The Gallows on the Hill
"Is this it?"
Jeon Jung-jae asked, catching his breath. Ho-in nodded.
"I believe so. It's too dark to see clearly, though."
Hong-wi, too, had grown accustomed to the darkness by then, his night eyes sharpening. Before them stood a single shabby hovel. Ho-in lifted the straw mat, slipped inside, and soon emerged cradling a bundle in his arms.
"Provisions for the road, and a change of clothes," he said.
They changed. When they had finished, the three of them looked every bit the hunters they were pretending to be. Jeon Jung-jae and Ho-in each slid a sword into the small of his back and tucked a quiver and bow at his hip.
"Can you handle a blade, Your Majesty?" Ho-in asked.
"I learned a little, but I'm far from practiced at it." Hong-wi found himself remembering the days when Suyang, his uncle, had taught him swordsmanship. How could anyone have guessed, back then, that things would come to this? "Though I can manage a bow somewhat."
Archery, at least, he had more confidence in. King Taejo, the founder of the dynasty, had been renowned as a master archer, so the archery skills of Joseon's kings were at least above average by inheritance — and the practice itself had long been encouraged as a means of training body and mind. Hong-wi silently strung his bow and sheathed the sword his uncle, Grand Prince Geumseong, had once gifted him. He would need to grow familiar with both, and soon.
Ho-in shouldered the remaining bundle. "I also brought clothes for when we have to leave the mountains."
Leaving the mountains... It struck him then that Hong-wi still had no idea where, concretely, they were headed once they escaped Yeongwol. He had only vaguely assumed they would go north. For now, simply getting out of Yeongwol was the first priority.
"Where are we going?"
"Horses are waiting for us. Her Majesty the Queen will be there as well."
Hong-wi was not particularly surprised to learn that Hyobin, too, would be riding. The vigorous martial spirit of the dynasty's founding had not yet faded, and even among noblewomen there were many who could ride.
"Then let us hurry. I long to see my Queen."
At the thought of seeing Hyobin soon, Hong-wi's heart raced. The three quickened their pace — Ho-in, acting as guide, in the lead; Jeon Jung-jae behind him; and Hong-wi at the rear.
Keeping their bearings in the darkness was the greatest challenge, but the father and son had a ready answer for it: follow the Jucheon River, keeping it on their right, and climb. The crescent moon was slowly beginning its westward tilt. The early-autumn mountains were anything but silent — a riot of beast calls and insect song filled the night. Before long, Hong-wi found his ears sharpening until he could pick out each sound on its own. The cry of a scops owl. The howl of wolves. The thin chirring of crickets in the grass.
"Wait."
Hong-wi stopped abruptly. Ho-in, in the lead, turned back.
"What is it, Your Majesty?"
"Shh. Did you not hear something just now?"
Ho-in tilted his head, and Jeon Jung-jae also inclined his ear, brow creasing faintly.
"That sound!" Hong-wi cried.
The next moment, both men heard it too. The old clerk inwardly marveled at the young man's hearing.
"What is it?"
"It sounds... like a horn whistle. It could be a bird, of course."
All three faces hardened. What possible reason could there be to hear a signal horn deep in these layered mountains? Jeon Jung-jae slowly drew his sword and shifted to the left; Ho-in likewise drew his blade and eased to the right. Hong-wi strained his ears. They stood motionless for nearly ten minutes, listening — but the sound did not come again.
After a long while, Hong-wi spoke. "Perhaps I only mistook a bird's cry."
"It may well be," said Jeon Jung-jae, nodding and sheathing his sword. "One hears every manner of sound when walking mountain roads at night."
The old man dearly hoped that was so.
"We must hurry," Ho-in said. "Her Majesty will be waiting. We're not as late as I feared, but we're hardly early either."
"Very well. Where to now?"
At Hong-wi's question, Ho-in pointed down the slope below. "We go down that incline. There is a small valley at the bottom, and after about half a sijin of descent there's a hut used by mountain recluses."
"I see."
"Be careful, Your Majesty. A downhill road is harder than an uphill one."
"Worry about yourself, not me."
Hong-wi answered Ho-in's caution in a tone of quiet strength, and the three descended carefully.
Ho-in's estimate of half a sijin — an hour or so — proved optimistic. That figure had been based on daylight hours. He had accounted for it, of course, but picking one's way down a mountain path in the dark was harder than either of them had imagined. It took nearly twice the expected time, and by the end they were caked in dirt and dead leaves. Their one great mercy was that no one had fallen and twisted an ankle.
"They should be around here somewhere..."
