He seriously regretted his decision to take the mountain route. He may have evaded the Shogun’s samurai, but he’d barely made it over Funasaka Pass alive. During the night the weather had turned harsh, battering him into submission and forcing him down the mountainside.

The icy gusts cut through his silk kimono straight to the bone like knives. Jack clasped his body for warmth, his head down to the wind, his thin straw hat offering poor protection against the stinging snow. Upon his hip rattled the two red-handled samurai swords his best friend, Akiko, had given him. Slung across his back was the pack that contained her black pearl, five shuriken stars and, most importantly, his father’s rutter – the priceless navigational logbook he’d fought tooth and nail to keep safe. Yet, however precious these items were to him, they were now like lead weights round his neck.

Cold, tired and hungry, Jack felt the last of his strength ebbing away.

Glancing up to get his bearings, there was nothing to see. The landscape was shrouded in a thick blanket of white, the sky swallowed up by endless grey clouds. Behind him, his lone track of footprints was already disappearing beneath a new veil of snow.

At least I’m off the mountain, he thought, taking in the vast featureless expanse of the Okayama Plain. Perhaps I should rest awhile. Let the snow cover my body. No one would find me, not even Kazuki –

Jack shook himself. He couldn’t allow such self-defeating thoughts to overwhelm him. Fighting his exhaustion, he focused on the burning hope in his heart: of returning home to his sister Jess.

Since leaving his friends – the samurai Ronin and the girl thief Hana – he’d been making good progress with his escape to Nagasaki, the southern port where he hoped to find a ship bound for England. Miraculously, he’d passed unscathed through the outskirts of Osaka. He’d then followed the coastal road, avoiding all the samurai checkpoints, to reach the castle town of Himeji. Here Jack made his first mistake. Having run short of supplies, he’d risked buying some rice in a market with the last of his coins. But the Shogun’s samurai were everywhere – on the lookout for foreigners, in particular a gaijin samurai. Although he’d tried to keep his face hidden, Jack was spotted and forced to flee. For the next three days, troops of samurai were hard on his trail. He only managed to lose them when, using his ninja stealth skills, he broke from the coastal road and headed deep into the mountains.

But that decision now looked to be the end of him.

Praying for shelter, Jack stumbled on blindly through the snowstorm. Twice he fell to the ground and got back up again. On the third time, his body simply gave in – the lack of food, sleep and warmth finally taking its toll.