Chapter 19: Tying the Golden Needle (9)

Palace maids had been assigned to Jin Seoin's quarters as well.

By now, Seoin had shaken off the whole affair and sat up on the bed with one knee drawn up, looking perfectly hale.

At the sight of her rising so easily, the maids exchanged startled glances. Catching the look of suspicion on their faces, Seoin said, "I've always had a strong constitution. A little fever passes on its own if I just sleep well—no need to waste medicine on me."

It was a pointed jab at the performance they'd staged: no physician summoned for a sick woman, no medicine offered—nothing but orders to sleep it off.

The maids, understanding perfectly what she meant, floundered in embarrassment for a moment. But they quickly recovered their frosty expressions and approached her bedside.

"We've brought water for washing."

"We will assist you in changing."

Three maids stood before her bed. Before any of them could lay a hand on her, Seoin fidgeted with the hand tucked beneath the blanket and gazed up at the ceiling. The maids, following her line of sight, tilted their heads back as well.

In that instant, Seoin gave a sharp tug on the thin thread coiled in her palm.

"?"

The maid staring at the ceiling noticed something wriggling atop the main beam. "Gah—!" And by the time she realized what it was, it was already too late.

Snick. Smack.

"KYAAAHH!"

A snake dropped straight down onto the face of the maid standing directly beneath the beam—and clung there.

"KYAAAAH!"

"Agh—agh!"

The other maids who witnessed it began shrieking in half-fainting terror. "AAAAH!"

Chaos erupted. The maid with the snake on her face thrashed and shook her head wildly, and the creature went flying onto the nape of the maid beside her.

"Ugh, no! Get it off!"

When the snake, draped across her neck and shoulders, flicked its tongue right at her ear, the maid collapsed in a dead faint of sheer horror. No one dared touch it; she only shook her body until the snake slipped loose and slithered across the floor toward another maid's feet.

"KYAAK! AH!"

Crash.

The chairs were at it again. With the maids flailing about in a frenzy, another chair toppled over.

"What do I do—agh! Get away—AAAAH!" One maid backing away from the snake smacked into a side table. The vase of still-bright yellow cornelian cherry blossoms wobbled dangerously.

"Careful now! You'll break the vase. Do mind your surroundings. Tsk." Seoin scolded them as though the vase mattered more to her than the weeping, terrified maids.

They heard her well enough, but right now they had no presence of mind for anything but the snake.

The wailing screams of the maids, it seemed, carried quite some distance. Soon the sound of Imperial Guard soldiers came rushing toward Seoin's quarters, which stood unguarded.

Only then did Seoin step down from the bed. And she calmly brought her heel down on the head of the snake, which was still incensed from all the fright and on the verge of biting a maid's ankle.

"Gah!"

The maids' sobs and screams cut off abruptly; they stared at her with eyes stretched wide.

Seoin smiled pleasantly and caught the writhing snake with her bare hands.

"Ugh."

"Hrk. Hkk."

"Huhk!"

The maids squeezed their eyes shut in revulsion, hiccupped in shock, or covered their mouths with their hands. While they were thus occupied, Seoin quietly freed the snake of the thread she'd tied around it, unnoticed by any of them.

At that moment, the Imperial Guard burst urgently through the door.

Bang.

"What in the world is— GAH!"

The first guard through the door took in the wrecked quarters—and Seoin standing there with a snake in hand.

As if it were nothing at all, Seoin tossed the snake at his feet. "!"

"This fell from the ceiling. Doesn't seem to be venomous, thankfully."

The guard, catching on to the situation, shot a quick glance at the maids.

"...H-how... fortunate."

Under the circumstances, it was the best he could manage.

By the King's command, the prisoners were all to return to their respective homelands. Military officers appointed to garrison posts had been dividing them up and escorting them away, and the sorting process was in full swing, day after day.

The captured soldiers had been deeply skeptical at first—they simply couldn't believe they would be sent home whole and unharmed. Why wouldn't they doubt it? These were men who had crossed blades with the enemy, and now they were being told they'd be released, not killed or enslaved.

Perhaps it was a trick: lull them with promises of freedom, load them secretly onto ships bound for some foreign land, and sell them off like livestock. Or perhaps they'd be dragged somewhere and buried in the ground. Horrific imaginings ran rampant, and there was no room for simple joy or relief.

But then Princess Seoin's adjutant, Ju Segwang, quelled their anxieties entirely.

"Can't you tell just by looking? You saw the Great Hall, didn't you? Our Princess's beauty scheme worked. How hard do you think the King fell for her, if he spent a night with her and awarded her the Consort Hwa patent right then and there?"

Strictly speaking, no patent had yet been bestowed. On the day the King ascended the throne as Emperor, the Guin would become Noble Consort, and Jin Seoin would receive her patent as Consort Hwa. But Segwang carried on as though the patent were already in hand, on the grounds that the King had declared it so.

"Her Highness will have begged the King to cherish every one of us as subjects of Museon. And of course he granted it—it was the plea of the woman he loves, wasn't it?"

