Eyes Down
He told himself again that monsters like that lot would hardly be kept from a fight by something as petty as the weight of a few gold coins, and that he ought to stop fretting over it.
"I'll say it one more time. If anything happens to me, you turn straight around and go. Don't throw a fit about rescuing me or any of that nonsense. Ride without a moment's rest until you're inside Seohanseong."
They knew why Mui kept repeating himself, and they could hear every contingency packed into that hard voice, so none of them dared answer with a joke. Sa-ho took a step forward instead.
"Boss, if they're the sort to stab you in the back, don't go save them. Just turn around. Why put yourself through hell for bastards like that?"
The words hit Mui like a blow to the back of the head. All those orders he had drilled into them, over and over, had been nothing but his own unease talking. Would his master really betray him? He let out a short laugh.
"If they were that sort, would I have come to save them?"
He turned and slipped quickly into the dark.
"Crown Prince!"
The moment Mui stepped into the room, shock buckled Kang Su-hwan's knees and he dropped to the floor. Tears streamed from the eyes lifted toward him. Mui looked down at the man he had not seen in so long and smiled.
"Must be I look a lot like Father. Everyone reacts the exact same way."
"Your Highness, you were alive all this time. Why did you never send word?"
"I'm not the crown prince. Don't call me Your Highness."
The voice was thicker and lower than the late king's, and yet unmistakably his. It was not the boyish voice that had spoken in that temple so long ago.
Kang Su-hwan wanted to throw his head back and wail, the way he had when he clutched the young crown prince's charred body and sobbed. He was sick with guilt that he had failed to shield the boy from all the harsh world must have done to him while he grew into this man. He wanted to tear his own mouth for the promise he had made the late king—that he would protect the crown prince. He pressed his forehead to the floor and wept.
"Master, please sit first."
Mui caught Seol Woo-chan and Seol Ga-heon by the arms—both of them barely staying on their feet—and eased them down as he added,
"I told you to set every other thought aside and only decide."
The moment that indifferent voice finished, a young man who had been standing rigid at one side of the room dropped into a deep bow.
Mui sat and watched him, then sighed. One look at the face of the man offering him a king's courtesy, and there was no mistaking who he was. He looked a great deal like Seol Ga-heon.
"I'm not a king. Stop that and sit."
But the young man was as stubborn as his grandfather, and as his father. He finished every last measure of courtesy owed a king, then settled onto his knees.
"Your Highness, this humble servant is Seol A-hyeok."
Mui couldn't help a short laugh. He did not want to be called Your Highness. With these people, though, any other address seemed impossible.
He met A-hyeok's eyes, and the fierce light of conviction there told him everything at once. The man had deceived the world by shutting himself away in a temple, and he was plainly doing something for the people of Cheongguk. One glance at his grandfather's face, and his father's, and Mui knew it was nothing else.
"I heard Seol Woo-chan's grandson was so dull they called him the shame of the Seol house—holed up in a temple for years, studying for the civil exams. From the look of you, that was just cover for other business."
Mui turned from the bowing A-hyeok to Seol Woo-chan. Seeing the old man kneeling through sheer pain, he could not even muster a sigh.
"Master, you've even called your grandson here. I can take that to mean you've resolved to leave."
Meeting those upright, grim eyes, Mui could already guess what he would say.
"Your Highness, where would this old, ailing body of mine go?"
Calm as it was, that unyielding voice held the resolve of a man ready to die. Mui did not want to know what that something was.
"I could die in this very place and have no regret. If I may only meet His late Majesty in the next world and tell him the Crown Prince has grown into such a man, Your Highness's grace would already be as vast as the sky."
"I don't know who, but someone in the palace hired assassins to kill you and Seol Ga-heon. Do you truly mean to stay here and die like a dog?"
At those words, Kang Su-hwan and Seol A-hyeok caught their breath. The men concerned, though, looked perfectly calm. They seemed to have expected death already.
"Your Highness, leave me be and this worn-out body will die soon enough. What is there to fear?"
Mui turned to Seol Ga-heon, kneeling with his head bowed, and asked,
"You're not about to say the same, are you?"
The moment Seol Ga-heon raised his head, Mui sighed. Like father, like son. What else could he expect?
"This servant, Seol Ga-heon, is overcome that Your Highness came all this way."
"So you're telling me to take only that one?"
"My son is sorely lacking, yet if Your Highness will take him in, he will serve with all his heart."
"That's only what you think."
Mui turned to A-hyeok, still bowing his head.
"Will you leave Cheongguk and live?"
