Chapter 9: The Skillet and the Ronin

Hanae found the note in the lantern's wire frame, folded small, with the paper still damp from the dew.

She had run all the way downstairs in her nightgown, with her braid half undone, barefoot on the cold boards.

The note was written in a heavy, careful hand.

Sword Saint. I have walked forty days to meet you.

I will be in the field beyond the fence at sunrise. Come, or I will come in.

She read it twice.

Then she looked out the open front door, and her heart turned over.

The field beyond the fence was grey and silver with frost.

Two men stood in it, thirty paces apart.

One was a stranger in a patched brown coat, thick through the shoulders.

He had a scar across his nose and a long sword already bare in his hand.

The other was Jiro.

He was in his shirtsleeves, with his coat folded neatly over the fence rail.

He had the grey cloth sword in his right hand, still wrapped from end to end, and the knot at the hilt still tied.

He had not drawn it.

He had walked out past the edge of the lantern's light, to the last post of the fence.

He would not break her rule.

Hanae stood frozen in the doorway with her bare feet on the step.

"Fight," said the stranger.

"I will not draw on you," Jiro said. "But I will meet you, if that is the thing you need."

"Then you mock me."

"No."

"Then fight!"

The stranger charged.

He was quick, for a big man.

Jiro swung the wrapped sword up and across.

The blades met with a flat crack that carried over the frost.

He turned the second cut aside.

He turned the third.

He moved, lazy and certain, with no wasted step.

For a few breaths Hanae saw what the kingdom had seen for twelve years, the thing that made men write songs.

The stranger roared and brought down a cut from high over his head.