The prisoners swallowed Segwang's story whole. They were all men, after all, and it made sense to them that a King so hopelessly infatuated with the Princess would grant her anything. If any of them had been King, they'd have done the same. The Princess's beauty and her sheer audacity—what a combination. She was no ordinary woman; in the King's eyes she must have gleamed like a rare jewel.

Convinced of this, the prisoners gave themselves over to joy at the prospect of going home, waiting in good spirits for their turns to be called.

"By the way, Adjutant, you'll be staying here, won't you?" someone asked Segwang.

"Hm? Me? Nah, I'm going home too."

"What? We assumed you'd naturally stay here and serve Her Highness the Princess."

"What are you on about? She's not a Princess anymore—she's going to be Consort Hwa. The people here will serve her just fine. I'm going back to live my life."

"You mean to abandon Her Highness the Princess?"

"Abandon, my foot! Sure, Museon's releasing us all, but you think they'll hand official posts to men who were enemy soldiers? Don't kid yourselves. I'm going back to farm my land and take it easy—or, no, life'll be hard, but I'll work hard and live well."

The prisoners didn't believe a word of it—Segwang looked so pleased with himself, practically whistling at the thought of the leisurely life awaiting him back home. And he was telling the truth.

Segwang had become a military officer with dreams of making a name for himself. His ambition was to enter official service and climb to a respectable provincial post with a decent amount of local power. Then war had broken out out of nowhere, and he'd been forced onto the battlefield against his will.

It had all been exhausting beyond words. Now all he wanted was to fish and take life easy for a while.

Find a good woman, get married, have a kid or two.

He was grinning to himself, nurturing that dream, when it happened.

"Which one of you is Ju Segwang?"

At the call for him, Segwang raised his hand. "That's me, right here!"

My turn already? The others had been called out in groups, so he assumed that on account of his somewhat higher rank, he was being summoned individually. He bounded forward in high spirits—then paused, thinking it would be a shame to leave without a word of farewell to the Princess.

As it happened, the officer who'd called his name looked vaguely familiar, which stirred a flicker of inward camaraderie. Better yet, the man was clearly of considerable rank, which made Segwang feel he could be trusted.

"Look here. I have a favor to ask of you—not a difficult one, I assure you."

"And why would you be the one to decide how difficult it is?"

"Because it really isn't difficult?"

He looked friendly enough, but he's stiff as a plank. Insufferable. Segwang wet his lips and got straight to the point.

"It's nothing much. Just tell Her Highness the Princess that her adjutant, Ju Segwang, regrets leaving without paying his respects. That's all. Surely you can deliver a simple message."

The officer replied with lofty indifference. "Then say it to her yourself."

"Huh? Oh— you mean you'll let me see Her Highness before I leave?"

"Ha."

Gwon Beom, unwilling to waste another word on the shifty-looking Segwang, shut his mouth and strode ahead.

Meanwhile, the civilians—those taken who were not soldiers—had been gathered in yet another place. They were the captives Grand Commandant Jang Uhan had dragged back. Even fleeing civilians might aid the enemy on a battlefield, so killing or capturing them was standard practice. Now they too were to return to their homes, and they were weeping with joy.

All but one.

"P-please, let me see Her Highness the Princess! I can't go home like this. I came all this way looking for her, and now she's right here within reach—how can you tell me to leave?"

A young woman pleaded through her tears, desperate and earnest.

"Ha! You think wanting to stay means you get to stay? You should count yourself lucky you weren't made a slave!"

"I served Her Highness the Princess! So let me remain here, I beg you!"

"Silence. The only order I received was to send you all back to your homes—nothing more!"

"Then this is my home! Her Highness's side is my homeland, my house!"

"Ugh, enough of this racket!"

"Oof!"

When the woman kept fussing and clinging, the officer shoved her away with an air of irritation. Just then, someone knelt to help the fallen woman to her feet.

"Are you all right?"

The woman looked up to find a figure in the dress of a palace maid helping her up. It was Bae Ilhwa, the Guin's head attendant.

Ilhwa, having just heard about the incident at Seoin's quarters, was hurrying back to report to her mistress.

"I-I'm all right. Thank you."

"You say you served Her Highness the Princess?"

"Y-yes, yes, that's right! Do you know our Princess?"

"Of course I do."

With a warm smile, Bae Ilhwa helped the fallen woman to her feet. "Come with me."

"What? A-are you taking me to Her Highness the Princess?"

Ilhwa gazed kindly at the innocent disbelief in the woman's eyes—then answered not with words, but with a glance toward the officer. Her eyes turned to ice as she looked at him.

The same officer who had been so overbearing a moment before found himself pinned by the maid's piercing stare, unable to move. He averted his eyes and slunk quietly off elsewhere. Only then did Ilhwa take the woman's hand again, her gaze gentle once more.

"Come along."

"W-where to? Can I really meet Her Highness?"

Flustered, the woman followed Ilhwa along as if being led, her voice trembling.