The Boy Who Would Not Back Down
“What we mean to entrust to you is no light burden. You must win Suyang's favor, Kim, and stay glued to his side. You will have to flatter him, fawn on him, praise him. Winning the heart of the man who drove Eom Ja-chi to his death will be bitter work, I know—but swallow that bitterness and press on. Can you do that for us?”
“Mm.”
Kim Cheo-seon let out a low groan.
“It will not be easy, I tell you... But very well. I will try, as you ask. Only—how long must I endure it?”
“Be patient and wait. I cannot promise you how many years it will take. But do not grow hasty. Think on it—the plot of Seong Sam-mun and Park Paeng-nyeon, and the plot of Grand Preceptor Grand Prince Geumseong, all of them failed in the end because, when it comes down to it, they could not wait for Heaven's moment. Suyang's royal aura, regrettably, is still unbroken. So it may take five years. It may take ten.”
Kim Cheo-seon fell silent.
“But... we—and I—will wait. Ten years, twenty, however long it takes, until we raise His Highness and see his great purpose done!”
Resolve rang in Jeong Ho-chan's voice.
Kim Si-seup nodded as well.
“Understood. I am with you.”
Kim Cheo-seon spoke quietly.
There was resolve in his voice too.
Jeong Ho-chan and Kim Si-seup exchanged meaningful smiles.
Across the broad courtyard of the Hunryeongwan, the training academy, the war cries of warriors rang out loud and clear.
The institution had been established in the reign of King Taejo to hone the martial arts of military officers and instruct them in the art of war.
But half a century had passed since the founding of Joseon, and the temper of society had been slowly losing the hardy martial spirit of those early days.
The Hunryeongwan was not entirely immune to that drift.
These days even the elite gapsa guards devoted more of their energies to managing farmland and minding their livelihoods than to training at arms.
With no major war of late, the officers too had grown comfortable, settled into idleness.
Today, however, the mood was a little different.
A knot of gapsa had crowded along the edge of the courtyard, utterly absorbed in the fierce sparring match unfolding before their eyes.
The warrior at the center of every gaze—holding the attention of the finest swordsmen present—was, astonishingly, a boy whose face had not yet fully shed its youth.
He had knotted a silk cloth tight around his head and was hammering his opponent with a relentless storm of attacks.
His opponent, by contrast, looked a good ten years his senior, and it showed in his seasoned poise.
With practiced skill he was parrying the boy's strikes, bleeding the force out of them one by one.
“Hyah!”
The boy warrior leapt high into the air and brought his wooden staff crashing down.
His opponent snapped up a round shield and caught the blow.
With a heavy thud he staggered back several steps.
The match was, after all, for training and not a fight to the death, so the staff too was bound thick with layer upon layer of wrapped cloth.
Even so, the impact was not nothing.
“Ooh!”
A murmur of admiration rose from the watching guards.
“That lad's no slouch... To press Kim like that, of all people.”
Still, the gapsa's expressions held a certain ease.
The boy was decent enough, they seemed to agree, but the win would come down to experience in the end.
Someone shouted out.
“Hey there, Brother Jeong-geun! Forget sparing the feelings of some green youngster and show us what you can do, will you!”
The guard behind the shield let the jeer slide past one ear and kept his eyes locked on the boy.
His hemp jacket was already soaked through with sweat.
...Flashy, wasted movements only drain your strength in a real fight, so I avoid them—but this fellow's stamina is a thing apart, never mind his skill. He really does dart east and west without a pause.
He smiled faintly.
He was a Geunchunmun gapsa, and in pure martial skill he ranked comfortably among the top three of his fellows.
And yet a bout like today's was not easy even for him.
“Mm!”
Kim Jeong-geun tensed.
It looked to him as though the boy was about to attack again.
And sure enough, the boy charged without a moment's hesitation.
As if his stamina were boundless, he twisted left and right, hurling a ceaseless cascade of dazzling strikes.
Jeong-geun scrambled, throwing his shield about desperately to block them.
“Kgh!”
