Sample Sunday ~ March 13, 2011

(In this scene from the Red Cross of Gold X:. Genesis 6:5, things are not going well for Brother Dambretti, Knight of the Golden Eagle and his bride, Jasmine de Bleu. It's time for the Chevalier du Morte to return from exile and the Italian Knight surely needs Brother Ramsay's help.)


Lucio Dambretti had been expecting this call, though he had prayed fervently that it would not come. He had been to see Simon and his family only a few days earlier and the Healer had confided the news to him they were going in to have Rachel checked out by real doctors at the Salvator Mundi International Hospital in Rome. Simon had also told him that he expected bad news. Simon’s medical knowledge was extensive, though not infallible. He always said that he was a Healer, not a physician. Of course, his specialty or mystery was in the Healing Arts especially for members of the Council of Twelve, but he had gleaned a great deal of knowledge about human anatomy and general medicine for mortals over the centuries. Lucio would have trusted him with anything up to and including heart surgery. If Simon was taking his beloved Rachel to see a bunch of strangers, then something was terribly wrong.
He had been drunk ever since his return from Rome where he had met up with Simon at the Healer’s request. Simon had taken his gregarious family on a holiday to see the sights, visit the Vatican and generally show his children a bit of their country’s heritage. Rachel and her mother were raising the boys as Italians and though they all strongly favored their blonde, French father, they spoke perfect Italian to Lucio’s delight and like their ‘Uncle Lucio’, they spoke all other languages as secondary. Now he sat on the edge of his bed, dressed only in his socks, staring at the floor in front of him forlornly. He did not know if he could bear this. His head hurt terribly, his eyelids were puffy and swollen and he had no idea when he had gone to bed or how long he had slept. The Grand Master was already angry with him from their last unpleasant encounter. He had actually agreed to meet with Simon in Rome to confess his sins and had come away completely wrecked and without confession. Simon could not be bothered with such mundane details now.
And Jasmine! How much longer could he put up with her?
She came into the room as if on cue, picked up his trousers from the dresser and flung them at his head. He caught them from the air and threw them on the floor in front of her feet. A good pair they were. Expensive. Expensive and in need of laundering. He couldn’t possibly wear them… again.
“Where are you going now, sugar?” she asked him, her tone incongruent with the words. She sounded as if she was actually concerned with his activities, but she acted as if she couldn’t wait for him to leave.
“I have to go see Simon. Rachel is dying,” he told her bluntly and got up to find something more suitable to wear to a death. His mood was as black as the occasion and he was in no mood for an argument. His closet was a bit spare. Most of his clothes were lying in dirty heaps in the floor on top of his boots. He found a white wool suit in wrappers, a dark blue blazer that still smelled fresh and one of his priestly black outfits cut of the latest design. Black. Black. He reached for the hanger.
“Are you sure it's Simon you are going to see or is it Ruth?” she sked as she stepped in front of him. “And since when have you been concerned for Rachel’s well-being? That idiot little man is killing her with all those babies.”
“Stand aside,” he told her in a low voice. Ruth, again! He should have married Ruth. At least Ruth treated him with respect and... Ruth adored him. Ruth would have cleaned his clothes for him. Ruth would have cooked his supper and Ruth would have supported him in his time of grief. In fact, most of his good clothes and boots were at Ruth’s apartment. He would have to go by there to pack a bag worth taking along on a trip. Jasmine could talk all she wanted about Ruth. It was her right, but she had no right to say anything about Simon d’Ornan or his family.
“Or what?” she raised her chin slightly. “Will you yell at me and tell me again what a terrible wife I am and complain about my cooking?”
“What cooking?” he asked and made a move to go around her on his way to the shower, but she caught him by a particularly sensitive handful of flesh, stopping him short in his tracks. “Perhaps I should cook this? Eh? You never use it any more around here. Or perhaps I should take it as a memento and return to America where I am appreciated,” she told him. “Perhaps I could get something for it in an antique auction.”
Lucio took hold of her wrist gingerly and then crushed the bones together slowly until she relented.
“Don’ta toucha me,” he told her with as much contempt as he could muster in his present condition. “Go to America! Go on! I don’ta care. Just senda me your address and I willa senda you some money. That’sa all you want ina the firsta place.”
