THE FOLLOWING DAY, my search for an excuse to leave the bureau, to get far away from Officer Kyŏn, arrived in the form of the chief maid’s order that I deliver a note for her. I gladly complied, and after delivering the message, I was in no hurry to return to the bureau. I wandered the capital, then paused to watch a deolmi puppet play at the marketplace, appreciating that I could have a moment where I didn’t need to worry about Kyŏn’s threat.
But I slowly realized: I was no safer here than in Kyŏn’s presence.
Deolmi puppet plays were always about resistance, but this, this one was the story about Queen Regent Jeongsun’s hunger for power and her bloodthirsty ways. To perform it so openly, in public—it was suicidal.
I took a step back, then another, until I was outside the crowd. Easier to run should soldiers raid the performance.
“Are you enjoying the play?”
A familiar male voice scattered my thoughts into a million pieces. I whirled around and my heart lurched into my throat when I found myself standing face-to-face with a man. By the silver tiger embroidering his blue uniform, I knew it to be Inspector Han. Yet the fierce sun behind him made it impossible to see his face, so I couldn’t tell whether he was looking through me or at me. Moments like this, I felt it was true, that between a nobleman and a slave was the distance between heaven and earth.
“Come away before the soldiers arrive,” he advised, “while you still can.”
I clasped my hands together and quickly followed, walking a step behind Inspector Han in silence.
“I’ve been meaning to speak with you,” he said after a moment. “Last night, when I left to meet briefly with Officer Shim, someone entered my office and took something. I’m sure of it, for all the contents had been there earlier.”
I pressed my lips tight together. Officer Kyŏn had warned me that there would be consequences if I told, that it would expose whatever “evidence” he and Scholar Ahn had against Inspector Han. I didn’t know whether to believe him.
“A servant said he saw you lurking around the pavilion at night.”
“Me?” My pulse quickened, as did my words. “I can explain everything, sir. I didn’t go inside. It’s not what you think.”
“Do not look so alarmed. I trust you. That is why I wish to know your side of the story.”
Whatever reserve I’d felt moments ago flew away. I rushed forward to walk alongside the inspector and told him everything, from Aejung’s suspicion that Kyŏn was up to something, to catching Kyŏn in the act myself, and finally to our argument under the willow tree with Scholar Ahn, as well as their accusation against him.
I waited for the fury, the outburst, but instead a muscle worked in his jaw as he muttered, “Why am I not surprised?” Then he looked at me. “You are a very unlucky girl, to be thrown into such dangerous circumstances.”
My brows lifted. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I was not thrown into anything. I chose.”
“You chose,” he said quietly. His steps slowed as he paused to consider me for a moment. A second look, the way a general might pause to reconsider a candidate for the army. “For me?”
“Remember, sir, loyalty is my greatest virtue.”
“Are you pledging your loyalty to me?” There was a hint of warmth to his voice.
“I am, sir.”
He smiled, but it was a sad smile. It was as though, all along, he’d considered me too young to understand the weight of loyalty. Too young to understand the terrible weight of my promise. But I understood, and I would prove it to him.
I had to ask, though, “What was stolen, sir?”
A dark shade deepened the panes of his cheek. The inspector’s face remained stoic, yet the burning told me, warned me, never to ask about this box again.
“Do not concern yourself. It was a letter, and I’ll make sure to retrieve it.” Quietly, and filling his words with misty vagueness, he said, “Ahn is bent on proving his theory correct—that Lady O’s death is somehow connected to me, because of her Catholic beliefs. And because of my past. He knew before all of us that she was a heretic.”
Willing myself to stop wondering about the black-lacquered box, I asked, “How, sir?”
“He confessed to Commander Yi recently that he’d overheard Lady O’s parents discussing her heretical beliefs. So in the end, he reported it anonymously to the police bureau, delivered the note through a street urchin. It was sent on the seventeenth day of the sixth lunar month.”
I swallowed a gasp. That was a full four days before Lady O’s death …
“Commander Yi never received that note. And so Scholar Ahn’s theory is that I intercepted it. He thinks, knowing of Lady O’s Catholic beliefs, I somehow became involved in ending her life.”
“But you were at the House of Bright Flowers. You have an alibi.”
Inspector Han grunted. “Ahn’s imagination is creative and preposterous.”
“Everyone seems suspicious, sir.” I let out a little sigh and peeked up at him, at his furrowed brows. “How do you untangle this confusing web?”
“You collect more stories until a pattern solidifies,” he said, and suddenly he walked in longer strides again, as though remembering something. “Come with me. I spoke with Matron Kim earlier. She would not tell me the full truth, but I know someone who might. So I’ve been meaning to request your assistance.”
My heartbeat quickened as I followed him into the bureau, across the connecting courtyards.
“Fear persuades most people to speak,” he said quietly, “but Maid Soyi withdraws deeper into silence with every interrogation. My patience is running thin.”
“What would you like me to find out, sir?”
“What she used to blackmail Matron Kim.”
Blackmail? It caught me off guard, as if a rough hand had shoved me. I could not imagine Maid Soyi to be capable of such a thing. “I don’t understand. Are you certain, sir?”
“If I were absolutely certain,” he said, “I wouldn’t have asked you to come. Thus, your task is to learn what all of us cannot. Can you do it?”
I couldn’t help but feel a spark of pride at the question, glowing brighter and brighter with each step. His favor was almost too much for me. But I wanted it—the feeling that I was part of something so much greater than myself.
“I can, sir. I will.”
* * *
Inspector Han waited outside the prison block as I followed a guard deep into the darkness, thick with the rancid smell of blood and rotting wounds. The surprise I’d felt at the inspector’s accusation vanished when we arrived before her cell. How could I feel anything but pity? Soyi cowered against the wall, terrified of the guard. The jangling of keys had become the sound of another round of interrogation.
“It’s only me,” I said.
Her shoulders slumped from relief. “Only you.”
I sat next to her, against the wooden wall. The straw pallet rustled beneath my skirt. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw that the bedding was bloodstained. Soyi sat, unable to keep her head raised. Fear twisted in my stomach. It was entirely possible that she might die in this cell.
“Why have you come?” she whispered.