The Favor - 8

I had no intention of begging a hostage-taker for mercy.

No — I would meet him head-on, and give him exactly what he was giving me: a muzzle pressed to the most precious thing each of us possessed. Not a one-sided ultimatum dressed up as an offer, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but a negotiation worthy of the name.

Granted, we would both pull the trigger the moment things went sour. But once two barrels stand crossed at hair-trigger range, even a hostage-taker has no choice but to listen to what the other side has to say.

In the end, the Hyewollu Owner, who had dug in his heels against a Mangeum-Lord-style negotiation to the very last, had no choice but to request a mediator.

"A negotiation, is it..."

A woman whose navy-blue hair was pinned up neatly with a single hairpin fixed me with a disapproving stare.

To any onlooker, it might have looked like one of the ordinary spats between men and women of a certain age. The truth could not have been more different — for the woman before me was the Gimun Hyangju, the overseer of the Courtesan Branch of Hubei's Haomun.

Try as I might not to stare, the woman was astonishing. She looked twenty no matter how I studied her — how on earth could she be forty?

They say aging slows as one's martial realm climbs, but her face was so unmarked by the world's cruel storms that I genuinely wondered where she had deflected them all. Only her eyes gave any hint of it — perhaps from having weathered life's tempests, they seemed faintly decadent one moment, worldly and almost bewitchingly seasoned the next.

I waited quietly for the Gimun Hyangju's next words.

"Is this your idea? Or the Imperial Inspector's?"

Had I proposed the renegotiation myself, or had the Inspector ordered it? A simple question.

"It is the Imperial Inspector's will."

"Then the method came out of that head of yours, I take it."

"..."

You know me far too well.

"Swing an unfamiliar blade around because it pleases you, and plenty of people end up bleeding. And a blade that belongs to another demands all the more care."

Ride on power like a fox borrowing a tiger's might, and disaster is sure to follow. It was less a warning than advice with an edge to it.

"I intend to catch only the one goat who thinks himself ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a big deal and hand him straight back to you."

Perhaps the Hyewollu Owner's goat beard had come to her mind — one corner of the Gimun Hyangju's mouth crept upward before she hurriedly composed herself and raised her long pipe to her lips.

"Hoooo. So eager, are you? Then I suppose I must take care the goat doesn't die. Very well — what is it you want?"

"I want to redo the arithmetic."

The terms were never equal to begin with, were they? Time to rebuild the negotiating conditions from the ground up.

"The Hyewollu Owner declares that if I mean to simply ask for Hongran, he would sooner sell off the entire courtesan house."

"I am not so shameless as to ask for her for nothing."

"You set this whole blaze, and yet you still find new ways to surprise me."

The Gimun Hyangju arched a brow briefly, as if genuinely taken aback.

In truth, if this were my own affair, I'd have been shouting that my blade was ready to fire while demanding her for free. But the Imperial Inspector had said something to me first.

It was an exasperating request, truly — but then, a man has to be built of that stuff, doesn't he, to dance his blade before the Provincial Governor of all people while holding nothing more than a lowly inspector's post.

He had pledged not to seize her by force, but to return with a reasonable negotiation in hand.

"So what is it you propose?"

How much should be paid for the registry? After long and careful deliberation, I had arrived at a single conclusion.

"I will pay only half the redemption fee originally agreed upon."

"Impossible."

"Gimun Hyangju."

Could you be any more blunt about it?

As though this entire situation were a tiresome chore, the Gimun Hyangju tapped the ash from her pipe and, almost offhandedly, fed me the other side's terms.

"The Hyewollu Owner has been saying this: ruin lies ahead one way or the other, so if he must fall, he refuses to be the only one to fall."

How sordid can a man get. So he has no intention of dying alone, then.

"He was a sordid creature from the very start. Even so, I'd say half is more than that house deserves as well."

"I only say it because the fee was miscalculated from the beginning."

"Miscalculated?"

"I seized Hyewol Pavilion's ledgers and went through them. From the very first offer, he took the Imperial Inspector for a sucker — he inflated the redemption fee to some absolutely absurd figure. From a courtesan house under your own management, Gimun Hyangju, I might understand such a figure. From Hyewollu, it was no price worth proposing."

A redemption fee is normally calculated by adding a courtesan's rearing and training costs to the revenue she can be expected to bring in down the road. The Gimun Hyangju had presumably judged the figure reasonable by the standards of the courtesans in the houses she ran herself — but Hyewol Pavilion, where a packed house was a rare sight, was another story entirely.

