Chapter 13: The Pass

Hanae put the knife down on the board very carefully, so she would not use it on the wrong person.

"Why are you telling me?" she asked.

Shiori wrung her sleeves in both hands.

"Because I was there. I sewed him up on a table in a tent, and nobody thanked him."

"Go back," said Hanae. "Before they miss you."

The girl slipped out the way she had come.

Hanae stood in the pantry until her hands stopped shaking.

Then she went out and served the soldiers their second helping, and she looked Kaito in the eye every time.

At midnight the inn was dark.

The royal cooks snored in the corner of the kitchen on their bedrolls.

She did not wake them.

She lit one candle in the dining room and put barley tea on the little stove.

Then she sat at the long table with her flour-dusted hands folded.

She heard his step on the stairs before she saw him.

Long, unhurried, one foot a little heavier than the other.

Jiro stopped in the doorway in his shirtsleeves.

He looked at her face, and at the tea, and at the empty chair she had pulled out.

"Shiori," he said.

"Yes."

"I wondered whether she would."

"Sit down," said Hanae, "and tell me why you have no horse."

He sat.

He took the cup she poured and held it in his right hand without drinking.

For a long time the only sound was the rain starting again on the new tiles.

"Black Pass is a narrow road in the hills," Jiro said. "A month ago a demon raiding party came down it, forty strong."

"The Crown sent the Hero to meet them. It was his first real fight."

"I rode at his left, as I had for six months. That is where a teacher stands."