The Ring of Water - Chris Bradford [5]
Junko brought him a second bowl of soup, which he devoured with equal relish. Draining the last of its contents, Jack decided to ask her about the omamori. It was most likely Junko’s or her father’s, a charm they’d given him to encourage healing. But if it wasn’t then she might know who the amulet belonged to and this could lead him to his possessions and the rutter.
As he went to beckon Junko over, the curtain shielding the tea house from the road was pulled aside and four armed men entered, followed by the moustached customer. They were dressed officially in black haori jackets, tight-fitting trousers and dark blue tabi socks. Around their heads they wore hachimaki, bandanas reinforced with metal strips. Each man bore a sword on his hip and in his left hand carried a jutte, an iron truncheon with a small prong parallel to the main shaft.
Despite their ominous presence, the owner appeared pleased to see them. ‘I didn’t really think any dōshin would come for him. Not in this weather,’ he said to his daughter. Then, pointing, the owner declared, ‘He’s over there.’
‘We’re not here for him,’ snorted the dōshin leader, looking down his nose at the drunken samurai who now lay sprawled across his table. Nodding in Jack’s direction, the dōshin announced, ‘We’ve come to arrest the gaijin.’
3
RONIN
Before Jack could react, the four dōshin surrounded him, their lethal jutte at the ready. Both the owner and Junko looked startled by this turn of events.
‘Come with us, gaijin,’ ordered the leading officer.
‘But he’s causing no trouble,’ argued Junko.
Her father restrained her. ‘Be quiet. He’s none of our business now.’
‘But you found him.’
Her father nodded sadly. ‘Perhaps it would have been better if I hadn’t.’
The dōshin leader indicated for Jack to stand. ‘In the name of the Shogun, you’re under arrest.’
‘What am I charged with?’ asked Jack, playing for time. His samurai instincts had kicked in and he was looking for a way out. There was only the back door, but it was blocked by a dōshin and he was in no fit state to fight his way to freedom.
‘All foreigners and Christians are banished from our land by order of Shogun Kamakura. Those found remaining are to face punishment.’
‘I’m trying to leave,’ insisted Jack.
‘That may be the case, but we have reason to believe you’re Jack Fletcher, the gaijin samurai. And you’re accused of treason of the highest order.’
‘What did he do?’ asked Junko, her hand going to her mouth in disbelief.
‘This gaijin fought against the Shogun in the battle for Osaka Castle,’ the dōshin leader explained as his officers manhandled Jack out of the tea house. ‘And there’s a reward for his head.’
Shoved through the entrance curtain, Jack fell from the raised floor to land sprawled in the muddy rainsoaked road. The four dōshin grunted their amusement while putting on their wooden geta clogs.
Jack realized this might be his one chance of escape and scrambled to his feet. But he’d barely taken three steps when he was struck from behind. The force of the iron truncheon dropped him to his knees, his eyes screwing up against the flare of pain in his shoulder.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ snarled a dōshin, his round, pockmarked face revelling in Jack’s agony. He raised the jutte again, eager to cause more damage.
But Jack was ready this time. As the truncheon came down, Jack met it with his own hands, twisting the man’s wrist into a lock and flinging him over his head. The dōshin crash-landed in the quagmire of mud and sludge, writhing like an eel as his fingers became caught between the shaft and prong of his own jutte and snapped on impact. Jack turned to face the other dōshin as they rushed to capture him.
Try as he might to defend himself, Jack was outnumbered and too weak to hold out.
‘This gaijin needs to be taught a lesson,’ said the dōshin leader, catching Jack across the gut with a heavy blow.
Winded, Jack collapsed in the mud as they struck him repeatedly. He protected his head as much as he could, but the blows rained