Chapter 53: Father

His study was exactly the same too.

Everything in the Baek estate was exactly the same. That’s what kept hitting me. Like the whole house had stopped the day I left and was just waiting.

The low desk. The brush stand. The scroll on the wall — one character, Endure, in my grandfather’s handwriting. The cold teapot. The cushion where the old Mu-jin used to kneel when he got called in to be scolded.

My father sat down behind the desk.

I stood.

He didn’t tell me to sit. He didn’t tell me to kneel. He just looked at me for a long time in the lamplight, the way you look at something you broke and aren’t sure how to fix.

"Your mother came home crying," he said finally. "She said you were thin."

"I eat."

"She said you laugh now."

I didn’t say anything.

"My son never laughed," said Baek Jung-hyeon. "Not once. Not when he was a baby. Not when he won his first sparring match. Not when his brothers teased him." His fingers rested flat on the desk. "Then he had a fever. And when he woke up, he laughed at a chicken for a quarter hour."

The lamp flickered.

"I’m not a fool," said my father. "I don’t know what happened in that fever. I don’t know who woke up." He looked at me. Steady. "I don’t want to know."

That’s what my mother said. Almost exactly.

They’d talked about it. Of course they had.

"But you’re standing in my study at the third bell," he went on, "with moss on your knees and scratches on your shoulders, having just climbed back over the wall from Seung-hwan’s house. The same wall. The same room." His mouth didn’t move, but something in his eyes did. "So whoever you are, you’re definitely a Baek. We’ve never been good at staying on our own side of walls."

I didn’t know what to say to that.

So I asked the thing I’d wanted to ask for a month.

"Why did you throw me out?"

He was quiet for a long time.

"Seung-hwan came to this house that night," he said. "After he chased you over the wall. He stood in the main hall with his sword drawn. In front of my servants. In front of your mother." His fingers curled slightly on the desk. "He demanded I give you to him. To do with as he liked. By clan law, he had the right. A man caught with another man’s wife."

I went cold.

"I said no," said my father. "He said then it would be a feud. Gu against Baek. He has more swords. More money. Your brothers would have died in the street within a month." He looked at me. "So I gave him something else. I gave him the gate. I disowned you in front of him. ’Until I say otherwise.’ You were no longer a Baek. You were nobody’s. And a clan elder can’t take vengeance on nobody without looking like a common thug."

I stared at him.

"You threw me out," I said slowly, "to save my life."

"I threw you out because you were an idiot who got caught on round three in broad daylight." His voice didn’t change at all. "And to save your life. Both."

The lamp crackled.

I had been angry at this man for a month. Not the old Mu-jin’s anger. Mine. For the way he looked at me on that platform. For the gate. For the bundle in the street.

And he’d been sitting in this study every night since, not sleeping. Breaking practice swords against posts in the dark.

"...Thank you," I said.

It came out very quiet.

He nodded once.

"Your uncle came to see me last night," said my father. "First time in twelve years he’s walked into this study. He told me about the Night Lotus."

Oh.

"I always knew," said Baek Jung-hyeon. "Twenty years. I always knew that duel was wrong. That scratch. That arm. I just could never prove it." His hand closed on the desk. Into a fist. "And I never forgave myself for letting my brother walk into that arena alone."

He stood up.

He was shorter than me. I’d never noticed.

"Tomorrow morning," he said, "the laundry women go into Seung-hwan’s house. And the Gu wife comes out with a basket on her hip." He looked at me. "Yes. I know about that too. Your aunt told me."

So-yeon. Of course.

"And Seung-hwan will say she went willingly. That she was kidnapped by washerwomen. That his wife is confused." He walked to the door. "Unless someone with standing is there to see her walk out on her own feet."

He stopped with his hand on the door.

"The patriarch of the Baek Clan," he said, "takes a walk most mornings. On the clan street. It’s good for his health."

He slid the door open.

"Go home, Mu-jin. Sleep. I’ll see you at the Gu gate at sunrise."

I stood there.

Then I bowed.

A real bow. All the way down. The way the old Mu-jin used to bow to this man, every morning, for nineteen years.

When I straightened up, my father wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at the scroll on the wall. Endure.

His eyes were wet.

He didn’t say anything.

Neither did I.

I didn’t sleep.

I sat on the steps of the Blue Willow Inn with Tae-man until dawn, eating cold dumplings, not talking.

Around the fourth bell, a servant in Gwak family colors showed up at the gate with a folded note. Seo-rin took it from her desk, read the outside, raised an eyebrow, and handed it to me without a word.

Perfect brushwork.

Are you awake? I can’t sleep. I’ve been rereading page eighteen. I think it’s possible. With a sturdier bed. I have a sturdier bed. — G.J.Y.

Tae-man read it over my shoulder.

He choked on his dumpling.

"Bro," he wheezed. "Bro. Is that Gi-chul’s MOM? Writing you about PAGE EIGHTEEN?"

"Don’t."

"What’s on page eighteen?"

"I don’t know."

"You don’t KNOW?"

"I haven’t read the book, Tae-man. She’s the one who reads it."

He stared at me. Then at the note. Then at the sky.

"I’ve been in Hangju my whole life," he said to the moon. "Not one widow. Not one note. Not one page."

I folded the note and put it in my sleeve. Next to Seo-ah’s unsent letter.

