Vengeance by Jack Ludlow

possible to drop down onto soft ground close to the wall, where his mother planted vegetables that required the warmth of the afternoon sun to prosper and grow. In her absence it had been tended and watered by one of the servants.
    He had one leg over the sill when he paused, reprising what he had been told. If even half was true, it was obvious that whatever happened subsequently would oblige him to vacate the family home if not forever, certainly for the succeeding days. Where to go and for how long was a problem that would need to be solved, but not at this exact moment.
    Going back into his room and using what moonlight filtered through the open window, Flavius dressed slowly, silently and not without pain, in his military garb, breast and backplate, knowing his sling would have to be discarded. He strapped on his sword, gathered up his shield, his spear plus his helmet and cast them out to land on the ground, taking care to spread out the places where they made contact so they did not clash and cause a noise.
    Lastly he gathered everything that had been given to him by Gregory Blastos, his father’s testament, papers and most importantly the family money. The rolled-up document he loaded in a canvas satchel and put over his good shoulder, the twin sack of coins he tied tightly to his belt, and once sure there was nothing left he could safely take with him, he went back over the sill and slowly, relying on his good arm, let himself down until it was at a full stretch.
    There is always an odd feeling in dropping, doubly so in the dark, for the clouds had once more cut off the moonlight, and unlike in his past escapades, he could not see where he would land. As he hung there, Flavius was assailed by a deep fear, not just that a fall of twice his own height might land him on a rock and cause him to sprain or break an ankle, but of that which awaited him even should he succeed without mishap.
    The sob that came from his throat he had to suppress but he was a boy again, near to fifteen summers now, no longer pretending to be a man, as he had been before the Hun raid, and the feeling was uncomfortable. What kind of fate was it that left him to care for himself and what kind of destiny was it that put him in such imminent danger when just days before he had lived a normal life?
    Flavius opened the hand that was holding on to the sill and fell to the ground, giving with his knees and mouthing a prayer to what seemed an indifferent God as he did so, for he had landed on soft ground.
     
    Weapons, helmet and the canvas sack he left under a tree halfway between the villa and the servants’ quarters, these being set in a low building that adjoined and ran at right angles from the kitchens of the main house. No ladder was required to get in but it was necessaryto maintain silence, not easy with a shutter inclined to creak, even less so when, once inside and away from that opening, very little light penetrated to aid him. That he should have only a sketchy notion of who slept where in this part of the villa was hardly surprising: he had not wandered into this area since being a curious toddler.
    Flavius reasoned that, in the hierarchy of the household, Ohannes must rank quite high, which would indicate that he would be one of the few with a cell of his own in which to sleep, as well as one close to the main house. The lower the servants, be they slave or free, the more crowded was their space, so in an annex without doors, it was possible to silently pull to one side the canvas screens and listen for the breathing of more than one soul.
    In the end it was the old soldier’s preference for a cooling night breeze to aid his slumbers, plus the snoring of an elder that identified him to the youngster, or more importantly, the tip of a resting spear catching the light from an open shutter.
    Flavius’s hand had barely touched the shoulder when one of Ohannes’s shot out to take hold of his throat, the grip immediately so tight the boy