The Old Tiger and the Wolf (3)
Of course, our first encounter had not been entirely smooth.
"Good heavens, you little— what a vulgar slip of the tongue. I apologize."
"I am honored, Your Highness."
Those stubborn, unyielding eyes and the Daewongun's trembling beard left quite an impression on me. A titan of his age, a man who in my former life existed only in black-and-white photographs — simply seeing him in the flesh was a rare spectacle.
This is interesting.
I barely suppressed a laugh at the sight of him still studying me, pupils twitching with lingering disbelief, and asked:
"You never imagined this, I take it."
"Your Highness."
"Ah— ah, yes, of course."
The old man, startled by a glance from his retainer, settled his racing heart and waved a dismissive hand.
"As you say."
At the same time he reached toward me, and I naturally offered him my cheek.
"Hmm."
Just as I had said — Heungseon Daewongun scraped a finger across the false beard I had pasted on myself, the charcoal-drawn brows, the painted wrinkles. When something dark came away beneath his nail, he finally let out an "Ah" and nodded. He hadn't been willing to take my word for it that it was merely makeup.
"...So it really was makeup. And that voice of yours nearly had me fooled."
"I put a fair amount of work into it."
"How much work does it take to double a man's age?"
Watching Heungseon Daewongun flustered by my surprise visit and disguise had been entertaining, but the amusement ended there.
This was only a simple probe.
I squared my posture like a rooster greeting the dawn and cleared my throat. The Daewongun likewise straightened his back and began to look at me properly.
"Well then. Let's see."
It was the Daewongun, seated in the place of honor, who opened.
"...That you came of your own accord — if I were scoring it, I'd give you high marks. When the waiting stretches too long, anticipation gives way to irritation on the other side."
"That's the first principle of theater. Drag things out too long from the audience's seat... and they start climbing the walls, don't they?"
"Ahem. And how did you know I enjoy courtyard plays?"
The old man chuckled, and the atmosphere on the floor eased. I glanced at Shin Jae-hyo, the performer prostrated at the Daewongun's right, and answered.
"Even a child like me couldn't ignore the rumors that Your Highness enjoys stories of how people live."
"Sharp eyes."
"They've said I was clever since I was small."
"And proud, too."
Then the Daewongun glanced past me at the ringleaders Yu Chun-man and Kim Jang-son, who had tucked themselves behind my back, and at Major Woo Beom-seon, whom I had posted as a bodyguard, and came to the point.
"Let's be direct. I would like the crowds occupying the palace grounds — inside and out — dispersed at once. I will not call it a request."
He pulled a writing desk toward himself, then took up a brush. Shin Jae-hyo hurriedly spread ink and paper beside him and bowed his head. Over the brush, which moved with spare, vigorous strokes, the old man spoke.
"His Majesty has vested me with full authority to suppress this affair."
"Including a complete reshuffling of the government, I presume."
"I am merely driving out the worms that have been gnawing at the court and wearing down innocent people."
"And that day will make a rather splendid homecoming — complete with the fall of Heungin-gun, Your Highness's rival. I can already picture how delighted His Majesty will be."
"Hmph."
The naked implication of a power grab seemed to sit poorly with him; his face tightened.
"Soon, under a new military order, every garrison in Gyeonggi Province will swear loyalty to me. Even now the Gyeonggi provincial troops are marching on Hanyang. I have no wish to see more blood."
Oh-ho. How tragic. So he'd shove a fist under my nose and expect me to bow of my own accord?
I answered without the slightest regard for his threat.
"Yes. And Your Highness would do well to remember that the great majority of the townsfolk gathered at Gwanghwamun are garrison families who have gone hungry this past year."
Those people were heads of households and sons before they were soldiers. Would they really drive a blade into their own parents and children with their own hands? Whether they even had the strength to lift a blade on empty stomachs was another question entirely.
Knowing this perfectly well, the Daewongun dangled a sweet this time.
"Which is why I repaid them with the head of the Seonhye-cheong director — a man of the Min clan, from the tribute-rice bureau."
"Regrettably, the people of this country, which takes Neo-Confucianism as its national creed, would rather starve than eat a man."
They'd drag a body over and eat it if they were truly desperate, of course — but with thousands already starving, a few butchered corpses wouldn't even make a pot of meat soup.
Sensing the topic had turned against him, the Daewongun shifted to something more sensitive.
"For you people to dare discuss the queen's seat out in the marketplace is itself a crime against the cardinal bonds."
