The Return of the Warrior

by Chris Bradford

  ‘Are there such wolves in England?’ queried Lady Catherine, with a nervous glance round the woods.

  Lord Percival shook his head. ‘Not red ones, that’s for sure.’ He turned to Jack. ‘When I’m back in London, at the royal court, I’ll ask about it for you. Perhaps someone will know what some of it means. In the meantime, would you do me the honour of accompanying us along the road, at least as far as our journeys coincide. Your presence would greatly reassure my wife.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jack, realizing that travelling in such noble company would ease their passage through the towns on their way. Collecting their own horses, they left Guy and his gang of thieves bound and gagged in the clearing – Guy hurling muffled insults at them as they departed.

  Resuming their journey on the main highway, Lord Percival asked Jack about his adventures in Japan, while Lady Catherine conversed with Akiko, fascinated by her stories of golden temples and samurai warriors. But as they travelled along the road, the sky darkened and ominous thunderclouds loomed on the horizon.

  ‘This is where we must part,’ said Lord Percival, coming to a halt at a crossroads. ‘Stratford is north from here.’ He looked up at the menacing sky. ‘You’d best make haste to Banbury first, though. It’s the nearest town to here, and you’ll likely reach it before the heavens open.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jack, ‘and safe travels to you.’

  ‘And to you too, Jack. I wish you every luck in finding your sister. And if I can be of any service, don’t hesitate to call upon me.’

  Bidding them farewell, Lord and Lady Percival, and their two manservants, headed west in the direction of Oxford. Jack and his friends took the road north, riding into the gusting wind. The thunderclouds raced to meet them, bringing an iron sheet of heavy grey rain rolling across the landscape to consume every hill and field in its path. Despite galloping their horses flat out, they couldn’t beat the advancing storm and soon found themselves in a torrential downpour. The rain was so heavy they could barely see their way ahead, the highway fast turning into a quagmire.

  ‘Over there!’ cried Jack, spying the dark silhouette of a barn through the maelstrom of mud and rain.

  Soaking and shivering, they dismounted their horses and entered the timber-framed building. The barn was musty and full of hay, but its thatched roof afforded them shelter from the storm. After wringing out their clothes, the bedraggled group each plumped up a mound of hay for themselves and settled down for the night.

  Yori was out almost as soon as his head hit the hay, but Jack lay there, listening to the rain drumming on the thatch. They were just one day’s ride from Stratford – little more than twenty miles lay between him and his sister, if she was there. Despite his exhaustion, Jack could barely sleep for thinking about their reunion.

  Just then, he heard a rustle in the hay and felt a body nestle up close to him. He thought it must be Akiko, but it was Rose’s voice that whispered in his ear, ‘I’m cold.’

  Jack took off his coat and laid it over her. But she moved closer and put her arm round him. He pulled away. ‘Rose, no …’

  ‘Don’t you remember our first kiss?’ she murmured.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Jack, ‘but my heart belongs to another now.’

  Rose drew him to her. ‘Can’t I steal it back?’

  Jack gently shook his head. ‘Akiko and I are forever bound to one another.’

  ‘You’re so loyal, Jack,’ replied Rose, her tone both approving and disappointed. ‘Perhaps too loyal. Do you really think she’ll stay in England, for you?’ Rejected, Rose disentangled herself and turned her back to him, taking his coat with her.

  Jack stared up blankly into the darkness, as unsettled by his emotions as by the storm. He was sorry he’d upset Rose, but added to that she had pricked the doubt that was clouding his heart from the moment they had stepped on to English shores. There was always the question of whether Akiko would stay or not, although he’d harboured the hope that she would. But now, after everything that had happened, he couldn’t see why she would want to stay in this cold, brutal and unforgiving country.

  Jack glanced over to where Akiko lay. She wasn’t there, and he saw her crouching by the barn door, peering into the rain-soaked night. He rose quietly and joined her. She didn’t acknowledge him, just kept her gaze on the lightning in the distant clouds.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night …’ he began.

  ‘And tonight?’ she asked pointedly.

  Jack let out a regretful sigh. She’d seen him and Rose together. ‘It’s not what you think. Rose was cold, so I gave her my coat.’

  ‘Oh? She looked warm enough to me,’ replied Akiko, her eyes glistening with tears.

