Tying the Thread (4)
There was no sorrow in Seon Wiyeon's face as he spoke of his mother — only fury.
"They say my mother never smiled once, not a single day, after she entered the palace. She never smiled for me, either."
"That was… her illness, surely."
"Precisely. So tell me — could the frail granddaughter of the Grand Commandant endure an illness like that and still cope with Yu Munhui?"
"Even so, the Grand Commandant would lend his granddaughter his strength."
Unfortunately, the king's mother had lacked a family powerful enough to protect her. But Grand Commandant Jang Uhan possessed strength enough to check Prime Minister Yu Sookhyun's house.
"So you'd have me provoke a civil war, is that it?"
"I only mentioned it because I believe she would serve you better than the princess currently does, Your Highness."
"I don't need someone to serve me."
"Then… are you truly saying you simply took her in because the princess is pretty? Even knowing it would provoke the Noble Consort and the Prime Minister?"
"So it would seem."
"I beg your pardon?"
"She's too delicious a morsel to kill, yet too intriguing to simply let live — and keeping her close promises to be entertaining. The luck that carried her through the battlefield and let her survive — I find myself curious whether it will follow her here as well. Doesn't that pique your interest?"
Seon Wiyeon did not believe she had survived on luck alone. And yet, luck had surely played its part. His own decision to spare her life would be a stroke of heaven-sent fortune for her, after all.
"Yes. It does pique my interest."
Geumwijang Gwon Beom answered with the air of a man who had simply given up.
"But I would advise Your Highness to stop snapping off branches. These are trees the Noble Consort tends with great care. She will not be pleased."
"Her care must be the reason the flowers bloomed so well."
Just then, quiet footsteps announced a presence — unhurried, deliberate. Yu Munhui, the Noble Consort, mistress of this garden, was approaching. Gwon Beom, ever quick to read the room, retreated a step.
"I didn't know you were fond of flowers."
At Munhui's soft voice, Seon Wiyeon turned, a fistful of blossoms still clutched in his hand.
Stepping into her own radiant garden, Yu Munhui looked like a pristine orchid — cool and untouched. From the age when she had first learned to tell the beautiful from the ugly, the clean from the filthy, not once had she ever let her composure slip before another soul. Even as a girl, when she and Seon Wiyeon had lived under the same roof, there had never been a day she was less than beautiful. She adorned herself always to perfection — though never to excess — and displayed that chaste, intellectual beauty of hers like a carefully curated exhibit. Much like this Changhwa Garden she had cultivated with her own hands.
And Seon Wiyeon had run roughshod through it, snapping and scattering whatever he pleased.
If anything, Munhui was almost glad he had. For years she had hovered at his side, and never once had he deigned to touch her. So it felt like a small mercy, at least, that he had seen fit to trample her garden like this.
"I shall instruct the servants to arrange these flowers in your chambers, Your Highness."
"No need. This will do."
"To what do we owe the honor of your visit?"
"I hear this is the only place in the palace where flowers bloom."
Any ordinary woman would have pressed him — did he truly come all this way for flowers? But Munhui had heard her answer, so she asked nothing more.
"Word reached me of your return from the battlefield, yet I failed to pay my respects. You look somewhat worn, but I give thanks that you returned unharmed. I congratulate you on your victory."
Munhui bowed her waist in flawless, gracious courtesy.
"Funny you should mention it. Did you not come because I never sought you out? Or were you simply clearing the way, so I might amuse myself with the woman I brought back?"
Wiyeon knew exactly how proud Munhui was. Her pride would never permit her to ask about the princess first, and he knew she would sooner stay away than suffer being snubbed at his door. Truthfully, Wiyeon liked that pride of hers. It meant she never clung. The trouble was that she didn't cling — she simply found other means.
"I did not wish to intrude upon Your Highness's leisure."
"Only your leisure, was it?"
"All the better if your desires were sated as well. I can only imagine the pleasure of conquering a princess of a fallen kingdom — your former enemy, no less."
"So magnanimous. The ministers are right — you truly are empress material."
"Enjoy yourself to your heart's content. I would not presume to fathom the misery of a princess forced to give her body to the king who trampled her nation — but I pity the desperation of a creature clinging to life by any means, so do keep her. Until she has served her purpose."
"And when her purpose is served? When the princess bores me — will you clean up after her again?"
Munhui said nothing, her elegant smile fixed in place.
"Munhui. Do you want it that badly — to be empress?"
Wiyeon asked with the heart he'd held long ago, when he'd thought of her as a younger sister.
"It is not that I want it. It is that I must have it."
"Why? Why must it be you?"
"Because Seon Wiyeon becomes emperor. Then the empress's seat follows — it is mine by rights. That is simply how it was decided."
"You say that as though you actually loved me."
