Such lower folk as these carriers and porters and carters took relish in recounting the troubles of the great, and Il-han sat in silence, listening, pretending to eat and drink and yet not able to swallow food or tea when he heard what had taken place. A wind-burned carter, his voice hoarse with frost, talked loudest of all.
“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.”