Young Samurai: The Ring of Sky (26 page)

Jack swallowed nervously as the
troupe’s three musicians unpacked their instruments and waited for his cue to
begin. Akiko and Miyuki reluctantly stepped away from him, wondering what he would do. A
refusal to dance would arouse further suspicion and stop them boarding the ferry.
Retreating to Kumamoto simply wasn’t an option. And drawing their weapons to fight
the samurai could only be a last resort since it would risk the lives of the entire
troupe.

Jack had no choice but to dance.

Slipping off his
geta
, Jack took
his position in the middle of the road. He gave a hesitant nod and the music struck up.
Its rhythm and melody were strange to his Western ears. He couldn’t distinguish
any definite beat and the song seemed to unfurl with no obvious breaks or repeat of
theme.

As he stood swaying uncertainly, at a loss how
to even begin, he felt the eyes of the samurai boring into him.

‘If this is
kabuki
, you can
keep it. My dog dances better than this girl!’ the harbour guard grumbled.

Jack realized he had to attempt
something
, however lame. He couldn’t hope to reproduce Junjun’s
spellbinding performance, but since none of the samurai had ever seen
kabuki
before it didn’t matter what he did, as long as it was convincing. And Jack knew
only one type of dance – a sailor’s jig.

Taking up his long sleeves in his hands like
hankies, he began to skip to the music. Waving his arms backwards and forwards and
jumping in the air, he tried to remember the moves Ginsel, the Dutchman on-board the
Alexandria
, had taught him. He twirled one sleeve then the next. He bobbed
up and down. Spun on the spot with his hands planted on his hips. Kicked out with his
left foot. Hopped on his right. In his head, he imagined the lively tune of a fiddle and
whistle and pranced enthusiastically before the harbour guard, with a fixed grin on his
face.

Okuni and her dancing troupe watched his
performance with a mix of shock, fascination and utter bewilderment. Akiko and Miyuki
both smiled encouragingly, but their expressions were strained to the limit. Saburo
shook his head in doomed despair, while Benkei was barely able to conceal his mirth.
Only Yori tried his best to clap along, acting as if he knew the dance.

But the harbour guard and his men observed
the performance in stony-faced silence.

Jack now threw himself into the jig with an
almost desperate energy. Jumping around like a firecracker, he
slapped
his thighs, clapped his hands, tapped his feet and circled his sleeves above his head.
The samurai grew even more dumbstruck by this flailing attempt at a dance. Even the
musicians trailed off as his crazy jig distracted them from their playing.

Panting heavily, Jack pirouetted to a stop,
then bowed with a dramatic flourish of the sleeves.

A deathly silence hung in the air. The
harbour guard cocked his head to one side and looked Jack up and down.

‘We’re as good as dead,’
whispered Miyuki, reaching for the throwing knife hidden in her kimono sleeve.

Of the same opinion, Akiko stealthily edged
towards her horse to grab her weapons.

Then a wide-mouthed grin creased the harbour
guard’s face and he roared with laughter, a full-throated guffaw bending him
double. He was quickly joined by the other samurai, who all began belly-laughing at the
spectacle they’d just witnessed. Wiping the tears from his eyes, the harbour guard
chortled, ‘That’s the … 
funniest
dance … I’ve ever seen! No wonder your troupe is so famous!’

Almost helpless with laughter, he raised the
bamboo barrier and ushered them through.

For a moment, Jack simply stood there,
stunned by the samurai’s reaction to his earnest efforts at a dance. The jig
wasn’t supposed to be funny.

Unable to believe their good fortune, Miyuki
urged him onwards and the troupe hurried through the checkpoint and into the
harbour.

‘Well done, Jack,’ praised Yori.
‘I never knew you could dance so well.’

Jack smiled wryly at him. Yori was a loyal
friend but a terrible liar.

‘That wasn’t dancing,’
remarked Benkei. ‘That was a lethal form of martial arts – death by
laughter!’

