The Ember That Burns the King
“But still, what are we to do with Hong-wi going forward? A full month has passed already, so wherever he has fled, it will hardly be easy to seize him any time soon. What say you, Chief Secretary?”
“Your Highness's assessment is entirely sound.”
Even Han Myeong-hoe, Suyang's master strategist, no longer believed Hong-wi could easily be taken into custody at this point.
Just as Hong Yun-seong had suggested, it was not impossible that Hong-wi had died on the road — yet he did not for a moment believe that it was Hong-wi who had slaughtered the handpicked warriors Hong Dal-son had sent at Wonju.
Which meant he had accomplices.
“In my humble opinion, we cannot keep strengthening the patrols to hunt down Prince Nosan indefinitely. First, it wears out the soldiers and the people; second, if we fail to catch him with ease, it may plant dangerous ideas in the minds of others. The hearts of the provincial populace are already unsettled as it is.”
“That is true enough.”
Suyang agreed with evident bitterness.
“In that case, how would it be to appoint Dochechalsa — Supreme Commissioners — to both Hamgil and Pyeongan Provinces?”
“Supreme Commissioners?”
At Han Myeong-hoe's words, Suyang's face showed a measure of surprise.
A Dochechalsa was a temporary post, entrusted by royal command to a trustworthy senior minister with total authority over both military and civil administration.
But what struck Suyang as unexpected was not the appointment itself so much as something else.
“Why Hamgil and Pyeongan of all provinces? What of the Three Southern Provinces and the others?”
“Your Highness, Yeongnam and Honam give no real cause for concern. But the northern frontier provinces are another matter. They are land where elite soldiers can be raised, and ever since Yi Jing-ok plotted his rebellion some years ago, the people's hearts there have been in disarray. Beyond that, the recent movements of the Jurchen savages are themselves suspicious.”
Thanks to Han Ga-ryeong, himself of Jurchen origin, Han Myeong-hoe knew the affairs of the northern border to a considerable degree.
“And furthermore, if we were to station Supreme Commissioners across all eight provinces, would that not strike the world as strange in itself? If they are sent only to the northern provinces, people will hardly find it so odd.”
“Hmm, that logic holds. Do as you see fit. In that case, we must also handpick trustworthy men for the Dojeoljesa posts beneath them. Now that you mention it — isn't Yang Jeong still serving as Provincial Commander of Hamgil?”
Yang Jeong was the trusted henchman Suyang had dispatched to seize control of Hamgil Province's military authority after Yi Jing-ok's execution.
A parachute appointment, to be sure — but Yang Jeong himself was serviceable military material, so it had been a reasonably sound selection.
“His term expires this cycle and he is due to return. However, Your Highness, Yang Jeong has of late been showing every sign of longing to come back to Hanyang.”
“For now, I must seat a man in the Hamgil governorship who is both trustworthy and deeply versed in the province's affairs after years of service there.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
That day's archery contest, Suyang won.
Returning to his residence at Gangnyeongjeon in rare good humor, Suyang ordered his Chief Secretary Han Myeong-hoe to summon Hyobin from her cell in the State Tribunal of Uigeumbu.
“The Consort of Prince Nosan has arrived.”
“Let her enter.”
Suyang sat bolt upright in his seat.
Before long the double doors slid open, and Hyobin entered, dressed neatly in a plain white garment.
The order had been given not to subject her to torture, yet her appearance was nonetheless pitifully gaunt.
There was, of course, the physical suffering — but the pain that gnawed at her seemed to be of the mind rather than the body.
“Come in, come in. It has been a long while.”
Suyang spoke with deliberate tenderness.
It was crueler to Hyobin than a hundred curses or sneers could ever have been.
“When the sovereign summons, what choice has a mere criminal?”
Hyobin answered with open defiance.
“I little imagined I would undergo interrogation here in Sajeongjeon Hall.”
Suyang could not suppress his smile.
Her defiant bearing did not strike him as endearing in the least.
“Hah — interrogation, you say?”
Suyang put on a benevolent smile.
“What absurdity. If you were truly capable of conducting an interrogation so fluently, you would never have been sent to Yeongwol in the first place.”
“If you knew that, why did you summon your humble servant?”
“I called you because your story has left me curious. For Hong-wi's sake, you journeyed all the way to Yeongwol — no ordinary woman's mettle, that. And then you attempted self-harm in a bid to let the boy escape, did you not?”
“Is that why you called me here?”
Hyobin's voice was cold as a sheet of ice.
“If I am a criminal, then interrogate me as the law demands; if I am not a criminal, then surely you understand how it will look to others for a sovereign to summon the wife of a common household in private. Either way, calling me apart like this is no fitting act for a king.”
At her flowing, water-smooth logic, Suyang found himself quite simply struck dumb.
What a priceless woman I sent to Hong-wi.
