The Secret Life of Tom Bradbury
Chapter Four: The Green Light of Sardinia
Previous Chapters.
The sound of running water and the protesting squelch from old pipes stirred Tom back to consciousness.
The morning sunlight reflecting off the white plaster walls in the small room of the Seaside Villa illuminated the scene of the lover’s delight.
Folding his hands together behind his head, Tom sighed, feeling satisfaction from the tips of toes to the ends of his ears. Closing his eyes, Tom chuckled out loud, then made the sign of the cross and shook his head. He considered the things they’d done through the night, thinking, “I’m sure some of that was a sin.”
“Well, that’s the face of a man caught with his hand in the cookie jar!” remarked Delia.
Standing beneath the arch of the bathroom entrance, Delia wore nothing but the sunlight on her skin. Her svelte figure, in a coquettish pose with one hand delicately curled around the top edge of the door frame, raised her breasts, catching the morning rays across her pert nipples. Moving in a half step, Delia crossed her legs, then paused, resting one foot over the other, her forward leg bent slightly at the knee accentuating the delicious curve of her leg from heel to hip. Taking in the sight of the man she’d desired with every ounce of her being, laying naked and very pleasingly aroused, Delia drew a finger across her lips, her eyes alight with desire.
“Gawd,” sighed Tom shaking his head slowly in disbelief, “If every man could a have a woman look at them just once, the way you’re looking at me..” said Tom, letting his statement trail away without ending.
Stepping to the small dressing table and chair, Delia raised her foot to the cushioned seat. Then, drawing lotion from a bottle of vanilla and lavender, Delia bent at the waist and slowly caressed the cream along her calve. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, Mr. Bradbury,” Delia replied playfully.
“Oh? You’re stumped, are you?” asked Tom, raising himself to an elbow to ensure he missed not a moment of this magnificent woman’s display.
Delia turned, leaning her buttocks into the table, looking earnestly at Tom, then asking, “Tom? I am enough for you? Could you truly be happy with me, as yours, for the rest of your life?”
Tom sensed a trap. Drawing on an old rule he’d taught the Tribe, he deflected until more information could be garnered. “I think one of the truest things ever said in this world is that a woman is a puzzle that can never be fully solved.”
“Tom,” said Delia, her inquisitive tone softening into a purr, “I’m yours, you know. I belong to you. You’re the one man I’ve needed my entire life, even when I felt I never needed anyone at all. It’s always been you. I belong to you.” With her emotions vocalized, Delia’s eyes flared at Tom. Then, pushing herself off the table, she swept to the edge of the bed, confident, poised, and radiating a sexual prowess that stirred Tom further.
“Why do I feel like I’m looking at a cat and I’m the ball of yarn?” asked Tom, smiling wickedly.
“Because, love of my life,” she answered as she crawled onto the bed, her lovely French-tipped fingers clawing up his legs with a nerve-igniting graze followed by the silky softness of her breasts soothing the fire, “we have serious things to do soon enough. But right now? Right now, I want to play.”
Dropping back into their professional roles, Marigold and the Shepherd moved towards their goal. Getting to the island of Sardinia required a boat which, on a coastal town, wasn’t very difficult to acquire. Getting a ship without a captain or crew took a little more persuasion, but cash is king, and after an exchange with an old seafarer, a contract was agreed upon. With the sun setting on the wake of their boat, the crossing to Sardinia was underway with Delia at the Helm and Tom down below reviewing his notes on an unsolved mystery eons old.
Delia radioed into the harbormaster seeking mooring, her Italian was fluent and strong but carried the interior dialect, and she detected a slight annoyance in his instructions. Tom, overhearing the exchange, told Delia he would settle with the dock authority while she secured the trawler with the dock crew.
“You think my Italian wasn’t strong enough?” she asked Tom, “I have been living in the heart of Italy for a few years, you know.”
“You’re Italian is fine,” Tom replied, then continued, “But it’s because it sounds like you belong in the interior that’s the problem. He’s not Italian. He’s Sardinian, and I happen to speak Sardo wonderfully.” Tom said with a smile.
“Sardo? Why don’t I know this Italian dialect?” Delia asked.
“It’s a unique language, not a dialect. Sardo is a descendant of Latin, less than ten percent difference between them, actually.” Tom responded. “In fact, Italian has very little influence. Sardo is a beautiful language, perhaps even my favorite with its tones of Arabic, Greek, Byzantine, Catalan, and Spanish.”
“Then say something beautiful to me in Sardo, my Shepherd.” She asked Tom, thoroughly infatuated with every nuance about him.
“Non potho reposare amore ‘e coro
Pensende a tie so donzi momentu
No istes in tristura, prenda ‘e oro
Ne in dispiachere o pensamentu T’assicuro ch’ a tie solu bramo
Ca t’amo forte t’amo, t’amo, t’amo”
“Oooh, Tom, you FIEND!” Delia murmured in response, her voice dripping with sugary tones of her own. “Now translate, even with Italian ears, I understood nothing!”
