The Return of the Warrior Read online

  Putting a foot against the brickwork and gritting his teeth, Jack wrenched hard. He jerked and tugged until his strength gave out and he collapsed on the floor, breathless, his heart pounding.

  ‘I think it moved at least half an inch,’ said Mad Bob earnestly.

  Jack glared at him, then began trying to pull his hands out through the iron cuffs. But the shackles were far too tight and his efforts only resulted in scraping skin and bloodying his wrists.

  ‘Oh, that looks like it hurts,’ sympathized the inmate. ‘But give it another few months and they’ll slip right through –’

  ‘Shut up, Bob!’ snapped Jack, his patience worn thin. Just then, he heard a trickle of water and turned round. Yori stood in the corner of his cell, urinating.

  ‘There’s a bucket for that, don’t you know!’ said Mad Bob indignantly, as if such conduct was inappropriate in their already squalid surroundings.

  Yet even Jack was surprised. Such ill manners were totally out of keeping with his Japanese friend’s behaviour. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.

  ‘Back-up plan,’ Yori replied, now getting on his hands and knees and scraping away at the wall with the edge of one of his metal cuffs. ‘The brickwork is eroded from frost and damp. My piss should help dissolve the crumbling mortar, and with a bit of extra encouragement –’ he gouged out a lump of mortar, then worked away at the wall – ‘there!’

  Yori pulled out a brick. A back alley – and freedom – was visible through the narrow hole.

  ‘Good work, Yori!’ said Jack as another brick came loose, then another.

  Mad Bob began tutting in disapproval. ‘Julius won’t be happy with that!’ he remarked.

  As Yori widened the hole, they heard the jangle of keys and footsteps descending the stairwell. Jack exchanged a hopeful look with Yori. When Akiko returned with the keys, they’d all be free.

  ‘Don’t know what you two are smiling about,’ said Mad Bob. ‘That ain’t your friend coming back. That’s Julius!’

  And, as their fellow inmate began to cackle crazily, Jack realized he was right. The footsteps were too heavy to be Akiko’s.

  ‘Go!’ Jack hissed to Yori. ‘Get out while you can.’

  Yori’s eyes widened in horror. ‘But what about you?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Jack as lamplight spilled from the stairwell into the prison block. ‘Now go!’

  Yori dived through the hole a second before a large bearded man with a belly the size of a walrus lumbered in. Holding up his oil lamp, the gaoler studied the two empty prison cells, then furrowed his thick brow in confusion. ‘Weren’t there three of you before?’

  Jack said nothing, Mad Bob gave a toothless grin and shrugged.

  ‘No matter,’ said the gaoler, unhooking the keys from his belt and opening Jack’s cell door. ‘The court’ll punish ye all the same.’

  ‘Only if they find me guilty,’ said Jack.

  ‘Guilty?’ cackled Mad Bob, as Jack was dragged away up the stairs by the gaoler. ‘You’re already guilty just by being in ’ere!’

  ‘Who comes next?’ demanded the judge. A stern-faced man with sallow sunken cheeks, grey back-swept hair and a beard trimmed to a point, he could have been the devil in old age. He wore a fur-lined gown, a silk shirt laced at the neck and a heavy jewelled gold chain of office.

  The court scribe studied his documents under the candlelight. ‘The English seaman and two foreigners from the Japans.’ He glanced across at the group of prisoners occupying the four rows at the back of the courtroom and called, ‘Jack Fletcher, Akiko Dāte and Yori Sanada, come to the bar!’

  Rising from his seat, Jack approached the judge, who sat behind a large and daunting mahogany bench. On either side of him, like vultures waiting for the kill, perched his deputies, tight-lipped and narrow-eyed.

  ‘Where are your companions?’ asked the judge tersely.

  ‘They didn’t like their welcome here in England so they left,’ Jack replied, dearly hoping that Yori and Akiko were indeed long gone. A murmur of amusement rippled through the spectators gathered in the gallery overlooking the proceedings.

  ‘Careful, young man!’ warned the judge. ‘I’ll hold you in contempt of court with such surly replies. In their absence, you will stand for their crimes too. You’re very fortunate we’re holding session today, otherwise you’d be waiting a full season before being tried.’

