He managed to dispose of five or six attackers before a whole crowd gathered in the yard and surrounded him. Mu-in leapt and spun in every direction like a mad dog. The thugs elbowed one another, swung, and knocked into their companions, getting in each other’s way, so he was still able to hold them off. And he could still try to break their ring, vault the fence, and escape into the forest, if not for Hwan.

  The ghost of their mother appeared above the fighters’ heads. She pointed behind him, Mu-in glanced over his shoulder and swore under his breath. Not all the bandits were fighting him in the yard. Some had gone to search the house and were now dragging a struggling Hwan out with them. Mu-in tried to break through to him, but there were too many bodies and blades in the way.

  “So, is this someone important to you?” giggled the lean, swarthy bandit with the scraggly beard who had found Hwan. “Look at that, they were right to say you wouldn’t be alone. How much do you think he’s worth, eh?”

  “Don’t you dare touch him, trash,” Mu-in spat.

  “No need to be so rude,” the man smirked and signaled the others. They stepped back, keeping Mu-in in the ring but no longer attacking. “You’re the one who killed old Kwon, aren’t you? I might want to thank you. He wouldn’t give up his place for anything, and now look where he is and where I am!”

  “If you want to thank me, let us go,” Mu-in suggested, perfectly aware it was impossible.

  “Good one,” the new leader laughed again and tugged at his sparse beard. “And whose head will I bring to the boss? He doesn’t pay for jokes.”

  “I can buy myself off too,” Mu-in continued the pointless bargaining for some reason. The bandit wanted no silver, he wanted to play and destroy his quarry. Still, a short pause in the middle of the fight was useful for Mu-in. He was slowly catching his breath and trying to figure out how to free his brother.

  “I doubt you’re richer than that old man. I judge by your clothes, of course.” The thugs snickered. Their new leader pressed his sword to Hwan’s neck. “But you could buy this lad’s life, eh? We were sent for your head. I don’t want to lose more guys than necessary. Put your weapon down, and I might spare this servant. Is one dog worth another, what do you say?”

  Nothing new. Mu-in had known the answer to this question for twenty years. He set his sword to the side, getting ready to loosen his grip. The ghost of their mother dashed around the yard, wringing her hands.

  “How dare you?” Hwan suddenly cried out. “Do you even know who I am?”

  Everyone, Mu-in and the ghost included, stared at him in surprise. Hwan looked like a perfectly ordinary servant, except maybe that he was well washed. He had not had time to change into anything else after all, and his patched rags went very well with his cracked, calloused hands and his messy hair, gathered into a clumsy topknot.

  “Do you even know who my father is?” Hwan continued shouting, taking advantage of the general confusion. “He’ll grind you into dust and scatter you to the wind, brothers!”

  “Oh really?” The thug leader looked him over from head to toe with open skepticism. “Let me guess. Your father must be the most important and respected… hauler of dung carts?”

  The bandits burst out laughing and began tossing out their own clever guesses: filthy butcher, savage hunter, despicable corpse-washer.

  Mu-in shook with rage.

  These swine could not even begin to imagine whose name they were dragging through their foul mouths. He was ready to tear them apart with his bare hands, if not for the blade at Hwan’s throat, which barely held his fury in check.

  “You’re thinking too small, brothers,” yet Hwan was not offended in the least by their mockery. Unlike his elder brother, who remembered and loved their father, to Hwan the man had always been a stranger. What did it matter what someone called him? “Would I threaten you with a butcher? He’s an important bigwig in the capital, think harder.”

  “A guard, then?” someone suggested. The bandits felt secure and happily joined the game. “Or maybe some merchant?”

  “Wrong again,” Hwan said, apparently oblivious to the sword at his neck. He bared his teeth in a wide grin and jerked his chin at Mu-in, who was seething with anger. “Does he look like the kind of man who’d protect a simple guard’s son?”

  “Fellows, he’s got a point,” muttered the bandits. “That’s that one, how’d you say… You saw him fight?”

  “He was the boss’s bodyguard,” the leader agreed. “Men like him serve only nobles. So the lad’s not from our riffraff, is he?”

  “Oh, you’re starting to understand,” Hwan nodded with dignity. “Maybe you will be able to guess.”

  “He doesn’t look like a young master,” the leader lowered his numb arm with the sword and told another henchman to hold Hwan while he flexed his elbow. “Hands are too rough, shoulders too narrow. You know, that noble ‘breed’ doesn’t show. His face is a bit plain too, though not as ugly as, say, our Uncle Radish… I think I’ve got it. Well, who else has a guess?”

  Mu-in did not know whether to laugh or cry. All this talk of “breed” from the mouths of mountain bandits who probably could not even read was ridiculous and offensive at once.

  He did not know if he and Hwan would live to see another evening, but he was determined to make sure not a single one of those filthy tongues remained in its owner’s mouth. The leader had lowered his sword, that was good. Now he only had to figure out how to reach him before he managed to injure Hwan.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I think I know!” one of the bandits waved his hand to attract attention. “I had a little sister once. When things got hungry, Mother sold her as a concubine to some estate. They said if she had a son, they’d reward her and feed the boy. Only she died in childbirth, and nothing came of it. But I reckon this one’s a concubine’s son.”

  “Now you’re thinking,” the leader nodded approvingly. “Then his daddy can be a bigwig and the boy would still be worthless trash like us. Am I right, lads?”

  The bandits roared with laughter, and fresh barbs about illegitimate brats flew. Hwan furrowed his brow and scratched the tip of his nose.

  “I’m not sure,” he glanced at Mu-in. “I suppose you could say my Mama was a concubine?”

