A Farewell at Hwayang Pavilion
Traveling back and forth to Yeongwol would mean a journey of considerable length.
Now, let me see — he ought to pack a change of clothes, at the very least…….
It was upon returning home that Eo Deuk-hae received word from his steward that a visitor had already arrived and was waiting.
"A guest……? I'm in a rush to set out on a long road, as it is."
"Th-that may be, but he insists that he absolutely must see you, sir."
Of all the cursed times……
Eo Deuk-hae, nettled, snapped back a reply.
"Fine, then. Who is it?"
"It's, er…… the Left Vice Councillor, sir."
"What — the Left Vice Councillor?"
Eo Deuk-hae nearly leapt out of his skin.
The Left Vice Councillor of this moment — surely that could only be the great Han Myeong-hoe himself?
"You blockhead! If it was the Left Vice Councillor, you should have said so from the start! Show him in, and quickly!"
The steward scurried off at a dead run.
Eo Deuk-hae fumbled his attire into order and took his seat in the sarangchae, the men's quarters of the house. A short while later, Han Myeong-hoe stepped into the room, and behind him came a man in a straw hat dressed head to toe in black.
"My, but this is an honor, Your Excellency — what brings you here? Please, take a seat."
"I'm quite comfortable. We're both busy men, no? We haven't the time for pleasantries, so let us get straight to the matter. Sit."
Though it was his own house, Eo Deuk-hae bowed and scraped with a servility that bordered on the pathetic — and the way Han Myeong-hoe regarded him was, in turn, imperious and cold.
There was reason enough for it. The two men held the same rank in name, both of the senior third grade — but Han Myeong-hoe was a civil official, and Eo Deuk-hae a mere soldier. And beyond any formal rank or title, Han Myeong-hoe was the truest of true powers at court.
"You are to escort Nosan-gun to Yeongwol, I hear."
"Yes, that is so."
Han Myeong-hoe cast a sidelong glance at Han Ga-ryeong, seated beside him, and spoke.
"This man will be riding with you on the road to Yeongwol."
Eo Deuk-hae stole a look at him out of the corner of his eye. The face beneath the straw hat and the all-enveloping black garb was utterly without expression, its sharp features calling to mind nothing so much as a finely honed dagger.
He looks for all the world like a death-bringer from the underworld!
Some inexplicable chill crawled over Eo Deuk-hae, and he shivered despite himself.
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"See to it that you treat this man…… precisely as you would treat me. Do I make myself clear?"
Eo Deuk-hae could only bow his head to the floor.
"Will you have any difficulty with that? When does he depart?"
"Yes — shortly…… my wife has everything prepared, so we will be leaving at once."
"Good."
Han Myeong-hoe gave a small nod, then turned to Han Ga-ryeong.
"In a while, you will go with this man to Suganggung."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
Han Ga-ryeong answered in a low, flat voice.
Han Myeong-hoe rose from his seat.
"I'll take my leave, then. There's no need to see me out. The road must not be delayed — hurry and see to your preparations."
"What? Ah — yes! Fare you well, sir!"
Eo Deuk-hae scrambled to his feet in a fluster. Once the two men had gone out, he let out a small, sour grumble.
"Damn it all. A road I never wanted to travel in the first place, and now the luck's gone and piled on……."
Meanwhile, Han Myeong-hoe, walking out of Eo Deuk-hae's estate, spoke with Han Ga-ryeong at his side.
"That you accepted this task so readily — I cannot tell you how grateful I am. Months upon months in some forgotten backwater like Yeongwol — it will be no small hardship, I know……."
Where his manner toward Eo Deuk-hae had been one thing, the way Han Myeong-hoe treated Han Ga-ryeong was boundless in its warmth.
"It is my lord's affair. How could I shrink from a thousand li of road?"
Han Ga-ryeong's answer was clear and without hesitation.
Han Myeong-hoe smiled with genuine fondness.
