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Jack shrugged. Though her timing did seem a bit strange, now he thought about it.

‘Well, it’s good to know Akiko’s a devout Buddhist,’ said Takuan cheerily, before turning towards the Shishi-no-ma. ‘See you tomorrow at the usual time.’

Only a few pockets of students remained in the courtyard now. From bitter experience, Jack didn’t want to end up alone out here. He’d seen enough trouble for one day.

As he was making his way to the Shishi-no-ma, Jack spotted a lone boy sitting on the steps of the Butsuden. Wandering over, he discovered that it was Yori.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Jack.

Yori nodded, but wouldn’t meet his gaze.

‘Are you sure?’ Jack insisted. ‘You hardly said anything during dinner.’

Yori merely shrugged and concentrated on folding a small piece of origami paper with his hands.

‘Don’t think much of your bodyguard,’ shouted a voice from the other side of the courtyard.

Jack turned to see Kazuki heading towards the Hall of Lions with Nobu and Hiroto.

‘I heard he scurried away like a mouse at the first sign of danger!’ Nobu chortled, mimicking a panicked escape. ‘Oh, help! It’s a lowly ashigaru!’

‘We should be thanking him for leaving the gaijin to die,’ sneered Hiroto. ‘It would have been a gruesome death!’

‘Go away!’ said Jack, seeing Yori hang his head in shame.

‘That’s what you should do,’ said Kazuki, stopping beside the entrance to the Hall of Lions. ‘If you stay here, you’ll burn.’

‘He’ll be roasted alive along with the rest of them,’ taunted Hiroto gleefully. ‘Anyone fancy gaijin for dinner?’

The three of them disappeared inside the hall, laughing to themselves.

‘Sorry, Jack,’ mumbled Yori, in a voice so quiet Jack had to crouch down to hear his friend.

‘Sorry for what?’

‘I’m ashamed I failed you.’

Jack looked into Yori’s face. He had tears in his eyes and was trembling.

‘You didn’t fail me. You got help.’

‘But I couldn’t save you,’ he sniffed, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his kimono. ‘I did try to fight, but the men just laughed at me. One of them snapped my staff and punched me in the face. I’m a pathetic joke of a warrior.’

‘No, you’re not,’ insisted Jack. ‘If it wasn’t for your quick thinking, Sensei Kano would never have found me.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you say,’ said Yori, making a final fold in the paper to form a small origami mouse. ‘When we go to war, I won’t stand a chance.’

He closed his fist round the little paper creature and threw the crushed remains to the ground.

20

KIAIJUTSU

‘What is your true face, which you had before your father and mother were even born?’ asked Sensei Yamada, twirling his wispy grey beard between his bony fingers.

Perched before the great bronze statue of the Buddha in the Butsuden, the old monk reposed upon his zabuton cushion like an amiable toad. He grinned impishly, enjoying the quizzical expressions upon his students’ faces.

‘Mokuso,’ he instructed, lighting a stick of incense.

The scent of jasmine floated through the air as the class settled into their meditation for the day. Sitting in the lotus position, they calmed their breathing and let their minds contemplate Sensei Yamada’s koan.

The Buddha Hall became silent with thought.

Jack shifted awkwardly upon his cushion, sore from all his horseriding lessons. He had never found his Zen master’s riddles easy, but this had to be the most perplexing of them all. The sad thing was that Jack was already having trouble remembering what his parents’ faces looked like. With each passing day he lost another detail, his memory of them washing away like sand with the incoming tide.

How on earth was he supposed to know his true face?

Jack let his mind drift to Jess. The last time he’d laid eyes upon his sister, she’d just turned five. Blessed with curls of mousey-blonde hair and sharing the same sea-blue eyes as Jack, she was a pretty girl, more summer buttercup than English rose. Jack wondered what his little sister looked like now. After four years away from home, she wouldn