Swords of Silence Read online

  HarperInspire, an imprint of

  HarperCollins Christian Publishing

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published by HarperCollins 2019.

  Copyright © Shaun Curry 2019

  The author asserts his moral rights, including the right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 9780310101307 (TPB)

  ISBN: 9780310101277 (ebook)

  ISBN: 9780310101369 (Audio)

  Epub Edition September 2019 9780310101277

  The novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

  Set in Crimson Text by e-Digital Design

  Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Scripture quotes are taken from the Authorized King James Version (KJV) and the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. Used by permission.

  ‘The Christian Century in Japan 1549-1650’ by C.R. Boxer (The Christian Century in Japan 1549-1650, 1994) is reprinted here by kind permission of Carcanet Press Limited, Manchester, UK.

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  Contents

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Shaun Curry has been fascinated by Japan from an early age. He went on to study and work in Tokyo, where he developed a passion for the country, its culture and history.

  His research on feudal Japanese history has informed not only his fiction, but also numerous articles, and has led him to be featured as a guest on BBC Radio. A British and Canadian national, he now lives and writes in London.

  Dedication

  Between 1614 and 1643, Japan’s Shogun and his regime executed almost 5,000 Christian martyrs.

  At the broadest level, I would like to dedicate this book and the entire Swords of Fire trilogy to all the courageous martyrs and missionaries of Japan, then and now.

  On a more personal level, I would like to dedicate this book to the loving memory of Kimberley Ann Wilshire, who set me on a path of self-discovery and re-awakening.

  PROLOGUE

  20 June 1626

  Nagasaki City, District of Nagasaki, Kyushu

  Provincial Francisco Pacheco staggered ahead of a sombre procession of prisoners. Behind him, a dozen or so souls, pale and gaunt, their clothes filthy and many worn to rags, moved, each step agony. The beatings driving them forward had been hourly. Or was it every few minutes? Pacheco could no longer clearly recall. It had gone on for so long now. A chorus of soft groans accompanied their lurching footsteps along the dusty road through the streets of Nagasaki, but few had the strength or the will left to even plead for mercy, had they been able to spit out the rags stuffed in their mouths.

  The day was overcast, threatening rain, and a chill, late-afternoon breeze brushed against them from behind, rustling the occasional pennants on the mochi yari, the hand spears of the samurai and foot soldiers guarding the condemned. An acrid smell of stale blood, sweat, human evacuation and horses permeated the air.

  For Pacheco and his flock it was a death march of broken people, their bodies beaten, bruised, blood-streaked, and covered in ulcerous wounds. When they had been confined in sewer-like prisons, Governor Kawachi had administered multiple beatings prior to their execution.

  The prisoners included the most prominent and influential Christians and their aides.

  The townspeople, whether secretly Christian or not, lined the streets and watched quietly, the horror of the slowly winding parade too much for some, and they looked away or covered the eyes of the children huddling beside them.

  The metallic taste of stale blood persisted in Pacheco’s mouth. He was the highest-ranking Catholic in Japan, a Provincial Superior in the Society of Jesus. The authorities had captured and arrested the seventy-year-old Portuguese priest a year earlier in Kuchinotsu at the southern tip of the Shimabara Peninsula. He had been held in Omura Prison ever since, counting the days to his execution.

  That hour was now upon him.

  * * *

  Governor Kawachi was a hard, stocky man who believed in a personal regime of daily icy baths, and rigid obedience from his retainers. He stood amid a group of aides and sneered victoriously as the procession slowly wound past him. He had instructed his officials to shave the prisoners’ heads and paint their scalps bright red to single them out and highlight their impending execution.

  One final touch. He had ordered that rags be shoved into their mouths so the
y could not speak and inspire others during their death march. Christians in particular who witnessed the display had to be warned and paralysed with fear at the thought of disobeying his orders.

  The Governor recalled the last public execution, three years earlier. Most of the Christians had faced their deaths with resolve, even rapturous joy. Not this time. None of these people would be vocal martyrs as they died. As the condemned passed him, Kawachi felt satisfaction at this visceral demonstration of his authority and power.

  Ever since his appointment as the new governor, Kawachi had anticipated this day. The death march through the streets of Nagasaki, with Provincial Pacheco at its head, consisted of two European priests, five lay Portuguese prisoners, including a fourteen-year-old boy, and two ships’ captains. Their crime: aiding Japanese Christians. The final shaven-headed victims comprised Japanese individuals who had sheltered priests.

