The Way Of The Sword (4 page)

Despite the new teacher’s presence dominating the dais, the immense samurai appeared to shrink under Masamoto’s praise. He gave a humble bow to the room, his smoky-grey eyes staring blankly down the hall as if he was trying to avoid everyone’s gaze.

The students bowed respectfully in return.

‘Finally, as some of you are aware, it has been three years since the last Circle of Three…’

The atmosphere in the
Chō-no-ma
instantly became tense with excitement, every student kneeling ramrod straight in anticipation. Jack, though, was at a complete loss, having no idea what Masamoto was talking about. He looked over to Akiko for an explanation, but like the rest of the school her eyes remained fixed upon Masamoto.

‘For those students who have the courage and the ability, the time has come to prove you are worthy to be called samurai of the
Niten Ichi Ryū
. And those who do will progress on to the Two Heavens without the need for further training.’

Jack had an inkling of what the Two Heavens was. He’d heard it was Masamoto’s secret martial art technique and that only the very best students were given the privilege of learning from the great man himself. But beyond that the Two Heavens remained a mystery.

‘The Circle of Three, as tradition dictates, will commence when the winds blow the cherry blossom from the branches,’ continued Masamoto. ‘Those of you who believe you are ready to meet the Circle’s three challenges of Mind, Body and Spirit should log their names with Sensei Kyuzo at the end of this evening. A series of four selection trials will then be held at first snowfall to test your strength, skill, intellect and courage. The five students deemed the best in these trials will go through to the Circle.’

Masamoto spread his arms wide so that the sleeves of his flame-red kimono appeared to transform him into the fiery phoenix of his
kamon
.

‘Be warned! The Circle of Three is not to be entered into lightly. It demands you understand the seven virtues of
bushido
if you are to have any hope of surviving.’ The great warrior paused, his gaze taking in all his students. ‘So tell me what is
bushido
?’

‘Rectitude! Courage! Benevolence! Respect! Honesty! Honour! Loyalty!’
boomed the students down the
Chō-no-ma
.

Masamoto nodded with satisfaction. ‘And it is the virtue of courage that you will need most,’ he cautioned. ‘So during these coming months of training, remember this:
learn today so that you may live tomorrow!’

With the declaration of the school’s maxim, Masamoto brought the address to an end and the students thundered their response.

‘MASAMOTO! MASAMOTO! MASAMOTO!’

The refrain died away and servants entered, carrying several long lacquered tables. These were laid in two rows that stretched the entire length of the
Chō-no-ma
. Jack seated himself between Akiko and Yamato, feeling a small thrill that they weren’t positioned right next to the entrance. They were no longer the new students and this meant that they had moved several symbolic places nearer the head table.

Jack always enjoyed ceremonial dinners. The formality of such events demanded that a vast array of dishes be provided in honour of the guest. On this occasion,
sushi
was high on the menu, alongside
tofu
, noodles,
tempura
, bowls of miso soup, pickled yellow
daikon
and purple eggplant. Steaming pots of
sencha
were accompanied by vast quantities of rice piled high in bowls across their table. The centrepiece was an overflowing plate of sliced eel, grilled and smothered in a sticky red sauce.

‘Itadakimasu!’
proclaimed Masamoto.

‘Itadakimasu!’
responded the students, picking up their
hashi
and tucking into the banquet.

Despite the delicious spread, Jack was distracted from the meal by his desperate desire to know more about the Circle of Three. Everybody else, though, was focused upon devouring the feast before them.

‘Jack, you should try the
unagi
,’ suggested Saburo, a slightly rotund, plain-looking boy with a chubby face made even chubbier by a mouthful of food.

Jack looked doubtfully across the table at his friend, whose thick black eyebrows bounced up and down in unison with his enthusiastic chewing of a grey stringy lump of eel’s liver. It didn’t look particularly appetizing, thought Jack, but he could remember the first time he’d been faced with
sushi
. The thought of uncooked fish had almost turned his stomach over, whereas now he relished the soft, succulent flesh of tuna, mackerel and salmon. Eel’s liver, though, was another matter.

‘It’s good for your health,’ Akiko reassured him, spooning some rice into her bowl, but avoiding the eel herself.

Jack tentatively picked up a grey lump and lowered it into his mouth. When he bit into the liver, he almost gagged at the intensity of the flavour. It was as if a thousand wriggling eels had exploded on his tongue.

He forced a grimace of a smile for Akiko’s benefit and kept chewing. The eel’s liver had
better
be good for his health, he thought.

‘So who’s going to enter for the Circle of Three?’ Saburo blurted between mouthfuls, expressing what was clearly on everyone’s minds.

‘Not me!’ replied Kiku. ‘I heard a student died last time.’

Beside her, Yori, a small mouse-like boy, gave a wide-eyed look of dread and shook his head vigorously in response to Saburo’s question.

‘That’s just a rumour spread by the sensei to scare us,’ reassured Akiko, giving Yori an encouraging smile.

‘No, it’s not. My father’s expressly forbidden me from entering,’ said Kiku. ‘He told me it’s needlessly dangerous.’

‘But what exactly
is
the Circle?’ asked Jack.

‘The Circle of Three,’ explained Akiko, putting down her
hashi
, ‘are the three highest peaks in the Iga mountain range where trainee samurai face the three challenges of Mind, Body and Spirit.’

‘So what are the challenges?’

Akiko shook her head apologetically. ‘I don’t know. They’re kept a secret.’

‘Whatever they are,’ said Yamato, ‘my father will be expecting
me
to enter, so I guess I’ll find out first hand. What about you, Saburo? Are you going to enter?’

‘I’m considering it,’ replied Saburo, swallowing down another piece of
unagi
.

‘That means no. Obviously, you’re too scared! How about you, Jack?’

Jack thought for a moment as Saburo sat open-mouthed, uncertain whether to protest or not. ‘I don’t know. Is it worth the risk? I know it leads to the Two Heavens, but I’m still not sure what the Two Heavens actually is.’

‘Jack, you’ve seen the Two Heavens,’ stated Akiko.

Jack gave her a perplexed look. ‘When?’

‘On the beach in Toba. Remember how Masamoto-sama fought against the samurai Godai? He used both the
katana
and the
wakizashi
, rather than just his
katana
sword. That is the Two Heavens. The technique is extremely difficult to master, but when you do, you are virtually invincible.’

‘My father fought over sixty duels while on his warrior pilgrimage,’ announced Yamato proudly. ‘Not once was he defeated.’

Jack’s mind began to race.

He’d been made aware that he needed to become a better swordsman. By succeeding in the Circle of Three, he would be given the opportunity to be taught by both Sensei Hosokawa
and
Masamoto. Not only that, he would learn how to use
two
swords. The idea filled him with hope. For if he could master the Two Heavens, then he would be invincible like Masamoto. No longer would he need to fear the return of Dragon Eye.

‘Are all students who conquer the Circle taught the technique of Two Heavens?’ asked Jack.

‘Yes, of course,’ replied Akiko.

Jack smiled. Surely the Circle of Three was the solution to his predicament.

‘Then I will enter.’

‘
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-no-ma
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
Taryu-Jiai
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.