“Yes, Majesty.”
“Han-sook, listen to me,” I said. “You must do this quietly, without raising suspicion. You see, my uncle helps me learn about the world against the Taewŏn-gun’s wishes.”
Han-sook nodded. “Yes, Majesty, I know.”
I cocked my head. “You know?”
Han-sook wrung her hands. “Please forgive me, Majesty, but I have known for some time. The palace has asked me why your uncle visits you so often and why he brings tutors with him. I see that you hide your books, so I tell them he is only helping you learn the classics and how to be a proper queen, although I know your lessons go far beyond what the Taewŏn-gun has approved.”
I paused for a moment. I realized that over the past few years it would have been impossible to hide my activities from my lady’s maid. She was always with me, or only a few steps away. I recalled the times she warned me that someone was coming so that I could hide my books or have a tutor sneak away through the courtyard. I remembered the times I found my books hidden in my bat chest after I had left them out in the open. And then I knew that Han-sook was someone I could trust. My heart went out to her and I wanted to hug her. But I was the queen and she was a servant, so I kept my emotions to myself.
“Very well,” I said giving her a look of approval. “Can you find out what happened to my uncle?”
“I will try, Majesty. I have friends who work for the Taewŏn-gun. I will ask them in a way that will not raise suspicions.”
“Good,” I said. “Let me know as soon as you hear.”
“Yes, Majesty,” my lady’s maid said and she bowed.
A few days later, Han-sook reported that no one knew where my uncle had gone. At first I was puzzled. If my uncle would be away for this long, he certainly would have told me beforehand. I thought about contacting Minister Kim to see if he knew what happened to my uncle, but I hadn’t talked to the minister directly in years. I thought about sending a message to the House of Gamgodang, but there was no guarantee that a message would get through. I said to my lady’s maid, “Rouse Kyung-jik. I am going to my uncle’s house at once.”
“Yes, Majesty,” Han-sook replied. “Shall I inform the palace?”
“No. I am the queen; I do not need the palace’s permission to visit my uncle and aunt. You and Kyung-jik will escort me. I want no one else along. Go now. Quickly.”
A few minutes later, Kyung-jik, Han-sook, and I marched across the main courtyard to the Gwanghwamun Gate. There, two guards saw us coming and held their positions. “Open the gate,” I commanded.
“Majesty,” one guard said, “we weren’t informed that you would be—”
“Open the gate now or I will have your head,” I stated. The guards bowed and quickly opened the gate’s heavy door.
The House of Gamgodang was on one of Seoul’s broad streets. The three of us walked, with me in the lead, Kyung-jik in his guard’s uniform slightly to my side, and Han-sook wringing her hands three steps behind. It was a hot summer day with no breeze. As my tiny entourage walked by, people on the streets stared at us with their mouths agape, then quickly backed away and bowed. I noticed that the merchants and yangban were stern-faced when they saw me and did not bow as low as they should have. I also noticed many were ragged and dirty. No one had swept the streets of horse and oxen waste. The city smelled of sewage and sweat.
It had been several years since I had gone to the House of Gamgodang to talk to my uncle about helping me, and when we arrived there, I barely recognized it. Tall weeds choked the rose garden, and they had not harvested the bamboo. There was no livestock in the pens, and the outbuildings were unkempt. There were no servants working in the compound, and the stablemate was not at his station.
I went to the gate. “Anyohaseyo,” I called out. “Is anyone here at this house?” There was no answer. Kyung-jik called out, but still there was no reply.
“Go to the door,” I ordered.
Kyung-jik went to the door. He pounded on it and called out again. “Anyohaseyo!” he said. “Her Majesty, the queen, calls on this house. Come out at once!”
After a few seconds, the door cracked opened and Mr. Yang stuck his head out. “Please,” he pleaded from behind his glasses. “We are not prepared to receive the queen.”
I pushed through the gate and went to the door. As I approached, Mr. Yang stepped out and bowed. “Mr. Yang,” I said, “I have come to see my uncle. I do not care if you are prepared or not. Let me inside.”
