[Chapter theme song "ERHU COVER BY LUYIFEI" -3rd song from playlist tinyurl.com/hofsotsound ]
The Sillans and Baekje's' village skirmish continued until the traitors' number was reduced to but a few, and they surrendered their lives to captivity or slavery. A small victory for the Silla, a heavy toll for all.
Min-Jun took his brother hostage and placed him under guard. It pained him but he was more than the man underneath the armour. He gave the baby to his aide to feed and keep warm. The armour might have been stiff and cold, but he still had a beating heart. One thing he knew: he could make no decision for either of them nor look them in the eye.
Nightfall sneaked in, aiming to push the day, with all the horrors it bore witness to, into oblivion. Min-Jun and his troops set up camp in the village and settled in for the night, waiting for the sun to come up once more and allow for them to gather and count the dead.
They were the only ones, for no other innocent villagers came out alive from their homes.
As night with its sounds settled in, a couple of specks of light amber tones pierced through the darkness. Min-Jun's men gathered one by one in front of the fires, respectfully avoiding stepping on the patches of blood that now sullied the village green. They sat in circles in front of what used to be the blacksmith's workshop. His forge, as cold as the village he had left behind. The crude plank and barrel seesaw from his courtyard where children used to play, as still as the starless night.
Finding a fleeting refuge from the cold, the soldiers huddled together around the fires. Warming up their stiff hands and feet, they reached for the flames as if they were more afraid of the frosty bite of winter than a stinging burn. Damp wood snapped and crackled as ambient noise, underlying the uneven tone of their voices.
To hide their tiredness and fright, they all shared drinks, dirty jokes and tales of bravery, faces gleaming in the faint light. Some yawned, some remained shaken and silent. Many talked and forced themselves to laugh.
General Min-Jun tried to clear his foggy mind and envision a just and merciful way out of his troubles. He was sitting quietly amongst his soldiers, mingling with them, as he often did. His brother and the baby's face came in quick succession in front of his eyes. He chased them away. He needed clarity and impartiality, instead all he could think of was family, honor, sensibility and mindless glory. His brother chased glory regardless of everything.
Near the fire several men were noisier than the rest. One of them stood up, with a flask in his hand and a weird smug look on his adolescent face. "I am telling you, my comrades, glory awaits us." Approval grunts were heard from the others. "The only reason I am grateful to have lived through today is to be able to fight tomorrow." He tried to turn his unwrinkled face toward the pitch blackness, lurking from behind, but his overconfident expression quickly turned into something incomprehensible.
The darkness, hiding their fears and the fresh bodies, was not easy to face, Min-Jun thought. The baby's eyes were not easy to face either despite all his bravery. Stupid bravery.
His troops banter continued around him. A man in his prime, from across the firepit, mocked the young soldier. "You little chicken. Look at you with your big words trying to look brave. Weren't you the one I caught spilling his guts just before our general signalled to attack?" All around, wide chests moved up and down from laughter at the cutting remark.
Min-Jun darted his gaze between them and thought of his brother and his foolish pride to always be first at everything.
Out of the men gathered together, the senior of the bunch spoke in defence of his younger comrade, standing next to him, giving an encouraging pat over the boy's buttocks. "Aargh, let him be. Didn't you see how proud he was of his new shiny armour? Let the boy live for the fighting if it's keeping him alive. Glory or no glory, I'll gladly join my sword with his if our wise king orders me to."
They were happy to fight, but would it matter to them if they would have fought the enemy or their brothers?
"Well, I would not mind some fine coins and my name mentioned in songs for uniting us with the Baekje. I hear our Baekje sisters are fine-looking too. I'd sure love to ally myself with one of them," another one joked out loud, raising his cup and attracting encouragement and laughter.
"I would not mind that either." The young soldier concluded his bragging session, laughing foolishly.
The boy's enthusiastic declaration and the light approach his men displayed collided with Min-Jun's thoughts and ignited his inner fire. He dug his fingers in the snow. His stare aimlessly followed the amber ashes, dancing upward through the air and vanishing under the inky canvas of the sky. With a voice that boomed out over the others', he stopped them midlaugh. "You hear tales of bravery and glory, you think about the shine of your weapons and armour in the sun, admired by women – those are fantasies and lies, I tell you. Never expect glory; all you get is pain and gore."
He stood up, looking around, facing each of his men, not shying away from their eyes. "Your clear heads and steady hands are all our people can count on. A warrior with a broken spirit can no longer call himself a man, let alone a soldier."
Every single one of his soldiers kept their mouths clammed up, moving their eyes to their drinks or to stare at the ground. The only reply Min-Jun got was from the wood crackling and popping as it gave in under the power of the flames. The silence was overbearing as he bid his men a good night and headed for the sentries' post to make sure they had clear instructions.
The boastful young soldier from earlier sat down befuddled, leaning over to the man who encouraged him. "That speech was something else. What is wrong with our general? I thought he was supposed to be the fiercest."
"Aargh, think about being in his place, having to put your brother in chains. Life in the big city must have softened him up. Some say he got into tutoring younglings before the war."
"Teaching?" the young one replied, surprised. "But he is a True Bone, from a long line of generals. And famous ones at that. He must serve in the military until his death. How could he have been a teacher when he was a general?"