One of the boy's blows skimmed past his flank by a hair's breadth.
Wrapped as it was in thick cloth, there had been no real danger of injury—but a chill ran down Jeong-geun's spine all the same.
In a real fight he would already be wounded, and a wound alone would have put him at a grave disadvantage.
His fellow guards seemed to sense it too, and fell silent.
“...Isn't Kim getting pushed back?”
“Can't be...”
The gapsa murmured uneasily among themselves.
The boy, for his part, had already retreated to a quick-step distance after that flurry, catching his breath.
Jeong-geun narrowed his eyes.
Had even that seemingly limitless stamina of his finally run low?
The next instant, the boy closed the distance at terrifying speed and hurled his body into the air.
No—again...?
Jeong-geun jerked his shield up in alarm, but he was already winded, and his reaction came a beat too slow.
The watching guards cried out in shock.
“Aagh!”
With a clattering crash, the shield went rolling across the dirt.
Kicked-up dust swirled so thick that for a moment the guards could not tell what had happened.
Then, as the dust settled, one of them murmured blankly.
“Jeong-geun's down...?”
Unable to absorb the boy's full impact, Kim Jeong-geun had misstepped and tumbled to the ground.
He had the basic instincts to scramble back up at once—but then he saw the wooden staff already leveled at his throat, and had no choice but to grimace.
The match was decided.
“Well? Had enough? Will you yield now?”
The smile was stripped from Jeong-geun's lips.
Instead of answering, he scowled. The insolent little wretch.
What a humiliation this was...
But there was nothing to be done.
His sword lay far out of reach.
“I yield.”
Jeong-geun muttered the words through gritted teeth.
It was a matter of pride, yes—but what rankled more was the particular arrogance only a boy that age could carry.
Yet the boy warrior seemed to find that answer quite sufficient. He flashed a grin and lowered his staff.
“A fine effort, sir.”
Jeong-geun rose with a sullen face and beat the dust from his jacket and trousers.
Meanwhile the boy warrior called out to the gapsa who stood gaping at him.
“Come now—who's next? Who will challenge me?”
No one answered.
The boy called again.
“Who will challenge me!”
Still no answer came.
At last the boy seemed to lose a little steam, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Not one among the Geunchunmun guards, then?”
One of the gapsa spat on the ground and muttered.
“Damn brat's got a mouth on him, hasn't he.”
“That's the truth.”
At their comrade's words the other guards began grumbling too.
The gapsa were, by their own reckoning, among the most swaggering gallants and bravos in all of Hanseong.
Their pride ran hot accordingly, and they could hardly fail to bristle at such a brazen taunt thrown in their teeth.
“Even Brother Jeong-geun took a fall, so he's no pushover, that's for certain.”
“Young as he is, the boy can fight, I'll grant.”
The guards muttered on in low voices.
Having just watched a comrade lose and be shamed before the whole yard, their face was beyond mending—but stepping forward was another matter entirely.
Someone spoke up.
“Someone had better fetch Gil-dong, or Ja-gwang. Damn it all—that young lord's dragging the Geunchunmun name through the dirt.”
Oblivious to it all, or perhaps not, the boy warrior went on confidently scanning for a challenger.
Little by little, the guards' embarrassment curdled into irritation.
Just then someone cried out.
“Speak of the tiger and he appears—well, I'll be damned. There's Gil-dong and Ja-gwang coming in now.”
Every head turned toward the entrance of the Hunryeongwan.
A powerfully built officer in his thirties was just striding in, alongside a young guard of perhaps twenty—medium of height, with sharp, hawkish eyes.
The guards who recognized them swarmed over at once.
“Brother Gil-dong's come, has he.”
“Brother, there's trouble.”
“Eh? What's all this?”
The officer in his thirties knit his brow.
“No greeting, no explanation—what's got into you all the moment I walk in? Out with it, Kim Jeong-geun. What happened?”
“Brother, I have no face to show you.”
The guard called Kim Jeong-geun, who had just crossed wooden staffs with the boy, dropped to his knees and bowed low.
