The Roebuck and the Shadow
"A roebuck!"
The beaters raised a great shout.
And sure enough, a roebuck came bounding down through the snow, kicking up white powder with every leap.
There was no telling whether winter hunger had driven it out in search of food, or whether it had been roused from its winter sleep by the commotion of the beaters.
Fate, it seemed, had decided against the creature, for it came springing straight toward the spot where Hong-wi and his party stood.
"Your Majesty, shoot it, quickly!"
At the shout of the Royal Guard captain, Hong-wi raised his bow.
But Suyang beside him was a shade faster.
With a sharp hiss, the arrow flew and punched clean through the roebuck's neck. The beast, still charging headlong, crumpled where it ran.
"Whoa!"
From a distance, the onlookers cried out in admiration at the sight of the roebuck toppling.
They knew the closest party—Hong-wi's and Suyang's—had loosed the shot, and naturally took it for granted that the arrow was the King's own.
Then again, who in their right mind would dare steal the King's kill?
The crowd swarmed around like clouds, showering Hong-wi with praise.
Seong Sam-mun and Park Paeng-nyeon were among them.
"Long live His Majesty the King!"
Before Hong-wi could even respond, Suyang shoved himself forward and called out in a loud voice.
"It was I who loosed that arrow."
The cheering died all at once.
The onlookers traded wary glances.
Seong Sam-mun's face hardened.
Park Paeng-nyeon ground his teeth.
"Have you ever seen such insolence!"
Seong Sam-mun's expression had stiffened as well.
Had this been what Suyang was after?
He quietly took hold of Park Paeng-nyeon's sleeve.
"Stay calm. Suyang is testing us."
The crowd, at a complete loss, kept glancing back and forth between Suyang and Hong-wi.
What was to be done?
Properly speaking, Suyang ought to be charged with insulting the sovereign.
But who would dare step forward and say so?
Around them, Suyang's henchmen were glaring with burning eyes.
Then Hong-wi stepped forth.
"My uncle speaks the truth."
Before the shock of seeing the King so meekly lower his own authority could even ripple through the assembled ministers, Hong-wi continued.
"My uncle has graciously demonstrated his archery for my benefit—how could I not be grateful? And there is much game yet to be taken on this mountain today. Why quarrel over one small beast? Is this not a day for claiming grand prey so that all may share in the joy?"
The wretched boy! Suyang's face froze solid.
He had taken him for a mere child, and yet the little wretch was no pushover at all.
Hong-wi had parried Suyang's insult with perfect grace while simultaneously casting him as a small-minded man who squabbled over trifling game.
Suyang's sparse beard trembled faintly.
Seong Sam-mun and Park Paeng-nyeon, by contrast, visibly relaxed.
Park Paeng-nyeon whispered.
"Our King—truly remarkable. Suyang just took a blow straight to the chin."
"Who would say otherwise?"
Seong Sam-mun echoed him, though his eyes stayed fixed on Suyang with cold intensity.
Since the Gyeyu Coup, Suyang's tyranny had grown ever more outrageous, but today's affair laid bare how firmly his ambition, once hidden, had already taken root in his heart.
Seong Sam-mun made a silent vow.
'If only for His Majesty's sake, Suyang must be dealt with. It must be done.'
While the hunters dressed the roebuck, Hong-wi spoke to Suyang.
"I would like to give my horse its head and ride for a while."
"By all means."
Suyang replied with a sour look.
"You do know how to ride, of course?"
"I learned a little at the Stables Office."
At Hong-wi's answer, Suyang gave a slow nod.
Hong-wi dug his spurs into his horse at once.
The animal whinnied and bounded forward.
"Your Majesty!"
Flustered, the Royal Guard captain drove his own horse after him.
Suyang only glowered at the King's receding back, making no move to follow.
Hong-wi ignored the captain's cries as he chased frantically behind, and thundered on with terrifying momentum. So fierce was his pace that even the handpicked cavalry could not keep up with the King, falling steadily behind instead.
Hong-wi had indeed learned to ride at the Stables Office, but he had never once galloped across open ground like this—and yet...
For the first time in ages, Hong-wi felt truly exhilarated.
It was close to a state of self-forgetfulness. The suffocation that had weighed on him within the palace walls seemed to burst apart and scatter to the wind.
Perhaps this was how the hunting falcon felt, soaring up into the high sky moments ago. As though it understood its master's mood, the horse beneath him showed not the slightest sign of fatigue.
It was a fine steed, counted among the very best the Stables Office had to offer.
After riding for some time, Hong-wi gradually slowed his pace.
Before he knew it, the beaters' cries had faded to a distant murmur.
Even so, he could not have strayed beyond the hunting grounds.
