knew that he was dead, for he had never written home.
* * *
The thought of Older Brother dampened my spirit, but life in the capital had taught me not to dwell on sad things. Do not dwell on being branded on the cheek, everyone watching and clucking their tongues at you. Do not dwell on your dead brother. For when grief swells around you like the sea, you must swim and keep your head above it. Do not drown in it.
I locked the memories of him in a box, to be opened only when I was alone. I didn’t want Inspector Han to see a sulking, homesick girl; I wanted to impress him. Straightening my shoulders again, I readjusted myself in the saddle.
“Curse this heat,” Ryun muttered. Dark patches of sweat blotted his attire as the sun pulsed overhead.
“You look about to faint,” I said, my voice strong again.
Ryun waved my words away weakly, wiping his brow. “Don’t talk to me. I have no energy to reply.”
We traversed through the town and rode out of it, passed by different landscapes, rice and cornfields appearing, then receding. At last, the road branched out into little paths, with one disappearing up the slope of Mount Hwa. The stifling heat eased as we traveled deeper into the woodland shade, and before long, I saw the sweeping rooftops of Yongjusa Temple.
Most temples were in ruins, Buddhism having lost favor with the imperial court long ago, but Yongjusa was a rare jewel. “King Ch?ngjo agonized that his father, the murdered Prince Sado, was wandering near hell,” my brother had told me, “and so His Majesty resurrected Yongjusa and moved the tomb nearby, that the temple might protect his father and grant him eternal peace.”
After tethering our horses, we climbed up the granite steps, which led us to the main gate. Four statues with bulging eyes glowered down at me, and one held a sword as though prepared to kill anyone with a wicked spirit. Quickening my steps, I hurried past the monstrous figures. We passed by two more gates, drawing closer to the chanting and steady beating of wooden handbells. But not a single human soul appeared as we searched through the smoky mist. The sound of chanting hummed on without a tangible source. It was as though we’d stepped into a deserted village filled only with ghosts.
At last we reached what seemed to be the main temple, with a heavily tiled roof supported upon towering pillars, the eaves richly carved and painted in blue, red, and green. Inside the open hall, monks with shaved heads sat on the floor, chanting the Heart Sutra, and at the far end was a child in a gray robe, sitting cross-legged and dozing off.
“Come, let us not disturb them,” Inspector Han said.
We had not traveled far when a voice spoke out from the stillness. “Don’t get lost in the mist.” We turned, and on the veranda built around a smaller hanok building stood a monk with a string of beads around his neck. “Have you come from afar?”
Ryun hurried up to the veranda and bowed to the monk. “We traveled here from the capital,” he announced, “and my master would like to make a few inquiries.”
The monk examined Inspector Han, and after a pause, said, “Why don’t you all come in and rest?” He pulled at a brass handle, sliding the door open onto a dark and drafty room. “I will prepare a tea table for your master.”
“No need, sunim,” Inspector Han intervened. “We will not be staying long.”
The monk bowed his head. “What is it you came all this way to ask, sir?”
Inspector Han joined the monk on the veranda, while Ryun and I waited in the courtyard. “Women often come here to pray and burn incense, do they not?”
“They do.”
“And when they flee to the temple to escape trouble, is it usual to take them in?”
“It is the way of Buddha to be compassionate to all.”
“Is that so?”
“Each new encounter is the result of karma; everything has its cause and effect. It would therefore be unwise to turn the desperate away.” The monk’s billowing sleeves engulfed his arms and hands as he crossed them at his waist. “It would worsen the karmic link and create future enmity rather than affinity. So Buddha’s way is to treat each new encounter with respect and consideration.”
“Might I ask then,” Inspector Han said in a low voice, “whether a woman by the name of Lady O Eunju ever came here