The Return of the Warrior

by Chris Bradford

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Jack, offering his hand to his dazed friend to help him up.

  But, instead of getting to his feet, Yori dropped to his knees, bowed his head to the floor and began sobbing, ‘I’m sorry, Jack, sorry … I failed … I failed to protect your sister … I promised to, but I didn’t! I’m so –’

  ‘You’ve nothing to apologize for, dear friend,’ cut in Jack. ‘Jess is alive!’

  Yori, his eyes swimming with tears, still looked regretfully at Jack. ‘B-b-but I couldn’t stop the ninja … I failed in my duty …’

  ‘You didn’t fail,’ said Jess in a hoarse whisper. ‘When the ninja broke in, you fought like a warrior, not a monk. He had those horrific weapons –’ she glanced in revulsion at the garrotte and manriki on the floor – ‘and you only had your staff. Yori, you were so brave – so, so brave.’

  Yori stopped bowing. ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Jess smiled, going over to him and taking his hand. ‘Your courage is what saved us.’

  Yori looked uncertainly at Jack again, who nodded in agreement with his sister.

  ‘Without your protection, Jess wouldn’t be alive now,’ said Jack earnestly. ‘You fulfilled your duty in every way. You’re a true samurai. You proved you were willing to lay down your life for my sister. I couldn’t ask for more from a friend.’

  Wiping away his tears, Yori replied, ‘The greatest gift in life is friendship. That’s why I treasure yours, Jack … and now your sister’s.’

  On an impulse, Jess hugged Yori. For a moment the monk looked startled at the unexpected affection, then he put his arms round her and returned the hug.

  Rose coughed politely into her fist. ‘And what about my part in all of this?’ she asked. ‘It was me who had the knife. I struck the fatal blow, don’t forget.’

  ‘How could we, Rose? You’d never let us forget!’ said Jack with a laugh. ‘Joking aside, though, I’ll be forever in your debt too.’

  Rose raised an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t be so quick to promise such things. I might ask you to repay it one day –’

  She stopped as urgent footsteps pounded towards them along the corridor. Jack grabbed his katana and Rose raised the knife. Yori picked up the remains of his staff and stood protectively in front of Jess. A moment later, a Roman emperor in a bloodied toga burst into the room.

  ‘Thank God you’re all still safe!’ gasped Signor Horatio, his rapier’s blade slick with blood.

  Casting aside her knife, Rose threw herself into his arms. ‘My sweet Horatio, you’re injured! Look, you’re bleeding!’

  ‘It’s mostly my opponent’s blood,’ said Signor Horatio with a grim smile. He looked over her shoulder at Jack. ‘You are right never to underestimate a ninja, signor. They’ve no honour in a duel!’

  ‘They live by a different code,’ replied Jack, knowing that not all ninjas acted like the ones they had faced that evening, ‘but in a fight anything goes.’

  ‘Never a truer word said!’ agreed Signor Horatio. ‘That ninja set fire to the kitchen during our fight. We need to leave, now, before the whole place burns down.’ Wincing from a wound to his side, he began gathering up their belongings. Then he glanced round the room and frowned. ‘Where’s Akiko?’

  Jack stopped at the threshold, his heart suddenly sinking like a stone. ‘I lost sight of her while I was fighting Kazuki.’

  ‘Kazuki!’ exclaimed Yori, almost dropping the remains of his shakujō. ‘He’s here?’

  Jack nodded. ‘Kazuki was the ninja with the katana. I’ll explain later. We have to find Akiko first. She’s wounded and up against a kunoichi.’

  With Yori protecting Jess, and Signor Horatio supporting Rose, Jack led the way along the darkened corridor. He kept his sword on guard as they approached the staircase. The acrid stench of smoke tinged the air and an eerie silence had fallen over the manor house. There were no sounds of a struggle, no clash of swords, just the distant crackle of the fire. Jack began to fear the worst for Akiko. As they descended the stairs, he could see into the Gallery of Arms. Sir Toby’s headless body lay spread-eagled on the floor – but Kazuki was nowhere to be seen, a drying pool of blood the only evidence of the wound Jack had inflicted upon his rival. Jack’s sword had run deep … but not deep enough to be fatal?