“Majesty,” Mr. Yang said, “I regret to tell you that your uncle is not here.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Forgive me, Majesty. I do not know.”
I stood outside the house looking at Mr. Yang who kept his head low. He was a skilled valet, and it was his job to always know where his master was. Yet he was telling me he didn’t know.
I pushed past Mr. Yang and went inside the house. Except for a few cushions on the floor, the room was empty. The zelkova-root wood chests and Chinese table were gone. There were no celadon pots anywhere. The kitchen was dark, and the maids and servants were not there. The house was ghostly quiet and it smelled musty.
Mr. Yang followed me inside. “Please forgive the condition of the house, Majesty. Perhaps if we had known you were coming . . .”
As I stood at the door staring at the empty house, the wall from the courtyard slid open and my aunt stepped into the room. Eun-ji followed close behind her. My aunt looked at the floor. She was dressed in her everyday robe. But unlike when I knew her before, her robe was smudged and wrinkled. Her shoulders drooped. She appeared to have lost weight. “Majesty,” my aunt said, “I wish you would not have come. I am ashamed that you have to see us like this.”
“Where is my uncle?” I asked.
My aunt began to cry. Eun-ji put an arm around her. Mr. Yang said, “We think the palace arrested him. There is no other explanation.”
“Why would the palace arrest my uncle?” I demanded.
“I am sorry, Your Majesty,” Mr. Yang said. “I think it was because he worked for you.”
My heart went out to them. My once-proud aunt looked defeated and sad. Eun-ji, who had run the household staff with a firm hand, had no one to manage anymore. Mr. Yang had lost his master and his purpose in life. I went to a cushion and sat. “Come,” I said, “all three of you. Sit. Tell me what has happened here.”
At first, they hesitated, then all three sat on the floor in front of me. They started slowly, but eventually they told me what had happened. They said that my uncle had disappeared three weeks earlier. They told me he was supposed to have been with me at the palace that day but he never came home. When Mr. Yang went to the palace to find him, they told him they didn’t know where he was. Mr. Yang investigated and concluded that the palace had secretly arrested my uncle. They had tried to get a message to me at the palace, but they never heard from me.
I asked them where the servants had gone. “We had to let them go a year ago,” my aunt answered. “We could no longer afford them. We cannot afford Mr. Yang and Eun-ji, either, but they refused to leave. We have been doing what we can.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “The palace paid my uncle for his services to me.”
Mr. Yang nodded. “That only lasted for a short while. A few years ago, they stopped paying him, but he insisted that he continue to work for you without pay. And since then the palace has given him no other work.”
I thought about the months and years my uncle had worked for me. He had never told me the palace had stopped paying him. He must have been paying for my books and tutors out of his own pocket. During the past several months, I had noticed his robe was soiled and that his shoes were threadbare. I hadn’t thought anything of it, assuming he must have been working too hard to attend to his grooming. I never even considered that he had run out of money.
“Do you think he is still alive?” I asked.
My aunt put her head in her hands to stifle a sob. E
un-ji put a hand on her arm. Mr. Yang leaned forward. “Please forgive me, Majesty, but before he disappeared your uncle was concerned that his work for you was upsetting the palace. He told me to be on the lookout for threats against this house. I thought he was exaggerating or just being cautious. But now this has happened.”
My aunt looked at me. Tears ran down her face. “Help us, Majesty,” she sobbed. “Help me find my husband.”
The Taewŏn-gun. For the past several years, I thought my father-in-law didn’t know or care what my uncle did for me. But apparently the regent had found out, and he did not approve. My father-in-law was intent on keeping me under his control, uninformed and uneducated so that I could not challenge him. As I looked at my aunt, sobbing for her lost husband, and as I looked around this once-proud house that had fallen into disrepair, I felt the color rise in my face.
I stood and the three of them stood with me. I turned to my aunt. “I promise I will find your husband,” I said firmly. “I do not believe they have killed him. I will find a way for us to get messages to each other. In the meantime, do nothing until you hear from me.”
