The Dove (46 page)

“Oh, no.  Not me.  You can see that I am here alone, silly girl.  Only an idiot would talk to himself.  Selwig came to see me and I guess I forgot about the sink.  Sorry.”  He tweaked her nose and took her hand.  “Come on upstairs before you catch a cold.”  He pulled her rapidly toward the door and then closed it behind them.

“I don’t like that word, Mark.”  Sophia complained as they climbed the stairs.  “I wish you would stop referring to yourself as an idiot.”

“But it is a good word.  I-di-ot.  I looked it up.”  He explained.  “According to the dictionary, the idiot is incapable of learning, and is completely helpless. An imbecile, on the other hand, may learn to communicate, but is incapable of earning his own living.  A moron may take a normal place in society, but needs constant supervision.  At first, I thought myself a moron because I need constant supervision, but then I realized that there is no place in society for me, and so I downgraded my opinion to imbecile because I can communicate fairly well and I am apparently incapable of earning my own living, but upon reconsideration, I find myself quite misunderstood, and so I must not communicate as well as I had first thought.  Now I have reclassified myself as an idiot because, based on what I know of my past, I am quite incapable of learning anything, and seem to be completely helpless against the tide of time.”

“Mark!”  Sophia moaned as they made their way into the kitchen.  “That’s ridiculous.  That makes no sense whatsoever.  I wish you would stay away from the dictionary.  If you don’t settle down, I’m going to make the library off limits.”  She poked him in the ribs playfully as he sat down on the floor, in the water, in front of the sink again.  Tools were scattered all over the floor along with pieces of old galvanized and copper pipe and newer plastic pipe salvaged from the defunct bathroom under the stairs.  Such luxurious things as PVC pipe were very hard to come by these days.  He picked up a wrench and climbed halfway into the cabinet before lying on his back.

“Mark!”  Sophia scolded him again and tried to stuff a towel under him where the water was soaking his clothes.  “You’re going to get all wet.  You should have let me mop the water first.”

“I rest my case.”  His voice drifted back to her along with a clang, a bang and muffled curse.

Sophia shook her head and then picked up the glossy-leafed do-it-yourself book on plumbing that lay on the floor at his feet and began to study the diagrams.  The back door slammed and Bari Kadif clumped down the hall and stopped to stare at her curiously.  He was covered with black dirt and wild sprigs of grass and weeds.  There were bits of straw and dried leaves in his hair.

“What happened?”  He asked at the sight of Mark’s legs sticking out of the cabinet.

“He’s working on the pipes.”  She said without looking up.  “Mark, I think you may need to replace the P-trap.  That’s where the pipe is rusted if I am reading this right.”  A muffled something answered her and she looked up at Bari.  “Did you finish weeding the border by the stables?”

“Of course.”  He frowned at her.

“And the beds by the patio?”

“Not quite.”  He smiled ruefully at his taskmaster.

“We really need to get those beds cleaned out.  I want the Amaranths to be in bloom when Simon comes.”  She raised one eyebrow.

“It’ll soon be freezing!”  Bari shuddered at the thought of the long, Scottish winter.

“It doesn’t matter.”  She studied the pictures again.  “They’ll bloom.  Now go on upstairs and get cleaned up before supper.  You’re a mess.”

Bari looked down at his filthy hands and arms and the stains on his clothes, clothes that had once belonged to Luke Andrew Ramsay.  He turned slowly, holding his arms out in front of him and headed for the front hall, shaking his head and silently mocking Sophia’s words. 

He had fallen so quickly from Emperor of New Persia to handyman-in-training at the dreary old estate in dreary old Scotland, but under the circumstances it was better than being boiled in oil or dropped into the pits of hell for all eternity, which most likely would have been the next best choices.  He had assumed, at first, he would be accompanying his father back to New Babylon to assist in the siege of the city.  Revenge on the creature that had taken on the outer appearance of his beloved mother had been his only thought after the battle of Armageddon…. 

