White Spirit Tree (1)
"Have a drink."
I came down to the ground floor of the inn, settled the human-skin mask over my face once more, and pointed at the cup sitting in front of Seol-ha.
"I shouldn't drink while I'm on guard."
"The important business is finished, and this is a celebration. Set the bodyguarding aside for a while. We'll stay the night at this inn and leave after."
I hadn't come here simply because of Geon Pyeong's provocation. It was because of Baek Mun-gyu.
Luck had been with me. I'd taken Baek Mun-gyu's hand and become his partner, which meant one of the great threads I'd accounted for upon my return was already in my grasp. Thoroughly satisfying.
"I can't begin to guess what you're thinking. And to place a sum that large in my keeping..."
"It is a great deal of money. If I happen to go under, and you take it and live without a worry in the world, I'd have nothing left to wish for."
"Young Master!"
"Don't worry. It won't come to that. For the moment I draw far too many eyes inside Golden Manor, so I only meant to lean on you a little. Don't burden yourself with it."
Seol-ha lowered her eyes. Then, as if whispering, she murmured:
I had been lifting my cup to my lips, and for a moment I felt my whole body go still. A faint flush crossed Seol-ha's face.
"It isn't only the debt I owe your mother. I want to protect you because I don't want to lose you—not when it matters that much. So whatever hardship we have to face, please let me face it with you. Always."
"I don't have the gift for explaining everything, but I understand what you mean. I know you're afraid, too, because so much seems to change with the choices I make. But listen."
I filled Seol-ha's cup to the brim.
"It'll be as sweet as it is bitter."
Seol-ha tipped it back in one gulp. Her eyes went round as she looked at me, and then she broke into a soft smile.
"It's sweet."
"Already?"
"I don't think it's going to be bitter."
"I'm almost embarrassed. You're far too easy to persuade."
Seol-ha nudged the empty cup toward me.
"One more?"
"And where did the woman who insisted she was on duty disappear to?"
"I can hardly refuse a celebration."
Somehow, Seol-ha was growing shameless by the moment.
"......"
Seol-ha lay flung across my bed, arms and legs thrown wide, and a baffled laugh escaped me.
How could she hold so little? Five cups. That was all. She had tied her hair up with such bravado and shared the wine with me, and after exactly five cups she had simply collapsed.
"Don't tell me this was her first time."
She didn't even know her own limit. It was possible.
Come to think of it, that was the sort of person Seol-ha had been to me. Like a warm spring breeze that lingered a moment and passed on. Someone who left far too early, trying to shield me from cruel trials, without ever once properly sharing a gentle cup of wine with me.
"So it was a first. For me, too."
I drew the quilt up over her and quietly watched her where the pale moonlight fell through the window. For Seol-ha, and for me, everything still ahead would be something we were meeting for the first time. I liked that.
I sat in the chair beside her bed and leaned back.
Sweet.
This night.
"You're certain that bastard is in there?"
Jung Hong-seon, eldest son of the Righteous Sword Sect, pointed at Yeonho Inn. From the dark where he had been waiting, a man with a vicious cast to his face stepped forward.
"No mistake."
It was Geon Pyeong, his whole face wrapped in bandages soaked dark with blood. He had only just regained consciousness, crossed paths with Jung Hong-seon and Yeon Gyu-baek again, and come all the way here. Yeon Gyu-baek's left arm was bound in bandages as well, and his hunger for revenge had already reached its peak.
"Is this really all right? He's still the second son of Golden Manor's lord. Even if Brother Geon permits it..."
Jung Hong-seon, the only one of the three still more or less intact, spoke while watching their faces.
"What? Thinking of backing out, brother?"
Yeon Gyu-baek's expression was calm, but his eyes were already brimming with murderous intent.
"No. When I think of that arrogant face, my blood runs backward."
Jung Hong-seon hesitated a moment, then shook his head. A thread of unease at the sight of Geon Pyeong's horrific state lost out to the threat of Yeon Gyu-baek's killing intent. More than anything, the humiliation he had suffered in the banquet hall goaded him all over again.
"We won't kill him. We'll simply let him learn what comes of challenging our authority. There's a price to be paid for leaving flesh and blood like this."
Air whistled through the gaps where most of Geon Pyeong's front teeth had been.
"Of course. We'll wreck him so he never swings a sword properly again."
"Don't worry. You think I called a man of my clan for nothing? However skilled he is, he'll be pulp before long."
The words had barely left Yeon Gyu-baek's mouth when a lean man with a sword across his back stepped out of the dark. The air itself grew cold merely from meeting his eyes.
"This is Deung Yeo. My clan deliberately gave him no high office and assigned him solely as my personal guard. Within the clan, he ranks among the ten finest swordsmen. Had he been in that banquet hall, the wretch would never have dared such insolence toward me."
"Indeed. Even his presence is different."
"Before long he'll be begging for his life until his hands might as well be feet. Heh heh."
The three of them were thoroughly worked up. Deung Yeo gave Yeon Gyu-baek a short bow.
"It won't take long."
"Good. Rough him up just enough, then drag him before me."
"Yes."
Deung Yeo vanished into the inn like a shadow.
The better part of a watch crawled by, and then a quarter-hour more.
Jung Hong-seon and Geon Pyeong blew out white breaths and kept stealing glances at Yeon Gyu-baek. Dawn had made the cold sharper still. When Geon Pyeong quietly stamped his feet, Yeon Gyu-baek reacted with a snarl.
"Why all the fuss? What is there to be so cold about?"
The cold seemed to have stiffened his mouth; the words came out a little thick.
"My apologies."
"Brother..."
