The Eunuch Who Guards the Crown Prince's Bed novel · Chapter 11 of 24
Chapter 11: The Ledger
Hyeon went to his father's bedside at dusk with Bae behind him, and he sent Seok-woo for a letter.
"The red one," he said at the door of the Hall of Quiet Dawn, pushing a small iron key into Seok-woo's palm. "It's in the lacquer chest under the window. My father wrote it the night he gave me the tablet. It names the physician he trusts."
"Why do you need it?"
"If the letter is in his hand, the guards at his door will have to read it." He closed Seok-woo's fingers over the key. "Be quick. I'll hold the corridor as long as I can."
He kissed Seok-woo, hard and brief, in front of Bae, and Bae looked at the ceiling.
Then they were gone.
The chamber was quiet.
A single lamp burned on the low table beside a half-finished ink painting of a plum branch, drawn in five strokes.
Seok-woo crossed to the window.
The lacquer chest was black, inlaid with mother-of-pearl cranes, and so often waxed that it shone.
The key turned easily.
He lifted the lid.
On top, folded in thirds and tied with a cord, lay the red letter.
He took it out and set it on the floor beside him.
Under it lay a thin book.
It was bound in black thread, no bigger than his hand, with a plain paper cover gone soft from handling.
Seok-woo almost did not touch it.
His father had taught him a rule in the garrison: you do not read another man's papers.
He touched it.
He opened the first page.
The handwriting was Hyeon's, narrow and fine.
It was a list.
A name, a date, a place.
Beside each, a sum of silver.
He read down the page, and the next, and the next.
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