The older soldier shrugged, not having an answer for this mystery, and grabbed the flask to take a sip, following with his eyes the general's silhouette until it was swallowed by darkness.
*
After making his rounds and inquiring about his brother's behaviour and the baby's health, Min-Jun entered someone's abandoned home, dismissing his aide, ready to unfasten his armour by himself and go straight to bed. He stretched his worn-out old muscles on the foreign mattress, something made of animals' hides. It felt lumpy and made strange sounds when he sat himself on it, so he inspected it swiftly, marveling at the ingenuity of the stitches that held it together. But only the Venerable Lord Tao knew if it held inside clumps of wool or mice and rats. Just to be sure he patted it hard. Better settling in, and hoping nothing would bite him in the night, he let his mind wander to a time when life and his thoughts were peaceful. His beloved city had been bathed in the lazy autumn sun when he last saw it. He thought of walking the familiar streets, teeming with life, until his eyelids fluttered shut.
It was a beautiful day. Pleasant dry air and a calm breeze swept from the garden to the covered house deck of his well-respected friend's residence. Under the teal smiling roof with its ornate tile ends, he and his pupil sat in the shade. His voice resonated loud and clear in between the brush strokes, gliding on the crisp paper.
"Young Master, do not slouch over your words. A crooked stance leads to a wandering mind. I see no way anything I am teaching you will go inside your head. Straighten your back and recite what I told you to write down." He put his hand over the boy's shoulder blades and motioned for him to straighten his stance. The silkiness of his pupil's raven hair tickled his palm when he gave him a gentle pat on the head as encouragement. He resumed his pacing around the house deck.
In a crystalline voice, the Young Master read outloud the text from The Four Books he had transcribed. Before ending the litany of verses, he paused. "Could I become a teacher like you, Seonsaengnim?"
The boy's pensive question stopped his pacing. He smiled softly at him and adopted the attitude of a disciplinarian.
"Tell me, young master, quickly. Who are we?"
The boy paused for a moment then replied as a student should. "We are True Bones."
"And where lies our duties?" Min-Jun continued, raising one eyebrow.
"To the king and realm, the caste, and our noble name." The young student stood proud as he replied.
"Good, and what is our caste?"
"We are the military. We must protect the land with our sweat and blood, ..."
"... from father and son, until our life is done." Min-Jun joined the boy as they recited their creed together.
He relaxed and offered back an understanding look. "So, you see, Young Master, there is only one path a True Bone could take."
"But you are called a general and also a teacher. How come the King allowed you to do both?"
"Oh, this is a secret only the King and I know." He winked at his pupil.
The boy peered from under his dark eyelashes and offered back a complicit smile. "How about we make it a secret kept between the King, you and I, Seonsaengnim?"
In a world where the first thing one learned was to bow their head, the daring nature of his pupil was something he always admired.
In the mild afternoon autumn air, the sounds from the streets made their way to the inner garden of the residence, and with them a distinct murmur that grew louder and louder,
"...ar....ar... War...We are at war!"
The hyped voice of the villa's doorkeeper could be overheard, coming closer. "Master! Master! The war has started! The war has started!" The gatekeeper ran past them, slamming his shoes on the wooden deck floor while looking for the master of the house.
Sadness seeped into the young boy's eyes. "Another war, Seonsaengnim? Does that mean you will have to leave again? And father?" After thinking for a second, with a glimmer of hope in his tone, the boy spoke again. "This time I am older, and I am already advanced with my fighting lessons. I cannot wait to help you and father on the battlefield."
So young and so eager to waste his life. Min-Jun looked at the auburn leaves from the canopies, easily scattered, like every age of peace he had lived through. "War is not something worth being eager for, Young Master, remember this."
"Understood, My General."
A gust of wind blew a handful of leaves from some of the nearby trees and spun them around, while everything else fell under a surreal silence. He turned to stare with incredulous eyes. "What did you call me, boy?"
The young master looked at him with his innocent face, and answered most naturally, "My General."
"Stop calling me that! I am not your general, boy and you are not a soldier. I am your tutor," his voice was strained, and anxiety surged within him.
Everything faded to white. Only himself and his pupil, keeping deathly still on his bench, made up the entire world. A world too small to be real.
A thin rivulet of blood descended from the gash appearing out of nowhere on the boy's neck. He pointed at his unfathomably unbothered pupil with a bloodied blade, clasped hard in his shaking hand before it was quickly dropped. At the same time, the boy fell lifelessly to the ground.
He dashed to pick his pupil's body up from the pool of blood growing wider under him. Kneeling on the ground he rocked back and forth, trying to keep the boy from slipping away. He wanted to wail. As hard as he tried, no tears arrived to ease the burning sting in his eyes, nor could he swallow to push down the sorrow catching in his throat. The young master's beautiful vivid eyes turned a deathly glassy grey, though the boy's lips were still moving, his voice echoing in his ears. "My General. My General."
"My General. My General!" His footman's anxious face loomed over him. Shaking him hesitantly, the man tried to draw him out of his nightmare. "Forgive me for waking you up like this, General Kim, but Second Brother Kim insists on seeing you."