The Dovecote at Night
"You made countless people die without guilt, and now you cannot even look after Her Majesty's future."
"Do not worry about your humble servant, Your Majesty. Steel your heart. This is not your fault. I beg of you—steady your heart."
Song Hyo-bin felt as though her heart were being torn into ten thousand pieces.
Only days before, the young officials of the Hall of Worthies, led by Seong Sam-mun and Park Paeng-nyeon, had been dragged one after another into the Uigeumbu.
They had schemed in secret to restore the Retired King Hong-wi to his throne—only to be seized when Kim Jil, a comrade they had trusted, betrayed them and revealed the plot.
When he heard the full account, Suyang raged like a storm.
These wretched vermin! I trusted you and raised you high in my service—and this is how you repay me!
His fury was hardly surprising.
In truth, Seong Sam-mun, the ringleader of the conspiracy, had been climbing the very ladder of promotion that Han Myeong-hoe, universally acknowledged as Suyang's most trusted confidant, had been treading step by step.
In other words, Suyang had cherished Seong Sam-mun as dearly as he cherished Han Myeong-hoe.
And that man had plotted rebellion.
Suyang's rage was a terrifying thing to behold.
Not only Seong Sam-mun and his men but everyone who had ever posed a threat was hauled in as well.
Among them were even Suyang's own full brothers, such as Grand Prince Geumseong, Lee Yu.
Yeoryang Buwongun Song Hyeon-su—Hong-wi's father-in-law and Song Hyo-bin's father—had not yet been arrested, but Hyo-bin could already sense, in her bones, what fate awaited her father and her natal family.
"All the more reason to steel your heart, Your Majesty. You must survive."
"Survive?"
Hong-wi smiled a hollow, desolate smile.
That hollow smile wounded Song Hyo-bin more than anything else could have.
How could she wash away the despair and helplessness that had taken root and bloomed like a poisonous mushroom inside Hong-wi's heart? How could she set right the man who was crumbling before her eyes?
It was the only thought she had.
"Survive? My queen, there is nothing left in this heart of mine. If anything remains, it is only guilt, and grief beyond recalling, and regret. What reason have I to go on living in this body? I watch those who rose up for me suffer the cruelest of tortures, helpless to do anything—how can a man like that wish to live?"
"Your Majesty..."
Hyo-bin lowered her head.
Teardrops scattered like dew across her cheeks, white as jade.
Hong-wi gently caressed her face.
"All of this is because of my own lack of virtue—why do you weep, my queen? It is I who feel shame before you. You took this wretched man for your husband, and now..."
Hong-wi's voice, too, trembled more and more, until at last he could not finish.
"Your Majesty."
Song Hyo-bin raised her head.
Her eyes were rimmed with red, yet her gaze was resolute beyond measure.
"Do not torment yourself. Steel your heart. Whatever may come to pass, your servant will remain at your side. However black the night, dawn comes at last, does it not, and the sun rises? That day will surely come. It must come. And so..."
Song Hyo-bin gazed steadily at Hong-wi.
"For my sake as well—live, I beg you."
Hong-wi could not speak for a long while.
Only after a great while did he nod his head.
"...Thank you, my queen. And... I am sorry."
The two clasped hands and wept quietly together.
At that very moment—
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap... the sound of slow, heavy applause rolled through the room.
Hong-wi and Song Hyo-bin flinched and turned to find Suyang standing there.
A cruel smile played at the corner of his mouth as he regarded the royal couple with the steady gaze of a hunting dog watching cornered prey.
"I bid you good evening, Your Majesty."
Suyang smiled slyly.
"You seem much troubled."
"Your Majesty."
Song Hyo-bin asked coldly,
"What brings you here?"
"To consult with the Retired King here... on how to dispose of those who instigated this treasonous plot."
Suyang replied.
Hong-wi felt his stomach twist.
"The sovereign of this realm at present is you. It is your place to judge such matters. What need have you to come to me?"
"I am grateful that the Retired King says so."
Suyang answered as though nothing were amiss.
"But... given the nature of the affair, I feel some hesitation about pronouncing judgment on the criminals alone. They were court officials who drew state stipends, and scholars besides, so I have also been pondering how their names ought to be recorded in the annals. Even a criminal has his honor, does he not?"
Suyang gave a dry smile.
He was taunting Hong-wi with talk of a scholar's honor.
"Then go,"
Hong-wi replied.
