Left Behind by the Hero, I Opened an Inn and the Sword Saint Never Checked Out novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: No Blades Past the Lantern

Hanae bills the Sword Saint like any guest, hires Tamae, and stops a young duelist at the door with a ladle and a house rule. Hook: from the window, the guest says it is a good rule.

In the morning the rain had stopped, and the Sword Saint of the kingdom was sitting in her kitchen eating porridge.

Hanae stood at the stove with her arms crossed and looked at the back of his head.

He had come downstairs at dawn, without being called, and sat at the end of the long table.

His wrapped sword leaned against the wall next to him, and he ate slowly.

"You're the Sword Saint," she said.

"I was." He did not turn around. "The notice says so."

"The notice says you retired with honor."

"That is what it says."

"Then I'm going to treat you like any other guest," Hanae said. "Room Three, one night, four hundred coins with breakfast. Check-out is at noon."

He turned and looked at her.

His eyes were dark, and very steady, and there were deep lines at the corners that came from squinting into weather rather than from laughing.

"Four hundred," he said.

"My grandmother charged three hundred, but my grandmother had a roof."

For the first time, something moved at the edge of his mouth.

He put four hundred coins on the table, and then, after a moment, four hundred more.

"Another night?" she asked.

"If you'll have me."

"If you pay, I'll have you. Eat your porridge, it's getting cold."

He ate his porridge.

It was a quarter past seven when the back door banged open.

A stout old woman marched into the kitchen with a basket on her arm.

She wore a faded green apron and had her grey hair in a bun so tight it pulled her eyebrows up.

"Tamae!" said Hanae.

"I saw the lantern from my window last night," Tamae said.

"I thought, that girl has gone and done it. I said, she'll starve in a month, and I came to see."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence."

"Is this a leak?" Tamae pointed at the ceiling, where a brown stain had spread above the stove.

"Yes."

"Is that a swallow?"

"Yes."

"Is that a man?"

Hanae looked at the Sword Saint, who had gone politely still over his bowl.

"That's a guest," she said.

Tamae looked him up and down, from the grey at his temples to the mud on his boots.

"He's too thin," she announced. "I'll do the rice. You do the soup. Don't argue, I knew your grandmother, and I'm hired."

"I can't pay you yet."

"You can pay me in soup," Tamae said, tying her apron strings, and that was that.

By nine o'clock there was fresh rice, a pot of broth, and a broom.

The last of the swallows had given up and moved to the shed.

Hanae was nailing a board over the worst hole in the porch when she heard hooves on the road.

A young man was riding toward the fork on a thin brown horse.

He wore a faded travelling cloak and a sword at his hip.

He stopped in front of the lantern and looked up at the sign she had painted that morning.

TOMOSHIBI INN, it said, in crooked black letters.

"I heard in the last village that the Sword Saint came this way," the young man said. "Is he here?"

"It's an inn," Hanae said. "Do you want a room?"

"I want a duel."

She put down her hammer.

He swung off the horse. He was about nineteen, with a thin, hungry face, and his hand was already on his hilt.

"He's retired," the young man said. "They say his arm is broken."

"They say it's the best time to try him. If I beat the Sword Saint, I'll have a name."

"You'll have a funeral," Hanae said.

"Out of my way."

"Not past the lantern."

"What?"

She pointed at the board nailed beside the door, where she had written a second sign that morning.

NO BLADES PAST THE LANTERN. SWORDS GO ON THE RACK.

"House rule," she said. "Everybody leaves their sword on the rack. Princes, priests, debt collectors."

"You want a room or a meal or an answer, the sword goes on the rack."

"You can't stop me with a sign."

"I'm not using the sign."

She had picked up the long wooden ladle from the pot rack on her way out.

It was a good ladle, oak, nearly two feet long, and heavy enough to knock the lid off a boiling kettle from across the room.

The young man stared at it.

"You're going to fight me," he said slowly, "with a spoon?"

"I'm going to hit you with a spoon," Hanae said, "and then I'm going to ask you to leave."

Somewhere behind her a floorboard creaked.

The young man looked past her, up at the second-floor window, and his face changed.

The hand on his hilt let go.

"Is that him?"

"That's a guest," said Hanae. "And my guests are tired."

For ten long breaths nobody moved.

Then the young man took his horse by the bridle, and muttered something, and walked away down the river road.

Hanae lowered the ladle and found that her hand was shaking.

"That," said a low voice above her, "is a good rule."

She looked up.

The Sword Saint of the kingdom was leaning in the open window of Room Three, with his arms folded on the sill.

He was looking at her.

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