Lee Chi frowned at the physician, who spoke first of his own punishment rather than the state of the departed Crown Princess. The physician, who had been pounding his forehead on the floor crying out for death, belatedly began gabbling excuses for the cause of the Crown Princess’s death, as if in self-defense.
“Her Highness never regained her strength these past days. For restoring vigor, aconite is best, but for a pregnant woman aconite may turn poisonous, so I tried deer kidneys. But that too had no effect, so I tried mild medicines. Yet after that—”
“Drag the criminal out.”
At the prince’s command, Lee Chi seized the physician and hauled him up.
“Your Highness! Your Highness, forgive me just once! Your Highness, Your Highness!”
The physician wailed as Lee Chi dragged him away. The prince, without sparing the man so much as a glance, said,
“Behead him.”
“Y-your Highness…”
The physician repeated his pleas for mercy in a dying voice. Watching the prince, who didn’t blink an eye, Yu Yeong clicked his tongue inwardly. You were so diligently copying the Twenty-four Articles just now — have you already forgotten everything written there, he wanted to ask.
The prince stood in the dark room until the physician’s voice died away completely. Without a word, he gazed at the dead Crown Princess’s face — or rather, at the undyed cloth covering it. And yet, for some reason, Yu Yeong felt that the prince could see even the expression of the corpse beneath the cloth.
“Princess Jeok.”
The prince called his bride in a low voice. To his bride, who gave no answer, he offered his final words of acknowledgment.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Rest in peace. Crown Prince Igang bowed his head as he spoke. Yu Yeong bowed behind him, paying his respects to the dead.
When they left the Crown Princess’s palace, the rain had grown heavier still. Holding the umbrella over the prince in the eunuch’s stead, Yu Yeong whispered as if into his ear.
“Would you not compose your throat?”
“He’s no different from the Empress’s own man now. Spare him and more will lose their lives by him than are saved.”
Having said so, Igang smiled coldly.
“If he doesn’t want to die, he’ll confess. That he strangled her on the Empress’s orders.”
He spoke as if it were nothing, but he didn’t seem to expect much. Naturally. It had been the same with the first Crown Princess, Princess Shin. Minister Jo, of all people, wouldn’t have left loose ends in some crude way. By now, the physician’s family would be carrying the gold and silver — the price of his life — to some distant province. Perhaps they’d headed for the western Gwonryong nation, or south to Hye.
“Whatever comes, the Empress said she’d find the cause by every means, so we must uncover their next scheme first.”
“Obviously.”
Igang said, splashing through the puddled water.
“If the physicians can’t find the cause, it’ll be the priests next.”
At the prince’s words, Yu Yeong’s eyes nearly popped. Priests after physicians? Of all people, the priests, who spouted empty nonsense — earrings if hung on ears, nose rings if hung on noses.
“Minister Jo has likely already gotten to the priests as well.”
“No doubt.”
“They’ll blame it all on Your Highness, unconditionally.”
At his matchlessly indifferent tone, Yu Yeong’s insides burned.
“How can you be so calm?”
At Yu Yeong’s sigh, Igang finally turned to look at his subject. As if it were the fretting subject he couldn’t understand, he said with a relaxed expression,
“Well, it’s the expected course ever since the princess conceived, isn’t it.”
Yu Yeong was struck speechless.
“If you expected it, then why…”
“Did I let the princess die, you mean?”
Igang cut off Yu Yeong’s words, asking first himself.
“Once could be coincidence. But when coincidence repeats, it’s no longer coincidence.”
In other words, the prince had watched the entire process of the princess being killed by them, to learn whether her death was connected to the Empress.
Yu Yeong’s blood ran cold. He’d known the prince was cold and heartless, but he’d never dreamed he’d use his own bride as a sacrifice to read the political winds.
“Well. So far, everything is as expected.”
