The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea (13 page)

“The Queen was sleeping,” he bellowed, a lean filthy fellow, his coat in rags.

“In her own palace or with the King?” another asked.

“In her palace!” the carter snickered. “He comes to her, you fool, like a beggar—crawls in on his knees, they say, crying and whining.”

“Not so,” another roared. “It is the Queen who goes whining and crawling to the King.”

This Il-han could not bear. “Go on with the news, man,” he shouted to the carter, and was glad once more that the clothing he wore was not that of a rich man but common, such as a traveling merchant wears. Had they known he was a Kim of Andong—

The man went on.

“She was sleeping, the Queen and her women, and a guardsman ran in to warn her the gate was seized.”

“What of the King?” Il-han inquired.

“The King? He? Waiting at the gate, they said, bowing and knocking his forehead in the dust to welcome his father, the Regent.”

“Tell me about the Queen,” a young man clamored. “Was she naked? It is said she sleeps naked.”

“If it is said so, then she was naked,” the carter roared, “and when a Queen is naked she is no different from any other woman.”

Again Il-han could not hear this monstrous talk. The Queen, his Queen, that stately beauty, stripped bare by these foul traitors here in the inn, for were not such men traitors when they took pleasure in her distress?

“She must be dead,” he said gravely. “How else could she escape in such a circumstance?”

“Ah ha,” the carter rejoined. “You do not know our Queen.” He lowered his voice and went on with delight, “A maidservant stood there, wringing her hands together and moaning and making such woman noises. The Queen slapped her cheeks and bade her be silent.

“‘Take off your clothes,’ she told the maid. ‘Dress me in your clothes,’ she said. Yes”—here the carter paused to nod and grin—“so she did. She put on the maid’s garments. When the rebels burst into the palace and into that very room where she had slept, the maid stood there naked, and the Queen was gone.”

“Did they think the maid was Queen?” a young man asked. His eyes were glittering and his mouth hung loose, thinking of the scene.

“She was putting on the Queen’s robes when they seized her, and she said she was the Queen. ‘Take your hands from me,’ she cried, as the Queen might, and they let her dress and then carried her away.”

Il-han took his bowl and drank it empty of tea. Then he said, as though he did not care, “I wish I had been there when they found themselves wrong. A maid instead of Queen! She made fools of them.”

But the carter, fresh from the capital, knew everything. “They took her to the Regent himself and when he saw what they had brought him instead of the Queen he cursed and swore and had them put in prison. The maid he had strangled.”

Il-han rose from his floor cushion. “I must get on my way,” he told them. “I have business.”

What he did not tell even his man servant as they rode on was the fear in his own heart. The Regent knew, he must have known, that the Kim clan had served the Queen. Since she had sat on the throne beside the King, the Kim had been favored above all others, and among the Kim, he himself was the most favored by the Queen. Would not the Regent now take revenge? And when he, Kim Il-han, was not found in his house, would he not put to death his wife and children and his old father? Revenge is the tyrant’s right.

“We will not stop at inns,” he told the servant. “Bargain for fresh horses. We ride until we reach the capital.”

The city was quiet when he entered the great south gate. Upon the streets the people came and went as though it was their purpose to reveal no change. None looked at him openly as he passed and if he was recognized, none spoke. His robes were worn with travel and his beard unshaven but these could only be excuses. Here he must be known. Did none dare to speak to him?

He rode without stop through the streets, less crowded than they should be, he imagined, and yet the markets were open, the fish markets and the butcheries, the pastry shops and vegetable stalls. Persimmons were still piled in the streets and the children darted in and out among the legs of vendors and passersby. One small boy fell before his horse and lay screaming in the dust, but he did not stop when he saw the child run away unhurt. Straight on he rode until he came to his own gate. There he dismounted and threw the reins to his servant and entered. The outer gate was open, but when he tried the gate of the house it was barred and he saw the gateman peering at him through the window in the wicket. Even then the gate did not open, and looking in from where he stood outside, Il-han saw the man running toward the house to tell the news of his arrival, no doubt. He waited impatiently and then the man was back again, opening the gate only enough to let him in before he put the bar through the iron bolts again.

