Chapter 51: Everyone

Seo-rin had a box on her desk.

A little wooden box. Plain. Next to the logbook. With a slot in the lid.

When I came through the gate that afternoon, she pointed at it with her pipe without looking up.

"Yours," she said.

"What is it?"

"Your mail." Clack. "I got tired of people leaving notes on my desk."

I opened it.

It was full.

Not a few notes. Full. Folded paper, silk-wrapped messages, a scrap of rice paper with a squid drawn on it. I sat down on the stool beside her desk and started going through them.

Bro. You were in the HEADMISTRESS’S BED? Gi-chul told me. Gi-chul was traumatized. Explain. EVERYTHING. — T.M.

Of course.

Are you free tonight? Gi-chul is at his grandmother’s. — G.J.Y.

The brushwork was perfect. There was a tiny ink mark at the end that might have been a heart and might have been an accident. Knowing Ji-yeon, it was neither. It was a heart she’d tried to make look like an accident.

I still owe you two and a half pieces. Plus interest. I’ve been calculating. — Y.S.Y.

So-yeon. She’d been talking to Seo-rin. That was terrifying.

The squid man asks after you. He says to come back and make noise again, he misses it. Also come eat. I’m cooking. — K.M.R.

A squid. A little drawing of a squid. With a heart.

Your mother’s rice cakes are in the kitchen. The cook tried to eat one. I stopped him. — J.H.S.

Jin. Short and practical. Of course.

I’ve started the white root. It needs three days to steep. Come to my quarters on the third night. Bring nothing. — H.Y.S.

And one more. Folded very small. Plain paper. Pressed flat like it had been carried in a sleeve for a long time.

Ji-yeon and I are having tea tomorrow morning. Then the faculty meeting. I’m bringing plum cakes. You owe me 702 forms. The headmistress says I’m not allowed to be angry at you about her, only at her. I’m working on it. — C.M.R.

I sat there with a lap full of notes.

Seo-rin flicked a bead.

"Nine women," she said. "Ten, if you count the capital girl. One duel. Fifteen days." She didn’t look up from her ledger. "Do you know what the odds are?"

"Fifty to one?"

"Fifty to one against you," she said, "was before the magistrate took the duel."

She turned her ledger around.

A new number. Written in red ink.

Odds as of this morning: two hundred to one.

We needed a plan.

A real one.

And for the first time since I woke up in this body, every single person who could help me was in one place.

It was Seo-rin’s idea. She booked the back room of Mi-rae’s wine shop. After closing. She sent notes. Short ones. Tonight. Second bell. The wine shop at the end of the night market. About the duel. Come or don’t.

They came.

I’ll never forget that room.

Six stools at the counter. Not nearly enough. So people sat on wine barrels. On crates. On the stairs. Mi-rae stood behind the counter with her braid down, pouring cups and handing them out like she’d been running a war council all her life.

Seo-rin, at the end of the counter, with her abacus and a stack of ledgers.

Ayla, cross-legged on a barrel, sword across her knees, Seo-rin’s jade pin still in her hair.

Yeon-hee, with her medicine bag, looking nervous. She’d told Dong-min she was visiting a patient.

Ji-yeon, in her navy robe buttoned to the throat, sitting very straight on a crate like it was a throne. Gi-chul beside her, taking notes.

Hwang, in plain gray, no plum, no silver pin. Sitting in a corner like a shadow.

Cha, beside her, arms folded. They weren’t speaking. But they were sitting together.

So-yeon, leaning against the wall with her sword on her back, looking at everyone like she was memorizing their footwork.

Jin, by the door, standing guard. Out of habit.

Seol, in her laundry apron, sitting on the bottom step with the old laundry woman with three missing teeth, who had not been invited and had come anyway.

And Tae-man. On a barrel. Eating grilled squid the squid man had sent over. Staring around the room with his mouth open.

"Bro," he whispered to me. "Bro. This is ALL of them?"

"...Yeah."

"In ONE room?"

"Yeah."

He looked around. At the headmistress. At the instructor. At the widow. At the swordswoman. At the bookkeeper and the physician and the steward and the wine-shop woman and the Gu wife.

"I’m going to die," said Tae-man. "Of jealousy. Right here. On this barrel."

It was awkward. For about five breaths.

Nobody knew where to look. Ayla looked at So-yeon like she was sizing up her sword. So-yeon looked back. Ji-yeon looked at Mi-rae like she was pricing her wine. Mi-rae looked at Ji-yeon’s spectacles like she’d never seen anything so funny. Yeon-hee looked at the floor.

Then Seol stood up from the bottom step.

"I’ve been married to Gu Seung-hwan for twenty-one years," she said. "Everyone in this room hates him. So let’s stop staring at each other and figure out how to beat the old goat."

The old laundry woman cackled.

And just like that, the room relaxed.

It took two hours and four jugs of Mi-rae’s wine.

Seo-rin laid out the numbers. Jin laid out what she knew about the magistrate’s courtyard. Small. Walled. One gate. Gu’s men would be everywhere. The magistrate would sit on a platform under a canopy, with Gu’s friends beside him.

Hwang explained the Night Lotus. All of it. To everyone. Her voice never shook once. When she said I made it, the whole room went quiet. Ayla’s hand went to her sword. Seol’s eyes went wide.

Nobody said anything for a long time.

Then Mi-rae came out from behind her counter with a fresh jug of wine and poured Hwang’s cup full.

"My first husband burned my arm," she said simply. "Everyone here has done something they wish they hadn’t, or had something done to them they can’t undo." She set the jug down. "Drink."

Hwang looked up at her.

