The Dragon Queen

by William Andrews

“Of course, Your Excellency,” I said.

  “Good. Now, on your wedding day, I will introduce you to two Japanese dignitaries, Minister Yamamoto and Mr. Takata. Smile at them and be deferential. It is important that they think we are weak.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “I will also introduce you to two Chinese dignitaries, Mr. Ha and Mr. Zhong. Hold their eyes and do not smile at them. I want to end their authority over us, so it is important they think we are strong.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  He let some time pass. Then he said, “I suspect that my wife has talked to you.” He shook his head. “Like you, Lady Min knows very little about government, and she is blind to what threatens us. She thinks only of the Mins, but I must do what is right for everyone. It would be dangerous to listen to her.”

  “Yes, Excellency,” I said.

  He pushed himself out of the chair and looked at me as a schoolteacher looks at a student. He said, “Remember, it is I who let you be the queen. Your duty is to me. You must keep your promise and do as I say.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” I said. He nodded and left me alone in the room.

  As Lady Min had ordered, my wedding wig was a grand and extravagant thing. The perruquier had made it out of ebony. It swooped and looped over and around my head, intersecting my hair here and there so it would stay put. The wigmaker’s assistants pinned it to my hair with two huge binyeos made from gold and silver and encrusted with gems. Among the wig’s swirls rested a jeweled crown lined with pearls and topped with blue, green, and red ceramic baubles. The wig and crown were extraordinarily heavy, and I was certain I wouldn’t be able to bear it throughout the ceremony’s long day. I said so to the wigmaker as his assistants fit it on my head in my study the day before my wedding. “It is what Lady Min ordered,” he replied inspecting it with a sniff. “We will have to have slaves hold it for you.”

  Then King Gojong came in. Everyone except me bowed low. Of course, I should have bowed, too, but if I did, the heavy wig would have made me fall on my face. I held the wig to my head with both hands and stood, facing the king. He looked at my wig and said, “Well, it certainly is big.” He waved his hand. “Wigmaker, take it off for now. Then all of you leave me with my future wife.” The wigmaker quickly did what the king told him to, and he and his entourage bowed out of the room. It was the first time I was alone with the king. He looked much like his father, only twenty years younger. He had a round face and high eyebrows, and the hair in his goatee and mustache was wispy, like a man who only a year earlier was still a boy. His eyes were not as keen as his father’s, and he held his mouth slightly open as if he was vaguely puzzled by everything going on around him. He wore a white robe and a small black hat.

  He came toward me, and I thought I should bow low to him as one was supposed to bow to a king. But I hadn’t bowed when he came in, and I would be his wife soon and certainly could not be expected to bow all the time. So I didn’t bow, but I kept my eyes low.

  He sat on a chair and said, “Tomorrow you will be my wife. What do you think of that?”

  “I am honored, Your Majesty.”

  “Huh, yes,” he said, twisting his mouth a little. “You thought I didn’t like you when I first saw you. Am I right?”

  “Majesty, I’m glad you did.”

  He looked at his fingernails. “I thought you looked like a queen. In the face, anyway. I will need someone who looks the part when I run the country.”

  “When will that be, Majesty?” I asked.

  “Soon. My father says I am too young, but I think he just wants to run the country himself. He says that I’m feebleminded and I will always need him. But he is wrong about me. And when the time comes, I will have him step aside.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. When the time comes.”

  He scoffed at me. “Do you think I couldn’t do it now? Do you think I am afraid of my father? I’m not afraid. I am being smart. I am going to wait for just the right time.”

  “Of course, Majesty,” I said. “Waiting for just the right time is smart.”

  “In the meantime, you will serve me by giving me a son. I will be in a stronger position to take over from my father if I have an heir to the throne. I expect you to bear one for me.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Good,” he said. He stood to leave. He paused a moment and then ran the back of his hand over my cheek. He said, “Remember, Ja-young, I will be your husband and your king. Your duty is to me. And when the time comes, I will rule Korea with you at my side.”