"Heaven itself must be moved by their patience — that they have not already smashed the palace gates and slaughtered every last remaining member of the Min clan."
I folded my arms, warning him that if we dragged this out any longer, I couldn't guarantee the capital's public order. Besides — how badly must the Daewongun himself want to pull down the queen he had personally placed on the throne? This was neither a topic for discussion nor a matter for negotiation.
And so the Daewongun said:
"You won't yield even once."
"Take back one move and you'll keep taking them back. That's the law of the gambling table."
"And you, my boy, are a guest the master of the house never invited."
In the midst of our long war of words, the brush that had been moving under the Daewongun's hand came to a stop. Everyone held their breath. The Daewongun surveyed what he had written with satisfaction, then smiled and showed it to me.
"Hmm."
The sentence was spare. Five characters, no more. Watching the ink bloom sharp and dark, the old man set down his brush, his face returning to gravity, and spoke to me in a hard voice. No — he commanded me.
And in that same instant, a heavy air pressed down on the shoulders of everyone gathered at Unhyeongung. The entire assembly dropped flat to the floor.
Impressive.
Presence. Authority. This is what power contained in writing looks like.
Some faces went deathly white. Others averted their eyes from the two of us, locked in confrontation. Those who had joined the coup as swordsmen or martial men tensed at the buckling air and found their hands settling naturally on their hilts.
A modern man who regarded the ruining of a good atmosphere as a cardinal sin — and who avoided it at all costs — took a step back.
This is where I fold.
And so I bowed my head and answered.
"Yes, Your Highness."
"...Good."
Only when I yielded did the atmosphere of the residence finally ease. The Daewongun declared, satisfied:
"From this moment, you are my man."
"How could it be otherwise?"
The Daewongun, looking down at the still-thick hair on the crown of my head, turned his gaze toward the distant boulevard, still bright with spreading light, and spoke. Those occupying the boulevard were the rioters of the day — the capital's enraged townsfolk who, through the uncoordinated assistance of myself and the Daewongun, had barely been kept from storming the palace and dragging the Min clan from the queen's seat.
At the distant roar of voices, he spoke with genuine concern in his eyes.
"Do you have, at this very moment, a means of calming them?"
"A means, you said?"
"Call it what you like. A method, a scheme, a masterstroke, a stratagem. Anything — any story that will satisfy those people and send them home for now."
He tapped the writing desk with a finger. His expression was grave.
"I like people. All the more so those who do not confuse means with justification."
The hidden meaning included force. I answered without delay.
"Rice."
"Rice. Yes, rice. Who in this room doesn't know that?"
"That rice — this humble servant will provide it."
"...What?"
It was not only the Daewongun who was startled by my boast. From behind the screen of retainers, someone's incredulous voice drifted out.
"Where does he get off making empty promises..."
Shin Jae-hyo, glued to the Daewongun's side, was one of them — as were Yu Chun-man and Kim Jang-son, standing behind me as allies who were not quite allies. And below the floor, the martial men stirring at this outrageous claim were further proof.
"Ahem!"
The only man who pretended not to be flustered — opening that mouth of his to do it — was Major Woo Beom-seon, the same man who had walked himself out of his own post.
"For our prodigy, that's only natural."
Seeing this, the Daewongun folded his arms and asked me:
"How?"
"Does Your Highness intend to have me turn out a merchant's entire purse?"
"Hah. A merchant?"
I rubbed my palms together with the shameless air of a stall merchant, and the old man snorted. Who did I think I was fooling in a place like this?
"A merchant? As I see it, you're an ambitious man."
"I prefer money."
"Money, is it."
When I denied it, the old man laughed.
"There's an old saying our sages were fond of. The first: an old man claiming he's ready to die. The second: a country girl insisting she has no thought of marriage. The third: a merchant wailing that there's no profit in it."
I answered with a look of studied indifference.
"Add one more. A country scholar who's retired to the countryside, claiming he's above power."
"Heh heh."
When I brought up the story of how he had been driven out by a then-unknown country scholar named Choe Ik-hyeon, the Daewongun slammed the writing desk and roared with laughter. Of course, there was not a soul in that room who didn't know that the one who had arranged his last departure was the present king.
"However."
That was when it happened.
"However — from now on, don't lie to my face and say you truly prefer money."
"Pardon?"
"People generally say that wealth creates power."
"Your Highness is making this humble one's chest sting."
I pressed a hand to my chest, and he let out a dry laugh.
