“Who’s there?” I whispered so as not to wake Han-sook or my servants. The shadow moved again, stepping toward me this time. I quickly stood and put a hand on my pregnant belly. “I command you as queen,” I said, louder this time, “who is in my courtyard?”
The clouds slid away from the moon, casting soft light on the figure in front of me. The figure was tall and dressed in a guard’s uniform. He had his head lowered. “Majesty,” a man said, “please forgive this intrusion.”
“Kyung-jik?” I said, softly again.
The man bowed low. “Yes, Majesty. It is your most loyal guard, Kyung-jik.”
“What do you want at this hour?” I demanded. “Are you spying on me?”
“No!” he answered. “I would never do that, Majesty.”
“Stand straight,” I said. “Tell me why you are here.”
Kyung-jik straightened, but didn’t raise his eyes. “I was asked to get a message to you in secret and this is the only way. The message is from my uncle, Minister Kim.”
I looked around the courtyard. No one stirred in the maids’ quarters, and there were no other shadows. “Come closer,” I whispered. “Tell me what important thing Minister Kim has to say that he sends you at this hour.”
The guard stepped closer. “He says that you are in danger, Majesty,” Kyung-jik said softly. “His Excellency, the Taewŏn-gun, means to remove you from the throne. It is only your pregnancy that has prevented him from doing so already. Minister Kim tells me to keep a close watch.” The guard raised his eyes some. “I assure you, I always will protect you, my queen.”
I studied the man I had made the sergeant of my guard. He was handsome, tall, and strong. Over his strong jaw, he had a carefully trimmed goatee and under his guard’s hat, he had pulled his dark hair back into a short tail. Though he didn’t lift his eyes to me, by the moonlight I could see sincerity in them.
“What else does your uncle have to say to me?” I asked.
“It is about you challenging the Taewŏn-gun on treaties with the Japanese. My uncle agrees that the Taewŏn-gun is too close to the Japanese. But he bids that you do not challenge the Taewŏn-gun on affairs with the Japanese. He says it would be very dangerous to do so.” The guard shuffled his feet. “And,” he said, “my uncle says pray that you have a son, a prince for the country.”
A son. A prince. A cloud slid over the moon, making everything dark. My back was sore and heartburn was coming on. I was tired and needed to go to bed and sleep a few hours before the morning came. I sighed. “Guard, tell your uncle that you have delivered your message. And give him this message from me: I am near the end of my pregnancy, and for the time I will not challenge my father-in-law. But we must be firm with the Japanese. I plan to push my agenda again once the baby is born, and I expect his help.”
My guard bowed low again. “Yes, Majesty. I will deliver your message.”
“Good. Go now, Kyung-jik,” I said.
He didn’t leave at once. In the darkness of my courtyard, his eyes nearly met mine and he said, “Majesty, Han-sook or I might come for you at any time, and when we do, I beg you, do not question us or hesitate in the slightest.”
I immediately understood what he was saying and why. I looked at his handsome face. “Well,” I said, “we will see if the time comes.”
It was the middle of winter, and I was in my study when the labor pains first came. It was earlier than the doctor had predicted, and I was concerned that the baby hadn’t fully grown inside me. I tried to ignore the pains, but they grew worse, and then something inside me gave way and a slime ran down my legs and onto the floor. I called out for Han-sook, who came running. I told her the baby was coming, and her eyes grew wide. “I’ll call for the doctor at once!” she said.
Five minutes later, Han-sook had moved me into my bedchamber. She and the servants laid a mat on the floor and covered it with several silk sheets. Han-sook kneeled off to one side, barking orders at the servants to fetch water and cool cloths for my forehead. The doctor rushed in dressed in his black robe. He rolled me onto my back and placed cushions under my shoulders. He stripped away my clothes from the waist down. He had me spread my legs wide. He ordered a servant to get hot water and to make a brew of tea and herbs to ease my pain. The doctor sat on the mat cross-legged between my legs, and behind his thick glasses, he watched for the baby to come.
Soon the pains were more frequent and more intense. Each time they came, I grabbed at the silk cover and arched my back. Han-sook wrung her hands and stared at me with a most worried expression, as if she thought I would die at any moment. The doctor stared between my legs and declared, “It is going as it should.”
