It was obvious the Manchus would come back for the sword.

  Now they knew exactly who had it, had seen their faces, and had been able to trace the house where Clay Pot was hiding. There was very little time left before the pursuers returned for their prize, more numerous and better armed.

  They could not stay here.

  The Ming Emperor’s sword had to be hidden again at once, and they had to make sure that no one could reveal its location even under duress.

  “If I don’t know where it is, then I’ll not tell anything,” the hunter had clearly come to the same conclusion. He looked grimly at Yi Ho and nodded at the sword lying in the middle of the room. “Only promise that you’ll not give it to them.”

  It was astonishingly insolent for a slave to demand promises from a prince, but Yi Ho decided to overlook it. The youngster likely did not understand what he had just said.

  “I am not going to give the sword to Manchu barbarians,” Yi Ho assured him. Only how could he keep that promise?

  “Do not keep it in your quarters,” the maid added anxiously and looked away. “When no one is there, they are very easy to search.”

  “And where would you hide the sword in the estate?” Yi Ho asked the servants.

  “In the firewood by the kitchen, in the well, in the shed with supplies…” the girl began listing.

  The prince nodded and remembered. Those were all places that could not be used. If a foolish maid thought of them, anyone would.

  “They may be watching this house and will see that I took the sword,” he said when she fell silent. “But it cannot stay here either.”

  Silence settled in the hut. The ghost clasped his hands behind his back and drifted from one end of the room to the other with a thoughtful look.

  “All right. Then I’ll swap it again,” Clay Pot finally sighed.

  “What do you mean?” Yi Ho did not understand.

  “I’ll take a stick, wrap it in that rag, and go out first,” the hunter explained. “I’ll try to hide in the forest, I know a couple of caves there. Let’em think the sword’s with me.”

  “And how will I conceal it?” The idea interested Yi Ho; he only needed the details. Even the ghost stopped and drifted closer.

  “Let her hide the sword under her skirt,” Clay Pot nodded at the maid. “You can tie it somehow, can't you? No one will suspect a girl.”

  “I can, I guess,” she paused, pushing out her lips in a comical little pout. “Only turn away while I fix it. Don’t peek!”

  The prince could not hold back a chuckle. As if he was so interested in looking under some slave girl’s skirt.

  “Then Clay Pot will leave first with the bundle and run to hide in the forest,” Yi Ho summed up their plan. “And half an hour later we will return to the magistrate’s estate. I will take the sword and hide it so that neither of you will know its location. I suppose, with the Wangwisa present, they will not dare to attack me.”

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  “Don’t walk alone again,” the hunter advised grimly and began fashioning a bundle from part of the broken window frame.

  The maid wagged a finger at them and began gathering up her skirts. Yi Ho turned away.

  Inside him, the descendant stirred restlessly. It seemed the sword had disturbed something in the spell, and the talisman that should have lasted all day was losing strength before his eyes. Yi Ho needed to renew it urgently. Hurry to the estate, find Eunuch Mo, sew a new strip of yellow paper to the lining of the danryeong. But to do that he would have to leave the hut right now, risking leaving the sword with a single weak maid. Or go out immediately after the hunter, without waiting for the hounds to chase him and clear the way.

  It might work, but it might not, and then the golden sword would fall into Manchu hands. The young emperor of Great Qing would proclaim himself the heir of the enlightened Ming dynasty. Joseon would lose hope of liberation forever, and the grandchildren of today’s Joseon people would shave their foreheads and wear braids like their northern masters.

  Was deciding today’s crown prince worth it?

  The younger one, Yi Hyun, was not so bad in truth. He was too young, inexperienced, too sweet by far, but recently Yi Ho had learned of his dreams of the Northern Campaign and Joseon’s independence. It was obvious the prince had been thinking through his plan for years, that it was an old and dear dream. Even if the only thing he accomplished in his reign was liberation from Manchu tribute, that alone would be enough. For a moment Yi Ho allowed that Yi Yun’s younger brother might not be as vile as his own had been a hundred years ago.

  “I have tied everything,” the maid reported. “Can you spot it?”

  “It looks fine,” Clay Pot circled her, scrutinizing her dress. “Then I’m going.”

  “Take care,” the girl told him. The hunter nodded shortly, bowed to the prince, and went out, clutching the rag-wrapped bundle to his chest.

  Time dragged.

  Yi Ho told the maid to sing quiet songs and count them, so they could guess the moment they needed. She leaned against the wall and began something mournful about hard labor in the fields.

  Yi Ho’s hand twitched, as if trying to clench into a fist against his will. It seemed there was very little time left. If he hurried, he should manage to reach his quarters and take a new talisman.

  “How many already?” he asked, trying to unclench his fingers.

  “This is the fourth song, Great Prince,” the girl replied, stopping her singing. “Eight more.”

  He would have time to leave, reach the end of the street, turn right, run to the estate gate, call Eunuch Mo, and secure the talisman. And then return for her while she was still singing.

  Or the hut would be empty, and their vile envoy would be boasting of the sword over dinner.

  Yi Ho drew a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  “To see what is right and not do it is want of courage,” he murmured.

  “Did you say something?” the maid called to him.

  “No. Sing,” Yi Ho answered more harshly than he should have, and clenched his teeth.

  The hut smelled of damp straw and mice. Cold seeped in from the street. The snow had crusted overnight and creaked under his boots in the morning. His cheek itched. The tea he drank yesterday had been bitter, but with a sweet aftertaste, flowing warm down his throat, filling and warming his body. From the coals in the brazier in the courtyard came the smell of burning; one could scorch oneself on its rim. The papered wall felt rough beneath his fingers, and his silk sleeve wonderfully smooth. Each breath made his chest expand with pleasure. Each movement, touch, taste, and scent made Yi Ho real.

  “The resolute and virtuous man does not seek to preserve life at the expense of virtue,” he added, and relaxed, letting go of tastes and touches and breath.

  Right now Joseon did not need a new crown prince. Right now Joseon needed the sword, and the prince could be anyone. And Yi Ho, as the true crown prince of his country, of course had to do what was right.

  He stopped clinging to another’s flesh, released the talisman that still bound them, and rose to the ceiling. The body below finally clenched its fist, turned its head, raised its hands to its eyes. His descendant was coming to himself and likely realizing what had happened.

  And then Yi Yun lifted his eyes and looked at him. Yi Ho could have sworn the prince truly saw him, not some beam. Yi Yun bowed in his direction and finished the saying:

  “He is ready to sacrifice life to fulfill virtue.”