The Monk's Iron Staff
"Pathless wretches, the lot of them. There's been no shortage of men like that in Jianzhou lately, so I don't bother sparing a thought for each one."
Heo Jo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and flashed a satisfied grin.
"But still... aren't those Lee Man-ju's men?"
"Nothing but empty bluster. Lee Man-ju's power is so vast that people tremble at the mere mention of his name, and those rogues trade on that. Ever since I settled here, they've grown far fewer in number—though why they'd come crawling back on a day like today, I can't imagine."
Heo Jo shrugged his shoulders and shoveled pork into his mouth.
"Ahh, now this is delicious! The samgutgui, was it? Master Temusi-i, I confess I'm green with envy. You keep truly fine company. To offer such charity as this—you're storing up merit, surely."
His oil-slicked mouth made for a jarring contrast with the gesture, but he pressed his palms together with surprising propriety and bowed in turn to Hong-wi and Ho-in.
Even Ho-in couldn't hold back a snort of laughter.
Hong-wi waited quietly for a moment, then spoke again.
"You said you learned the Buddhist path from your master, and took root in this temple."
"That I did."
Heo Jo grinned, cheeks still working.
He swallowed the meat he'd been chewing and went on.
"I didn't set foot here from the start, mind you. My master and I wandered all over Jianzhou looking for somewhere we could settle, and that's how we found the place. As you can see, it was once a magnificent temple, but when the age of chaos descended, it was abandoned like everything else. By the time we arrived, it had long since become a den for ruffians and loafers. So from the very first day, it was a fight."
Hong-wi's curiosity stirred at the mention of this master, but for now he chose to simply listen as Heo Jo unraveled his story.
"These men had burrowed so deep into the temple they'd become a chronic disease. Even after we drove them out, they couldn't break their habits—they went on plundering the nearby villages, murdering and burning without a second thought. A Buddhist is never supposed to take life, of course. But those Shura fiends who rampage about taking lives as though there were no heaven above them—well, someone has to cure them of their bad habits."
"And how do you cure them?"
"Well, now..."
Heo Jo gestured toward the wall of the monks' quarters.
Hong-wi and his companions turned to look. Slung diagonally across the wall was some kind of staff.
It was not wood, but cast from iron. They called it a staff, yet even at a glance it was far too large and heavy for the name—easily thirty or forty geun at the least.
"With this one iron staff, there's not a soul who won't listen. Very convenient."
It was indeed an iron staff—too massive and heavy, really, to be called a staff at all.
It must have weighed a good thirty geun if it weighed an ounce.
Hong-wi marveled inwardly, and Ho-in's jaw hung open of its own accord.
"Goodness, what is that iron club?"
"Club? That, my friend, is a khakkhara—the ringed staff that monks of the Buddhist order carry."
Heo Jo's breezy dismissal left Ho-in utterly deflated.
"How is that a staff, by any stretch?"
"It most certainly is. You can walk with it, can't you? And it's the staff we use to set wrongdoers straight."
"And how, pray tell, does that straighten anyone out?"
"How does it fix them? For ruffians who've forgotten even their parents' faces and run wild in their insolence, the rod is the best medicine there is. One crack of this, and most of them are reformed clean through in three whacks."
"And how exactly does a habit get reformed?"
Hong-wi, who had been enjoying the exchange, cut in with a smile.
Heo Jo answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"One blow of the club, and men who never knew their parents are suddenly calling for mother and father at the top of their lungs. Two blows, and men who never heeded a word of the Buddha's teaching are suddenly seeking enlightenment with their whole hearts."
By now Heo Jo had given up all pretense and simply called it a club himself.
Ho-in asked again.
"Then what happens at three whacks?"
"At three whacks..."
Heo Jo sighed with theatrical sorrow.
"The dim-witted ones don't repent at all—they just go keeling over and fall fast asleep. A tragic waste, I tell you."
"Oh dear, oh dear. Three whacks for a scoundrel that wicked, and it's a straight shot to the next world."
Heo Jo let out a great roar of laughter.
Maruchi, who had been absorbed in the food, looked up and chimed in.
"Think about it—anyone who's earned three whacks from Elder Heo Jo must already be beyond saving in this life, no? The Buddha himself would tell such a man to hurry to the next world and work off his sins. What do you say, Elder Heo Jo—am I wrong?"
"Well, well! For once, something other than hot air!"
Heo Jo slapped Maruchi on the back with a hand like a pot lid, laughing all the while.
The blow nearly sent Maruchi face-first into the plate of meat, and it was only Arachi—sisterly duty prevailing—that hauled him upright again.
The room erupted in laughter once more.
"By the way—how did you know my name earlier?"
"Why, how could I not? The name of Temusi-i is known far and wide in Jianzhou."
"Hah."
Hong-wi made an embarrassed face.
"The people of Sahalcha are a rough, thorny lot to befriend. Yet you, a Joseon man, won their acceptance. That alone would be remarkable enough—but I hear you tried to save complete strangers besides?"
"Anyone would have done the same. And I didn't manage to save them, either."