"I thank you. I've never been able to give you the treatment you deserve — it weighs on me — and here I am, going and asking another favor of you. I'm ashamed of myself."
That Han Myeong-hoe — a man whose cold cunning and cruelty the whole world knew — should treat anyone with such warmth: no one who saw it would have believed their own eyes.
"Your regard is more than enough for me, my lord. What more could a wretch like me possibly ask for?"
"Haha, this fellow — listen to him, carrying on with such wounded words. But let me be honest with you: this matter is of the gravest import. Watching Nosan-gun — whom else could I trust with it, if not you?"
"I am humbly grateful."
"You'd see to it properly regardless, so I'll say nothing more. Only — watch Nosan-gun's every movement, every word and gesture, and let not one of them escape you. Ah, yes — take this."
Han Myeong-hoe drew a tally from within his robe and held it out.
Han Ga-ryeong looked down at it. It was made not of birch or any common wood, but of precious elephant ivory.
"What might this be?"
"A tally bearing the King's own cipher. The words inscribed upon it declare that whoever holds it is to be served as though he were His Majesty himself."
Han Myeong-hoe smiled thinly.
"Of course, I've already spoken to Eo Deuk-hae directly, so they'll hardly dare slight you — and a man of your caliber is scarcely likely to need such a thing. Still, should some troublesome business arise in Yeongwol or anywhere else, show this, and there will be nothing it cannot settle."
"I am deeply honored."
Han Ga-ryeong received the tally with due reverence and tucked it into his breast.
Han Myeong-hoe gave his back a light pat.
"Then I leave it in your hands."
Having completed the preparations to send Hong-wi into exile at Yeongwol, Eo Deuk-hae and his party made their way to the gates of Suganggung and stood waiting — Han Ga-ryeong in their midst.
Hong Deuk-gyeong and Kim Ja-haeng kept throwing uneasy glances his way for no good reason.
The Left Vice Councillor Han Myeong-hoe's man, they say…… he's got the face of some grim reaper out of the underworld. All in black from head to toe in this scorching heat, and wearing a straw hat of all things. Tsk! Could it be he means to do away with Nosan-gun somewhere along the road?
By some wordless communion, Eo Deuk-hae's party arrived at the very same thought, all of them at once. It was as if an icy chill were winding around their whole bodies.
Aware of it or not, Han Ga-ryeong remained utterly unmoved.
If I go fawning over Nosan-gun on the road, there's no telling what sort of humiliation might land on my head later.
So thinking, Eo Deuk-hae raised his voice.
"Right — let us go in."
Inside the gates of Suganggung, Hong-wi was already waiting before the palace in full formal dress. Here and there throughout the grounds rose the sound of weeping — eunuchs and palace maids sobbing into their sleeves.
Eo Deuk-hae, whose nerves could hardly have been steady to begin with, lost his temper over nothing at all.
"Silence! Hold your tongues!"
Then he turned toward Hong-wi, drew up his belly, and barked with deliberate, heavy-handed authority.
"Board the palanquin at once. The road is long."
Not a trace of the courtesy owed a king was to be found in the words.
Hong-wi's gaze drifted to the palanquins. There were two of them — perhaps, being a man who had once sat upon the throne, someone had seen fit to preserve that last shred of dignity. But both were ancient and shabby beyond description.
Was this, too, the lingering spite of his uncle Suyang?
He had already set down everything he possessed, and yet Hong-wi's heart still clenched.
Whatever else might be said, surely this was going too far — how meager could a man's treatment be?
At length, Hong-wi spoke.
"So there are two palanquins."
"That's right. His Majesty the King, in a grace as vast as the sea itself, has made the special allowance that the Lady Consort may see Nosan-gun off partway along the road."
Eo Deuk-hae replied, preening. Having resolved to lay the flattery on thick, the words came spilling out without effort.