"Wait a little longer. Deung Yeo is being deliberate, I'd say. Cautious as he is, he won't end it in a single stroke. He'll take the joints apart one by one and break the man in spirit. By the time he comes out to us, the wretch will be trembling and fawning besides."
Yeon Gyu-baek touched his bandaged left arm and added it at his leisure.
"Puhuhuhu."
"That ought to be quite a sight."
Ease settled over them again.
Another quarter-hour passed. Here and there, roosters began to crow, and a dim blue light gathered around the inn in the last of the dark before dawn.
"Brother, even caution can be too much caution, can't it...?"
"......"
Yeon Gyu-baek had no answer. White frost had already settled above his brows, and only his cold-stiffened shoulders shivered, pitiful in the gloom.
"Shall I go in?"
"No. I'll go."
Jung Hong-seon and Geon Pyeong were still clamoring when it happened.
Creeeak—
The inn's main gate, so long awaited, swung open. All three pairs of eyes flashed wide. Yeon Gyu-baek forced his frozen lips apart and murmured, voice bright with anticipation.
"There, you see? What did I tell you? Deung Yeo is nothing if not thorough. I can hardly wait to learn just how thoroughly he tormented that bastard and broke him—"
But the man who walked out was not Deung Yeo bearing news of victory.
In place of a sword, Deung Yeo held a broom, and the smile on his lips was gentle to a grotesque degree.
"...Deung Yeo?"
Yeon Gyu-baek called to him, soul half out of his body. Deung Yeo looked at him and bent politely at the waist.
"Welcome, honored guest. Thank you for visiting our inn so early in the morning. What shall I have prepared for your meal?"
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?! What about the ones inside?!"
Yeon Gyu-baek seized his shoulder and shook him. For an instant, the vacant focus returned to Deung Yeo's eyes.
"Aaaagh!! Get away!! I said get away!!!"
Deung Yeo let out a piteous scream, shook Yeon Gyu-baek off, and bolted down another alley.
In a heartbeat the three of them were kites with their strings cut. They stared at one another, blank. Jung Hong-seon, unable to bear it, asked carefully:
"Brother... has Deung Yeo caught dementia?"
"Dementia?! Didn't I tell you he's the finest guard warrior my father stationed for my sake?!"
"My apologies."
Geon Pyeong's face crumpled as if he might cry.
"We can't go back like this."
Yeon Gyu-baek clenched his sword with all his strength.
"Right. We can't. We absolutely cannot!!"
"What do you mean to do?"
"I don't know what happened in there, but that bastard must have used some vile sorcery. Deung Yeo let his guard down, and he was taken."
Yeon Gyu-baek wiped his running nose on the back of his hand and drew his sword.
"Come on. Let's go."
He led the way into the inn.
They had not gone far. Before they were even properly inside, the presence of those following him vanished. Struck by the wrongness of it, Yeon Gyu-baek turned his head—and in the inn's front courtyard, Geon Pyeong and Jung Hong-seon were spraying blood and toppling backward.
"You... you!!"
Sword in hand, Yeon Gyu-baek saw the two of them faint in an instant and ground his teeth.
"Geon A-seong!!"
"Yaaawn. A racket from the crack of dawn. What a racket."
"What sorcery did you use?!"
"There's a price for waking a man from a sweet sleep."
"What are you—"
Yeon Gyu-baek never even got a proper look at the presence closing in before his consciousness cut out.
That was the last afterimage he kept.
"You're awake?"
I opened my eyes to morning sunlight, and Seol-ha came toward me.
"Yeah."
"What happened last night?"
"We got drunk at the same time and probably just collapsed into sleep. A peaceful night. Nothing happened."
"If you were drunk, how would you know?"
"Nothing's wrong, is it?"
"It was noisy outside, though."
"Why?"
"From what I heard, some naked men—drunk, maybe—were all tangled up together, sleeping in the inn's front courtyard on a day this cold. Stark naked!"
I stretched and clicked my tongue.
"Idle fools. Let's have another bowl of meat noodles and head back."
"Young Master Geon Pyeong was among them. You really don't know?"
She asked it sidelong, as if she had already guessed something. I shrugged, playing ignorant.
"No idea. He must have gotten drunk and made a scene. He's exactly the sort who would."
Seol-ha let out a short sigh, then followed as I got to my feet.
We took the carriage we had come in and returned to the estate of Golden Manor.
Using the Soul-Enthralling Art after so long had left me with a light headache. Even so, picturing those men frightened out of their wits made me want to laugh.
I had learned the art so I would not fall victim to it myself, and now and then it proved useful. The Soul-Enthralling Art was the name for techniques that seized and steered the mind, and to bring it off properly required delicate conditions and a carefully prepared setting. It was also an art with severe side effects in more ways than one. Mishandle it, and the caster could suffer a serious backlash. That about covered the explanation.
Even so, the reason a man like Deung Yeo had fallen to a casting I hadn't properly prepared was simple enough. I had ordered only an extremely limited, easy action—and his mind had been pathetically weak to begin with. By now he would have come to his senses without the faintest memory of what had happened.
Thump—
The carriage stopped. We had arrived at the estate, it seemed.
Seol-ha and I stepped down and were heading inside when Jun-pyo of the Geumhwa Department—who never so much as showed his face unless I called for him—came rushing up to the carriage, out of breath.
"Young Master."
"What is it?"
"The Grand Madame is summoning you, over the eldest young master's affair at the Sichuan Dragon-Phoenix Gathering."
Right. About time she called me in again. I had expected it, so I nodded without letting anything show. What Jun-pyo said next, though, grated.
"And a marriage proposal has come in for you, Young Master."
"A marriage proposal?"
Around this time, had a substantial marriage proposal come to Geon A-seong? I would know once I went in.