Chapter 48: The Boar’s Price

I didn’t run.

I wanted to. Every part of my body wanted to. The alley had two exits and he was sitting between me and one of them, and I’m fast, and he’s a wardrobe.

But she was upstairs. Asleep. With her hair spread across the mat and her face finally relaxed for the first time in four years.

And if I ran, he’d still be here when she woke up.

So I stood there.

The Boar chewed his duck leg. Looked at me. Chewed some more.

"You threw Dong-su into her wine wall," he said.

"Was that his name?"

"Dong-su. Six years with me. Never lost a fight." He pulled a strip of meat off the bone with his teeth. "He can’t see out of his left eye this morning."

"He grabbed her wrist."

The Boar stopped chewing.

For a second, those little pig eyes went flat and dark. Something moved behind them. Something old and ugly.

Then it passed.

He went back to chewing.

"Sit," he said, and kicked an empty barrel toward me.

I didn’t sit.

"Sit, Baek boy. If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t be eating breakfast."

...Fair.

I sat.

We sat there in the gray alley behind her shop for a while. Not talking. The Boar finished his duck leg. Threw the bone at a cat. Pulled another one out of his robe. He had a whole duck in there, wrapped in oiled paper.

"She was nineteen," he said finally. "Fresh off the island boat. Didn’t know anybody. Didn’t speak the city dialect right. Everybody laughed at her accent." He tore the meat. "I didn’t laugh. I bought her dumplings. I told her she was pretty."

I didn’t say anything.

"Then I did what men like me do," said the Boar. Very flat. Very calm. "I’m not going to tell you about it. You’ve seen her arm."

The burn. On her upper arm. Old and ugly.

My hands curled into fists on my knees.

He saw it. He didn’t react.

"She ran," he said. "Good. Smart girl. She found a fisherman who doesn’t hit anything but fish." He threw the second bone. "And I found her four years ago. And I couldn’t stand it. That she was happy without me. So I send my boys. Every month. To break her jars." He wiped his greasy fingers on his silk robe. "I’m not a good man, Baek boy. I’ve never pretended."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

He looked up. At the window above us. Her window. The one with the abalone shells.

"Because I’ve been sitting in this alley since the third bell," said Pyo Gwang-chul. "Listening."

Oh no.

"Not to — that." He made a face. "The squid man’s broom. The water sloshing. I’m not an animal." He looked back at me. "I was listening to her laugh. All night. Laughing. Like when she was nineteen and I bought her those dumplings."

The alley was very quiet.

"I haven’t heard that laugh in fifteen years," he said. "I made sure of that."

He pulled out a third duck leg. Looked at it. Put it back.

"My boys won’t come back here," he said. "Not to her shop. Not ever again. You can tell her that." A pause. "Don’t tell her it was me who said it. She’d think it was a trick. She’d be right to."

I stared at him.

The man who paid thugs to break my legs. The man who burned her arm. Sitting in a gray alley at dawn, eating duck, telling me he’d leave her alone because she laughed.

"...Why?" I said again.

"Because I’m old, Baek boy. And fat. And my knees hurt." He shrugged. "And because Gu Seung-hwan treats me like a dog."

There it was.

"He pays me twenty silver to break your legs. My boys get beaten by washerwomen. He pays me to burn the laundry quarter. My boys get beaten by washerwomen again, and his steward quits in front of the whole district, and now everybody in the docks is laughing at the Black Boar." His face went dark. "Laughing at ME. And he doesn’t even pay for the broken heads."

He leaned forward. The barrel creaked under him.

"So here’s a gift, Baek boy. For the laugh. One gift. Then we’re even, and if you come into my gambling house, I’ll still break your face."

"...Okay."

"Four days ago, Gu Seung-hwan bought something from me." He lowered his voice. "A little clay pot. Black lacquer. Sealed with wax. From a smuggler in the south. You know what’s in it?"

I shook my head.

"Night Lotus oil," said the Boar. "Paint it on a blade. Let it dry. Invisible. No smell. One scratch — just one, like a cat — and the arm goes numb. Then dead. A quarter hour later, you can’t lift a sword." He sat back. "Illegal in every province. Forbidden in every formal duel. If the judges find it, he’s disgraced forever."

I stopped breathing.

"They won’t find it," said the Boar. "It’s invisible."

"...He’s going to cheat."

"He’s going to win." The Boar shrugged. "Old men who’ve never lost don’t like to start at sixty-five. And he knows his knee is bad. And he knows you’ve got six women teaching you tricks." He stood up. The barrel groaned with relief. "He’s not taking chances, Baek boy. He’s not going to try to kill you. He’s going to scratch you once. And then take his time."

He stood over me. Huge. Blocking out the gray sky.

"One scratch," he said. "Don’t let him touch you. Not once. Not a cut. Not a nick." He turned and started walking away down the alley. "And tell my wife—"

He stopped.

Didn’t turn around.

"Never mind," said the Boar. "Don’t tell her anything."

He left.

I sat in the alley for a long time.

Above me, through the open window, I could hear Mi-rae snoring.

I was a quarter hour late to the pig yard.

So-yeon was standing in the middle of it with her arms folded and her wooden sword resting on her shoulder.

She looked at me. My wet hair. My stitched elbow. My salt-crusted robe.

