The coroner’s assistant approached. “Evidence of violent attempts to breathe,” he added.
“But how could he have drowned when hung upside down?” Officer Shim asked.
“It’s because he was upside down that his drowning was possible,” Inspector Han explained. “Water would have been poured on his face, and with a constant stream, it would have effectually stopped his breathing.”
Kyŏn, who stood in the shadows behind me, asked testily, “Might I ask how you know this, Inspector?”
Kyŏn and I were starting to sound eerily alike.
“It is a method of torture the aristocrats are known to use on servants, usually to obtain something—a confession, information, and so on,” Inspector Han replied. “Less noisy than beating them.” He paced around the corpse again, as though searching for other evidence. “Ahn and Lady O … they were lovers and shared secrets, which a third party wanted to know. Perhaps.”
“It seems the young master was behind this all,” Shim said. “He planned the Mount Hwa incident, and now this.”
“Perhaps he was behind the Mount Hwa incident, but I am not so sure that he is the killer,” the inspector replied. “He is not yet under house arrest, but I’ve had officers keep a close eye on him, and they claim he spent days in the House of Bright Flowers. It seems he is more distraught by Queen Regent Jeongsun’s wrath than anything else.”
I saw something twinkle in the blue light, winking at me from beneath the hay. I scrambled forward, right past Inspector Han, and picked up a necklace of lacquered brown beads. I might have mistaken it for one of those Buddhist rosaries, but the beads were smaller, and at the end hung a silver ornament like the one I’d seen hanging from Lady Kang’s necklace. A cross shape.
The legal clerk snatched it from my hand and offered it to Inspector Han, who looked at it and swore under his breath. “The symbol worn by heretics.”
“Catholics…” The legal clerk shook his head.
“I thought this was a case of a jealous lover.” Officer Shim heaved out a sigh and ran a hand over his face. “Where do you begin to unravel this tangle?”
“At the beginning…” Inspector Han did well at hiding his feelings, by the stoic expression pinned to his face, by the silence that followed. Then he clicked his tongue and I realized he was afire with rage. His voice sank, and the words he uttered sounded as though they were being dragged through the mud of bitter defeat. “We will return to where it all began, and from there, we will find our way to the damn truth.”
* * *
There was death under my nails. I had helped pull down the corpse, digging my fingers into Scholar Ahn’s flesh, then used a knife to cut the rope. The corpse had thudded to the ground. Deep furrows marked his wrists and ankles, engraved by the restraints.
Rubbing my hand against my skirt, I walked quickly, jittering with the need to wash myself. Everyone, in fact, seemed eager to leave the shed, which now felt haunted with the mountain mist pouring in.
Inspector Han and a few officers remained at the scene of the crime, while the rest of us made our way back to the bureau, the corpse carried on a stretcher with a straw mat covering him from the prying eyes of passing pedestrians.
Kyŏn and another officer whispered ahead of me.
“Isn’t it odd?” Kyŏn asked.
“What is?”
“You’ve read Ahn’s letters to Lady O,” Kyŏn said. The letters I’d found, the content of which Inspector Han had refused to share with me. I quickened my steps through the mud and puddles to hear better. “It was mostly them fighting, because O wanted to end their affair to join a ‘Heretical Virgin Troupe.’”
“Virgin troupe,” the other spat out. “Times are growing dark and unnatural. Why would a girl refuse her duty to marry and bear children?”
“Here is the odd thing,” Kyŏn pressed. “How could Lady O join this virgin troupe if she wasn’t a virgin?”
“Didn’t you hear? Inspector Han said that in the letters, a man with the initials ‘ZW’ baptized her, then granted her absolution. And only one man in this heretical community is known to forgive sins. Priest Zhou Wenmo. As always, Inspector Han is a few steps ahead of you. You need to think quicker.”
Kyŏn’s prickly voice shot back in response, but I heard no more of this conversation. My mind withdrew, shuddering against the chill of new information. Were the deaths of Lady O and Scholar Ahn somehow connected to the most wanted criminal in our kingdom, the Catholic priest?
Why was this case becoming more tangled and hard to grasp? Why wasn’t it getting any easier?
Right then, the straw mat shifted and I saw the gray face of Scholar Ahn, his eyes staring blankly up at the sky. I knew I’d never forget the sight.
* * *
The afternoon had grown cold, so the chief maid instructed me to light the ondol heating system of the main pavilion. She spoke with a tone of such casualness, as though nothing had happened this morning. As though I had not just returned from cutting down a hanging corpse.
Inside the under-floor furnace, a small space beneath the hanok structure, I crouched and fanned the flames. With enough kindling, the curls of woodsmoke would spread throughout the underground ducts and heat the stone plates laid under the floor of the building, warming the air inside as well. The fire crackled as I fanned, emphasizing the silence around me. A silence I did not want, for I kept thinking of the hanging corpse, his clouded eyes staring at me, as though he wanted to talk to me. Who killed me? Why?
A sound in the distance pulled me out of my thoughts, voices in the light rainfall.
I struggled out of the dark, cramped space and hid behind the beam that upheld the tiled pavilion roof, peering ahead. Officers, legal clerks, and servants stopped in their tracks to greet Commander Yi, who strode through the bowing crowd, seemingly oblivious to all, staring fixedly at the ground with his brows slammed low over his eyes. Behind him followed Officer Kyŏn.
A few steps more, then Commander Yi stopped and turned to address Kyŏn. “Clear yourself from my sight, and do not appear before me again until you have solid evidence,” the commander said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. “Do not make a single mistake.”
The hairs on my skin rose, sensing that trouble was around the corner, and Kyŏn knew exactly what it was.
Once Kyŏn was alone, he rolled his shoulder once as he stalked across the courtyard like a predator about to pounce on his prey. I followed him, quickening my pace to catch up, until I was near enough to call out, “Officer!”
He paused in his step. A snarl slid into his voice. “Good afternoon, Damo Seol.”
We stood alone in the narrow alley, the space that connected two courtyards. His lips stretched over his teeth into a grin, angry and sharp like fish bones. “So it has to come to this. My hyung is dead”—he took a step toward me, backing me up against the wall—“and you and I, I think we both know who killed him.”
A pang of guilt hit my heart. Misu’s terrified eyes watched me, her confession yawning around me like the grave. She is dead, she is dead. But Kyŏn was the last person I could trust with her testimony.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, keeping my expression blank.