‘Remind me never to ask
you
for a dance, Jack!’ quipped Saburo.

‘Who says I’d even
accept!’ Jack shot back, feigning offence at the jibes.

‘Good or bad, your performance saved
us a fight,’ said Miyuki, glancing over her shoulder to check none of the harbour
guards were following them. ‘And we certainly don’t want to leave any trail
for
daimyo
Kato to follow. As far as he’s concerned, you two could have
escaped in any direction.’

‘Do you think he knows by now?’
asked Yori, his staff jingling as they made their way along the harbour side.

‘Possibly. But if not, he soon will.
They change the guards at dawn.’

‘Then let’s find this ferry and
get out of here,’ urged Akiko.

The dock was relatively quiet, with just the
local fishermen at work this early in the morning. In no time at all, they found the
ferry that was leaving first. Although the captain had barely woken, he was only too
keen to have such glamorous passengers on-board his vessel. Lowering the gangplank, he
welcomed each of the girls personally and offered them prime seats near the prow. The
ferry was a large open-decked ship with room for some sixty passengers plus cargo. The
crew helped transfer the troupe’s belongings on-board and there was even a stall
for Akiko’s horse. As the girls made themselves comfortable, Jack had a quick
glance round the vessel and was relieved to discover that not only did it possess a
large canvas sail but a
dozen burly oarsmen sat ready to power the
ferry. That meant they wouldn’t be reliant upon the wind to depart – which could
be an essential factor if they needed to make a quick getaway.

Once settled, the troupe could do nothing
but wait for the ferry to cast off. But that wouldn’t happen until the captain had
enough passengers. Jack and his friends sat in silence, aware that every passing minute
further endangered their lives. A steady trickle of travellers and merchants began
arriving and the captain’s crew busied themselves loading the cargo hold with
rice, salt, ceramics, bamboo and various other goods for shipment to Shimabara. But
their progress towards departure seemed painstakingly slow.

The sun poked its head above the horizon and
its golden rays clipped the top of Kumamoto Castle. At that moment, the peace of dawn
was shattered by the sound of clanging bells.

42
 
 

‘Wakey-wakey,
daimyo
!’
said Benkei with a grim smile. ‘Your guests are gone.’

Jack and his friends exchanged uneasy looks
at the continuing klaxon of noise.

‘I doubt they welcome in the dawn like
this every day,’ said Saburo.

‘We’ve still a little time
before any patrol gets here,’ reminded Akiko, glancing up the road in the
direction of Kumamoto. Clusters of travellers queued for the checkpoint, but there were
no samurai charging down to the harbour … not yet anyway.

‘The ferry’s almost full,’
said Yori hopefully. The crew had finished loading the cargo and the captain was
welcoming the last few groups of passengers on-board as the alarm bells rang on.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ replied
Miyuki. ‘The harbour guard’s bound to stop any ships leaving now.’

‘They’ve already closed the
checkpoint,’ Akiko noted with growing concern.

Jack leant over the side of the ferry.
‘There’s a small fishing boat moored next to us. We could try to escape in
that.’

‘Not after last time!’ pleaded
Saburo, his face turning decidedly green at the prospect of another bout of seasickness,
pirates and storms.

‘The fishing boat might be our only
option,’ said Miyuki, directing everyone’s attention back to the road.

In the distance, a unit of samurai were
marching double-time towards the harbour.

The captain caught sight of the patrol.
‘Not
another
military drill,’ he moaned. ‘Cast off now,
otherwise we’ll be stuck here all day.’

Drawing in the gangplank, the crew raised
the anchor, set the main sail and unhitched the ropes from the dockside. The offshore
breeze proved too light to move the ship, so the oarsmen took up their positions and dug
their paddles deep into the water. But the fully laden vessel was slow to pull away from
the quay. Meanwhile, the samurai were drawing nearer and nearer.

Jack was reminded of the race between the
tortoise and the hare. But
this time the hare was going to win.

