They were finishing their meal when raucous laughter burst from a table nearby. Three gentlemen, merry on ale, were glancing in their direction and making comments loud enough to be overheard. One of them, a fellow with a tight crop of copper-red hair and a preened moustache, and wearing a lace ruff so broad and stiff that it looked like his head was on a plate, remarked, ‘I thought the Globe Theatre was across the river. These players must have forgotten the way back to the stage!’

He sniggered at his own humour. His companions joined in too.

‘With such wit, sir, you should be on the stage,’ said his portly friend, whose flushed cheeks were almost as plum-red as his lavish velvet waistcoat.

‘Too right,’ agreed the other man, snorting a laugh and quaffing from his tankard. Tall and thin with long lank hair like combed flax, he peered down his hooked beak of a nose at his friend. ‘You could be Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.’

The red-haired fellow grinned beneath his curled moustache. ‘And those three over there could play the fools in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The lad could be Bottom; the monk could be Flute the bellows-mender (he lacks a beard and he’s already wearing a dress!); and the China woman, she could –’

‘Akiko is Japanese,’ Jack interrupted sharply, his patience at an end. ‘And a samurai. So show some respect.’

‘A what?’ smirked the moustachioed gentleman.

Jack narrowed his eyes. ‘A samurai. A warrior of the military class in Japan. Like our English knights.’

Dismissing Akiko’s slight frame with a single look, the man raised an incredulous eyebrow, then turned to his friends. ‘A girl knight! Pull the other one, eh?’

The whole group fell about laughing.

‘These folk aren’t from the theatre, that’s for sure,’ chuckled the portly red-faced man. ‘They’re mad! Must’ve escaped from Bedlam.’

‘Or else had one too many ales!’ guffawed the hook-nosed fellow, raising his own tankard to his lips again.

By now, other drinkers in the tavern had fallen silent, their attention drawn by the boisterous laughter. Incensed that he and his friends were being ridiculed so publicly, Jack rose from his seat. But Akiko laid a hand on his arm. ‘Ignore them,’ she urged. ‘We’ve had enough trouble for one day.’

Jack fumed. The gentlemen’s behaviour was unacceptable. Yet again his fellow countrymen had let him down. This wasn’t the impression he wanted Akiko and Yori to have of England. Nonetheless he retook his seat, but not before the moustachioed man had spotted the katana and wakizashi on his hip.

‘What’s that you’re bearing?’ he demanded.

‘My daishō,’ Jack replied tersely.

The man frowned suspiciously. ‘Look like swords to me. And in London no one may carry a sword unless he’s been knighted.’ He swivelled slightly in his chair to reveal a long slim rapier attached to his own belt.