In Absolute Secrecy
“Did Your Majesty summon me?”
It was still early morning when a tall, lean, middle-aged warrior stepped quietly into the Daejeon.
The King, who had been reviewing state memorials through a pair of spectacles, lifted his head from his desk.
“I called you because I have an urgent charge to bestow.”
“Speak your command, Your Majesty.”
The King slowly removed the glasses. Though his eyesight had failed him in recent years, his gaze remained piercing and fierce.
“The other day, when I walked in the Rear Secret Garden with Hui-bin... you mentioned seeing the child court maid who accompanied her, did you not?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I saw her.”
Nodding faintly, the King gave a quiet command.
“Conduct a discreet investigation into that child.”
For the sovereign of an entire nation to order a secret background check on a toddler court maid of barely four years was unusual in the extreme. Yet the man standing before him rarely betrayed emotion in the presence of his monarch. Despite the bizarre nature of the assignment, he accepted the order with an impassive countenance.
“I shall heed your royal decree, Your Majesty. What particulars would you have me discover?”
“Trace the child’s lineage. Ascertain whether her parents and her older brother are alive or dead. And...” At that point, the King drew a careful, measured breath. “Above all, investigate the child’s mother in exhaustive detail. Her true name and clan origins. If she yet draws breath, you must uncover her whereabouts without fail.”
“Then I shall begin by examining the palace registry of court maids.”
“See to it.”
Prostrating himself, the warrior offered a deep bow of obeisance.
“I shall carry it out immediately. With Your Majesty’s leave, this subject takes his departure.”
Just as he turned to leave the royal chamber, the King’s voice halted him once more.
“Che-geon-ah.”
“...Yes, Your Majesty.”
It was extraordinarily rare for the King to address him so familiarly by his given name. Kim Che-geon knew by pure instinct that this matter carried immense, grave weight for his sovereign.
“In secret. This must proceed in absolute confidence.”
“I obey your command.”
Kim Che-geon—the man celebrated throughout the realm as Joseon’s Number One Swordsman—obeyed his master without the slightest hesitation, slipping from the Daejeon with silent, ghostlike steps.
Upon leaving the royal hall, the first thing Kim Che-geon did was examine the official court maid registry entry for the child maid Hwang Bong-bong. As he made his way toward the humble dwelling in Namchon recorded under her name, he found himself lost in thought.
In truth, Hwang Bong-bong had left a rather deep impression on him as well. During that tender, private rendezvous between the King and Hui-bin in the Rear Secret Garden, the absurd sight of that tiny girl blowing flower petals until her round cheeks flushed crimson had been impossible to forget. It had been adorable enough to draw an amused chuckle from him, reminding him of his own daughter when she had been small.
Yet the King has commanded a full investigation into her origins.
That made it an entirely different matter. To order a covert investigation not into a seasoned court woman or a scheming official, but into a mere four-year-old child—in all his decades of serving as the King’s loyal sword, Kim Che-geon had never once received such a charge.
Most peculiar of all was the official entry. Hwang Bong-bong’s palace intake record clearly stated: Parents deceased. Names unknown. Yet the King had specifically commanded him to verify whether her parents were alive or dead.
‘Above all, investigate the child’s mother in exhaustive detail. Her true name and clan origins. If she yet draws breath, you must uncover her whereabouts without fail.’
When speaking of the child’s mother, the King’s eyes had sunk into a dark, terrifying gloom.
What on earth could lie behind this?
Though he pondered it deeply, Kim Che-geon could not fathom the unfathomable depths of the King’s mind. As he had always done throughout his life, he pushed his doubts aside and resolved to focus strictly on carrying out his orders.
Locating the modest cottage in Namchon proved simple enough. Inside the dust-laden house, which bore the unmistakable signs of having sat vacant for quite some time, he searched every nook and cranny with practiced thoroughness. It was then that he caught sight of a folded sheet of paper wedged tightly between the wooden floorboards.
Unfolding the weathered slip, Kim Che-geon’s eyes widened slightly.
Hwang Ho. Cheok Yu-hwa. Hwang Jin-gi. Hwang Bong-mok.
Never forget. Remember always.
The final sentence had been written with meticulous, deliberate care. Quickly producing a spare brush and paper to copy the names, his brow furrowed with deep suspicion. It was the name Cheok Yu-hwa that arrested him.