“Yes, Majesty,” my aunt replied.
I left the House of Gamgodang, and as I headed back to the palace, I prayed that I was right that the Taewŏn-gun had not killed my uncle.
SIXTEEN
When I got back to the palace, I sat at my writing desk and my blood boiled. It was one thing for the Taewŏn-gun to try to make me be a stone queen. But it was unforgivable that he would do something to my family. It was time for me to become the dragon queen.
I pushed myself from my cushion and headed out the door. I marched across the main courtyard to the Taewŏn-gun’s quarters. A guard stood at the entrance. “Majesty!” he exclaimed, clearly not knowing what to do.
“Step aside,” I commanded with a voice I didn’t know I had. The guard quickly backed away, and I went inside where the Taewŏn-gun sat at a low table with his advisers all around him. There, too, was Mister Euno. They all fell silent when I came in. I sensed they were discussing something important without the king and me.
“Your Majesty,” the Taewŏn-gun said, trying to disguise his surprise. “You were not announced.”
“What have you done with my uncle?” I asked without properly addressing him.
The Taewŏn-gun looked around at his advisers, each of whom had their eyes fixed on the table in front of them. “Leave us,” the Taewŏn-gun ordered in his high-pitched voice. “I wish to talk to the queen alone.”
The advisers and Mister Euno left the room in one big bustle. When they were gone, I stood at the front of the room and said, “You have Japan on your inner counsel?”
“Mister Euno is a wise man,” my father-in-law said. “He has connections in Japan and knows how to work with them.”
“They are treacherous, and I suspect, so is he.” My father-in-law did not respond. “Where is my uncle?” I asked.
My father-in-law shrugged. “Why do you ask? Is he missing?”
I hesitated a moment to gather myself. I had come here in a rage, and the Taewŏn-gun was a clever man, skilled at turning an argument to his advantage. Instead of answering his question, I asked again, “Where is he?”
He rose from his cushion and faced me. Though he was not old, he looked much older than when I had first met him, as if the demands of running the country were draining the life from him. The lines in his face were deeper, and his long beard was turning gray. Still, he was the Taewŏn-gun, and though he was a small man, his character filled the room. “If he is missing, I can understand why you are concerned, Majesty,” he said. “I know he is your closest adviser. I often wonder why you need so much advice. Perhaps Minister Kim knows what happened to him. I hear he has become an adviser to you, too.”
I was stunned and didn’t know what to say. How was it possible the Taewŏn-gun knew about my conversation with Minister Kim? “I . . . I don’t know what you mean,” I stammered. “Minister Kim has only come to my quarters to inspect my tapestry. He is your adviser, not mine.”
The Taewŏn-gun went to a wall and examined a calligraphy he had done that was hanging there. It was a single Chinese character, beautifully drawn with graceful yet bold strokes. The character was for gōnglű, the Chinese word for “power.”
“Yes,” the regent said, “your tapestry. Well, Minister Kim is a fine adviser. He is studious and has good judgment. He and I do not always agree, but I value his counsel.” Then, without looking away from his calligraphy, he said, “I do not know what happened to your uncle.”
He was lying and I knew it. I lifted my chin and leveled my eyes on the regent. I said, “I don’t believe you, Ahbonim. You know what happened to my uncle, and I command you as your queen, tell me.”
The Taewŏn-gun still faced the calligraphy. Then, in one quick move, he ripped it off the wall and crumpled it into a tight ball. He let it roll off his hand onto the floor. Shocked, I took a step back. I had never seen such emotion from my father-in-law, and it frightened me. He glared at the crumpled paper for several seconds. “Forgive me,” he said finally. “I saw a mistake in it. I do that sometimes—make a mistake that I do not see until later.”
He slowly turned toward me and then returned to his cushion. “Ja-young, hear me. We—both of us—serve the king. I do what is best for him and our country. It is your duty to do the same. And the best thing you can do for the country and king is to let me run the government. Do not challenge me. Remember your promise to me and your duty to your king.”
