Chapter 6 : The Invitation

'REI, SENSEI!' came the cry.

Dinner had drawn to a close and all the students stood to bow as the

sensei filed out of the hall. Masamoto, accompanied by daimyo Takatomi,

led the entourage. As they passed Jack, the daimyo paused.

'Jack-kun? I am presuming it's you, considering you are the only

blond-haired samurai present,' said Takatomi, broadening his genial smile.

'Hai, Sensei,' responded Jack, bowing even lower.

'No, I'm not your sensei,' laughed Takatomi. 'However, I would like

you, Akiko-chan and Yamato-kun to join me for cha-no-yu in Nijo Castle

tomorrow evening.'

A murmur of astonishment spread among the bowing students. Even

Masamoto's typically stoic expression registered surprise at this

unprecedented invitation. A tea ceremony was regarded as the purest art

form, one that took years, if not a lifetime, to perfect. For a student, let

alone a foreigner, to be invited to a cha-no-yu hosted by the daimyo himself

was a momentous event.

'I have not had the chance to express my gratitude to you personally

for what you accomplished in stopping Dokugan Ryu,' continued Takatomi.

'My beautiful daughter will be joining us. I believe you're already

acquainted with Emi, for she has spoken of you on a number of occasions.'

Jack glanced over to a tall, slender girl with long straight hair and a

rose-petal mouth. She smiled sweetly at him, exuding such warmth that

Jack had to bow again to hide his reddening face. Not that it went unnoticed

by Akiko, who had looked up and spotted the exchange.

'Takatomi-sama, they would be honoured to attend,' answered

Masamoto on Jack's behalf, before leading the daimyo out of the Chō-noma and into the night.

There was a great buzz of excitement in the air when the sensei left. Groups

of students clustered together, everyone discussing the Circle of Three and

watching to see who would enter first.

Sensei Kyuzo, their master in taijutsu, a dwarf-sized man whose

ability at hand-to-hand combat was legendary, sat at the head table, a roll of

parchment before him. He waited impatiently for the first entrant.

As was typical of the sensei, he picked at nuts from a small bowl and

crushed them with his bare hands, just as he was inclined to do with Jack's

spirit at each and every opportunity. The man despised Jack, and made no

effort to disguise the fact that he resented a foreigner being taught the

secrets of their martial arts.

After a moment's hesitation, a strong boy with broad shoulders and a

bronzed face walked over to the dais. He picked up the ink scribe and wrote

his name upon the parchment. Soon afterwards three other students

approached, encouraging a steady stream of hopefuls to queue up too.

'Come on,' said Yamato, striding over to the growing line.

Jack looked to Akiko for final reassurance, but she was already in line.

Jack should have known. Akiko was no ordinary girl. She was samurai and,

being the niece of Masamoto, courage was in her blood.

He joined her in the queue. When they reached the head table, Jack

watched Akiko as she wrote her name on the parchment with a series of

brushstrokes that formed a beautiful but mysterious pattern of Japanese

kanji characters. The symbols made little sense to Jack.

Sensei Kyuzo glared over Akiko's shoulder at Jack.

'You are entering the Circle?' said Sensei Kyuzo, giving a short

incredulous snort at Jack's appearance.

'Hai, Sensei,' responded Jack, ignoring his teacher's contempt. He had

waited with the others in the queue to sign his name and was not going to

be put off by Sensei Kyuzo's antagonism now.

'A gaijin has never partaken in the Circle,' stated Kyuzo, with

deliberate emphasis placed on his use of the derogatory term for a foreigner.

'Then this will be the first time, Sensei,' said Akiko, pretending not to

notice his blatant disrespect towards Jack.

'Sign here,' ordered Sensei Kyuzo. 'In kanji.'

Jack paused as he looked at the paper. The names of the participants

were all carefully inked in the Japanese characters.

A cruel smile cut across Sensei Kyuzo's lips. 'Or maybe you can't?

Entry must be in kanji. It's the rules.'

To Jack's frustration, the sensei was right. He didn't know kanji. Jack

could write easily enough. His mother had been a fine teacher. But only in

Roman characters. While Akiko's guidance, together with the formal

lessons provided by Father Lucius, had enabled him to speak in Japanese,

he had only limited experience of kanji. In Japan, the way of writing, shodo,

was as much an art form as hand-to-hand combat and swordsmanship. The

skill took years to perfect.

Sensei Kyuzo savoured Jack's discomfort.

'That's a shame,' he said. 'Maybe you can enter in another three years'

time, when you've learnt to write. Next!'

Jack was elbowed out of the way by a student from behind and he

could have guessed it would be Kazuki. The boy had been on his back ever

since his arrival at samurai school. Now that Jack had gained the respect of

the other students by beating their rival school, the Yagyu Ryū, in the TaryuJiai competition, Kazuki was on the lookout for any excuse to bully or

belittle him.

'I wouldn't worry, gaijin,' smirked Kazuki, signing his own name in

the place where Jack's should have been. 'You won't be around to

participate anyway.'

Jack rounded on Kazuki even as he felt Akiko guiding him away.

'What do you mean?'

'Surely even you've heard the news?' said Kazuki with vindictive

pleasure. 'The daimyo Kamakura Katsuro is expelling Christians from

Japan.'

Nobu peered over Kazuki's shoulder. He gave Jack a farewell wave of

the hand and laughed, 'Sayonara, gaijin!'

'He's going to kill any gaijin he finds in Japan,' added Kazuki

spitefully, before turning to Nobu with triumph in his eyes at being the first

to tell Jack the bad news.

'Ignore them, Jack,' said Akiko, shaking her head in disgust. 'They're

making it up.'

But Jack couldn't help thinking that there might be a grain of truth in

Kazuki's story. Kamakura was the daimyo of Edo Province and the head of

the Yagyu Ryū, the rival school to the Niten Ichi Ryū. He was a cruel,

vindictive man with too much power. Jack's overriding image of the daimyo

was his gleeful face as he watched one of his samurai behead an elderly tea

merchant, merely because the old man hadn't heard the command to bow.

Despite Akiko's assurance, Jack realized Kamakura was more than capable

of ordering the exile and death of foreigners.

If it were true, then it wouldn't matter whether he was in the Circle of

Three. His life would be in greater danger than ever before, not only from

Dragon Eye and his ninja clan, but also from Kamakura and his samurai.

Perhaps he should start planning how to get to Nagasaki before it was

too late, thought Jack. But first, he needed to find out whether Kazuki was

lying or not.

'Where are you going?' asked Akiko as Jack headed purposefully out

of the Chō-no-ma.

Glancing over his shoulder at Kazuki and Nobu, who were still

sniggering to one another, he replied, 'Somewhere far away from those

two!'