"Hmph. The men I most despise — the ones I find most laughable — are the idiots who give up power because they like money. That's right. Idiots."
The man who had been laughing and even striking the desk changed his expression in an instant and issued me a warning. Frost fell across a midsummer night's courtyard.
"Isn't it truly pathetic? Wealth and honor bring power? What idiot babbles that kind of garbage?"
Like a well-honed blade, the gaze of a power broker who had once dominated an age — and who had now risen again — swept the assembly.
"Wealth, honor — those are nothing but blue roof tiles that look fine and mean nothing. Mostly they're the pathetic sort who love to put themselves forward and get crushed by other people's opinions."
"Then what is power?"
I asked with a serious face; he answered with equal firmness, and continued in a voice thick with conviction.
"Whatever the age, wealth and honor sink beneath the years and the jokes people tell. But a story built on power carries force in the telling alone — and it will pass fear down to descendants tomorrow."
I bowed my head at his counsel.
"It rather sounds like the story of the Min clan, who lost their heads over wealth and rose and fell in the end — and of Your Highness, the Grand Internal Prince."
"Flattery."
Sensing the atmosphere had ripened, I made my proposal once more.
"Give me just one thing, and within three days I will certainly bring back the rice that will immediately calm the people of the capital."
"One thing? To accomplish something so great, you want only a single item from me."
"It isn't so great as all that. No — it is great. Because if Your Highness were not the Grand Internal Prince, you could never hand it over to me."
I asked with a serious face, and after a long moment of thought, he spoke.
"It's rude to keep prying at a swindler's tricks. Very well."
"That easily?"
"Didn't you just say you were my man?"
I let a flicker of surprise show. He accepted my proposal with a slight nod, smiled, and pushed the writing desk toward me — the same desk that still held the paper on which he had written, just moments ago, By Order of the Grand Internal Prince.
"Huh?"
I opened my mouth, looking a little vacant at what he had done.
"...You knew?"
For the first time I failed to hide my expression, and the Daewongun answered with a smile, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"It would only tire the mouth to say it."
With a look mixed with the regret of a man who had seen this sort of thing many times, he did not let the smile leave his face as he spoke to me calmly.
"I'm tired of sycophants by now. I've seen everything from floating coffins of steel to fireproof garments they claimed would stop bullets — and then set themselves on fire. There have been no end of small men who stood before me with sweet words, hoping to pocket a moment's profit."
At this confession that he had been swindled more often than I'd expected, I held back a laugh and answered.
"This humble one has faced Your Highness for the first time today."
"And I have never, on a first meeting, seen anyone dare talk as much as you in front of me. That's enough."
He muttered that I was impressive, then glanced toward the palace.
"And no matter how many years pass, there will always be those who fail to act their age."
"True enough. Young people these days call themselves scholars of a dying nation and blame the world, blame the court — but stand them on a platform and they haven't a scrap of eloquence."
"I agree."
And so a brat who was ten years old on a generous count and the minister who had just reclaimed the most powerful office in Joseon sat complaining about the manners of the age. It was a thoroughly strange and bizarre sight — but Shin Jae-hyo and the Daewongun's retainers merely kept their heads bowed.
"Buuurp."
And so, after being entertained at Unhyeongung until late in the evening, I came out with a full belly — unlike Woo Beom-seon, who followed me with a face full of worry.
Ugh. Tsk. A man with so little nerve.
I started talking to him in a tone of resigned necessity as he walked along staring at the ground, heaving long sighs.
"General."
His face was thoroughly crumpled, as if he had just eaten a heap of dung back at Unhyeongung.
"General."
I soothed him as I spoke.
"Come now, unclench that face. We need to go to the Japanese legation."
"What?"
Woo Beom-seon stared at me in serious astonishment, as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard.
"Why on earth the legation?"
I shrugged at him. What else? We were going to find our rice.
"Isn't that long face of yours because of the rice I promised His Highness? The method I've thought of is there, so that's where we have to go."
He muttered, unable to get his bearings from my shameless answer.
"Japan, rice — wait, by what trick would those people..."
"Simple logic. What we want, what they want, what we have, what they have. An exchange."
"I'm just an ignorant fighting man. I don't follow."
"That 'ignorant' talk of yours again... Anyway, I'm going there first."
"Hey! Wait, wait!"
And so, centered on Woo Beom-seon hurrying after me, the stars of the night sky poured down. It was a spring in Hanseong that would vanish before long.