The Painter and the Prince Who Cannot Be Painted novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Consort's Gate
The litter stopped at the foot of the landing.
The eight bearers set it down together, and a court lady in a plain grey coat drew back the pale green curtain.
A small woman sat inside, wrapped in quilts, with grey hair pinned flat and a face hollowed by illness.
Behind her stood six palace guards in dark coats, and a physician with a bag.
She looked at the landing.
She looked at the rope, and the stones, and the sack on the ground with a man still swearing inside it.
Then she looked at the huge bloodied figure kneeling on the planks with his hair in his eyes.
"Gyeol," she said.
It was barely a whisper.
Gyeol went still.
He rose slowly, wiped his bleeding hand on his robe, and walked down the landing with his head bowed.
At the litter, he knelt in the gravel.
The Consort's thin hand came out of the quilts and touched his cheek, and then his brow, and then the scar.
"You've grown a beard," she said.
"Mother."
"You have your father's face."
"I know."
"I didn't expect to see it again." Her fingers shook. "Let me look."
Gyeol raised his head and let her look.
The lantern light lay on his face.
It showed her the straight nose and the stern jaw, and the dead King's eyes under the dead King's brows, wet and wide open.
Nobody on that shore spoke.
Twelve guards and bearers saw it, and a physician, and a court lady, and on the lane above them, running down with spears, six island soldiers fresh from the north wall.
They all saw it, and not one dared look away.
The Consort's hand fell to her lap.
She turned her head.
"What is in that sack?" she said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Painter and the Prince Who Cannot Be Painted are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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