side of the head look normal,” Damo Hyeyeon observed aloud, speaking to the men, who stood with their backs turned. She was their eyes, the only method they possessed to examine the naked victim. “There is an old scar a little behind the right side of the head, beanlike in shape…”
Hyeyeon explained every detail, however trivial, and the men trusted her observations. Unlike me, Hyeyeon and the other damos were educated girls, possessing vast medical knowledge and skills. Rigorously trained to become palace nurses, but having failed to achieve good grades, they had been demoted to the position of damo and would remain in this low position until they successfully passed the medical exam.
A harsh punishment indeed for bad grades.
But if Hyeyeon ever thought this unfair, not a ripple of irritation ever disturbed the surface of her countenance. Her cheeks hadn’t even flushed with anger when Ky?n called her “a pretty face ruined by too-big ears.” At eighteen, she had the grace and maturity of those highly respected palace nurses who served the queen herself.
“There is a single knife wound across the throat, with no hesitation marks.” So calm was her voice, always so calm. “The nose has been cut off with a blade.” With a ruler, she measured along the wounds and offered the lacerations’ depths and widths in the measurements of ch’on and p’un.
“The knife wound was deep enough to be fatal,” the coroner’s assistant murmured.
“Based on the condition of the victim, and other factors like the rain and the late summer’s heat,” Hyeyeon explained, “Lady O’s death occurred around midnight. By morning, she would have been dead for several hours already.”
“Hmm. Then the murder occurred during the curfew hours,” the coroner’s assistant remarked, referring to the period that began an hour before midnight and ended at dawn. “Watchmen would have been patrolling nearby, yet the killer took the time to cut off her nose. Why do you think he did this, sir?”
He turned to a gigantic man standing in the room, who wore a wide-brimmed police hat that cast a deep shadow over his eyes. Only his long purple scar was visible, rippling down his red cheek, inflamed by a rash. It was Commander Yi.
“The murder was surely committed by someone with a deep grudge,” the commander said. “Let me see what it was she was clutching.”
My brows crinkled. What? She had been clutching something? I only remembered her fist, but had not looked closely.
A clerk presented Commander Yi with a wooden tray. A string the length of a man’s arm lay coiled there. As he examined it, I craned my neck to have a better look.
“One can see it was knotted,” Commander Yi said. “Inspector Han suspects it was a necklace, perhaps pulled off by the killer. I have officers searching the area for its ornament, if there was one.”
A restlessness rippled through my limbs. I wanted to run out and search for the ornament, which might identify the killer, but before curiosity could pull me away, I saw Hyeyeon spray lees and vinegar on the corpse. My lips parted as I watched the way the flesh reacted. Something in the substance made all the injuries more visible, making patches of purple and yellow and red blossom all over. I clutched the doorframe.
“There is a bruise around her mouth, purple in color, the shape of a hand,” Hyeyeon said.
“Someone tried to muffle her cries,” Commander Yi observed.
Since my first day at the bureau, life had turned strange. I didn’t know where I was heading, where I would end up, and I often walked around the capital without purpose. Each day ended like an unresolved case. While I could find no solution to my life, the tangle of frustration in me loosened as I watched Hyeyeon take the strangeness out of the corpse. There was a story behind every bruise and gash, evidence that—when pieced together—would surely return life back to normal.
I strained my ears, trying to better hear their low-voiced conversation. Then a flush burned up my chest and spread across my face as Hyeyeon examined the private parts. I spun around, hearing her declare, “She is not a virgin,” only to find myself standing before Inspector Han.
“What are you doing here?”
The tips of my ears burned. “I was j-just looking. Curious, sir.”
“Curiosity seems to be your perpetual state of being. Where exactly is the end of it?”
I hesitated to answer. “I never reached the end myself, sir, so I do not know.”