It was the only thing all night that made me smile.

At sunrise, I was standing on the clan street across from the Gu gate.

Not hiding. Just standing. In the blue robe my mother brought me. With the Baek crest in silver on the collar.

Twelve laundry women went in through the servants’ gate. Baskets of clean sheets on their hips. Hair wrapped. Heads down. The Gu guard at the side gate didn’t even look at them. Nobody ever does.

I waited.

The street was waking up. Servants sweeping. A vegetable cart. A dog.

And walking very slowly up the street from the Baek side, hands clasped behind his back, in his formal gray patriarch’s robe, was my father.

He stopped beside me. Didn’t look at me. Looked at the Gu gate.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning, Father."

"Lovely day for a walk."

"...Lovely day."

Behind him, two more men in gray. Old. Stooped. Baek Clan elders. My great-uncles. I’d seen them at new-year dinners, falling asleep in their soup.

They weren’t asleep now.

And behind THEM, shuffling up the street with his crippled arm hanging at his side and So-yeon at his elbow, Baek Jung-hyeon’s younger brother.

My uncle.

The whole Baek Clan. Standing on the street in front of Gu Seung-hwan’s gate at sunrise. Just taking a walk.

The Gu gate guards noticed. Started murmuring. One ran inside.

And then the servants’ gate opened.

The laundry women came out.

Twelve went in. Thirteen came out.

The thirteenth one walked in the middle of the line. Head wrapped in gray cloth. Patched apron. A basket of dirty sheets on her hip. Walking slow. Head down. Scratching her armpit.

I almost laughed.

The line walked right past the main gate. Right past the guards. Out onto the clan street.

And then the main gate of the Gu estate swung open.

Elder Gu Seung-hwan stood in the gateway.

Walking stick in his left hand. Sleeping robe still on. Hair loose. Face white with rage. Six guards behind him.

He looked at the line of laundry women.

He looked right at the thirteenth one.

"Hwa-ryeon," he said.

The line stopped.

The thirteenth laundry woman set her basket down in the street.

She pulled the gray cloth off her head. Her wild black hair fell down around her shoulders.

She turned around and looked at her husband.

"Go back inside," said Elder Gu. Very quiet. "Now."

Seol didn’t move.

The guards behind him stepped forward.

And my father stepped forward too.

Just one step. Off the side of the street. Into the open. Hands still clasped behind his back.

"Good morning, Seung-hwan," said Baek Jung-hyeon.

Elder Gu’s eyes went from his wife to my father. To the two elders behind him. To my uncle with his dead arm. To So-yeon. To me, in my blue robe with the Baek crest.

His face did something I’d never seen it do.

It hesitated.

"Jung-hyeon," he said. "This is a family matter."

"It is," my father agreed. "Your wife is standing in the street. Of her own will. On her own feet." He tilted his head. "Four Baek Clan witnesses. Five, counting my disowned son, who doesn’t count." A pause. "And about thirty of your neighbors, who are pretending to sweep their steps."

I looked around. He was right. Every gate on the clan street had a servant in it. Holding a broom. Not sweeping.

The laundry women of the clan district, too. Leaning out of the side alleys. Watching.

Elder Gu looked at all of it.

At his wife, with her hair down and her chin up.

His knuckles were white on the walking stick.

"If she leaves," said Elder Gu, "the terms stand. If the boy loses, she comes home."

"If the boy loses," said Seol, "I’ll come home." She picked up her basket. "But I’m not waiting in a locked room for it. I’ll wait somewhere with a window."

She turned around.

And walked away up the clan street, in the middle of twelve laundry women, with her hair down and a basket on her hip.

She didn’t look back once.

Elder Gu stood in his gateway and watched her go.

Then he looked at my father.

Twenty years. My uncle’s arm. A scratch.

The two old men stared at each other across the street.

"Thirteen days, Jung-hyeon," said Elder Gu softly.

"Thirteen days," said my father.

Elder Gu turned around and went back inside. The gate swung shut behind him.

The whole clan street let out its breath.

My father turned and started walking back toward the Baek estate. Slowly. Hands behind his back. Like he really was just out for a walk.

As he passed me, without looking at me, he said:

"Nice robe."

And kept walking.

That night was the third night.

I’d almost forgotten.

Hwang’s note was still in my sleeve, under Seo-ah’s letter and Ji-yeon’s page eighteen. I’ve started the white root. Three days to steep. Come to my quarters on the third night. Bring nothing.

I went.

Her door was open. One lantern. The go board. The cranes. The incense.

And Hwang Yu-seon, standing by her bed in a thin white under-robe, holding a small jade jar in both hands.

She lifted the lid.

The smell hit me. Pine. Something bitter and clean. Something green.

"The salve," she said. "White root. Pine resin. A few other things I’m not going to tell you." She tilted the jar so I could see. Pale green. Thick. Shining in the lamplight. "Gu’s blade could touch you anywhere. Your arm. Your ribs. Your neck. Your thigh."

She set the jar down on the table.

"The salve has to be worked into the skin," said Hwang. "Slowly. Every inch. With warm hands. It takes about an hour. And it has to be done every night for the next thirteen nights, or it fades."

She looked at me.

"Take off your robe, Mu-jin," said the headmistress. "All of it."