  The prisoners were tied to each other by a rope around their necks to keep them in line. Officials spat contemptuously in their faces as they dragged them through the streets like animals condemned to an abattoir. Kawachi’s soldiers jeered as they brandished their whips and sticks, scolding and hitting the prisoners for unknown infractions whenever they felt inclined. Samurai steel pinched and sliced skin and muscle made tender by the lash. Blood dripped into the dust at their feet. The Governor had insisted his men must show the utmost contempt to the men and the boy as they trudged, humiliated, to their fate through the mostly quiet crowd that lined their route.

  The procession drew to a halt and the Governor’s men shoved the condemned into a secured area where execution stakes awaited them. As the afternoon light began to fade, a flickering torch flame cast the only light as officials readied the execution posts.

  Governor Kawachi had expected more resistance but the prisoners, particularly Pacheco, showed a submissive acceptance that Kawachi found enraging. He had forbidden the public from entering the fenced execution zone. He caressed his wooden clipboard, displaying the names of each of his victims, then moved it away from his expensive navy-blue silk kimono. He drew satisfaction from his choice of execution method. Since the Christian holocaust in his country had begun, officials had learned to calculate the victim’s exact distance from the fire to ensure the most drawn-out death by incineration.

  Head erect and shoulders back, Provincial Pacheco paid little attention to any of the officials. He took a deep breath and gathered his remaining strength, hobbling as best he could past the Governor and Deputy-Lieutenant Suetsugu without a glance in their direction as he led his fellow prisoners towards the stakes. Stacks of dried wood lay three feet from each execution station which themselves had a small mound of kindling at the base of each.

  Both Pacheco and Kawachi knew that just as Soldiers of the Sword were venerated in Japan, so too were Soldiers of the Cross. In the eyes of Japanese Christians, the Ways of the Cross echoed the service and ways of the samurai in honour and discipline. How Pacheco comported himself now would be crucial to rejecting Kawachi’s cruel effort to crush their spirit. All eyes would be upon him, and Pacheco struggled to hold on to that thought.

  Kawachi grunted with satisfaction as he smelled the scent of the burning wooden torch. Yet despite all he had achieved, frustration gathered within him. None in the procession had resisted the scourging. The Christians’ resolve tore at his satisfaction, and he understood that what he and his men were seeing was true courage – what was now being called Bushido. He secretly feared it might infect his men in some way and the thought enraged him. He watched his men move forward and scan the condemned for signs of fear. Some wriggled and twisted at their tight bonds, but only the frailest and youngest of the Christians uttered involuntary whimpers through their gags. Even so, they first fixed their eyes on Pacheco, and seeing his stoic resolution then turned to face their tormentors with quiet determination. Kawachi noticed one or two of his men flinch slightly from their gaze, and clenched his fist at his side.

  The Deputy-Lieutenant bellowed an order. The officials bound their victims roughly to the wooden stakes. The Governor’s men circled the prisoners and inspected each knot and rope. There would be no mistakes today. No survivors.

  Kawachi strode up to Pacheco. The Governor’s eyes squinted with hate, and he spat in the priest’s face. Pacheco maintained his composure, and appeared to be mumbling to himself. He stared ahead.

  Deputy-Lieutenant Suetsugu then approached the Governor. Kawachi took a torch from a soldier near him and handed it to Suetsugu, who bowed and ignited the kindling in front of Father Pacheco.

  ‘You are criminals of the Empire. You will all die with shame!’ Suetsugu shouted. He had been a Christian once himself, so it was imperative he showed how much he truly despised the faith now, and protected his coveted position as Nagasaki’s Deputy-Lieutenant. He lit the remaining wood piles, grunting with satisfaction as he heard the crackle of flames catch at each execution station.

  Governor Kawachi approached the human torches. Above their muffled cries he shouted: ‘Our lands have been infected with vermin like you since you brought this Christian nonsense to our shores. You have violated the Shogun’s laws and this regime will not tolerate your religion. May your deaths be a warning to any who dares embrace this useless faith!’

  The flames caught hold, roaring louder as the prisoners’ involuntary cries grew louder in response.

