Novel Full Chapter 613: Verses of Treason
Chapter 613: Verses of Treason
The marble pillars of the hall had once echoed with court music and the clipped heels of noblewomen.
Now, it was filled with microphones, cameramen, and the silent tension of reckoning.
The Spanish national crest hung behind the tribunal: the golden lion and red castle flanking the banner of King Alfonso XIII.
Beneath it sat a long mahogany desk, elevated by two shallow steps, upon which were seated five judges, all handpicked by the crown.
One was a general.
One was a bishop.
One was a civil magistrate.
One was a monarchist philosopher.
And the last… was a German.
No one said it aloud, but everyone watching knew: this was more than justice. This was theater.
And the world was watching.
Dozens of foreign journalists sat beneath the press gallery, notebooks ready, cameras rolling.
Broadcast towers outside Madrid carried the trial live to every corner of the Reich, the Italian Kingdom, and across monarchist-aligned territories throughout Latin America.
A solemn voice crackled through the radio feed:
“Citizens of Spain. Subjects of the Crown. Hear now the reckoning of treason.”
The courtroom doors creaked open.
Six men and one woman were escorted in by royal guards.
Former generals, anarchist leaders, trade union commanders, and former ministers of the so-called Republican government.
Some limped. Others looked hollow, beaten not just by war, but by the realization that history had abandoned them.
Their chains clinked. Their eyes darted.
The former Prime Minister of the Spanish Republic, Manuel Azaña, shuffled forward first.
His hair had grayed, his once-pinched voice now ragged from weeks in isolation. He paused before the tribunal, offering no bow.
“Manuel Azaña Díaz,” read the magistrate, “you stand accused of high treason, illegal governance, sedition, incitement of revolution, unlawful cooperation with foreign states, and the deaths of 300,000 Spaniards in the course of the civil conflict. How do you plead?”
Azaña glanced toward the cameras and hesitated. For a moment, some in the gallery thought he might make a final stand, cry out for the Republic, or at least denounce the monarchy.
Instead, he answered flatly, “Guilty of governance. Not of treason.”
That was all.
The bishop leaned forward. “You declared the formation of your so called Republic, and denied the legitimacy of His Majesty’s reign! You desecrated altars. You signed orders to nationalize the Church. You allowed the slaughter of over one thousand clergy. Do you deny this?”
“I did not sign the bullets.”
“But you signed the laws that gave them the guns.”
The room fell still.
Later, came Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, once the fiery voice of the Workers’ Front. Now she looked like a bitter ghost, her red scarf tucked beneath the gray of prison linen.
“You rallied mobs to burn cathedrals,” said the German judge calmly. “You called for purges of the aristocracy. You openly invited foreign agitators into Spanish affairs.”
“I fought for justice.”
“Did you find it?” he asked.
She said nothing.
The tribunal continued for over a week. Each day, a new parade of revolutionaries was marched into the hall. Some defiant, others broken, a few sobbing, others stone-faced.
And with each testimony, the world saw.
Film reels were spliced for international audiences: grainy clips of burned churches, mass graves of civilians, children shot in the street by anarchist militias, the destruction of Valencia, the shelling of Toledo by Republican artillery, all backed by Allied aid.
The message was clear.
They were not rebels.They were not freedom fighters.They were butchers in tailored suits.
On the eighth day, King Alfonso himself entered the gallery, seated with dignified reserve as the final verdicts were read.
Manuel Azaña: death by firing squad.
Ibárruri: life imprisonment in a labor monastery.
General Líster: hanged.
Union chief José Díaz: death by hanging, commuted to life after confession.
Federico García Lorca: acquitted… deemed a poet, not a conspirator.
That evening, a public broadcast was delivered from the grand balcony of the Royal Palace. Soldiers lined the streets. Church bells tolled low.
Prime Minister Tomás Garicano stood at the podium, the royal standard fluttering behind him.
“This war was not merely civil,” he said. “It was existential. We were not divided by parties, but by values. Between those who would burn Spain to the ground, and those who would die to preserve it.”
He paused.
“We do not celebrate this tribunal. We mourn that it was necessary. But let it be known to Madrid, to Paris, to Washington, that Spain will not suffer another revolution. Not now. Not ever again. If you bring fire to our soil, we shall meet it with iron. If you raise your red flags in our plazas, we shall return them in ash and blood.”
Cameras flashed.
And then, without music, without anthem, the screen cut to black.
The broadcast ended.
—
That night in Berlin, Bruno watched the footage from his home study. Heidi sat beside him, silent.
He took a slow sip of beer and nodded. “A bit theatrical,” he murmured.
“But necessary,” Heidi finished.
Bruno looked at his wife with a playful gaze.
“I never said it wasn’t; I’m just saying it was an unecessary production. The best way to handle traitors, rebels, and reds is to shoot them in the streets like the rabid dogs they are. 9mm is cheap; international broadcasts are not.”
Across the screen, a single still lingered, the camera catching Ibárruri as she was led from the courtroom, lips trembling, dignity stripped, her revolution broken.
He stared at it.
And in a quiet voice said:
“I wouldn’t have spared any of them, least of all her… She may not appear like it, but she is the most guilty of all….”
Heidi placed her hand over his.
“And that is why,” she said softly, “We will win in the end….”
—
In another room of the same palace the screen dimmed.
Erika reached for the remote and clicked the television off, the room falling into a soft hush broken only by the distant sound of passing traffic.
The air still smelled faintly of tea and iron polish, Erich’s uniform had been laid over the armchair like a slumbering beast.
She turned to him.
He hadn’t moved since the broadcast ended. Still seated on the couch, forearms resting on his knees, fists clenched. His jaw flexed, the muscle twitching just beneath the skin.
Erika spoke softly.
“They’ve been sentenced. It’s over.”
He didn’t answer at first.
Then:
“Not for me.”
She watched him carefully. “You fought your war, Erich. No one can ask more of you.”
He turned, eyes still fixed on the blank television.
“They let the poet live,” he muttered. “The one with the soft voice and softer hands. And the propagandist!” They’re one and the same!”
Erich continued, voice low, cold. “She lit the fire. He serenaded it. How many picked up rifles because of her speeches? How many slit throats to his prose?”
“They were spared because they never held a gun,” Erika offered, though not quite in defense, more as a bitter acknowledgment of the world’s hypocrisy.
“And that’s the problem,” Erich said, rising now, pacing slowly. “Spain was too merciful to those who shape wars with words. They shoot the commanders. They hang the generals. But the ones who preach the fire, who clothe treason in poetry, they walk free.”
He stopped at the window, hands on the frame, knuckles pale.
“I should’ve killed them before we left. That is the way my grandfather did it in Russia twenty years ago. It should have been how I ended it as well in Spain!”
Erika stood behind him now, her hands folding over his arms, her voice a whisper.
“Then you’d be them.”
He didn’t answer right away. Just stared out at the Berlin skyline, twilight dancing off the rooftops.
“Maybe,” he finally said. “But maybe then we wouldn’t have to fight the same war again.”
She tightened her hold and remained silent.
But this time, shared.