At that, Song Hyo-bin flinched.
"Your Majesty!"
"I am only going to speak with my uncle. Do not worry."
Hong-wi answered quietly and turned to face Suyang.
The royal historian who would ordinarily accompany a king on any progress was nowhere to be seen.
Suyang noticed and laughed.
"I dismissed the historians deliberately."
"A king travels without his historian?"
"I wished for a conversation between kings, without reserve."
Hong-wi frowned, but he could not refuse to follow.
Song Hyo-bin watched them leave Suganggung, her unease rising as she gazed at Suyang and Hong-wi's retreating figures.
Hong-wi asked,
"Where are we going?"
"The Uigeumbu, of course."
Suyang answered flatly.
They each settled into their sedan chairs.
Suyang gave the porters his order.
"Set your litter alongside the Retired King's. We wish to talk."
Talk? What talk?
The moment the porters lifted the chairs, Suyang opened his mouth with the easy air of a man resuming a story interrupted halfway.
"Let us pass the journey with an old tale."
An old tale. What tale?
Suyang began.
"The tale of when King Taejo received the throne from the last king of Goryeo, King Gongyang. Call it fifty years ago now, give or take."
What was this, all of a sudden?
Hong-wi found it strange, but he did not interrupt and simply listened.
"A new dynasty had been founded, and so men of talent were needed to deliberate on the affairs of the realm together. King Taejo therefore urged those who had served the old dynasty to come out and serve the new court. And do you know what happened?"
Hong-wi did not answer.
The sedan chairs swayed gently from time to time.
"They refused to serve, and hid themselves away in a single village. Then Taejo, in his goodwill, urged them once more—come, let us work together—and when such a thing happened, you can imagine how ridiculous it looked. An unpleasant business. The times were unsettled enough already."
Suyang continued, staring straight ahead.
"Then, it is said, a certain man devised a scheme. And what was that scheme? Set the village on fire—could they do anything but come out? So they set the fire."
The chairs still jolted along, little by little.
"But things did not go as intended. Can you guess what those men did within the blazing flames?"
Hong-wi still made no answer.
Suyang smirked, turned toward Hong-wi, and suddenly cried out in a ringing voice:
"I will not come out! I will not come out!"
No one answered.
Suyang grinned.
"Not a single one of them came out. Not one. To a man, they burned to death inside Dumundong. A truly striking story, is it not?"
"A striking story indeed, Your Majesty."
Hong-wi replied calmly.
"But it seems borrowed from the tale of Duke Wen of Jin and Jie Zitui, does it not? Is that tale even true?"
"Haha, quite right. There is no evidence such an event ever occurred. It is merely the tale as the world tells it—one I myself heard in my days of idle wandering."
Hong-wi fell silent.
Why was Suyang suddenly telling such a story?
"What matters is not whether the tale is true or false. Even if it were invented, it is grounded, in some measure, in reality."
By now the procession of sedans had rounded the front of Gwanghwamun and was entering Yukjo Street.
"When I heard that story, this was the thought that came to me: how difficult it is to win a man's heart... how hard it is with wealth, with office, even with a blade at his throat and his life at stake. I was inwardly awed."
The Uigeumbu building came into view in the distance.
Twilight had descended on Yukjo Street, and it lay silent and deserted—yet the Uigeumbu alone blazed with lamps, bright and brilliant.
At the sight of it, Hong-wi's heart grew heavy.
"If only Seong Sam-mun and Park Paeng-nyeon and their ilk had cast off office and gone into hiding, as in that old tale, it would have been better. But they chose to serve me. For nearly a full year, they concealed their true hearts."
The sedan chairs stopped before the Uigeumbu.
Suyang descended from his chair and turned to face Hong-wi.
His expression had hardened savagely.
"Now then—you, my nephew, are well-versed in the classics. Is this what it means to be a scholar? To enjoy every privilege, to feed on state stipends—and then turn a blade against me?"
Hong-wi glared at Suyang.
Coming from anyone else it might have passed, but hearing it from Suyang's mouth was enough to make a man choke on his own breath.
Yet Suyang was a man who had gone too far, by now, to feel any remorse over such things.
Suddenly Suyang thrust his face close to Hong-wi's.
His voice was unnervingly soft.
"Let us go in, Hong-wi... it is time to witness the condemned."
They entered in silence.
Yun Am, the Papyeong-gun and Chief Commissioner of the Uigeumbu, greeted them with a haggard face.