"Of course I love you. Seon Wiyeon is to be emperor."
"Munhui. Do you truly believe I kept that woman in my bed for nothing more than to slake my lust?"
This time, even Munhui could not hold her smile. He was asking, in so many words — you've failed to conceive the emperor's child, and yet you dare boast of becoming empress?
"I intend to give these flowers to a woman I trampled. Isn't it rather remarkable — a worthless little branch that insisted on blooming, out here in the biting cold? I thought it might be a comfort to her."
The cornelian cherry, having endured the cruelest of winters, had long symbolized tenacious vitality. But Munhui knew the flower carried another meaning as well.
"Try it, then. Whatever it takes. Everything you've done until now to become empress — do worse, if you must. But do not let me catch you. I have no wish to kill you with my own hands."
Seon Wiyeon had come here for one purpose: to deliver a final warning. And because he knew Munhui would not yield to it, it was also a declaration of war.
"Let's go."
He turned to leave with Gwon Beom. Munhui watched the yellow bouquet swinging in his hand and gave a hollow little laugh.
*An unchanging love*… That was the cornelian cherry's true meaning.
Did Seon Wiyeon of all people have any idea what love was? Had he truly hoped to make her jealous with a mere fistful of twigs?
"My lady."
Ilhwa, Munhui's lady-in-waiting, approached at a loss, wringing her hands. The underlings kept at a distance had heard every word exchanged with the king. Having listened to her mistress be humiliated, she could not bring herself to lift her face, swallowing her rage in silence. But Munhui was as composed and unhurried as ever.
"Ilhwa."
"Yes, my lady."
"Dig up this cornelian cherry tree."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Its branches have become unsightly."
"Y-yes, my lady! At once."
Having said all she had to say, Munhui returned to her residence as though nothing had happened.
Every book she spread open was dull. She had hauled an armful of them onto the daybed, lounged against the pillows, flipped through one after another and tossed them aside until the bed was a litter of pages. Most were either the airy, empty-handed teachings of long-dead sages, or the laws of Museon, or royal protocol, or genealogical registries tracing the royal house's bloodline and lineage.
Even if nothing else proved useful, she decided the laws of Museon and the royal family tree were worth committing to memory. She retrieved the discarded volumes and turned the pages with real diligence — but her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and with the sun still in the sky, she drifted off.
Thud.
The wind had a habit of rattling the window hard, once and again. She had grown so accustomed to the sound that it no longer woke her. She heard it again on the edge of sleep, and let it pass.
"How refined your tastes are."
"!"
At the man's voice suddenly at her ear, Seoin's eyes flew open.
"How did you—?"
The words tumbled out the instant she saw the king's face. That she hadn't sensed his approach she could forgive — she'd been asleep. But here was a man who had left her to languish for days without so much as a single message, materializing out of nowhere.
"Why so startled? I assumed you'd be waiting for me. Such a refined hobby — did it help the hours slip by unnoticed?"
Seoin rubbed her eyes and sat up on the daybed. He stood over her with his hands clasped behind his back, but she had no intention of bowing and scraping and fawning. Even though he still held her life in his grip, even though he was the king, she stiffened her spine with fresh pride. She refused to grovel for her life any longer, or sit meek and pliant waiting for him to appear whenever he pleased.
They had shared a bed. They had tangled together. Was that not reason enough to hold onto a little dignity?
How little must he think of her, to cast her aside for days without a word of warning.
"I never had a habit of reading, but staying here seems to have given me this refined hobby of yours."
"Ha."
At that, Seon Wiyeon gave a short laugh, as though something amused him greatly.
"What's so funny?"
"It seems you've misunderstood what I meant by hobby."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Books aren't a refined hobby. They're a tedious one."
With that, Seon Wiyeon brought the arm he'd been holding behind his back forward.
"!"
In his hand was a whole bouquet of yellow branches.
"What is that?"
"Cornelian cherry blossoms."
"I didn't ask for the flower's name. I asked why you're giving it to me."
"Would you understand it as an apology?"
Unable to fathom what he was scheming, Seoin only frowned and refused to take the bouquet. Left awkwardly holding his outstretched hand, Wiyeon set the flowers down on the table with a sheepish look.
"I'm glad I brought them, as it turns out. I seem to have left you far lonelier than I intended."
The flowers hadn't even been accepted, and here he was, singing his own praises.
"I've been doing very well these past few days, thank you. They call me a hwarbi now, you see — the treatment has improved considerably."
At that, Wiyeon picked up a single branch. He dragged it slowly up her leg, grazing her knee, skimming the length of her thigh — and then he laid the branch down between her legs, into the crease of her robe.
Seoin understood exactly what he meant. Her face flushed scarlet.
"Come to think of it, you do seem to have kept yourself quite well — consoling your loneliness all on your own."