Hong-wi looked back at Hyo-bin standing behind him. He had much to say — and yet nothing he could say.
"So my uncle grants his final grace, it would seem."
"How dare you speak so insolently of His Majesty!"
Hong Deuk-gyeong glared, racing to be the first to rebuke him.
Hong-wi was struck speechless by the absurdity of it, but merely inclined his head. Just as he was about to step into the palanquin, however, a cry rang out like a bolt from the blue.
The source of that cry was Hyo-bin.
It was a rebuke like frost itself, impossible to believe it had issued from so slight and gentle a woman. At its cutting edge, even Eo Deuk-hae's party flinched despite themselves.
Han Ga-ryeong only watched, his face a blank.
Eo Deuk-hae gathered his wits and drew breath to shout back — but Hong-wi stepped in before him.
"That is enough, my lady. It was my own want of virtue that made me a criminal; how could I rebuke the officials who bear the royal command? That you would send us a palanquin even — I can only be grateful."
Hong-wi turned to Eo Deuk-hae and bowed his head.
"I know my crimes full well. Please convey this to my uncle: that his unworthy nephew, having committed treason, goes now into exile — and beg him, I pray, to preserve the state altars."
"……I shall convey it."
Eo Deuk-hae had nothing more to say either. Had he not wielded his authority over the criminal quite enough by now?
He stole another glance at Han Ga-ryeong.
Once Hong-wi and his wife had each boarded their palanquin, Eo Deuk-hae gave the order.
"Move out — at once!"
The party filed out of the palace gates. Mounted Eo Deuk-hae rode at the very head, and behind him came the palanquins carrying Hong-wi and Hyo-bin, one after the other. The soldiers had split into two files, taking their stations before and behind the palanquins. Kim Ja-haeng, Hong Deuk-gyeong, and Han Ga-ryeong likewise rode horses and followed the column.
As the palanquins turned onto the great thoroughfare and made toward Heunginjimun, the Gate of Raising Humaneness, the streets were deserted to an eerie degree. Even the few people who crossed paths with Hong-wi's procession shrank away from a distance, as though watching a funeral bier making its way out the water gate. Every last one of them was hiding from the eyes of the authorities.
Can the people's hearts truly change so differently between the morning and the evening of a single day?
Hong-wi drew out a long sigh.
Yet he was not particularly disheartened. Had he not known all along that it would be so? It had been only days since he had watched, with his own two eyes, precisely how the scholars of the Hall of Worthies who had risen against Suyang were put to the sword. People had no choice but to look out for themselves.
And so, without a single soul to see him off, Hong-wi's party left Hanyang behind.
"Halt. Everyone dismount."
Kim Ja-haeng's words from the head of the column brought the procession to a stop.
Stepping down from his palanquin, Hong-wi looked around him.
"Where is this?"
"Hwayang Pavilion, my lord."
Eo Deuk-hae answered.
"We rest here for one day before going on. The Lady Consort may accompany you only this far."
At those words, Hyo-bin's face went dull and dark — but with all these people watching, she did not let her tears show.
Hong-wi nodded, then gazed at the pavilion for a long, quiet moment.
This pavilion had been named by his own grandfather, King Sejong the Great, who took the name himself from a passage in the ancient Documents of Zhou.
"He returned the horses to the sunny southern slopes of Mount Hua" — that was the line, was it not? Words that sing of the joy of travel and release.
A bitter smile rose to Hong-wi's lips.
He, too, was setting out on a long journey — but its joy was a thing far beyond his reach.
With a heart gone heavy as lead, he drew near to Hyo-bin.
"Let us go in."
At Hwayang Pavilion, a single eunuch sent by Suyang had laid out a farewell banquet. Hong-wi and his wife entered as the eunuch ushered them, and Eo Deuk-hae's party filed in after.
"Please, this way, and be seated."
The eunuch pressed them with polished courtesy.
