Twenty Gold in Advance
Every time Sam-ho ground his boot into the man's throat, the fellow gagged and rattled—a wet, choking sound, as if he might die at any moment. Il-ho dropped into a crouch beside him and yanked his jacket open. Sure enough, a dagger hung at his side. Il-ho snorted, took it, and drew the blade from its sheath. The keenly honed edge flashed in the light.
The innkeeper and the serving woman sucked in sharp, terrified breaths. Only now did they understand that this dagger might well have been the thing that killed them.
"Blind as a bat, this one. You were gonna stick him with a kid's toy like that?"
Il-ho sliced the pouch from the man's waistband with the dagger. The man thrashed, desperate not to lose it, but Sam-ho ground his boot into his throat again and he couldn't so much as twitch. When Il-ho opened the pouch he found a slip of oiled paper folded in half, marked with a peculiar pattern, and a fair stack of silver besides. Unfolded, the note held nothing but a date and a time.
Il-ho turned the slip—tonight, at midnight—over in his hands, then flung the pouch at Sa-ho without so much as a glance. Sa-ho, who had been soothing the innkeeper, a woman in her fifties, where she sat on the wooden veranda, caught it and pressed it into her hands.
"Innkeeper, have them bring us three more bowls of gukbap. Whatever's left ought to cover that fellow's room."
She spilled the contents into her palm. Even after the arrears and three bowls of the hot rice-and-broth stew, a good deal of money remained. But she had been hurt, she said—call it medicine money—and in a flurry she stuffed the silver back into the pouch and tucked it into her bosom.
"Thank you, sirs. Geum-ah, what are you standing there for? Hurry and bring towels for these gentlemen, reset the table properly, and get that gukbap out here! And plenty of boiled pork with it!"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Geum-ah darted into the kitchen, delighted. Now she could heap the bowls high for those fine men right out in the open.
"Innkeeper, we'll need rooms for ten days. Seven men. If the rooms run small, we'll need three of them."
"Of course, of course! We've got three rooms. Pay the ten days in advance—one silver coin a man each night—and breakfast is free."
The innkeeper's wrinkled mouth split wide as a winnowing basket. The big market day had passed, and for at least a fortnight guests would be scarce. They had rid her of a troublesome wretch and filled her empty rooms besides, and the smile came of its own accord.
"That'll do."
Sa-ho laid seventy silver coins straight into her hands. When both palms brimmed with silver, she cried out in pure delight.
"Geum-ah! These gentlemen will be staying, so once you've brought the table, scrub three rooms till they shine!"
"Yes!"
Geum-ah poked only her head from the kitchen, beamed, and answered at the top of her voice before ducking back in. The innkeeper rose and went to Sam-ho.
"Sir, please let him go. Otherwise he can't fetch his things from the room and get out."
She turned on the man—face gone black with congested blood, still thrashing—and bellowed.
"Get out this instant! And don't you come back!"
Sam-ho leaned his weight into the foot on the man's throat.
"You walking out of here alive, or you want to be buried?"
The man stabbed a hand at the empty air. He meant to go to the room and collect his baggage.
"Khk. Khk. Khk."
The moment Sam-ho lifted his foot, the man gasped for air and couldn't easily rise from the floor. Sam-ho was not the sort to care. Thud! He drove his boot into the man's side.
"Get lost, you bastard. We've got food to eat!"
The pain felt as if his guts had burst, but the man hauled himself up and staggered into the room. Watching him disappear into the farthest chamber of the L-shaped wing, Sam-ho turned and brushed at his clothes. Scraps of gukbap still clung to the cloth.
"Hey, don't bother. Those clothes are done for. Throw them out."
Sa-ho said it with a grimace. They were black martial robes, but everything under the sun had stuck to them in filthy blotches, and long before that he had sweated through them until the salt bleached the fabric white. The innkeeper was wiping down the low wooden platform where they had been sitting, so the three of them took the empty one beside it.
Clack. The instant a door opened behind Sam-ho, Il-ho—seated in front of him—whipped his arm. For some time now the dagger taken from the man's clothes had been spinning in Il-ho's right palm, naked blade and all, whirling like a toy.
"Guh—!"
Thuk! The dagger Il-ho threw buried itself in the man's forehead. Crash! The fellow who had meant to kill Sam-ho with a blade hidden in his baggage tumbled into the yard. Sam-ho and Sa-ho snorted and turned their heads.
"Told you that bastard would pull some shit. His eyes were already gone."
Il-ho said it as if it were nothing, and clicked his tongue.
"Look at that. Came out with daggers stuck all along the back of his belt. He meant to kill everyone here."
Sam-ho stared at the short blades banded around the dead man's waist and spoke as if he could hardly believe it.
"Hm."