Jasmine followed him into the bathroom, laughing and making fun of his accented English as he made ready to take a shower. The very same accent that she had told him was so very charming only a short few years earlier. She grabbed his arm, spun him around in the doorway and kissed him. His anger with her melted immediately as was always the case and again, he suspected her of practicing witchcraft on him. How could she hurt his heart so badly one moment and mess with his mind the next, and then, in the blink of an eye, become the most desirable woman in the whole world the next moment? It wasn’t normal and he knew he wasn’t that hard up. He could have other women. In fact, he had another woman… In fact, he’d had several women before settling on Ruth as a replacement for Jasmine.
“I don’t suppose you could find it in your heart to bring me something for my headache?” he asked her hopefully. She was still as beautiful as ever. If she would just stop nagging him, there might be some way to reconcile their differences and make the marriage work.
“Of course, sugar,” she smiled and used her best southern magnolia on him before sauntering from the room. He watched her go, shaking his head in confusion.
He was in the shower when she returned. She slipped off her robe and joined him there with a bottle of clear liquid.
“Here you go, sweetie,” she said and turned him around.
She took a swallow of the stuff in her mouth before kissing him. This was how she always gave him his ‘medicine’ as she called it. It burned all the way down. That was just what he needed, something else to drink. But whatever it was, it was good for his more and more frequent headaches. Furthermore, it cured all the symptoms of his hangovers and left him ready to start drinking again. On the open market, it would have made some pharmaceutical company a mint, but Jasmine said it was an old family recipe. A secret. If he were mortal, he would be dead by now.
Ruth would have brought him an aspirin and a glass of tomato juice. His life was becoming one long string of drunken stupors and the Grand Master was onto him about his wife’s treatment of him, accusing him of all sorts of things.
“I’m sorry, baby,” his wife told him as she began to wash him with a sponge full of fragrant soap bubbles. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She had taken on the tone she always used when she wanted something.
“You always say that, Jasmine,” he told her and winced when she applied the sponge to the area in question. “But it's always the same with you. Can’t we just forget about this Ruth thing?”
“I will if you will forget about her,” she told him and wrapped her long, slender arms about his neck. He let her kiss him once or twice and then took the sponge from her. He didn’t have time for this.
“Jasmine. I have to go,” he said. “I’m sorry.” If he allowed her to do this, he would never make it to Simon’s and that would be unforgivable. And he could not… would not forget about Ruth. Every time Jasmine hurt him, she made him think of Ruth. Beautiful, gentle Ruth.
“You always have to go,” she sniffed and pushed him away, almost sending him down on the slippery tiles.
“And I will always have to go,” he told her and turned his back to her. “I told you that before we were married. You know what I do for a living. Duty calls.”
“Doo-ty callsa!” she mimicked his accent. “And if I am not here when you come back, what will you do?”
“Nothing,” he told her honestly. It would be a relief.
He heard her get out of the shower and then he heard the bathroom door slam.
When he came out of the bathroom a while later, she was gone. Her stuff was still there, of course, strewn everywhere. She would be back.
He put on the black suit and perused the rest of his ruined wardrobe sadly. What had he done to himself? This was not what he was about. He splashed some of the cologne that Merry had made for him in her lab and breathed in the fragrance.
Thinking of Meredith was almost as painful as thinking of Simon’s plight. When he came home from Simon’s house, things were going to change. He would go back to what he had been for the last six or seven hundred years and Jasmine could stay or go, but she would not be welcome in his room again. His mind raced as he stuffed his dirty clothes in a trash bag. He would drop them off to be cleaned, himself. He would start doing a lot of things, himself. He would install a lock on his door, if necessary and he would hire a cook and maybe have a maid come in two or three times a week. He kicked some of his dirty underwear out of his way viciously and put on his tie. He looked at himself in the mirror and smiled. At least he had not ruined his looks, but that was hardly in his capacity to do, was it? Vanity! Another sin. But not a great sin. And de Bleu had said everyone would be there. Everyone except Jasmine and he would have to plead lies and excuses for her absence. He would be very happy to see his Brothers even under these black circumstances.
And perhaps, Sister Meredith as well. His mood lightened immediately. Merry would be glad to see him and he would let her fuss over him all she liked this time. She was always glad to see him. Always trying to make amends for breaking his heart. He brushed his curly hair and smiled at himself again. Si`, things would be different now. He would make it so. And Merry would listen to his troubles. She always listened to his troubles. Perhaps he could convince her to listen to his confession as well. If not Merry, then Louis Champlain would be glad to oblige him. Then he would feel better and he could confess Jasmine away… again.