  Jack took Akiko’s hand, her soft skin cold to the touch. ‘I told her that you and I are forever bound to one another, that my heart belongs to you.’

  Akiko turned to him, a hesitant smile upon her lips. He gently wiped away her tears.

  ‘I realize England is not what you hoped for … or I hoped for … or even promised,’ Jack went on. ‘I know you’re homesick. Once we find Jess, I can arrange passage on a ship back to Japan for you … if that’s what you want.’

  ‘And what will you do?’ asked Akiko.

  Jack thought for a moment. ‘I honestly don’t know. I’ve been so focused on being reunited with my sister that I haven’t planned what would come afterwards. I believed that once I got home, things would just fall into place. But I’m not sure where I belong now. Perhaps I’m destined to be a pilot like my father.’

  ‘Always travelling, then,’ said Akiko with a resigned look.

  ‘Well, that depends upon where you are,’ replied Jack, gazing deep into her eyes.

  Akiko tenderly placed a hand on his heart. ‘I am here, always and forever.’

  Jack was woken by the stirring of the horses. He sat up, shaking the straw from his hair, and rubbed sleep from his eyes. A faint dawn light seeped through the slats in the barn walls, catching dust motes in the air. The storm had blown itself out during the night, leaving behind only the soft drip of rainwater trickling from the thatched roof. Akiko lay asleep next to him, her face serene; Yori was curled up almost in a ball on his pile of hay; and Rose – was nowhere to be seen.

  He looked around for her and found his coat discarded in the hay. A flicker of sunlight alerted Jack to movement outside the barn.

  ‘Rose?’ he whispered, pushing his arms through the sleeves of his coat. There was a low murmur of voices and the soft squelch of feet in mud. He tensed, straining to listen. Suddenly the barn doors were flung open and a band of constables charged in. Before Jack could react – or Akiko and Yori even open their eyes – they were seized by rough hands and dragged to their feet.

  ‘Strip them of their weapons and belongings,’ ordered the chief constable, his double chin stubbled like a fallow field, his hangdog eyes mean and wary.

  ‘Wait! What’s the meaning of this?’ Jack protested, as his swords were taken and his hands bound. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong –’

  ‘Shut up!’ snarled the chief constable. ‘You’re under arrest.’

  Jack stared at the man in disbelief. Yori, bowing his head low in humble respect, said, ‘I believe you may be making a mistake, constable. We’re not the ones you should be arresting!’

  ‘Really?’ questioned the chief constable. He made a show of looking round the barn. ‘Then who should we be arresting? The field mice? I suppose, you’re small enough to be one!’

  The other constables laughed heartily as they secured Yori and Akiko, confiscating his shakujō along with her bow and quiver, and their packs.

  ‘Lord Robert Percival sent for constables to arrest the highwayman Guy Rakesby and his gang … not us,’ explained Yori timidly.

  ‘Guy Rakesby, you say?’ The chief constable raised a bushy eyebrow and snorted. ‘Well, good luck to those constables! Rather them than us, eh, boys? We’re here to apprehend vagrants and horse thieves.’

  ‘Horse
thieves?’ gasped Akiko as the constables unhooked the reins and led their mounts out of the barn. ‘I can assure you, sir, we didn’t steal these horses.’

  ‘That’s not what the owner says.’ The constable gave her a disparaging look up and down. ‘Besides, you’re clearly vagrants and therefore not welcome in Banbury.’

  Jack opened his mouth to object, then caught sight of Akiko and Yori. Their fine clothing was caked in mud from riding through the previous night’s storm and the dirt had fused with clumps of hay to make them look like dishevelled scarecrows. He looked down at his own clothes too, and saw how dirty they were. It’s no wonder the constable mistook them all for vagrants. ‘We only stayed here to take shelter from the storm,’ said Jack. ‘I can promise you –’

  ‘Shut your trap!’ snarled the chief constable, backhanding Jack across the jaw and making stars burst before his eyes. ‘I’ve heard all the excuses in my time, so don’t try my patience. There’s a perfectly good inn just down the road for proper folk. It’s obvious you ain’t got the money for that – and that makes you vagrants in my book.’

