“Inspector Han was the blue-robed man who crossed paths with Maid Soyi. Isn’t it strange that he didn’t mention this encounter? Like he had something to hide?”
My pulse beat faster, a franticness dizzying me. “Y-you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You think you know something?” he hissed. “Everything’s in your head, it’s all an illusion. And I’ll make sure to smash it for you. It’ll do you good.”
A plump raindrop splattered onto the earth, and Kyŏn must not have thought me worth getting drenched for; he at once slithered away for shelter. It was then that Aejung rushed to my side, gingerly touching my elbow as she whispered, “Seol-ah, let’s go.” But I stood still. More drops splashed against my neck. Then the rain came in gusts, pounding the earth. The flaming torches hissed and threw my world into darkness.
SIX
GRAY CLOUDS LURKED in the sky, the streets muddy from yesterday’s rainfall. Furnace-hot humidity left me so sweaty that everything stuck to my skin—dirt, strands of hair, my dress, more dirt. The heart-pumping anxiety made it worse. I spent the entire morning looking over both shoulders. Kyŏn’s gang of police officers followed me with their eyes, their stares prickling my shoulders, tugging at the hair on my skin.
Inspector Han was the blue-robed man. Officer Kyŏn’s words rattled in my head. He crossed paths with Maid Soyi.
A drunkard at the inn saw it all.
“The inn,” I whispered. Even Woorim, my new friend, had pointed to the inn as the crossroad of information. Maid Soyi must have run to Madam Song to ask if she or her customers had seen her mistress.
“Always daydreaming, never working.” The chief maid’s voice startled me out of my thoughts. “Do you need another beating? Go on, now! The damos are all searching for you. It is time for Commander Yi’s afternoon tea with his guest.”
A few moments later, despite the weight of reluctance rolling in my chest, I traveled through the courtyard as quietly as a passing shadow, following behind the other damos. Each of us carried a tray, and mine held side dishes neatly arranged: thinly sliced marinated pork, finely cut fruit, soft persimmons, and spice-mixed stir-fried vegetables. The dishes rattled as I tapped my finger impatiently against the side of the tray. The answers proving Kyŏn a liar were out there somewhere, answers that’d prove that Inspector Han had nothing to do with the blue-robed man who crossed paths with Maid Soyi. Yet here I was, bound to my role as a tea server.
Still, my steps remained quiet as we entered the guest room, filled with the low rumbling of male voices.
Commander Yi sat with legs crossed, the folding screen behind him. His dark beard hung from his chin, long and stringy. Eyebrows slashed across his face, flaring up at the ends. He would have appeared intimidating even without his purple scar.
The commander’s guest was not handsome, but striking in appearance. He had slender, willow-leaf brows, and his fox eyes peeked from a face of sharp angles, reminding me of a poet of sorts. He was certainly dressed to suggest a life of leisure, clad in a lightweight and sleeveless outercoat of jade green, worn over a long robe of white ramie, a thin blue cord tied around the waist.
We served the gentlemen, and then the other damos and I withdrew to kneel by the wall, our heads bowed. We were invisible. We usually heard everything, but today their conversation slid off me, like rain rolling off the eaves of a roof.
Only two things I remembered:
First, the guest’s name was Scholar Ahn. He was twenty-one winters old, and he was a tutor to the Lady O’s little brother.
Second, Ahn had asked a thousand questions, and those thousand questions had all been about the murdered Lady O. As a family friend, he was most concerned about the progress of the investigation.
Once we were dismissed, we waited outside the guest room on the veranda, in case the commander or his guest needed anything else. We also made sure, as the chief maid had instructed us, to be out of hearing distance, and to stand as still as a table or a chair, our heads bent in a position that said, We dare not be noticed.
But my mind refused to stay still. I was already planning out the route I would take to the inn.
* * *
I never quite knew to whom I was begging, but urgency drew a prayer to my lips. Please let there be answers here.
I stood wringing my hands before the inn, a thatched-roof building enclosed by a low brushwood gate. People sat on the platform in the yard, fanning themselves and smoking pipes. This place was both an inn and a tavern. Per custom, lodging and stables were free, money exchanged only for food and drinks.
“Jumo! Jumo!” a man called out for the tavern owner, shaking an empty bottle, and when no one answered, he yelled in a melodic voice, “Madam So-o-o-ong!”
A middle-aged woman appeared with a tray of wine bottles, her hair braided into a coil secured by a pin, decorated with red glass that winked at me. As she served her guests, I tried to examine her more closely. I’d met Madam Song once before when I’d gone around showing strangers the sketch of my brother; I’d be able to recognize her. But before I could catch a better look, she disappeared into the backyard kitchen. I sat down on the platform in the yard and craned my neck from side to side, hoping to see her return soon.
“Are you here from the police bureau?” a voice called out.
I turned to find the drunks and wastrels watching me, the lone girl sitting on the platform cluttered with low-legged tables, cups and bottles of rice wine, and bowls of either steaming rice or stew. An aged man in a dusty white garment waved, his hair tied in a topknot, his long beard a tangle of gray and yellow-stained white. He was sitting cross-legged behind a table to my left. “Pour me a drink and I will tell you whatever you wish to know. You may have seen me before. I was a clown famous for my storytelling. Unfortunately,” he added with a dramatic sigh, a rush of alcoholic breath sweeping into my nostrils, “I got kicked out of my traveling troupe of performers.”
For drinking too much? I thought as I slid around so that I sat before the low-legged table. Even closer to him now, I had to hold my breath as I picked up a bottle and poured him another drink. “I came because I hear Madam Song knows everything about the goings-on here in the capital.”
“Oh, she does know many things. Everything except for a certain man’s heart.” His lips twitched as though they were itchy—perhaps to gossip.
“Councillor Ch’oi, you mean,” I said.
“So you have heard the rumor!”
“Not really.”
“Well, well, well. Let me tell you a story, a tale of passion and betrayal—”
“Thank you, but a quick summary will do.” I looked around the courtyard, hoping to spot Madam Song. “I can’t stay long, sir.”
He swatted my request aside, as if it were a fly. “As I was saying, this is a love story between a high official and a gisaeng who never smiled. He was a competitive man, Councillor Ch’oi, and when he learned of all the men who had tried and failed to make her smile, he took hold of the challenge with the determination of a general bent on conquering a kingdom. After months and months of sharing with her all the jests he could think of, he fell in love with her, slowly but surely. Then one day, unable to withhold his feelings anymore, he confessed his love to her.”