This Time, I Stood Up in the Selection Hall novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Silver Hairpin
Soyul tests the tea with silver in front of Lady Hwang, walks back with the captain who buried starved men in the north, and hears that the Chief State Councillor's clerk has come for the scribe.
Soyul held the lacquer box in both hands and couldn't breathe.
The last one had been black lacquer too, tied with green cord.
It came on the first snow, with the queen's seal pressed into the wax.
"Give it here," Dalrae said. "I'll throw it in the pond."
"No."
"My lady, that woman has a face like a knife."
"That's why I'm not throwing it away."
Soyul pulled her mother's silver hairpin out of her braid.
Her hair came down over her shoulder.
Dalrae stared at her, then at the pin, then at the box.
"Oh," she said. "Oh, no. Not in this room. If you're going to find poison, find it in front of witnesses."
Sometimes Dalrae was smarter than Soyul.
Yeonseo's room was across the courtyard, and her lamp was still lit.
Through the paper door came the click of go stones.
Soyul knocked and went in without waiting.
Yeonseo sat at a low board in her grey silk, playing black.
The youngest finalist sat across from her in a pink sleeping jacket, a plate of honey cakes in her lap, losing badly.
They both looked up.
"Thank you for the tea," Soyul said, and set the box on the go board, right on top of the stones.
The youngest one squeaked.
Yeonseo didn't move.
"Shall we drink it together?" Soyul said. "It seems a shame to drink alone."
"By all means."
Dalrae was already at the brazier with the kettle, glaring at everyone.
She brought three cups.
Soyul opened one paper packet and tipped the dried plum into the first cup, and Dalrae poured.
The smell rose, sweet and sour.
Soyul's stomach turned over.
She had smelled it last on the pavilion steps, with snow coming down on her face.
She put her silver hairpin into the cup and stirred.
Nobody said anything.
The youngest finalist had stopped chewing.
Soyul lifted the pin out and held it to the lamp.
Bright silver.
Not a mark on it.
She tested the second cup and the third.
Bright, and bright.
Yeonseo reached across the board, took the first cup, and drank it down without looking away from Soyul.
She set it on the board between two white stones.
"Who taught you to test tea with silver, Lady Baek?"
"My mother."
"Your mother died when you were twelve."
"She taught me early."
The youngest finalist made a strangled sound, and Soyul realized she was trying not to laugh.
"Did you send it?" Soyul asked.
"Yes."
"Why?"
Yeonseo turned the empty cup in her long fingers.
"To see what you'd do with it," she said.
"And now you've seen."
"Now I've seen."
Soyul picked up her own cup and drank it.
It was only plum tea, after all.
The youngest finalist reached over, took the honey cake off Soyul's saucer and ate it.
"Sorry," she said with her mouth full. "I eat when I'm frightened. Are we enemies now? Nobody told me."
"Not tonight," Soyul said.
"Oh, good."
Yeonseo was setting the stones back on the board one by one, exactly where they had been.
She didn't look up when Soyul left.
Outside, the courtyard was dark and cold, and somebody was standing by the pond with a lantern.
Captain Kang.
He had taken off his hat.
His black topknot shone in the lantern light.
"A maid with a Hwang house badge brought that box to the gate at the second watch," he said.
"I wrote it down. Then I saw it go across the courtyard, and I thought I should be close."
"In case I poisoned her?"
"In case she poisoned you."
"She didn't."
"I heard." He lifted the lantern a little. "May I walk you back, Lady Baek? It's just across the courtyard."
Soyul almost laughed.
He walked on her left, the lantern between them, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him through the cold.
"Your father was in the north," he said. "Four winters ago."
"He went to the garrison."
"He was the only minister who ever came." He looked at the dark pond.
"The grain hadn't come that year either. Or the year before. He ate what we ate. Millet and boiled bark."
"He came home thin as a stick," Soyul said. "He never told me why."
"I served six winters up there. I buried more of my men from hunger than from arrows."
His voice didn't change.
His hand on the lantern did.
The knuckles went white.
Soyul knew that, too.
In the Moon Pavilion's second winter he had told her through the gate about the men he buried.
She hadn't known then that the grain was stolen.
Neither had he.
They reached her step.
He held the lantern up so she could see the stone, and his other hand came out, almost touching her elbow.
He didn't let it land.
"You knew the scribe wouldn't live in the Tribunal prison," he said quietly. "You knew it before you stood up."
She looked at him.
"How?"
Running footsteps came across the courtyard.
A young guard skidded to a stop in front of them, breathing hard.
"Captain. There's a clerk at the Inner Gate cell with a writ from the Chief State Councillor. He says he's taking the scribe."
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