As they shared their low-voiced speculations, I dragged the corpse toward Officers Kyŏn and Goh, who were holding a wooden stretcher, waiting for me. No one else but I, the damo girl, was permitted to move the female corpse.
I clenched my teeth against the ache in my chest. In the past few days, an unusually high number of corpses had been carted in, the bodies of servants and peasants. Officers had looked upon their deaths as casually as they would butchered meat. But it was different now. The blood of a noble shocked them.
Another tug, and the sickly-sweet odor of death drifted into my nostrils. A smell that shouldn’t have surprised me. I’d hunted rabbits and birds before with an arrow. I’d helped skin them too. But this, this odor seemed half mold, half animal. With one last heave, I pulled the woman onto the stretcher, and at once I shrank away from the horrible odor.
“Senior Officer Shim, take Kyŏn, question the watchmen.” Inspector Han’s voice resounded through the beating of rain. “The rest of you will go to all the inns, then all the houses. This cannot have been without witnesses…” He paused, and then called out, “You there.”
I got to my feet, knees mud-damp. “Me, sir?”
Inspector Han cast a glance my way as he mounted his horse. “Yes, you. Follow me.”
I hurried alongside, the horse’s powerful hooves striking the ground, splashing more dirt onto my skirt and sleeves. The peasants must have heard the tramping, for they dropped to the ground, bowing head-to-mud as was protocol. Inspector Han was not only an aristocrat, but he was a military official of the fifth rank—a rank very few noblemen achieved in their lifetime. No one would dare refuse to bow to a man such as he.
But me?
I was born a servant and thus belonged to the palchŏn, the “eight meanest groups of people.” Our lowborn class was crowded with monks, shamans, clowns, butchers, and the like. All of us, in one way or another, were considered polluted.
Still, I imagined they were bowing to me.
* * *
Older Sister always scolded me for having the airs of a Chinese empress. Growing up, I would always clamor after attention, convinced that I deserved much more—more love, more appreciation, more kindness. How could a servant have had such thoughts?
Life as a servant should have taught me that the world was cruel, and that I did not deserve anything better. Before I’d even learned to walk, I had learned of death. Father was said to have died from starvation, and while I could not remember this, from what I’d been told, I often dreamed that I was counting his ribs. Years later, Mother had tried to leap off a cliff into the sea, only to shatter upon the craggy shore. Then, at the age of seven, I had found Young Lady Euna of the Nam household, whom I had thought of as my playmate (though really, I was her family servant), cold and motionless under a silk blanket. But somehow my “Chinese empress” air had stuck to me like a spiky burr, until three months ago.
A patrolman had caught me trying to run away from the police bureau. Amid the chaotic shuffle of arms and feet and high-pitched screams, I’d tried to escape him as well. For on that day—the fourth day of my indenture—I had received news about Older Sister’s deteriorating health, and my need to fulfill a certain promise to her had sharpened. But how foolish l’d been to think I could get away, and the police had made sure to teach me a lesson. They had scarred me with a hot iron, a punishment from the ancient times, branding my left cheek with a Hanja character: bi. Female servant.
I touched my left cheek, the skin thick and rough where the wound had healed. The memory chafed at me as I followed Inspector Han, the memory of wanting to die, not knowing how to endure the humiliation. The intensity of my death wish had passed quickly, though. So long as I had a purpose—to fulfill Older Sister’s request—my life still had meaning.
Stay in Hanyang, she had begged. Find your brother Inho’s grave.
We were both convinced of his death, for he had sworn on Mother’s grave that he would write to me, no matter where I might end up in the kingdom. And I had believed him, for I knew him. My brother always kept his word. Yet twelve years had gone by without a letter from him. He had to be dead.
To help with my search for him, Older Sister had given me a sketch of our brother on the day of my departure to the capital. A sketch so faded and badly drawn that it had warped my own memory of him. Still, I had never left the bureau without it, making sure to keep it safely tucked inside my uniform. I had promised to find my older brother, and like him, I always kept my word.
Gradually the memory faded, my mind distracted by the labyrinth coiled at the center of the capital—of dirt paths and alleys, cluttered by huts made of cheap wood and thatch. Peasants crumpled in fear as we passed them by. The atmosphere changed when we ventured into the Northern District, the residential quarter of high-ranking officials, nestled between Changdeok Palace to the east and Gyeongbok Palace to the west. We were surrounded no longer by desperation but by the patterned stone walls and dark-tiled roofs of neighboring mansions. The rainfall had lightened, and in the clearing air, the eight peaks that surrounded Hanyang’s basin cut the sky like teeth.
“Stop here,” Inspector Han said as we arrived before the gate of a walled mansion. “What was your name again?”
“It is Seol, sir,” I whispered.
A pause, and then he asked, “Well?”
I hurried forward, tied the rein to a post, then knocked on the massive wooden doors. In the silence that followed, I wondered why the inspector had failed to recall my name. Was I that forgettable? I straightened my raven-black hair, ran a hand over my uniform. The reflection in the shimmering puddle below revealed a small face with wide lips, and what I liked to think of as eyes shaped like petals. Not “Little Tiny Eyes” as my sister called them. My chest, tightly bound, and my frame—too tall, too lanky—made me look more like a boy wearing a skirt than a woman. There really seemed to be nothing remarkable about me.
The doors creaked open, startling me into attention. A gatekeeper peeked out and looked at me from head to toe; then his gaze slammed into Inspector Han. At once he lowered his head with humility. “Inspector!”
“I have come to speak with Lord O.”
“H-he left the capital a month ago.”
“Then who is home?”
“His wife, Matron Kim. But you will have to come another time. She is ill, you see.”
“It is a matter of great urgency.”
The gatekeeper hesitated, wringing his hands, then stepped back and let us into the compound. The maid who escorted us also looked uneasy. Following her deeper into the strained silence, we traveled across the courtyard toward the guest hall: a long hanok building lined with fourteen hanji screened doors all the way to the end, heavy beams supporting the tiled roof, which flared on either side like dragon whiskers. A few paces away from this pavilion stood a gate, likely leading to another courtyard, for mansions usually had five quarters, divided by stone walls and linked together by narrow passageways.
Inspector Han paused in his steps, and I nearly walked into him. “Interview Lady O’s personal maid and report everything back to me.”
“Yes, sir.” Pushing back the brim of my straw hat, I watched him walk off until his robe of midnight blue disappeared. Not too long after, a servant passed by with a bucket of water.