Young Samurai_ The Way of the Sword - Chris Bradford [37]
All of sudden, Jack felt very vulnerable. He’d been so busy with training for the trials, he hadn’t noticed the continued absence of Masamoto. It only now occurred to him that his guardian’s seat at the head table during dinner had been empty for almost a month. The last time Jack had seen Masamoto was when the samurai had overseen the start of the construction of the Hall of the Hawk. Where had he gone? If the situation suddenly turned serious, Jack had no one in authority at the school with a personal interest in protecting him.
‘We must be ready for the call to arms from our daimyo,’ continued Kazuki. ‘That is the purpose of the Sasori Gang. We must now all swear our allegiance to this righteous cause.’
‘I’ll need some light for the initiation ritual,’ demanded the husky female voice.
Jack heard the sound of a flint being struck and a couple of sparks flared in the gloom. A moment later, a small oil lamp burned like a solitary firefly in the cavernous hall.
Jack gasped in astonishment. The flickering flame illuminated a girl’s bleached-white face. Her oval eyes were like coals in a fire and a pair of blood-red lips parted to reveal teeth painted black as tar. Jack instantly recognized her as Moriko, the female samurai who had competed against Akiko in the Taryu-Jiai. A cruel, vicious fighter, she trained at the rival Yagyu School in Kyoto. Jack couldn’t believe she was inside the walls of the Niten Ichi Ryū.
‘That’s better,’ she rasped, taking an inkpot and several bamboo needles from her inro and laying them beside the lamp. She then uncorked a small bottle of saké and poured a measure of the clear liquid into a cup. This was placed in the centre of the group. ‘So who will be first for irezumi?’
‘I will,’ said Kazuki, opening his overcoat and kimono to expose his chest.
Moriko inspected one of the needles, turning it slowly over the flame. Satisfied, she then dipped its sharpened point into the pot of black ink. With her other hand, she held Kazuki’s skin taut above his heart.
‘This will hurt,’ she said, puncturing Kazuki’s skin with the tip and inserting a drop of ink beneath.
Kazuki grimaced, but made no sound. Moriko recharged her needle before piercing his chest again. She continued slowly and methodically, adding more dots of ink to the design.
Jack had seen such work performed before, on the sailors of the Alexandria when they had had their arms tattooed. To Jack it had always seemed like a great deal of pain for what amounted to a poor image of an anchor or the name of some sweetheart the sailor soon forgot once they docked at another port.
‘Done,’ said Moriko, a black slit of a smile spreading across her face.
‘This is your mark,’ announced Kazuki with pride, turning so that the others could see. ‘The sasori!’
Jack was too stunned to breathe. Tattooed above Kazuki’s heart was a small black scorpion – the creature of Jack’s nightmares.
However hard his Christian beliefs tried to deny it, the coincidence of this tattoo and his dream was too great to ignore.
Kazuki raised the cup of saké.
‘Once you have your sasori and have shared saké from this cup, you’re forever a brother of the Scorpion Gang. Death to all gaijin!’ toasted Kazuki, drinking from the cup.
‘Death to all gaijin!’ echoed the others, pledging their allegiance and eagerly opening up their kimonos for Moriko to begin the irezumi.
Outside the Butokuden, the storm thundered its approval.
Jack shook uncontrollably. He hugged himself for warmth, pressing his body against the wall in an attempt to shelter from the relentless downpour.
His mind, like the elements, was a whirlwind of confusion. What should he do? He’d heard all the testimony he needed. Japan was being turned against foreigners. If someone didn’t stop Kamakura, Jack would become an outcast. The enemy. He needed to tell Masamoto, but how could his guardian protect him against such forces?
Crack!
A blast of wind caught the wooden shutter, slamming it against