Chapter 4: The Uncle's Seal

The great hall smelled of pine smoke and old men.

Twelve elders sat in a half circle under Jae-ryeong's father's banner.

His uncle, Han Pil-gu, stood at their center in maroon robes, stroking his neat grey beard.

"Nephew," Pil-gu said warmly. "You look unwell."

"I look like a man who was up all night grieving."

"Of course." Pil-gu smiled. "Three nights ago you collapsed at your own feast."

"I was tired."

"You were pale as bone, and you let an assassin walk out the east gate."

A murmur ran along the benches.

Jae-ryeong had known this was coming, and his stomach still dropped.

"The Council has an old law," Pil-gu went on, gently.

"A lord who cannot hold his own cup cannot hold the seal."

"A lord who may be unfit can be tested."

"At noon tomorrow, in front of the whole sect, you will fight our three best swordsmen."

"Win, and the seal is yours without question."

"Lose, or fail to appear, and I hold it in trust until you are well."

It was a good trap.

If Jae-ryeong was ill, he would fail.

If he was well, he would have to explain why a poisoned man could walk.

He looked at the elders.

Half would not meet his eyes, and half were looking at his uncle.

"Noon tomorrow," Jae-ryeong said. "I'll be there."

"The sword trial is no small thing."

"I know what it is, Uncle. My father went through it at twenty-six, and he never forgave the man who beat him."

"That man," Pil-gu said pleasantly, "was me."

Jae-ryeong had not known that.

He put it away behind his teeth.

That night, the hour of the rat passed without a knock.

Jae-ryeong sat on the edge of the bed with the cold creeping into his wrists and the lamp burning.

He told himself the poison master did not owe him a prompt arrival.

Midnight.

Half past.

At last something scraped against the roof tiles.

It was not the soft landing he knew.

It was a thud, a breath, and a slither of tile.

Jae-ryeong was at the window before he had decided to move.

Seol was lying on the eave, one hand hooked in the gutter.

His green robe was torn across the shoulder, and the cloth was black and wet in the lamplight.

"Don't shout," Seol said through his teeth. "Help me over."

Jae-ryeong took him under the arms and hauled him in.

He weighed almost nothing.

Jae-ryeong laid him on his father's bed, and Seol said, "Dose first," and tried to open his box.

Jae-ryeong took it out of his hands.

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