The Secret Life of Tom Bradbury

Chapter Two: An Oath to Marigold and the Runes of Man

Removing the cord holding two keys from his neck, Tom Bradbury leaned over the brown paper-wrapped box and unlocked the heavy door he had fashioned from the surrounding copper beech trees, leaving the box and his past where it lay.

“Blainville-Crevon,” read the words burned into a slab of oak above the fireplace. “France,” Tom gave a quiet chuckle and a shake of his head, contemplating to himself, “fucking France.” Tucked away in a nowhere corner of the world, he still wasn’t far enough away, but he knew he never would be. It wouldn’t have mattered if he lived in a rock house in Nunavut; they’d find him if they wanted to. The tentacles could grab hold anywhere.

Reaching up to the tobacco tin and taking the pipe from its cloth sack atop the mantle, Tom packed the sweet leaf into the bowl while walking to the door. Then, peering out the small glass window to the stone steps and path outside, he considered crevon, a French word meaning “beam” and, more specifically, “a beam to cross the stream.” Looking to the crevasse between the door and the box, he contemplated whether he’d find a crevon large enough to cross the stream of a past life to retrieve the package.

Opening the door, Tom stepped forward, the tips of his shoes crossing the line between here and there. “No. Not yet,” he said to himself. Turning to the kitchen, Tom fetched the half-empty bottle of whiskey and a tumbler from the cabinet. From the icebox, he scooped the tumbler full, then shook loose half the cubes. Pouring himself a generous few fingers of the spirit, Tom returned the bottle to the shelf. Raising the glass, he toasted a shadow, “to the courage to keep a promise,” he said, then swallowed the liquor, savoring its slow burn.

Sitting outside, with his tumbler refreshed with another whiskey on the rocks, Tom lit his pipe, leaning back in his handcrafted rocking chair and regarding the still undisturbed package through the rich rings of aromatic tobacco smoke. It could only be one thing inside that box. Tom swore that he would answer her call should her separation from the Tribe become compromised. Opening the package would be the beginning. A summons he could not ignore. The stream would have to be crossed. For her. For Delia. Worse than the one that got away, she was the one he could never have.

The box sat open in the center of a large oak butcher’s block that the single resident of the home, Tom, also used as a dining table. In pristine condition, on a greenery bouquet rested a single, yellow Marigold, Delia’s operational alias.

From below the old barn floor by the flickering light of a lantern, Tom removed a crate hidden behind loose stones in the foundation. Fetching the key cord from his neck once more, he inserted it into the lock and opened the box. Shuffling through different identities, Tom removed a passport and currency as he prepared to honor a promise made.

The light of the new moon illuminated the tattoo he wore on each forearm, the Rune markings of Eihwaz and Algiz. The evening was warm and humid, his future dark but determined. The yew of his sheep echoing behind him faded with each footstep that carried him further from the safety of his home and towards a danger he knew was waiting.

Delia Sandersson was everything you’d expect to see in a confident, capable, highly skilled woman who worked as an operative in one of the most exclusively top-secret military shadow factions in the world; and one of only four women who made the cut from among the G8 countries that contributed to the roster of super-agents.

She was a specimen of power and grace but with the added advantage of being exceptionally attractive: good bone structure with a smooth jawline; high cheekbones with spell-binding blue eyes; and a smile as demure as it was seductive, without apparent effort to be either. Wearing her raven-hued hair short to the base of her skull but with sharp sheered bangs that cut to her chin and angled one’s eyes to her shapely C-cup breasts, she was a woman that could kill you in so many ways, and you’d die smiling.

Delia came into the Tribe six years after Tom, and though the age gap between was a decade wide, their chemistry bonded them almost immediately. For Delia, it was the immediate and unyielding loyalty to Tom, who was both her leader and her mentor as the first agent in the outfit.

Few men had been able to captivate Delia’s interest and attention for long, and even fewer still managed to make her desire one. Tom Bradbury was the key holder to the things she kept locked away. Although she was owned by her nation-state of Norway, she belonged to Tom in her heart, mind, and soul.

It only made it worse for her that Tom wasn’t just professional and unfathomably brilliant; he was good. At the surface of his being, he was a good man, and despite the bad things they had to do, that genuine goodness ran through to his bones.

Delia had lost count of the number of times she returned to her bed, thrashed herself beneath the sheets, and suffocated her screams of sexual frustration into a pillow. The one man she desired was incorruptible. Even with the intimacy that came from working with someone so closely, not to mention the physical attraction, Tom had never crossed that line. So it was at the end of their last mission, when Tom had manipulated the mechanisms to disband the Tribe, that his quiet words forever bound her heart to his.

She held his confession on a memory loop she let play countless times. “We will be the last, Delia.” She vividly recalled his explanation in the subway tunnels of London nearly five years ago. “Maybe, Tank will make it; I know that Silk won’t. It will be you and me. We’ll get away, and when they unravel everything, both sides will hunt for us, but we’d never make it being together.” His words carried her through every hardship, every sacrifice, and gave her eternal hope.