Whether it was Suyang's final tangle of love and hate, or some warped perversity of his, the table groaned beneath a feast of the richest kind. Needless to say, the royal couple had no appetite to speak of, and managed only to pick at a few morsels of this and that.
"My lord, have yourself a cup of wine."
My lord……?
Hyo-bin's brows knit.
It was an address no one would dare use of a king; even for a demoted prince, he ought properly to be styled "Your Excellency." Yet Hong-wi accepted it with hollow indifference.
"For one made a criminal, such words hardly befit me."
"Oh, say no such thing. This wine His Majesty has sent down out of the bonds of blood."
When the eunuch, all oily sweetness, pressed the cup upon him a second and a third time, Hong-wi could refuse no longer and took it into his hands. The eunuch filled it, and then, all at once, heaved a sigh.
"Truly a heartrending thing, my lord."
"Heartrending, you say? And what might that be?"
Hong-wi answered dully, raising the cup. Let grief and bitterness pile high enough, and the tears dry up altogether; one goes numb, as a rule.
"That you were innocent from the very first, my lord, and yet have been punished for a crime you were tangled into so unjustly — that is what I mean."
Hong-wi cast a hurried glance around him. Fortunately, Eo Deuk-hae's party seemed wholly absorbed in their meal, and had not heard the eunuch's words.
"I am grateful beyond words for such regard — but do not speak so carelessly."
"Does not the whole world know of it, my lord? Were it not for those brazen scoundrels, how would you ever have come to this?"
"Brazen scoundrels, you say…… whom do you mean?"
"The traitor Seong Sam-mun and his faction, beheaded only this season — who else, my lord?"
At those words, Hong-wi's brows gave a violent tremble.
He set down his chopsticks.
Aware of it or not, the eunuch went on.
"Had those men never dared to plot their treason, my lord, you would never have been driven out like this in the first place."
"How dare you say such a thing!"
Hong-wi surged to his feet.
The eunuch looked up at him with startled eyes, and Eo Deuk-hae's party, frozen mid-bite, went wide-eyed as rabbits and stared.
"Yes……?"
Hong-wi's whole body was shaking.
He had known sorrow in abundance even in his young years, and had learned to swallow most things in silence. The shabby treatment he could let pass. Even a lowly eunuch presuming to call him "my lord" he could let pass. But this — this he could not.
An awkward silence pressed down upon the room.
Hong-wi let out a long, long breath.
"Forgive me. I must have been so weary that my mind went wandering."
"I beg your pardon, my lord."
"I find myself quite fatigued, and I fear I would only spoil the fine banquet His Majesty has so kindly granted. May I withdraw to the guest quarters?"
"Of course, of course."
As the eunuch rose from his seat, Hong-wi followed him out. Hyo-bin hurried after them both.
The moment they had descended from the pavilion, Eo Deuk-hae gulped down his food and grumbled.
"Whew…… and this, a feast His Majesty went out of his way to grant……."
"I can't for the life of me understand it — when again would he ever set such a feast to his lips? At this rate, he won't last long, if I may say so."
Hong Deuk-gyeong picked up the thread.
"Who wouldn't say so? Demoted to a mere prince and sent off into exile, a man ought to keep himself quiet and behave — that's what I say."
Kim Ja-haeng chimed his agreement.
The three of them, shooting sidelong looks at Han Ga-ryeong, condemned Hong-wi's conduct as though performing for his benefit. Eo Deuk-hae spoke.
"Well, all the better for us. More of this fine food for us, that's all there is to it."
Eo Deuk-hae's party gave a collective shrug and buried themselves in the meal again — and even as they did, they kept a wary, furtive watch on Han Ga-ryeong.
Aware of it or not, Han Ga-ryeong sat quietly, lost in some private thought of his own.
In the guest quarters, Hong-wi said nothing for a long while. Hyo-bin, who had followed him in, sat down demurely and waited.
Only after a very long silence did Hong-wi speak.