“Did your mother tell you that your father was a Templar Knight?” Gavin asked quietly.

John Paul looked up at him wide-eyed as if the information frightened him somehow.

“She didn’t?” Gavin frowned sympathetically at the boy.

He shook his head and his long hair swished over his shoulders, sending more bits of green moss and a few clover leaves showering onto the book.  He brushed them off gently.

“Well, he was,”  Gavin told him.  “Better yet, he still is,” he added in a conspiratorial whisper.

The boy shook his head and smiled without looking up.

“No, I’m serious!” Gavin laughed.  “Your daddy is a Templar Knight.  He used to dress just like that and ride a big horse just like that one.”

John Paul frowned and looked down at the picture of the Knight with his helmet and sword and boots and chain mail.  He ran one finger along the Knight’s broadsword.

“That’s something, huh?”  Gavin asked him.  “Your mom should have told you. Would you like to know his name?”

The boy nodded his head vigorously.

“Sir Mark Andrew Ramsay,”  Gavin told him with an affected air of solemnity.  “Chevalier du Morte.  Knight of Death.  Alchemist and Prince of the Grave.”

John Paul stared at the picture without looking up.

“Scary, huh?”  Gavin asked him.  “But he has a golden sword with a twisted blade and he cuts off the heads of all his enemies.”

John Paul looked up, clearly fascinated by his words.

“I’ll bet he’s killed thousands of evil infidels and maybe some dragons, too,”  Gavin nodded at his own words, thinking that ‘dragon’ might be a fit metaphor for Valentino.  “Are you sure your mom never told you?”

John Paul shook his head slowly.

“Has she ever told you anything at all about your daddy?”  he asked with mock wonder.  Gavin had to assume that Merry had told the boy nothing of his father. 

John Paul shook his head again.

“Would you like me to tell you about him?”  Gavin leaned to look closely at the boy.

The boy nodded vigorously and scooted a tad bit further from the man he did not trust.

“Good!” Gavin stood up and John Paul scrambled backwards in fear.  “I have something else for you.”  He ignored the actions of the child and continued with his plan, reaching in his pocket for the prize he carried there.  He slowly extracted a perfect replica of the Templar Knight in the book cast in pewter, holding his sword aloft.  John Paul took it immediately and turned it over and over in his hands, admiring it. 

“Next time, I’ll bring you a dragon for him to kill and tell you more about your daddy, but you have to do something for me first.”

John Paul looked up at him and the suspicion returned immediately.  His sky blue eyes narrowed.

“I want you to say ‘daddy’ for me,”  Gavin smiled at him.  “I know you can do it.  Remember?”

John Paul scratched his head and frowned.  Gavin’s eyes widened as a ladybug crawled out of his silky tresses and flew away.  It was no wonder Merry had to scrub him two or three times a day!  The boy made a motion for Gavin to turn around.

“No, I want to see you when you say it this time,”  Gavin told him and folded his arms across his chest.

The boy looked down at the little figure in his hand and then at the page in the book that lay open at his feet, apparently waging some battle in his mind.

“Daddy,”  he whispered the requisite word in a barely audible voice.

“I can’t hear you,”  Gavin told him and bent forward.

“Daddy!” John Paul said quite loudly and then grabbed up the book.  He stuck it under his arm and ran off down the path, disappearing as always into the bushes and trees like a fairy creature.