Chapter 58: Doctor’s Orders

"Every day?" I said.

"Every day." Yun Hye-ran held up the letter. Didn’t give it to me. Just held it up so I could see the blue silk and the handwriting. "Fourteen letters since she came home. Fourteen. My niece wrote me twice a year before she went to Hangju. New-year greetings and my birthday."

She tucked the letter back into her sleeve.

"Now I know the name of the pig in your inn’s back yard," she said. "I know that you fell in the trough. I know you laughed at a bat. I know about a bell tower, and a fire chamber, and a list of things she has decided." Her eyes narrowed. "I know about number six."

I couldn’t say anything.

Behind me, I could feel nine women very carefully not listening.

"She doesn’t write to her father about you," said Hye-ran. "Not since he read her letters and came to take her away. She writes to me. Because I’m the only one in the family who ever said no to my brother and survived it."

She looked me up and down again. Slow.

"So I came to see," she said, "what kind of boy makes a Yun girl write fourteen letters."

"...And?"

"And so far I see a boy who arrived on a barge with nine women." Her eyebrow went up. "Several of whom are married."

Somewhere behind me, Ayla snorted.

"It’s for training," I said.

"Mm." Hye-ran did not look convinced. At all. "Seo-ah’s last letter came yesterday. She says you sent her a letter. Four lines. She hasn’t received it yet. But a Gwak courier was seen on the river road two days ago, riding hard toward the capital." She tilted her head. "She’s been waiting at the Ministry gate every morning. Like a dog waiting for its master."

My chest hurt.

"The courier will reach the capital in three more days," said Hye-ran. "She’ll read it. She’ll go to her father. Her father will refuse, because he refuses everything she asks. And then she’ll do something stupid." She sighed. "Yun girls always do something stupid."

"Can you help?"

She looked at me for a long time.

"There’s a Ministry relay station four li up the road," she said finally. "Imperial post. Fresh horses every twenty li. A letter with my seal on it reaches my brother’s desk in a day and a half." She paused. "Not three days. A day and a half."

The whole dock went quiet.

"And what would that letter say?" asked Ji-yeon carefully.

"That depends," said Yun Hye-ran, "on what I see in the next three days."

She turned around and walked back up the dock toward the little bridge over the stream. Toward her own villa on the other side.

She stopped halfway across.

"Dawn," she said without turning around. "Bring a sword. Not that ugly academy blade. A real one."

"I have my uncle’s."

She went still.

Turned her head. Just a little.

"Baek Jung-ho’s?"

"...You know him?"

"I was nineteen and in the stands the day Gu Seung-hwan took his arm," said Hye-ran quietly. "Everyone in the martial world under the age of fifty was in love with Baek Jung-ho. Including me." She started walking again. "Bring it. Dawn. If you can touch me once with your uncle’s sword, I’ll write to my brother tonight."

She crossed the bridge.

Her gate closed behind her.

Nine women turned and looked at me.

"Bro," Tae-man would have said, if he were here. "Even the AUNT?"

I could hear it in my head. Clear as day.

The villa was even better inside.

Six rooms around a courtyard. A training yard paved with smooth river stones. A kitchen big enough for Mi-rae to start crying with joy. An orchard of plum trees, heavy with fruit. And behind the main house, up a path through the pines, the hot spring.

Not a rock pool like the one behind the inn. A real one. Big. Smooth stone edges. Steam rising in thick white curls. A little roofed pavilion at one end, hung with lanterns.

We trained until sunset.

So-yeon in the morning. Cha in the afternoon. Ayla and Jin in between, coming at me from two sides at once until I couldn’t tell who was attacking. Seo-rin calling out numbers from the pavilion steps. "Left. Late. Dead. Right. Dead. DEAD."

By the time the sun went down behind the hills, I couldn’t feel my arms.

And that’s when Yeon-hee put her foot down.

"No," she said.

We were all at dinner. Mi-rae’s fish. Seol’s rice. Plum wine from the orchard. The whole table, all nine of us, on cushions in the main hall with the doors open to the courtyard.

I’d just asked who wanted to come up to the hot spring.

Yeon-hee put her chopsticks down.

"No," she said again. "Physician’s orders."

Everyone stopped eating.

"His ribs are cracked again from the noodle shop roof," said Yeon-hee. "His elbow stitches tore twice. His meridians are still scarred from the overflow. He’s been training for ten hours today. He slept three hours last night." She looked around the table. Very calm. Very professional. "And I know where three of you were last night. And I can guess where the rest of you are planning to be tonight."

Several women became very interested in their fish.

"He needs to rest," said Yeon-hee. "Real rest. Sleep. No — activities. Tonight he goes up to the hot spring, alone, and soaks for one hour for his ribs. Then he sleeps. Alone."

"Alone?" said Ayla.

"Alone."

"All night?" said Mi-rae.

"All night."

"That’s cruel," said Seol.

"That’s medicine."

Cha folded her arms. "She’s right. He moved like a wet noodle after the fourth hour."

"Thank you, Instructor," said Yeon-hee.

"Doesn’t mean I have to like it."

Seo-rin flicked a bead. "Ten days to the duel. One night of rest. It’s a sensible investment."

Ji-yeon pushed her spectacles up. "I agree with the physician."

So-yeon said nothing. But she nodded.

Jin just shrugged. "Soldiers sleep before a battle."