  “Of course, Majesty,” I said. “It will be my utmost honor to be at your side.”

  He looked at me a while longer with his mouth still half-opened. Then his mouth turned into a crooked grin, and he left.

  The wedding, coronation, and celebration went precisely as planned. Two palace slaves held my wig, and I struggled to bear the ceremonial clothes as King Gojong and I did our part and we were married. In a short coronation service, the Taewŏn-gun pronounced me queen and I received the queen’s seal. Then the king and I were paraded in an open palanquin carried by eight eunuchs through the streets of Seoul past thousands of our subjects, who bowed and looked genuinely happy to have a new queen. I was delighted that the people seemed to like me. But they didn’t know me and I was terrified that once they discovered who I really was, they would be disappointed and wouldn’t want me to be their queen anymore.

  That afternoon when I met the Japanese dignitaries at the reception, I bowed just low enough and diverted my eyes so they would think I was weak. When I met the Chinese, instead of bowing I simply nodded and held their eyes so they would think I was strong.

  When my uncle and aunt greeted me, they bowed low and said, “Your Majesty.”

  I was so excited to see them that I replied, “Uncle, Aunt, how are you? How is everyone at the House of Gamgodang?” They stayed bowed and did not answer. Standing next to me, Lady Min motioned for them to go on and gave me a stern look. After that, I did not say anything more to the people I greeted.

  By the end of the day, the dancers had danced, the musicians had sung and played their instruments, the poets had read their poems, and the actors had performed their plays. And I was the new queen of Korea.

  NINE

  Present day. Seoul, Korea

  “What do you think of my story so far, Mr. Simon?” Anna Carlson asks from the throne. As she tells her story, I’m struck by the similarities between her and how I picture Ja-young Min. Like Korea’s last queen, Anna is petite and has a beautiful face. And dressed as she is in her red and gold hanbok, sitting high above me, it’s as if she herself is a queen.

  “It’s interesting,” I answer, “but I don’t see how it has anything to do with my mission. Frankly, you’d better let me go so I can get back to it. There’s probably a ruckus with me missing.”

  “Do you know what Ja-young’s uncle was talking about when he said Korea faced challenges?”

  “Threats from the Japanese and Chinese?”

  “Those and others, too,” Anna declares.

  I let out a sigh. “Yeah, I get it. The world has always fought over Korea. It’s always been caught in the middle, just like now.”

  “Yes, caught in the middle, just like now,” she says. “There’s something more you should know about the queen’s coronation. There were other dignitaries there—from Russia, England, Spain, and from France. The Americans even sent a diplomat in spite of the fact the Civil War had ended only one year earlier. They were all there for the same reason. They regarded the peninsula as strategic high ground for their own imperialistic plans. And here we are again one hundred fifty years later, still fighting over this country.”

  I shake my head. “The United States doesn’t have imperialistic designs on Korea,” I protest.

  “Really now, Mr. Simon?” she says. “Why then do we have fifty-five thousand troops stationed in this country even though most Koreans don’t want us here? Why do we spend as much on our militar
y as the rest of the world does combined? What do we want?”

  I’m offended that this junior aide talks to me as if I’m some sort of rookie. And I want to get back, make a call home to tell them I’m all right. I stand up angrily and immediately there’s a hand on my shoulder. The hand makes me hesitate a moment, but I launch in anyway. “Look, Anna, this is nuts. I can read all about your Queen Min when I get back to DC. Or if it’s important, I can read about her on the airplane, okay? Right now, I have to get back to the embassy before your little kidnapping becomes an international crisis that makes this entire thing blow up. Did you ever think of that?”

  She snaps open her fan and fans herself with quick flicks of her wrist. “Of course I thought of it,” she says. “And I can tell you, Mr. Simon, that the right people know exactly what’s going on with you. Your disappearance will not cause the situation to ‘blow up,’ as you say.”

  “The right people know?” I repeat. “What the hell, Anna?”