Through the driving rain, a red gate began to appear in the distance. The kirin-presenting-a-son painting on the gate was the symbol of the Eastern Palace. Arriving at Gihyeon Palace, the Crown Prince’s residence—
Passing through the grand gates as they swung open, Igang said with a look of no small interest,
“Now I wonder what nonsense they’ll spout through the priests’ mouths.”
The late Crown Princess’s funeral was conducted as a thirty-day mourning, per protocol. It being the second Crown Princess’s funeral in a mere three years, everything proceeded with astonishing smoothness compared to Princess Shin’s time.
The moment the thirty days of mourning ended and everyone in the palace had shed their mourning clothes, the priests gathered at the temple to offer rites and divine the cause of the recent calamity.
At the temple, the priests gathered to offer rites and divine the cause of the recent calamity. For three days and nights the drums and bells did not cease. On the fourth day, at last, the Emperor’s command came down to bring the prince to the temple. When Igang arrived, the Emperor and Empress sat side by side, listening to the old high priest’s voice.
And then.
“This is unmistakably the dragon’s curse.”
At the high priest’s grave pronouncement, Igang couldn’t help a hollow laugh. Of course, he hadn’t expected any sensible answer. But even so, he hadn’t thought they’d spout anything this absurd. What was even more staggering was that the Emperor was listening to the high priest’s tale with an unusually solemn face.
“The dragon’s curse, you say?”
At the Emperor’s question, the high priest bowed low. “Indeed.”
“Three years ago, in the war with Gwonryong, Your Highness the Crown Prince burned dozens of their temples and shrines. The people of Gwonryong have long enshrined a portion of the dragon’s divine body there and offered rites. But that divine body burned away with the temples, and so the grudge and fury of the dragon, bereft of its body, is believed to have turned toward Your Highness.”
Well, they’ve stitched quite a tale. As Igang snorted, the Empress asked with a feigned worried face,
“Then what is to be done about it?”
“To my shame, I have heard of no way to lift the dragon’s curse.”
The high priest bowed as if abashed. The Emperor’s countenance darkened at once. At the Emperor’s undisguised displeasure, the high priest quickly prostrated himself further and said, “However,”
“As for a way for His Highness the Crown Prince to safely produce an heir, there is one…”
“What is it?”
“The bong.”
The bong? The Emperor knit his brow.
“By bong, you mean… the Ikhwan tribe.”
“Indeed.”
The high priest bowed.
“The bong has since ancient times been said to devour dragon hatchlings. The male is called bong, the female hwang, and if you take their hwang as your bride, you will suffer no harm from the dragon’s curse — indeed, you will shield the realm from it.”
“You mean to bring a woman of the Ikhwan tribe.”
The Empress smoothly laid the groundwork.
“But there are no women left among the Ikhwan, are there.”
The Emperor said, still frowning. As if he’d been waiting, the high priest bowed and said,
“Indeed, there are no women among the Ikhwan. But…”
***
Though he had plainly told him to come at the Hour of the Monkey, the crown prince did not reach the pavilion until well past the Hour of the Rooster. It was blatant tardiness, yet neither the prince himself nor any of his attending servants showed a hint of remorse. Only Wiryang stood alone before the master he’d kept waiting, grinding his teeth.
Pretending not to see Wiryang, Huian slowly rose.
“You’ve come.”
Bowing in greeting, Huian gestured toward the prince’s servants. Bring out the old guchun, the gesture meant. Then, seating himself, he set the geomungo on his lap.
“Let us begin.”
At Huian’s immediate start of the lesson, the prince looked faintly disconcerted. He’d evidently expected to be interrogated — why so late, what kept you. But Huian seemed to have no such intention. The sun would set soon. The prince had likely aimed for just that, arriving only now — in which case, the sooner the lesson started, the better.
Perhaps conscious of his fault, the prince began plucking the geomungo with rare diligence. But that lasted only a moment. To the prince, who was soon shirking and fiddling his fingers idly, Huian said in his usual quiet tone,
“Your Highness. You must press the strings a little harder.”
“My fingers hurt, I tell you.”
“That’s because your calluses haven’t properly formed yet.”
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