Ayla looked around the table. At all of them. Then at me.

"...Fine," she said. "But we come to the hot spring also."

"WHAT?" said Yeon-hee.

"We come," said Ayla calmly, "and we sit in the water. On the other side. And we talk. And we watch the stars." She smiled. "And we don’t touch him. Not one finger. Physician’s orders."

Yeon-hee stared at her.

"That’s not—"

"You said no activities. Sitting is not activity." Ayla sipped her wine. "Looking is not activity."

The whole table went quiet.

Then Mi-rae laughed. That big belly laugh.

"The island has a word for this," she said. "It means ’torturing the fish before you cook it.’"

I soaked in the hot spring for one hour.

Alone.

In the sense that nobody touched me.

They sat on the other side of the pool. All eight of them. Not Yeon-hee — she sat on the edge with her feet in the water, still in her robe, watching like a hawk, a little hourglass of sand next to her that she’d brought from her clinic.

The other eight were in the water.

Naked.

All of them.

Ayla, with her gold hair piled on top of her head, stretched out against the stone edge with her arms along the rim, chest above the water, completely unbothered, telling a story about a camel.

Seo-rin next to her, with Ayla’s gold anklet still on her foot, which kept surfacing out of the water every time she kicked, and her hair down, and an expression of total innocence that I didn’t believe for one second.

Mi-rae floating on her back. Just floating. Island style. Eyes closed. Arms out. Everything — everything — breaking the surface of the water and catching the lantern light.

Ji-yeon, spectacles fogged completely white, sitting very straight with the water up to her collarbones, pretending to read a scroll she’d brought. The scroll was getting wet. She didn’t seem to notice.

Cha and So-yeon, side by side on the stone bench, both of them with their eyes closed, both of them stretching their shoulders in exactly the same slow way. Like they’d planned it.

They’d planned it.

Jin, standing in the shallows near the steps with her arms folded, water to her waist, scars shining in the lantern light, looking at the trees and pretending she was on guard duty.

And Seol. On her knees on the underwater ledge. Water to her ribs. Hair loose and wild. Looking straight at me across the steam.

Not pretending anything.

Just looking.

"Forty breaths left," said Yeon-hee, from the edge, watching her hourglass.

I stared at the sky.

The stars were very nice.

I couldn’t see a single one.

"How are your ribs, Mu-jin?" Ayla called across the water. Very innocently.

"...Fine."

"They look fine," said Mi-rae, still floating, eyes still closed.

"Everything looks fine," said Seo-rin.

"Very fine," said Cha, without opening her eyes.

"Thirty breaths," said Yeon-hee. Her voice was not as steady as it had been.

Ayla stood up.

Just stood up. In the middle of the spring. To stretch. Water pouring off her.

She stretched for a very, very long time.

Seol laughed. Low. From across the steam.

"Twenty breaths," said Yeon-hee. Her feet had stopped moving in the water.

I closed my eyes.

That was a mistake. I could still hear them. The water moving. Someone sighing. Someone humming. Mi-rae’s island song, low and slow, the one about the fisherman’s wife.

The braid in my belly was spinning so fast it hurt. Five strands. All of them. Like they could feel every woman in that pool.

[Target: Ayla.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

[Target: Hong Seo-rin.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

[Target: Ko Mi-rae.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

[Target: Cha Mi-ran.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

The windows just kept popping up. One after another. Stacking up in front of my face until I couldn’t even see the steam.

[Target: Seol Hwa-ryeon.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

[Target: Jin Ha-seul.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

[Target: Gwak Ji-yeon.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

[Target: Yoon So-yeon.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

[Target: Dam Yeon-hee.] [Desire — MAXIMUM.]

Nine windows.

The system was enjoying this way too much.

"Ten breaths," said Yeon-hee.

She was standing up now. On the edge of the pool. Her robe was falling off one shoulder and she hadn’t fixed it.

"Five."

The water was very quiet.

Everybody was looking at me now. Not pretending anymore. All eight of them, in the steam, in the lantern light.

And Yeon-hee, on the edge. Watching the last grains of sand fall.

"...Time," she whispered.

Nobody moved.

Then Yeon-hee let her robe slide off her other shoulder.

It fell into the water with a soft splash.

She stepped down into the pool.

Eight heads turned to stare at her.

"What?" said Yeon-hee, red to her ears, sinking up to her chin in the water. "I’m his physician. I have to... check his ribs. After the soak. That’s... standard."

"Standard," said Seo-rin.

"Very standard," said Ayla.

"You said no activities," said Seol.

"Checking ribs isn’t an activity!"

She waded across the pool toward me through the steam. Hands out. Very clinical. Very professional.

She got about halfway.

And from the far side of the stream — from the dark villa on the other bank, where a single lantern was burning on a high balcony — a voice called out across the water. Low. Crisp. A capital accent.

"Physician," called Yun Hye-ran. "You were right the first time."

Nine women froze.

I turned my head.

Across the stream, on her balcony, in the lamplight, Seo-ah’s aunt was standing with her arms folded and her long gray robe pulled close. Looking straight across the water at the hot spring.

She’d been watching.

The whole time.

"He touches me with a sword at dawn," said Yun Hye-ran, "or my niece waits at the Ministry gate for nothing. Let the boy sleep."

She turned and walked inside.

The lantern went out.