The Poison That Came Back With the Fish
What on earth is going on here?
Flap, flap. Splash, splash.
“Oh! Now that's a keeper!”
“Wow! The fish really bite around here, huh?”
Such was the way of messengers in this era—they took forever. For all I knew, word would take at least ten days to reach the capital.
“My lady, have you ever tried raw fish?”
Was he talking about hoe? Sashimi?
“Yeah, I've had a little.”
Soybean paste for dipping. Wait. Chili peppers! That's right! I need to have the kids go find some chili peppers! I'd been so busy I'd completely forgotten...
I should hurry up and make some gochujang!
Slash, slash. Scrape.
Wow. Impressive. He's filleting it with an axe? This guy has serious knife skills.
But hold on. Isn't that the same thing they use to hack off people's heads? That's practically begging to catch some horrible disease. These people's idea of hygiene is astounding.
Chomp.
Wow, you barbarians. That's not sashimi, that's a slab. He just handed me a hunk the size of my palm.
“Dip it in salt and it's pleasantly sweet and savory. Quite tasty, actually.”
“Wait right here.”
Hmm, nothing fancy—just some sugar and vinegar mixed into a bit of soy sauce ought to do it.
Slash.
“What's this?”
“Soy sauce. It's better than salt.”
Glug, glug.
Whoa, isn't that too much? He's dunking the whole piece in it? This soy sauce is a lot saltier than the regular kind I used to drink back in modern times.
Munch, munch.
“Gasp!”
Seems like it beats the salt, at least.
“My lady! What is this!”
“It's just soy sauce with a little vinegar and sugar mixed in.”
“Something that simple!”
Salt isn't bad, exactly, but you people dipping fish in plain salt are something else. Does it never occur to anyone to think about how to make food taste good?
Life aboard the ship, spent leisurely fishing the days away, turned out to be better than I'd expected. Whatever bloody mess the Crusaders were stirring up back in the West was none of our business. Though... it did nag at me a little. France and the Holy Roman Empire still refused to explain what exactly had brought them here in the first place.
“It's been about a month since we arrived, hasn't it?”
“We'll need a few more days to make it a full month, my lady.”
“The messenger should've come by now. Strange that it's so quiet.”
“Let's wait a few more days.”
And if he never showed, we could always just have a letter sent instead.
Then, the next day, a boat arrived carrying an unexpected gift.
“My young master felt terrible for having nothing to offer such honored guests, so he has sent food.”
“Uh... do tell him thank you.”
After sitting there silent all this time? I'd eat whatever was given, sure, but the food itself was a confusing affair—all pointless pretension, from the ornate dishes right down to the decorations. Confusing.
“What is this?”
“No idea. Honestly, a freshly caught fish salted and grilled over a fire would taste better.”
Chomp, chomp.
“Ugh. What even is this flavor?”
“Still—the host sent it, so let's eat a little.”
It was disgusting. Sour, bitter, salty—ugh, ugh... Forget it. The sashimi the locals made was better.
“Then we shall return home first.”
“Yes, thank you. I'll send the dishes back tomorrow.”
“Of course. We shall see you tomorrow.”
What's with all that smirking? Smug little...
Nom nom. Chew, chew.
“Hoo? They're gone?”
“Yeah, looks like it.”
“Ugh, this is terrible. Let's just drink water.”
“Right? Though how did the seasoning end up bitter on top of everything?”
“They probably used that cheap salt. Ugh.”
Everyone agreed, at least, that it tasted awful.
“Let's just dump the food into the sea.”
“Yeah, toss it overboard secretly tonight. No sense letting anyone see us in daylight.”
“Look at us, going to all this trouble.”
Everyone's throats must have been parched—they were gulping down water like there was no tomorrow. Maybe I should break out some alcohol tonight.
“Is this report true?”
“Yes, my lord!”
“Poison them?”
Shota, eldest son of the Minamoto clan and newly seated as shogun, could scarcely believe the letter the messenger had brought.
And that was assuming he would even bring the poison out at all.
“It is said to be a poison that takes effect only after some time has passed, leaving no trace of the deed.”
“But what if even a single one of them survives, whichever way this goes?”
“We would finish the rest with assassins, would we not?”