Ho-in tilted his head, scanning the surroundings. But there was no sign of horses, of Hyobin, or of the attendants who would have accompanied her.
"Hold a moment — look here."
Old Jeon Jung-jae had crouched halfway down. The other two crowded around him, bending low, as the old man pointed at something. "Are those not hoofprints?"
For a moment their eyes found nothing. Then, all at once, Hong-wi could make out what the old man was indicating — the clear imprints of horseshoes pressed into the earth.
"So they are. It seems they went that way."
Ho-in rose and pointed north, then cocked his head with a puzzled frown. "That is the road we agreed upon, but... why would they have gone ahead of us?"
No one could answer. Hong-wi thought back to the horn whistle they had heard earlier. Could something have happened to Hyobin? Out here in the mountains, they could just as easily have crossed paths with a tiger.
"Hmm. I can't say. But judging by the spacing of these hoofprints, they seem to have moved slowly."
At the old man's words, Hong-wi felt a measure of relief. At least they hadn't been fleeing in terror. He had been picturing his wife riding desperately for her life, a tiger at her heels.
"In any case, we must follow. I'll track the hoofprints."
Old Jeon Jung-jae led the way, Ho-in hurrying after his father, and Hong-wi following behind them.
They had gone some distance when a low hill rose before them — and at that very moment, the neighing of horses rang out. So we've finally met! Hong-wi's heart pounded fiercely. Ho-in was about to dash forward when the old man caught his arm.
"Hold. Something is amiss."
"What do you mean?"
Ho-in was bewildered. Just then the moon had slipped behind a cloud, leaving their surroundings dim and murky. The old man pointed with a finger.
"You hear the horses up on that hill, don't you?"
"Yes, but..."
"To climb up there, we'd have to follow that narrow trail — and that means stepping out into the open, does it not?"
Only then did Ho-in grasp that his father was right. The path up the hill offered no boulders, no brush — nothing to hide behind.
"What do we do?" Ho-in breathed.
"Let us watch for a moment. Even a stone bridge should be tested before you cross it."
The three waited. It was a long, long wait. Hong-wi learned exactly what it felt like to be driven half-mad by tension. Now and then the neighing of horses drifted down to them. At last the old man let out a small sigh.
"I must have grown too jumpy. Let's go up."
Just as the old man moved to step forward, the crescent moon broke free of the clouds and scattered its pale light — and in that instant, the old man's upper body cast a long, stark shadow. Hong-wi yanked him back without thinking.
And it was in that very moment that it came.
"AHAHAHAHA!"
An insolent laugh burst from nowhere.
"More careful than I expected, I'll give you that."
"Who goes there?" the old man shouted, for there was no longer any reason to hide. For a man his age, his voice rang out astonishingly deep and clear.
"Who else? Bandits, if you're in the mountains."
A chill laughter echoed from all sides. Jeon Jung-jae's face knotted. How many of them were there?
"You'll be handing over everything you carry."
"We carry precious little," the old man said, mentally taking stock of what they had. In the rush of smuggling Hong-wi out, they had gathered a few items of some value, but hardly riches. Would that be enough to satisfy greedy bandits? Worse, judging by the situation, the Queen herself might be in the bandits' hands. "We have five horses. Take those, if that is what you want!"
"Father?"
Ho-in spun around, startled. If they surrendered the horses, they might manage for the moment — but how were they supposed to flee and outrun pursuit afterward?
The old man shook his head. "Escaping this crisis comes first. And we must think of Her Majesty as well."
Only then did Ho-in turn to look at Hong-wi. Even in the dark, his face was drained white, his lips clenched bloodless.
"What is your will, Your Majesty?"
"Forgive me, but that will not do."
Is that one the leader? Jeon Jung-jae gauged the man's position in the darkness. If he could lull the man into carelessness — if he could just lure him into his line of fire — he might fell him with an arrow.
The very next moment, the bandit leader's answer crushed the fighting spirit of all three of them.
"A certain exalted personage wants your lives!"
The bow slipped from Jeon Jung-jae's hand and clattered to the ground. Even a bolt of lightning striking at his feet could not have stunned him more.
"What did you say...?"
"AHAHA! As expected — His Excellency saw it all coming! Now, look there! Look up on the hill!"
Struck dumb, the three craned their necks. The crescent moonlight was faint, but their eyes had long since grown used to the dark.
Hong-wi's breath left him in a groan. "My Queen...?"
The sight before them was beyond belief. Atop the hill stood a single pine, and from its branches hung two nooses of thick rope. From one dangled a man; knotted around the other's neck was none other than Hong-wi's wife, Hyobin. Her hair hung in disheveled tangles, her face deathly pale, a gag forced between her lips and her arms bound behind her back as she sat atop a horse.
