I stilled, afraid that I might disturb this moment. “Like what?”
“She made me deliver letters to Scholar Ahn, and I’d go back and forth, terrified of being caught. I dreaded it, each time she asked me to sneak out for her—”
“Wait,” I whispered. “You knew Scholar Ahn was the lover all this time?”
“I…” It dawned on Soyi what she had confessed. “I mean…”
Right then, the prison doors flew open. I gasped and turned around to see Hyeyeon barging in, grabbing the whimpering Soyi, and dragging her out. Inspector Han stood at the far corner of the prison block. Watching me. Steadily. Like he had been there in the shadows all this time. Like he had heard everything.
* * *
In the main police courtyard, Soyi’s two knees were bound together, and two sticks passed between the legs, which two floggers pulled in contrary directions, forcing her bones to curve. Then the sticks eased, allowing the bones back into their natural position, and Soyi’s scream crumpled into a whimper. I bit my lip to keep myself from yelling out, “Stop this!” It was too cruel.
“Why did you not confess earlier to me that you knew Scholar Ahn was the lover?” Inspector Han demanded. “You were already in trouble and might as well have revealed everything else.”
“I … I did not wish for you to know that I was delivering the letters.”
“But why? The letter delivery doesn’t implicate you in the murder. It implicates Scholar Ahn.”
“I was scared.” Long strands of black hair fell over Soyi’s blanched face. “That is all.”
“Tell the truth and do not cause any more confusion.”
Her eyes reddened. The vein along her temple bulged, and words ripped out from her chest. “That is the truth. What more do you want me to say?”
At the inspector’s gesture, the floggers grabbed the sticks and pulled in opposite directions again, and I could see her legs bending into a terrifying curve, about to shatter. I held my hands over my ears to muffle her unbearable noise, and then all fell silent. Soyi’s head swayed; she had fainted in her seat. With a callousness that I now recognized, Inspector Han took a bowl of water and splashed her face. He did not even have the mercy to allow her a moment’s relief from the pain.
Soyi blinked and spit and cried, her hair dripping, streaming down her face like black ink.
“Any information that makes my duty easier will save you from further pain,” he said with a menacing quietude. “In fact, I will have you released from the police bureau, immune from further harassment, if you tell me the truth in detail.”
Soyi tilted her head far back and stared at the sky as a bird flew overhead. How she must long to fly away with it, over the walls of the police bureau. I saw a stream of tears run down from the corners of her eyes. All those days she had held it in, staying strong, but now she was broken.
She closed her eyes and spoke through shudders. “I wanted to protect him.”
“Go on. Tell me. Scholar Ahn is beyond your power to protect now. Save yourself, at the least.”
Bound as she was, Soyi rocked back and forth in her seat. “He promised,” she whispered. “With Lady O dead, there was no one to protect me. Matron Kim would surely do something horrible to me. He promised me my freedom and…” The dark irises of her eyes gleamed with desperation. “And he said if I revealed his relationship with Lady O, he would make sure I was dragged down along with him. I feared for my life.”
“And have you any idea where Scholar Ahn is now?” Inspector Han asked.
“I do not, sir. I swear it.”
The inspector’s pale-eyed stare did not waver from Soyi, and I followed his gaze to see what it was he saw in the maid. Another lie? All I saw was a shadow of a woman, not a fighting streak left in her. Perhaps the inspector saw what I saw, for he blinked and looked away, as though she had quenched his suspicion. He flicked his hand at her. “And is there something you also hid from the police, just as you hid your involvement in the affair?”
She lowered her head, her lips opening and closing, trying and yet unable to utter whatever she was hiding.
“You need to tell me everything, withholding nothing, or you will not leave this place alive.”
Silence stretched, and then the truth came out, a timid stream of words, as if she were unsure how to proceed. “A man came up to me … and … and he said, ‘Are you not the messenger for Lady O and Scholar Ahn?’ I tried to deny it, but he had been watching my movements for too long, and he told me something frightening … He said that I shouldn’t rely on my mistress any longer. Her days were numbered. Scholar Ahn had sent a note to the police, exposing her heretical beliefs and something about a priest. Indeed, she must have done something to upset Scholar Ahn, for they had stopped communicating in the previous few days…”
Inspector Han nodded his head, a gesture that he approved of Soyi’s confession, and that was when the truth came out in a flood. “I wondered how I would survive without her. How would I earn a living? What would I eat? Where would I stay? I worried about these things day and night. But the strange man offered me a handsome sum. He said there would be more if I did one favor for him.”
“And what was that?”
“He gave me a letter and told me to give it to Lady O. He said to pretend it was from Scholar Ahn.”
“Can you describe this man?”
“It is difficult to say. His face was covered with a scarf and his bamboo hat was lowered. He was wearing a black robe.”
“And have you seen him again since that encounter?”
“No, sir.”
“A witness claims that a man in a bamboo hat, garbed in black, was seen delivering a note to Scholar Ahn five days ago. Right after I’d left for Yongjusa temple in Suwon. You knew nothing of this?”
“I did not, sir, I swear it.”
A moment of quiet observation passed, and finally Inspector Han asked, “That letter you received from the stranger. Did you read it before or after delivering it to your mistress?”
Soyi sat there as still as death. Then she whispered, “Before.”
“A letter from a stranger that summoned your mistress to come out at night. Were you not worried for her safety? Did you not think she would be in harm’s way?”
“I … I did…”
“Repeat what was written in the letter you received.”
“He said his loyalty to her was as solid as stone … to meet him at their usual place … at the Hour of the Rat. He wished to tell her something.”
A cold shiver ran down my spine as I stared at Soyi, the maid whose wounds I had cleansed, whom I had looked at with a heart brimming with pity. But had she deserved this pity? Soyi might not have killed her mistress, yet she had made the murder possible.
“I am done with her.” Inspector Han summoned a legal clerk and said, “She ought to be punished for causing such chaos.”
“No, no!” Soyi frantically shook her head, as though her hair were on fire and she were trying to douse it with the wind. “No, no, no—I want to be free!”
“You delivered a letter that ought never to have been delivered. You kept silent when you should have spoken. You knew beforehand that Lady O’s life was in danger, yet permitted the stranger to lure her out, and all this resulted in her death. That is how this crime took place. Lock her up.”