"Anyone would not have, and that's the point. Of course, there are men like Tung Jugang and Sonata here—but while the mountain folk can be quite insular toward outsiders, that hardly means they aren't insular among their own kind. These people live and die by blood kinship."
"You mean the mukun and the hala."
"Precisely. Once you're acknowledged as kin, you're treated as family no matter how distant the branch—and if kin suffer harm, blood must be answered in blood. Look at it the other way, though..."
"...then anyone who isn't kin is treated as an enemy."
"Exactly. And that's why the mountain folk are so impressed by what you did. Neither kin nor countryman—and yet you stood up to that Lee Man-ju for the sake of the Ban clan village. You failed to save them, yes, but the mountain folk honor the attempt all the same."
Hong-wi glanced at Tung Jugang and Sonata.
They grinned and gave him a short nod.
"Besides, you faced down Lee Man-ju—and above all, Biriherimdon—to your face. That's what astonishes people most of all."
"Really? These friends of mine hardly think Lee Man-ju worth the trouble... and neither do you, Master Heo Jo."
"Just call me Heo Jo. And that's because your crowd and I are the strange ones here."
"What? Now we're the strange ones?"
Sonata threw his head back and bellowed at that, and Heo Jo laughed along with him.
"What can I say—the truth is the truth! Who in all of Jianzhou dares speak Lee Man-ju's bare name like that? Everyone calls him Dudu, honoring him to his face. Even Tung Shan of the Jianzhou Left Guard, who stands on equal footing with him, or Panchya of the Right Guard—they'd tread carefully around the man. Among all the chieftains today, the only one who treats him with anything less than dread is..."
Heo Jo thought for a moment, then shrugged.
"...I'd wager it's only Grand Chieftain Onyan Isiha."
"That man is far above anything a mere Lee Man-ju could ever approach."
Tung Jugang said quietly.
"The elder simply refrains from provoking Man-ju's temper as much as possible, for Wol-yeong's sake."
"If only young Temur hadn't died so tragically. What a fine thing that would have been."
Sonata agreed, his voice uncharacteristically somber.
"Man-ju has been scheming to bind Wol-yeong to his eldest son—his Kunaha—by any means necessary. Fortunately, that Kunaha cur can't show his face openly after what happened, but still."
"What happened? What are you talking about?"
"The great hunt. He got drunk and defiled the sacred grounds."
Tung Jugang left unsaid the fact that Lee Go-nap-hap had tried to defile Wol-yeong herself and abduct her.
He had promised the man as much, it was true—but more than that, he refused to wound Wol-yeong's dignity.
No matter what difficulties arose, that one thing he would carry to his grave as a secret.
Hong-wi felt exactly the same.
"The insolent whelp! Until that day, no Hurigai—no, not an Odoli man, not a born-and-bred son of Jianzhou, no one had ever dared lay a finger on the sacred grounds of Anchuunbugu!"
Sonata's face flushed with indignation.
"In any case, as Kunaha he's left himself holding a weakness we can exploit. But Lee Man-ju won't give up."
"Just the thought of a peacock like that Kunaha laying hands on Lady Wol-yeong makes my skin crawl. I don't even want to imagine it."
Sonata shook his head and shuddered theatrically.
"Who wouldn't feel that way? But we can't leave her an old maid forever, either. With the future of Anchuunbugu to consider, she ought to marry a chieftain with a solid power base behind him—and these days, everyone else just crawls and grovels, glancing over their shoulders at Lee Man-ju."
Tung Jugang furrowed his brow.
Sonata smirked slyly.
"Far be it from me to say, but it seems to me there's a rather fine suitor sitting right here at this table."
"Who? What—me?"
Tung Jugang, lost in thought, answered absently—then caught the direction of Sonata's gaze and started in alarm.
Hong-wi chimed in with a smile.
"Now that I look at it, I can't imagine a better match than you and Wol-yeong."
"Oh, don't start with that. Not a chance."
Tung Jugang's face turned serious.
"Wol-yeong and I have been childhood friends, but I've never once thought of her that way. Wol-yeong deserves a far finer man than me. Someone who can protect the Wanyan clan—that's the kind of man she needs. And I..."
Tung Jugang fell silent for a moment.
"I'm not the kind of man who could stand at her side."
"Why not? Here's a man ready to tear the world apart for the chance to be Buma of the Wanyan—and by all rights, you'd be a true Buma already."
Sonata's voice wilted as he spoke.
Tung Jugang answered with forced lightness.
"What about you, Sonata? Any designs on the Buma's seat yourself?"
"Me? Ha! Spare me! A grand title like Buma? I'd suffocate inside a week. I'm a man born to wander free, singing at the top of my lungs and living loud. That's the life for me."
Sonata cried out in mock horror, and Tung Jugang laughed heartily.
"Then we're in real trouble, aren't we... So who among us is fit to be Buma, then?"
His gaze swung back and forth between Hong-wi and Heo Jo.
Heo Jo burst out laughing.
"Ho! This barbarian's scheming to seat a Buddhist monk as imperial consort now, is he?"
"Then it leaves only you, Temusi-i."