“You are home, master, thank Buddha,” the man exclaimed.

“Is my family here?” Il-han asked.

“Yes—and your honored father with us,” the man replied.

Il-han strode then into the house. The outer room was warmed but empty, and he stood listening. The house was silent. Not even a child’s voice cried. He was about to pursue his way when the doors slid back and Sunia stood there, unbelieving. One instant she stood, and then cried aloud.

“Oh—”

She was in his arms, her arms about him, and her head on his breast. They stood close for a long moment. Then she drew back and looked up at him.

“You know?”

He nodded. The walls had ears in times like these. She stood tiptoe then and put her lips close to his ear.

“She is here.”

She stood back to see if he understood.

He lifted his eyebrows. “She?”

“The Queen!”

For a moment he was speechless indeed. The Queen? How dared she take refuge here in his house and risk the lives of his children? Where were her guardsmen?

“No one knows she is here,” Sunia was whispering again. “She tells them she is a lady from the court. She says she saw the Queen killed and she cannot eat. She lies in her bed all day, weeping as if for the Queen. No one goes near her. She has the curtains drawn. At night I take her food.”

“How long will this be believed!” Il-han muttered.

No more could be said for by now the household had the news of his return. The young tutor came in with his elder son grown tall in these many months, and the nurse brought in the younger child, who now could walk, his two feet far apart in caution. Il-han could only hide his fears and make pretense at welcome and smiles and praise. The servants came to bow before him and to exclaim their joy at his safe return, and he was compelled to be the calm master upon whom all could rely. And not one spoke of secret fears or made report of what had taken place in the palace while he was gone.

He spoke to each and to each gave some token of his thanks for faithfulness. To the servants he gave gifts of money and to his two sons he gave small jade animals that he had found in his travels and to the tutor he gave an ancient book of poetry which the abbot had given him in the mountain monastery.

“Now I must bathe,” he said, “and be shaven and put on fresh garments. It is good to come home and may I never leave my house again.”

So saying, he went into his own rooms and bathed, and his barber came and shaved him and washed and combed his long black hair and bound it up again into its usual coil upon his head. After this, Sunia came to him and sat by him while he ate, and his sons were brought to him again before they were put to bed. So the evening passed until night fell and the house was still and all through the hours he thought only of the Queen hidden in an inner chamber, the curtains drawn about her bed. She must be taken to a safer shelter. Though his servants were loyal, he believed, yet some gossip might escape one of the women washing the family garments at the river’s edge. It would be enough for such a woman only to say, “We have a strange lady in our master’s house. She lies in bed all day and draws the curtains and she will not eat.”

“Now,” he told Sunia when the house was still. “Now take me to her.”

The Queen, dressed in a common woman’s garment, sat on her floor cushion by a small table, in her hands a piece of red satin which she was embroidering. The light of two candles shone upon her quietly moving hands and she did not look up when the door slid back, until he stepped inside.

“Majesty!”

The word rose to his lips and he spoke it softly. No word must reveal who she was. He stood looking at her in silence and she looked at him and then her hands fell upon the table, the red satin a gleaming heap between them.

“I am making your second son a pair of shoes,” she said.

He did not reply. He came close and knelt before her on the other side of the cushion, and Sunia followed and knelt beside him. He spoke so softly that his lips moved almost without voice.

“We must leave this house tonight. You are not safe and I cannot protect you. I may not be able to protect even my family. Dress yourself warmly and put out the candles as though you were going to sleep. I will come here to fetch you and we will take horse and ride to some distant place. I have a friend in Chung-jo—”

She did not reply. For minutes she sat with her great dark eyes fixed upon him. Then she folded the square of red satin and thrust the needle through.

“I shall be ready,” she said, and added not one word.

He and Sunia rose then and went away to their own rooms.

What was there to say in such a time, even between him and Sunia? She prepared a bundle of warm clothing and put in some dried foods, in case they dared not stop at inns or in case snow fell and held them back in some lonely spot.