As the oarsmen got into their stride, the
ferry gained momentum and headed for the mouth of the harbour. The samurai, seeing the
ship depart, were now running down the road. Jack silently willed the oarsmen to row
harder, each stroke promising them freedom. The patrol reached the checkpoint and
interrogated the harbour guard. He appeared to shake his head, then could be seen
attempting to dance a jig. The patrol leader pushed past him and ran on to the dock,
gesturing for the captain to turn back, but by this time the ferry was out of the
harbour and beyond hailing distance.

Jack and his friends sat down and breathed a
collective sigh of relief. They’d escaped by the skin of their teeth. Sensing this
was a moment to celebrate, the musicians took out their instruments again and started to
play. The music inspired some of the girls to dance and they launched into an impromptu
performance – much to the delight of the crew and passengers on-board.

But Jack experienced a growing sense of
unease. He wondered whether they had
really
escaped scot-free. The harbour
guard had evidently been convinced by his dance. But would
daimyo
Kato, when
his samurai reported back to him, suspect the
kabuki
troupe had been involved?
Or did he already believe they were? The troupe’s appearance at his castle and the
simultaneous breakout of his prisoners could arguably be coincidence. There was no
obvious connection between the two. But, in the eyes of an astute and cunning
daimyo
, a well-planned subterfuge might be seen. Whatever the case, Jack
would feel happier once he was out of the
kabuki
costume and there was no clear
link to Okuni and her troupe.

While the impromptu show continued, Jack
scanned the wide expanse of bay that marked the bottleneck of the inland Ariake Sea. No
boats pursued their ferry, which could only be a good sign. And the stretch of water
before them was clear all the way to their destination on the opposite side. Maybe they
did
have a reason to celebrate …

Once out in open water, the breeze stiffened
and the ferry powered steadily through the waves towards Shimabara. The
castle port shimmered on the horizon, overshadowed by the mountainous and scarred
Unzen-dake. The menacing cone-shaped volcano rose out of the water like a devil’s
fang, its smouldering peak biting into the clear blue sky and spitting out sulphurous
clouds.

An ominous feeling seized Jack, as if
something, not necessarily the volcano, would soon erupt with devastating
consequences.

‘This voyage had better be
short,’ said Saburo, holding his head in his hands and groaning.

‘Still haven’t found your sea
legs then?’ replied Jack, dragging his eyes away from the brooding volcano.

‘I must have lost them during that
storm!’ He attempted a smile but failed miserably.

Jack gave an involuntary shudder as he
recalled the ferocious tempest that had nearly killed them all. Despite the favourable
conditions in the bay now, being at sea again brought the nightmare vividly back. He
looked at his friends. ‘I truly thought you’d all drowned.’

‘We thought
you
had
drowned,’ said Yori, sitting close by his side on the rough wooden deck.
‘When you disappeared beneath that wave, I … I …’ He was
unable to finish the sentence as emotion choked his voice.

Jack laid a comforting hand on his
friend’s shoulder. ‘I understand. I felt the same way when I washed up on
the beach and found the three of you gone. So how
did
you survive?’

‘Your decision to tie us to the skiff
saved our lives,’ explained Miyuki. ‘Even though exhaustion and the cold
nearly killed us, when the storm had passed a fisherman spotted our capsized boat. He
hauled us on-board and took us back to shore. For
the next few days,
we recovered in his fishing village. We believed you were dead until we heard the
stories of the Golden-Haired Devil of Beppu.’ Miyuki grinned. ‘We knew that
could
only
be you!’

‘But I’ve been on the run ever
since. How did you find me here?’

As he asked the question, Jack realized he
already knew the answer: she was sitting right opposite him.

‘Miyuki tracked you, of course!’
replied Yori, his tone expressing respect and awe at her skills. ‘Your arrest in
Yufuin. The missing prayer flag. The cut rope bridge. The search parties around Aso
–’