"I follow your logic, but the Hyewollu Owner will not swallow it so easily."

I knew she would say that. However dramatically I brandished the ledgers, tell any man alive you'll pay only a sixth of the promised sum and you would get the same reaction every time.

As long as the Hyewollu Owner held mother and child hostage, dictating terms unilaterally was a delicate business. But that didn't mean I intended to part with a single coin more of the redemption fee.

If the Imperial Inspector is to repay what he borrowed from Mangeum Hall, this much is the best either of us can do.

I have to make a living too, you know. After all, I would have to tell him to settle his debt to Mangeum Hall with whatever change was left over from buying out the registry.

Neither I nor the Inspector can offer another coin — and the Hyewollu Owner, for his part, will never concede an inch. So what was to be done?

"In one month, a certain brewery will be put up for auction."

It was time to play a different card.

"What nonsense is this now?"

"A crude little operation that can barely manage cheap swill. It was used to brew moonshine, so it carries a certain taint, and what little it produces hardly makes it an appealing property."

"You're telling me to make money selling liquor, of all things?"

I shook my head at the Gimun Hyangju, smiling. Surely she didn't think I'd come all this way to play employment agent or pitch an investment.

"Left to itself, no one would ever buy this brewery. So the government office will attach a full year's exemption from liquor taxes."

The card I had brought was a proposition no one alive could resist.

"A brewery with the right to sell tax-exempt liquor?"

Even the Gimun Hyangju's eyes went wide with astonishment. Naturally.

Liquor sold at any establishment had to be supplied by a licensed brewery. The state levied its taxes on the breweries themselves — centralizing the taxation of alcohol while hauling off a considerable fortune in the process.

And that tax — exempted? It was a proposition that would tempt anyone.

"The order will come down from above: while investigating the corruption of officials, innocent people were made to sit in jail. Grant them first claim on the auction. But to keep matters from descending into chaos, let only those who hold a tavern license — the government permit to run a drinking house — join the bidding."

"And among those hauled in, is the Hyewollu Owner not the only man who holds such a license?"

I stared back at her with an exaggerated expression of astonishment.

"My, my. What an as.tound.ing co.in.ci.dence. A truly remarkable fluke, wouldn't you say?"

"Hmm..."

It was a situation in which no one stood to lose.

The government office would sell off a brewery seized from a moonshiner and recover idle money for the treasury — and to move a property that would otherwise gather dust, it need only attach a one-year tax exemption. The stated aim of helping those wrongfully imprisoned was beyond reproach as well. The tavern-license condition was a wrinkle, of course, but since when did incompetent officials check their paperwork more diligently than a day or two?

Who would have guessed that only one man among the jailed held such a license? They had never thought to look that far.

An oversight. In a word: a beautiful situation — a little money slipped through the cracks thanks to some official's laziness, and everyone shrugs and moves on. All it required was one man's cooperation.

"Of course, all of this only works if the Hyewollu Owner walks free with the charges suddenly dropped."

To win the right to sell tax-exempt liquor, he could not afford to have his tavern license stripped away. And to keep it — well, he would simply have to stay squarely in the Imperial Inspector's good graces, wouldn't he?

Deals between merchants pass money back and forth; deals with the powerful pass intoxicating privileges instead.

It was more than enough to raise the stakes on the pot.

"Half the original redemption fee, and a brewery tax-exempt for a full year..."

Even the Gimun Hyangju, it seemed, found the offer mouthwatering.

"At the very worst, he earns back the redemption fee he originally wanted for Hongran. Depending on his talent for the trade, he may well earn far more. What do you say?"

"If that man had any talent worth the name, would Hyewol Pavilion be in the state it's in?"

"Haha."

"Hooooo. The terms are not bad — but ready cash, money he can hold this instant, will look far more tempting to the Hyewollu Owner."

The Gimun Hyangju nodded along to my proposal even as she pressed her pipe to her lips, looking for all the world as though the whole business gave her a headache.

What she really wants is for him to just bring the money, isn't it.

If only the Gimun Hyangju would simply force the Owner to see reason. But having stepped forward as mediator, is she now bound to speak for his side? If so, we're in for a long, limp stretch of haggling and bickering.

If the terms satisfy everyone but one man, though, there is a way.

I had exactly one trump card for a situation like this.

