A Price on the Child's Head

Sowol looked at Chief Administrator Seok in silence.

"The second daughter-in-law of the Manor Lord lost her child not long ago. The physicians have told her she will never conceive again."

"And?"

"The Manor Lord wishes to take in a child with no one to care for her and raise her as his own granddaughter."

"You came all the way to this mountain village to find an adopted daughter?"

"Yes."

Seok nodded carefully, then glanced up toward the second floor. "It must be a great strain, running an inn alone while nursing an infant. Our household has no shortage of people to look after a child, nor physicians to see to her health."

"……"

"As the Manor Lord's granddaughter, she would want for nothing. She would study under fine tutors and never have to watch anyone's face for the rest of her days."

At the plausible offer, the corner of Sowol's mouth twisted.

No magnate of Zhongqing would send someone to a remote mountain village just because he couldn't find one adopted daughter.

Worse, to name terms without so much as laying eyes on the child meant the child had already been appraised.

The pair of chopsticks laid crosswise flashed before his eyes.

So that was what Haomun had seen and reported—the child appraised and priced for sale.

"……She must have fetched quite a price, for all the rumors downplayed her."

"Pardon?"

"The child, I mean."

For the first time, the smile drained from Chief Administrator Seok's face.

Sowol's words turned cutting. "You wouldn't have driven a carriage out from Zhongqing on the mere rumor of a baby in a mountain inn. So tell me—what did you buy, and for how much?"

The pressure in that gaze made Seok's fingertips tremble faintly.

A short silence passed. He chose his words with care before speaking slowly.

"We heard that strange things have been happening at this inn since the child appeared."

A sneer curled onto Sowol's lips. "Since the child appeared?"

"Yes."

"Then you've bought yourself a bad rumor. Who ever said she wasn't mine?"

Leaning back comfortably against his chair, Sowol went on. "Are you suggesting I took in another man's child and passed her off as my own? I find that deeply unpleasant to hear."

Bewilderment crossed Seok's face. "We were told she was a child you were merely fostering for a time."

"I couldn't very well go spreading the mother's circumstances around the village, could I."

"But the child only arrived at this inn three months ago—"

Sowol tilted his head askance. "Am I obligated to confess such private matters to your honored family?"

Seok fell quiet for a moment, then made one careful, final play, as if drawing his last card from his sleeve. "Then…… might we at least be permitted to see the child's face?"

"What for?"

"I must have something to report to the Manor Lord—"

"I refuse."

Sowol cut him off flatly. "You claimed you'd take away a child you'd never even seen, and now you want to look at her? Why the sudden interest?"

Seok studied Sowol in silence. His eyes were weighing whether the man was lying or not.

But there was no opening to press further.

In the end, Seok lowered his head with care. "It seems I have committed an discourtesy."

"Then go."

As Sowol rose from his seat, Seok looked up at him steadily for a moment, then drew a small wooden tablet from his robe.

It bore the crest of the Mi family estate.

"If your mind should change, send word to the Mi estate in Zhongqing."

"It will not change."

"A man's heart can shift with his circumstances."

Seok's gaze swept in turn over the worn table, the old cabinet, and Sowol's frayed sleeve. "Raising a child, after all, takes no small amount of money."

The corner of Sowol's mouth pulled crooked. He picked the tablet up off the table and slid it back toward Seok.

"I thank you for your concern, but—"

The wooden tablet slid across the tabletop and stopped against Seok's fingertips.

"—I am not so poor that I cannot feed one child of mine."

Sowol's eyes sank, cold as frost.

The air in the main hall grew heavy with them. The guards standing behind Seok all laid their hands on their swords at once.

Yet not one of them could draw.

Cold sweat trickled down the guards' foreheads. Their instincts were screaming at them.

Do not make an enemy of this man.

Chief Administrator Seok slowly withdrew the wooden tablet. "We will take our leave for today."

"I'd rather there be no next time."

Rising to his feet, Seok smoothed his robes and answered. "I am not certain it ends simply because we withdraw."

Sowol's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"Rumor, after all, is a thing to be bought and sold."

"……"

"There is no guarantee we were the only ones to pay its price."

