The Mantid Maiden — 6
“News has arrived from Joseon?”
Moyong Sang-ah returned to the administrative office of Changbong Hall and summoned the deputy commander, who had brought word from Joseon.
“While carrying out the task you commanded, my lord, a report came in. No matter how I weighed it, I judged it must be brought to your ears.”
Her lord was sensitive to any news of Joseon. It had to be delivered with the utmost care. The deputy commander gave a heavy nod and readied himself to unburden what he carried.
“Does it concern Young Master Kang?”
Moyong Sang-ah's eyes trembled. If it concerned an order she had given, there was only one.
The search for the remains of Young Master Kang, who had been executed by dismemberment.
Would it be good news, or bad? Whatever it was, she must hear it calmly. Moyong Sang-ah managed to ask with a face held carefully blank, but she had to press a hand to her chest to quiet the heart that was already shaking without restraint.
“There is still no definite word on the whereabouts of Young Master Kang's remains. However…”
“However?”
“A report has come in concerning the grave of your late mother-in-law.”
“The grave of my mother-in-law, who passed long ago?”
At this wholly unexpected news, Moyong Sang-ah's expression began to harden.
Her mother-in-law's grave? Why would news of a woman long dead be brought before her?
What on earth could this be? Praying her dark premonition was wrong, Moyong Sang-ah asked the deputy commander.
“…Someone in Joseon wishes to carry out a grave exhumation.”
“An exhumation? D-did you just say an exhumation?”
Her premonition had not failed her. No — reality had greeted her with something even crueler.
Exhumation. The destruction of a grave.
It was not a punishment like dismemberment and public display, of course. Graves were raised and removed for many reasons — land swallowed by earth, the unclaimed dead, any number of circumstances. Exhumation had long been practiced.
To some, a trifling matter. But not to Moyong Sang-ah, daughter-in-law of the Kang family.
“The one who owns the land upon which the grave sits wishes to have it removed.”
“And they would simply leave such a heartless act unchallenged?”
Moyong Sang-ah's eyelids had forgotten how to close. Her lips showed no sign of sealing.
The deputy commander, having watched his lord absorb shock upon shock, agonized over whether he could bear to continue — then opened his mouth.
“…They argue that a traitor's family should not have a grave left standing at all. They are clamoring: why has it been left untouched this long?”
“……”
The sorrowful truth stabbed at the heart of the Kang family's daughter-in-law. Moyong Sang-ah's gaze sank, like a heart with nowhere left to go.
“Purchase the land where my mother-in-law lies. It matters not what it costs.”
As a daughter-in-law, she could not stand by and watch her mother-in-law's grave be desecrated. Gathering herself with difficulty, Moyong Sang-ah spoke with an iron face.
“My lord!”
The deputy commander cried out in alarm.
“What problem could there be?”
“It draws far too much attention. When the women of the Kang family all vanished at once, it caused an uproar in Joseon. If you buy the grave of a traitor's household, there is no telling what may come of it!”
“I don't care.”
Moyong Sang-ah's voice was resolute.
“My lord, I did not agonize over this for nothing. Even when I merely tidied the grave under cover of darkness, as you once ordered, there was an uproar — people demanding to know who had been tending a traitor's family tomb! It is far too dangerous.”
“And you would have me stand by and watch my mother-in-law's grave be torn apart!”
Moyong Sang-ah's grief-laden fury burst forth.
Ineffable sorrow seeped through the face that had only been masquerading as expressionless.
“I am sorry only for disturbing your peace of mind. But we must put your safety first.”
Her mother-in-law's grave could vanish.
Because of her.
Moyong Sang-ah bit down hard on her lower lip to hold back the grief threatening to erupt from her chest.
“Whatever it takes, this must be stopped.”
The deputy commander, watching his lord look ready to sprint for Joseon that very moment, found himself briefly at a loss for words.
In just two short years, Moyong Sang-ah had transformed — no longer merely a direct bloodline of the Moyong Clan, but an ideal lord fit to lead the clan's next generation.
Yet even such a lord had things before which her reason failed. Pitying the guilt that weighed on her, the deputy commander continued.
“The good news is that the exhumation is still only at the discussion stage. And there is a reason it may not happen at all.”
“A reason?”
“Though Young Master Kang's mother died of illness long ago, she was renowned for her exceptional beauty and for the compassion she showed the poor. The local gentry themselves question whether it is right to condemn a woman so long dead, and have been quietly urging the landowner to reconsider.”
“So it will not happen immediately…?”
The deputy commander nodded quickly toward his lord, who was calming by degrees.
“Yes. We must watch how things unfold, but there is no need to court danger by deciding anything this instant.”
He pressed again and again that there was still time.
“That is… a small mercy. I will think further on other methods in the meantime.”
Relieved, if only somewhat, Moyong Sang-ah let out a quiet sigh.
“I hope you will not worry yourself too deeply.”
She gave no answer, and ordered the deputy commander to take his rest.
Desolate moonlight fell upon a woman's face.
“How could I not worry?”
The assassination attempt, the show of armed force, the negotiations with the Jurchens — even the warriors of the Changbong Corps had finally collapsed into their beds. But Moyong Sang-ah sat upon her bed, sleepless.
Her chest was tight. Her heart pressed down upon her like a stone.
