The bailiff, however, ignored his pleas. The crowd grew anxiously quiet as the seconds passed, then minutes. No movement could be discerned in the pond’s depths. Finally the bailiff gave the command to raise the stool. A limp and lifeless form came up. Weeds clung to Akiko’s hair like green braids. Sludge spattered her gown in sorry streaks. And white reeds garlanded her head, as if she already lay in her grave.

‘NO!’ screamed Jack in agony. ‘NO!’

Yori mournfully bowed his head, screwed his eyes tight shut and sobbed out a prayer for Akiko.

With solemn slowness, they pivoted the chair back over dry land and deposited Akiko’s body on the bank. Her bindings still held her upright, but her head lolled unnaturally to one side. Her skin had a bluish tinge and there were no signs of her breathing. The bailiff briefly inspected her, then declared, ‘The girl is no witch.’

‘Of course she isn’t!’ cried Jack, tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘She was my friend! My dearest friend!’

Thunder rolled in the distance and dark clouds smothered the setting sun. As heavy drops of rain began to fall from the darkening sky, the crowd silently dispersed.

The bailiff walked over and rested his hand on Jack’s shoulder, for a moment appearing to console him. Then he said, ‘Tomorrow you shall be whipped.’

As the jangle of the bailiff’s keys faded up the street, Jack wept. His tears mixed with the rain until his whole world seemed to swim in despair. Akiko’s silhouetted form was slumped in the ducking stool, her body abandoned by the townsfolk, who were more eager to take shelter from the storm than to lay her to rest.

Yori was curled up in an awkward ball, his feet still pinned by the stocks. His chest rose and fell with soft sobs of sorrow. ‘Akiko is … dead,’ he moaned. ‘How can a light so bright … ever be put out?’

Jack, too grief-stricken to reply, clenched his fists and trembled with fury. His one true love had been drowned by the ignorance and unfounded fear of his fellow countrymen. What a fool he had been to invite Akiko and Yori to England! What reception had he imagined they would receive? As a stranger in Japan, he himself had been the subject of discrimination, ridicule, torture – even threats of burning and beheading. Why on earth had he imagined it would be any different for Akiko and Yori in England? While it had been the bailiff who’d sentenced Akiko to trial by water, ultimately he was to blame for her death: he had brought her here, he had put her in danger.

Jack let out an anguished cry; the pain of the pillory was nothing compared to the pain in his heart.

But no one heard him above the downpour – not even the gatekeeper, huddled in his hut beside the town gate, a little down the road from the marketplace.