“Have you ever heard of The Society?” Abelard asked, with the most natural nonchalance, as though making small talk at a barbecue. There was nothing detectably studied about his unmistakable indifference to the carnage he had singularly and coldly executed. He was standing over the blood soaked ground where the thug had been put to death. He didn’t really expect an answer. He went on, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they would still be around after all these years. They were a very orderly lot, practical and fair. Their business depended on that kind of solid reputation.”
This was all too much for Felicity, “hello in there,” she was now tapping his skull with her forefinger and talking very loudly, more like screaming, “you have just murdered a wounded, harmless man.” Do you remember that much or has your amnesia taken a turn for the worse?”
“I have not done any such thing,” Abelard responded, with distressing dispassion. “I have put a Society assassin to death, something he would have expected. Although, I’m guessing he must have had instructions to take me alive. These are usually very highly trained people and he should not normally have missed his first shot.” Then he laughed, to the horror of both Oliver and Felicity, unbuckling his breastplate and tapping the Kevlar vest he had on beneath, proudly displaying it to them. “It would not have mattered, though, since I borrowed this from the Malvue boys. I’d been expecting someone, certainly not The Society, but someone to come and investigate the cross, and I prepared for that moment.” He laughed again.
“We had better bury these two.” he continued, with little to indicate that anything out of the ordinary had happened, a very otherwise normal day. “This will give us plenty of time to move to another location. I’m guessing that it will be several weeks before The Society finally decides they are dead and sends others. We will be long gone by then.” He fell silent here, noticing, it seemed, for the first time, that Oliver and Felicity appeared to be in a state of shock. “Let’s go back to the house, get some shovels and I’m sure you’ll understand when I explain to you about The Society and the little jeweled cross.”
“How did you know they were here,” Oliver thought to ask?
“I saw them. Whenever you and Felicity,” a warm smile for her, “left to walk and talk about me,” a sly grin dimpling his now full cheeks, “I took care to keep an eye out for you. From the window on the second floor landing there is a very good view, almost to the forest’s edge. Without any leaves on the trees it was easy to spot the intruders.”
“You stood watch at the window each time we went out,” Felicity asked with some astonishment?
“Yes.”
The walk back to the house was positively funereal, at least for Felicity and Oliver who appeared to be dragging large lead weights. It gave Abelard, who did not for a moment lose his jaunty good humour, enough time to summarize the business of The Society and the history of the stupid King’s looted treasure. He omitted the part where he remembers being there, sensitive to Felicity’s concerns that he might be delusional. At the house Felicity pulled Oliver aside for a private chat.
“How do we know he had this mysterious little cross? I don’t recall ever seeing it,” Felicity whispered to Oliver.
“He’s outside, tending to the horse, you can stop whispering,” he whispered to Felicity.
“He’s being delusional again,” she continued.
“There may be something we can check, I’m not sure,” Oliver piped in. “I did take some pictures while we were in the cave and if we’re really lucky we may have caught enough to decide one way or another. It’s a long shot. I’ve downloaded a lot over the last few months and have been intending to look and organize the muddle, but have been remiss”
They both rushed up the stairs to Oliver’s computer. In a moment he had isolated the photos from that fateful June day. There was Felicity crouched near the find, wiping mud away. There was Abelard, partly cleaned, revived and waiting for his captors to do something. There was Malvue the younger blocking a shot and there he was again blocking another shot. These were quickly passed over.
“Hold on.” Felicity said “Go back to those shots of Benoit. “There, see, he’s looking around with his guilty face and he’s putting something into his pocket. Can you crop and zoom in on his hand? There that’s it, he’s holding a bit of chain. The rest is already in his pocket. Do you think it might be the cross?” she asked, with considerably less skepticism and an unmistakable conspiratorial slant to her tone.
“It would be a good bet,” Oliver said, “but that’s it for the pictures, we’ll never know any more from these. I’m a little less sure about anything now.”
“What about the two dead guys, are we just going to bury them like in the gangster movies?” Felicity asked a little annoyed at their apparent helplessness.
“I don’t think we have much choice,” Oliver said in an unsure voice.
“That seems to be our most common refrain, ‘we have no choice’. When will all this stop,” Felicity sighed.
Abelard had been standing at the door and wanting to be helpful, suggested, “if you can lend me a little money I will leave you in peace and this can all be over for you right now. I will be able to manage on my own.”
He was still wearing his chain mail and the ridiculous McGill University blanket. The scene was so utterly implausible, and piled on the huge stress she had been under, Felicity could not hold back. She broke into uncontrollable laughter, which caused Oliver to again become very concerned. He seemed to have developed a pattern hovering between great, mild and little concern.
“It’s ok,” she said, between guffaws, waving Oliver back. “I’m OK,” she insisted.
“Abelard,” she began, when she regained control of her voice, “my dear, having come this far together I am sure we can contrive not to finish our voyage separately. So, big deal. You sliced and diced a couple of guys from a secret criminal society that’s been around for 700 hundred years. They did after all try to kidnap you. You also seem to have a well developed comfort with the weapons and paraphernalia of medieval violence, something which I cannot yet explain. Are we going to let little things like that come between friends? I’ve had worse happen to me. I’ve been dealing with the Malvue boys, who would easily turn up at the top of anyone’s most wished for death list.”
“Is that what you want, Felicity?” Abelard asked without a hint of humour.
“Only joking, Abelard. Let’s go put those guys in the ground.”
Abelard then turned to Oliver and asked, “Could you teach me how to fight like you? It was very impressive.” Oliver puffed up like an aggressive bullfrog.
*