“You wouldn’t. Sardo is unintelligible to Italians.” He answered, “But for you, my Marigold, I shall wax on in English.” Soaking up the love from her gaze, Tom recited;
“The love of my heart can’t rest
thinking of you every moment
Don’t be sad gold jewel
Don’t be sorry or worried
I assure you that I desire only you
I love you strongly, I love you, I love you.”
Springing from the dasher, Delia jumped into Tom’s arms. Kissing him while holding a smile she couldn’t erase, she pulled back and held his bearded face in her hands, “Tom, I pray I live long enough by your side to learn everything about you. You are a brilliant beast of a man filled with an irresistible boyish charm.” Delia kissed him once more, then pressing her hand into his chest, extended her arm, pushing him away, and paced backward, wagging a finger at the appetite sparking in his eyes.
“No, no, no, you don’t!” she warned him, “You’ve already saved me, now let’s get to saving each other and finish what you started all those wasted years ago.
They moved with ease through the ancient streets, Tom deflecting any suspicious inquiries from locals with a smattering of Sardo declaring his love for returning home after years of work keeping him away. Desiring to show his ancestral lands to his beautiful Miss, who played along smiling while apologizing profusely in Italian for not understanding what was being said.
At the turn of a broken stone road, Tom slipped into the shadow of a door of a darkened home. Shifting stones beneath the steps, Tom produced a key, unlocked and entered the safe house. Confirming her surroundings were clear of unwanted eyes, Delia followed behind Tom.
Seemingly unhurried, Tom ducked into the small pantry, returned with a dust-laden bottle of wine, and set it on the table next to the sack of bread, cured meats, and cheese they’d purchased from merchants along the way through town.
“Tom?” asked Delia, who was gathering a cutting board and arranging the food, “where exactly are we?”
“Paulilatino, in Oristano province.” Tom replied, washing out two wine glasses.
“Okay, and where are we headed and when?”
Checking his watch, Tom answered. “In about forty-five minutes, we’re going to walk past the Church of Santa Cristina and visit her Holy Well. Although the Well has little of anything to do with the Church, there’s a tree nearby that has everything to do with why. Then we wait for the moon and hope my research has been worthy. If I solved the puzzle, you and I would be the first people to see something hidden from man since Moses split the Red Sea.”
Delia and Tom broke the bread and drank the wine without another word spoken between them but reading understanding in each other’s eyes.
Making a reconnaissance of their surroundings before making their way to the base of the tree, Tom and Delia felt secure they hadn’t been followed but had no assurances they weren’t being watched. Tom began climbing the tree with a nod to his partner, hurrying up along the branches until he reached one halfway up that held sprouted leaves. From his pocket, Tom brought out a wire cable saw. Slinging the tool over the stem where it met the trunk, he grasped the loops on either end of the wire and worked the cutting teeth of the wire through the wood. A few minutes later, Tom dropped the severed branch to the ground at Delia’s feet. Squirreling his way down, Tom reunited with Delia. With the branch in her hand, Tom led the way to the Sacred Well of Santa Cristina.
Delia had known about the ancient structure, its mysterious past in this land of rumored giants from the Nuragic civilization that had once populated the island. But, leaving behind no written records or explanatory evidence for the over 7000 ruins scattered across its breadth, the story was made up from the best guesses of archeologists and historians. Unfortunately, none of them was correct.
Descending the steps into the keyhole-shaped Well, with its flawless, symmetrically cut, and stacked stone walls, Delia was stunned to touch the face with her fingertips. Constructed without a trace of mortar or space enough between the stones to fit a sheet of paper, the Well had stood the test of time for thousands of years without degradation. So they traveled down, halting at the last step above the shimmering water of eternally filled Well.
Peering upwards, they followed the inexplicable architecture of a winding wall that opened to the starry night sky, the moon held still above the Well, “it’s time,” said Tom in a whisper that seemed offensively loud.
“This branch is the Rod of Aaron. Moses split a trunk and split it into twelve portions, handing one to each of the Tribes. Each branch held power,” explained Tom, quietly but excitedly, “power to rule, to sustain, to heal and destroy, but none was as powerful as the Rod of Aaron. So the Rod was replanted, a new tree grew. The branch that holds sprouted leaves is the staff that will reclaim the sapphire, and from the sapphire, a green light will be cast out as the voice of God, rendering all enemies deaf, blind, and dumb.”
Astonished, her eyes wide in awe, Delia asked the question that sounded absurd to even rationally consider, let alone vocalize.
“Tom?” Delia probed apprehensively, “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve found IT?”
The moon hovered directly overhead, the waters reflecting the light illuminated a hole in the step below the waterline. Without hesitation, Tom stabbed the staff into the groove. The water fell, plunging away from their feet, revealing a bottomless chasm. In front of them, the stones in the wall withdrew, shuffled, and tumbled out into the abyss.
The Ark of the Covenant lay before them.
With a look over his shoulder to Delia, Tom raised the staff to the Ark. On contact a radiant green light exploded into the Well. As the enveloping light drew back into the Holy relic the two agents of the Tribe saw that Aaron’s Rod was now adorned with a sapphire that pulsed with a luminous energy.
With his hands clasped around the staff, Tom Bradbury held the Green Light of Sardinia, and with it, carried the wrath of God.
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