“Lady O was a Catholic rogue. Converted two years ago. She told her mother that she valued this teaching over blood relation.”
“Catholic?” The teaching that was prohibited and punishable by death, knowledge smuggled in from the West. “And you didn’t think to tell the police?”
“It had nothing to do with her murder. You must swear not to tell this to anyone, or Matron Kim will sell me off like a dog as soon as the inquisition is over. I’m sure that Lady O’s lover killed her. It is him you need to find.” Dragging her skirt down, she whispered, “So many questions from you.”
“I am just curious.”
“No, it is more than curiosity.”
Her words crept into me like a deep chill, and it took a moment for me to realize that she was right.
“Mere curiosity, truly,” I repeated, rising to my feet and slowly dusting off the strands of straw, my thoughts drifting away until I found myself staring at the deep pool of my past. A pool I was frightened to reach into and touch—afraid of smoothing my fingers around the edges of something awful.
FOUR
“SST!”
I stepped out of the police bureau after taking my midday meal, ordered by the chief maid to shop for her. It was then that I saw a bright-eyed girl with a tiny face and an even tinier pair of lips. Her dress was elegant, yet the colors were subdued, not brilliant like a noblewoman’s. Likely a servant of a wealthy household. Seeing no one else around, I pointed at my chest. Me?
“Yes, you. My mistress has summoned you.”
I held the market basket between us. “How do you know who I am?”
She pointed at her cheek, where my own face was marked. “It’s impossible not to know who you are.”
“And who is your mistress?”
The tiny lips emitted a high, cheerful voice. “My mistress said you journeyed with her from Mount Inwang to the fortress gate.”
I nearly dropped the basket. The mysterious noblewoman. Why did she wish to see me? I remembered the books that had spilled out, the men on edge. It would be wise to turn away, yet even as I thought this, my feet followed the maid.
“I am called Woorim.” She faltered in her steps, glancing over her shoulder. “Are you permitted to leave freely? I can wait for you outside if you wish to tell your superior.”
“I’m not imprisoned in the police bureau,” I said. “So long as I finish my duties.”
“I suppose so. I see damos wandering in and out of the bureau as they please. I, too, am free to wander and explore the capital. My mistress permits me.”
I remembered the lady disguised as a man, her cart full of secret books. “What kind of person is your mistress?” I asked.
“A benevolent one,” she said. “The anchor cable can measure the depth of the four seas, but nothing can measure the depth of my lady’s kindness!”
She had a flair for language, words from a scholar’s brush, not usual for such a servant. My own mouth was filled with eloquent words, but only because I’d stolen them from Older Sister. Whom had Woorim stolen her words from?
“Do you know how to read?” I asked.
“Omo, how did you know?”
“Your mistress taught you, I suppose.”
Woorim’s eyes turned even rounder. The dainty lips smiled. “Not just me.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear this anymore, but the philosophy felt dangerous now. What better way to defy the role of servants than to teach them how to read and write? To equip them with the same knowledge and power as their own masters and mistresses?
My stream of thoughts was interrupted by a servant calling out, “Make way, make way for Councillor Ch’oi!”
Woorim and I dropped to our knees at once and pressed our foreheads to the dirt, listening as the servant continued to call out, “Make way for the Third State Councillor!”
I shifted my head just enough to catch a glance. Four bearers carried a sedan chair, in it a middle-aged man with a short black beard and a forehead wrinkled from years of strife. Despite his beaten appearance, he was handsome, with his high nose, squared jaw, and intelligent eyes. He was all shoulders and straight back, holding himself regally, not a limb in his body slouching.
Councillor Ch’oi, father of Young Master Ch’oi Jinyeop. They could not have seemed more alike and yet different.
As the sedan was lowered before the police bureau, someone tugged at my collar. I looked and saw Woorim already on her feet. As was everyone else. I jumped up and dusted off my skirt and palms. The sight of Councillor Ch’oi sharpened my attention on the questions floating around my mind as loose as cobwebs—about his son’s broken engagement to Lady O, her Catholic past, the last letter she’d received before her death. Were there any connections?
“How well do you know the nobles in Hanyang?” I asked.
Woorim’s eyes surveyed our surroundings, then stopped before a massive merchant shop, famous for its Chinese silk. Rolls of fabric glowed like seashells in the skylight. “Look there,” she said, pointing at a noblewoman whose face was veiled by sheer gauze hanging from her headdress, hidden from foreign men. The lady was examining the fabric and asking the shop assistant for a price.
“That is Lady Rhee,” Woorim said as she beckoned me to walk closer. “A shallow woman who only talks of fashion and men.” She cast a bragging smile my way. “I know almost all the noblewomen in the capital.”
“Then you knew Lady O.”
“Of course. She took tea with my mistress a few times. She seemed very sweet and cheerful.”
“But you must have heard the rumor that she had a lover,” I said. “Did you see Lady O in the company of a man?”
“Besides her father and younger brother, no. An unmarried lady like her isn’t permitted outside. You should know that. When she did go out, it was always hidden deep inside a palanquin.”
“Lady O could have snuck out alone.” As she had on the night of her murder.
Woorim shook her head. “I cannot imagine her dishonoring her family.”
I was talking in circles, getting nowhere. What would Inspector Han say to uncover what he wished?
“Councillor Ch’oi and his son have ties to Lady O’s household, do they not?”
“Oh yes,” Woorim replied. “The young master was betrothed to Lady O. That’s hardly a secret.”
“And if it were a secret,” I said slowly, “I suppose you would know it.”
A small, quick smile. “Perhaps.”
“And if you did not?”
She paused to think, then pointed down the road in the direction of Mount Inwang. “Keep walking that way until you see an inn with a red lantern. The innkeeper was once a gisaeng, a female entertainer favored by Councillor Ch’oi. Their love was the talk of Hanyang many years ago. Her name is Madam Song, and everyone calls her the storehouse of information.”
I’d seen that inn before, on the day I had run from the bureau. I’d learned from an acquaintance visiting Hanyang that Older Sister had fallen deathly ill, that her last words before passing out had been, I cannot die in peace without seeing my brother Inho. So, desperate to comfort her, I’d run and had spent an entire day traveling from shop to shop, showing people the sketch of my brother. It was by the day’s end that I’d finally reasoned that an innkeeper would know roads and towns … and where the dead were buried on the road from Inchon.