  But Jack, arrested and imprisoned on false charges, didn’t feel very fortunate. He should have been with his sister by now, enjoying a warm meal in their father’s cottage, celebrating his return in front of the fire, his two best friends at his side, while regaling her with tales of his adventures in Japan. Instead he was standing alone in a cold courtroom having to defend himself against a false charge.

  One of the judge’s deputies leant forward and rested his bony elbows on the bench. Peering from his perch with disdain, he enquired, ‘What are you wearing?’

  Jack glanced down and shrugged. ‘A hakama.’

  ‘I thought you were an Englishman, yet you dress like a foreigner!’ he scoffed, sharing a derisive look with his associates.

  ‘I’ve been in the Japans for the past seven years,’ explained Jack.

  ‘Well, they certainly haven’t taught you manners there,’ sneered the other deputy, glaring at him from beneath a pair of bushy black eyebrows. ‘Or how to respect your elders.’

  Jack held his tongue. The Japanese were ruled by etiquette and politeness. But it would be foolish and futile to argue that with these officious men.

  The judge cleared his throat and began reading from the parchment he’d been handed by the court scribe. ‘The charges brought against you are: disturbing the peace, wilful destruction of property, brawling in a public place, and violent robbery.’ He eyed Jack with distaste. ‘How do you plead?’

  ‘Not guilty.’

  Excited chatter burst forth from the gallery.

  ‘Order in court!’ called the scribe, and the crowd settled down again.

  ‘Who brings these charges against the accused?’ enquired the judge.

  ‘Sir Toby Nashe,’ said Sir Toby, striding forward with a self-important air. ‘Second cousin of Sir William Harrington, who is fr–’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the judge, waving away the chronicle of family connections. ‘Just give us your account of events, Sir Toby.’

  Drawing in a dramatic breath, then addressing not only the bench but the gallery too, Sir Toby told his story. And what a story it was! He missed out entirely the insults he’d thrown at Jack and his friends, skipped the part where he’d challenged Jack to a duel, and even denied there’d been a formal fight for honour. According to Sir Toby, Jack, Yori and Akiko had tricked Sir Toby and his two companions into showing them round London, before setting upon them in Moorfields with the intention of robbing them with violence; only Sir Toby’s virtuoso sword skills had saved him, apparently, from certain death at the hands of these foreign scum.

  With every new embellishment to the truth, Jack’s fury grew until he could take no more. ‘What a load of lies! He’s –’

  ‘Silence!’ barked the judge. ‘You’ll have your chance, prisoner, to speak in due course. Call the first witness!’

  Sir Edmund waddled up to the bar. He repeated Sir Toby’s fabrication word for word. Next came Sir Francis, who also – predictably – corroborated the fairy tale.

  ‘This is a farce!’ protested Jack.

  The judge narrowed his gimlet eyes. ‘You question the court’s authority?’

  ‘No,’ Jack replied stiffly. ‘I question the validity of the witnesses. They’re his friends!’

  Pursing his thin grey lips, the judge gazed round the courtroom. ‘Do we have an independent witness to these events?’

  ‘Aye!’ A rough-looking man in a battered feathered hat stood up and made himself known. Sir Toby looked alarmed and his face drained of blood. He was evidently fearful that his lies were about to be exposed in court. But it was Jack who had more rea
son to be afraid.

  ‘And who might you be?’ asked the judge.

  ‘Porter,’ replied the man, doffing his hat and offering a charming grin.

  Jack groaned and hung his head. He was about to be set up good and proper.

  ‘Approach the bar, Porter.’

  The vagabond swaggered up to the judges, shooting Jack a roguish wink as he passed. The court scribe held out a heavy leather-bound bible and Porter, resting his grubby hand on it, vowed to tell nothing but the truth. But Jack spotted that the vagabond had crossed his fingers behind his back as he was making his vow, so knew Porter would have no qualms about breaking his oath.

