Jack watched the little boats in the harbour bob up and down, at a loss what to do next. Then the girl appeared, rising up out of the water like a mermaid. She had the same snowy white skin and jet-black hair as the girl he had seen at the temple with the white stallion.

Jack watched her slip into one of the boats closest to shore. A fisherman pulled in a bag loaded with oysters and, while she stood and dried herself, he prised the oysters open to search for pearls. She ran her hands through her hair, the seawater cascading off and reflecting the morning sunlight like a thousand tiny stars.

Even as the fisherman rowed across the harbour, the girl remained completely at ease with the swaying motion of the boat, her slender body moving with the grace of a willow tree. It was almost as if she was floating across the water. As the girl neared a little wooden jetty, Jack could clearly see her features. She wasn’t much older than he was. Blessed with soft, unblemished skin, her half-moon eyes were the colour of ebony, and beneath a small rounded nose was the blossom of a mouth, with lips like the petals of a red rose. If Jack had ever imagined a fairy-tale princess, she would have looked like this.

‘GAIJIN!’

Jack, snapping out of his daydream, looked up. Blinking into the bright sunlight, he saw two Japanese men standing over him, dressed in plain kimonos and thong sandals. One was squat with a round bulbous head and a flattened nose, while the other had tightly slit eyes and was as skinny as a rake.

‘Nani wo shiteru, gaijin?’ challenged Flat-Nose.

The thin man peered over his friend’s shoulder and prodded Jack sharply in the chest with a wooden staff.

‘Eh, gaijin?’ he chimed, in a thin reedy voice.

Jack tried to back away, but he had nowhere to go.

‘Onushi ittai doko kara kitanoda, gaijin?’ demanded Flat-Nose, who then tugged in cruel amazement at Jack’s blond hair.

‘Eh, gaijin?’ the thin man taunted, purposefully planting his staff on Jack’s fingers.

Jack snatched his hand away.

‘I… I don’t understand…’ he stammered and began desperately to search for a means of escape.

Flat-Nose grabbed Jack by the scruff of his kimono and jerked him up to eye level.

‘Nani?’ he spat into Jack’s face.

‘YAME!’

Jack barely registered the booming command, before Flat-Nose’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets, a hand knifing into the back of the man’s neck. Flat-Nose collapsed face first into the sand. He lay there motionless, even as the waves washed over him.

Taka-san, the young samurai from Jack’s house, having appeared from nowhere, now spun on Jack’s other assailant, withdrawing his sword in one fluid motion. The thin man threw himself to the ground, apologizing feverishly.

The sword cut through the air and arced down towards the prostrate man.

‘Iye! Taka-san. Dōzo,’ instructed another voice, and Taka-san stopped the sword barely an inch from the man’s exposed neck.