  Kawachi stared at Pacheco as the flames licked at the priest’s waist and he spat on the ground with disgust. The Governor had hoped for begging, pleading, perhaps cries for mercy, but this stubborn defiance was intolerable. He stepped back, shaking his head with annoyance.

  Thick and muggy air made the soldiers cough and tug at their armour. The flames spat at the Governor’s men, several of whom took a step back. The Governor and the Deputy-Lieutenant also retreated, shielding their faces from the flames’ growing fury.

  Father Pacheco managed to spit out the rag lodged in his mouth. ‘Brothers in faith,’ he shouted in a voice wracked with pain, ‘the Holy Spirit is with us! Despair not!’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Kawachi yelled.

  His subordinates looked bewildered and shrank back from his temper. He pointed a finger at Father Pacheco. ‘Imbeciles! How has he lost his gag?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Suetsugu said. Panic washed over his face.

  ‘Shove it back in. Now!’ Kawachi roared over the sound of the fire. The soldiers looked at each other wildly, hoping another would obey the Governor, but no one stepped forward.

  ‘It’s too late, Governor!’ Suetsugu yelled.

  Kawachi watched an anguished moan of pain escape from the priest as the flames blackened his face. It gave the Governor a moment’s satisfaction.

  Pacheco cried out to anyone who could still hear him, ‘Take comfort! These men can do no more harm than God allows. They know not what they do.’

  Someone cried, ‘Amen!’ Another gave a muffled scream.

  ‘Silence them!’ the Governor yelled.

  ‘It’s too late. The fire is too strong to approach,’ Suetsugu said.

  Despite coughing and burning, Pacheco cried, ‘The Lord is with me still,’ until his voice reduced to unintelligible grunts of pain. Kawachi watched the priest’s eyes bulge as his face slowly blistered and melted.

  A number of the officials turned away, bent over and vomited at the smell and horror of the moment. Kawachi approached them with a disdainful snort. His hostile glare took them all in, in turn. He pointed to the now silent fires raging behind him. ‘I want all their ashes shovelled into sacks – nothing will remain. Then I want those ashes scattered in the deep sea.’

  ‘Yes, Governor.’

  ‘Before you return, I want every man to bathe twice, at length, before touching shore.’

  ‘Bathe twice, Governor?’

  ‘Not one ash will remain. Nothing from their bodies will endure. Japan will forget this vermin ever existed! Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Hai, Governor!’ they repl
ied in unison.

  CHAPTER ONE

  21 May 1626. One month earlier

  Arima, Shimabara Peninsula, Kyushu

  ‘Shigemasa is coming! Shigemasa is coming!’ shouted a farmer. His eyes bulged as he burst into Father Joaquim’s quarters.

  Onaga birds squawked and scattered to the skies before the rattle of hardened leather and metal armour, as hundreds of horses approached in the distance down a well-worn path at a steady, military pace.

  Had the village’s early warning system – a child on the far edge of the forest, whose waving arms had been seen by another youth at the near edge – given them enough notice?

  The villagers had just minutes, so they mobilized quickly as they’d done numerous times before. Several lifted floor planks exposing secret spaces, some just large enough to hide forbidden items such as bibles and crucifixes, others big enough to conceal bigger secrets, like foreign Christians, including Catechist Miguel, Catechist Tonia, and Father Joaquim. The priest was already in a concealed room cleaning a small basin with which he conducted baptisms. He tossed it to the side, lifted a muddied plank of wood, and hid himself underground. Joaquim closed his eyes, lay quietly, and muttered a fervent prayer. They could not find him here. They would not find him here. The Lord would protect his servants and keep them safe. Since Christianity had been officially banned more than a decade before, life had become more dangerous for the faithful.

  Father Joaquim thought back to what had brought him to this location. How could he forget that night?

  He could still hear the screams of his mother – a woman abandoned by an absent and drunken husband, left to care for three children under ten and Joaquim, a mere sixteen-year-old.

  To this day Joaquim questioned how the man had found his way into their house. When the intruder pulled a knife on them, he did what any son would have done. Perhaps he had underestimated his own strength. All that mattered had been keeping his family alive. In a frantic and chaotic struggle, he’d managed to claim the knife from the man and thrust his arm around the man’s neck, pulling hard and not letting go until he felt the man fall limp. It only took a few minutes, but to Joaquim it had seemed like hours.