  ‘I’ll go first,’ Jack whispered, cautiously heading down the final flight of steps into the hallway. The others waited on the middle landing for the all-clear. As his foot touched the fifth step from the bottom, the wood creaked loudly in the smoke-filled silence. Jack looked sharply around, praying he hadn’t alerted anyone. But neither Kazuki nor the kunoichi appeared. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then a blade shot up through a narrow gap in the staircase, its steel tip spearing straight between his legs. Jack dived and rolled across the floor, the blade catching the cloth of his Harlequin suit and tearing a hole in his trousers … but thankfully nothing else.

  Flipping back to his feet, Jack spun towards the staircase, katana at the ready. As the mystery blade disappeared, the step was flung open, and Jack charged at the figure emerging from the priest hole. He brought his sword slicing down to end the deadly ambush …

  ‘NO!’ cried Akiko, her face pale and fresh blood staining her kimono. Only at the very last second did Jack manage to halt his attack, his katana stopping a hair’s breadth from her neck. Akiko let out an unsteady breath. ‘That was close … too close.’

  ‘You can say that again!’ replied Jack, lowering his sword and inspecting his torn trousers.

  ‘I thought you were … the –’ Akiko suddenly collapsed into Jack’s arms, her battle with the female ninja having taken its toll. She still had the golden kanzashi buried in her shoulder blade. With great care, Jack removed the debilitating hairpin and almost immediately Akiko revived a little.

  ‘That kunoichi’s around somewhere …’ she groaned. ‘I had to hide … I couldn’t fight … not with that in my back …’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Jack, supporting her full weight. ‘We’re all getting out of here.’

  He beckoned to the others and they hurried through the haze of smoke, down the hallway and out into the courtyard. The night was lit up by the flames of the burning manor house. The fire had taken hold in the east wing and was spreading rapidly through the whole building, windows shattering under the intense heat, and smoke billowing up in a dark cloud and smothering the stars in the sky. Sir Henry’s coach was beside the gatehouse, the horses, agitated by the blaze, whinnying and straining in the traces.

  ‘Come on!’ said Jack, helping Akiko down the steps and towards the coach, the others following close behind.

  As they opened the carriage door, though, a shadow leapt from the gatehouse on to the roof of the coach. The kunoichi held the broadsword high over her head, its steel glowing red in the wavering light of the flames. Before Jack or Akiko could react, she brought the great blade down. With one arm supporting Akiko, Jack was unable to raise his sword to deflect the fatal strike –

  Then a gunshot rang out. The ninja was suddenly thrown backwards and, rather than finding Jack and Akiko, her broadsword embedded itself in the wooden bodywork of the coach. Tumbling to the ground, the kunoichi was dead before she even hit the gravel.

  ‘Another rat exterminated!’ bellowed Sir Henry, standing furious upon the entrance steps to the house. His beady eyes glared as fierce as the flames of Hell as Jack and his friends bundled themselves into his coach.

  ‘More rats escaping!’ yelled Sir Henry, frantically reloading his pistol. ‘Militia! Militia! Seize them!’

  Men armed with Sir Henry’s pikes and muskets started surging out of Lupus Hall. Jack and Signor Horatio hurriedly lifted Rose into the coach, before helping Jess and Akiko inside too. Signor Horatio dived in after them. Yori leapt into the driver’s seat and took up the reins. Jack jumped up on to the coach’s runner as Yori urged on the horses. They bolted through the gatehouse and down the gravel paths towards the stone bridge, only too eager to escape the blazing manor
house.

  ‘STOP THEM!’ ordered Sir Henry, apoplectic with rage.

  The militia took up formation and began firing muskets at the fleeing coach. Bullets peppered its wooden frame and Jack clung close to the carriage as the others huddled in the footwell. Yori flicked the reins harder, urging the horses on again. Another volley of gunfire echoed through the grounds, bullets whizzed past, but fewer hit their target. Then they were through the estate’s stone gateway and on the main road. Leaving the inferno of Lupus Hall behind, the coach and its fugitive passengers disappeared into the enveloping night.

  ‘Twosies!’ exclaimed Jess, applauding Yori as he picked up a pair of knucklebones from the floor before catching a third in mid-air. ‘Can you manage threesies?’