It was impossible to tell whether it was a warning or a piece of advice. Offering a cupped-hand salute, Seok turned his back without waiting for an answer, and the guards fell in behind him as one.

Just before boarding the carriage, Seok looked up once more at the inn's second floor. Sowol stepped into his line of sight, brows knit.

"Keep your eyes off my child."

Their gazes collided. Seok said nothing and climbed into the carriage.

Before long, the driver snapped the reins.

Creak. Creak.

The carriage began its slow descent down the hill.

Arms crossed, Sowol leaned against the doorframe and stood watching until it vanished from sight.

There is no guarantee we were the only ones to pay its price.

An uneasy remark, and in more ways than one.

With a grim face, he went back over his exchange with Seok, question by question.

Seok hadn't known much. Only that a child had appeared at the inn, and that strange things had followed.

That much, Sowol could bury within his own lines of defense.

But what if the next visitor knew more? What if people came looking for the child—people far beyond what Sowol alone could handle?

What then?

"Beopgong, you rotten bastard. You tell me to hide a child like this—"

Spitting curses toward the depths of the mountains, Sowol slammed the front door shut.

The moment he stepped into the main hall, Baekya's face peeked out cautiously from behind the stair railing.

"Hyung-nim."

"What."

"Baby, hyung-nim's baby?"

"……"

Wordless for a moment, Sowol busied himself brushing off his sleeve for no particular reason. "I said that to chase the fellow off."

"Not true?"

"……In front of other people, call her hyung-nim's baby."

"And when no people?"

"Baekya. Don't ask useless things. Bring the cradle down."

"Okay."

At Sowol's gesture, Baekya carried the cradle carefully down the stairs. The baby inside was sleeping soundly.

Sowol gazed quietly down at her face, then rubbed his aching forehead.

The rumor traveled fast.

Before the Mi family's carriage had even crested the hill, the village children were chattering about everything they'd seen.

"The horses were pitch-black and this big!"

"The old man who got off the carriage was wearing silk!"

"The innkeeper told him to keep his eyes off his child!"

As the tale passed from the children's mouths to the adults', it put on weight. Two black horses became four; four guards became a dozen or more.

By the time it reached the washing rocks by the stream, it had become an altogether different story.

"Did you hear? A rich man from the provincial capital came to buy the innkeeper's baby!"

"They say he hauled a carriage full of silver taels up the hill."

"And? Did Yeon give the child up?"

"Give her up? Hah! He roared that no one was taking his child and drove the man out."

At that, the women's eyes glittered. "Really? And here we were told she was just a baby he was minding for a while!"

"You believed that at face value? He only said it because there was something he was embarrassed about."

"So it was a hidden child all along!"

"No wonder he raises her so tenderly."

"Now that you mention it, doesn't he have the same eyes?"

Resemblances that had never existed before sprouted and multiplied.

The rumor wound its way around the well and the marketplace and spread clear to the neighboring village. The one person it was actually about remained the only soul who didn't know.

Sowol noticed it only after his customers' manner had turned oddly, uncomfortably warm.

"Yeon, were we really so untrustworthy? If you've got a child, you could have just said so."

"A child? Ah, well, you see—"

"Say no more, say no more. You must have had your reasons."

"No, that's not—"

"You don't have to explain. We know how hard it's been, a man raising her all alone. We'll help out, so no more hiding it, all right?"

Knowing nothing at all, the customer patted Sowol's shoulder with the air of a man who knew everything.

Sowol could only gape, unable to get a single word of explanation out.

He had never hidden her. He most certainly had not been hiding a secret child. Hadn't he said from the very start that she was a baby he was minding briefly?

But they had already cast him as a father belatedly shouldering his responsibilities. The lie he'd told to drive off the Mi estate's administrator had reached the villagers' ears as a confession finally made after long silence.

Sowol pressed a hand to his forehead. Every attempt to explain only sank him deeper into the mire.

When the suffocated man could do nothing but heave sigh after sigh, someone asked:

"Come to think of it, what's the child's name?"

"……"

When Sowol failed to answer readily, the customer's eyes went round as saucers.

"Don't tell me you haven't even named her yet?"