Bring Me a Country Mutt
The gatekeeper was surely dead. Mui was not the sort of fool who left alive a man once the information had been wrung out of him. That, however, was not what amused Sa-ho.
To Mui, Park Yu-shin was absolute. With her wedding so near, it was already nothing like him to come charging into Cheongguk on a whim, claiming he meant to save some benefactor—and yet here he was, troubling himself over a child he had only just met. A handful of gold coins would have settled the matter. Instead he meant to save even the mother who was about to be sold into slavery.
Something in this Cheongguk was making Mui unlike himself.
"You two, get out there and learn how things stand in this place. What I'm seeing is a long way from the Cheongguk I was told about. If you hear anyone talking about 'goods,' I don't care whether it's true or not. Hear all of it, and bring it back."
O-ho and Yuk-ho had already shot to their feet to go when Mui added one more order.
"If you can buy them while you're out, get those kids a few pairs of shoes, and something they can eat on the road."
O-ho blinked at him.
"Captain, why shoes for the kids?"
Thwack. Yuk-ho cuffed him across the back of the head.
"Ugh. You thick-skulled bastard! How are they supposed to live here? They've got to leave! Their shoes are worn to rags—they can't even take the road! How many times do I have to tell you to keep your eyes in your head and not on the soles of your feet? Captain, I'll buy what they need."
Yuk-ho dragged O-ho out of the room. The two of them put distance behind them quickly, so as not to wake the children, and not even their footsteps made a sound.
"Yi-ho, Sam-ho—you stay here and guard the children. If some bastard shows up saying he'll sell the kids into slavery too, tear him limb from limb and dump him on the back hill. Leave no witnesses."
Yi-ho answered through gritted teeth.
"Don't you worry, Captain. We just kill every last one of them before they can flap their mouths."
"If more than ten of those bastards come for the children, don't think about killing them. Pick the kids up, slip quietly into the back hill, and hide. While you're fighting, the children could be taken. Your job is to protect them, not to slaughter bastards. Remember that."
"Yes, sir!"
Mui stepped out of the room.
Il-ho followed him, humming under his breath as he went. Sa-ho did not leave at once. He turned in the doorway and spoke to Yi-ho and Sam-ho.
"Hey. You two go sit with the kids in the next room. Kill the lamp, and if some bastard sneaks up and opens the door, don't listen to any crap about him being from the neighborhood. Just kill him."
"Fuck. Don't tell me some bastard would actually come at kids this small with his cock out."
Yi-ho ground his teeth, eyes blazing.
"Why do you think the Captain brought children he'd only just met all the way to their own house? Out on the capital's main street, with people coming and going, a child this small offered to sell her body, and not one person looked at her like it was strange. That means child prostitution is already out in the open in Cheongguk. It means bastards with a working head on their shoulders are hard to find."
Sa-ho's sharp gaze turned to the wall. He did not look away, as if he could see the children sleeping on the other side, and went on.
"Pretty little children, alone, with no parents to protect them—and the men who know it leave them without so much as food, then come creeping in at night instead of in daylight. The reason is obvious. They mean to snatch them and sell them as slaves, or…"
The rest was too filthy to say. Sa-ho swallowed it. Everyone understood anyway.
"A madman's got to be cut. Up top. And down below."
Sam-ho smiled a cold smile and pointed, first at his head, then at his crotch.
A courtesan house felt much the same in any country. Once the gaudy red lanterns were lit, men crossed the threshold like moths to a flame.
Late at night, the only men passing in and out of Maehwadang were those who had nothing whatsoever to do with hunger.
The gate of Maehwadang was always watched by four men. One of them had said he was stepping home for a moment and still had not returned, though several hours had passed. Standing in for him had the sly middle-aged man's temper boiling, and his face refused to smooth. He dragged aside the fellow closest to the missing man and, a little way from the gate, demanded an answer.
"Did Chun-sam take money off a guest?"
"Yeah, probably a few coins. Late this afternoon he put a drunk guest up on a horse as the man was leaving, and it looked like the guest paid him."
"When that bastard Chun-sam shows up, tell him we're done covering for him and send him packing! He's fired, so he doesn't come near this place again! Bet he got a few coins in his hand and ran straight for the gambling den!"
"Understood."
He had been looking the other way because Chun-sam had slipped him a bribe to get the gatekeeper's post, but filling in every time the man ran off to gamble had his blood up. His real work was watching the children bound for slavery and keeping them alive until they could be sold. He was supposed to have the goods ready to send to the Slave Auction House at dawn, and here he was wasting time on this.
From a distance, Mui watched them finish their talk and walk back toward Maehwadang's gate. Drawing closer, he fanned himself with lazy strokes and murmured an order.
