That night he was so silent and so grave that Sunia did not dare to speak to him. She was afraid because of what he had told her and before they slept she crept close to him and he was won by her gentleness and dread and he took her to his heart.
When he announced himself next day at the gate of the Secret Garden, where the Queen’s palace stood, he waited in the anteroom until the guard came back after a while to tell him that the Queen took her leisure today in the bower of the garden. There he was led when she declared herself ready to receive him and he found her in the small room under the triangular roofs of the bower. She stood by a carved table heaped with flowers and autumn leaves and to suit the season she wore a full skirt and short jacket of russet and wine-red satin.
She was in a good mood, he could see, for she did not demand ceremony and was not herself ceremonious.
“Enter,” she said. “You see me in disarray. I am amusing myself. I hope you have not come with troubles. You are always so grave that I cannot tell what goes on inside that skull of yours. It is full of secrets, I daresay.”
She spoke with willfulness and smiles, and it occurred to him again that beyond being royal she was also a beautiful woman. He wondered at himself that he could continue to have such thoughts about his Queen and he put them hastily away.
“Majesty,” he said, “I have come not to disturb your pleasure but with a request.”
“Speak on,” she commanded. She took a pin from the knot of her hair and caught into it a golden chrysanthemum and then put the pin into her dark hair again and the flower glowed there like a jewel against the pale cream of her nape. He looked away.
“I ask that I be excused from attendance upon your Majesty for the space of months — a few months. I cannot declare the number of months, for my purpose is to travel everywhere over our country to observe the people, high and low, and measure their strength, their skills, their temper. Then when I return to give report to you, I shall know well what to say. Only thus can I know how strong our people are for defending our land.”
He made his request in a low, even voice, measuring his tones with reverence for her royal presence although she deigned to appear before him as a woman. He was horror-struck to see the change in her. She took swift steps to him and seized his right arm in both hands and clung to him.
“No,” she whispered. “No — no—”
He tried to step back, but she would not let him. He felt the blood drain from his head and he was suddenly giddy. What was the meaning of such behavior? His consternation showed in his face, and her eyelids fell under his shocked gaze. She released him and stepped back and clothed herself again in dignity.
“I have reason to believe—” she began in a low voice and looked about her. No, no one was near. At his entrance she had commanded her women to retire to the end of the garden, within sight but not within sound, but they were to turn their backs to her. He stood like stone, waiting, his eyes fixed now on the mossy path where she stood.
She began to arrange her flowers again. “I hear rumors that the Regent is plotting to return to the throne,” she said over her shoulder.
Shame and relief, these were what he felt. How dared he dream that his truebone Queen could behave only as a woman? Was it her fault that she was graceful and beautiful? And relief, because he knew now that not even a Queen could tempt him away from Sunia, since his first impulse had been to step back, to leave the dangerous presence. His heart was insulated by love for his wife, and he was glad that it was so. He spoke with restored calm.
“Majesty, I have heard of no such plot.”
“There is much you have not heard of,” she retorted.
Her back was toward him now, but he saw her white hand tremble among the flowers. He went on.
“Nor has my father heard the rumor, for if he had, I am certain he would have spoken to me.”
“Your father is a friend of the Regent,” she said.
“My father is a man of honor, Majesty, and a patriot.”
“Even the King does not believe me,” she said in a low voice, “so why should I think you would?”
“Where do you hear these rumors, Majesty?” he asked.
“A young woman, who waits on me in the night, is married to a guardsman at the palace of the Regent, and he hears the rumors and tells her.”
“Servants’ talk,” Il-han declared.
“Nevertheless, I wish you would not go.”
He did not reply at once. She looked at him over her shoulder and seeing his face rebellious, she spoke once more.
“No, I lay no such command upon you. Go, enjoy yourself.”
“Majesty—”
She would hear nothing more.
“Go, go,” she said impatiently, and he left her there among the flowers, his heart troubled but resolute.
There are many ways for a man to see his country. Had it been his father, Il-han knew that the preparations would have been vast. Boxes of garments and rolls of bedding, food and drink, a small stove for cold, fans for heat and huge umbrellas of oiled paper for rain, servants and a train of horses and for himself a cart padded with deeply quilted cotton, all these would have been necessary. And when he arrived at a town, the chief family would assemble to welcome him and arrange for his entertainment and comfort and he would meet the scholars and the poets and artists and they would drink tea and sip wine and write their endless verses and his father would have come back knowing no more than when he went, for he carried his world with him and for him there was no other. Il-han was of another sort. His tutor with whom he had grown up from childhood to manhood had taught him to hunger after knowledge and to know he must make himself like other men if he wished to learn from them.
To Sunia’s amazement, then, he insisted upon assuming the garments of a man neither rich nor poor and taking with him no more than one man, his faithful servant, could carry on his horse. The two of them set forth on horseback on a fine cool day in early autumn, five days after his audience with the Queen. In spite of knowing how large was the task he had set himself, Il-han was lighthearted. To go upon a holiday he could not, for it would have seemed like a boy at play, and he would not have left his family duties for play. Now, however, he went with purpose, and if he were also diverted such diversion could be enjoyed in good conscience.
The last farewells were said. He stayed alone with Sunia for a few minutes, the wall screens closed between them and all others. He took her in his arms and held her warm soft cheek against his.
“How can you leave me?” she sighed.
“How can you let me go?” he retorted.
She gave him a playful push. “Is everything my fault?”
They clung together again, as though they could never part.
“I wonder at us both,” she said at last.
Then since they must part she drew away from him and they went into the other room where the children waited, the older with his tutor and the younger with his nurse. Again Il-han wondered why the love of country was deeper in him than any other. His elder son began to cry when he saw his father ready to leave, and he caught the child to him and reminded the tutor of his duty.