Tung Jugang regarded him steadily.
Strangely enough, his eyes were so utterly serious that it was impossible to tell whether he was joking or in earnest.
Hong-wi looked away.
"I'm not the kind of man fit to be Buma any more than you are."
In that very instant, he was seeing it again—Song Hyo-bin's eyes on that day in Yeongwol, the eyes he had been forced to turn from and abandon. Piteous, and yet utterly resolved.
Hong-wi let out a thin sigh.
Tung Jugang simply kept watching him in silence.
"Is that so?"
"Yes. I'm an outsider, as you can see—a wandering merchant, nothing more."
"The Grand Chieftain's eyes said otherwise."
Hong-wi flinched. Whatever could he mean by that?
"What do you mean?"
"Nothing at all."
Tung Jugang deflected, smoothly enough.
For a while, the air at the table grew heavy.
Sonata made a show of livening things up again.
"Come, come now. I heard a fine Joseon proverb once: the man giving away the rice cakes isn't thinking of it, but you're already reaching for the dongchimi brine!"
Everyone laughed, sheepishly.
"More than anything, shouldn't Lady Wol-yeong's own wishes come first? It's hardly our place to go dictating this and that."
"Now that's the truth of it!"
"So instead of that, shouldn't we be thinking about how we're going to protect our Lady Wol-yeong from Lee Man-ju's tyranny going forward? Jianzhou is already groaning and trembling before the coming storm. And if anyone profits from that storm—well, I can't say for certain, but my money's on Lee Man-ju."
Sonata sighed.
"Of course, the Grand Chieftain is a wise and brilliant man. Even now I can't forget the sight of that vindictive cur Lee Man-ju lowering his eyes before the elder. That alone deserves to be sung about for generations. But—forgive me for saying it—not even he can hold back the passage of years. We can't lean on the Grand Chieftain forever."
"Well said! Our Sonata's finally grown some depth of thought."
Heo Jo exclaimed in admiration.
Sonata went on.
"It's a sorry state of affairs, but that's Jianzhou today. A dark age, when a thug's blade and his threats carry more weight than the counsel of the wise and honored elders. In times like these, even a sacred ground like Anchuunbugu won't be safe from the storm."
"That's why we swore the oath of the Eight Stalwarts, isn't it? It was a pledge for our own sakes, each of us to one another—but it was for Elder Onyan Isiha and his village too."
"Of course it was. Every one of us in the Eight Stalwarts owes the Grand Chieftain a debt too great to measure. If he calls, I'd follow him anywhere."
Sonata answered, his eyes shining, his voice more earnest than ever.
"But war is coming. The word is that Lee Man-ju's light cavalry alone numbers a good thousand men—and that's not counting the ruffians and cutthroats he's gathering, or the troops pledged by the chieftains under his sway. And there's Kunaha's faction besides."
Sonata spoke quietly now.
"War is coming, Jugang. Not a duel settled by a warrior's skill—a war. Don't mistake me, I know your strength well. And Keshine-hyeong's wisdom, Hasutai's unerring arrows, Tasbuka's monstrous strength, Tashari's craft, the quick-footed Kakduri brothers—every one of them a fine friend and a fine fighter. But can the eight of us alone shatter the army Lee Man-ju will raise for the war to come?"
"Hahahaha! Why, what are eight men to me? If it helps the common folk live in peace and quiet, then this old monk Heo Jo will take up his iron staff and join the fight himself!"
Heo Jo roared with laughter.
Hong-wi stepped forward as well.
"My strength is small, but I'll lend what I have."
Hong-wi paused for a moment.
"I saw it with my own eyes in Sahalcha—what Jianzhou looks like under Lee Man-ju's rule. If good and honest people are to live in peace, then Lee Man-ju's ambition must be stopped. It must."
"Then count me in too!"
Tung Judong, who had been dozing, sprang to his feet.
Maruchi jolted awake in sympathy and shouted along.
"I'll have a hand in it too! Whatever it is—every great endeavor needs someone doing the thinking, right?"
"Ha! Then big brother here should be the first one cut."
Arachi clicked her tongue.
Maruchi, mortified, glared at his little sister for no good reason.
Arachi just giggled.
"Big brother, quit posturing and just run whatever errands the grown-ups give you. They'll handle the rest well enough on their own, won't they?"
"Thank you. Every one of you will be a great help!"
Tung Jugang laughed heartily.
"But you speak true, all the same. To stand against Lee Man-ju, we need an army—and by the agreement struck at the Izara over twenty years ago, Anchuunbugu is forbidden from raising one of its own. Never mind whether Anchuunbugu alone could even face him..."
A shadow fell across Tung Jugang's face.
He too had wrestled with this problem for a long time.
An ordinary mountain tribe could muster, at best, a few dozen fighters; even a tribe with real power could scrape together barely a few hundred.
Hadn't even Tung Shan, Dudu of the Jianzhou Left Guard, and Panchya of the Right Guard commanded only six hundred men apiece?
Measured against that, the army Lee Man-ju had been nurturing was a terrifying thing indeed.