First, I had to meet the Gimun Hyangju's gaze. A monumentally difficult task — she was not as boldly bared as at our first meeting, but whether out of some personal philosophy of fashion, she had no intention of surrendering that heart-stopping expanse of collarbone. Let my eyes drift downward and I would be no better than any other man alive.

Even if she shot me a look asking what on earth I was playing at, so be it. I arranged the tenderest expression I owned and opened my mouth.

"Grandmother."

"What?"

The long pipe dropped clean out of the Gimun Hyangju's mouth.

"Grandmother. Think of it as saving your grandson's life, and please — help me out here."

"What the—?! Am I a grandm— no! Did I not forbid ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you to call me by that name?!"

The Gimun Hyangju raised her voice ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as though she might detonate on the spot.

This much shock was required if I meant to flip the table. Nothing to be done.

"You came all this way because you enjoy a little roughhousing with me, didn't you? So think of it as rescuing your adorable grandson, and lend me a hand."

There was no need to drag out a limp, wishy-washy negotiation across the table. That is what connections are for. The representative who came to mediate is, on paper, my mother's teacher — and what does that make me? Her grandson, obviously.

Hands clasped together in desperate plea, I peered cautiously up at her.

"...I did hear that the Mangeum Lord is putting you through your successor trials."

"And once I pass, who else will come round every holiday bearing red ginseng to bow to you properly? You'll want someone looking after your retirement someday, after all. I, Kang Yunho, have no intention of letting anyone else take charge of your golden years."

While I was working my connections, why not buy off the mediator entirely?

"Tch... I am hardly at an age to be pondering retirement..."

Oops. Apparently, hot on the heels of the grandmother business, mentioning her age was another landmine. The Gimun Hyangju bared her teeth and rounded on me.

"Ahahaha... Ah, come now. Gimun Hyangju."

This wouldn't do. Change of tactics. I darted to her side and hooked my arm through hers.

"Wh-what are you doing?"

Looking up at the flustered Gimun Hyangju, I bent my knees. I was the taller of the two of us, but staging a grandmother-and-grandson tableau was all a matter of composition. Like a grandchild wheedling for a snack at a market stall, I laid the charm on as thick as it would go.

"Gimun Hyangju-ma'am~ just think of it as your grandchild acting sweet for you, and say yes. I know you can do that much for me."

A man named Kang Yunho, live long enough, ends up doing all sorts of things. In my old life I couldn't have managed this rehearsing alone in a bathroom mirror. But this life is a little different.

"Cut the worthless clowning. You are a good twenty years too early for it."

"Ow!" Stars burst before my eyes.

While I was busy massaging the welt her pipe had planted on my forehead, the Gimun Hyangju shook her arm free and turned away from me.

Backfired after all. Never attempt an act of cuteness you haven't rehearsed.

"Hooooo. Who on earth did you take after, to turn out like this..." With the hazy smoke of a sigh, a voice drifted out — bitter, and yet aching with fondness.

"Gimun Hyangju?"

Don't tell me it actually worked.

"Must you truly go to such lengths?"

She turned back and asked me with an utterly grave expression.

The Gimun Hyangju was the head of all courtesans. Hongran had committed a courtesan's offense, and letting that slide unremarked would leave more than one or two points sticking in her throat. Why, with the offense waved aside entirely, should she be the one to persuade the Hyewollu Owner? Her eyes were asking me precisely that.

A perfect opening. Time to change my face — look like a wounded boy, a grandson worth pitying. Meet the Gimun Hyangju's eyes as a young man striding out from under a painful past. And then—

"...The truth is, part of it is that this doesn't feel like someone else's affair."

"..."

Kang Yunho was the son of the courtesan Hyang-ah. And Hyang-ah had been the Gimun Hyangju's disciple. I had seeded the grandmother-and-grandson angle well in advance; now I reminded her how earnestly I had thrown myself into the redemption-fee matter for Lady Ha Yeon's sake.

A young man who could not forget his mother, showing his wounds to his grandmother. For the Gimun Hyangju, it was a reason not so easily refused.

"You truly are a man who must never be seated across the table from me."

The Gimun Hyangju let out a laugh of pure defeat. She was all but won over.

"And I will always be right there beside you, so you needn't worry yourself over that!"

I moved to hook my arm through hers again — and was stopped at once.

"Enough. Quit pawing at my sleeves."

"Does that mean...? Huh?!"

Rising onto her tiptoes, the Gimun Hyangju patted my head — and then answered me with a smile as warm and cozy as any the world has known.

"Do as you wish."