I gathered my courage and took a step toward him. “If I believed you only serve country and king, I would not challenge you. But it seems you only want to stay in power. You befriend the Japanese to distance us from China. But Japan will protect you only as long as you do what they want. You persecute the Mins and the other clans to keep the Yis in power. And now you have taken my uncle.”
My father-in-law glared at me. “Be careful what you say. Your words are dangerous to the king.”
“Yes, the king,” I said. “There are many dangers here in the palace. But I believe he will be fine. ‘There’s such divinity doth hedge a king that treason can but peep to what it would.’” The Taewŏn-gun cocked his head at me quizzically.
“Shakespeare, Ahbonim,” I said.
“Shakespeare . . . ?” he replied, his eyebrows higher than usual.
“Hamlet,” I replied. “And you are right. I will have to be more careful from now on.” I turned and stormed out of the room.
I marched to the king’s quarters and threw open the door to his bedchamber. “It’s time,” I said as I stood in the doorway. The king was in his bed with a woman who was naked. When she saw me, the courtesan got out of Gojong’s bed and casually picked up her clothes from the floor. She had a much fuller figure than I did and was taller, too. She had a pretty face and long black hair. She didn’t cover herself as she walked past me out of the room without bowing.
Gojong crawled out of bed and slipped on his robe. “You should not come in here like that,” he scolded.
“Who is she?” I asked. “I’ve seen her with you before.”
“Her name is Gwi-in,” he said as he tied his robe closed with a sash. “She is a Yi and she will give me a son. When she does, I will make her my second wife.”
The king’s slight hurt me, but I bit my tongue. He hadn’t called me to his bedchamber for months, and I began to think he would never call me again. And if Gwi-in made the king a son, they would push me aside and make her the reigning queen. They would send me somewhere far away and forget about me. Or maybe they would simply kill me. I immediately disliked the king’s concubine with the full figure and pretty face. But I pushed aside these thoughts. At this moment, I had to convince the king to take control of the government so I could find my uncle.
“You said it is time,” the king said. “Time for what?”
“It is time for us to take over from your father,” I answered, still standing at the doorway. “You said you
would when the time is right. That time has come.”
“Ha, ha,” Gojong laughed. “And you want to help me, don’t you? You, the ambitious one.” He grinned and went to a low table and sat on a cushion. He picked up a bell from the table and rang it.
A servant appeared and said, “Yes, Majesty?”
Gojong didn’t reply right away. He looked from the servant to me, and then back at the servant again. “My pipe,” he said finally.
“Yes, Majesty,” the servant said and left the room.
Gojong looked back at me. “Tell me, wife, why is now the time?”
I went to the table and sat across from him. “Your father pushes our country toward Japan, and I fear it could be disastrous. And his taxes are making the people poor. I have seen it on the street. They will not stand for it much longer. There is anger in their faces.”
The king waved his hand. “All this worry about taxes and Japan and China and war and rebellion. It tires me. I approve of what my father does.”
I leaned toward him. “Do you? Your father makes decisions without us. Just now, I walked in on him in his quarters where he was meeting with the court advisers and Mister Euno, too. They were meeting in his quarters without us! The decisions he makes are on your behalf. They are supposed to have your approval. If the people rebel, they will come after you, not him. If Japan seizes Korea for itself, they will take away your throne. You must take charge before it’s too late.”
Gojong’s brow furrowed and his goatee twitched. He cocked his head. “He’s making decisions without me?” We stayed silent for some time, the king staring at the table, rubbing a hand over his head as if he was trying to understand what I had told him.
There was a knock on the door, and the servant came in carrying a silver tray. On the tray was a carved wooden pipe with a long, leather-wrapped stem. Next to the pipe were brown powder and sulfur matches. Before the servant could cross the room with the tray, Gojong pointed to a chest and said, “Set it there.” The servant set the tray on top of the chest, bowed and left the room.
The Dragon Queen Page 14