  ‘Pray tell us what you witnessed,’ ordered the judge.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t exactly there, your honour, being somewhat engaged in other matters,’ Porter admitted with a playfully guilty expression. ‘But I recognize this ruffler –’ he pointed at Jack. ‘I was minding me own business at market, Cheapside, when he and his foreign friends jumped me. He had this massive curved sword and all I had with me was my little dagger. It was lucky the constables came when they did, or I’d have been –’

  ‘Thank you for your account, Porter,’ interrupted the judge. ‘We will, of course, bear in mind your willingness to cooperate here when it comes to your own trial. Now retake your seat.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ grinned Porter, bowing and scraping all the way back to his place.

  The judge now turned to Jack. ‘What do you have to say in your defence, prisoner?’

  Jack had been rendered almost speechless by the catalogue of lies levelled at him. ‘That isn’t at all what happened! Porter and his gang tried to rob us. That man there, Sir Toby, offended my friends, tried to forcibly take my swords from me, then he threw down the gauntlet for a duel, not m–’

  ‘Are you a knight?’ interrupted the first deputy. He examined the parchment before him. ‘I see no “Sir” before your name.’

  Jack hesitated. ‘Er, no … not exactly … not in England at least, but I –’

  ‘Well, then –’ the deputy crossed his arms smugly – ‘Sir Toby was in the right to demand your swords.’

  Sir Toby puffed out his chest at this validation.

  ‘He has no right to take what isn’t his,’ Jack countered. ‘The man’s no better than that thief Porter there –’

  ‘We’ll have no slander in this court,’ the judge cut in sharply. ‘I think we’ve heard enough from you, Jack Fletcher. Unless you wish to call any witnesses in your defence?’

  Through gritted teeth, Jack replied, ‘I don’t have any.’

  ‘So it’s your word against theirs,’ observed the deputy with the bushy eyebrows. ‘The word of a vagrant seaman against that of these three fine, upstanding knighted gentlemen.’

  ‘This isn’t a fair trial!’ Jack protested again.

  The judge glared at Jack. ‘I believe it is we, as the judges appointed by His Majesty the King, who shall determine what is fair and just in this court.’

  Jack opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, realizing anything he said now would only aggravate the situation. He stood in frustrated silence as the three men behind the bench conferred. It took but a few moments for them to reach a decision.

  Ominously, the judge slipped on a black cap and gloves before addressing Jack. ‘After careful consideration, and in light of the serious nature of your crimes and those of your two absent companions, this court finds you guilty of all charges. The law is that you shall return to prison and from there be taken to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck till your body is dead. May the Lord have mercy upon your soul.’

  The horse-drawn cart bumped and rumbled through the city, making its slow procession from the prison to the marketplace at Smithfield. Having been confined for the past three days to a stifling cell, the sunlight and comparatively fresh air were a relief to Jack. But he knew his enjoyment would be short-lived. Beside him in the cart were eight men and women, all unfortunate prisoners like him, sentenced to be hanged that morning. Two of them sat rocking in silent shock, while another two cried out for mercy and forgiveness; one man was blubbing to his wife as she trailed beside the cart, a screaming babe in her arms; two were stoic to their fate; and the last one was grinning.

  ‘What are you so pleased about?’ demanded Jack.

  Porter’s grin widened. ‘I get to see you hang.’

  Jack shot him an incredulous look. ‘But you’re going to hang too! The judges can’t have taken your willing co-operation into account after all.’

  ‘Oh, they did,’ Porter replied grimly. ‘This is lenient in their eyes. For my list of crimes, I should’ve been hung, drawn and quartered!’

  Beyond the act of treason, Jack didn’t dare think what this vagabond might have done to warrant such a brutal punishment as that. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose, justice is a double-edged sword.’

  ‘You call that justice,’ said Porter, nodding ahead.

  Jack looked up and a deathly shudder ran through him. His muscles going suddenly weak, he had to grasp on to the cart’s sides just to stay on his feet. The cart had entered Smithfield. Standing tall and unremorseful in the centre of the market was the gallows. Nine nooses hung from a triangular wooden frame, supported atop three sturdy posts. A crowd had already congregated and a great cheer rose up when they saw the cart approach. Jack’s stomach twisted into a leaden knot. His heart thudded hard and his throat tightened at the terrifying thought of swinging by his neck. Then, as if to add further insult to his misery, he was hit on the cheek by a rotten apple. One of his fellow prisoners laughed hysterically – until a lump of dung splatted him in the face. Then more rotten vegetables and fruit pelted the cart and its shackled occupants. Curses and jeers assailed them and Jack had to duck as stones flew past.

