The Way of the Sword Page 4

  ‘Then I will enter.’

  6

  THE INVITATION

  ‘REI, SENSEI!’ came the cry.

  Dinner had drawn to a close and all the students stood to bow as the sensei filed out of the hall. Masamoto, accompanied by daimyo Takatomi, led the entourage. As they passed Jack, the daimyo paused.

  ‘Jack-kun? I am presuming it’s you, considering you are the only blond-haired samurai present,’ said Takatomi, broadening his genial smile.

  ‘Hai, Sensei,’ responded Jack, bowing even lower.

  ‘No, I’m not your sensei,’ laughed Takatomi. ‘However, I would like you, Akiko-chan and Yamato-kun to join me for cha-no-yu in Nijo Castle tomorrow evening.’

  A murmur of astonishment spread among the bowing students. Even Masamoto’s typically stoic expression registered surprise at this unprecedented invitation. A tea ceremony was regarded as the purest art form, one that took years, if not a lifetime, to perfect. For a student, let alone a foreigner, to be invited to a cha-no-yu hosted by the daimyo himself was a momentous event.

  ‘I have not had the chance to express my gratitude to you personally for what you accomplished in stopping Dokugan Ryu,’ continued Takatomi. ‘My beautiful daughter will be joining us. I believe you’re already acquainted with Emi, for she has spoken of you on a number of occasions.’

  Jack glanced over to a tall, slender girl with long straight hair and a rose-petal mouth. She smiled sweetly at him, exuding such warmth that Jack had to bow again to hide his reddening face. Not that it went unnoticed by Akiko, who had looked up and spotted the exchange.

  ‘Takatomi-sama, they would be honoured to attend,’ answered Masamoto on Jack’s behalf, before leading the daimyo out of the Chō-no-ma and into the night.

  There was a great buzz of excitement in the air when the sensei left. Groups of students clustered together, everyone discussing the Circle of Three and watching to see who would enter first.

  Sensei Kyuzo, their master in taijutsu, a dwarf-sized man whose ability at hand-to-hand combat was legendary, sat at the head table, a roll of parchment before him. He waited impatiently for the first entrant.

  As was typical of the sensei, he picked at nuts from a small bowl and crushed them with his bare hands, just as he was inclined to do with Jack’s spirit at each and every opportunity. The man despised Jack, and made no effort to disguise the fact that he resented a foreigner being taught the secrets of their martial arts.

  After a moment’s hesitation, a strong boy with broad shoulders and a bronzed face walked over to the dais. He picked up the ink scribe and wrote his name upon the parchment. Soon afterwards three other students approached, encouraging a steady stream of hopefuls to queue up too.

  ‘Come on,’ said Yamato, striding over to the growing line.

  Jack looked to Akiko for final reassurance, but she was already in line. Jack should have known. Akiko was no ordinary girl. She was samurai and, being the niece of Masamoto, courage was in her blood.

  He joined her in the queue. When they reached the head table, Jack watched Akiko as she wrote her name on the parchment with a series of brushstrokes that formed a beautiful but mysterious pattern of Japanese kanji characters. The symbols made little sense to Jack.

  Sensei Kyuzo glared over Akiko’s shoulder at Jack.

  ‘You are entering the Circle?’ said Sensei Kyuzo, giving a short incredulous snort at Jack’s appearance.

  ‘Hai, Sensei,’ responded Jack, ignoring his teacher’s contempt. He had waited with the others in the queue to sign his name and was not going to be put off by Sensei Kyuzo’s antagonism now.

  ‘A gaijin has never partaken in the Circle,’ stated Kyuzo, with deliberate emphasis placed on his use of the derogatory term for a foreigner.

  ‘Then this will be the first time, Sensei,’ said Akiko, pretending not to notice his blatant disrespect towards Jack.

  ‘Sign here,’ ordered Sensei Kyuzo. ‘In kanji.’

  Jack paused as he looked at the paper. The names of the participants were all carefully inked in the Japanese characters.

  A cruel smile cut across Sensei Kyuzo’s lips. ‘Or maybe you can’t? Entry must be in kanji. It’s the rules.’