"Sa-ho handles the deal. Il-ho, you don't open your mouth. Stick to my back."
Before they had even reached the gate, the sly man posted there came scurrying over, bowing and scraping. He had seen that the horse Mui rode was expensive, and that the clothes on his back were cut from the finest silk.
"Welcome, my lord. Is there a courtesan you have in mind?"
The sly-faced middle-aged man lived by his tongue and had long since grown slick at it. Mui did not so much as look at him. He rode past at an easy pace, and Il-ho followed close on his heels, sharp-eyed as a guard.
The sly man's eyes lit up. It had been a long time since a real whale had come through. He stuck himself at once to Sa-ho's side.
"I've never had the honor. Say the word, and I'll have the courtesan my lord desires brought before him!"
Sa-ho smiled a smile that could have charmed even the middle-aged man, and tossed him a bound string of ten nyang in silver.
"Let us go in first. If even the room fails to please our sect leader, he will not sit. He will simply leave. Looking at courtesans can wait until after that, wouldn't you say?"
"Need you even ask! This way, please. We'll see to the horses. Go in without a worry!"
Silver tucked into his robes, the sly man's manner changed at once. No guest had ever handed over ten pieces of silver at the very start. He led them straight to the finest room in Maehwadang.
As Mui walked through the house, his face was half-hidden behind the lazy flutter of his fan. What showed of his gaze, now and then, was cold and full of scorn. Maehwadang reeked of liquor and was red from end to end. Beneath the gaudy red lanterns, women in gowns thin enough to show the body beneath drifted from room to room. Every time a door opened, what lay beyond was naked men tangled with naked women. In that decadent air, no one was in his right mind.
The sly man opened the door and stepped aside.
Mui entered the large, lavish room and did not sit. He let his gaze drift slowly over it, and the man, itching with nerves, spoke at once.
"A moment, please! I'll bring the steward!"
His footsteps pounded away.
Mui sat in an ornate chair, closed his eyes, and tapped his leg with the folded fan. Crushed beneath that overwhelming chill, Il-ho could not bring himself to sit. He stood behind Mui and glared at the door.
A little later, a sharp-eyed middle-aged man came in. They had expected the steward of a courtesan house to be some world-worn older woman. What entered instead was a man with the mean face of a bandit chief, and he bowed his head.
"Welcome, my lord. I am the steward of Maehwadang. Is there a courtesan you desire? If not, shall I present Maehwadang's finest? What do you say?"
Sa-ho made a point of glancing at Mui for the steward to see, then turned and came to the point.
"We heard a rumor and came. They say one can buy a 'dog' here."
Drawing the last of it out, Sa-ho took a gold coin from his robes and offered it. The moment the coin was in the steward's hand, the man's eyes changed.
"The 'dog' our sect leader was fond of has died, you see. The place we usually deal with couldn't prepare one to his liking, so we came all the way here. Can you sell us one?"
The steward bowed low toward Mui.
"You've come to the right place, my lord! You will be satisfied!"
He looked less like the steward of a courtesan house than a man who belonged to secret deals in the dark of a back alley. Men like that moved for money, and men who moved for money were easy to handle.
Pleased, Sa-ho laid a second gold coin in the steward's hand and met his eyes. Sa-ho's gaze was a blade—a warning—but his tone could not have been softer.
"Our sect leader does not come twice. There had better be a 'dog' that pleases him the first time."
"Need you even ask, my lord! Have no worry!"
Sa-ho turned and approached Mui. Even the way he drew near was respectful, and the bow he made before speaking was flawless courtesy. All of it lodged in the steward's eyes. To the steward, Mui looked like one great lump of gold.
"Sect Leader, what sort of 'dog' shall we have prepared this time?"
Mui opened the eyes he had kept shut. His blank gaze touched the steward standing before him, then moved to Sa-ho. A flicker of irritation crossed his face, as if to ask why anyone would bother him with something so obvious, and he spoke.
"Sigorjabjong."
His tongue rolled the word with dazzling fluency.
Sa-ho bit his lower lip, released it, straightened, and turned to face the steward. Under a look that pressed him to fetch what was wanted and show it at once, the steward faltered.
"Siggo? What…"
Sa-ho let his face show, without disguise, how tiresome it was to deal with a man who could not follow a simple word, and repeated exactly what Mui had said.
"Bring a sigorjabjong."
The man, only days from turning fifty, had never once in his life taken gold as a finder's fee. There was no doubt the guest was wealthy. The trouble was that the word—which had rolled off the tongue as if the speaker had greased it—was one he had never heard, and could not even hold in his memory. He had no idea what they wanted. He also could not say that he did not know. He would have to give back the two gold coins he had taken as a fee!
"A moment, my lord! It will not take long!"
The steward hurried out of the room.