The Cheok clan...
Kim Che-geon reached back through decades of memory. Although the world believed the lineage had been wiped out entirely early in the dynasty, he knew for a fact that the sole surviving descendant of that bloodline had walked the earth barely a decade ago. The Goksan Cheok clan—the final bloodline to inherit the legendary martial arts of General Cheok Jun-gyeong.
Cheok Woo-myeong.
Cheok Woo-myeong had been the King’s personal royal bodyguard, and a warrior whom the King himself had openly called his closest friend. Regarded as a peerless master blessed by heaven itself, he had been a swordsman without equal in their age. The King had even affectionately addressed him by the familiar moniker of ‘Cheok-ga.’
And yet... Cheok Woo-myeong is dead.
The King had killed him. It was a tragedy wrought in the violent storms of political purges. When destroying his friend’s clan, the King had issued a confidential royal memorandum—a bimangi—commanding that very friend to take his own life. Kim Che-geon still remembered the dark palace whispers that the King had wept tears of blood as he signed the decree. In the end, Cheok Woo-myeong had chosen death. With that, the Goksan Cheok clan had been deemed utterly extinguished.
Yet now, here was the name Cheok Yu-hwa.
Did Cheok Woo-myeong have a younger sister?
Kim Che-geon had never known the intimate details of Cheok Woo-myeong’s household. But even during an extermination, the court rarely took the lives of young daughters. He stared down at the four names copied onto his paper.
Did Cheok Woo-myeong’s sister survive, take a husband, and bear children? Are these the names of that family?
Even so, a glaring discrepancy remained. Hwang Bong-mok. That name did not match.
As Kim Che-geon weighed the names ‘Hwang Bong-bong’ and ‘Hwang Bong-mok’ in his mind, a shrill voice called out from behind him.
“Who goes there? Might you be here to look at the house?”
A middle-aged woman from the neighboring cottage approached, her face bright with opportunistic delight.
“I am,” Kim Che-geon answered smoothly. “Is this house vacant? If it is empty, I would like to know who owns it.”
“Oh... it is empty, of course! Empty as can be!”
“Then who might you be?”
At his question, the woman tilted her chin up with brazen pride. “I am practically the landlord of this place. Originally, an orphaned brother and sister lived here, but the brother has vanished and the girl is barely four years old, so I manage the property on their behalf.” Her eyes gleamed with undisguised avarice. “If you wish to buy it, just say the word. I will part with it for an exceedingly fair price.”
“Does that not mean the actual owner is a four-year-old child? What is the owner’s name?”
“Now why on earth would you need to know that...?”
Kim Che-geon fixed her with a sharp, heavy stare. Cowed by his prominent, piercing eyes, the woman shrank back and lowered her gaze.
“Her name is Hwang Bong-mok. But even if you wished to meet the owner, you could not see her. You must negotiate with me.”
“And why is that?”
“The child went to the pal—” She snapped her mouth shut, catching herself. When the head court lady had taken the girl away, she had given strict, stern warnings never to reveal that a child of noble blood had become a palace maid. The woman scrambled to change her story. “A courtesan house. She was sold to a gisaeng house. Though impoverished, they were of yangban stock, so it was truly a pitiable fate.”
Having extracted valuable information, Kim Che-geon pressed further. “The people who lived here were of yangban lineage?”
“Yes. Poor as church mice, but yangban nonetheless. The mother who died giving birth to the girl was said to hail from a fallen noble line, and the father, though destitute, was a scholar well-versed in the classics.”
Kim Che-geon pieced together the truth with ease. The name ‘Hwang Bong-mok’ was undoubtedly Hwang Bong-bong. Whether through an illiterate scribe’s mistake or deliberate obfuscation, the child’s name had been altered during her palace entry.
“Master, this house has been kept in remarkably good order,” the woman hurried to add, eager to close a deal. “The girl’s older brother tended to it with utmost care before he was gone. If you intend to purchase it, for a mere hundred yang, I could—”
“Her brother is gone? What do you mean by that?”
“Well... he’s d-dead, most likely.”
