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The old man smiled a toothy grin, obviously pleased to see Jack once more in his garden.

‘Did Masamoto-sama give a reason for leaving it?’ Jack asked, letting go of the arrow.

‘It’s to remind us never to lower our guard.’

Uekiya’s smile faded as he gently cut a blood-red flower from the bush and presented it to Jack. ‘And this rose bush I planted to remind me of Chiro.’

Jack could no longer meet the gardener’s gaze. He recalled the night when Dragon Eye had initially attempted to steal the rutter from him. It had been the first time Jack had witnessed Akiko’s fighting skills, which after two years of training at the Niten Ichi Ryū had now been honed to a fine art. Chiro, however, wasn’t a warrior. She was Hiroko’s maid and had been killed in the attack, while the samurai guard, Taka-san, had been seriously injured defending the home.

It had been a great relief for Jack upon returning to Toba to find Taka-san fully recovered, the only indication of his injury a vicious scar across his belly, which he bore with some pride. But the guilt of Chiro’s death still remained.

‘Welcome home, Jack-kun,’ Uekiya added, forcing a smile back on his face as he continued to prune the rose bush.

‘Thank you,’ Jack replied, settling down beneath the cool shade of the sakura tree. ‘After such a long time in Kyoto, it is almost like returning home. I’d forgotten how beautiful your garden was.’

‘How can that be?’ said the old man, his brow furrowing in puzzlement. ‘You’ve been carrying a piece of it with you ever since you left.’

‘You mean my bonsai?’ asked Jack, referring to the miniature cherry blossom tree he’d been given by the gardener the day he’d departed for samurai school.

‘Of course, it’s grown from the very tree you sit beneath. It’s not dead, is it?’

‘No,’ said Jack quickly, ‘but it does need some attention after the long journey.’

As he had no idea how long he would be staying in Toba, he’d brought the tree back with him in its original carrying case, along with all his other possessions.

‘Let me do it,’ said Uekiya, putting down his pruning knife. ‘Though if the truth be known, I never expected to see it alive again. Bonsai are very difficult to grow. Perhaps you do have a little Japanese in you, after all.’

With a wry smile upon his wrinkled face, the old gardener bowed and walked across the little wooden bridge that spanned a pond dotted with pink water lilies. He weaved his way along the pebbled path towards the house, leaving Jack alone to his thoughts.

Jack had spent many happy hours beneath this sakura tree. At first recovering from the broken arm he’d sustained escaping the ninja attack on the Alexandria; then studying his father’s rutter; and, most enjoyable of all, being instructed by Akiko in her language and customs. Sitting there now, it was like finding sanctuary again.

But it wasn’t like returning home.

England was his home. Though after nearly four years, two of which had been at sea, it had become a distant memory. The only things tying him to his native land were his heart, his little sister Jess, his father’s rutter – now stolen – and a scrap of paper he’d found tucked within it.

Jack opened the inro carrying case attached to his obi and carefully took out the fragile paper. It was a drawing given to his father by Jess before they’d left for the Japans. As had become habit, his fingers traced the outlines of his dead father, his sister in her summer smock holding hands with his own stick-thin body, and lastly his mother with her angel wings. Wiping a tear from his eye, Jack said a little prayer for Jess. Having only an old, ailing neighbour to rely on for his sister’s welfare, he feared for her future without a family. Jack had to find his way back to England.

Yet he was trapped by circumstance. Adopted by Masamoto, his guardian considered himself responsible for Jack’s care until he was sixteen and deemed ‘of age’. Besides, any journey to the southern port of Nagasaki, where foreign trading ships docked, was fraught with danger now that daimyo Kamakura, the lord of