Not a Scrap of a Lie
The old man was dead, just as he had expected. His face had been beaten past all recognition. Mui drew the threadbare quilt up and covered it.
He came out of the room, caught the arm of the girl standing dazed on the stepping-stone and staring blankly inside, and pulled her into the room next door. He sat the stunned child down and took the place opposite her. Clap. He struck his palms together right in front of her eyes.
The girl, collapsed in a heap, jolted back to herself and dropped at once to her knees.
"From this moment you answer what I ask, and you answer fast. Not one scrap of a lie. Understood?"
Mui's heavy voice was strong, swift, and absolute. He drove her as if the slightest gap would earn her a beating she would not forget.
"Yes! Yes!"
"Was it your grandfather—the one lying dead in that room—who told you to sell your body and bring money home?"
The girl shook her head hard.
"No! No! Grandfather doesn't know! He truly doesn't! Last night he tried to stop them from taking Mother, and they beat him badly. He was sick until dawn and then he fell asleep, and he was still sleeping when my little brother and I left!"
"Why did they take your mother?"
"They said she hadn't paid this month's tax, and that they had to sell her as a slave to settle it. Mother cut her hair and scraped the money together—she did. They insisted that was last month's tax and dragged her off anyway. I saw them take last month's payment and write it in the ledger, and still they swore it wasn't so!"
Mui's questions came fast, and the girl's answers grew faster with them.
"When did your father die, and why?"
"Three months ago. The tax collector beat him to death. Father had paid every coin, but the man picked a fight first, said he wasn't respectful enough, and then beat him until he died for talking back."
"The same man who took your mother?"
"Yes."
"Do you know where they're holding her?"
"Yes. A courtesan house called Maehwadang. I heard they gather everyone meant to be sold as slaves there, and then send them on to the auction house."
"Since when have you been selling your body for money?"
"Today was the first time I went out! It's the truth! Father's gone, Mother's gone, and Grandfather is sick. Since yesterday my brother and I have had nothing but water. I have to earn money so I can buy medicine for Grandfather and food for my brother, but no one will give me work. I knew that since last year an older girl from the neighborhood has been selling herself to buy food for her family, so I asked her how it's done! It's the truth! Today was the first time I went out, and the first time I ever spoke to a gentleman!"
"You're saying I would have been your first?"
"Yes! Yes! It's the truth! I was too frightened to go near men, too frightened even to speak to them! But the sun was setting, and once it got dark my brother would be sleeping, and then I'd have to come home! He'd cry from hunger until he wore himself out and fell asleep, and Grandfather hadn't eaten all day either. I had to bring food back. So I found the courage. You were on a horse, and your clothes were the finest of anyone's, so I spoke to you!"
She gasped, out of breath. Under the crush of Mui's terrible gaze there had been no room to invent a lie.
A large hand came down on the head of the girl, who had bowed low, shoulders heaving as she fought for air. Startled by the sudden warmth, she jerked her head up. The savage light was gone. What looked at her now was quiet.
The voice that had cut like a blade of winter wind sank and ran low and even. It was a cold voice, indifferent, and still it struck home in the child's chest.
From the moment they dragged her mother away and beat the grandfather who tried to stop them, until this very instant, the girl had thought of nothing but her dead father. And now a man she had never seen was speaking to her as her father might have. Tears spilled from the small child's great eyes.
"Now cry for your grandfather. He is already on the road to the other world."
"Waaaaah!"
As if she had been waiting for his leave, the girl threw her head back and wailed. Mui's relentless questions had made her forget that her grandfather was dead.
He watched the small shoulders shake, then rose and left the room. Yi-ho, who had been sitting on the wooden veranda before the closed door, got to his feet.
"What should we do?"
Yi-ho was asking how to deal with the dead, but Mui, looking past the fence, asked something else.
"The children?"
"Sam-ho went for them. He'll bring them back."
"You watch that girl. I'll take a look around and be back."
Mui strode off and was gone from sight in moments. Yi-ho scratched hard at his neck. He had no idea how to comfort a crying child.
An hour later, Mui returned. His gaze brushed the old man rolled in a straw mat at one side of the yard, and fell away.
He opened the door of a room bright with lamplight. Somehow they had managed to buy it: everyone sat crowded into the little room, eating steaming rice soup. There was no table large enough, so only Sam-ho and Sa-ho ate at it with the two children. The rest had set their bowls roughly on the floor.
When Mui stepped in, the girl shot to her feet mid-bite.
"Finish eating."
"Yes."