Bari stopped at the foot of the stairs and frowned.  The battle of Armageddon.  It was incredible to think that the damned thing had actually occurred, and he had been there and all he had done during the entire battle was scrabble about in the mud looking for a piece of crystal.  He smacked his forehead with his dirty palm and trudged up the stairs toward his room on the second floor.  The skull!  Another sore spot.  He had told his grandfather about the skull, and the Djinni had simply narrowed his dark eyes and stared at him for several long minutes as if he would have liked to make a short meal of him.  Lemarik’s reaction to the news of the lost skull had assured him that he would tell no one else about it… at least, not unnecessarily and he’d not told his grandfather the whole truth about it.  Certainly he’d not tell anyone where the thing had really come from. 

Hopefully, it was lost in the desert, washed down into to some deep, dark crack or crevice in the caverns under the mound.  His grandfather had said not a word about what he might do about it, but had, instead, mediated a decision concerning his future with Mark Andrew, the other, Luke Andrew, his uncle and Omar, his father.  They had agreed to send him to Scotland with this Mark Andrew, who was much more likable than the other, to learn how to be a productive member of the family as well as a socially acceptable personage capable of taking care of himself in a responsible manner.  In other words, he would learn how to behave or the Mighty Djinni would be paying him one last visit.

He passed Nicole coming down the stairs.

“What’s for supper?”  She asked as she descended the steps.  She wore a long, blue gown made of shimmering satin, open down the front over a pair of denim coveralls and a white sweater.  Her blonde curls were pulled up on top of her head in a sort of bouncy pom-pom.  The sight of her smiling, pink face infuriated the former Emperor.  She never had to bend to menial tasks.  Her fingernails were long, pink and perfectly manicured.

“Nothing.  Your daddy’s plugged up the works or something.”  He muttered and continued up the stairs.

Nicole stopped long enough to give him a scowl, but he never looked back.  She stepped lightly down the stairs with her journal tucked under her arm and made her way to the kitchen where the smell of something spicy emanated from a large pot on the stove.  The table was laid for four.

“Hey, Sophia.”  She bent over and searched for her ‘daddy’ in the gloom under the sink.  “What’s wrong?”

“The plumbing is stopped up.”  Sophia explained and shook her head sadly.

“No problem,” Nicole said cheerfully.  “Come on out here, Daddy, you’re no plumber.  I can fix this.” Nicole sat down cross-legged on the floor.  She grabbed Mark’s foot and pulled off his boot.  When she tickled his foot, she received a series of epithets as he bonked his head several times before scooting out of the cabinet.  He took back his boot and pulled it on.  His face was smeared with rust and his hair was a mess. 

“Sophia,” Nicole helped Mark up and picked up the book.  “Would you please lay out another place at the table?  The Captain is coming for dinner.  Now look, Daddy, show me where the problem is, and I’ll fix it.”

Mark squinted at the diagram and then pointed to the pipe joint that was rusted through.

“Rusted out.”  He told her sadly.  “And the joint is fused solid.  I can’t get hold of it.”

“What’s it made of?”  She peered into the cabinet, shining the flashlight at the morass of ancient pipes. 

“This stuff.”  He held up a ragged piece of chrome-plated pipe.

“Ohhhh. Hmmm.”  Nicole studied the piece for a moment, feeling it, smelling it and even tasting the surface of it and making a face.

“What is it?”  Mark asked her in a low whisper, almost as if it were some great, mystical secret.

“Metal.”  She nodded solemnly and Sophia groaned audibly.  She could not believe the relationship that had sprung up between Mark Andrew and his daughter.  They were always picking and playing with each other like two children.

“Go wash up and I’ll take care of this.”  She said after a moment and his face lit up with unabashed relief.

Mark got up and left the kitchen before Sophia could protest.  Nicole assured her again that it was no problem as she disappeared down the basement stairs.

Five minutes later, she was back with a small wooden crate full of dusty bottles and boxes.  Mark returned as well and hovered over her as she mixed a foul-smelling concoction in a crockery bowl.  Sophia removed the heavy stoneware dishes from the table and laid out something a bit more suitable for company.  The captain.  The Fox Captain who had very recently been the Fox Lieutenant, Socrates Galipoli, in charge of the beleaguered garrison in Jerusalem, who had somehow managed to get assigned to the Lothian estate. 

