The Boy Who Stood Before the Tiger
"Uncle. I wish you good health."
There was an innate dignity in the way Hong-wi carried himself.
It was truly astonishing for a boy of eleven. Hardened by a royal education, the young prince kept even his smallest movements under perfect control.
"Your Highness, the Crown Prince."
Suyang bowed at the waist.
Nephew or not, the boy was the undisputed heir to the throne, and as such the gap in station between them was unbridgeable.
As Suyang straightened from his bow and looked up at the prince, his gaze wavered for an instant with something complicated. He did not lack affection for his nephew — but there was more to it than that. His eyes held the look of a man yearning for something.
Suyang quickly mastered himself and addressed the prince.
"When did you learn to ride? Your skill is truly admirable."
"I have only recently begun my lessons at the Stables Office."
Whether or not he sensed Suyang's inner thoughts, the prince dismounted and drew near.
"If it pleases you, Uncle, would you grant me the honor of an embrace?"
"Of course, my boy. Of course."
Suyang wrapped the prince in a tender embrace.
"Do take care of your precious health. Did you enjoy your outing beyond the capital walls today?"
"Having lived my whole life within the palace, there is so much to see now that I've finally come outside."
Hong-wi smiled with a child's innocence.
He looks just like his father did at that age, Suyang thought. In those bright, clever eyes there still lingered a boyish purity.
He will grow into a fine sovereign one day. If only this child and I had been born into different circumstances — how much better it would have been!
Hong-wi, Hong-wi... Why were you born to stand in my way? Why have you grown so sturdy, so magnificent?
Without realizing it, the hands gripping the boy's shoulders tightened over the hem of his crimson dragon robe.
Who was this child? None other than the boy who held the greatest legitimacy the dynasty had ever known in the palm of one hand.
The true-born eldest grandson...
Suyang groaned inwardly.
From birth, his father had been Crown Prince; his grandfather was the King; his mother, too, had been the Crown Prince's lawful consort. Could there exist anywhere a more unimpeachable line of succession? This child held in his grasp, from the moment he was born, the very thing Suyang craved so desperately.
Could this child ever understand, even a thousandth of it, what churned in Suyang's breast?
The ambitious currents of Suyang's heart, as he gazed upon Hong-wi, seemed to scatter into a thousand thousand strands.
"Uncle!"
"Yes? Ah — forgive me, Your Highness. The fault is mine."
Startled back to his senses, Suyang loosened the grip he had unconsciously tightened.
"I hear you observed the demonstration of the Commander of Cannonry with His Majesty today."
"I did. Their power was truly beyond anything I had imagined. Today I saw the hwacha that Father designed with his own hand, and..."
With an ingenuous face, Hong-wi began to talk about everything he had seen that day.
Suyang listened with only half an ear.
The King simply looked on at the affectionate tableau the two of them made, a fond warmth on his face.
"...If we had ten thousand of such weapons, we could sweep away the troubles on the northern frontier altogether."
"Heh heh. Is that so?"
Suyang nodded with a smile.
"Just as His Majesty says — any true sovereign, above and beyond the learning of letters, must never neglect the training of body and mind. Is that not so?"
"It is indeed."
Ever since the founding of Joseon, its kings had never lost the martial spirit of the warrior. It was, one might say, an enduring tradition handed down from the founding monarch, King Taejo Yi Seong-gye himself.
"Come to think of it, I hear my younger brother has no small talent for the martial arts himself."
"You flatter me, Your Majesty. Merely the training of body and mind, nothing more."
At the King's polite pleasantry, Suyang let out a hearty laugh. To receive such praise from his eldest brother — the man toward whom he had always felt respect, envy, and jealousy in equal measure — left him feeling pleasantly warm.
Then, moved by some impulse, Suyang made a request of the King.
"I have no other talents to my name, but I have long taken pleasure in the study of the sword. Might I demonstrate a technique or two for His Highness the Crown Prince?"
The moment the words left his mouth, Suyang regretted them. Had he spoken out of turn...?
"A demonstration of skill? From a man of my brother's caliber, that should be perfectly fine."
The King seemed to consider it briefly, then nodded readily.
"Go on, then. Show us something. What will you demonstrate?"
"I thought to show His Highness the way of the sword."
Having gone this far, Suyang simply let the words spill out.
Beside the King, the Royal Guard Eunuch shifted uneasily, his eyes flickering with anxiety. This was the brother the King trusted above all men — and yet he proposed to show the Crown Prince how to wield a weapon? Still, the eunuch kept his misgivings to himself.
With the King watching, Suyang placed a short sword in the prince's hands.
