The Sacred Sword

Chapter Thirty-Six

Ben read the letter three times, open-mouthed, then a fourth just to make sure he hadn’t dreamed it. There was no mistake. He stared at Michaela’s handwriting until the words swam before his eyes and lost all meaning.

He was still sitting there gaping at it in utter disbelief when Jude’s voice broke in on his thoughts and startled him. ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ Jude asked, yawning. He kicked out his legs and bounced off the bed.

Ben quickly slipped the letter in between the pages of the book. ‘Poetry,’ he said in a dry, raspy voice. He cleared his throat.

‘Poetry. Give me a fucking break.’ Jude peered at the book cover and let out a snort. ‘Milton. I tried to read that once. Couldn’t be bothered with it. Load of old tat, if you ask me. Where did you get that book from, anyway?’

Ben looked at him for the longest time.

‘What?’ Jude said.

Ben didn’t reply. He didn’t have the words.

‘So I didn’t like Milton. What’s the big deal?’

‘Milton?’ Ben said. His mind wasn’t working. His thoughts were a spinning jumble.

‘Why — are — you — staring — at — me?’ Jude said, making bug eyes. ‘You’re freaking me out.’

‘I wasn’t staring at you,’ Ben said.

‘Yes, you bloody well were.’ Jude flapped his arms impatiently. ‘Anyway. It’s almost midnight. What are we doing? I’m tired of sitting around here waiting for nothing to happen.’

‘Get some sleep,’ Ben said, forcing himself to return to the present moment. ‘Tomorrow might be a long day.’

‘I just was sleeping. I’m not sleepy any more.’ Jude crossed over to the window and pressed his nose to the glass, watching the snow fall over the village street.

Ben suddenly realised that the Christmas wrapping from Michaela’s present was still lying on the rug. Jude only had to turn round to see it there. Feeling suddenly heavy and weary, he levered himself out of the armchair, bent down and scooped it up and stuffed it in his pocket before Jude could notice. He slipped the Milton into his other pocket and grabbed his jacket from the bed. It felt as if it was weighed down with lead. ‘Do what you want. I need some air. Going out for a walk.’

Still in a daze, Ben left the room and stumbled downstairs to the empty foyer. Outside, the cobbles were beginning to disappear under a blanket of white. Large snowflakes drifted down in the glow of the street lamps and flecked his hair and shoulders as he set off aimlessly through the winding village streets. Saint-Christophe was mostly asleep, just a smattering of lights on here and there.

Could the letter have been some kind of joke? he thought in bewilderment as he walked. No, Michaela and Simeon would never have done that. Nor would they have lied about such a thing.

Could Michaela have made a mistake? If the baby hadn’t been Simeon’s, perhaps it had been someone else’s entirely. Ben pondered the idea for a moment, then felt ashamed for thinking it. No. There had been nobody else during those days of his and Michaela’s brief relationship.

Ben pictured Jude’s face in his mind. His eyes, his mouth, his nose, the shape of his cheekbones and forehead, the colour of his hair. With a sudden certainty that made him draw a sharp breath, he realised he could see his own features reflected in the younger man’s. Once you knew, it was obvious.

Then it was real. It was true. He’s my son. Ben slowed his stride, turned and gazed back towards the Auberge Saint-Christophe. His eyes picked out the window of their room, a rectangle of dim light behind the latticework of scaffolding.

My son is in that room.

He shook his head in amazement. Thoughts tumbled through his mind as he walked on. Could they not have told me sooner? Could they not have tried to find me? For a few moments he felt indignation rising up inside him. Resentment, almost, that his oldest friends could have kept something like this from him for so many years.

But then he tried to imagine what the decision would have been like for them. It couldn’t have been easy. Michaela’s letter made it clear that it was something they’d discussed for a long time. And Ben hadn’t missed the implication in her words that some part of them hadn’t wanted to tell him at all.

But it was the truth. The truth.

I have a son.

Ben had reached the deserted village square. Snow was settling on the benches and iron railings that surrounded the 1945 Liberation Day monument, a marble plinth bearing a bronze statue of two French soldiers struggling under the burden of a wounded comrade. Their helmets and the folds of their clothing were rimmed with white. Ben stopped and gazed at the statue for a moment. Then a thought hit him like a punch in the stomach, making him sit down heavily on the nearest bench. He sank his head in his hands, suddenly filled with horror.

Bodmin Moor. The man in the bog. The way Ben had drowned him. Callously, deliberately. Inflicting a cruel, slow death on a defenceless enemy. Jude’s face afterwards.

What kind of man are you? Ben asked himself. What kind of man could kill like that, in cold blood, with his own son watching? Ben knew what kind. A trained assassin. Someone who’d devoted much of his life to war and bloodshed, who’d learned to suppress every shred of his own humanity in order to inflict injury and death on other men, simply because he’d been told to.

That was who he was. Perhaps that was all he ever would be. Perhaps it was why he didn’t deserve happiness, or love. Or Brooke.

Jude had grown up and spent his whole life believing that he was the son of a good man. They’d had their quarrels and disagreements like any other father and son, but Jude would look back on Simeon’s life and forever regard him as a decent human being, kind and gentle and just, who’d done his best to instil higher values in his only child. Could he ever say that about Ben Hope? How could he respect a man who’d done the things his real father had done?

Michaela’s words returned to Ben as he sat there on the snowy bench, trembling in the cold. ‘If you ever felt that he should know… that’s a choice we freely leave to you.’

‘Never,’ Ben said out loud. ‘I will never tell him whose son he really is.’