“I hope you’re not going to blow things up again, Nicole.”  Sophia commented as she transferred the stew into a heavy pottery bowl covered with suns and moons. 

“You have no faith.”  Nicole retorted, and then took the bowl of smelly gunk under the sink.  Mark got down on the floor and held the flashlight for her as she smeared the stuff over the rusted pipes, patching the hole with a thick layer and filling in the cracks and pits in the remaining pipes.  When she was satisfied that everything was covered, she got up again and closed the cabinet doors.  “Now look, daddy, this is the fun part.”  She picked up a tall, slender bottle of yellow liquid.  “We have to heat it up for it to set.”

Mark nodded solemnly and stepped back. 
The yellow
.  He knew the stuff.  It was what Nicole had blown up the plumbing in the bathroom under the stairs with only a few days earlier.

“Isn’t that what you said before?”  Sophia stopped to watch her.  “We really need the sink, Nicole.  If you destroy the kitchen, where will we cook?”

“Trust me.  I know where I went wrong the other day,” Nicole assured her and then very carefully took one drop of the yellow liquid in the end of glass tube.  She held the dropper over the open drain and then let it fall straight down the tube.  All three held their breaths.  There was a tiny explosion inside the pipe, but nothing more.  Nicole leaned over the sink and peered into the pipe.  “Success!”  She turned on the water and then opened the cabinet.

“It worked!”  Mark beamed at her and then hugged her tightly.  “It worked!  It’s a miracle. We must celebrate.”  Sophia and Nicole watched as he rushed from the kitchen down the hall to the library.

Within a few moments he returned with two bottles of their dwindling stock of alcoholic beverages.  He set them on the table and took out four glasses from the cupboard.

“What would you like, Sophia?”  He asked.

“Hmmm.  Wine, I guess.”  She went back to working on the stew.

“And you, Nicole?”  He asked as he filled two glasses with Port.

“What is that?  Scotch?  I’ll take a little Scotch.”  Nicole washed her hands in the sink and watched with satisfaction as the water ran out through the pipes with no problems issuing from under the sink into the floor.

Mark poured a bit of Scotch into two of the glasses and then brought each of them their respective drinks.  He went back to the table and picked up the remaining two glasses and turned to face them.

“’ere’s t’ ’ealthy poipes!”  He smiled and held up both glasses.  “May we olways ’ave them.”

Nicole and Sophia frowned in unison as he drank down the port and then the Scotch.

Chapter Sixteen of Sixteen

And there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament

Two weeks had passed and still Mark Andrew had not returned to join his Templar Brothers as they made their way across the desert toward the mountains of Horeb.  The days were spent in dull drudgery and the nights were long, cold and empty.  Even the strange creatures of Hubur no longer followed them.  They made camp at the foot of Mount Sinai. 

According to Mark’s prediction they had only one week left before the terror would come from the sky.  There were many preparations to make before the Ark could be taken up the mountain.  The forces were laid out strategically in order to protect their flanks while the inner circle of Knights, apprentices and other key individuals began to make the necessary arrangements for the greatest adventure or misadventure in the history of the Order. 

Lucio had very little to do.  His part in the grand scheme of things was minimal.  He didn’t even have his full Templar uniform with him.  Spending most of his time with his only remaining family, Konrad von Hetz and Apolonio, he moped about the camps during the daylight hours, and then rode out to check on his great beast at night.  The creature was awesome and yet it obeyed his every command.  Inanna was still with them as well and she watched him with great interest whenever he ventured out alone. 

The dragon knew who this lone figure was, and she also knew that Adar took a special interest in him and so, she watched over him… and his ghastly beast.  Inanna did not approve of the gryphon.  To her, it was an abomination, not quite a dragon, nor yet a lion or any other acceptable creature.  She had voiced her displeasure to Luke Matthew and suggested they send it away as soon as possible.