The Pheasant Incident

Sowol went still, and the man at the far end of the table shot him a sidelong glance. The man's eyes flicked once between Sowol and the bowl.

When Sowol's gaze still would not leave the bowl, Jang Wi set down his chopsticks.

"Hey now, keep staring at it like that and it'll fall right off."

The scolding came in his usual easy tone. Sowol played innocent.

"Shall I bring you more broth?"

"Gladly. Just a little more."

The man held out his bowl without ceremony, and Sowol, taking it, headed for the kitchen.

His hand moved the ladle in slow, idle circles, but his mind was racing. Hao Mun's eyes and ears were everywhere — the waiters at the taverns, the porters at the market, the boatmen plying the river, the hunters coming and going from the mountain. Once upon a time, Sowol himself had borrowed their eyes and ears more times than he could count. It would hardly be strange, then, if a Hao Mun agent sat mixed in among his guests. What bothered him was the timing. Why now, of all times, in a backwater like this?

Sowol stole a glance toward the main hall. Hao Mun scraped up even the pettiest rumors from the marketplace. If they had come merely to see for themselves whether the whispers of a ghost-haunted inn were true, there was little need for alarm. But if the ones hunting for the child smuggled out of the Meng dungeons had stretched their hands all the way to Hao Mun, the story changed. Whatever their purpose in searching for the child, it could not be a good one.

The light in Sowol's eyes went cold.

"Innkeeper! Where's that broth?"

"Right away!"

Expression smoothed over, Sowol ladled out a generous portion and carried it back to the hall. The men were still going at it hammer and tongs over hide prices and the day's catch.

"Broth's up."

"Much obliged."

The man at the far end accepted his bowl with a smile. Just then, a faint wail seeped down from the floor above. Every head among the laughing, bickering men turned toward the stairs at once — Baekya was coming down them, a baby bundled in swaddling clothes held tight against his chest.

"Big Brother, baby's crying."

As if to prove the point, the baby screwed up its face and whimpered.

"Huaaah…!"

Sowol swallowed a sigh and gathered the baby into his arms — and the crying hushed as if it had never been. The hawk-nosed man's eyes went round.

"Well, I never. Innkeeper, you have a child?"

"It's not mine, I'm only minding it for a—"

Sowol's answer was buried under the flood of voices.

"Firstborn, is it?"

"The way he's holding it, that's a firstborn all right. Look how stiff he is."

"You sure it's wise keeping the cradle out here in the hall? The little thing will wake every time a guest walks in."

"A wee thing that size sleeps sixteen hours a day as it is, no?"

"Sixteen hours straight through, it does not. Ours would wake the very moment sleep came creeping up on it, enough to drive a man clean out of his mind."

"If it's his first, he's in for a long road of suffering. Don't go picking it up every time it cries. Get it used to people's arms and you won't manage to lay it on the floor even once."

"Nonsense. When it's that small, you ought to hold it plenty. So what if it takes to you? They grow up quick enough."

"Doesn't the child look cold to you? Someone had best put another log on the brazier."

"What are you on about? Its face is red as a beet. It's warm, more like — loosen the swaddling, why don't you."

With advice flying at him from every side, Sowol couldn't tell whose counsel to follow and could only work his mouth soundlessly. Half-swept along by the current, he laid the baby in the cradle — and Jang Wi hugged his belly and snickered.

"There it is. Every man here has raised ten children with his mouth alone. The lot of you'll get your backsides tanned when the wives learn you never once looked at your little ones — all you did at home was drink."

The baby flailed its arms and legs as if to second the motion, beaming.

"Oo-wah!"

Woven into that laughter came the sound of wingbeats.

Flut-flut.

At the same instant, the baby's laughter cut off dead.

Face brimming with curiosity, the baby drank in the sights of the main hall. In those jet-black pupils was mirrored the sack in the corner of the room — moving. Deep within the baby's eyes, a strange golden light rippled.

A chill crawled down Sowol's spine. Reflexively, his gaze swept the table. Chopsticks. Wine bottles. Soup bowls. Every object the baby might have sent floating sat squarely in its place. And still the gold in those eyes would not fade.

Rolling his eyes about in growing unease, Sowol finally caught sight of the sack in the corner of the hall.

Sssk.

No one had laid a hand on it, yet the knot binding the mouth of the sack was easing open, soft as a breath.

Ssss.

Then the second knot came slack and slithered apart as well.

