Jack smiled warmly at her wonderment. Akiko’s love of nature was just one of the many things he admired about her, along with her kindness, her steely resolve and her skill with a bow. Like a katana wrapped in silk, she was slim, elegant and razor sharp.

‘What’s that?’ asked Yori, peering over the gunwale. Standing on tiptoe, he pointed at the formidable drum-towered castle commanding the river’s north bank.

‘The Tower of London,’ replied Jack.

‘We must go there!’ Yori said enthusiastically, his eyes widening.

Jack glanced ruefully at his dear friend. ‘I don’t think we’d wish to visit there willingly. It’s a prison for traitors.’

‘Oh …’ said Yori, his eager expression deflating like a balloon. ‘Perhaps another castle then.’

As the Hosiander docked at Somers Quay, they were met by the grim sight of four men hanging by their necks from a gibbet, their feet dangling in the water, their eyes pecked out by crows.

Akiko and Yori exchanged an anxious look, but Jack attempted a reassuring smile. ‘They’re probably pirates. Don’t worry – we’ll receive a far friendlier reception.’

With the gangway lowered, Jack led the way down on to the wharf and planted his feet on English soil for the first time in seven years. ‘Home at last!’ he exclaimed, his heart bursting with joy at being back in his own country.

Yori tottered down the gangplank after him, using his shakujō staff to keep his balance as he adjusted to the sudden stillness of dry land. Akiko joined him too and immediately wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s that smell?’

Jack drew in a deep breath … and almost gagged. The city air was putrid and stagnant compared to the fresh breeze of the open ocean. A strong waft of pitch from the shipyards in Wapping mingled with the stench of countless middens, piled high with human waste, in the streets. To make matters worse, the reek of boiling vats of urine, for making alum, blended with the putrid fumes of the leather tanneries to concoct a stink so bad that it turned all their stomachs. After so many years away, Jack had forgotten how foul-smelling daily life was in London.

‘I think it might be what Jack is standing in,’ said Yori, pointing his shakujō staff at the noxious pile surrounding Jack’s feet.

Akiko grimaced. ‘Ah, horse sh–’

‘Yes,’ Jack cut in, ‘quite right.’ The long twelve-month voyage back to England had given Akiko and Yori the opportunity to learn English and both were now fluent – although Jack considered some of the words the sailors had taught Akiko improper for a lady.

‘I guess … only the reddest rose grows in the most fertile soil!’ said Yori jovially as Jack scraped the muck from his sandals, his face reddening at his undignified arrival on English shores.

‘Oi, I like your skirt!’