"First, allow me to teach you the most fundamental stance."
At Suyang's words, Hong-wi nodded with an expression taut with concentration.
Whatever Suyang might privately think of the boy, teaching a beginner was always a quiet pleasure for a man with genuine martial training. A smile spread across his face as he corrected Hong-wi's stance piece by piece.
"Grip the sword with both hands. Bring it close to your left side... and your feet — like this, like so."
Suyang began with the most basic posture — the so-called Holding-the-Sword-Facing-the-Foe stance, taken when one faces an opponent with blade in hand.
Hong-wi applied himself with a seriousness beyond his years.
"Very good. Next is the Fierce Tiger Concealed in the Forest stance — as when a tiger, hidden deep in the woods, spies its prey and springs. Mind that your blade does not block your own line of sight."
"Like this, Uncle?"
At the boy's spirited reply, a smile rose to Suyang's lips unbidden.
"Precisely so. Excellent."
Step by step, Suyang taught him the fundamentals of the sword.
Just for this moment, Suyang forgot the inextinguishable flame that gnawed secretly at his breast, and treated Hong-wi simply as a beloved nephew.
How bitter fate could be! Had circumstances been only a little different, Suyang might truly have embraced this young boy as his own blood.
But to all appearances, no two people could have been closer than the pair were now.
At least, that was how it looked to the King.
"What a heartwarming sight. If the royal kin guard the Crown Prince with such devotion as that, what worry could there ever be? I shall..."
The King let his words trail off, and a sorrowful smile crossed his face.
The sick know their own sickness best, as the saying went.
He had been born with a strong constitution, but years of unrelenting toil and the succession of mourning rites for three years running had worn his body ragged. That vile abscess, now a chronic affliction, was eating away at him little by little, and unprompted by anyone, he was tormented by the ominous certainty that the time left to him would not be long.
He shook his head.
No, it cannot be. Not until the Crown Prince is grown...
The boy was precious beyond the ache of his own eyes. What would become of him if Suyang perished? That poor child — he did not even have his own mother left to care for him. Until Hong-wi came of age, then, the royal kin and the court ministers would have to guard the young prince with one heart.
Just then, a scream tore through the air.
"Merciful heavens — what do we do about that!"
The scene that spread before the King, who snapped his eyes open in alarm, was enough to turn anyone's blood to ice.
A huge, yellowish-striped tiger — from where had it come bursting out!
The horses ridden by the armored guards of the Commander of Cannonry reared, shrieking and pawing the air, and one after another the guardsmen tumbled from their saddles.
"Good grief!"
Even the Royal Guard Eunuch beside the King nearly went down with them. He barely managed to calm his horse, but before the reek of the beast and its killing aura, even trained warhorses had gone mad with terror.
Half out of their wits, people scrambled away on all fours.
But the King paid the chaos no mind at all. His entire mind was fixed on one thing only.
"Hong-wi!"
A short cry, like a scream, burst from the King's lips.
Only then did the Royal Guard Eunuch — who until that moment had thought of nothing but the King's safety — grasp what had happened, and cry out in horror. The face of that veteran eunuch, a man who had weathered every sort of crisis, went white in an instant.
Of all places, the tiger had planted itself squarely before Suyang and the Crown Prince.
"The Crown Prince — get the Crown Prince to safety!"
At the eunuch's shout, the armored guards recovered their wits and tightened their grips on their weapons — but dared do nothing more. Loose an arrow or fire a gun recklessly, and they might strike not the beast, but the Crown Prince, or the King's own brother. The hands of the archers with drawn bowstrings trembled violently.
"Stay calm!"
Suyang called out in a low voice.
Hong-wi stood pale-faced, staring at the tiger.
Suyang felt his own legs begin to shake. He was no coward — far from it.
Years before, while touring Mount Geumgang with the royal guard battalions, when the others had frozen in terror atop a sheer cliff and inched their way down on trembling hands and knees, Suyang alone had descended with his back straight and his bearing serene. Such was the size of his nerve.
And yet never in his life had he stood face to face with a tiger.
The beast's rough breath seemed to wash over his face, and Suyang squeezed his eyes shut despite himself.
Then he felt Hong-wi take a single step forward.
"Your Highness?"
Suyang cracked his eyes open in alarm — and his jaw fell.
Hong-wi stood bolt upright, glaring at the tiger.
Has the child gone mad!
"N-no — that — that creature..."
The Royal Guard Eunuch, sword drawn, could not get the words out.