  To Jack’s frustration, the sensei was right. He didn’t know kanji. Jack could write easily enough. His mother had been a fine teacher. But only in Roman characters. While Akiko’s guidance, together with the formal lessons provided by Father Lucius, had enabled him to speak in Japanese, he had only limited experience of kanji. In Japan, the way of writing, shodo, was as much an art form as hand-to-hand combat and swordsmanship. The skill took years to perfect.

  Sensei Kyuzo savoured Jack’s discomfort.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ he said. ‘Maybe you can enter in another three years’ time, when you’ve learnt to write. Next!’

  Jack was elbowed out of the way by a student from behind and he could have guessed it would be Kazuki. The boy had been on his back ever since his arrival at samurai school. Now that Jack had gained the respect of the other students by beating their rival school, the Yagyu Ryū, in the Taryu-Jiai competition, Kazuki was on the lookout for any excuse to bully or belittle him.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry, gaijin,’ smirked Kazuki, signing his own name in the place where Jack’s should have been. ‘You won’t be around to participate anyway.’

  Jack rounded on Kazuki even as he felt Akiko guiding him away. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Surely even you’ve heard the news?’ said Kazuki with vindictive pleasure. ‘The daimyo Kamakura Katsuro is expelling Christians from Japan.’

  Nobu peered over Kazuki’s shoulder. He gave Jack a farewell wave of the hand and laughed, ‘Sayonara, gaijin!’

  ‘He’s going to kill any gaijin he finds in Japan,’ added Kazuki spitefully, before turning to Nobu with triumph in his eyes at being the first to tell Jack the bad news.

  ‘Ignore them, Jack,’ said Akiko, shaking her head in disgust. ‘They’re making it up.’

  But Jack couldn’t help thinking that there might be a grain of truth in Kazuki’s story. Kamakura was the daimyo of Edo Province and the head of the Yagyu Ryū, the rival school to the Niten Ichi Ryū. He was a cruel, vindictive man with too much power. Jack’s overriding image of the daimyo was his gleeful face as he watched one of his samurai behead an elderly tea merchant, merely because the old man hadn’t heard the command to bow. Despite Akiko’s assurance, Jack realized Kamakura was more than capable of ordering the exile and death of foreigners.

  If it were true, then it wouldn’t matter whether he was in the Circle of Three. His life would be in greater danger than ever before, not only from Dragon Eye and his ninja clan, but also from Kamakura and his samurai.

  Perhaps he should start planning how to get to Nagasaki before it was too late, thought Jack. But first, he needed to find out whether Kazuki was lying or not.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Akiko as Jack headed purposefully out of the Chō-no-ma.

  Glancing over his shoulder at Kazuki and Nobu, who were still sniggering to one another, he replied, ‘Somewhere far away from those two!’

  7

  RANDORI

  Jack lay there, unable to move.

  The impact upon the dojo floor had knocked the wind clean out of him.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Akiko, looking down at him with concern. ‘I didn’t mean to throw you so hard.’

  ‘Don’t… apologize,’ replied Jack, gasping for air and trying not to throw up his breakfast from earlier that morning. ‘It was… my fault… for not break-falling… properly.’

  Akiko had tossed Jack over her shoulder like a sack of rice in a move called seoi nage. Not that her remarkable fighting abilities were anything unexpected. He’d learnt early on never to underestimate Akiko, having witnessed her single-handedly despatch two ninja with only the knotted obi of her kimono.

  He was also more than capable of break-falling and should have landed safely. However, Akiko had told him something that
completely broke his concentration.

  ‘What did you just say?’ asked Jack, sitting up carefully.

  ‘You’re in the trials for the Circle of Three.’

  ‘I don’t understand. How can that be?’

  ‘Kiku’s entered for you,’ she explained, a mischievous grin on her face. ‘I asked her to write down your name instead of hers.’

  Jack stared at Akiko in disbelief. She’d got round the entry rules for him.

  He smiled. The Two Heavens was suddenly a possibility again. His training now had real purpose. And with only five places available in the Circle of Three, he knew he would have to work hard to get selected.

  ‘Why have you stopped?’ demanded Sensei Kyuzo, standing over Jack, his mean black-pebble eyes boring into him.

  ‘I’m just catching my breath, Sensei,’ replied Jack, grinning up at him, unable to hide the glee he felt at Akiko’s news.

  Sensei Kyuzo eyed Jack with suspicion. ‘Get up! Are any of the other students resting? Is Kazuki-kun over there tired?’