"You wretches!"
Hong-wi's cry was sheer anguish. Had old Jeon Jung-jae and Ho-in not seized his arms, he would have scrambled up the hill half out of his mind.
"Do you fear no heaven at all!" He paused, and then his voice tore through the night. "How dare you do this to the mother of this nation!"
"Heh heh. Well, now," the leader behind Hyobin answered with mocking playfulness. "In my eyes she looks like a traitor's daughter, nothing more. The Queen, you say? I wouldn't know."
A ghastly laughter echoed off the hillsides. Jeon Jung-jae frowned. A good ten of them at the least? Silently, he scanned the surroundings, measuring a way out.
"Come now, let's not make this harder than it needs to be. Surrender quietly, eh?"
"You... you—"
Hong-wi glared, eyes blazing with fury. In that moment he rued, bitterly, that he possessed no superhuman strength — for then he could have flattened the lot of them with his bare fists and torn his wife free. And he rued, beyond all words, that he could not sprout a pair of wings and soar up that hill to rescue her himself.
"Come, come. We'd like to be done with this tiresome business quickly. We're not entirely heartless."
"Did Suyang, my uncle, send you to do this!"
"Suyang, your uncle? Ah... you mean His Majesty the King? Oh no, no. Our kind and gracious sovereign would never stoop to such a thing."
The leader chuckled heartily. In truth, he was a trusted henchman in the direct employ of Minister of War Hong Dal-son, dispatched on the man's secret orders. The instruction had been to eliminate Hong-wi whenever a suitable chance arose — and with Hong-wi having taken it upon himself to flee Yeongwol, no affair could possibly have resolved itself more conveniently. If luck had gone against me, I might still be rotting in this backwater for a month or two waiting for my chance. How could things fall together so neatly?
"Now then, surrender like good fellows, eh?"
Hong-wi did not answer. Rage and despair and bewilderment were driving him to the very edge of madness. Having waited long enough, the leader was evidently growing bored. He looked at Hyobin.
"Hey there, Your Majesty the Queen."
Hyobin glared at him with burning eyes. They say that when a woman nurses a grudge, frost falls even in the fifth and sixth months — and the leader felt a momentary chill down his spine before smearing on an oily smile.
"Do make His Highness surrender soon, won't you? Isn't it tiring, hanging there like that? I've never been hanged myself, mind you, but I've hung plenty of others! So let's finish this quickly, quick-quick. It's painful, isn't it? So tell His Highness to raise his hands and come out quietly. Eh? No?"
He laughed loudly and slapped his own forehead with his palm. "Silly me, what was I thinking! You've got a gag in your mouth — of course you can't talk."
With his thick hands, the leader crudely ripped the gag from Hyobin's mouth. "Now, this is tiresome work for us all, so let's finish it fast. One word is all it takes. No more, no less — just one. 'I surrender.' That's all."
Hyobin fixed the leader with eyes cold as ice — then, slowly, turned her gaze down the hill, toward Hong-wi. For one instant, their eyes met.
And suddenly her face took on an expression of heartbreaking, desolate resolve. From her lips came a thin whisper. "Your Majesty..."
Her voice was far too small ever to reach the foot of the hill. But Hong-wi heard it — clearly — her longed-for, beloved voice carried on the wind.
"My Queen."
"What are you doing?"
The leader bellowed in irritation. Hyobin drew a deep breath — then wrung out a scream from the very bottom of her throat, so piercing it rang across the hills.
"RUN, YOUR MAJESTY!"
The leader's eyes flew wide. But before he could shout a word, Hyobin was faster. She drew up her leg and kicked with all her strength into the horse's flank. The startled animal shrieked and bolted — and the violent lurch threw Hyobin's frail body from its back, leaving her swinging in the noose.
Hong-wi screamed, and the leader cried out in horror. "My Queen!"
"Why, you — you stubborn witch!"
Hyobin's body thrashed at the end of the rope — until at last her head sagged and fell limp.
The leader panicked. "What are you all doing? Get her down, quickly!"
His men scrambled to strip the noose free, but it would not come easily. Cursing, the leader drew his sword and hacked through the rope. Hyobin's lifeless body crumpled and rolled across the ground.
In that instant, Jeon Jung-jae did the best thing he could do. He nocked an arrow to the string in one swift motion and loosed it at the leader — who flung himself aside in a hurry, stumbled, and went tumbling to the ground.
Without even pausing to see whether the arrow had struck home, the old man roared:
"Take His Majesty and run!"
Ho-in came to his senses and dragged Hong-wi away.