Chapter 56: Mosquitoes

I have faced a First-rate swordsman on a noodle shop roof.

I have hidden naked in a merchant’s wardrobe with his hand on the handle.

I have climbed a wall into the house of a man who wants me dead.

Nothing — nothing — was as terrifying as lying shirtless on Yeon-hee’s examination cot while her husband sat three steps away with a notebook, smiling at me.

"From the top, dear," said Clerk Seo Dong-min.

Yeon-hee took a breath.

And I watched her become someone else.

The pink in her cheeks? Gone. The shaking hands? Gone. She stood up straight, rolled up her sleeves, picked up her jar of rib balm, and looked down at me like I was a side of beef she’d been asked to inspect for worms.

"Examination of combatant Baek Mu-jin," she said. Perfectly flat. "Pre-duel. Practice run."

Dong-min wrote it down. His brush made little scratching sounds.

She put two fingers on my wrist.

"Pulse: strong. Elevated."

"Why is it elevated?" asked Dong-min, interested.

"Anxiety," said Yeon-hee. Not even looking at him. "About the duel."

"Ah. Of course." Scratch scratch. "Poor boy."

She moved to my shoulders. Pressed. "Shoulders: no concealed weapons. Musculature consistent with daily sword training."

Scratch scratch.

Arms. "Clear."

Scratch.

Hands. "Calloused. Clear."

Scratch.

Then my chest.

She stopped.

I knew what she was looking at. The bite mark. On my left pectoral. Faded but very obvious. The one she’d almost failed on an hour ago.

Dong-min leaned forward with his brush.

"What’s that, dear?"

Yeon-hee didn’t blink.

"Insect bites," she said. "Mosquitoes. River mosquitoes. Very aggressive this season. The dock district is full of them." She pressed the mark with one clinical finger. "Minor swelling. No infection."

"Goodness," said Dong-min. He wrote it down. "I’ve never seen a mosquito bite that big."

"The dock mosquitoes," said Yeon-hee, perfectly calm, "are very, very large."

I stared at the ceiling. Very hard. And bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.

She moved down to my ribs. Found the bite mark above my hip. Didn’t even pause this time.

"More mosquito bites."

"Gracious," said Dong-min. "Young man, you should sleep under a net."

"...Yes, sir," I said. My voice cracked.

"Ribs," said Yeon-hee. "Two fractures on the left side. Poorly healed. Documented in my clinic records over the past month. I have prescribed a warming rib balm." She opened the jar. Mint and ginger filled the room. "Mint. Ginger. Pine resin. Camphor. My own recipe. Applied nightly. The patient will wear it on the day of the duel."

"Is that allowed?" asked Dong-min.

"It’s a medical prescription from the examining physician for a documented injury," said Yeon-hee. "Please write that exactly."

Scratch scratch scratch.

"’Exactly,’" said Dong-min, writing. He looked up at her with a huge, warm smile. "You’re so good at this, Yeon-hee."

She smiled back at him.

And I watched it happen. The guilt. The fondness. The confusion. The love — real love, the kind that’s been sitting at the bottom of a pot for twenty years and doesn’t know how to boil anymore. All of it, in one smile.

"Thank you, dear," she said softly.

I lay there with my shirt off and my mosquito bites and thought: I am a terrible person.

And then: She’s still holding the balm with the hand that was pinned above her head an hour ago.

And then: I am a terrible person.

Dong-min stayed for lunch.

Rice and pickled radish, eaten on her little table, the three of us. Me with my shirt back on. Yeon-hee with her hair neat. Dong-min talking.

He was nice. That was the worst part. He was so nice.

"The magistrate’s courtyard is very small," he told me, picking at his radish. "I’ve seen the plans. Thirty steps across. Stone floor. Very slippery in the morning, when the dew comes up. You’ll want sandals with good grip." He nodded wisely. "I’ll write that in the record so no one accuses you of choosing them unfairly."

"...Thank you, sir."

"And Elder Gu is permitted his own sword. Family heirloom. The magistrate insisted." He frowned a little. "You’ll be given a standard academy blade. Steel, but plain." He shook his head. "It doesn’t seem quite fair to me. But I’m just the recorder."

His own sword. The family heirloom.

The one that would be painted with Night Lotus.

Yeon-hee’s chopsticks stopped halfway to her mouth.

"Dong-min," she said slowly. "Will anyone inspect Elder Gu’s sword? Before the duel?"

"Oh, no, dear." He waved his chopsticks. "The magistrate said that would be an insult to a clan elder. Only the challenger’s blade is inspected." He chewed his radish. "Strange rule. But very old, apparently."

Yeon-hee and I looked at each other across the table.

She didn’t say anything.

Neither did I.

Dong-min kept eating his radish, completely happy.

That afternoon, the war council met again. Seo-rin’s office this time. Smaller. Just the core.