Suyang said quietly,
"I will view the prisoners myself, together with the Retired King. Clear away the guards."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Yun Am answered.
He personally led Suyang and Hong-wi to the place where the prisoners were held, then withdrew.
Under the lamplight, bloodied forms could be seen sprawled across the cell floor.
Hong-wi could not bring himself to look.
Suyang spoke in a dark, grim voice.
"Look, Hong-wi. Look at their miserable state... They were men fit to become pillars of a throne. That they could never bring their talents to flower and ended thus, in such wretchedness—that is solely because of you. It was for your sake that they came to this."
Suyang turned to Hong-wi and continued.
"Now look into yourself. And consider: were you a vessel worthy of their dying to preserve their honor?"
Hong-wi lowered his eyes.
Suyang was relentless.
"Were you truly a man fit to be king? Were you anything more than one born by chance the eldest legitimate grandson of the royal house? Have you ever, even once, weighed whether you were truly a king's vessel?"
"Uncle..."
Hong-wi all but whispered.
At last he raised his head.
"Uncle, you are truly a wicked man. Did it have to come to this? Was it to such lengths that you craved that seat?"
"Ha!"
Suyang gave a short laugh.
"Did it have to come to this, you ask?"
"It did!"
Hong-wi shouted back.
Nothing remained to him now but defiance—and if even that were gone, he would simply have collapsed where he stood.
He jabbed a finger at the royal crown that Suyang wore—the ikseongwan, the symbol of the king—and cried out:
"Was that crown such an object of your greed?"
"Yes—I was greedy for it!"
Suyang shouted.
Hong-wi fell silent.
"To take this seat, I cut down my own kin. I cut down ministers who were called tigers. I cut down the great commander Yi Jing-ok himself. I accepted the fingers pointed at me for stealing my nephew's throne. That is how I climbed into this seat!"
Suyang glared at Hong-wi, trembling, and shouted again.
"And what of you? You do not know. You never understood why men covet the seat you sat upon, why it drives men mad with longing. And so you ask me—why did I have to go to such lengths to covet the throne!"
After that outburst, Suyang was silent for a moment.
Only after a long while did he speak again.
"To win this seat, I staked everything. My life itself, if it had been required. I could accept infamy in the annals—and in truth I did, and so I won it. Then to keep this seat... yes, there is nothing I cannot do. Having gone so far, do you think a few short years of reigning is enough? Like Dongfang Shuo, if not three thousand years of lifespan, then surely one full sixty-year cycle I must hold in my grasp, must I not?"
One cycle meant sixty years.
"If Heaven will not grant me such a span of years—then if not ten years, then five; if not five, then three; if not three, then one year, one month, one single day more—if I could taste it, I would sooner let go of nothing. That is the greed I live by."
Suyang stared at Hong-wi with dim eyes, then said, enunciating each word:
"Does this greed seem excessive to you? Yet without such greed, could a man keep the throne? In that sense, Hong-wi... you were never fit to sit upon this seat. The blame for all of this lies with you—because a man unfit to sit there tried to sit there all the same."
Hong-wi did not answer.
Suyang pointed into the cells.
"Now, look at them again."
Hong-wi could not bring himself to look at them directly.
"You have read the classics. Do you know what a scholar's honor is?"
Hong-wi did not answer.
"They followed you. Yet all the same, they had served me. You know full well that for a scholar to harbor divided hearts in serving his lord is the deepest dishonor... If they die as they are, they will go to their deaths carrying a dishonor without parallel in all the world."
Suyang spoke as though savoring every word.
"But a king must be merciful—so it is said. Therefore I intend to grant them one chance. And that chance depends entirely on you, Hong-wi."
Hong-wi turned to look at Suyang.
"What chance is that?"
"To make them say they moved at your command."
Suyang said flatly.
"They are upright, unbending scholars, yes. For such men to bend their conviction... at your pleading. How they must have agonized. They broke the scholar's duty because of you—because they had no choice."
He smirked.
"Would that not be better than the infamy of taking their lord's stipend while plotting his overthrow?"
Suyang felt a cruel pleasure.
Years before, at a royal banquet, when Hong-wi had not backed down before a tiger, he had felt the first faint stirring of ominous foreboding. When he saw Hong-wi revered by the chieftains of the wild men on Cheonggye Mountain, he had felt fury itself.
And to plunge that Hong-wi into endless despair and helplessness—there was no pleasure greater.