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‘I’ll always defeat you with the Two Heavens,’ said Kazuki, savouring the panic in Jack’s eyes.

‘You wouldn’t dare!’ breathed Jack.

‘Again, that’s the difference between a true samurai and a gaijin like you. I most certainly would,’ said Kazuki, pressing until a pinprick of blood appeared on Jack’s skin.

Jack grimaced, feeling the razor-sharp steel pierce his flesh. He pulled back, but had nowhere to go. Kazuki grinned vindictively, a cruel intent in his eyes.

‘But I’ll spare you, this once,’ he said, retracting the blade.

Jack breathed an unsteady sigh of relief, then tensed in shock as Kazuki’s steel katana flashed before his eyes. It skimmed past his nose, the blade slicing him across his left cheek.

‘That, though, will serve as a reminder of what awaits you!’

Kazuki left Jack in the garden, blood trickling down his face and dripping red spots on to the pure white sand.

24

THE SPY

‘Your cut’s bleeding again,’ said Takuan as he and Jack led their horses back to the school stables the following evening. ‘It must have opened up during that last gallop.’

Jack’s hand went to his cheek where a raw red line now marked his skin.

‘You’ll have a good scar when that’s healed,’ observed Takuan. ‘Though you still haven’t told me how you got it.’

‘Two Heavens training,’ Jack replied, not wishing to elaborate further.

‘I’m glad I’m not in that class!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Akiko injured herself during one of those lessons too.’

Jack stared blankly at Takuan.

‘Haven’t you noticed the bandage round her arm?’

Jack shook his head. As far as he was aware, nobody had been hurt during Two Heavens practice. Though he hadn’t revealed the whole truth about his own injury, why would Akiko lie about hers? And how had she got it in the first place?

‘I have to go,’ said Takuan, passing Jack the reins to his horse. ‘You don’t mind stabling them both, do you? I’m due to help Akiko with her haiku.’

‘No, of course not,’ replied Jack, forcing a smile.

‘Thanks. We’ll work on improving your seat position next time.’

Bowing, Takuan headed back to school.

Dusk had fallen by the time Jack had unsaddled the horses and tethered them in their stalls. He’d have to hurry. Taro would be waiting for him in the Butokuden to start their extra Two Heavens practice. Jack much preferred that to horseriding. Their first session together had proved very helpful and, by the end, Jack had nearly mastered the Flint-and-Spark strike. Taro was a natural teacher, so they’d arranged to meet every evening to build on this initial success. At breakfast that morning he’d enthused about Taro to Akiko in the hope she’d join them, but to no avail. She was already busy. Now he knew why – Takuan.

As Jack put some extra hay into the horses’ troughs, he heard the back door of the stable block open.

‘So what have you found out?’ breathed a girl’s husky voice.

‘My father’s told me daimyo Kamakura now has some fifty thousand troops at his command.’

Jack instantly recognized the voice as Kazuki’s.

‘Fifty thousand!’ squealed the girl excitedly.

Creeping into an adjacent empty stall, Jack peeked through a gap in the wood. Kazuki was sitting close to Moriko, her pale face ghost-like in the darkness. The floor had recently been swept and like all Japanese stables was spotlessly clean.

‘So our lord’s ready to attack,’ she said in eager anticipation. ‘We can finish off the gaijin! Exterminate him like a rat!’

‘Not yet.’

Moriko’s face dropped.

‘Don’t worry. His time will come. I left him with a scar so he wouldn’t forget his fate.’ Kazuki smirked as he ran finger across his own left cheek.

Moriko’s eyes lit up with sadistic glee. ‘He must now look even uglier!’

Jack felt his cut throb as the two of them laughed at his expense. Moriko has some nerve to call me ugly, he thought. She has black teeth!

‘But when will daimyo Kamakura strike? When can the Scorpion Gang begin its work?’

‘Patience, my Moriko,’ said Kazuki, resting a hand on her knee. ‘Our lord is waiting for more samurai to come to his side. My father