These thoughts helped him take his mind off the terrible ordeal in front of him. He was Simon’s Brother and his friend. Death always brought people together. The death of John Paul’s wife had been on his mind lately and it seemed as if that had happened only yesterday. At least, he would not suffer this same thing on account of Jasmine. He chastised himself at the thought that he would have been affected very little if Jasmine jumped off the roof. But thinking of John Paul, made him think of Mark Andrew and a different kind of pain filled his head. Wasn’t it about time for him to come back? He glanced at his watch as if to confirm this thought. Meredith had called him three times only the week before asking if he thought Mark would come home to Scotland or Italy first. The three calls that he had loved and hated at the same time had set Jasmine off. Why was Meredith Sinclair calling him all the time? Three times in six months could hardly be classified as all the time. And he was glad that Jasmine thought he might still have something going on with Meredith. It did his heart good to think of it and wished that it could be so. If only… if only… if only…
He was about to leave the apartment when his wife burst back through the front door and began to rummage around in the pile of junk on their dining room table. The gold inlayed, hand lacquered replica of an ancient Egyptian chest covered with hieroglyphs and a scene depicting the Pharaoh Akhenaten and his family worshipping the Aten on the front was barely visible under the fluff of nylon and lace on top of it. He’d brought it out three weeks ago to clean it and clear out the contents, but it had become part of the clutter and he’d forgotten it was there.
The apartment was a wreck, but she would not allow him to bring anyone in to clean it, even though she would not clean it herself. And he did not have time to clean it. He was too busy drinking, staying drunk and figuring out ways to get away to see Ruth. He was sick of it. His beautiful apartment and all his Egyptian artifacts were buried under layers of discarded clothing, newspapers, shopping bags and what she loosely called accessories. A girl has to accessorize, she told him. He picked up a wine-soaked magazine and held it up, looking at the mess it had made on the surface of the mahogany dining table. He dropped the zine on the floor and kicked it against the wall viciously. She paid him no attention.
How she had learned about Ruth was beyond him. He must have talked in his sleep, but then Jasmine didn’t sleep with him, did she? She had his other bedroom… all in perfect order. A virtual princess’s chamber while the rest of his house went to hell in a hand basket. Never had he met a more self-centered person. She even put Cecile Valentino to shame.
“What are you looking for?” he asked her as he snatched his car keys from the pile that was about to topple on the floor.
“This!” She turned and held up a plastic card with flickering red lights on it. American Express, fully charged and ready to go. Ha!
“Ahhh. Money. Of course, and I thought you missed me,” he nodded. She could spend a lot of money in a short time. Had spent a lot of money. His money! Money he had saved and held onto for years upon years. It had once seemed to him that he would have never run out of money, but now he was not so sure. She had been steadily changing his money into objects, bringing it in the front door and throwing it out the back door for going on five years.
“When will you be home?” she asked him.
“Does it matter?” he answered with his own question and raised both eyebrows as she walked past him with her car keys jingling in her hand.
“I would cook supper for you if I knew.”
“Isn’t it past supper already?” he asked in surprise and glanced at the clock on the mantel.
“So?” She shrugged. “Breakfast then.”
“I may be gone for quite some time,” he told her. He didn’t want supper. Not with her. He would probably go back to Ruth’s after he left Simon unless Sister Meredith was there and then he would be going wherever she was going. Even if it was the depths of hell. And if it was the Villa, that would be good as well. Jasmine couldn’t come there and he still had his rooms there with everything he needed to last another century or two. He would not be back tonight.
“Well, then, arriva derki, baby. Call me when you get back. I’ll have my phone on,” she told him and was gone out the door.
He crossed himself and looked about the ruins once more. It had been so nice here once. Jasmine had not been listening to his answers. She had no idea where he was going or why or how long he would be gone and didn’t really care.
“Santa Maria!” he muttered and then sighed.
He stuffed his keys in his pocket and left the place to rot.
Mark Andrew would get a kick out of this when he returned. The man had warned him a hundred times to stay away from women as tall as Jasmine! Nevar, evar take a wooman ’oo can look ye in th’ eye. Tis dangerous, mon! He remembered his Brother’s words from a distant place and a distant time. What did Mark Andrew know of tall women? But Mark Andrew was always full of surprises. The man was probably in Rome now with another trio of hairdressers. It was surprising that the Grand Master had not already sent him to retrieve the lost Knight of Death. Surely it was past time for Ramsay to come home. He missed him… terribly.