  With a determined look, Yori re-cast the bones, the knuckles clattering across the floorboards of the little attic bedroom up in the Bunch of Grapes Inn. They’d chosen the establishment in Limehouse as a safe hide-out, since the innkeeper asked no questions – and with his reputation as a former prize-fighter preceding him, no one dared ask anything about the guests upstairs either. It had taken them three days in the coach to reach London, only stopping along the way to pick up their belongings in Stratford, and to rest and water the horses from time to time. They’d barely slept during the whole gruelling journey, too shaken about as the coach rattled along, its wooden frame in constant danger of being broken to pieces by the rough highway. Holed up in the Bunch of Grapes Inn, they’d spent the first two days simply eating, sleeping and recovering their strengths. Now Jack was becoming restless, tired of being cooped up in the cramped little room. His friends and Jess, however, seemed to be faring far better.

  Tossing a bone into the air, Yori clapped and tried to seize three knuckles in one swipe.

  ‘Oops, bad luck!’ Jess giggled as Yori fumbled the bones. She gathered the pieces and took her turn. ‘Let me show you how it’s done.’

  Yori watched eagerly as the bones rattled across the boards and Jess began catching them with practised ease. Jack smiled to himself at seeing his sister’s growing friendship with Yori and in particular her enjoyment at playing knucklebones again. He was reminded of all the happy times they’d shared in their father’s cottage, those memories so much brighter and more hopeful than the reality they now faced. Fugitives, not only from the law but from Sir Henry’s wrath. Jack gazed despondently out of the tiny attic window at the murky and unending skyline of London. How England had changed in seven years! His home was no longer recognizable to him. In fact, as a foreign samurai, he no longer felt England was his home any more.

  ‘So Kazuki followed us halfway round the world to kill you and regain his honour?’ said Akiko, amazed. She sat cross-legged upon the bed, whittling a slender branch from a yew tree to make a new bow.

  Jack nodded. ‘Sensei Yamada once told me, revenge is self-defeating. It will eat away at you until there is nothing left. I guess there was nothing left of Kazuki apart from revenge.’

  Akiko put down her half-finished bow. ‘Do you think he’s still alive?’

  Jack sat down next to her and shrugged. ‘I doubt it. The wound was pretty deep. Besides, Sir Henry said he’d exterminated another rat. I’m guessing he shot Kazuki as well as the kunoichi – and it was probably for the best. It would have put Kazuki out of his misery.’

  Yori glanced up from the game of knucklebones. ‘As Confucius said, before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope those two graves are for Kazuki and the kunoichi, then!’ said Akiko, returning her attention to the bow.

  There was a double knock at the door, the lock was turned and Signor Horatio entered with Rose. She could now walk unaided and the colour was back in her cheeks, her gunshot wound healing fast thanks to a combination of Yori’s herbal medicine and healing mantras.

  ‘Good news!’ said Signor Horatio, beaming at Jack. ‘I’ve found the Hosiander. She is still docked at Somers Quay.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news!’ cried Jack, jumping up from the bed. ‘Where’s she bound for?’

  Signor Horatio now turned his smile upon Akiko and Yori. ‘The Far East. Captain Spilbergen informs me that he’s casting off in the next day or so, as soon as all the supplies are stowed. He says we’re all welcome aboard.’

  Akiko let out a long, contented sigh and fell back on her pillow. ‘Yori, we’re going home!’

  Closing his eyes, Yori put his hands together in silent prayer. At seeing their euphoric reactions, Jack experienced a bittersweet pang in his heart. As much as he was pleased for his friends, he was also disappointed that their time in England had been so fraught and full of danger. It was not how he’d imagined his homecoming would be.

  ‘This is so exciting!’ said Jess, clapping her hands in delight. ‘I’ve always had to stay at home, listening to Father’s tales of adventure. Now I get to sail round the world, just like my brother.’ She looked at Jack. ‘Will we cross the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean? Will we see dolphins? Whales? Penguins? Will we visit the Spice Islands? The Golden Pavilion at Kyoto perhaps? Yori’s been telling me the temple’s painted in pure gold!’

  Jack grinned at his sister’s enthusiasm. He’d felt exactly the same way when he embarked on his first voyage with his father. He nodded in answer to Jess’s outpouring of questions and she almost burst with joy.