Kim Che-geon did not miss the sudden, nervous waver in her eyes. The woman let out a heavy sigh. She was burning with anticipation at the thought of claiming the cottage and selling it off for a windfall, yet this intimidating man asked nothing but useless, frustrating questions. Under normal circumstances, she would have chased a nosy stranger away with a broom, but the man’s aura was so chilling that she dared not cut him off.
“Tell me, was the surname of the mother who died in childbirth by any chance Cheok?”
“Cheok? I have never heard of such a surname in all my days! Her family name was Cheon. Cheon Yu-hwa, or something of that sort. When they held her funeral rites, the ancestral tablet clearly bore the surname Cheon.”
Cheon Yu-hwa.
Though a new name had entered the equation, Kim Che-geon felt no surprise. It was commonplace for the surviving daughter of an exterminated clan to alter her surname to conceal her identity. Cheon Yu-hwa was Cheok Yu-hwa. Of that, he was certain.
“Well then, master, would you care to inspect the interior of the house...?”
“I shall return another time.”
Cutting her off without ceremony, Kim Che-geon turned and walked away. Tucked securely inside his robes was the paper on which he had transcribed the four names: Hwang Ho, Cheok Yu-hwa, Hwang Jin-gi, Hwang Bong-mok. He had deliberately left the original slip folded in its hiding place between the floorboards. He had no wish to disturb the solemn, desperate resolve of the person who had written those final words: Never forget. Remember always.
It was shortly after departing the cottage that Kim Che-geon spotted Hwang Bong-bong walking in the distance. The coincidence was uncanny. To run into the very subject of his investigation on the exact day he had been dispatched to dig into her past was nothing short of miraculous.
Kim Che-geon swiftly revised his plans. Keeping his distance, he shadowed Hwang Bong-bong and the court maid walking beside her. And that was when he noticed another figure.
“The Morning Star has risen in the southeast! The Taebaekseong will surely strike down the sinner!”
A deranged woman with crazed, rolling eyes was trailing the child, muttering sinister incantations under her breath. Kim Che-geon watched every move she made from the shadows. He saw the madwoman peering at the child from behind the tavern’s low earthen wall. He watched her slip through the back door of the inner room while the tavern erupted into chaos with a sudden rush of customers. He witnessed her snatching the toddler and fleeing into the alleyways, carrying her down the deserted path by the village shrine and slipping into an abandoned shamanic sanctuary.
“Step away from the child.”
Kim Che-geon’s drawn blade grazed the nape of Suk-jeong’s neck with surgical precision. A bead of dark red blood welled and dripped to the floorboards. The instant the madwoman stumbled backward in shock—
Thwack!
Kim Che-geon struck the base of her skull with the pommel of his sword. Suk-jeong collapsed into an instant heap, completely unconscious.
“Are you unharmed?” Kim Che-geon asked softly.
Hwang Bong-bong merely stared at him with wide, saucer-like eyes, looking thoroughly shocked. Her tiny body trembled so violently that she could barely part her lips, but after a desperate struggle, she managed a small nod.
“Fret not. I shall return you safely to the palace.”
“...”
“Poor little thing. How terrified you must have been.”
Her quivering lips looked ready to burst into wailing sobs at any moment, yet the child clutched her tiny fists and swallowed her tears whole.
“Ugh...”
A faint groan slipped from the unconscious Suk-jeong on the floor.
“The Morning Star, was it? To punish the sinner, you said?” Kim Che-geon murmured under his breath. The madwoman’s deranged ramblings had not been wrong after all. Today, she would pay a brutal price for her crimes.
Producing thick hemp ropes, he bound Suk-jeong tightly from shoulders to heels. After lashing her securely to a wooden pillar so she could not wriggle free, he shoved a cloth gag firmly into her mouth.
“Let us go, Bong-bong-ah.”
Kim Che-geon scooped Bong-bong into his arms with effortless grace. The little girl immediately buried her face into his shoulder, wrapping her short arms tightly around his neck. Still clamping her lips shut in a valiant effort not to cry, she finally found her voice.
“Goggle-eyed Ahjussi... thank you.”
Though he had not the faintest inkling what she meant by ‘goggle-eyed,’ Kim Che-geon said nothing, gently patting her small back with a broad, calloused hand.
Stepping out of the decaying shrine, Kim Che-geon slid the heavy wooden bar securely into place across the double doors. Passing judgment upon a madwoman was not his duty. What became of her would now rest entirely in the hands of the King.