He had yet to come across any of the soldiers still guarding the perimeter.
Hong-wi looked around him.
Cheonggye Mountain in winter was stark and desolate.
He realized, all at once, that he had been left utterly alone in this vast mountain wilderness.
And yet he felt little fear.
Since his father's passing, he had long grown accustomed to the loneliness of being left alone and to the creeping anxiety that seeped in around the edges of every day.
Battling the formidable old ministers—Hwangbo In and Kim Jong-seo among them, loyal though they were—was no easy matter either.
Standing firm against his uncle Suyang's faction, which had come swarming in with murderous energy on that dawn the Gyeyu Coup erupted, was exhausting in itself.
His uncle's henchmen pressed him covertly and openly alike, while his uncle watched him with eyes that grew colder by the day, feigning ignorance of it all—each of them gnawing away at Hong-wi's spirit.
There was no one to help him.
"Who is there to help me?"
Hong-wi sighed.
Among all the court officials who had accompanied him on this hunt, who, in truth, would serve him with genuine loyalty?
Every last one of them had turned a blind eye to Suyang's conduct since the Gyeyu Coup.
Even the scholars of the Hall of Worthies, his grandfather Sejong's favored men—Seong Sam-mun, Park Paeng-nyeon, Ha Wi-ji and the like—had taken no action at the time of the coup; worse, they had accepted positions among the merit subjects.
It was not, of course, that everyone left had already submitted to Suyang. But Hong-wi had no way of knowing who was who.
Nor could he risk opening his heart first. There was no telling how far his uncle Suyang's hand had reached.
Every time someone came to see him, merely trying to trace whose side this person was on had become a weariness in itself.
Under the circumstances, it was far more restful simply to remain alone.
"I'd sooner live out my days alone on this mountain. At least my heart would know some peace."
Hong-wi murmured the words to himself.
He thought of the tiger he had encountered years ago.
From that beast he had felt a strength so startling, a bearing that could only be called royal.
Tigers, it was said, moved alone rather than in packs—and in that creature, even its solitude had transformed into something of dread authority.
Power. That was the very thing.
Was that not precisely what Hong-wi lacked—what he might never possess at all, however long he lived?
He drew a long, slow breath.
"The whole world debates the power of a king, and I have nothing. I cannot even say whether I will hold out for three more years!"
Just then, hoofbeats rang out, clack-clack-clack against the frozen ground.
Hong-wi flinched and turned toward the sound.
The Royal Guard captain and his men? No—it was not them.
A tall man in a black robe and a wide-brimmed conical hat was riding toward him.
Spotting Hong-wi, the man reined in and studied him in silence.
He looked familiar. Perhaps he had been riding among the hunting procession just a short while ago...
"You... you were the one riding beside Deputy Director Han Myeong-hoe, weren't you."
"Sharp eyes, Your Majesty."
Han Ga-ryeong gave a slow nod.
But inwardly, he was a little surprised at Hong-wi's keen eye. They had passed each other for no more than an instant, and yet the King remembered him.
"I came to attend upon Your Majesty."
Hong-wi regarded Han Ga-ryeong for a moment, then nodded readily.
"Forgive me for the trouble I've caused you unawares. Then I'll trouble you further, until the others arrive."
A thin smile flickered across Han Ga-ryeong's lips.
Han Myeong-hoe was, of course, Suyang's man—the man who might well one day steal the very seat he occupied. And this King faced him with such perfect composure. Was it naivety? Thoughtlessness? Or had he simply risen above it all?
The two rode side by side.
Hong-wi asked.
"Now that I think of it, I never did learn your name. May I ask what it is?"
May I ask, was it? A courtesy beyond all reproach. Whether it was the dignity instilled by a sovereign's education or simply his nature, this boy-king was a man it was easy to feel warmly toward.
So thinking, Han Ga-ryeong answered.
"My surname is Han, my given name Ga-ryeong."
"Han Ga-ryeong..."
Hong-wi looked him over from head to toe.
"Pardon me if this gives offense, but your speech is rather distinctive. Where are you from?"
"From the northern frontier—a man of the Ain people."
"Ain, is it...?"
Hong-wi's face showed a flicker of surprise as he looked Han Ga-ryeong over anew.
"We entertained chieftains of the Moryeonwi Ain just today, but you feel quite different from them."
"Your Majesty knows well enough that the Ain are made up of many different tribes. And though I lived long in the Ain lands, I am not Ain-born myself."
"Then I have given offense indeed."
Hong-wi replied.
"But to come all this way from the Ain lands... And if you are not Ain-born, you must surely have a story behind you. You said you serve Han Myeong-hoe."
"I do."
"How did you come to serve your master?"
"There is a story that led me there."
