Ballad of the Mountain Fox

제 31 장: Listening to Another Tune

In all her time serving at the Oh household, Sujin had never seen anyone as bedraggled as the slave named Kim Nara who walked through the doors. And as luck would have it, Sujin was the servant ordered to get the slave new clothes and try to clean her up as best as possible.

A lukewarm bath and a few dirty towels later, Kim Nara almost looked presentable. Sujin gave the girl a folded old servant's outfit and stood by in case she could be of any assistance—or if the slave decided to try escaping again. Sujin had heard the ceramics master Seok Ji Hoon proclaiming that he had finally caught the thieving slave who had run away a few weeks prior. She did not want to be the one held responsible if Nara disappeared a second time.

Still, Sujin could not help but feel a bit sympathetic towards the runaway. The girl had obviously been through a lot these past weeks, and her master was not very forgiving.

Nara dressed in silence, tying the jeogori jacket over her skirt with shaking fingers. It was obvious she needed food and a good rest, but Sujin was not so sure Ji Hoon would allow that before taking her back to his home.

"Here, allow me," Sujin offered as the ties slipped through the attempted knot for a third time. Nara's hands dropped wordlessly as Sujin stepped in to help.

Uncomfortable with the silence, Sujin tried to lighten the situation. "At least you can go back to wearing women's clothes," she said with a friendly smile. Nara gave no response, and merely kept her gaze on the floor.

Sujin bit her lip. "I hear you only have a few more years left of your sentence," she said. "They'll be over soon, and you can forget all about this."

That forced a short, humorless laugh from Nara. "I'll never forget," she said. "If I live to a hundred, it will still not be long enough for me to forget the injustice done to my family and me."

Sujin frowned. "Well, it's not exactly an injustice. If you don't pay your debts, you must face the law." She finished retying the jeogori and took a step back to assess whether she had done a good enough job. Satisfied, she gave a single nod.

"The interest was too steep. No one could repay the loans at such a high rate, and Ji Hoon knew it, although my father did not until it was too late. He tricked us into working ourselves to the bone for him."

"There must have been a mistake," Sujin replied, looking back up to Nara. "No one is that cruel."

The slave only regarded her with stony silence. Unnerved, Sujin cleared her throat before continuing.

"Well, what about the thievery, then?" she asked. "Surely that couldn't have been—"

"The books were mine to begin with."

Sujin blinked in surprise. "Pardon?"

"The books I stole—was trying to steal. They were originally my mother's, given to her as a gift by a noblewoman she used to serve. My mother was a servant, like you, before she married my father."

Sujin shook her head. "But it makes no sense that Ji Hoon would have them."

"My father tried to sell him the books," Nara explained. "As a way to alleviate our debt just a little. They were old mythological tales, and they were how I learned to read King Sejong's alphabet."

"He tried to sell Ji Hoon the books?" Sujin pressed, forgetting for a moment that she had other work to do besides listen to a runaway's stories. There was the bath to clean up, the floor to scrub, and the laundry to clean. But those could wait.

Nara sighed bitterly. "In exchange for the books, Ji Hoon agreed to extend our loan for a week. One single week—as if that would be of any help! When the drought came, my mother grew ill and we fell even further into debt."