The King, too, looked on at the scene with a bloodless face. The gap between Hong-wi and the tiger was no more than a few paces. One sweep of those forepaws, and the crown-jewel life of the Crown Prince would be snuffed out on the spot.
The eunuch's mouth had gone bone dry.
What — what in heaven's name do we do about that! What can anyone do!
A heavy silence pressed down.
Only the low growl of the tiger was audible. It was a silence more terrifying than any roar.
Then a scream that seemed to split the heavens tore through the air like a thunderbolt.
Baring its blood-red maw, the tiger roared right in front of Hong-wi.
People clapped their hands over their ears; the guardsmen shuddered where they stood; the faint of heart fainted outright.
Having roared its once, the tiger thrust its face right up before Hong-wi's own, baring its amber eyes in a snarl.
Hong-wi did not move a muscle.
And in that moment, the onlookers witnessed something none of them could believe.
The tiger smacked its lips once, swished its tail, and — slowly turned away!
"Ah!"
One of the guardsmen let out a short cry of wonder, then clapped a hand over his own mouth, startled by the sound.
Ambling backward, the tiger cast one last glance over its shoulder at Hong-wi — a look that seemed to find the boy strange, this child who had not flinched before a roar that made the very mountains and trees tremble. Then it bounded away and vanished in a single bound.
With the tiger gone, deflated sighs broke out here and there. And then all pandemonium broke loose.
"Your Highness!"
"Are you safe? Are you hurt?"
As though released from a hypnotic trance, the crowd surged toward Hong-wi all at once.
The tension snapped all at once, and Hong-wi's legs wobbled — but the Royal Guard Eunuch, reaching him in a heartbeat, caught him and steadied him.
The King too, forgetting all royal dignity, rushed over himself to check on his son's welfare.
"Hong-wi! Hong-wi! Are you all right?"
So flustered was the King that he called the prince by his own name outright. Fortunately, though Hong-wi's face was white with strain, he appeared otherwise unharmed.
The boy answered in little more than a murmur.
"Your son is quite well, Father. Only — only a little startled."
A little startled! Off to one side, Suyang could hardly breathe for the awe of it.
The eunuch shouted his orders.
"See to His Highness at once! Return to the palace with all haste!"
The King nodded, then turned to Suyang.
"I shall take my leave for today."
"I shall follow shortly, Your Majesty."
Suyang replied.
Truthfully, the festive mood had been ruined long before this.
While the armored guards fussed over escorting the King and Crown Prince, Suyang found himself surrounded by his own trusted men.
"My lord! Are you quite all right?"
"I'm fine."
Suyang answered curtly.
Even the bold Gwon Ram's face was drained white, his robes drenched through with sweat.
Amid all this, Suyang found himself wondering how his own conduct must have looked to them.
Then Han Myeong-hoe spoke up.
"To stand your ground before a tiger — a lesser man would have swooned dead away. Truly worthy of you, my lord."
"Perhaps."
Suyang nodded. But etched vividly in his mind was the image of Hong-wi from moments before.
He waved off Lim Eoul-un, who moved to support him.
"I said I'm fine. Stand aside. What's the worst that could happen?"
Deliberately striking a bold pose, Suyang turned to look over his retainers. Their eyes brimmed with admiration, and seeing it, his shoulders squared with a touch of pride.
Yet somewhere in his heart, something grated against him like a coarse grain of sand.
Hong-wi...
Suddenly aware of a dull weight lodged in a corner of his chest, Suyang exhaled sharply.
"Come along, everyone. Today's feast has run its course... Yes — you must visit my house someday for a proper drink. Ga-ryeong, was it? Bring that one along too."
"Of course, my lord."
Han Myeong-hoe bowed deeply at the waist.
Suyang shook his head slightly and started away.
"Everyone's dispersing."
"So they are."
Cha Gyeong-yeon murmured.
Jeong Ho-chan answered briefly, then let out a long sigh.
It was a sight he had seen with his own two eyes and still could not believe. Wiping the sweat from his temple with his sleeve, he spoke.
"Quite an astonishing sight, wasn't it."
"That it was. A tiger that size appearing out of nowhere in the middle of the royal procession..."
"No. That isn't what I mean."
Jeong Ho-chan shook his head and went on.
"You saw the Crown Prince just now, didn't you."
"Ah — that was remarkable too, to be sure."
Cha Gyeong-yeon nodded in agreement.
"Standing there before a tiger like that — I can't tell whether it was tremendous nerve, or whether he was simply too terrified to move... Still, the fact that he didn't lose consciousness alone speaks well of him. Ten years old, is it? For that age, his courage is truly something."
"It is."
Jeong Ho-chan nodded.