She sniffed.

"...Seawater," she said.

"Long story."

"Seawater and plum wine. And grilled squid." Her eyes narrowed. "The island woman at the night market. The one with the wine shop."

"How does EVERYONE know EVERYTHING—"

"Laundry women. Fifty forms for being late." She tossed me my wooden sword. "And I’m in a bad mood."

"Why?"

She didn’t answer.

She just tapped her sword twice against her palm. Tap tap.

She was jealous.

Yoon So-yeon, my uncle’s wife, who I’d known for two days, who owed me two and a half pieces of clothing, was jealous of a wine-shop woman she’d never met.

The system didn’t even need to tell me.

[Target: Yoon So-yeon.] [Desire +15.]

...Okay. It told me anyway.

"So-yeon. Before we start." I caught the sword. "I need to tell you something. About Gu’s blade."

She listened to the whole thing without moving.

When I finished, she was very pale.

"Night Lotus," she said quietly.

"You’ve heard of it."

"Jung-ho told me." She looked down at her own sword. "Twenty years ago. After the duel. The surgeon said the cut on his arm should have healed. It didn’t. The arm went numb within an hour. Dead within a day." Her voice went flat. "Jung-ho always said the Pine Root cut too deep. That’s what he told everyone. That he was just too slow."

She looked up at me.

"But the cut wasn’t that deep, Mu-jin. I saw it. I was there. I was seventeen, betrothed to him, watching from the stands." Her knuckles went white on the sword. "It was a scratch. A long scratch. And his arm died."

The pig yard was very quiet.

"He did it before," I said slowly.

"He did it before."

Twenty years. My uncle sitting in the far wing with a dead arm, believing he lost because he was slow.

When he lost because Gu Seung-hwan cheated.

So-yeon was shaking.

Not crying. So-yeon doesn’t seem like a crier. Shaking. With something much hotter than tears.

She lifted her wooden sword.

"New rule," she said. Her voice was low and terrible. "No more pieces. No more games."

"So-yeon—"

"Every time I touch you with this sword, Mu-jin, you’re dead. Not a hit. Not a point. DEAD. Do you understand?" She pointed it at my throat. "A scratch kills you. A graze kills you. If my blade so much as brushes your sleeve, you’re lying in that arena with a dead arm while he takes his time."

She tapped her sword twice against her palm.

"Seventeen days," she said. "By the end of them, you’re not going to win. You’re going to be untouchable. Again."

She touched me forty-one times that morning.

Forty-one dead Baek Mu-jins.

She didn’t laugh once. Didn’t tease. Didn’t take off anything. She just came at me, over and over, and every time her wooden sword brushed my sleeve or my hip or my shoulder, she said one word.

"Dead."

By the forty-second, I was moving like a drunk crab. My elbow stitches had torn. My legs were shaking.

But on the forty-second, I felt her weight shift. Slipped. Waited. Felt the Pine Root coming. Stepped in.

Her sword went past behind me.

It didn’t touch me.

Not my sleeve. Not my hip. Nothing.

I was inside. Right up against her. Free hand on her elbow. Sword under her arm.

We stood there breathing hard. Her chest against mine. Both of us soaked in sweat.

She looked down at her own wooden blade. Hanging in the air behind my back. Not touching anything.

"...Alive," she whispered.

"Alive."

She dropped her sword.

And she grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me so hard I tasted blood. Hers or mine, I don’t know.

She kissed me like she was angry. At Gu. At twenty years. At the stands where she sat at seventeen watching a scratch kill her future husband’s arm. At everything.

Then she pulled back. Pressed her forehead to mine.

"I’m keeping the pieces," she breathed. "I’m not giving you any more pieces. Not until you walk out of that arena alive."

"...That’s fair."

"It’s not fair. Nothing about this is fair." She was shaking against me. "But I’ll owe you all of them. Every single one. With interest."

I was about to say something stupid. Something about how I’d make sure to collect.

And then, from behind us, near the back gate of the pig yard:

Clack.

Not an abacus.

The flat of a wooden practice sword, slapped against an open palm. Once. Hard.

We both turned.

Instructor Cha Mi-ran was standing at the gate.

Practice uniform. Black sash. Ponytail so tight it looked painful. Her own wooden sword in her hand. Her face completely, perfectly blank.

She looked at So-yeon. At So-yeon’s hands, still on my face. At So-yeon’s hair, down. At the two wooden swords in the mud.

Then at me.

"Baek Mu-jin," said Instructor Cha. Ice. Pure ice. "You owe me eight hundred sword forms."

"...Yes, Instructor."

"You’ve done ninety-eight."

"...Yes, Instructor."

"And instead of doing the other seven hundred and two," she said, stepping into the pig yard, "you’ve been doing them for HER."

So-yeon let go of my face. Slowly. Turned around to face the instructor.

Two women. Two wooden swords. One pig.

Cha lifted her sword. Pointed it at So-yeon.

"I don’t believe we’ve met," she said. "I’m the one who taught him to braid."

So-yeon bent down and picked her wooden sword up out of the mud.

"Yoon So-yeon," she said pleasantly. "I’m the one who taught him not to die."

The pig backed slowly into the corner of its pen.

So did I.