And at the same time, a smoldering resentment rose within him.
He wanted nothing more than to trample this proud, audacious woman into the dirt and watch her crumble.
“I am aware that your family finds itself in dire straits.”
For the first time, Hyobin fell silent.
Suyang glimpsed the mark of anguish on her tightly pressed lips.
Having confirmed it, he savored a moment of cruel delight.
It was a sweetness more intoxicating than anything else in the world.
“You did a commendable thing for your son-in-law, but had you truly thought of your family, you would have guarded your own person more carefully.”
Like a hammer driving in a wedge, Suyang lingered over this moment, relishing it.
No fine wine, no delicacy under heaven, could grant such pleasure.
“I have cursed you all this while, and yet I realize I never truly knew you. Only now do I feel I understand what you are.”
“Oh? Is that so?”
“The heart within your breast is like iron gone cold. But the inside is hollow. To fill that emptiness, you do nothing but steal what others possess and mock them for having it — and it will never, ever be filled.”
“Is that how you see me?”
Suyang laughed, coldly.
Accusations of that kind were long since familiar to him, worn smooth by repetition; there was nothing new in them now.
He was fully prepared, with ample composure, to enjoy watching her thrash about.
“Of course I do. What can one expect from a man who is nothing but an empty shell, whose voice rings hollow? Did you just call it a promise? A promise... How dare the word pass your lips? First you rose in arms claiming it was for His Majesty, then it was for the altars of state and beyond your control, and in the end — you — the very man who took even His Majesty's life?”
Suyang did not reply.
“I know. I know that pleading with you is useless. That begging before your heartless, hollow chest would avail less than praying to a tree or a stone. My family's fate has long since been decided in your eyes; we are less to you than a pebble rolling in the road. Is that not so? Then tell me — what more is there left for me to beg?”
Hyobin's pent-up cry went on and on.
“Is this not enough for you? Then take my life — I will gladly give it. But of course you will do no such thing. To you, I am nothing at all. What devours you is nothing but your inferiority before His Majesty!”
“Inferiority?”
For the first time, the eyebrows of Suyang — unmoved until now by even her sharpest venom — rose.
He murmured as though he could not believe his ears.
“Inferiority, you say?”
“Yes — inferiority. Inferiority before a brother who could have ascended the throne rightfully. Inferiority, because no matter what you do, you cannot buy loyalty that springs from the heart. You speak of resolve to save the nation, of devotion and fidelity — but is it not, in truth, nothing more than the pitiful lashing-out of a man from whom genuine loyalty can never be hoped for?”
“Silence! Shut your mouth.”
Suyang slammed his palm down on the table and surged to his feet.
Somehow, it was Hyobin who had turned cold and still, and Suyang who had lost his composure and caught fire.
Hyobin said, with a note of pity:
“Ah — so there, at last, your true nature shows. Did it sting so badly? I may well die today, but you — you are the one to be pitied. Your sins, and that inferiority you cannot bear to shoulder and set down yourself, that even now crushes you beneath its weight... You will never, never escape them.”
Suyang could bear it no longer.
Every word from Hyobin's mouth was carving through his lungs and rending his heart to ribbons.
What he could not endure was that her words laid bare the very thing he had desperately hidden...
Cannot endure? Cannot endure, me? That woman?
It was impossible. He, who had climbed to the seat of the sovereign of ten thousand subjects, who had won his place by trampling his enemies resolutely and without mercy — why, now of all times, should he be unable to endure one powerless woman?
And yet Suyang knew it was so.
He was afraid. He could not endure Hyobin — that woman who stripped bare, without mercy, the very emotions he had fought all his life to conceal.
As though to shake the feeling from his body, Suyang flew into a frenzy.
“Enough — enough! Withdraw!”
“Yes, I shall withdraw.”
Hyobin rose from her seat.
“It was you who summoned me, when I never once asked to be called. So if you bid me withdraw, withdraw I must.”
Hyobin turned her back on Suyang with a walk that was graceful and unbowed.
Though she had fallen to the rank of a common criminal, she overflowed with the dignity of a queen, of a royal consort.
The door shut behind her with a heavy thud. Strangely, the sound burrowed deep into Suyang and hollowed him out.
Suyang clenched his teeth, long and hard.
Even silence was difficult to bear.
“Is someone there?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Suyang gave his order in a voice sunk low and cold.
“Bring wine. Tonight I must drink something particularly strong.”
While these events unfolded in Hanyang, Hong-wi and his party pressed northward at a furious pace.
Following the Uiju road, they passed through Anju and reached the upper reaches of the Cheongcheon River, arriving at Yeongbyeon.
There, Hong-wi's company left the Uiju road and turned onto the fish-salt route.
Where the Uiju road was well maintained, being the thoroughfare of envoys traveling to and from Ming, the salt road was in poor condition indeed.
