Chapter 7: The Scribe's Price

"Put it back," Eo Hae-jun said again.

The scribe's voice was quiet, and without the stammer it was a different man's voice entirely.

It was level and clipped and a little cold.

Ji-hwan kept the tally in his fist.

"Who are you to tell me that?"

"The man who has stood between him and a rope for six years."

Hae-jun set the lantern on the floor.

His hands were shaking, but he held his chin up.

"The Inspector is waiting for a reason.

"He wants the General at court in twenty days to show his hand.

"He wants the tally in his own pocket before that.

"If it goes missing from this house, who do you think they will say lost it?"

Ji-hwan looked down at the bronze tiger.

"He'd be stripped," he said slowly.

"He'd be hanged."

Hae-jun said it.

"A general who loses his tally in his own bedroom while a boy from a pleasure house warms his bed.

"They would not even need a trial."

"You think I'm an assassin."

"I think you are a spy," Hae-jun said.

"I think the Hall of Nine Strings keeps quiet friends and sends them out in pretty clothes.

"I don't know who sent you, and I don't need to.

"I need that thing back in the box."

Ji-hwan opened his mouth to say something cutting.

What came out was, "Why do you care so much?"

Hae-jun's round, tired face softened.

"Because he's the only honest man I have ever worked for," he said.

"And he doesn't know how to be anything else."

Ji-hwan looked at the tally for a long moment.

It was everything Oh Man-su wanted.

It was six years of plans and a fortress and his father's face.

He set it back in the box beside the toy oar, and closed the lid.

He did not know why he did it, or he did and refused to look at the reason.

Hae-jun's shoulders slumped in relief.

"Thank you," he said, stammering again, as if his courage had been spent.

"I, I'll p-put the key back myself."

"No," Ji-hwan said.

"I'll do it."

He took the key and walked back through the garden alone, with the sky going pink over the roofs.

The General was still asleep in the pavilion with his arms around the zither.

Ji-hwan knelt beside him and looped the cord back over his head, and the General woke when his hands touched his neck.

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