Into this pine grove Il-han now went, and he sat on a rock behind a large leaning pine and waited. If nothing took place, he would return home again without making himself known, but if there was a misfortune he would be there to save the Queen if he could. The King he knew would not be killed for then the succession would be endangered, and the country thrown into swift revolution. Throughout the night he sat listening and waiting while the darkness deepened and the night creatures came out to creep and call. He heard, or so he thought, the sound of marching and countermarching, but remembering the Japanese guards, he supposed that this was part of their duty.
The black hours were passing, he guessed that day was not too far away and he was considering whether he should not return again to his horse and reach home before too many people were about the streets when a shout reached his ears. Then he heard screams and cries, and listening with ear to the windward, he knew instantly that the palace was under attack. He ran out into the darkness with all speed but he caught his foot on a root and fell. He got himself up again, although he had wrenched his hip, and he hobbled on. Now the Royal Guards were awake and shouting as they ran toward the palace. He was carried along with them, still hidden by the darkness when they paused, bewildered and inquiring, only to hear that there was no attack, and that what had been shouted was no more than the marching cries of the Japanese near the western wall.
At this the guards went back again to their barracks. Il-han, however, did not return to the pine grove. Instead he hid behind a shrine set in a rock garden. He had not long to wait, for the outcry had roused the Colonel of the Royal Guard, who, distrusting the commotion among the Japanese soldiers, was already on his way to the Ministry of War. When he reached the main entrance to the palace grounds he was surrounded by the Japanese soldiers, and Il-han, looking out from behind the rock, saw in the flare of torches that all he had feared was about to happen. Eight shots rang out and the Colonel fell, whereupon the soldiers drew out their swords and cut the dead man to pieces and threw those pieces into the small lake nearby.
Now indeed Il-han knew that he must find the Queen and quickly, if he was to save her. He came out from his hiding place and, much hampered by his wrenched hip, he hobbled toward the gate which led to her palace. Alas, he could make no speed. The Japanese soldiers were pushing forward in a shouting, bellowing, roaring mass, their bayonets pointed ahead of them as they met the fleeing hordes of palace servants. The Royal Guards were once more aroused and they let fly their bullets helter-skelter and killed some seven or eight of the soldiers before they were swept into the mass of others advancing and so cut down. Meanwhile the soldiers pressed on into the Queen’s palace, followed by beggars and local ruffians bent on loot. Among these Il-han could hide and he burrowed his way among them, trying by every means to reach the Queen first, though what he could do now to save her he did not know.
The mob filled the palace, and the rough soldiers seized every woman by the hair as soon as they saw her, demanding to know whether she was the Queen. Whatever the women said, the soldiers beheaded them and threw the heads aside or tossed them from a window. Still further the mob went until they reached the very last room, and now Il-han, pressed among them, heard two shots. Then he heard a low scream and he knew it was the Queen who screamed. The scream ended in a long moaning sigh. He bent his head and bit his lips until he tasted his own blood, but he could do nothing. She was dead.
The crowd stopped, men looked at one another, and then one by one they went away, the looters to loot and those who had committed the deed to escape so that none was known to be guilty. When all were gone and only Il-han was left, he went into the room where the Queen lay alone and he looked down into the lovely face he knew so well, still the same lovely face though aged now with the years during which he had not once seen her. He crouched down beside her and took her hand, still warm. Blood flowed from her left breast and from her smooth neck and he lifted the edge of her wide silk skirt and held it to the wounds. The silk was crimson and it did not show the stain except that the stuff turned a deeper crimson.
So he sat in the empty palace until sunrise and he sat on into the morning until at about the ninth hour a gardener came to the door, barefoot, so that Il-han did not hear his footsteps. He peered in and saw Il-han, whom he did not know, so long had Il-han been absent from the palace.
“Who are you, brother?” he asked.
“I am her servant,” Il-han said.
The man came near and stared down into the pale face of the dead Queen. “She liked white lotus flowers,” he said at last, “and now her face is as white as any lotus flower. What shall we do with her, brother?”
“Have you a cart?” Il-han asked.
“I have an oxcart,” the man said.
“Bring it to the nearest door and help me lift her into it,” Il-han said.
The man went away and in a short time came back again and they lifted the Queen, so slender that her weight was nothing for the two men, and they carried her to the cart and laid her there and the man covered her with the straw that filled the cart. Then he climbed up and the ox drew the cart away while Il-han followed far behind and slowly, for his hip was swollen and tears ran down his face for pain. Yet even this was not enough. Before the cart had reached the gate the dead Queen was discovered by soldiers and ragamuffins and they dragged her body out from under the straw and hacked it to pieces with swords and knives and piled the straw about the pieces and set all afire.
It was time for Il-han’s heart to break. He covered his face with his hat and hobbled away from that fire and into the street. His horse was gone, but the oxcart was there and he climbed into it, and bade the man take him home.
… Of that beautiful queen all that was left, he heard afterward, was the little finger of her right hand. This escaped the flames and was found by the man when he went back next day at Il-han’s command to see what bones were there, so that he might bring them together and give them honor. No bones were there, for dogs had wandered freely throughout the palace, but under a stone lay the little finger. The man took it up tenderly and wrapped it in a lotus leaf he had plucked from the lake. Then he took it to the King’s palace and demanded entrance and was received.
“I went into the King’s palace,” he told Il-han when all was done, for Il-han had said he would pay him well if he came to his grass roof with the whole story. “I went into the audience hall and the King sat on his throne surrounded by his ministers, and the old Prince-Parent sat there again at his right hand. The King listened to what I told him and he covered his eyes with his hand and he would not receive the lotus leaf from me. But he bade a minister take it and embalm it in a golden box and he said the Queen must be given a great funeral and a tomb must be built.”
Sunia was there while all this was told, and when the man was gone she took Il-han’s hand and held it and said not a word, but only sat beside him in silence, her warm hand clasping his.
So they sat until at last Il-han gave a great sigh and he turned to her and said, “My wife — my wife of great heart.”
Then he put her hand away and returned to his books.
… Two years passed before the astrologers could fix upon the place for the Queen’s tomb and then they fixed upon a stretch of land a few miles beyond the city wall. A thousand acres were here sequestered by the King and all houses were removed, for the tract held villages as well as mountains, hills, brooks and fields. Thousands upon thousands of young trees were planted upon the King’s command and fortunes spent in making a beautiful garden such as the Queen loved when she was alive. Her tomb was built upon the highest spot, a tomb of marble, encircled by a carved balustrade of marble. Before the tomb was a great table of white marble polished to shine like glass, and this was for making sacrifices to the spirit of the Queen. Beside the table stone lanterns miraculously carved were set into rock, and marble figures stood in graceful reverence.