“Ah...”
Wasn't that just too cowardly and vile? They might as well lie down flat and declare they couldn't repay their debts.
And once they were dead, someone else would come to collect in their place—what then? What was the plan for that?
Shota's chest grew tight with dread. The face of the beautiful woman he'd seen resurfaced in his mind,
Slap.
“Hah! Get ahold of yourself!”
Slapping his own cheek, Shota steadied his resolve. Dazzled by the woman or not, he could not betray his father's commands.
“Take the poison and prepare the meal with the utmost care.”
“Then I shall return tomorrow to report the results.”
“Good. We'll send the food over around dinnertime.”
Having steeled himself, Shota prepared everything with painstaking devotion—hoping, in a way, that even a last meal might taste good.
And so, at the dock where the meal was to be delivered—
“I'm off, young master.”
“Go on, then. Take your time.”
Praying they would walk slowly, that she would breathe just a while longer—could that be called devotion too?
Forgive me.
Watching them receive the food from a distance, Shota felt a flicker of guilt.
The servant who carried the food aboard slipped naturally onto the ship and paused to observe the Daehan people for a moment.
Looks like they'll eat it right away. Perfect timing.
The servant was expected to confirm that they ate the food before returning.
“Haha, enjoy your meal. I'll take my leave now.”
“Don't mind if we do! Give him our thanks!”
And he climbed back down the ladder to his own boat.
Heh. How futile.
Watching from the dock, Shota felt oddly hollow.
The Daehan ship was valuable too, but it would have to be burned. No evidence could be left behind.
Perhaps I could smuggle out her body, somehow?
Whether his bloodline was simply defective or not, this Japanese lord's thoughts kept drifting down a very strange path.
Meanwhile, a crowd waited at the dock for quite a while. It was a nighttime ambush party, ready in case one or two of the visitors should survive.
The sun set, and the moon rose a quarter of the way into the sky.
“Go and finish the job.”
“Yes, young master.”
Whether from guilt or some other purpose, Shota boarded the boat with them.
They rowed steadily toward the Daehan ship.
Thump.
“Hm? What's that?”
A voice speaking the Daehan language drifted down from above.
What's going on? Has the poison not taken hold yet?
That ship should have been in chaos if even one man had collapsed—yet the voices coming from it were perfectly calm, and Shota's confusion only deepened.
“Oh! They've come back for the dishes, I bet.”
“Already?”
“I packed them up. Let's hand them down.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Then a Daehan man popped up over the railing.
“We'll lower the dishes to you, one moment please. My, my—what a crowd you've brought tonight!”
What in the world was happening? Question marks filled every face on the water.
Clatter, clatter.
The dishes came down, dangling from ropes.
“Tell your master the meal was delicious!”
“Ah—of course! Will do!”
What else was there to do? The men who had rowed out turned right around and rowed back.
And so a crowd of gloomy faces gathered in the courtyard of the Minamoto estate.
“Are you certain that was poison?”
“That's what we were told.”
Even the messenger couldn't be fully certain now. What on earth had they actually been given, for not a single soul to die?
“Here. You—try it.”
“M-me?”
Shota thrust the bottle of poison toward the servant beside him.
“They were all perfectly fine, weren't they? What harm could there be? I'll give you a full sok of rice.”
“Yes, my lord!”
A sok of rice—enough to feed a family of four for a year. The servant took the bottle, dabbed a twig into the poison, and tasted it.
“Well?”
“It's a bit bitter and sour, my lord.”
“Hmm? Did they bring the wrong poison? Well—let's wait a while and see.”
It wasn't an instant-acting toxin, so the group resolved to wait and watch.
They whiled away the hours with idle chatter, and by the time the moon had climbed higher toward its peak—
“Gahk... Ghaaak.”
The servant suddenly collapsed, vomiting blood.
“What?! So it was poison!”
“What in the world is happening?”
“Don't tell me the Daehan people are immune to poison?”
The impossible had happened.
“Right—perhaps their bodies simply take longer to succumb. We'll check again in the morning!”
“Yes, my lord!”
Shota retired to bed convinced it was all very strange indeed.
And that night, along the coast, vast numbers of fish began turning belly-up and drifting ashore.