  The sensei nodded his head towards his favoured student, who was driving Saburo into the ground with a devastating seoi nage of his own.

  ‘No, Sensei,’ replied Jack through pursed lips.

  ‘Some samurai you’ll be!’ spat Sensei Kyuzo.

  He spun on his heel and crossed to the centre of the Butokuden.

  ‘Yame!’ he ordered.

  Every student ceased their training, kneeling down on one knee to listen to their sensei.

  ‘Taijutsu is like boiling water: if you do not keep the flame high, it turns tepid!’ bellowed Sensei Kyuzo.

  ‘HAI, SENSEI!’ shouted the students in unison.

  ‘Don’t be like Jack-kun and stop merely because you’re tired!’

  Jack felt all the eyes in the dojo turn towards him and he fumed with rage. Why did the sensei always have to make an example of him? There were numerous other students who weren’t half as competent as he was and several had stopped training long before Jack.

  ‘If any of you have put your name down for the trials for the Circle of Three, you’ll need greater stamina and strength than this. Do you want to give up?’ Sensei Kyuzo challenged.

  ‘NO, SENSEI!’ responded the exhausted students, their breathing rapid, their gi soaked in sweat.

  ‘Good. Then it’s time for randori!’ he announced. ‘Line up!’

  Hurriedly the students knelt down one side of the Butokuden in preparation for free-sparring.

  ‘During this session, I want you to practise your nage waza and katame waza only,’ said Sensei Kyuzo, referring to the various throwing and grappling techniques they had been concentrating on during the past few lessons.

  ‘Kazuki-kun, you’re up first. You can show them how it’s done.’

  Kazuki snapped to his feet and took up position on his teacher’s right-hand side.

  ‘Now your opponent will be…’ considered Sensei Kyuzo, pulling wistfully at the tuft of moustache beneath his pudgy nose, ‘Jack-kun.’

  Jack knew it. He wasn’t going to be given any time to recover. Usually he enjoyed randori since it was exciting and challenging. But Kazuki was vindictive. In free-sparring, punches were supposed to be ‘pulled’, kicks held back, throws executed with due care, and locks released immediately an opponent tapped for submission. But given the slightest chance, Kazuki would apply his techniques with full force and ignore any calls for submission.

  With little choice in the matter, Jack got up and stood on Sensei Kyuzo’s left-hand side.

  ‘Rei!’ said Sensei Kyuzo and they both bowed to him.

  ‘Rei!’ repeated Sensei Kyuzo, and Jack and Kazuki bowed to one another as was required etiquette.

  ‘Hajime!’ announced the sensei, and the randori began.

  They each darted in to get their grip, grabbing at the lapels and sleeves of each other’s gi in an attempt to gain the upper hand.

  Like a dazzling but violent dance, they tussled for domination. They pulled and pushed, whirled and zigzagged, trying to unbalance one another, looking for an opportunity for a throw or a leg reap.

  The other students watched eagerly, Yamato and Saburo clenching their fists in silent support, Akiko tugging anxiously at the folds of her gi.

  Jack, spotting his chance, twisted his body in towards Kazuki for seoi nage, but Kazuki was quick to counter, shifting his hips out of the way and throwing his leg behind Jack’s for a valley drop throw.

  The move would have been successful if Jack had been off-balance, but he was still grounded so drove his weight into Kazuki, countering with an inner leg reap.

  Kazuki almost fell, but somehow managed to untangle his leg from behind Jack’s. Kazuki stumbled backwards and Jack pressed forward with his attack.

  Too late… Jack realized he’d been tricked.

  Kazuki’s loss of balance had been a ploy to get Jack to over-commit to his own attack. He was now the target of a sacrifice throw.

  Kazuki rolled backwards, pulling Jack on top of him. At the same time, he thrust his foot into Jack’s stomach, flipping Jack in a large arc over his head.

  Jack had no chance of avoiding Kazuki’s tomoe nage stomach throw. Landing hard upon his back on the dojo floor, he had the wind knocked out of him for the second time that day. Before he could even snatch a breath, Kazuki had rolled on top and locked down on him in a neck hold.

  ‘Very impressive, Kazuki!’ commended Sensei Kyuzo from the sidelines. ‘See if you can hold him down for a count of ten.’

