Chapter 45: The Uncle

I’ll be honest with you.

I have never in either life wanted anything as much as I wanted to land that second hit.

Not the duel. Not the inn. Not Seol’s freedom.

The sash.

So-yeon tapped her sword twice against her palm. Falling Pine. I slipped left. She stepped back and waited, and I came forward, and the Pine Root came low across at my arm—

I stepped in too early.

She saw it. Shifted her hip. Her wooden sword changed direction mid-swing and cracked me across the back of the knees, and I went down in the mud.

"Fifty," she said cheerfully.

"That’s not FAIR. That’s not what Gu does!"

"It’s what Gu WILL do, if you step in before he commits." She stood over me with her hair down. The ribbon still lying in the mud where she’d dropped it. "Patience, nephew. The Pine Root has to be all the way out before you go. If you go early, he changes the cut. If you go late, you lose your arm."

"So how do I know when?"

"You feel it." She tapped my chest with her sword. "You’ve got all those women’s yin swirling around in there. Use it. Feel when his weight moves."

I lay in the mud.

Feel it.

The braid. Four strands turning slow in my belly. Water and wind and ink and coins.

Cha taught me to braid them. Then she taught me to hold a thread steady while my hands were on a woman. Focus. Circle.

What if I didn’t push the thread out through my hands?

What if I just... let it sit? Listening?

I got up.

"Again."

Tap tap. Falling Pine. Slip left.

She stepped back. Waited.

I didn’t move. Just stood there. Let the braid in my belly slow down. Quiet. Waiting. Like Seo-rin’s abacus right before she flicks a bead.

She frowned. I wasn’t coming. She’d have to come to me.

She came.

The Pine Root. Low. From her right hip.

And I felt it. Not saw it. Felt it. Her weight shifting onto her front leg. Her hips committing. The braid in my belly flickered like a candle when someone opens a door.

Now.

I stepped in.

Inside the arc. Her sword sweeping past behind me. My hand on her elbow. Push.

My sword up under her arm.

Tap.

She froze. Pressed up against me. Breathing hard.

She looked down at the wooden sword against her ribs. Then up at me.

"...How did you know?"

"I felt it."

She stared at me for a long moment.

Then she reached down without looking and pulled the knot of her sash.

It came loose. Slid off her waist. Fell into the mud next to the ribbon.

The thin green under-robe fell open in front. Just a little. Just enough.

"Two," said So-yeon.

Her voice was not steady anymore.

[Target: Yoon So-yeon.] [Desire +20.]

The third hit took me eleven tries.

Five hundred and fifty sword forms owed to my uncle’s wife. I’ll be doing sword forms until I’m ninety.

But on the twelfth try I felt it again. That flicker. Her weight going forward. I stepped in.

Tap.

We were pressed together again. Her under-robe hanging open. My chest bare. Both of us soaked with sweat and mud. Breathing into each other’s faces in the last orange light.

She didn’t step back this time.

She stood there against me. Her eyes searching my face. Her hand still holding her wooden sword out to the side, forgotten.

Then, very slowly, she reached up with her other hand. Hooked one finger under the shoulder of her under-robe.

Pulled it down.

The thin green cloth slid off her shoulder. Down her arm. Caught at her elbow.

She didn’t pull the other side.

"Three," she whispered. "Half of three."

"There’s no half."

"There is now." Her lips were almost touching mine. "I’m making it up as I go, nephew."

I could feel her heartbeat. I could feel everything.

She leaned in—

Clap.

We froze.

Clap.

Clap.

Slow. Deliberate. One hand on something hard.

We both turned our heads.

Standing at the back gate of the inn yard, half in shadow, was a man.

Tall. Gray at the temples. Thin in a way that looked like he’d once been very strong and then stopped eating properly. A plain dark robe. His right arm hung at his side, thin and twisted, the hand curled in on itself like a dead leaf.

His left hand was clapping against the gatepost.

Baek Jung-ho.

My uncle.

So-yeon pulled her under-robe back up over her shoulder so fast she nearly ripped it.

I stepped back. Fell over the pig trough. Landed on my ass in the mud.

The pig squealed.

My uncle walked into the yard. Slowly. Looking at his wife. At her hair, down. At her sash and ribbon in the mud. At her face, red to the ears.

Then at me. On the ground. Shirtless. Covered in mud and pig slop.

He didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then he said, "Climbing the Pine."

I blinked.

"That last one," said Baek Jung-ho. "You got it right. You didn’t step in early." He looked at me with dark, tired eyes. Baek eyes. My father’s eyes, but sadder. "How did you know when?"

"...I felt it. Her weight."

He was quiet.

"I never felt it," he said. "Twenty years ago. I went early. Gu changed the cut." He lifted his twisted right arm. Just a little. As much as it would go. "This is what going early looks like."

So-yeon was staring at the ground.

My uncle looked at her.

"So-yeon," he said gently.

She flinched.

"Look at me."

She looked at him.

And I watched him look at his wife. Hair down. Robe half off. Mud to the knees. Flushed and breathing hard and caught.