“An assassin, I can cut down. The Jurchens, I can answer with strength.”
But before a mistake that could never be undone, she was nothing more than a kneeling criminal.
Her errors always returned to her wearing a different face. Like a small child, Moyong Sang-ah drew her knees to her chest.
“Mother-in-law…”
She did not truly know what sort of person she had been. All she knew was that she had fallen ill and died while Young Master Kang was still young. Yet that did nothing to lighten the guilt.
Because—
— It was my mother's keepsake.
Moyong Sang-ah looked down at the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand.
The Pure Silver Ring of Mt. Changbai.
The ring her lost half had pressed into her hands, saying it was his mother's keepsake, begging her to accept it as a token of his love.
“Young Master Kang must have always carried this ring with him.”
Of course he had. It was his late mother's memento. It was this ring that had warned him she was surrounded by demonic cultists, that had driven him to rush to her rescue in that desperate performance.
“And it was that ring he gave to me.”
The ring he had kept, unable to forget his departed mother. That ring had bound her to him — and then he had placed it in her hands.
Carrying a love for the mother he would never forget, he had given it as proof of love to his one and only wife.
Moyong Sang-ah gazed quietly at the ring, her face on the very edge of breaking into tears.
Drinking in the desolate moonlight, the ring gleamed with a beauty cold enough to sting.
A treasure no mountain of gold could buy. No — no fortune mattered at all. Nothing in this world could ever be traded for the ring he had given her.
“I have not even found him yet, somewhere in Joseon…”
Even now, this very moment, she could not know where he shivered in the cold wind.
And now even her mother-in-law's grave stood on the brink of destruction.
Everything he had done for her only grew vaster the more she understood it, day by day — and there was nothing, not one thing, she could do for him in return.
— In Joseon, wear the ring your husband gave you on the fourth finger of your left hand. However far he wanders, the ring will keep him in your thoughts.
Calling to mind a face she could never forget, Moyong Sang-ah caressed her precious ring.
Should she risk it?
And if in doing so, I lose all trace of his body…
If her movements were noticed in Joseon, the search itself could become impossible.
Everything could turn to foam on the water. The women of the Kang family, so precariously hidden, could be dragged back into slavery.
Her chest was heavy. It felt as though her finger might fall away with the ring.
She had often sacrificed small things for the greater good — but she could not bear to sacrifice even one thing that was his.
“Yoon-ho… what should I do?”
No answer came.
None would come.
She had committed, with her own hands, a mistake that could never be taken back.
The woman who had brought upon herself a sin no lifetime could redeem — her grief poured from her eyes, a pain like her very guts being severed.
Moyong Sang-ah rose from her bed and left her chambers.
“My lady? Where are you going with your sword at this hour?”
“To the training grounds.”
Unless she swung a blade at something, she felt she would come apart.
Moyong Sang-ah made for the training yard.
It felt like cutting at phantoms.
However intently she swung her sword, the heavy worry in her chest would not dissolve.
At last, only when she caught sight of a shadow at the entrance to the training grounds did Moyong Sang-ah cease her aimless dance of the blade.
“Who goes there?”
She spoke with wary sharpness at the sound of footsteps approaching across the yard.
“My apologies. I did not know the grounds were already occupied.”
The flustered voice belonged to a face Moyong Sang-ah recognized.
“Ah — the young hero Cheongun.”
Sword tip lowered, she addressed her unexpected visitor.
“I wished to practice the Wudang sword, so I asked Sibi, and she said no eyes were watching at this hour and I was welcome to it. It seems I misunderstood.”
Cheongun, evidently convinced he had blundered somehow, hurriedly explained why he had come to the training grounds.
“Sibi told you true.”
“Did she?”
Moyong Sang-ah regarded Cheongun for a moment as he sighed in relief. The grounds were technically her private yard, though occasionally Changbong Hall's officers used it as well.
Presumably the Sibi had told him in hopes of winning favor with a Wudang swordsman.
Though a man, this warrior had the delicate, fine-boned features of a woman — precisely the sort of face the courtesans would take a liking to.
“Young hero Cheongun. Practice, then. I shall withdraw.”
If her benefactor wished to train, there was no sense in dancing pointlessly at shadows. Moyong Sang-ah turned to leave, determined to force sleep upon herself at any cost.
“You seem not to have even begun. How could I steal away a stranger's hour of practice?”
“I only meant to move my body, since sleep would not come.”
“Ah, of course. When a warrior cannot sleep, there is nothing better than the sword. Then do not withdraw — would you grant me one favor instead?”
As if a fine idea had struck him, Cheongun's eyes brightened toward Moyong Sang-ah.
“And what favor would that be?”
Without answering at once, Cheongun walked quietly to the center of the training grounds.
The Wudang swordsman closed his eyes in concentration for a moment — then drew his blade with a motion of impossible softness.
The moon was bright.
The wind was cool.
Fine weather for an evening of swordplay.
The woman before him was of the Moyong Clan's direct bloodline. A rare opportunity indeed. Cheongun raised his sword toward Moyong Sang-ah and spoke.
“Would you grant me the chance to measure the sword of the Moyong Clan?”
He wished to test the sword of the Moyong Clan with the sword of Wudang.
It was a challenge from a swordsman of the Wudang Sect.