Sa-ho watched the blood soak into the dirt, and thought. How are we supposed to get rid of that corpse? If Mui finds out we made a mess, he'll say he's taking Il-ho's hand off at the wrist.
"Aigoo! That rotten bastard! I believed him when he said he'd found work, put him up and fed him without a single coin up front, and he tries to kill us!"
The innkeeper, frozen mid-wipe at the sudden sight, bellowed and slammed her rag down on the platform. When all three gazes swung to her, she scrubbed her hands hard on her apron and stood.
"Thank you, sirs. Last night I dreamed of my mother for the first time in decades, since she died, and I thought this old woman's time had come. She was smiling so bright—must have been because you gentlemen saved this old woman's life!"
She went on as she approached the room the dead man had used.
"I'll clean the room that bastard was using till it shines. All seven of you, take five rooms and use them as you please! No need to pay another coin. This woman may be mad for money, but she won't take more from people who've done her a kindness!"
She kicked the dead man's head for good measure and kept going.
"Don't you worry yourselves over killing a wretch who deserved to die, sirs. Roll him in a straw mat, set him outside the fence, hand over one nyang of silver, and someone will take care of the rest."
The three exchanged a look, then looked away. The grins that crept across their faces were cut from the same cloth.
The innkeeper and Geum-ah had left a little while ago, saying the house where they slept stood right beside the inn, and to call if anything was needed. After the gukbap the men had lain down in their room to rest; now they came out to head for the place they had promised to meet Mui. A stranger approached Il-ho and Sa-ho, who sat on the platform waiting for Sam-ho, gone to the privy.
The middle-aged man wore a bamboo hat that clashed utterly with the finest silk on his back. Curiosity sparked in Il-ho's and Sa-ho's eyes.
"Show me the note."
A man well used to talking down to people.
"The note, is it."
Il-ho drew the words out long, then suddenly produced from his clothes the oiled paper with its peculiar pattern—the one from the dead man's coin pouch—and held it out. The design looked something like a cipher, and he had kept it thinking that if they grew bored, he and the others might try to puzzle it out. The man in the bamboo hat passed the paper to the guard standing behind him.
"Match it."
The guard drew another piece of oiled paper from his clothes and fitted the two together. From the look of it, a round sheet bearing a single pattern on its reverse had been cut into angled pieces, one share to each man.
"It matches."
The man in the hat raised a hand, and the guard respectfully laid both pieces on his palm. He fitted the papers himself, nodded, and perched on the platform where Il-ho and Sa-ho sat.
"You don't match the description I was given. Are you the owner of this note?"
Il-ho worked his jaw this way and that, then leaned his face in close to the hatted man and said, flat as stone,
"Whatever you heard, I'm the owner of that note. Don't like the look of me, then leave. Don't pick a fight."
"Mind your tongue!"
The moment Il-ho dropped the formal speech, the guard hoisted his sword, sheath and all, and barked. The posturing was so pathetic that Il-ho and Sa-ho barely held in their laughter. From the way he held the blade, he had been taught the forms—but his strength was so poor they could have killed him bare-handed.
"Enough. Step back."
At the hatted man's short command, the guard retreated at once and took his place just in front of the fence. Il-ho and Sa-ho frowned at the fellow posing with a hand on his hilt, putting on all the airs he could muster. There were three more just like him.
What the hell is this half-wit doing, dragging around useless show-offs like that?
Il-ho and Sa-ho looked at the man in the hat. He, meanwhile, mistook the look for awe—cowed by the weight of his presence.
"I was told the business had to be spoken face to face, so I came. Here. This is the advance you asked for."
He drew a heavy pouch from his clothes and set it before Il-ho. Curiosity had long since burst its banks and turned into pure amusement. Il-ho's eyes lit; he folded his arms and looked the bamboo hat up and down. Meanwhile Sa-ho took the pouch and spilled it into his palm. Twenty gold coins. He shook his head.
A dead thug who had been playing at dirty work, and twenty gold coins. Whatever the job was, it was no honest one. But when Sa-ho frowned at the gold and shook his head, the man in the hat misunderstood and knit his brow. He had been told, quite clearly, by the one who had hired this man, that the advance was twenty gold coins.
"What? Twenty gold, paid in advance. Isn't that right?"
Sa-ho set the pouch down and jerked his chin at the hat.
"The first rule of a back-alley deal is showing one's bare face. You appear, however, to be a man of high station, so I will ask only that you lift the hat a moment and let us confirm your face. It would be awkward if you turned out to be officials come to arrest us."
The tone was cold, but unlike Il-ho, Sa-ho used a respectful register and spoke as if the matter were already settled. The man under the hat hesitated. He too had come out against his will, on orders, to commission a killing—but in truth this was the first time he had ever hired an assassin, and he did not know the way of it.