That was all Han Ga-ryeong would say.
It might have sounded curt to the point of rudeness, but Hong-wi paid it no mind.
"A story, is it."
The conversation lapsed.
The two rode on in silence.
It was Hong-wi who broke the quiet first.
"Could you tell me of the customs of the land you came from? I find myself curious."
Han Ga-ryeong rode on in thought for a moment before answering.
"It is... altogether different from Joseon. Far harsher. You could say that every single day is a fight for survival."
"A fight?"
Han Ga-ryeong nodded.
The Ain, like the people of Joseon, did farm the land—but the soil was barren, and their farming techniques and implements were crude by comparison, so crops alone could never yield enough food.
And so they had no choice but to rely on herding, hunting, and gathering as well.
"Even then, it is never easy. When fortune favors you, you eat well. More often, you do not."
"I see. A hard life, then."
"Which is why the chieftain matters above all else. Who the tribe chooses as its head can determine the very shape of its life."
"In that, we are not so very different."
Hong-wi nodded.
"That may be so everywhere. But in one custom at least—the choosing of a chieftain—the Ain ways and the ways of Joseon differ."
"Do they? How so?"
"If a man believes his own leadership surpasses the chieftain's, he may challenge him for the seat. Anyone at all. At any time."
Han Ga-ryeong said quietly.
Hong-wi felt something stiffen deep in his chest.
"How... unusual."
"Is that all, Your Majesty?"
Hong-wi halted his horse.
Han Ga-ryeong was watching him steadily.
The hand gripping the reins had tightened, but Hong-wi did not feel it.
'Of all the humiliations—I have taken insult from a nobody like this...!'
If a man could kill with a glance, Han Ga-ryeong would already have died a hundred deaths over.
But Han Ga-ryeong, meeting Hong-wi's glare, only smiled lightly.
"That expression—it suits you."
"What did you say?"
"Anger is far more becoming in a man than the look of a beaten dog."
Han Ga-ryeong said coldly.
"I would have you remember one thing, and one thing only."
"What thing?"
"That the seat of the chieftain may be challenged by anyone, at any time."
Hong-wi could not tell where Han Ga-ryeong was going with this.
Han Ga-ryeong went on as though talking to himself, paying Hong-wi no heed.
"If a man has the resolve and the preparation, he may challenge at any time. Some wait ten years. Some wait twenty. And there are those who wait their whole lives and at last seize the chieftain's seat for their own."
"What on earth—"
"Your Majesty's uncle did so, whatever else may be said of him, and he succeeded. Whether Your Majesty could do the same, I do not know."
Hong-wi glared at him.
Han Ga-ryeong—what in the world was this man saying? Challenge? As if to tell me to bide my time and rise against my uncle? But is this man not Han Myeong-hoe's creature?
'Is this, too, some cunning scheme of Han Myeong-hoe's?'
The suspicion came unbidden.
His uncle Suyang above all—and his henchmen just as much—wished for nothing more than for Hong-wi to surrender the throne a day sooner.
Only the matter of face held them back: a subject could not be the first to demand the King's seat.
Was this, then, a trap to bait Hong-wi into some rash and hasty act?
Hong-wi glared at him. But the man's face was as impenetrable as a drawn curtain, revealing nothing at all.
"Your Majesty... Your Majesty!"
Just as Hong-wi was about to ask something, a distant cry reached their ears.
Han Ga-ryeong turned toward it.
"It seems they are searching for Your Majesty. You should go back."
Hong-wi studied him for a long moment, then mounted his horse as well.
Without exchanging another word, the two men rode toward the sound of the voices.
"Your Majesty—Your Majesty! Where have you been?"
The Royal Guard captain, pale as death, came rushing over the moment he laid eyes on the King.
"Forgive me. I wished to clear my head for a moment."
"Your Majesty—with all respect, you must remain with us at all times in a place like this. You must guard your royal person!"
Perhaps this was exactly how the rabbit must have felt—that one who barely escaped the Dragon Palace of the sea with its liver still intact. Hong-wi felt a twinge of guilt.
He had only meant to ride out his stifled heart, and instead he had thrown everyone around him into a panic.
"Truly, Your Majesty. You must protect your royal person."
Hong-wi turned—and there, somehow, was his uncle Suyang.
His uncle cast him an oily, lingering glance.
"I rode about here and there a while, feeling stifled."
"The Royal Guards were watching over you, Your Majesty, but who can say what treacherous things may lurk in the hunting grounds? Do take care in future."
Suyang replied with practiced eloquence.
Was that not, perhaps, the very thing your heart desired, my dear uncle?
Hong-wi swallowed the retort, pressing it down and down.
Instead, he turned his head, searching for Han Ga-ryeong.