  Kazuki clamped on to Jack, his right forearm wrapping tightly round the back of Jack’s neck, while restraining Jack’s right arm under his armpit. He spread his legs out to the side and now dropped all his weight on to Jack’s ribcage, digging his head in tight beside Jack’s.

  Jack was pinned to the ground.

  ‘ONE!’ called the sensei.

  Jack rolled into Kazuki, trying to dislodge him, his free hand scrabbling to find purchase on Kazuki’s gi.

  ‘Forget it, gaijin,’ rasped Kazuki into Jack’s ear, ‘there’s no way on earth I’m letting you up!’

  ‘TWO!’

  Jack flung himself the other way to turn Kazuki over. He used every ounce of strength he possessed, but Kazuki’s legs were spread too wide and his weight prevented Jack rolling him.

  ‘THREE!’

  Jack lay helpless, his energy spent.

  ‘Pathetic!’ taunted Kazuki.

  ‘FOUR!’

  Incensed, Jack renewed his efforts. He shuffled his feet round towards Kazuki’s outstretched legs, drawing his body close to his rival. He tried to trap his rear leg and turn him over. Feeling the movement, Kazuki shifted his legs out of the way.

  ‘You’ll have to try harder than that!’

  ‘FIVE!’

  Jack arched his back, pushing with the balls of his feet to form a bridge with his body. He managed to create a gap between his back and the floor and began to twist into Kazuki, turning his head out of the hold.

  Kazuki forced himself back on to Jack’s ribcage, driving Jack’s body to the floor.

  ‘Squirm all you like. You’ve lost!’

  ‘SIX!’

  Frantic, Jack struggled even harder, but Kazuki’s tightened his iron grip.

  ‘While I’ve got your attention,’ whispered Kazuki into Jack’s ear. ‘I’ve got fresh news for you. A gaijin, just like you, has been burnt alive by the daimyo Kamakura.’

  8

  SUBMISSION

  The words slammed into Jack’s brain like a fist and he stopped struggling.

  Was this another of Kazuki’s false taunts? Jack hadn’t yet been able to speak with Masamoto or any of the sensei to discover whether the rumours were true, though he had taken some comfort from the fact that none of the students in the school, aside from Kazuki and his cohorts, appeared to know anything about daimyo Kamakura’s declaration against Christians.

  ‘SEVEN!’

  ‘They said his flesh fell off in lumps before he died, like a barb
ecued pig. Imagine that, gaijin!’

  Kazuki’s mocking cruelty was what spurred Jack to retaliate. For a brief moment, he had a flashback of the storm that had shipwrecked the Alexandria and the sailor who had been set on fire by lightning. Jack could remember the agony etched on to the dead man’s face and the gut-wrenching smell of charred flesh. His anger boiled over at the thought and a surge of adrenalin flooded through him.

  ‘EIGHT!’

  In one simultaneous movement, Jack arched his body, flung his legs round Kazuki’s back leg and grabbed his opponent’s head with his free hand. His fingers found Kazuki’s nostrils and he wrenched back hard.

  ‘NINE!’

  Kazuki grunted in pain and was spun over.

  Jack rolled on top. He trapped Kazuki with a chest hold, lying across Kazuki’s shoulders and driving his elbow and knee into either side of Kazuki’s head to lock it in place.

  Now it was Kazuki’s turn to be counted out.

  Through the matting of hair that plastered his face, Jack caught a glimpse of Yamato and Saburo willing him on. Despite his exhaustion, he allowed himself the smallest of victory smiles.

  ‘One,’ said the sensei half-heartedly.

  Kazuki was pinned and going nowhere.

  ‘Two.’

  But away from anyone’s line of sight, Kazuki managed to free an arm and began to hammer Jack in the kidneys.

  ‘Three.’

  Only Sensei Kyuzo could see it, but he turned a blind eye as Kazuki landed another unofficial blow. The sensei deliberately slowed his count.

  ‘Four…’

  Kazuki struck again. Jack’s side flared with pain and he was forced to relinquish his grip. Throwing Jack off, Kazuki countered hard, putting him into a choking hold.

  ‘That’s not very nice – going for the face!’ spat Kazuki, who now lay on top of Jack, one forearm behind Jack’s neck, the other across his throat.

  Kazuki wrenched his forearms together, closing them like a vice.

  Jack spluttered in shock.