Traitor by Geraint Jones

Author:Geraint Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2021-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 28

I stood in the dark side of the room.

‘Albus.’

The honest-faced guard. The man who loved his legion and his eagle as much as he did his own children. Of course it would be him.

‘Standard-bearer!’ There was no pain in his words. ‘You’ve come back!’ Only love.

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I’ve come back.’

My head and face were bare, my body wrapped in a snow-covered cloak. Albus couldn’t see that I was out of uniform, that I was masquerading as a German. Not yet. The helmet and shield remained out of the candlelight.

‘I knew what they said wasn’t true!’ the soldier told me, and I could tell he wanted to embrace me, but the discipline of rank held him back. ‘I knew they hadn’t killed you, standard-bearer, and I knew you weren’t no deserter!’

His words sent a blade through my heart.

‘Something secret, I suppose?’ Albus went on. ‘Well, no need to say anything. There’s not a better man for it than you though, standard-bearer. I know that, if I might speak so boldly.’

I said nothing. What could I say?

Albus looked at me for a long moment. There was reverence there. The legion was his religion, and I, as one declared a hero, was a prophet of that order.

‘I’ll leave you be,’ Albus said. He was about to turn, but there was something more to say.

He said it proudly. Soldier to soldier. Comrade to comrade. ‘I am glad to see you well, sir. Very glad.’

And he was.

And he turned.

And he saw the German helmet and the shield beside the door. It was not enough to do anything more than make him pause to question, but that question was enough.

My heart broke as I knew that he had to die.

‘Standard-bearer…’ He knew that he should ask something. Say something. His face had the look of a young child who had walked in on his father with a woman other than his mother. He knew that something was amiss here, but he didn’t know what.

Nor would he ever. The door swung open and a spear came with it. Albus didn’t have time to turn, and so I was looking into his open face when the weapon drove through his chest. It was a perfectly placed strike and destroyed his heart utterly, killing him instantly, a death that I witnessed by the light of the candle in his hand. Flame and wax fell to the floor, and extinguished. So, too, was the life snuffed out of the man who now crumpled to the floorboards.

Wind and snow rushed through the door. There was a silhouette there. A big one.

Farvald. ‘Let’s go.’

I stepped over a body.

I stepped over a father.

I stepped over a brother of my legion.

I was a traitor.

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