The Exiled Sword Saint Hired Me to Cook, Not to Fight novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Pickled Radish

The village rice-seller will not cross the gate, and Tomoe learns what they say about the saint. A burned thumb in the kitchen ends in Shiori's mouth and a first kiss, and then Shiori backs away.

The rice-seller stopped his cart at the dojo gate and would not come in.

Tomoe went out to the road with an empty basket and her sleeves tied back.

"Ten bags," she said. "And I'll take the miso and the dried mackerel, if you have it."

"Leave the silver on the post." The old man looked past her at the dark hall.

"I'll leave the sacks on the other side of the wall."

"It's thirty steps to the kitchen."

"Then you carry them."

"Why won't you come in?"

He glanced over his shoulder.

"They say she cut down forty men in one night. On the north road. Before the Council took her title." He lowered his voice.

"They say she can do it without touching the sword."

Tomoe looked at the old man's shaking mittens.

"She ate three bowls of porridge this morning," she said. "She asked for pickles."

"That's how they get you."

"Go home," Tomoe said, not unkindly. "Bring the mackerel tomorrow."

She carried the sacks in two trips.

By the second trip her arms burned, and a tall figure was waiting at the kitchen door.

"Give me that," Shiori said.

She lifted the sack of rice from Tomoe's shoulder.

"You heard him," Tomoe said.

"The wall is thin."

"It's a rumor. There's no such thing as a saint who cuts men without touching a sword."

"I know the move," Shiori said. "I did not kill forty men."

"How many?"

"Seven. They came for a village. I do not talk about it."

She set the sack on the floor and stood with her hands hanging.

Tomoe thought about seven men and a village.

She decided she did not need to ask any more questions today.

"Come help me with the radishes," she said.

Shiori followed her into the kitchen.

They stood side by side at the board.

Tomoe showed her how to salt the sliced radish and press it under a stone.

Shiori's hands were large and quick, and she cut as cleanly as Tomoe did,.

"Your knife work is wasted on the pickles."

"Nothing a good cook makes is wasted. Watch." Tomoe took a daikon and turned it in her left hand.

The blade went through it in one long peel as thin as paper.

"You can read through that."

Shiori held the peel up to the window.

Light came through it, milk-white.

"I never saw a cut like that," she said.

"Eleven years of practice."

"I have practiced sixteen." Shiori put the peel down. "I cannot do that."

"You could. You have the wrists for it."

Tomoe reached for the pot just as the stove popped.

A coal spat, and her thumb touched the hot iron rim.

She hissed and snatched her hand back.

"Let me see," Shiori said.

"It's nothing."

"Let me."

Shiori caught her wrist.

Her fingers were cool and sure.

She turned the thumb to the light, where the skin was red and already rising in a blister.

Then she raised it, and before Tomoe could say a word she put it in her mouth.

Her tongue was cool against the burn.

Tomoe forgot to breathe.

Shiori looked up at her through lowered lashes, and held her wrist, and did not let go.

When she took the thumb away the burn throbbed less, and everything else in Tomoe throbbed more.

"Shiori," she said.

"I know."

"You don't know what I was going to say."

"I think you were going to say my name." Shiori's voice had gone rough. "I would like you to say it again."

Tomoe said it again.

Her free hand went up to Shiori's face, over the old scar, and the saint closed her eyes.

Then Tomoe went up on her toes, and Shiori bent down, and their mouths met.

It was a careful kiss at first.

She kissed like someone who had not been kissed in a very long time and did not know what to do with her hands.

Then Tomoe tugged her by the front of her robe and it stopped being careful.

The stone slid off the radish board.

Salt scattered over the floor.

Shiori's back found the wall.

Her hand found the thick braid at Tomoe's back and closed in it.

A soft broken sound came out of her mouth.

Tomoe pulled back to see her face.

Shiori's eyes were wet.

"Shiori."

"I can't," Shiori said.

She had let go.

She stepped back with her hands held out from her body.

"I am sorry. I cannot do this."

"Why?"

"It is not you." Her eyes went over Tomoe's shoulder, to the hall, to the scroll on the far wall.

"I keep an oath. I have kept it for twenty-three years. It is the only thing I was ever given."

The kitchen went still.

The stove ticked.

Tomoe wiped her lip with her thumb, and the burn stung.

"All right," she said.

Shiori blinked. "All right?"

"I'm not going to argue with a woman about her promises on the second day."

Tomoe picked up the salt stone and put it on the radish.

"But it's going to be a cold night, Shiori. Colder than last night. You know that."

"I will sleep in the hall."

"You will not. You'll freeze, and I'll have to find another job." Tomoe turned back to the board and picked up the knife.

"Go to bed when you're tired. I'm warming it either way."

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