Chapter 12: The Grave

Namsan was white with frost when they reached it.

They rode in the gray hour before the sun, side by side, with no guard and no lantern.

Ji-hwan's arm throbbed in its sling under his coat.

Eo Hae-jun had come home from the prison at midnight, thin and astonished, and wept on the General's sleeve in the front hall.

The General had said only, "Go to bed.

"I'm taking him up the hill."

Hae-jun had given Ji-hwan a long, anxious look.

He had not tried to stop them.

The path went up through pines, and the horses blew steam.

The General did not speak, and Ji-hwan did not ask him to.

He watched the General's back.

It was the same back he had washed in the bathhouse, with the whip scar under the wool.

He thought that whatever waited at the top of this hill, he would not be able to unsee it.

They left the horses at a flat place where the trees opened.

There was a small stone shelter, a clearing and a low mound with a gray slab at its head.

An old man in a straw cape was sweeping the frost off the grass with a bundle of twigs.

He bowed when he saw the General.

He did not say anything, and he did not look at Ji-hwan.

He took his broom and went away down the far side of the hill, and Ji-hwan understood that he had been told to.

"You're the first person I've ever brought here," the General said.

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