Then she drank.

And the room moved on.

The salve was solved. Untouchable training was solved. Climbing the Pine was solved. Gi-chul’s lie about slipping right was in place.

The only thing that wasn’t solved was the judge.

"Even if Mu-jin wins," said Seo-rin, "the magistrate can rule it however he likes. A foul. An illegal move. A forfeit. He can say Mu-jin lost even if Gu is lying on the ground."

"And Gu’s blade," said Cha. "Without the headmistress, nobody checks it."

Silence.

Then Ji-yeon pushed her spectacles up her nose.

"The magistrate," she said, "is the highest authority in Hangju."

"We know," said Ayla.

"In Hangju." Ji-yeon folded her hands on her knees. "Formal duels of clan honor fall under the rites. Ceremonies. Proper conduct. They have since the founding of the dynasty." She looked around the room. "And the rites are governed by the Ministry of Rites. In the capital. Any Ministry of Rites official can send an inspector to observe a formal duel. And an inspector from the Ministry outranks a provincial magistrate."

The room was very quiet.

"...Does anyone here know someone in the Ministry of Rites?" asked Seo-rin.

Every head in the room turned.

Slowly.

Toward me.

I looked down at my wine cup.

Seo-ah’s father. Vice Minister of Rites Yun.

Who had looked at me on the academy steps like a closed door. Who knew his daughter wrote about me in every letter. Who took her away at dawn so fast she didn’t get to finish her list.

"No," I said.

"Mu-jin—" said Ji-yeon.

"No. I’m not asking her to beg her father for me. He took her away BECAUSE of me. If she asks him for this, he’ll—" I stopped. "He’ll know. And she’ll pay for it."

The room was silent.

Then Yeon-hee, who hadn’t said one word in two hours, said quietly:

"She’d want to know."

I looked at her.

"She’d want to know," said Yeon-hee. "If it were me. If I were in the capital, waiting, and you were going to die in fifteen days, and there was one thing I could do." Her voice shook. "I’d want to know. I’d want to choose. Don’t decide for her, Mu-jin. Everyone’s always deciding for her."

I didn’t say anything.

I thought about a crumpled list on a dormitory floor.

4. It will not be decided by my father.

The old laundry woman on the bottom step spat on the floor.

"Write the girl a letter, Baek boy," she said. "Before I write it for you."

They left one by one.

Ayla kissed me on the head on her way out. Seo-rin flicked a bead in my direction. Ji-yeon squeezed my hand and whispered "I’ll arrange a fast courier." Hwang and Cha left together, still not speaking, still side by side. So-yeon said "dawn" and tapped her sword twice. Jin said "I’ll walk the physician home" and Yeon-hee went pink.

Seol stayed until the very end. She stood at the door with the old laundry woman.

"Thank you," she said to me. "For all of this. For a room full of women who’d go to war for you."

"They’re not doing it for me," I said. "They’re doing it to beat Gu."

Seol smiled. Wild and tired.

"Sweetheart," she said. "Look around. They’re doing it for you."

Then she was gone, into the night, her apron flapping, the old woman holding her arm.

It was just me and Mi-rae.

She locked the door. Put out half the lanterns. Came around the counter and set a plate in front of me. Grilled fish. Rice. A little bowl of something green and salty that smelled like the ocean.

"You didn’t eat," she said. "All night. I watched."

"I wasn’t hungry."

"You’re always hungry. You’re a boy." She sat on the stool next to me. Picked up my chopsticks. Pinched a piece of fish. Held it up to my mouth. "Eat."

I ate.

She fed me the whole plate like that. One bite at a time. Watching me. Not saying anything. Her knee pressed against mine. Her other hand resting on my back. Warm. Rough. Steady.

When the plate was empty, she set the chopsticks down.

Then she leaned over and kissed the corner of my mouth, where a grain of rice was stuck.

Then the other corner.

Then my mouth.

Slow. Salty. Tasting like fish and wine.

"Island women," she murmured against my lips, "feed a man before he goes into a storm. Even if he doesn’t come back."

"I’m coming back."

"I know." She pulled back. Looked at me. "I’ve decided."

Then she slid off her stool and onto my lap. Right there at her own counter. Her arms around my neck. Her braid falling over my shoulder.

The counter was hard against my back. The last lanterns were flickering. Somewhere above us, the squid man was snoring through the floor.

She kissed me again. Deeper. And this time it wasn’t a game. Wasn’t a test. Wasn’t about breath.

It was a woman holding a man before a storm.

I held her back.

We stayed like that until the lanterns went out.

I wrote the letter at dawn. At her counter. On a sheet of rice paper she found in the back.

It took me eleven tries.

The eleventh one was only four lines long.

I folded it. Tied it with the blue ribbon from my sleeve — Seo-ah’s ribbon, the one she wrapped around number six.

I was walking back to the inn with it in my hand, the sun just coming up over the river, when the old laundry woman came running down the street toward me.

Running. At her age. With her apron flapping and her three missing teeth bared.

She grabbed my arm. She was gasping.

"Baek boy," she wheezed. "The Gu wife."

My whole body went cold.

"She walked me home from the wine shop last night. To the washing quarter. Then she went to her own house. The one at the end of the canal." She was shaking. "This morning her door’s open. Her basket’s on the floor. Her apron’s in the canal."

She looked up at me.

"Gu men," she said. "Four of them. The fishmonger’s wife saw. Before dawn. They put a sack over her head."

The letter slipped out of my hand.

The blue ribbon fluttered in the wind.

"They took her, Baek boy," said the old woman. "The old goat took his wife back."