Seo-rin. Ayla. So-yeon. Cha. Jin by the door. Ji-yeon with Gi-chul taking notes.

"They won’t check his blade," said Jin flatly. "So the Night Lotus goes in clean."

"And the salve handles it," said Seo-rin. "If the salve holds."

"It holds," said Cha. "Hwang doesn’t make mistakes. That’s the whole problem with her."

"Then the problem isn’t the poison anymore," said So-yeon. "The problem is him." She looked at me. "He’s still First-rate. With or without poison. He can still take your arm off clean. And you’ve got eleven days."

"And every day," said Jin, "there’s a Gu servant on the street outside this inn. Watching. Counting how many hours you train. Which yard. Which teacher." She jerked her chin at the window. "There’s one there right now. By the noodle stall. Pretending to eat."

We all looked.

There was a man at the noodle stall. In a plain gray coat. With a bowl. Not eating.

"He sees everything," said Jin. "Every slip. Every step-in. Every time you practice Climbing the Pine, Gu hears about it by sunset."

The room went quiet.

Then Ji-yeon pushed her spectacles up her nose.

"The Gwak family," she said, "has a villa. Upriver. Two hours by boat. In the hills. There’s a hot spring, a training yard, an orchard and a very high wall." She folded her hands. "Nobody goes there in summer. It’s very private."

Everyone turned to look at her.

"Three days," said Ji-yeon. "Away from the spies. Away from the city. Just training." She paused. "And rest. He looks terrible."

"I look fine."

"You look like a boiled radish," said Ayla.

"Who goes?" asked Cha.

"Whoever needs to," said Ji-yeon. "The instructor. The swordswoman." She nodded at So-yeon. At Ayla. "The soldier, for footwork." Jin. "The bookkeeper, to keep everyone fed and counted." Seo-rin. "The physician, for the ribs. If she can get away." She paused. "The island woman, because apparently she makes the best food in Hangju and Gi-chul won’t stop talking about her fish."

Gi-chul went red.

"And Seol," said Ji-yeon. "Because she shouldn’t be anywhere Gu’s men can find her for the next eleven days."

The room was quiet.

"That’s..." Seo-rin flicked a bead. "That’s eight women and one man in a private villa in the hills for three days."

"Yes," said Ji-yeon. Completely calm.

"With a hot spring."

"Yes."

"And a very high wall."

"Yes," said Ji-yeon. "I said that."

Tae-man, who had been sitting in the corner eating a dumpling and not saying anything, put the dumpling down.

"Can I come?" he whispered.

"No," said every woman in the room.

"Bro," Tae-man said to me, with real tears in his eyes. "Bro. Eight."

"It’s for training."

"EIGHT."

"I’ll bring you back a fish."

He threw the dumpling at me.

We were leaving at dawn. By boat. Ji-yeon’s family barge. Very discreet.

I went back to my room to pack. Which took about two breaths, since I own two robes, one of which is my mother’s.

I was folding the blue robe with the Baek crest when someone knocked on my door.

Not two taps. Not three sharp knocks. Not a clack.

One knock. Then a pause. Then a second.

Like someone deciding whether to knock twice.

I opened the door.

So-yeon was standing on the walkway.

Not in her training clothes. In a dark green robe, the good one, the one with silver thread at the collar. Her hair pinned up with both gold pins. Her sword on her back.

And a small cloth bundle in her hands.

"Can I come in?" she said.

"...Sure."

She came in. Looked around my tiny room. The cracked jar. The waxed cloth over the hole in the ceiling. The new bed Seo-rin charged to my account.

She set the bundle down on my stool.

"Jung-ho sent this," she said. "For the villa."

I untied it.

Inside was a sword. Wrapped in old oiled silk. Short. Plain. A worn grip. A sheath of dark leather. Not fancy. Not an heirloom. Just a sword that had been used every day for a very long time.

"His," said So-yeon quietly. "From before. He hasn’t touched it in twenty years. He took it out of the chest last night and oiled it with his left hand." She looked at it. "It’s a practice blade. The magistrate won’t let you use it in the duel. But for training. For the villa." Her voice went soft. "He wants it to be used again."

I couldn’t say anything.

I just held it.

It was lighter than it looked.

"And he told me something else," said So-yeon.

She was looking at the floor now. Her ears were pink.

"I told you no more pieces until you walk out of that courtyard alive," she said. "Remember?"

"...I remember."

"Jung-ho says that’s bad luck." She swallowed. "He says a man shouldn’t walk into a life-and-death duel with debts unpaid. He says old swordsmen always settle everything the night before. So nothing holds them back." She looked up at me. Her eyes were very dark. "He says I should pay you now."

I stopped breathing.

"All of it," said Yoon So-yeon. "Two and a half pieces." She reached up and pulled the first gold pin out of her hair. "Plus interest."