Young Samurai_ The Way of the Sword - Chris Bradford [5]
Even now Jack could see the wire garrotte, slick with his father’s blood, Dragon Eye wrenching back on it harder as John Fletcher struggled to get free. Jack remembered how he had simply stood there, his body paralysed with fear, the knife hanging limp in his hand. His father, gasping for breath, the veins in his neck fit to burst, desperately reaching out to him…
Angry with himself for his failure to act, Jack threw his pillow across the room.
‘Jack. Calm down. You’re with us now, it’ll be all right,’ soothed Akiko. She exchanged a worried glance with Yamato. They had never seen him like this.
‘No, it’s not all right,’ replied Jack, slowly shaking his head and rubbing his eyes in an attempt to clear his mind of the nightmarish vision.
‘Jack, it’s no wonder you’re sleeping so badly. There’s a book under your futon!’ exclaimed Yamato, picking up the leatherbound tome he’d spotted.
Jack snatched it out of his hands.
It was his father’s rutter. He’d kept it hidden under his futon since there was no other place he could conceal it in his tiny featureless room. The rutter was his sole link to his father and Jack cherished every page, every note and every word his father had written. The information it contained was highly valuable and Jack had sworn to his father to keep it secret.
‘Easy, Jack. It’s only a dictionary,’ said Yamato, taken aback at Jack’s unexpected aggressiveness.
Jack stared wide-eyed at Yamato, realizing his friend had mistaken the rutter for the Portuguese–Japanese dictionary the late Father Lucius had given him the previous year. The one he was supposed to deliver to the priest’s superior, Father Bobadillo, in Osaka when he got the chance. But it wasn’t the dictionary. Though they both had similar leather bindings, this was his father’s rutter.
Jack had never told Yamato the truth about the rutter, even denying its existence to him. And for good reason. Until their victory and reconciliation at the inter-school Taryu-Jiai contest that summer, he’d had no reason to trust Yamato.
When Masamoto had first adopted Jack, Yamato had taken an instant dislike to him. His older brother, Tenno, had been killed and he saw Jack as his father’s attempt to replace his eldest son. To Yamato, Jack was stealing his father from him. It took a near-drowning experience for Jack to convince Yamato otherwise and to bind them as allies.
Jack knew it was a risk to tell Yamato about something as precious as his father’s rutter. And Jack had no idea how he would react. But perhaps now was the time to trust his new friend with the secret.
‘It’s not Father Lucius’s dictionary,’ confessed Jack.
‘What is it then?’ asked Yamato, a perplexed look on his face.
‘It’s my father’s rutter.’
3
THE DARUMA WISH
‘Your father’s rutter!’ exclaimed Yamato, confusion turning to disbelief. ‘But when Dragon Eye attacked Akiko’s house, you denied all knowledge of it!’
‘I lied. I had no choice at the time.’
Jack couldn’t bring himself to meet Yamato’s eyes. He knew his friend felt betrayed.
Yamato turned to Akiko. ‘Did you know about this?’
Akiko nodded, her face flushing with shame.
Yamato fumed. ‘I don’t believe it. Is this why Dragon Eye keeps coming back? For a stupid book?’
‘Yamato, I would have told you,’ said Akiko, trying to calm him, ‘but I promised Jack I’d keep it secret.’
‘How can a book be worth Chiro’s life?’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘She may only have been a maid, but she was loyal to our family. Jack’s put all of us in danger because of this so-called rutter.’
Yamato stared in silent rage at Jack, the old hatred flaring in his eyes. To Jack’s horror, Yamato turned to leave.
‘I’m going to tell my father about this.’
‘Please don’t,’ Jack pleaded, grabbing Yamato’s kimono sleeve. ‘It’s not just any book. It must be kept secret.’
‘Why?’ Yamato demanded, looking down at Jack’s hand in disgust.
Jack let go, but Yamato didn’t leave.
Jack wordlessly passed him the book