As they entered the Rangnim Mountains, the terrain grew properly rugged; in places they had no choice but to dismount and proceed on foot.
“Well, this really is mountain after mountain, isn't it? It's a wonder there's a path at all.”
Ho-in grumbled.
Though he said nothing of it, Hong-wi shared the sentiment entirely. The peaks closed in on every side, so steep and confining that it was nearly suffocating.
Cha Gyeong-yeon, leading the party from the front, took up the complaint.
“No wonder. The only ones who travel this road are officials heading to their posts, soldiers marching on duty, or exiles bound for banishment.”
That made sense, really. Who would want to walk such a road willingly? And yet here I am, walking it now!
Hong-wi trudged on in silence, thinking exactly that.
“Still, our timing is the better for it.”
“Better? How so...”
“Think, man. Had we no horses, or had we set out any later, we'd be walking this road in the dead of winter — no, in a blizzard. The cold of the northern frontier is of an altogether different order from anything in the south.”
The two men nodded wordlessly in agreement.
It had grown somewhat chilly, but the road itself still posed no hardship.
We have also had the good fortune of a capable guide.
Cha Gyeong-yeon was indeed a skilled one. By his own account, he had spent years wandering all eight provinces as a peddler, a street performer, and more — and it seemed he had even lived for some years in Jurchen lands. For a man who did not look particularly old, it was a remarkable history.
Thanks to it, Cha Gyeong-yeon had, as promised, guided Hong-wi's party faithfully to this point.
“How much farther is it?”
“Almost there. If my memory serves, once we cross that ridge, we'll be in Ganggye Prefecture.”
And just as Cha Gyeong-yeon had said: when the three men reached the crest of the pass, a small walled town spread out before their eyes.
That was Ganggye Prefecture.
Cha Gyeong-yeon spoke up.
“We let the horses go here.”
“What — why? We could ride into Ganggye and return them there.”
Ho-in's eyes went wide.
They had changed horses at relay stations several times already on their journey.
“Think for a moment, will you? Up till now, when we swapped horses at the stations, nobody pressed us about where we were headed — but this is the end of the line. Besides, like I said, nobody comes here except new officials, soldiers on posting, or exiles — and precious few of even those. If word spreads that we've arrived, the magistrates are bound to start asking questions.”
“Ah... fair enough.”
They dismounted and stripped off the saddles and packs.
Perhaps even the horses found the parting unexpected; they did not bolt at once, but lingered, pacing back and forth.
Cha Gyeong-yeon shooed them off.
“Hyah! Off you go, now!”
After a moment's hesitation, the horses broke into a gallop back down the road they had come.
Watching them go, Ho-in remarked:
“I wonder if they'll find their way back all right.”
“So long as they don't end up as tiger feed.”
Cha Gyeong-yeon replied offhandedly.
At those words, Hong-wi felt a twinge of regret.
These horses had carried them faithfully all this way. In truth, they had served him with far more loyalty than most of the ministers who had ever served beneath him.
“What do we do now? We have to make it from Ganggye to the Amnok River, don't we?”
“That's right. Our destination is Manpoguja on the banks of the Amnok. It's less than a hundred li from here — about a day's walk. We make our way there, wait for our moment, and cross the river.”
“Wasn't Manpoguja already dismantled?”
“Exactly right. Yes — your late father, the King, ordered it some years ago. But only the garrison was withdrawn; the post still functions. Every time Jurchens come across the river to trade, Ganggye Prefecture dispatches soldiers and officials to oversee them.”
Manpoguja had originally been nothing more than a wooden palisade, rebuilt as a stone fortress in the reign of King Sejong the Great. Though abolished in the first year of King Munjong on grounds of defense, its importance had never faded — for when receiving the Jurchens who crossed the river to trade, there was no better position than Manpo.
For that reason, even after the post was closed, whenever a market opened, officials from Ganggye Prefecture would come leading a detachment of Joseon soldiers.
“Tonight we lodge in Ganggye and find ourselves a boatman; tomorrow we set out early for Manpoguja and cross the river under cover of night.”
Hong-wi turned Cha Gyeong-yeon's plan over in his mind.
It sounded simple enough.
“Will we be able to find a boat?”
“The boatman matters far more than the boat.”
Cha Gyeong-yeon smiled.
“The Amnok is long, but it isn't nearly as wide as the Han River. In a bad drought the water runs so shallow that the locals know fords where you can wade across on foot. The trouble is that around Manpo the river threads between sheer mountains, so the current is swift and violent. Hidden rapids, waterfalls, rocks lurking everywhere — unless you're a seasoned riverman, crossing is treacherous. And on top of that, there's the border garrison that guards against Jurchen raids to think about.”
“True — it's clearly no easy river. Then can we find this boatman of yours?”