  “Sit down, Mr. Simon,” she orders, pointing her fan at me. “There is much more to my story.” The hand on my shoulder pushes me to sit, and I’m so flabbergasted that I don’t resist. Anna continues, “It’s important to remember what was happening in the world when Ja-young became the new queen. We were talking about it before. Imperialism.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I know my history. The Age of Imperialism.”

  “Correct. It started one hundred fifty years before Ja-young was crowned queen,” Anna says, “and it didn’t end until . . . well . . . historians say it ended after World War Two. But let’s be honest, it hasn’t really ended, has it? How many wars have been fought for it, Mr. Simon? How many innocent people have died? When will it end?”

  “It’s different today,” I say.

  “True, it is a different form. Today the goal is to control markets. It’s directed by corporations and driven by greed. But it is still imperialism with a different name.”

  Anna continues, “Our young queen came to the throne when the old Age of Imperialism was at its apex. The more powerful nations were dividing the entire world. Back then they called Korea the ‘Hermit Kingdom.’ It was poor and undeveloped. In the mid-nineteenth century, it was a target, exactly as it is today.”

  “Okay,” I say, crossing my arms. “I admit there are parallels. Fine.”

  “And that’s why you must hear Queen Min’s story.”

  I shoot a glance over my shoulder. “Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.”

  “True.” She smiles. “But you are missing a larger point. You think I’m just lecturing you about imperialism. What’s more important is that you understand the spirit that the queen searched for. What it means to be Korean. It’s the spirit of the two-headed dragon.”

  Anna stands from the throne. She goes to the faded blue tapestry with the two-headed dragon and runs her hand over the edge of it. “This tapestry is remarkable, isn’t it? It’s plain compared to most Korean tapestries because it’s very old. We believe King Taejo himself had it made. He, of course, was the Chosŏn Dynasty’s first king. That would make this . . . let’s see . . . well over six hundred years old.” She stands back and admires the tapestry. “Did you notice that the two-headed dragon is the same as the one on the comb sent to the president?”

  “What do you know about the comb?” I ask.

  She laughs softly. With her back to me, she lifts her left hand to show me that she’s holding the comb with the two-headed dragon. She must have taken it from my briefcase in the embassy conference room when I wasn’t looking.

  “You took it!” I say.

  “It belongs to me,” she replies, still admiring the tapestry. “I’m the one who sent it to the president.”

  “Ah . . . that’s not possible,” I say, shaking my head, pleased with myself that I caught her in a lie. “It was sent by someone in North Korea. We know because of the channels it went through to get to the White House.”

  “Yes, I did send it from the North. I did so to get the president’s attention.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say.

  She turns to me and puts a finger against her chin. “Let me see if I can remember. On March third, a CIA operative—that is, a spy—stationed in Pyongyang slipped across the border at Sinuiju, North Korea, with this comb in a stainless-steel box. Jae-hee Huh was her name. She was met by another of our operatives in Dandong, at the Great Wall’s farthest eastern point. His name was Xiong Wu. On March sixth, Mr. Wu delivered the comb to the US Embassy in Beijing. The instructions were that it was to be given to the US president and that it was important to the crisis here in Korea. The two-word message with it—rather well done by me in my finest calligraphy, I might add—was, ‘One Korea.’ Correct?”

  My God. She has it dead right, all the details. I can’t believe it. This junior embassy aide knows what the CIA had said fewer than five people in the entire world know. Suddenly I feel like I’m in some sort of bizarre game of espionage where nothing is real and you can’t trust anyone. I wonder if the CIA or Defense or maybe even my own people at State are setting me up. I thought they’d chosen me for this assignment because I speak Korean and I’m somewhat of an expert on the country. Now I think they chose me to be a pawn in some grand deception.

  My mouth is agape and all I can do is stare at Anna. I snap my mouth closed and try to regain my composure. “Jesus, Anna,” I say. “Who the hell are you?”

  She slides the comb inside her robe and returns to the throne. “Just a junior aide at the US Embassy in Seoul,” she says.

  “Ah . . . I don’t think so.”

