short story : The Betrayal of Trust

[Blimble]

Chapter One

 

The moonlight was so bright across the clock that it showed the time, and its tick was solemn, as though the minutes were marching slowly by. There was no other sound in the room except the breathing of Kim, who lay in shadow, sleeping heavily, his head a black patch among the pillows. Kim's hair looked like gold in the pale light which reflectedin her open eyes. She had been lying so, listening to the tick and watching the hands, for hours.

 

When they marked eleven she began to stir; her feet made no more sound than shadows; the cold air struck her body like a strange element. Kim did not move as she went into the kitchen and softly closed the door. She groped her way to the chair where she had left her clothes andput them on, wrapped herself in a shawl, and slipped out.

 

There was no snow, but a keen cold as befitted the night, and between two fields the ice glittered. The air was so clear that far away appeared the great black barrier of the mountains. Across the sky, as across deep water, was a radiance of light, serene and chill, --of clouds like foam, of throbbing stars, of the moon glorious in her aura. In the towns at that hour the people were ready to begin the coming day with prayer and the sound of bells: heresky and earth themselves honored the event with light and silence in amajestic expectation.

 

As she made her way over the frozen grass she looked as detached fromthe world's affairs as some shrouded lady at her nightly journey along ahaunted path. The great barn was dead silent; its red front, painted with moons and stars, looked patriarchal; it had its own pastoral and dignified associations. She hesitated at the middle door, then she lifted the wooden bar and pushed it back cautiously. The darkness seemed to come out to meet her, and when she had shut herself in she was engulfed as though the ready earth had covered her a few nights too soon.

 

The straw rustled when she stepped on it, and she was afraid to risk movement, so she crouched and made herself small. The air was thick and pungent, freezing draughts played upon her through the cracks of thedoor, and her foot tingled, but she did not move. After a while she saw two luminous disks which halted, glared, and approached, and she patted the furry body until it curled up on her skirt and lay there purring. She felt it grow tense at a tiny squeak and scuttle, but she kept still.

 

Chapter Two

 

One Year Later

 

Like a clap of thunder, the north wind, rushing seawards, seemed suddenly to threaten the ancient little building with destruction. The window sashes rattled, the beams which supported the roof creaked and groaned, the lamps by which alone the place was lit swung perilouslyin their chains. A row of maps designed for the instruction of the young--the place was a disatser--commenced a devil's dance against the wall. In the street without we heard the crash. My audience of four rose timorously to its feet, and I, glad of the excuse, folded my notes and stepped from the slightly raised platform on to the floor.

 

"I am much obliged to you for coming, " I said, "but I think that it is quite useless to continue, for I can scarcely make you hear, and I am not at all sure that the place is safe. "

 

I spoke hastily, my one desire being to escape from the scene of myhumiliation unaccosted. One of my little audience, however, was of adifferent mind. Rising quickly from one of the back seats, she barredthe way. Her broad comely face was full of mingled contrition andsympathy.

 

"I am so sorry, " she exclaimed. "It does seem a cruel pity, doesn't it?--and such a beautiful lecture! I tried so hard to persuade dad and the others to come, but you know how they all love hearing anything about the war, and--"

 

I interrupted, "I am only sorry that a mistakensense of kindness should have brought you here. With one less in the audience I think I should have ventured to suggest that we all went round to hear Colonel Ray. I should like to have gone myself immensely. "

 

This was the beginnng of it. Their words held no meaning to me and I could not fully understand why they battled. It only ended one way, with the telling of his tale.

 

I came out of Prison on a certain morning. Let there be no misunderstanding about it ; I came out by way of the roof. And the time was four in the morning ; I heard the big clock over the entrance gates chime in a dull, heavy, sleepy fashion as I lay crouched on the roof under shadow of the big tower at the north end, and looked about me

 

Looking back at it now, it seems like a dream, and even then I could not realise exactly how it had happened. All I know is that there had been an alarm of fire earlier in the night, and a great running to and fro of warders, and a battering at doors by frantic locked-in men, with oaths, and threats, and shrieks. The smell of burning wood had reached my nostrils, and little whiffs and wreaths of smoke had drifted in through the ventilator in my door, before that door was opened, and I found myself huddled outside in the long corridor with other fellow-captives. And at that time I had not thought of escaping at all, probably from the fact that I was too frightened to do anything but obey orders.

 

But it came about that, even in that well-conducted prison, something had gone wrong with the fire-hose ; and it became a matter of a great passing of buckets from hand to hand, and I, as a trusted prisoner, and a model one, too, was put at the end of the line that was the least guarded. Smoke was all about me, and I could only see the faces of convicts and warders looming at me through the haze, indistinctly. I handed the buckets mechanically, as I had done everything else in that place during the few months I had been there.

 

I heard an order shouted in the distance, and I lost the faces that had seemed to be so near to me ; the fire had broken out in a fresh place, and there was a sudden call for help. I hesitated the last of the line of men for a moment ; then I set down my bucket, and turned in the opposite direction and ran for it. I knew where there was a flight of stairs ; I guessed that one particular door I had seen but once would be open ; the rest I left to chance. With my heart thumping madly I fled up the stairs, and flung myself against the door ; it yielded, and I stumbled through on to the roof of the prison.

 

I could hear down below me a great hubbub, but the roar of the flames had subsided somewhat, and I knew that the fire had been conquered. That meant for me a shorter time in which to make good my escape. I went slipping and sliding along the roof, half wishing myself back inside the prison, and won- dering how I should get from that dizzy height to the ground. Fortunately I was young, and fit, and strong, and they had put me to the hardest work in the prison for those first months, thereby hardening my muscles to their own undoing ; and I was active as a cat. After lying on the roof for what seemed a long time until, in fact, the hubbub below had almost subsided entirely I determined that I could afford to wait longer.

 

Chapter Three

 

Fifteen Years Later

 

Towards the middle of the month, in the morning, when the sun, already high in the heavens, was fast absorbing the dew from the ramparts of the little cavalcade, composed of three men and two pages, re-entered the city by the sewers, without producing any other effect upon the passengers of the quay beyond a first movement of the hand to the head, as a salute, and a second movement of the tongue to express, in the purest Language spoken.

 

In the meanwhile, Kim continued her route with an air of majestic, that she certainly would have attracted the attention of spectators, if spectators there had been; but the good citizens of the city could not pardon her for having chosen their city for an abode in which to indulge melancholy at their ease, and asoften as they caught a glimpse of the illustrious ennuye, they stoleaway gaping, or drew back their heads into the interior of their dwellings, to escape the influence of that long pale face, of those watery eyes.

 

It was not, perhaps, this which gave Kim that air of listlessness, for she had been tolerably busy in the course of this life. A man cannot allow the heads of a dozen of his best friends to be cut off without feeling a little excitement, and as, since the accession of power, no heads had been cut off. The occupation was gone, and this morale suffered from it.

 

The life of the poor Knight was, then, very dull. After his little morning hawking-party on the banks, or in the woods, everyone crossed the Loire,and went to breakfast, with or without an appetite and the city heard no more of its sovereign Sith and master till the next hawking-day.

 

So much for the training he thought, and then, rom the side of his eye he was sure somone had been in it for a split second.

 

Kim's role was now more little steady-paced, Her crimson velvet corresponded with the cloak of the same shade and the equipment, and it was only by this red appearance of the whole that the Sith could be known from her two companions, the one dressed in violet, the other in green. He on the left, in violet, was his equerry; he on the right, in green, was the grand veneur.

 

Chapter Four Coming Soon

Edited April 16, 2013 by Blimble
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