  But Porter lapped up the attention. He rose and stood at the front of the cart, waving his hat as if he were the king in a royal procession. A clutch of women cooed and simpered at the swaggering vagabond. They blew him kisses and he threw his feathered hat to them. The women jumped and squabbled over it as if it was a bridal bouquet thrown at a wedding.

  ‘How women love a condemned man!’ said Porter with a wistful sigh.

  The cart worked its way through the swelling crowd and eventually lurched to a halt between the three pillars. Above them, the nine loops of rope hung down expectantly.

  The driver dismounted and held the horses’ reins firm as the hangman, a beefy fellow with heavy jowls and dark bags under his sagging eyes, clambered aboard. He commanded the prisoners to all stand. One, a scrawny woman with a glazed pale expression, could barely raise herself off the cart bed and had to be manhandled upright. The hangman unshackled her and secured her wrists behind her back, before slipping the noose over her head. With workmanlike efficiency, he bound and noosed the other prisoners, coming to Jack and Porter last.

  He slipped the rope round Porter’s neck and gave it an extra tug. ‘Tight enough?’ he smirked.

  ‘How should I know? I’ve never done this before,’ quipped Porter, much to the amusement of the crowd – and the hangman’s annoyance. Whatever his opinion of the vagabond, Jack couldn’t deny the man’s bravado in the face of death. Many a samurai would be proud to demonstrate such resilience of spirit. Jack only wished he could be so bold and defiant, but fear choked him in its icy grip.

  Scowling, the hangman finally turned his attention to Jack. He bound his hands then fitted the noose, the rough hemp cord digging into Jack’s Adam’s apple. ‘Tight enough?’ he said with a leer. ‘Well, it soon will be!’

  This time the crowd were laughing along with the hangman.

  With the rope heavy round his neck, Jack began to tremble. His breathing became fast and ragged with panic. He gazed in anguish at the baying crowd. The throng stretched north, south, east and west, filling the marketplace all the way up to the Church of St Bartholomew. There wasn’t a single friendly face to be seen. Even if his sister was somehow out there in the crowd
, he probably wouldn’t recognize her after so many years.

  By now, an almost festive atmosphere had taken hold, as hawkers wandered amid the onlookers, selling apples and nuts and bottles of beer. Entire families had gathered for the event, and the local inn had ordered extra supplies: a whole wagonload of wine casks stood ready outside its door. An execution clearly provided more ghoulish entertainment than any play at the Globe!

  Then Jack spotted a face he did recognize. A pompous, moustachioed, copper-haired head on a plate. It appeared Sir Toby had bought himself a brand-new ruff for the occasion. He sat astride his horse, drinking and laughing with his friends, Sir Francis and Sir Edmund, and when he saw Jack looking his way, Sir Toby raised his bottle in a toast, downed the contents, then smiled with malicious glee.

  Jack seethed. He’d fought so hard to get home, escaped death on so many occasions, vanquished ninja and samurai foes alike; he’d sailed halfway round the known globe, only to be hanged by the neck by his fellow countrymen. By an idiot in a ruff!

  The absurdity of his situation – the injustice of it all – was not lost on Jack. He just prayed that Yori and Akiko had managed to find Captain Spilbergen and had taken up his offer to return to the Japans. He wanted them to get as far away as possible from this cesspit of a country.

  What has become of England? thought Jack bitterly. Why was I ever so desperate to return home …?

  Jess, of course. But now he would never see his sister. She wouldn’t even know he’d returned to find her; she’d believe forever that her remaining family had perished at sea. Whereas the truth was that her brother was about to be hanged no more than a few miles from her doorstep. In all of the past seven years, Jack had never been so close to his sister, yet had never felt so far away.

  ‘Cheer up!’ squawked a familiar voice. ‘Every cloud has its silver linin’!’

  Jack glanced down. The crazed inmate from the prison cells was beside the cart, gurning up at him.

  ‘You’re free?’ queried Jack in surprise.