  ‘I have money,’ Jack assured him, reaching for his purse … only to discover it missing. He looked desperately around at the barn floor and hay bales but couldn’t spot any leather pouch. ‘At least I did have …’

  ‘Enough stalling!’ barked the chief constable. With a jerk of his head he ordered his constables to lead them out on to the road. There, they were secured by a long rope to Jack’s horse, the chief constable now sitting smugly astride it on his ample behind. ‘Let’s see what the bailiff makes of you three,’ he said, urging his mount on and pulling the rope taut.

  As they were frogmarched along the muddy highway, Yori whispered to Jack in Japanese, ‘Where’s Rose?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jack replied. He too spoke in Japanese so their captors wouldn’t understand. ‘Perhaps she saw the constables and ran.’

  ‘Or else she turned us in!’ said Akiko under her breath.

  Jack shook his head. ‘Rose is a friend. She wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Then where’s your purse?’ asked Akiko.

  ‘It must have come loose while I was asleep …’

  Akiko gave him a look. ‘Once a thief, always a thief!’

  ‘Rose wouldn’t steal my purse,’ insisted Jack. But doubt was creeping in again. Had Rose been so hurt by his rejection that she’d decided to cut loose, with his money? He remembered her wrapping her arm round his waist. Had that all been a ploy to take his purse? When they’d met her in the Bunch of Grapes Inn back in Limehouse, she’d flirted with him simply in order to pick his pocket. Jack didn’t want to believe it, but it seemed possible that Rose had betrayed him.

  ‘I assume the rose did have her thorns,’ said Yori sadly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ said Akiko, ‘but I did try to warn –’

  ‘Quiet back there! Save your babbling for the bailiff!’ growled the chief constable, tugging hard on the rope and making the three of them stumble in the mud.

  The bailiff was a mournful-looking man with heavy jowls, bulging eyes, and a pouting lower lip that pushed through his beard like a slimy pale slug. His dress sense was equally sombre. He wore a brown fur-trimmed robe, a padded woollen doublet and a black velvet cap, his gold chain of office being his only concession to adornment. Seated behind a heavy oak table in the town’s draughty market hall, the bailiff regarded the three vagrants before him with glassy disdain.

  Jack returned his cold gaze with as much dignity as he could muster. Unfortunately, the forced march into Banbury had left him and his friends looking even worse for wear. Their hair was tangled and knotted with dirt and straw, their already dirty boots were plastered afresh with mud, and their garments were stained and ripped from the countless times they’d fallen along the way. Hungry for want of breakfast, bone-tired from dragging their feet through the muck, they appeared little more than homeless beggars.

  A hostile muttering hemmed them in on all sides. Their sorry procession through Banbury’s streets had drawn a crowd, curious to see the two foreigners in their midst, and now half the townsfolk seemed to be crammed into the market hall to get a better look.

  ‘I hereby open this session of the Hundred Court,’ declared the bailiff, his voice flat and monotonous. ‘The accused stand charged with vagrancy and horse thievery.’ He eyed Jack and his two companions. ‘How do you plead?’

  ‘Not guilty,’ replied Jack firmly. ‘There’s clearly been a misunderstanding, sir. You see, we’re –’

  ‘Were you or were you not found in possession of Sir Henry Wilkes’ horses?’ cut in the bailiff.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘But –’

  ‘Then you are horse thieves.’

  Jack stared, open-mouthed, at the bailiff. ‘I don’t understand … Sir Henry gave us permission to use his horses.’

  ‘Not according to this arrest warrant,’ stated the bailiff, studying a piece of parchment lying upon the table. ‘Four of his finest horses were taken yesterday. And his stable boy is dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ gasped Jack, recalling the young, tawny-haired lad who’d kindly packed their saddlebags with provisions. He exchanged a stunned look with Akiko and Yori.

  ‘Are you able to shed some light on the matter?’ enquired the bailiff.

  Jack blinked in shock. ‘What? You don’t think we had anything to do with it, do you?’

  The bailiff’s dour expression hardened. ‘According to this warrant, every finger of the boy’s hands had been broken. He was tortured before he was killed.’

  A cry of outrage erupted in the crowd and Jack felt a sickening twist in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘That’s awful! But we couldn’t have done it,’ he protested. ‘We were on the road yesterday,’ he added, having to raise his voice over the hisses and jeers. ‘In fact, we stayed in the Fox and Pheasant Inn the previous night.’