  She shrugs. “I suppose, if you really want to know. I was born in Seoul thirty years ago. My birth mother died giving birth to me. Her mother—my birth grandmother—was very poor so she put me up for adoption. I was adopted by a couple in Minnesota who were loving parents. I came back to Korea ten years ago and met my birth grandmother. She helped me discover who I was, especially my Korean heritage. After that, I vowed to learn more about the country where I was born. I learned to speak Korean. I got an international law degree. I landed a job with the State Department. Three years later, I was sent here.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But that’s only part of the story, right?”

  She smiles. “I suppose everyone is more than what they appear to be on the surface.”

  “Maybe you better tell me what’s going on.”

  “That’s what I’m doing, Mr. Simon,” she says. “Only I’m giving you the big picture. Sit back. Relax. Now where were we in our story?”

  I lean back and force myself to calm down. “Ja-young had just become queen,” I say.

  “Ah yes. Can you imagine? She was queen at just fifteen years old. She became queen as Korea entered its most crucial era. Traditionalists fought progressives. The poor were beginning to rebel against the caste system. There were the century-old fights for power between the clans. And the imperialists from Europe and America were at Korea’s doorstep. All that and only fifteen years old. At that age, I was hoping to make the cheerleading squad. You were probably trying to make varsity basketball.” She chuckles and waves her hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before she could take on those challenges, Ja-young had to become the dragon queen.”

  TEN

  Summer 1866. Seoul, Korea

  The day I had agreed to become queen, my uncle told me that a queen was first a woman. That was true. And what was also true was a queen was a wife. And while they had spent the weeks before my coronation teaching me how to act like a queen, no one ever taught me how to make love to a man. I supposed it was something that a mother would do. But before we could have talked about it, my mother had thrown herself into the Han River to silence the spirits that haunted her. And I had never talked with my aunt about it. It would have been awkward, and anyway, before they chose me to be their queen, I’d never thought it was necessary. While I was at the palace during the days and weeks before the wedding, I’d wanted to ask someone about it. But whom could I ask? I
certainly could not have expected Lady Min to tell me about how I should make love to her son. And my servants, ladies-in-waiting, and slaves were there to serve me and wouldn’t dare give me advice about such a thing even if I had asked them.

  Of course, I had thought about it many times. I’d had my monthly bleed for several years now, and I looked at men differently than I had only a few years before. I’d become aware that I was attractive to men, and I was thrilled when I saw how my beauty affected them. I often wondered what it would be like to be in a man’s embrace, to kiss him, hold him close, to make love to him. When I lived at the House of Gamgodang, I’d heard Mr. Yang and Eun-ji grunting and making all sorts of muted sounds in the middle of the night in her room next to mine. I’d listen to my uncle’s servant girls talk about the men they liked and about their secret trysts in the stables. But for me, it was all a fantasy, something still far off. So on my wedding night, I didn’t have any idea what to do.

  The same was not true of my new husband, however. He had several courtesans at his beckoning, and he used them regularly. It was rumored that he was quite fond of sex and that sometimes he would stay up all night with his mistresses. So when I went to the king’s bedchamber on our wedding night, I had to depend on him to tell me what to do. When I got there, he’d already taken off his ceremonial robe and hanbok and he lay in his undergarments on an enormous bed with a carved ebony headboard. Red, blue, and yellow silk sheets and pillows covered the bed. Oil lamps on iron stands cast soft light throughout the room. Though he was about my age, Gojong was half again as big as I was. His arms and legs were fleshy like a boy’s and his stomach was round. When I came in, he grinned at me.

  Still dressed in my robe but without my heavy wig, I stood in the middle of the room confused and flustered. I could tell he expected me to do something, and I wanted to please him to start our marriage the right way. But all I could think to do was to keep my head lowered and wait for something to happen.

  “Take off your robe and hanbok,” he finally ordered. My heart beat hard as I unfastened my robe and slipped out of my jeogori and chima and let them fall to the floor. Though I still wore layers of sok petticoats, I felt small.