I braced myself. For anger. For anything.

What I saw on his face was something else.

"You were laughing," said Baek Jung-ho. "Earlier. When he fell in the trough. I heard you from the street." His voice cracked, just slightly. "I haven’t heard you laugh like that since before the duel."

So-yeon’s eyes filled up.

"Jung-ho—"

"I know." He held up his good hand. "I know what this is. I’m not a fool. I sent you here."

"...What?"

"I sent you here," he said. "Lady Min came to our wing crying. And I thought — the boy needs to learn the counter. And my wife needs..." He stopped. Looked at the mud. "My wife needs someone who will look at her the way I haven’t been able to for twenty years."

The yard was completely silent.

Even the pig was quiet.

"I can’t fight anymore," said my uncle. "I can’t lift a sword. I can’t—" He stopped again. Swallowed. "But I can teach. And she can learn. And now you can learn. And maybe in eighteen days, a Baek will step inside Gu Seung-hwan’s Pine Root and finally climb it."

He walked over to me. Looked down at me in the mud.

Then he held out his left hand.

I took it. He pulled me up. Weaker than So-yeon. But he did it.

"Your free hand," he said, "goes to the elbow. Not the forearm. You were grabbing the forearm. The forearm can turn. The elbow can’t." He tapped my elbow with two fingers. "Here. Always here."

"...Here."

"Good."

He let go of my hand. Turned to his wife.

She was standing there in her mud-soaked under-robe with tears running down her face.

He reached out with his good hand and wiped one away. Very gently.

"Come home tonight," he said. "Or don’t. Either is fine."

Then he turned around and walked out the back gate, slow, his crippled arm hanging at his side.

We stood there in the dark yard and watched him go.

So-yeon didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then she bent down. Picked her sash and her ribbon out of the mud. Held them.

"I’m going home tonight," she said quietly.

"Okay."

"Not because I don’t want to stay." She looked at me. Her eyes were red. "Because he just did the bravest thing I’ve ever seen him do. And I want to be there when he gets home."

"...Okay."

She walked toward the gate. Stopped. Turned around.

"Mu-jin. Where’s your room? Which door?"

"Top floor. East wing. The one with the hole in the ceiling."

She smiled. Small. A little shaky.

"Tomorrow," she said. "Training. Same time. And nephew—"

She held up her muddy sash.

"I owe you two and a half pieces. I don’t forget debts."

Then she was gone.

I couldn’t go back inside after that.

I was too wound up. Too full of everything. My uncle’s dead hand. So-yeon’s tears. Two and a half pieces. Eighteen days.

I walked out the front gate. Seo-rin logged me without looking up. Baek Mu-jin. First bell. Walking. Covered in pig.

The night market was three streets over. Lanterns. Food stalls. Grilled squid. Rice wine. People everywhere. I just walked. Let the noise wash over me.

At the far end of the market, there was a little wine shop. Six stools. A counter. Clay jars stacked up the walls. A red lantern over the door.

And behind the counter, a woman.

[Target Detected.]

Late thirties. Skin a deep, warm gold. Sun-dark, the kind you only get from the southern coast, from the islands, where women dive for abalone. Thick black hair pulled back in a heavy braid. Big gold hoops in her ears. A tight black sleeveless top, stretched over a chest that made the clay jars look small, with a strip of red silk showing at the edge of it. Wide hips in dark trousers cinched with a red sash. A little softness at the belly, just above the sash, that made her look warm and real and completely edible.

She was wiping down the counter with a rag. Not looking at anybody.

I was walking toward her counter when three men cut right in front of me.

Big. Sleeveless shirts. Boar tattoos on their necks.

Of course.

They didn’t even see me. They walked straight up to the wine shop, slapped a coin on the counter, and grabbed a jar off the shelf without asking.

The woman looked up. Her face went tight.

"That jar’s two coppers," she said. Southern accent. Rolling. Warm. "You gave me one."

"Take it up with the Boar," said the biggest one, grinning. He leaned on the counter. "Or take it up with me. Later. I get off at the second bell." He reached across and grabbed her wrist.

She yanked it back. "Don’t."

His friends laughed. "Come on, island girl. We hear you divers can hold your breath a long time."

"Two coppers," she said again. Her voice had gone cold. "Or get out of my shop."

They didn’t move.

I was tired. I was covered in mud and pig slop. I owed eight hundred sword forms to one woman and five hundred and fifty to another, and my uncle had just broken my heart.

And I was done with Boar men.

"Hey," I said.

The three of them turned around.

"Pay the lady her copper," I said, "and get out of my way. I want a drink."

The biggest one looked at me. Up and down. The mud. The bare chest. The slop.

Then his eyes went wide.

"...You’re the Baek boy."

"Yeah."

"The one from the canal. The one Boar Neck—"

"Yeah."

He grinned. Slow and ugly.

"Boar Neck’s still pissing blood from that laundry paddle," he said. "He’d pay good money to see you with a broken face."

He let go of the wine jar.

And swung.