The Shepherd

“The Shepherd” was a spy master in World War II England who was later killed by British Intelligence due to his potential liability for exposure and or manipulation due to his homosexual liaisons. He was thought to be telling secrets to German agents who were sent to seduce and illicit information from him - though none knew if the information he was thought to be divulging was true.

History
The figure known as the Good Shepherd had served the government in American Intelligence in two world wars - once with a commander’s pistol and whistle in the trenches and then later with a fountain pen. Born in the age of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper, he saw how information could cripple a community or drive them into a murderous frenzy - screaming for justice. Educated, scholastic, curious and skeptical, he was a man who walked in multiple worlds; couching secrets of his personal life while walking in professional circles and carrying the weight of classified information while trying to walk in social circles. The man was a walking bundle of secrets, a complex tower of lies and truths that were bound up so tightly that few knew where one began and the other ended. No one seemed to care because he was able to see things so clearly from his lofty tower however it was constructed. It was a moderately concealed secret that the Shepherd had a fondness for young, athletic men but none dare question it so long as he was discrete about such things and he continued to make himself invaluable to the government. He was sociable but cold to most people who did not share his secret and in his elder years found the company of his temptations to be a bitter sweet reminder of his youth. At three times their age, sexual congress wasn’t typically a matter for discussion but rather he enjoyed conversing with them in various states of undress about poetry, philosophy, art and literature while he painted their likeness. Eventually, his knowledge of the skeletons of state came into conflict with his personal life. One of his paintings - a gift to one of the many friends he maintained as a social mask of normality - was discovered in the home of a German spy who had been sending observations on the American Navy to his compatriots during the war. The painting was used as a means of concealing encoded data - though it was never proven whether this was with or without the direction of the Shepherd. The assumption of guilt was all that was needed to start pulling the many bricks from his tower. His home was searched, his paintings confiscated and destroyed by the very same Intelligence service he was working for. When no hidden codes or information could be found within his paintings, they seized his books, and then his journals - a mad witch hunt to prove that his successes within the agency had been a carefully orchestrated plot by foreign powers. He knew that there was no truth to the accusations and several in power knew this as well but once the finger had been pointed the lack of evidence didn’t so much as squash the investigator’s fire but rather it inflamed it. The mystique that surrounded the Shepherd for concealing information, at one time a valued asset, was now a shadowy cloud of suspicion that hung around him like an old coat. Rather than return the seized items, the agency had them burned for fear that there could be valuable but as yet undiscovered information contained within his books, journals and paintings - and they made him watch. They hoped that seeing his treasures engulfed in flames might trigger some outburst’ a righteous confession of his guilt. He denied them the satisfaction. Cold as ever, he held up his hands and warmed them by the heat of the blaze as if mocking their ceremonial pyre. At the conclusion of the investigation and with no evidence to implicate him, the Shepherd attempted to return to his duties much to the indignation of those who attempted to tear down his tower. Though he still possessed the vast arsenal of secrets kept safe in his mental vault - no one seemed to be willing to listen to him any more. So he attempted to get their attention once more and prove how valuable he was to their efforts. He did not account for the possibility that his one-time compatriots might use him as bait to entice a much larger fish into play.

Death
Betrayal. The Shepherd died at the very same hands of those who he had worked to protect during his many years of service.

The meeting was fairly commonplace for men in his line of work. It was a semi-social occasion at a local coffee shop whereby he would meet a pleasantly athletic young man, the two would converse over this and that while they searched the others eyes for signs of duplicity. Once they were confident that the other was who they were believed to be, the two would leave the cafe and walk the local neighborhood while touching upon the tender subjects of unspoken truths.

The Shepherd was attempting to probe the younger man’s thoughts on patriotism, conviction and, as the occasion presented, his understanding of fission. The suspicion was that the Axis powers were attempting to recruit the former track star to spy for them on an upcoming project that would pull in America’s best and brightest scientists. Before the two could come to any kind of conclusion, their ambulatory assignation was unanticipatedly interrupted by a would-be thief. The gunman demanded that the the two men follow him into an alley and hand over their wallets.

The Shepherd didn’t carry much cash on him as a rule and was willing to pay the thief if only he would remove himself with the utmost haste. There were secrets to be found.

The elder spymaster reached for his wallet to hand it over but the stickup man didn’t seem interested in money. The young man started to panic and tried to bolt from the alley and the thief shot him. He didn’t shot -at- the young scientist but rather he shot him with the precision and confidence of a trained killer. The movement of the gun wasn’t wild or erratic but rather a practiced motion and the Shepherd could see the truth of the moment. This was not a random mugging but a well-planned execution. He drew his sword cane and sliced at the gun arm with a quick slash. The hand came off at the wrist and it and the gun clattered to the wet bricks of the alley. He was nearly sixty years old and in that moment he was more alive than he had felt in years.

The gunman clutched the wounded arm to his chest and fell to the ground in shock. The Shepherd held the blade to point its tip at his face - flicking a bit of the man’s own blood on his face to drive up the feeling of fear to keep him cowed so as not to try a second attack. He had beaten them - survived their second attempt to knock him from his tower, but he did not see the third.

The gunshot came from further down the alley without any sign announcing the presence of the second shooter. The first was apparently sent as a distraction; a literal pawn to test the old man’s resources. He fell to his knees at first, his soul quickly slipping free from his body and he dug the point of the blade into the bricks to hold him up for a few seconds more. He knew that they’d reveal themselves - to look him in the face as he died and possibly ensure that he could not survive. But they did not. They simply shot once more and he fell forward. His cheek felt the wet brick upon it and he died demanding to learn the truth; to reveal the secret of the shooter.

Associations

 * Cult of the Crow Father (Antagonist)

Details

 * Calamus
 * Gladius