  The bailiff leant across the table and, like a poisonous toad, fixed Jack with his bulbous eyes. ‘Yet you slept in a barn last night. Why should I believe that penniless vagrants like you had the means to stay at an inn the night before?’

  ‘Ask the landlord,’ said Akiko, stepping forward. ‘He’s sure to remember us.’

  The bailiff glowered, as if the audacity of a woman to speak out of turn was a sin. ‘The landlord’s not here to ask,’ he said sharply, spittle spraying out of his mouth. ‘And I’m not minded to waste my time or his for foreigners and thieves.’ He waved to the chief constable. ‘Lock them up, constable, and send word to the Justice of the Peace that we have apprehended the horse thieves. He will arrange to have them transported back to London for trial.’

  ‘NO!’ cried Jack. He struggled in the chief constable’s grip and was rewarded with a heavy blow of a cosh to his kidneys. He dropped to his knees, winded and bruised. As they were dragged away, Jack began to despair. They couldn’t be sent back to London. He had to find his sister. If they went back to the capital, he and his friends would hang for their earlier false convictions. Oh, how Sir Toby would be delighted to see him swing from the gallows again!

  Then Jack spotted a familiar face in the crowd: Harold Westcott.

  ‘Harold!’ he shouted, but the charming gentleman from the Fox and Pheasant didn’t appear to hear him.

  ‘HAROLD!’ he shouted again, then pointing his bound hands in Harold’s direction, Jack appealed to the bailiff. ‘Please, sir – that man can vouch for us.’

  All eyes turned to the young man in the plush velvet jerkin adorned with silver buttons and shoulder wings. Harold was pushed forward by the crowd and made to stand before the bailiff.

  ‘Is this true?’ demanded the bailiff. ‘Do you know these people?’

  Jack looked imploringly at Harold, willing him to confirm their story. But it appeared their friendly traveller was reluctant to get involved. ‘Harold,’ Jack pleaded, ‘tell the bailiff we were with you the other night at the inn. You owe us this favour, remember?’

  After what seemed lik
e an age, Harold looked at Jack, smiled and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he announced, ‘I know them.’

  Jack felt a wave of relief. They had their alibi confirmed.

  Then Harold’s smile turned sour and he added, ‘They’re thieves, all right. They stole my purse and my precious locket.’

  ‘What?’ cried Jack in horror. Akiko and Yori stared in equal disbelief.

  Harold, theatrical tears now in his eyes, pointed an accusing finger at Jack. ‘He took it. He took my silver locket!’

  The chief constable pulled Jack’s shirt aside and ripped the locket from his neck.

  ‘That’s mine!’ shouted Jack, reaching desperately for the only link he had to Jess. ‘Harold’s lying. He’s the thief! He –’

  Jack was cut short by a jarring punch to his jaw and knocked to the ground. As he lay on the packed earthen floor of the market hall, his head ringing, the bailiff questioned Harold. ‘This is a fine piece, sir,’ he began. ‘Can you prove your ownership of it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harold replied confidently. ‘If you care to look inside, the locket has a portrait of my sweetheart inside. She has hair like golden wheat and eyes as blue as the midsummer sky.’

  The bailiff inspected the miniature painting inside. ‘I have no reason not to believe you,’ he declared, handing Harold the locket. ‘Here, keep her safe from now on.’

  ‘Why, thank you,’ said Harold, inclining his head respectfully and pocketing the locket. ‘And what about my purse?’

  The chief constable regretfully shook his head. ‘No purse was found on him, I’m afraid, sir.’

  Harold sighed heavily, as if the troubles of the world were upon his shoulders. ‘That’s a great shame. But at least I have my precious Judy back next to my heart.’

  ‘Judy!’ exclaimed Jack, incredulous at Harold’s barefaced lies. ‘Her name’s Jess and she’s my sister!’

  As Harold walked away, swallowed up by the crowd, Jack fumed. Rose had been right: Harold was a courtesy-man – a con artist, a thief – just like Rose.

  The bailiff returned his attention to Jack, sprawled in the middle of the hall. ‘As much as it galls me to say so, it appears you have an alibi for yesterday. Which means you can’t be held accountable for taking the horses or murdering the boy …’