"Uh-oh—!"

The instant Sowol scrambled to move, the mouth of the sack gaped wide open. Through the gap, a yellow beak thrust out of nowhere.

Fwapp!

A cock pheasant kicked free of the sack and burst into the air.

"Wh-what the—!"

The pheasant skimmed the crowns of the men's heads by a hair and streaked across the hall.

Crash!

A flailing wing clipped the wine bottles. Two of them toppled with a clatter, and yellow rice wine flooded across the tabletop, spilling over the edge and down to the floor in a lazy thread.

"Aigoo, my liquor!"

One startled man toppled backward, chair and all.

Wham!

Delighted by the commotion, the baby was grinning from ear to ear.

"Ah! Oo!"

"What kind of knot did you tie that it up and came undone?!"

"How should I know?! Just catch the blasted thing!"

The sack's owner leapt to his feet and hollered.

"Don't kill it — take it alive!"

The pheasant alighted on the long chest, then spread its wings again, this time toward Sowol.

Snatching the baby from the cradle and folding it against his chest, Sowol bellowed.

"Baekya! Catch it!"

"Okay."

At that reply, Baekya launched himself. His sleeve seemed only to brush the empty air — and then his hand had seized the pheasant by the neck.

Flap! Flap!

The bird beat its wings in a frantic panic, but Baekya did not so much as waver. He simply looked back at Sowol, like a child waiting to be praised.

Sowol let out a breath of relief and nodded.

"Good work. Now give it back to its owner."

"Much obliged. Hand it here, would you?"

The sack's owner came pelted over, out of breath, and received the bird. The man stuffed the pheasant back into the sack, wound the cord around three times over, and cinched the knot down hard. Then he scratched his head, stealing a look at Sowol's face.

"Terribly sorry about this, innkeeper. I'll pay for the broken bottles."

"No matter. I'll clean it up — sit yourself down."

Sowol answered with a warm, easy smile. It wasn't as if the man had anything to apologize for. The one who had loosed the pheasant wasn't him — it was the baby.

And the little culprit, gone meek in the meantime, was toying with the collar of Sowol's robe.

"You rascal. Sit still, now."

Scolding done, Sowol laid the baby back in the cradle and asked,

"But why bring it home alive, of all things?"

"It's for my youngest."

A sheepish grin spread across the man's face.

"Day after tomorrow's his birthday, and that boy goes out of his mind for pheasant. Figured I'd feed it to him on the day itself."

"How old is the little fellow?"

"Seven this year. Tiny little scrap of a thing, but the moment he claps eyes on pheasant meat, he'll put away two bowls of rice."

At that, another man cut in as though he had been waiting his turn.

"My second boy could pick a rabbit's hind leg clean on his own at that age."

"Mine would empty three bowls of somyeon at a sitting."

"What's that? Three bowls? You starve the boy between meals?"

The men heaped tale upon tale of their children, and laughter broke out across the hall.

Even as he thought, honestly, what won't these men turn into a brag?, Sowol found he didn't mind the racket one bit.

All but one.

The man at the far end of the table — the one who had laid his chopsticks down in a cross — was not laughing. He hung at the edge of the conversation, studying the loosened knot and the baby with a careful eye.

Without a word, Sowol shifted his stance until he stood squarely in the man's line of sight. The moment their eyes met, the man raised his cup and wet his lips as though nothing at all had happened.

He was an exasperating man in every possible way — but suspicion alone, with nothing solid behind it, left Sowol's hands tied. He took his eyes off the man.

Instead, he looked around at the wreck of the hall. Shattered bottle glass, overturned bowls, yellow wine soaked wide across the wood. There was far more than one or two things to tidy.

With a sigh, he beckoned to Baekya.

"Baekya. Bring a rag, would you?"

"Okay."

While Baekya dashed off to the kitchen, Sowol herded the shards into a pile with the toe of his shoe. But Baekya, returning with the rag in hand, did not come straight to him. He planted himself in front of the cradle and cocked his head.

"Big Brother. Baby's acting strange."

"Strange how?"

"Not smiling."

Startled, Sowol hurried to the cradle and leaned down. The baby that had been kicking its arms and legs and laughing not a moment before was only blinking now, slow and listless.

Sowol hastily pressed a palm to the baby's forehead.

It was hot.

Sowol's brow knitted, and Jang Wi came over.

"What's the matter?"

"The little one feels feverish."