At sunrise, the villagers went mad with excitement. There they were, fish after fish—looking perfectly fine—piled up all along the beach.
Everyone decided to grill them for breakfast and set about dividing the haul.
Early that morning, Shota too headed for the shore. But the villagers had picked the beach clean so quickly that he never learned what had happened.
“Come on, row faster.”
“Yes, my lord...”
His boatman's reply was listless. He'd been planning to stuff himself full of the fish he'd gathered that morning, and now here he was, rowing at dawn because the young master had summoned him.
Knock, knock.
The small boat knocked against the black whale of Daehan, just as it had yesterday.
“Permission to board!”
“Oh? Who is it?”
“Gah.”
Shota felt as though he'd seen a ghost. The face that had haunted his dreams just last night was right there before him.
“W-were there any... any troubles during the night?”
“No. What trouble could there possibly be? When is the messenger from the capital arriving?”
“Ah! Er, um...”
Shota stammered, fumbling for words. What could he possibly say to that?
“That's awfully late. We're heading back, so just send word by letter later.”
“Ah—yes, of course!”
He couldn't exactly announce that a messenger had come ordering him to poison them all. And with the messenger gone, who knew when the next word would arrive? Deciding a letter sent by boat was the better option, Shota saw them off.
And on the shore they had just left—
“Gahk.”
“Khh... urgh.”
The villagers, resting after their breakfast, began collapsing one by one.
The fish they had grilled that morning was the problem.
The Daehan sailors had dumped their revolting leftovers into the sea the night before. The fish had eaten the poisoned food—and the people had eaten the fish.
A catastrophe unfolded as the coastal population died out in droves.
Some whispered that a demon had descended on the village, and fled, packing their things and calling it a plague.
“Young master! Disaster!”
“What is it? Have they come back?”
Shota's heart leapt—could he see her again, after all?
“No, my lord—the people of the coast are nearly all dead!”
“What?! Why?!”
“Well, it's...”
The servant hemmed and hawed, finding the words difficult, until Shota's frayed patience snapped.
“WHAT HAPPENED?!”
“The symptoms... are the same as the man who died from the poison yesterday...”
“What?”
How could ordinary people have eaten that poison? The poison in the food had been eaten by the Daehan people, and the rest of it was sitting in his own hands?
“Could it be a plague?”
“We cannot be certain, my lord. The physicians are dying too—there is no one left to examine them.”
“Gahk. What am I to do?”
Calamity had descended upon the very region that was to become the seat of his father, the new shogun. Shota's vision went dark.
If even an ugly rumor slipped out, who knew which ambitious lord might start scheming?
“Seal the people's lips...”
“Yes, my lord!”
The servant assumed this meant buying silence here and there, enough to keep the story quiet.
“...It must never, ever leak.”
After a moment's hesitation, Shota weighed it as a necessary cruelty for the sake of the shogunate—and gave the terrible order.
“What do you mean by that, my lord...?”
“Kill everyone who knows about the poison.”
“Gahk.”
Shota's eyes glittered as he stared down at the servant before him—and beyond him, at the man's own throat. Bowing low as he was, the servant could not know it, but his own future, too, was already sealed. He knew about the poison, after all.
What none of them understood was what had actually happened aboard the Daehan ship the day before.
The people of Daehan had eaten the poison—of that, there was no doubt. The difference between them and these people came down to one thing: the water. The Daehan sailors mixed a little Holy Water into their drinking water to keep it from spoiling.
The Holy Water was heavily diluted, but then again, the poison they'd mixed into the food had only been added a little at a time as well.
A few sailors had complained of stomachaches last evening—but a dose of Holy Water, the cure-all, and they were washed clean as new.
“Ahh, something still feels off.”
“What do you mean, Haneul-nim?”
“I don't know. It just feels like—like I took a dump but didn't wipe.”
“Are you going to the toilet, Haneul-nim?”
I am NOT! You brat! I can't go even if I eat—nothing comes out!
“No, I'm not going. I'm just saying it feels that way.”
“Ahh~”
It felt like I'd left something behind. I came here to collect taxes and chase down their debts—I collected the taxes, I pressed the debt collection...
So wasn't I basically done?