More important things? I could almost hear the chief maid’s rebuke. Such as what, Damo Seol?
We damos were prone to avoiding our chores or doing them half-heartedly. Once, the chief maid had sent Damo Aejung to prepare tea, only to find her sleeping in the yard outside the kitchen with a medicine book open on her lap. She had lashed Aejung’s calves as punishment, and did so with every other damo who shirked their duties. But it was the wrath of the police officers that we feared most.
When the space looked decent enough to keep me out of trouble, I dragged the broom along the courtyard toward the storage room, but I paused, hearing hurried footsteps behind me.
It was Officer Kyŏn. “What are you doing just standing around?”
“Sir, I was told to sweep—”
He tossed me a coil of rope made of five braided strings, used to arrest criminals. “You’re to come with us. A woman is needed.”
“Where?”
He replied under his breath, so quietly I barely heard him. “Mount Inwang.”
I licked my dry lips, my throat suddenly parched. Now I noticed his bow and quiver full of arrows. Mount Inwang was a place I had dreaded since I’d first heard of it as a child, the home of white tigers.
I tapped my finger against the bamboo broom handle, trying to distance myself from panic. “What is on Mount Inwang?”
He might have reprimanded me for speaking out of turn. Instead, Kyŏn said, “Maid Soyi has fled.”
* * *
The fog thickened by the time we rode out that afternoon, but Inspector Han had a keen sense of direction, easily leading the twenty officers and myself through Hanyang. The five-day mourning period issued by the royal court had ended, so shops were open again, vendors yelling out from their stalls as men and women streamed up and down the street.
With all this bustling of life, the capital ought to have felt less like a ghost village, but death was still heavy in the air. Everywhere around us were pale and solemn faces, and everyone was clad in pure white, the color of grief. The king had died. It was like the deadly frost of winter had already kissed the capital. Only the urchins seemed free from this spell, running through the crowd without a care.
We rode out of the fortress through the West Gate, and the road wound through a village of thatched-roof huts, then an overflowing grassland. Mount Inwang was only a half hour’s journey away, but already keeping up was no easy feat. I rode on a pony named Terror, notorious for her many vices: she was a self-willed, quarrelsome, and tough little beast. Seeing her more glorious and quicker brothers charging ahead, she seemed determined to fling me off, the load slowing her down. I clung desperately to her and fixed my eyes on the officers, not wanting to lose them in the fog.
So focused as I was, I hardly noticed my surroundings. Faraway mountains unfolded, layer upon misty layer. The gentleness of the distant trees lasted only for a few paces, and all of a sudden, the forest grew tall and thick, trapping us in darkness like a cave of cruel and violent dreams. I pinched color into my cheeks, hoping no one would notice my blood-drained face.
“Search until the gong is struck, then return here,” Inspector Han’s voice resounded from the front. “Now spread out!”
The torchbearers rode ahead and led us deep into the wooded base of the mountain. We combed slowly through trees and clear streams, thorns and bushes. The mist floated around us, sometimes leaping from craggy rocks. I gasped more than once. And one officer, startled, grabbed for his arrow only to see the mist drop and drag away.
The longer we spent in the forest, the farther we fanned out, and the more the isolation swallowed me up. My mind conjured growls everywhere—in the murmuring of water, in the very rushing of blood in my ears.
What had driven Maid Soyi into such a fearful place? What did she have to hide? Or perhaps she was simply more frightened of the inquisition than she was of tigers. Witnesses—innocent people who had the misfortune of knowing a victim or suspect—were often imprisoned for months, beaten sometimes to death to obtain evidence.
“She’s probably cowering in a cave somewhere,” Officer Kyŏn said.
I rode closer to him. The first time I’d laid eyes on Officer Kyŏn, he’d reminded me of legendary royal investigators from tales I’d grown up listening to. Young men secretly sent out by the king to faraway villages to solve great injustices. He certainly looked the part: his black hair tied into the perfect topknot, revealing his chiseled face, strong jaw, distinctively edged full lips, and his athletic figure, rippling with lean muscles—all of which seemed to tell a story of bravery and honor.
I knew better now. If there was one thing Officer Kyŏn had taught me, it was that brute strength was not a measure of a man’s courage. He could have muscles made of steel and yet a backbone made of mother’s milk—the only thing occupying his heart was love for no one other than himself.
As the swimming mist darkened to blue, reflecting the dimming sky, I felt no safer with Kyŏn close by my side as we ascended the mountain slope. “It’s growing late,” I observed, hoping he would hear my silent question: Should we not head back?
“Didn’t you hear the inspector’s order? We search until the gong is struck.”
It looked like we were nearing the Hour of the Rat, though. Any later and we would be stuck outside, the fortress gates slammed shut on us. “But how are we—”
A twig cracked somewhere too close to us. Fear punched my chest as I stared to the side. “Did you hear that?” I whispered. My mind pictured Maid Soyi in the underbrush, but my heart saw only lurking teeth and claws.
Officer Kyŏn gripped his bow tighter. “Lead on.”
We rode toward the sound, through countless trees, then around a large, moss-covered rock. My pounding heart slackened; it was only a deer. The creature watched us from behind the bushes, as still as a stone.
“Damn it,” Kyŏn hissed, jerking the horse around. “She couldn’t have gone far. Royal guards always make their patrols around this mountain. She has to be nearby.”
“But why is the inspector so determined to find Maid Soyi?”
“She’s a suspect. Witnesses saw her leaving the mansion around the time Lady O ran out.”
That surprised me. I could hardly picture meek Soyi holding a kitchen knife, let alone carving the nose from the face of her mistress.
“I will find that bitch. No doubt I will. I’ve already arrested over fifty scoundrels while serving in the bureau. Almost as many as Inspector Han.”
I bit my lower lip to keep myself from grimacing.
“What is your life’s goal?” he asked, his voice tinged with amusement. “Let me tell you. You’ll get married, have babies, and keep on doing what you’re good at doing: serving. Serving your master, your husband, your children.” He tapped his head. “I know these things.”
“I don’t wish to do any of that, sir.”
“But you will serve. That is fact, that is your fate.”
Fate. A shackle as solid as truth—unchangeable, unmovable. On the day of my departure, my sister had told me how long I was bound by the government to serve in the police bureau, away from home, from family. For one generation, she’d whispered.
My entire life.
That is, I would be free by the age of forty-one, as old as death itself.