissible in the field. Another odd thing to remember.

  Merry giggled and Valentino shot a meaningful look at her. The Pixie returned her attention to her salad, but looked as if she would burst out laughing any moment.

  Mark resumed his aloof composure and contemplated the dishes in front of his hostess. Her goblet still contained three shrimp. He nodded to her, smiled and finished off her cocktail in the same manner. He then folded his elegant little salad that was more a work of art than sustenance, in its one lettuce leaf and popped it in his mouth, again, swallowing it whole without ceremony, without chewing it at all. Three golden crackers lay on the side of the plate. They were gone in an instant in the same fashion with the exception of one very loud crunch for each. He sat looking at the empty plate and goblet in front of him, wondering if that was it for the meal. An older gentleman sitting on his left eyed him suspiciously.