  In principle, since the king had never declared Lady Kim queen, her high court rank did not change the fact that she was considered one of his consorts. Even if a royal consort and a nobleman’s concubine were two very different things. There was nothing shameful in being the king’s companion and the mother of his entirely legitimate children. Many noble clans competed for the right to send a daughter into the royal bedchamber.

  So Mu-in pressed his lips together and gave a curt nod.

  “See, I was right!” the leader grinned. Like many people who lived outside the law and relied only on their own strength, he enjoyed asserting himself at others’ expense and bullying the weak.

  “You weren’t right,” Hwan shook his head.

  “I said your ma was a concubine, and he confirmed it,” the leader reminded him.

  “But you were supposed to guess who my father is,” Hwan insisted. “Though I must admit, you’re close to the answer now, brothers.”

  “What’s there to guess?” the leader snorted and scratched his sparse beard. “Some noble, obviously.”

  “Which noble?” Hwan repeated. “You work for this Choi, don’t you? And who is above him?”

  Here, of course, Hwan went too far. But what could one expect from a slave who had grown up on a farm far from the capital?

  Mu-in understood all too well that even the king was forced to reckon with the powerful councilor who had seated him on the throne and still could not touch him. Even after he started the palace fire. That was why he and Hwan were now serving as bait for Choi’s foolish henchmen. Even a single drop of royal blood spilled counted as high treason, if it could be proven. If the bandits knew they had real princes before them, they would not have dared threaten them.

  Or they would have killed them quickly and hidden the bodies well.

  Nothing less — theft, bribes, a private army — had been enough to shake the chief state councilor’s position. He had even made one of his relatives queen a few years earlier, and the king had not been able to object.

  So was there anyone in this country whom Chief State Councilor Choi himself feared?

  The thugs were probably thinking along similar lines, because they burst out laughing again.

  “Above Councilor Choi?” the leader wiped imaginary tears from his lashes. “You’re quite the joker, lad! Every last dog knows it’s the chief councilor who rules Joseon. From taxes to the army, everything is in his hands. You’d have to be the son of the Emperor of Great Qing at the very least to frighten him!”

  An arrow whistled from the darkness and struck the gravel at the leader's feet.

  Mu-in raised his gaze. It seemed to have been shot from above.

  Barely visible against the starry sky, the rounded crests of royal guard hats rose above the roof ridge, above the stable, above the fence. They had taken positions around the lit yard while the bandits bickered with Hwan. The miracle had happened: they really had arrived on time. In the lantern light the bandits were exposed as if on a stage.

  Mu-in lost his last reason to hold back. He slashed at the nearest arm, jumped, spun in the air, and crashed down on the leader, knocking him to the ground. War cries erupted from all sides, arrows hissed through the air.

  “The king,” Mu-in growled into the leader's gaunt, frightened face, pressing him to the ground with his knee and feeling thin ribs begin to give. “Joseon is ruled by the king!”

  When the guard had finished tying up the surviving bandits and added their former leader, found in the forest, to the lot, a tanned officer with a long tassel on his hat strode over to Mu-in with a wide smile and reported,

  “Nine prisoners, eighteen bodies, counting those on the bridge. Excellent work, nari.”

  “Thank you for arriving in time,” Mu-in nodded. He wanted to exhale, rinse off, and crawl into some dark corner to lick his wounds. “What are your orders?”

  “We will take these men and interrogate them,” the officer replied. “You and the young master are to be protected and delivered to the palace unharmed.”

  Mu-in nodded. The dark corner would have to wait.

  “Let your men and horses rest, drink water, and bandage their wounds,” he ordered. “We ride out in thirty minutes, at the end of the hour of the Tiger.”

  The officer gave a short bow and went to relay commands. Mu-in looked around, finally spotted Hwan, and headed toward him. His brother was sitting on the gallery, legs dangling, staring into nothing. It appeared he had escaped without injury.

  “Come on, we need to wash your face,” Mu-in said. The phrase sounded strangely familiar. Like in childhood when his little brother ate something tasty and smeared his chubby cheeks up to his ears, and the nursemaid would wring her hands and wail. Then Yi Yun would take the little boy by the hand and tug him toward the basin of warm water, saying, “We need to wash your face, let’s go.”

  Hwan suddenly lifted wide eyes to him. He, too, seemed to hear that familiar echo, to recall the smell of milk and peaches, yet could not grasp what it was or why such simple words had warmed his heart.

  “Let’s go,” Mu-in repeated patiently and held out his hand. Over the last few days Hwan had been through a lot, nearly dying several times. It was probably worth treating him more gently. “You did well. You were stalling them on purpose, arguing like that, weren’t you?”

  Hwan nodded, jumped down from the gallery, and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. The outstretched hand now seemed out of place, Mu-in let it drop.

  “I was so scared,” Hwan admitted. “Thought they’d finish me right there.”

  “Everything will be fine now,” Mu-in assured him. “We’re going to the palace. You will see Father. He will be very glad you are alive. Everything will be wonderful!”

  He, of course, did not believe that.

  More precisely, he knew Father would greet them with joy once he was sure they truly were his sons. But everything else… Life in the palace had not been easy even when he was eight. Now that he was twenty-seven and about to become the king’s eldest son again and a candidate for the throne, things would only grow more complicated.

  Factions, ministers, long-lost relatives who suddenly discovered a new piece on the game board — all of that awaited him beyond those longed-for high walls. It would be good to shield Hwan from the snake pit awaiting them, and Mu-in was already racking his brains over his next steps.

  Perhaps the simplest thing would be to underline Hwan’s incompetence and hide him somewhere far from greedy eyes. If Father allowed it.