Changing his appearance before her eyes, Tom morphed from a man you wouldn’t feel comfortable matching your gaze with, to a face as docile and ordinary as a bank teller. Changing his tone from chilly to chipper in half a breath, Tom continued, “I’m in love with you, Delia. I always have been, but I love you enough to keep you away from me. Forgetting you would be impossible. Living without you will be the hardest thing I’ll ever do.” His words lifted her heart to the moon and drowned her soul in the sea.

“Is there no other way?” she pleaded with him.

“This is the only way,” he answered, “worse things are waiting for us than dying. If we stay together, they’ll use it to tear us to pieces.”

“Tom?” she asked him as he pulled a flat plaid cap tight to his forehead, “What if..”

“Then send the flower,” he replied, cutting off the question, “Only then,” Tom said to her with the authority of command returning one last time. “I’ll come.”

For the past four years, the florist in town completed a standing order. A single, yellow marigold was placed atop a nest of greenery set into a small plain paper box with no markings, then wrapped in plain brown paper. The only difference was the specific presentation of the knot binding it all together. Made from a plain brown string it was tied with two closed loops and cut to leave precisely eight loose ends.

At the end of each day for the past four years, the unclaimed, undelivered marigold was thrown in the compost, a new one taking its place. The proprietor only met the woman who placed the order once for final details and payment. Stipulations of the order called for the delivery of the marigold to be carried out any time, day or night. Delia had delivered a cell phone along with the payment. The phone was never to be out of reach. The destination address would be relayed with the phone call.

The payment was exorbitant. When the shop owner protested, Delia replied by asking, “How much is your life insurance worth?” Once the agreement was guaranteed and the cash exchanged, Delia’s appearance in the shopkeeper’s memory was already forgotten.

Much like Tom, Delia chose her new home because of the smallness of its world around her. If they came, it would be noticed. Subtlety was not a weapon in their arsenal. Her closest neighbor was Marcello, a kindly old man who professed his love for her within the first month of taking residence in the small villa. He reminded Delia on each occasion of their meeting that it was only the fact of him being thirty years her senior that kept him from making her a fine second wife.

Marcello was wise and polite enough to know what not to ask, and so their chats never went beyond amiable exchanges about the weather, the vineyard, or his complaints of his wife no longer willing to love him as she once had. Still, it saddened her just a touch not to have met him on the path at the entrance to his courtyard where they so often did, then journeying into town together.

And so when she turned the corner on the dusty, dirt road leading to town and the market, her smile returned as she spied Marcello walking towards her. His gait was slow but measured; he exerted no effort that was not required. Hidden in the shade from a wide-brimmed sunhat, his face was unseen, but she knew he wore the same somber expression that would light up from the much younger man still alive in spirit when he recognized her approach. A small wagon, its handle long, was held in one hand and a cane in the other. Brown paper packages of sausage, hams, and fresh fish filled the cart. Delia was surprised to see a large bouquet of flowers nestled safely in its center.

Delia called out to him as the distance between them closed, “Good morning, Marcello! Why didn’t you wait for me? We would have gone together.”

Without looking up, he answered, “Ah! e l’intera città sa che ho un’amante?”

Being proficient in eight languages, Delia’s mind translated as his words fell on her ears, “Ha! And have the whole town know I have a mistress?”

She adored him; he was as harmless as he was sweet. Then, giving an extra shine to her smile, she asked in fluent Italian, “and now who will protect me when I go to the market?”

With his answer, the carefully crafted safety net of her world was cut away.

“Il mercato non c’è più. Amore mio, per te è chiuso. per te la casa è chiusa.” The market is gone. My love, for you it is closed. For you, the house is closed, explained Marcello, his words delivered without the musical cadence they usually carried.

“Marcello?” asked Delia, “What did you see?”

His eyes already losing hold of their tears, the old man turned to his wagon and retrieved the flowers then told her, “Ho visto due uomini, entrambi sposati con lo stesso polpo.” I saw two men, both married to the same Octopus. Raising his hand, he pointed to his wedding band before bending to the wagon and retrieving the flowers. Handing them over, Marcello told her there were no more good days for her here.

“Mettili nella finestra sulla terrazza. Fammi guardare su di loro la mattina, ma fammi vedere più.” Put them in the window on the terrace. Let me look upon them in the morning but let me see you no more, he told her.

The coldness was seeping back into her heart now. Her mind was already following her exit plans while her body turned fear to fortitude. Taking the flowers, she bent to the old man and laid a tender kiss on either cheek, his last words to her all too true, “I thought perhaps this was the end of the world, but it seems for you it is not far enough.”

“Marcello,” purred Delia, “if only you weren’t such a good husband to your wife I would have stolen you for myself years ago.” Looking into his eyes dancing with pride and joy, she kissed his lips quickly then turned and left his sight forever.

In less than a quarter of an hour, Delia was gone. Centered in the terrace window, sat a vase filled with marigolds of yellow, orange, and red with lilies and tulips in between.

Marcello was sitting at his courtyard table, a glass of Port in hand, a plate of fruits, cheese, and a half baguette to nibble from when the car pulled to his curb. Two men exiting, one strode towards Delia’s villa, the other towards him.

When the cell phone rang and vibrated in her back pocket, the florist immediately excused herself from the young couple contemplating centerpieces for their wedding.

Within the hour, her son arrived and was sent on his way to a quaint, quiet corner of France.

Chapter Three

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