She asked only one question while he changed his house robes to warmer ones. “Should you not take your servant with you?”

He hesitated. “He is a faithful creature but he has been away from his family all these moons. There are certain dangers, too, if we are discovered.”

She interrupted. “I cannot think of your being alone. If you were killed in ambush, who would come back to tell me?”

Her face was quivering with suppressed weeping and his heart yielded while his will rose to make her strong. He took her hands and held them in his.

“I need your courage,” he told her. “All that I have is not enough for what lies ahead. Your tears undo me. It is my duty to serve the Queen, because in her is the only hope of our country. Do you think that otherwise I could leave you—or defend her? She must be kept alive, she must return, she must wile the King away again from his father. Fortunately, I hear that he loves her and leans on her. Fortunately he does not love his father. He longs to rebel against him and hates himself because he is too weak to rebel. Or so I hear. A few months, Sunia, and if I plan well, the Queen will be back and the throne secure for a while, at least.”

“Why must it be you?” she murmured, distracted.

“Because she trusts me,” he said.

She looked at him over her shoulder. “You had better wear your fur-lined coat, and I will fetch it,” she said.

In the small cold hours of the night he went to the door of the room where the Queen waited. He had bade his servant to be ready with three horses outside the gate, for this much he had yielded to Sunia, but he commanded him to ask no questions, whatever he guessed. Now while Sunia slid back the doors, he stood outside the Queen’s room until Sunia came out, her hand clasping the Queen’s hand. None spoke. The Queen was wrapped in fur-lined robes and a silk scarf was wound around her head and fell over her face like a veil. He walked ahead and she followed with Sunia while around them the house slept. Outside the gate, in the fortunate dark of the moon, the horses waited. Even the gateman slept, for the servant had opened the gate secretly, and now he stood holding the bridles of the three horses.

Il-han helped the Queen to mount. Then he turned to Sunia. “Go into the house, core of my heart,” he said. “Go and sleep warmly and dream that I am home again, as surely I shall be. As far as man may promise, I promise you.”

They clung together for an instant in the darkness and then she turned resolutely to obey him. He waited until he heard her draw the iron bar against the gate. Then he mounted his horse and they rode through the night, the hooves of the horses soundless against the cobblestones because the man servant had wrapped the horses’ feet in rags. When they reached the city gate, the guard held his lantern high to see who wished to flee the city. The Queen put aside her scarf, he saw her face, and speechless he turned and drew back the iron bar.

That night and for the next few days Il-han did not take the usual stone-paved highway to the city of Chung-jo. Instead he guided his horse through country roads and mountain paths, stopping not at inns when darkness fell but with some peasant family in a village. Never before had the Queen met face to face with these many whom she ruled, and Il-han found that he had not one woman to protect and hide but many women in one. Thus she was amazed to discover that a farmer’s house had but one room, the other one or two being no better than closets, and suddenly she was all Queen.

“What,” she exclaimed to Il-han the first night, “am I to lie among all these stinking folk?”

“Remember you are a commoner now, on your way to visit distant relatives, and I am your brother.”

She yielded at once. “I have always wanted a brother,” she said sweetly.

Lucky that he had warned her not to speak in the presence of any strangers, for her sweet voice and pure accents would have betrayed her anywhere as no common traveler.

“Be shy,” he had told her, “remember that women should not speak unless spoken to by father, brother or husband. No one will suspect you if you do not speak.”

Now that she was somewhat safe, the old mischief and gaiety glinted irrepressible in her eyes and smiles. He looked away. Steady and cool he must be with this powerful willful woman, and yet he knew that if he had not the safety of his love for Sunia she might have put him into torment. Were she no more than Queen, she would have been temptation, but she was also the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and she used her beauty as only a Queen dares to use such a weapon, knowing that if a man makes trespass she can have his head cut off, or poison put in his food. He believed that she would not stoop to such evils, but he knew, too, that a man can never trust a Queen. He held her then in unfailing respect, not drawing nearer than a subject may, and this though she tempted him on purpose, as a woman will, though it was a game he would not play.