The Way of the Warrior - Chris Bradford [37]
‘Draw!’ shouted Jiro in delight.
At that very moment, Taka-san appeared and the two fighters lowered their bokken.
‘Jack-kun!’ he called, approaching the three of them. ‘Father Lucius requests your attendance. Urgently.’
Jack knew that it could only mean one thing.
He bowed to Yamato and Akiko then hurried after Taka-san.
Entering Father Lucius’s room, Jack was struck by an overpowering stench of vomit, stale sweat and urine. It reeked of mortality.
A guttering candle feebly lit the gloom. From the far corner, he could hear the priest’s laboured breathing.
‘Father Lucius?’
Jack edged closer to the shadowy figure lying supine on the futon. His foot came into contact with something in the darkness and looking down he saw a small bucket, brimming with vomit. Jack retched but forced himself forward, bending over the bed.
The candlelight spluttered then flared and Jack was confronted with the hollow, shrivelled face of Father Lucius.
The priest’s skin was a pallid blue and moist with oily sweat. His hair, thin and streaked with grey, was plastered in limp strands over his sunken cheeks. Specks of blood mottled his cracked lips and there were now permanent black shadows under his eyes.
‘Father Lucius?’ said Jack, almost hoping the priest was already dead and no longer suffering such torment.
‘Jack?’ croaked Father Lucius, his pale tongue running the length of his cracked lips.
‘Yes, Father?’
‘I must ask for your forgiveness…’
‘For what?’
‘I’m sorry, Jack… son of a heretic though you are… you have spirit…’
He spoke in short bursts, taking harsh wheezing breaths in between each utterance. Jack listened, saddened by the pitiful state of the priest. He was Jack’s last link to the far side of the world and, despite the constant preaching, he had come to respect the man. The priest too had seemingly warmed to him, even if he still refused to be converted.
‘I misjudged you… I enjoyed our lessons… I wish I could have saved you…’
‘Don’t worry about me, Father,’ consoled Jack, ‘my own God will look after me. Just as yours will.’
Father Lucius let out a small sobbing moan.
‘I’m sorry… I had to tell them… it was my duty…’ he cried feebly.
‘Tell who what?’ asked Jack.
‘Please understand… I didn’t know they’d kill for it… May God have mercy…’
‘What did you say?’ urged Jack.
The priest continued to move his lips, trying to say something else, but his words weren’t audible.
With the faintest of coughs, Father Lucius exhaled his last breath and died.
19
MASAMATO’S RETURN
The cherry blossom tree had shed all its leaves now; a skeleton against the sky, its bare branches burdened with snow. Jack walked through the garden, passing beneath its shadow. Death seemed to hang all around. What had Father Lucius meant, ‘I didn’t know they’d kill for it’? Was he talking about the rutter? If so, that must mean he was in danger. But from whom?
His thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice from behind.
‘I’m so sorry for the passing of Father Lucius. You must be very sad.’
Akiko, who was wearing a plain white kimono, appeared like a snowflake in a world of white.
‘Thank you,’ he said, bowing, ‘but I don’t think he was any friend of mine.’
‘What makes you say that?’ gasped Akiko, shocked at his cold sentiment.
Jack took a breath before answering. Could he trust her? Could he trust anyone here? Yet Akiko was the closest he had to a friend. He had no one else to turn to.
‘When Father Lucius died,’ Jack explained, ‘he said something very strange. He implied someone wanted to kill me, then died weeping and asking for God’s forgiveness.’
‘Why would anyone want to kill you, Jack?’ asked Akiko, her nose wrinkling in bewilderment.
Jack considered her. Could his trust extend to revealing his father’s rutter? No, he decided, he couldn’t reveal the whole truth. Not yet, anyway. His father’s rutter was the only possession he had of any worth. He could only assume they wanted it, but since he didn’t know who they were, the fewer who knew of its true purpose the better.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps they don’t like gaijin?