Seeing her eat, Mui sat beside Yuk-ho and took the bowl they had left for him.
"Heh. Look at this one. Falling asleep while he eats!"
The little brother was nodding off between spoonfuls. The child had eaten a great deal, as if to fill an empty belly, and still would not let go of the spoon even as he dozed. It was pitiful, and it was sweet.
Laughing, Sam-ho pressed both of the boy's cheeks and tipped his head back, and the child came along with the motion and settled into his arms. The girl, still eating, sprang up, but Sa-ho, seated beside her, pressed her shoulder and sat her back down.
"Don't leave a drop. Eat it all. I'll lay your brother down in the other room."
"Thank you."
Sa-ho gathered the little brother up and left the room.
Mui said nothing until the meal was done. The men, perhaps because of the children, were not as loud as usual. Listening to the jokes that flicked back and forth like play, the girl finished her rice and still could not bring herself to leave the table, watching their faces, until at last she began to nod. The child's brutal, grinding day had finally come to an end.
Sa-ho lifted her gently, carried her to the next room, laid her beside her brother, and came back. In the meantime the others cleared the meal away. Sa-ho stepped in and spoke low.
"Captain. The children are deep asleep, and there's no sign of anyone around."
Some thirty thatched houses stood beneath the low hill, but aside from two at the village entrance and this one, set farthest apart from it, every house was empty. The houses stood far enough apart, besides, that no one would have any idea what was happening here.
"Did you look into it?"
At Mui's flat voice, the six who had been sprawled about snapped upright into proper seats. O-ho lowered his voice.
"The famous courtesan house in the capital is a place called Mu-reung-do-won, the Peach Blossom Spring. Everyone says with one voice that it's the finest in Cheongguk. It sits in the busy quarter near the palace."
Yuk-ho, whose eyes and instincts were keen enough to catch the smallest shift around him, spoke with a grave face.
"Captain, we'd do well to get out of here fast. There are a lot of bastards walking around with their eyes gone rotten."
Sam-ho's head tilted.
"Eyes gone rotten—what's that supposed to mean? A lot of crazy bastards?"
"Worse than crazy. Worse than beasts hooked on drugs, those sons of bitches."
Il-ho's voice came out rough. Yi-ho spoke as he clenched his fist and opened it again.
"Captain, when are we killing that bastard? Night? Dawn?"
The girl's raw wailing still circled in Yi-ho's ears. They had talked it through before Mui returned, and all of them knew how things stood. Sa-ho said it, flat and firm.
"Captain, however pitiful the children's circumstances, we have to pretend we don't see. Draw eyes, and more eyes will follow. Then we'll only get in the way of walking out with the 'goods' you came for."
They had to break out the man the King of Cheongguk had thrown in prison, take his family with them, and get clear of the kingdom. They could not draw attention, and this was not a thing they could do with their true names showing. Mui was the head instructor of Namhanseong, a man the Emperor of the Han Empire still acknowledged and called General. This could never be a private matter. However mighty the Han Empire, it could not interfere in what another kingdom's king had done, and if the neighboring realms learned of it, nothing good would come.
A heavy silence settled. They all knew. To leave those small children behind would be crueler than killing them. But they had been trained by Mui, and they had gone to war beside him. By his own teaching, Sa-ho was right. They ought to look the other way.
"From now until we leave Cheongguk and return to the Han Empire, I am the master of a trading company based there. I came to look over goods worth buying in Cheongguk and to deal for them. You will address me as Master, and you are the company's martial escorts. If it comes to stating who we are, don't forget—keep the story straight. We finish the work within two hours, gather, and leave. We come and go by the back path."
Going in and out by the village entrance would catch the eye. Fortunately this house sat right under the hill behind it, farthest from the entrance. Follow the path behind the house, and no one would see them come or go. Watching the men nod, Mui went on.
"I asked the gatekeeper at Maehwadang. They move the women gathered there to the Slave Auction House at dawn. He can't dispose of those women as he pleases, which means the one they call the steward of Maehwadang is only a lackey. Even so, that steward has been dragging in more women than his orders call for and selling them off in secret to line his own pocket. To make that secret deal, you tell him you've come to buy a 'dog.' There are about thirty men inside Maehwadang who throw their weight around, so we settle it with money, no friction, and we end it fast. Il-ho and Sa-ho come with me."
"Yes."
Il-ho answered, delighted. Sa-ho gave no answer. He only watched Mui, a grin tugging at his mouth as if the whole thing amused him.
So that was where he'd gone without a word. He must have seized the Maehwadang gatekeeper and wrung the truth out of him.