158.
The Lure
Soun and the others stopped at a walled town along the route the man would pass and began asking after a famed courtesan.
They searched carefully for one whose reputation would match his tastes.
By a pavilion beside the official road where the Galcheon River curved past, they stretched a canopy and seated an armored "general" across from a courtesan dressed with the innocent air of a young girl.
The armor was modeled after that of the White Dragon Unit, altered to resemble the Supreme General's.
They fashioned a beard and affixed it so he would evoke Guan Yu, and procured a long staff shaped like an iron greatsword, painting it black and setting it upright at his side.
At a glance, it was the image of a renowned commander pausing to rest.
Beneath the canopy thick cushions were laid out.
Gisaeng sat in a circle, playing their instruments and singing.
The haegeum began first, its mournful tone rising along the stillness as though climbing into the sky.
Then the gayageum and geomungo followed, layering melody upon melody until the rhythm flowed like water.
A gentle wind moved through.
The sunlight was clear.
Within that brightness, the scene of music and laughter had been arranged to resemble a celestial realm.
Flowers clustered along the water's edge.
Courtesans in vivid silk robes wandered the pavilion, their colors catching the light even from afar.
It was a composition meant to draw the eye and stir desire to come closer.
There was something faintly gaudy in its design, yet from a distance it might pass for the banquet of a high official.
The taste behind it belonged to Yang the brewer.
The expense had not been small.
And yet, as they prepared it, a strange excitement took hold.
The stage now contained every element that would tempt Jang Sigi.
They did not neglect to spread word among passersby.
Yang brushed his hands together and rose after surveying the scene.
"Quite an unusual hobby you have. This is your style, is it not?"
"It's work. Nothing more than work, Student Yu. I have no private desire in it whatsoever."
"If one may play while working, how fortunate that is."
"I said it's work."
When he insisted on calling it work, there was meaning in it.
He wished to clothe it in the language of duty, separate from personal taste.
Yet taste seeps into such endeavors all the same.
He was a man who enjoyed this sort of labor.
Soun did not bother to deny it.
When instruments resound in a pavilion set where wide waters coil and turn, time itself begins to slow.
When true sound bursts forth from living strings and bowed wood, not from some mechanical contrivance, that place becomes a realm beyond the mortal world.
After a few rehearsals, Soun leaned against the railing, narrowed his eyes, and gazed at the distant sky.
"Even to me, if one were to lie still amid such melody and scenery, it would feel as though one might drift toward paradise."
Yang tried again to defend himself by calling it mere duty, but Soun agreed too readily.
A faint smile curved Yang's lips.
It was good.
Good beyond dispute.
Few would refuse such pleasure.
It was not disdain that kept men from it, but the limits of their means.
Who rejects wine and music?
All this hardship might well exist for the sake of such fleeting delight.
"It is good. But for lives like ours, how often does such a thing come within reach? It comes down to money. With money, it becomes possible."
On their return they spread the rumor again.
The brave Supreme General Jin Mugwang was said to be waiting to settle matters with "that fellow," passing the time by summoning a courtesan and drinking alone.
In truth, they had simply chosen a large-built villager, dressed him in armor, and seated him at the wine table.
Securing the courtesan had taken time and effort.
They persuaded her with a plausible argument: once the army passed, she would likely be taken anyway, so why not sit briefly at a wine table, earn her silver, and depart when called?
It was not an easy proposition to accept.
Yet Soun's artless manner inspired a kind of trust.
At the very least, he did not sound like a liar.
And there was payment besides.
Two gains from a single move.
It was Soun who spread the rumor.
He stopped travelers along the road and told the tale again and again.
By midday, the story reached Jang Sigi's ears.
The method was crude.
Anyone could see it for a trap.
Yet at the name "Courtesan Taehwa," something stirred within him.
Taehwa was the very woman he had ordered located in the next town.
She was renowned for her skill, her name known even in the capital.
She had ascended to the imperial palace more than once.
A trap, certainly.
He could send soldiers to seize her.
Yet if the man truly were Jin Mugwang, that calculation changed.
Within the military gates, Jin's martial prowess and reputation bordered on legend.
The rumor that he stood alone was difficult to believe.
Still, the possibility lingered.
It had been over a month since whispers emerged in one corner of the palace that the dead general lived.
Now word spread openly that he had returned to his ancestral home.
A man like him would not walk willingly into a grave.
There must be a design behind it.
Jang Sigi's deliberation did not last long.
Men believe they choose their path, yet most often circumstance carves it first.
They follow and call it decision.
Looking back, one finds the field of choice was narrow from the start.
Perhaps that is fate.
Perhaps inertia.
The thought turned quietly in his mind.
Then came a scout's report.
A group had gathered at a riverside pavilion just off the official road.
Jin Mugwang's banner flew above it.
An armored commander drank and reveled with courtesans.
It matched the rumor precisely.
A crooked smile spread across Jang Sigi's face.
"A trap. It must be a trap. What are you after?" he muttered.
Yet his interest would not fade.
He pushed aside the woman at his side and began fastening his armor.
Belly-guard, breastplate, pauldrons.
He even donned the helmet he rarely wore for its discomfort.
He ordered his favorite spear brought.
As commander of the army, he seldom needed to wield it himself.
To take up a personal weapon signaled his intent to ride out.
Jin Mugwang was not a man to be taken lightly.
Even the thought of him tightened Jang's chest.
In ordinary times, he would not have dared to gaze at the man's heels.
Martial skill alone could not overcome him.
Jang mounted a horse tethered behind his carriage and rode toward the vanguard.
The commander of the center army rode alongside him.
"What are your orders?"
"It is a trap. And yet… this Taehwa—Taepyeong—whatever her name is."
"Shall I go?"
"Do not seize her. Take a detachment and surround from a distance. Surround only. If it truly is the general, then we capture him. No fool would ride this far to drink and revel. It is a trap. Keep your distance. I will see it myself."
Even as he spoke, his thoughts shifted.
Expectation flickered in his gaze.
"The general and Courtesan Taehwa…"
A sigh escaped him unbidden.
Images of the night ahead unfurled in his mind.
Distorted hope released itself in breath.
"I understand."
Music drifted faintly between fields and hills.
A man who knows pleasure knows its depth at once.
This was the sound of true revelry.
Jang felt his chest tremble.
It was genuine music.
Genuine Taehwa.
And perhaps—he dared imagine—the general himself.
The finest verse then in fashion at the capital floated through the air.
Not the coarse songs of common taverns.
As a portion of the central guard advanced, hoofbeats swallowed the music.
Jang almost ordered silence, then spurred his horse forward, riding to the head of the column.
His escort pressed close, but the march stretched them thin.
He was riding straight toward the stage laid for him.