The Foreigner 외국인

Chapter 10

10.

Eunuch Dal was relieved to see the king return in one piece but surprised that he was a few days early. "Your... your majesty, is everything all right?" he asked as Yi Jin stormed into his chamber.

"Eunuch Dal, please draw me a bath," he ordered.

"Ye-yes, your majesty." The eunuch bowed down before hurrying away.

The king's mind felt as clouded as the steam from his hot bath. He looked at his hand, shaking under the surface of the bath water. Was his aunt really planning to attack him after buying out one of his generals? Was she trying to overthrow him and take the throne? Was she acting alone or with her son, his cousin?

The king put his head between his hands. His aunt had always been warm to him, as well as quiet and removed from the court. What reasons could she have to want him overthrown?

"Eunuch Dal," he called, "please bring me Officer Yang and Officer Lee."

There was some commotion behind the bathhouse's doors, and the servant stammered instead, "Your majesty... the queen dowager... has passed away."

Yi Jin's ears started to buzz. "What?" he asked, thinking he might have heard wrong.

"Her highness the queen dowager is dead," a court lady responded from the other side of the door. The king stumbled out of his bath, slipping on the wet floor. Eunuch Dal hurried inside the room and helped him into his robe.

Yi Jin's bottom lip trembled as he kneeled beside his stepmother's body. He had prepared a grand funeral for her, which, unfortunately, did not help to ease the shame he felt. Even after Park No Li's execution, he had dismissed her as his enemy, although no evidence had been found of any wrongdoing on her part. He remembered how, as she was being crowned queen, he had wept for his mother. Yet she had also been an innocent victim caught between men's wicked games of power. How could she have been guilty of anything when she had been brought into the palace at just twenty years old, to marry the king?

Yi Jin took a painful breath and glanced to the side, where his aunt stood. He had trusted her as he would have his mother, yet she had betrayed him. How foolish he had been, putting his trust in blood relatives and forsaking others just by association.

Lee Ara, who had just returned to the gisaeng house from the queen dowager's funerals, took off her uniform and had just sat down to eat when Officer Yang showed up at her door.

"The king wants to see us."

The Jurchen woman sighed loudly. "Let me finish eating, at least."

Eun Yang looked at her, bewildered. "Are you going to make the king wait at a time like this?"

Lee Ara clicked her tongue. "Sit down." She waved a chopstick at him. "Help me with this food, so I will be done faster." She pushed a plate of meat towards him. The royal guard didn't protest any further; in truth, he was starving. They had barely had time to eat these past few days. The king had not been eating, either, and Eun Yang was so worried about him that the food in his mouth tasted like ashes.

Lee Ara, watching him, put her chopsticks down on the table loudly. "That distraught face of yours is cutting off my appetite," she said before getting up and announcing, "Let's go."

The king was sitting ramrod straight behind his desk. He wore common clothes, except for the gold donggot in his hair. "I will go confront my aunt tonight, he told them. "You two will come with me. Nobody else should know about this." Officer Yang opened his mouth to protest, but Yi Jin raised his hand to cut him off.