“I have brought shame upon the name of the Geunchunmun band. My fault is grave.”
“Tch. What kind of talk is that? You're making me sick.”
Vice Directing Guard Hong Gil-dong's scowl deepened.
He had been born an eolja—the son of Hong Sang-jik, an envoy who had once served as envoy to Jongseong, by a government courtesan.
Among children of concubines, an eolja born of a base slave mother ranked even below a seoja born of a commoner mother.
Circumstances being what they were, Hong Gil-dong had been shut out of advancement from the day he was born, and knowing it, he had thrown himself early into the world of fist gangs and street bravos.
Then the Gyeyu Coup had changed his fortunes somewhat.
His father Hong Sang-jik had been a negligible officer and nothing more, but his half-brother Hong Il-dong had picked the winning side during the coup, rising at a stroke to the ranks of the original merit subjects and climbing as high as Grand Overseer of Agriculture.
Thanks to that connection, Hong Gil-dong—until then a mere idle gallant—had secured the minor post of Vice Directing Guard and taken command of the Geunchunmun gapsa band.
But his true nature had gone nowhere. Leading his ruffians of guards and bravos, he still swept the night streets of Hanyang.
“Let's hear the story first. What in the devil happened here?”
Kim Jeong-geun kept his head bowed low.
The other guards stepped in to explain.
“We were sparring among ourselves this morning when that green young sprout there burst in out of nowhere. Wondering what he wanted, Choraeng-i struck up a conversation, and the boy says he's come to find the strongest man here, if you please.”
“Hm. And then?”
“He looked like some well-bred young lord, so we meant to send him off with a few pretty words. But then he throws a fit—says he's come to test his mettle against the strongest, and won't retreat a single step until he does. Can you imagine?”
“I see.”
Hong Gil-dong glared at the boy warrior, who still stood his ground in the middle of the courtyard, and went on.
“So?”
“Well, that wore our patience thin, as you can guess. So Choraeng-i steps up all polite—you look like a gentleman raised soft, and this is where the guards of the capital train, so if you'd just leave...—the whole honey-tongued routine. And then his lordship declares he doesn't take orders from any man weaker than himself. What else could we do?”
“Ho.”
Hong Gil-dong wrinkled the bridge of his nose and chuckled.
“Got some spirit, I'll say that. And then what happened?”
“Well—we're the Geunchunmun band under your command, Brother, aren't we? Such an insult we couldn't swallow, so Choraeng-i says, fine then, let's see you fight me.”
“Where's Choraeng-i now?”
“Over there.”
A guard pointed toward the shade of a tree.
Hong Gil-dong looked—and saw one of the guards sprawled flat on his back.
He asked in a tone of pure disbelief.
“What, he's out cold?”
Hong Gil-dong pointed with his finger.
The young warrior who had come with him was already glaring at the boy with piercing eyes.
“Yes... He meant to go easy on him and send him on his way, it seems. That's how it turned out.”
“Tch... Choraeng-i's no soft touch, mind you.”
“He is not. And once it came to that, could we stand by and watch? All of us stepped up in a row—and that young whelp is no ordinary customer, Brother.”
“Right. I hear you.”
Hong Gil-dong cut the story short and looked down at Kim Jeong-geun.
“So, Jeong-geun. You got broken too, did you?”
“I have no face to show.”
Jeong-geun bowed his head again.
“His skill is nothing to sneeze at, but it's the way he moves—like a fish returned to water.”
“Hm! I see.”
Hong Gil-dong glared at the boy warrior, his face a mask of displeasure.
“If he was enough to put you down, Jeong-geun, he's far from ordinary... Hey. Ja-gwang.”
“Yes, Brother.”
Hong Gil-dong turned to the medium-sized young guard who had followed him in.
The one called Yu Ja-gwang had been watching the boy warrior intently all the while.
The boy, for his part, seemed to have lost interest now that no new challenger had appeared.
“Could you break him?”
Hong Gil-dong asked in a measured tone.
Yu Ja-gwang answered calmly.
“There's only one way to find out, isn't there.”