A-hyeok lifted his head. The conviction in his eyes burned hotter than his grandfather's, hotter than his father's, and Mui wanted to look away. He felt as if he had already heard what the man wanted of him, without a word spoken.
"Your Highness, do you truly mean to abandon the people of Cheongguk like this?"
"How dare you speak so to His Highness!"
"Seol A-hyeok!"
Before A-hyeok had even finished, Seol Woo-chan and Seol Ga-heon cried out in shock and cut him off. Mui only smiled. What right did he have to blame the man?
"I'm neither crown prince of Cheongguk nor its king. If you want to do something for its people, sit the exams and go to court yourself."
"Your Highness, Cheongguk as it stands, because of So-wang, his mother Consort Oh, and their maternal kin—"
"Enough!"
Mui cut him off and went on, his eyes gone cold.
"I came into Cheongguk for one reason. To pull the master who saved my life out of prison and take him out of this kingdom, so he can live in safety. If even you refuse to leave, then this talk is over."
He turned the other way, toward Kang Su-hwan, who was watching him.
"Guard Kang. What will you do? Leave Cheongguk and live, or die in it?"
Seeing his lord so strong, Kang Su-hwan's chest swelled.
"This servant, Kang Su-hwan, will follow Your Highness! His late Majesty commanded me to protect you, and so I will die protecting you!"
Expressionless, Mui turned back to Seol Woo-chan.
"Please, be careful. Don't waste yourself on some empty notion of dying for the people. Live out the years you've been given. And leave this place as soon as you can. Move your lodging elsewhere. Stay in one spot too long and they'll catch you."
"Crown Prince, please preserve your sacred health, and may you live ten thousand years!"
When Seol Woo-chan struggled to rise, A-hyeok was there at once, taking his grandfather's arm and helping him up. Mui turned his back on the old man, who meant to bow with a king's full courtesy, and shot to his feet.
"We're leaving now. Come on, Guard Kang."
He opened the door, and he had just set one foot on the wooden veranda when a voice rang out.
"Oh? We meet again!"
Mui looked up and found a pair of innocent eyes standing right in front of him, smiling brightly. He hoped he was seeing it wrong, but what glittered in those large pupils was unmistakably delight.
He was weak to eyes like these. A pure heart held in clear, innocent pupils—no selfishness, no scheming, not even a trace of lust. Just one blind, glad feeling.
Damn it!
How much had he already suffered because of Park Yu-shin and that country mutt? He was done looking after anyone else.
"Eyes down!"
Flustered, Mui's big hand clapped straight over Ah-hwa's small face.
"Ha! That's our boss! Temper mean as hell. I'd be proud to show him off anywhere."
"Right? That's our boss, all right! Knows she's a woman and still slaps a hand over her face. That bastard of a temper!"
"The master's daughter isn't even disguised half as well as our Squad Leader, so why's she pretending to be a man? Ah, shit. Squad Leader, I miss you!"
"Shut up! Don't compare that girl to our Squad Leader. I'll rip your mouth open. Who the hell do you think you're putting next to our Squad Leader!"
"Damn, the boss is insane! Right in front of his master, telling the granddaughter 'Eyes down!' The craziest bastard of them all really is the boss!"
Arms folded, Sa-ho looked down at the men kneeling in front of them, then spoke quietly to the five who had turned their backs entirely to gossip.
"Keep that up and the boss'll kill you dead. Shut your mouths and watch these bastards properly."
Irritation flaring, Il-ho spun and cracked the back of the head of the man kneeling before him. If not for these idiots, they could have heard every word from right under the window. Stuck at the far edge of the yard, they couldn't catch a sound from inside the room.
"We should've just cut their heads off clean. Why the hell did he tell us to catch the suspicious bastards and hold them? What a pain!"
"Endure it. The boss wants to see the faces of whoever's been spying, doesn't he?"
"Hmm. Hey, you sure we didn't misunderstand the order? If he wants to see their faces, doesn't that mean just cut the heads off and leave those?"
"Heh heh heh. You idiot. To know whether they were spying, they have to be able to talk. Cut the heads off and how are they supposed to speak?"
"Oh? Hey, hey. Leave one bastard who can still talk, and just collect the rest of the heads to show him!"
"O-ho. Yuk-ho, you're a genius!"
"All right, let's pick our one lucky man!"
"Leave the one with the toughest hide. If he's gonna take a hit from our boss and still be breathing, he needs to be able to take a punch."
"No. Forget the hide. Leave the one with the filthiest temper. He has to be meaner than the boss, or where's the fun in watching?"
"Bullshit. You think finding someone meaner than the boss is that easy? Just leave the one with the biggest head. Big head, he probably knows more."