“No, Majesty,” Sunia said.
The Queen put her palms to her cheeks in distraction. “I wish he did,” she murmured. “I wish I had not to bear all these changes alone.”
Sunia took courage. “Does not the King …”
“Oh, say nothing of the King,” the Queen said impatiently, and let her hands fall. “When do we meet, he and I? If I am summoned you may be sure it is not for communication.”
She looked for a long moment at Sunia. “Do you know,” she said, “I lived for many days in the poor grass-roofed house of a poet. He and his wife, the two of them, lived there with me and they hid me. But I saw how they lived. They were friends, he and she. When I was in the small secret room where I was hid, I could hear them talking together and laughing. Such small things they talked about, as where the gray cat had hidden her kittens, or whether a certain wild bird had returned from beyond the southern seas, and whether the next day they could buy a bit of meat for dinner. And then he read her the poem he had written that day and she listened and said it was the most beautiful poem he had yet written. And at night they lay down to sleep together in the same bed—”
She turned her head away, she pressed Sunia’s hand between both hers. “And why I tell you all this, I do not know. It is very silly. Return to your children’s father. Tell him not to hasten himself. I will wait patiently until his filial duties are finished. Tell him I will make no move meanwhile.”
She rose, smiled at Sunia, released the hand she held. Then her two women came to her, and leaning upon their arms again she left the audience room.
“Well?” Il-han asked when Sunia returned.
He was in the garden with his two sons, although until a short while ago he had been in the room of the dead where his father lay. He had examined the handiwork of the priest and then he had seated himself alone for some time with his father. According to custom, when a meal was served to the household, food must also be brought here to the dead, and only when the head servant came in with the bowls on a tray had Il-han left his father to go in search of his sons. They were still in the garden with tutor and nurse, and they had made friends with the monkey, laughing over his antics and feeding him with peanuts the nurse shelled as fast as she could.
Il-han had only finished saying to the tutor that the time had come when the younger son should also be under his care, to which the tutor had replied that he felt the younger should be under the care of another than himself.
“This elder son,” he was saying, “is of such a nature, so brilliant and so strong, that he takes my whole strength. Your younger son, sir, is different, and I fear that I am not able to teach and nurture two such different—”
At this moment Sunia had come to the door of the house and Il-han left the tutor’s words hanging and went to her at once. They entered the house together and he drew the wall screens shut as he spoke.
“Well,” she replied, “I have seen the Queen.”
“But did you give her my message?”
“Of course I did,” she replied, “and she tells you not to make haste, but to fulfill your filial duties and she will wait patiently until your return.”
“Is that all?”
She looked at him thoughtfully. What should she say? It was not all. She could say that the Queen was even more beautiful than she had remembered, she could say that the Queen behaved to her as though they were sisters, she could say — she could say nothing.
“That is all,” she said. Now she paused to look at him between half-closed lids.
“Why do you look at me like that?” he demanded.
She smiled. “How am I looking?”
“As if you were not telling me something,” he said bluntly.
When she only went on smiling, he turned away from her impatiently. “It is impossible for women to stop pretending or imagining or something or other. You delight in puzzling me!”
And with that he strode out of the room.
On the day before his father’s burial he went to the site of the grave, since it was his duty to be present while the grave was marked and dug. The site was outside the city wall, for it was against the law for any to be buried inside the city wall of the capital. The day was warm with spring, indeed a day for life and not for death. He rode his horse ahead of his servant, who sat on a smaller horse behind him. The cherry trees were coming into blossom, their soft white and pink a mass of delicate color against the gray of the mountain rock. People were stirring from their houses, the children running about with bare arms slipped out of their padded winter garments. Old men sat in the sun smoking their pipes, and old women crouched close to the earth, searching for the early green weeds to cook with bits of flesh or fowl and to eat with the day’s rice.
The city’s most skilled geomancer had chosen the site for the grave and was waiting for him. Il-han rode across the valley and halfway up a low hill, and there in a sheltered cove open to the sun, he found the man already marking the grave. With him were the gravediggers. Il-han dismounted and after suitable greeting he examined every view and aspect and then gave permission for the grave to be dug. While this solemn work was in process, he stood looking out over the city, a great city, a vast huddle of the houses of the poor, the palaces of the royal family and the noble clans, these set in parks of pine and blossoming cherry. Here in the capital were the extremes of his country and his people. How long could such division continue, while outer peoples threatened? How could he compel his people to realize their folly? Only the closest union inside the country could fend off foreign attack. His troubled mind searched again for answers to the question, eternal and dangerous, and he reviewed the dangers. He heaved a sigh as deep as his soul and was glad that his father was dead. Yet of what use was death? His two sons were alive and must meet the future he dreaded, and how could he help them except by somehow preserving for them their country, whole and independent? “Sir,” the geomancer said. “Will you approve?” He turned and walked toward the grave and looked into it. The earth was scanty, and rocks had been heaved out of it to make the pit and piled until the grave was rimmed with such rocks. To one side were the two gravestones upon which were already carved the high qualities of his father as poet and patriot, one to be buried at the foot of the grave and the other to be set up for the eternal future.
“You have done well,” Il-han told the geomancer.
There remained now only to wait for the mourners who were to bring food offerings to the spirit of the mountain, who was now to receive the body of his father, and Il-han waited until he saw the procession coming on foot from among the rocks. The bowls of food were then set forth in proper arrangement and the rites were concluded. There remained but one more duty, and it was to declare to his dead father that the grave was ready for his body, which he did as soon as he returned to his father’s house. In the presence of his father’s dead body he made declaration.
On the morning of the seventh day, his servant reported to Il-han that the shelters had been built near the grave, the funeral bier was made, and this because the family was too high to use a rented bier, the banners were complete, and all was ready for the funeral. To this Il-han made no answer except to incline his head in acknowledgment. He had kept himself apart from his family during these days, and alone he had returned to the library of his father’s house, dressed every day in mourning and eating only a little coarse food, while he studied the Buddhist scriptures and the Confucian classics in order that his soul and mind might be purified. He had so continued thus throughout the days until the hour came for the funeral procession to assemble.