← The North Wind Blows at the Treetops
Chapter 7
It was said he was from some obscure family, but in fact there were few who knew who his origins or his family were. At eighteen he had entered the Inner Medical Office to talk of being a prodigy, and with his heaven-given skill he had cured the imperial family’s difficult illnesses and become a royal physician at a green young age, a story like a legend. When In-ah had just entered the Inner Medical Office, he had heard such stories from his colleagues and fallen into a kind of rapture, quietly following his back. At least until he met him face to face, A-ching had been to him ‘an object of admiration’…
What had he been like on the day he first saw him? A handsome young man in a snow-white silk dopo with a dark blue official robe layered over it, his waist cinched slim with a yellow tassel belt. A crane among chickens, he stood out at once, not only among the old, grizzled royal physicians but among the young physicians too. Leaning his chin askew on a desk in the dimming daylight, his long eyelashes lowered slightly as he turned the pages of a medical book, he was so absorbed that he did not even notice In-ah coming up beside him to hand him a cup of fragrant tea. When In-ah carefully called out, ‘Royal Physician, sir!’, he had looked at him with his dark eyes, glancing indifferently.
His bloodless lips curved in a strangely fine arc as he smiled. Though he went about always with an indifferent face, as if he had no interest in the affairs of the world, he would sometimes smile this beautifully, enough to make a person’s heart drop, and at those times he felt so much like a different person that a foolish doubt would bloom, wondering if he was wearing a mask he had prepared somewhere.
The voice that whispered, “Thank you,” was clearly a sound, and yet it had a taste sweet enough to make his tongue tingle. A-ching swept his long, flowing hair behind his ear and sipped the tea. Watching a flush of life return to his dry lips, In-ah understood for the first time what it felt like when people watered flowers and felt pleased.
Ah, where had his hair tie gone again… For him, muttering to himself in complaint, In-ah quickly knelt on the floor and found the fallen silk cord. And with a blue cord he gathered his hair together and tied it up neatly.
Because he wanted to see him smile one more time.
That was how it had been then.
But look at the reality. As if to prove those eyes that found everything a bother, whenever he was summoned he would be holed up somewhere idling. In-ah had tried hard to steady his heart, thinking it must be the eccentricity of those called ‘geniuses,’ but ever since he had witnessed him sharing clouds and rain with the palace people, he had taken to treating him roughly like this. This time was no different. He could have asked nicely to be put down gently, so what was pulling his ear for? The end of his earring had caught and scratched him, and blood had even seeped out.
“You really are cruel, you are.”
A-ching let out a deep sigh. In-ah felt a little sorry, but if he apologized now, it was plain to see that he would only grow more arrogant and refuse to think of his own fault at all, so he forced down the words of apology and walked ahead. After they had gone down like that for a while, he suddenly felt no sign of anyone behind him and turned around.
A-ching stood there, his face screwed up, pressing his temple firmly with the tip of his forefinger.
“Is it a headache again?”
“Isn’t it like this because you made my head ring?”
In-ah, coming toward him, made a tearful face. A-ching let out another deep sigh. And he caught, with a slap, the hand the boy stretched out, saying he would feel his forehead.
“Here, if we go down holding hands like this, it looks nice, doesn’t it?”
“Ag, another lie. The real A-ching-nim is…”
A-ching gave a short snorting laugh and let go of In-ah’s hand. And this time he walked ahead. The face that had been smiling brightly twisted in pain the moment it turned its back on In-ah. He glanced to check on In-ah, and the boy had his head buried in the ground, as if he had found some wildflower. From inside his robes he took out white powdered medicine and poured it into his mouth. Haa, a long breath escaped, whether a sigh or a lament he could not tell. The vicious pain that had been rummaging through his head faded with the medicine’s effect. Before, picking it up with his fingertips and placing it on the tip of his tongue had been enough to make it better, but now he had to pour it in until his mouth grew gritty, so his time to die must be near.
Suddenly he stroked the letter he carried inside his robes. It was a letter delivered a little while ago, tied to a carrier pigeon’s ankle. Because In-ah had appeared, he had not read its contents, but judging by the recent trend, it was certain it would order him to do some troublesome thing again.
Ah, no matter how loyal a spy he had sworn to be, was it not a bit too much to use him like this until his strength was exhausted? He would grumble alone like this, then resign himself to the thought that, after all, that was the whole of his use.
“Still, doing nothing but clearing away corpses every day is really tiring…”
“Huh?”
“Aaah, no, you don’t need to know. So, where am I summoned this time? The Emperor’s hall, or…”
“To Heumhyanggak, he said.”
‘Again.’
A-ching snorted and nodded meekly. If told to go, go, if told to treat, treat, what else could he do? In-ah picked up the acupuncture kit box he had prepared in advance at the foot of the hill and had no choice but to stride toward the Western Palace, where Heumhyanggak stood.
***
Heumhyanggak was the residence of the Second Imperial Consort. From of old, only a yangin could inherit the throne, and a eumin was said to be a good marriage match for the imperial family. Even so, it was customary to take a woman into the consort’s seat rather than a man, for whom bearing children was difficult. But the present Second Imperial Consort, Ye Seol-ah, had broken that long custom and been enthroned as consort though he was a man. Dressed in fine clothes, sitting demurely with delicate makeup painted on his white face, he looked lovelier and more beautiful than any woman, and with the aloofness peculiar to one who had entered the palace as a scholar lingering about him, his sensuality lingered but was not vulgar, his lines were slender but not merely frail, and he gave off a strange atmosphere. And above all, the eumin’s unique scent, the particular body odor that flowed out unrefined, was so bewitching that it made not only yangin but ordinary people turn and look once. A saying had spread that whenever Ye Seol-ah fluttered his collar, the men’s crotches stirred.
Ye Seol-ah was such a man.
The present Emperor, who had been captivated by him since his crown prince days, had no sooner ascended the throne than he brushed aside even the Empress Dowager’s fierce opposition and selected him as consort. And he was so enchanting that even the ministers could not bring themselves to criticize his choice to his face, the phrase ‘a beauty that topples a kingdom’ suiting him enough to make one tremble.
But…
That was only his outward appearance. Even the palace people said it. Ye Seol-ah bewitched the Emperor with his beauty and tried to sway state affairs, the Emperor had lost his mind to Ye Seol-ah’s crotch and was neglecting the state.
Well, it was a familiar pattern. A convenient thought, too.
“Your Majesty, I, A-ching, have come at your summons.”
“Enter.”
From their standpoint, it must have been better that the Emperor they served had fallen for a wrong seduction and lost his way for a while than that he was a madman.
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