  Jack turned to Rose and Signor Horatio. ‘Are you coming with us too?’

  Rose gently shook her head, then looked at Signor Horatio and smiled. ‘No, we have other plans, don’t we?’

  Signor Horatio proudly put his arm round Rose. ‘We do, signorina. We’re travelling back to my homeland,’ he announced. ‘I’m going to show Rose the delights and marvels of Rome, Milan, Florence, Verona, N–’

  ‘And Venice!’ Rose interrupted, planting a kiss on Signor Horatio’s cheek. ‘That’s where we’re getting married.’

  Signor Horatio blinked in apparent shock, then laughed. ‘Certo! Anything for my Rose!’

  ‘Then it’s settled,’ said Jack, glad to hear such happy news for a change. ‘We leave aboard the Hosiander. But there’s one thing I must do first.’

  ‘Are you sure this is worth the risk?’ whispered Akiko, as they crouched in the darkness of the rear garden of Sir Henry’s London residence. Yori kept guard while Jack tried to jemmy open the mansion’s back door. The Strand was quiet at this late hour, except for nightwatchmen with their sticks and lanterns patrolling the broad paved streets (the more disreputable characters preferring to lurk in the narrow lanes and shadowy alleys of the inner city).

  ‘If we’re to sail safely and swiftly back to Japan, I have to recover my father’s rutter,’ replied Jack, forcing his knife into the gap between the door frame and the lock. ‘Without it, I’m half the pilot my father was – damn this door!’ He swore as the knife slipped and sliced across his finger. He put the cut to his mouth. ‘We should have brought Rose and her cutpurse skills along.’

  ‘Let me try,’ said Akiko, taking the knife from Jack. She gently inserted the blade into the lock recess, then tapped the hilt and the door popped smoothly open.

  Jack stared at her in astonishment. ‘You’ve obviously done that before! And you were hard on Rose to start with for being a thief!’

  ‘Well, we’re not technically stealing anything,’ said Akiko, a mischievous smile upon her lips. She handed him back his knife. ‘Only retrieving what is rightfully yours.’

  Leaving her expert burglary skills a mystery, Jack sheathed his knife and crept inside. Akiko made to follow, but Jack shook his head. ‘Best if I go. I know where I hid the rutter. It’ll be quicker and quieter if I go alone.’

  Akiko crouched back down. ‘All right, but if you’re gone longer than a few minutes, I’ll come and find you.’

  ‘Watch out for any servants!’ hissed Yori, his eyes flitting round the gloom of the garden. ‘I think I saw candlelight on the second floor.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ replied Jack, shooting his frie
nd a wink. ‘I’ll be back before you can say arigato gozaimasu!’

  He entered the garden room of the mansion, the waning moon giving him just enough light to see by. Spotting a door, he went over and prised it open. The hallway was shrouded in darkness, no sight or sound of activity. He knew he had to find the library, where he’d hidden the rutter the last time they’d been there. From what he remembered of the building’s layout, it was down the corridor and round the corner to the left. Silently he stole through the mansion. The double doors to the banqueting chamber had been left partly open, the grand room now empty of revelling guests and bare of decoration. Jack was so tense that his heartbeat seemed to echo round the empty space as he passed. At the end of the hallway, he cautiously peeked his head round the corner. This corridor was deserted too: a relief, but no surprise considering the time of night. From what he recalled of their frantic flight from Sir Toby during the first banquet, the library was the second door on the left. He tiptoed over and, praying it wasn’t locked, pushed the door. With the faintest of squeaks, it creaked open.

  The library was as quiet as the grave, with only the dying embers of a fire in the grate. Jack stole inside and eased the door shut behind him. By the moonlight shining through the leaded window, Jack could make out the lines of leather-bound books upon the shelves. He went over to the nearest bookcase and reached up for the rutter …

  It wasn’t there!

  He ran his finger over the shelf again, but no, the logbook’s black oilskin cover was nowhere to be seen. Was he mistaken? Jack looked a third time, then began searching the other shelves, panic welling up in him. Has someone taken it? Or perhaps someone’s moved it? he thought. Or perhaps he hadn’t remembered properly and, in the rush of hiding it from Sir Toby, he had put the rutter on a different shelf.

  ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’