After some time, the pains were almost constant and each was harder than the previous one. The sweat-soaked sheets clung to my back, and I grew tired. My back ached terribly. Han-sook cooled my forehead with a wet towel and barked at a servant to get clean ones. Finally the doctor said, “The baby comes! I see the head. Push, Majesty. Push hard!”
I raised my back and pushed as hard as I could. The doctor announced that the head was out. He reached inside me and turned the baby, “for the shoulders,” he said. “Push again, Majesty.” I did and in one great, pain-filled thrust, a gush slid out of me. The doctor caught it in a blanket and quickly wrapped it up. The baby was quiet for a while, and I was afraid it was not alive. I was about to ask the doctor if it was okay, but then it let out a tiny squeak and whine. The doctor lifted a corner of the blanket and looked inside. “As I predicted, Majesty,” he said, raising his chin, “it is a boy.”
Han-sook looked like she would faint with joy. “A boy!” she exclaimed with a hand on her chest. “It is a prince!”
I lay back and closed my eyes. A wave of relief spread over me. I had made a prince for the king and for my country. I had finally done my duty. Now, the king would not take a second wife, and we would take over the country and rule as king and queen.
And I had a son! A baby to take care of, to be proud of, to love. Until now, I hadn’t thought how I would feel about being a mother. But as the baby squirmed under the blanket, and as he squeaked and moaned, he touched my heart. I instantly loved him. My son! My baby! My child!
“Give him to me,” I said to the doctor. “I want to see him.” The doctor gave me the bundle. I lifted a corner and looked at my son’s face. He was red, wrinkly, and wet. I half laughed, half cried at the funny creature in my arms. He craned his neck as if he was working out the kinks from being trapped for all those months in my womb. He wriggled, opened his mouth, and let out a squeaky cry. I brought him close and rested his head on my breast. He stopped crying and wriggling. Soon, he was asleep, warm against my chest.
I cannot say how I felt at that moment. Though I had read hundreds of books over the years and knew several languages, I didn’t have the words. It was as if my baby and I were one thing; the yin and yang, earth and sky, fire and ice, mother and child. It was perfect, more than the poems in Songs of Dragons Flying to Heaven, more than a spring day in my uncle’s bamboo garden. The soul of the tiny thing breathing softly against my breast spoke to me and made my spirit soar. And for the first time, I knew that this was what my mother had meant when she said I must serve the spirits of our children and our children’s children. Right then, I resolved that I would love and protect this child so that someday he could be a strong king.
The doctor said, “Majesty, if you please, we should inspect the baby.” He held out his hands.
I gave my baby to him. Underneath the blanket, the baby jerked as he left my arms. He moaned and squeaked again. The doctor set the bundle on the mat and unwrapped my son from the blanket. The baby lay naked before us, tiny and red. The doctor rolled him onto his stomach. Suddenly Han-sook gasped and brought her hands to her mouth. A servant did, too. The doctor looked at the baby, and then he raised his eyes to me.
“What is it?” I breathed.
The doctor turned the baby to show me what they were looking at. On my son’s lower back
was a bulbous, purple sac. I looked at the doctor, who stared back at me. “It is the spine defect,” he said.
“What does it mean?” I whispered.
The doctor rolled the baby on its back. The baby jerked with his torso and arms, but his legs didn’t move. The doctor ran his fingernail hard along the bottom of the baby’s foot. The baby didn’t move his legs.
“No!” I cried. “No!”
Han-sook barked at the servants to leave, which they all quickly did. The doctor lifted the baby from the floor and wrapped a blanket around it. “What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Majesty,” he said, “a child with this condition will not see five days. I must take him now.”
I pushed myself up on my elbows. Spikes of pain stabbed at me from between my legs, but I pushed them aside. “No!” I said. “Give him to me.”
The doctor held on to the baby. He shook his head. “Majesty, this is best.”
“Give him to me or I will have your head!” I shouted. The doctor nodded and gave my son to me. I pressed him to my breast. The baby moaned and fell quiet again. “Help me to my bed,” I demanded. As I clutched my son, Han-sook and the doctor lifted me onto my bed and put cushions around me for support. When they finally found a position where my pain was bearable, I said, “Leave me now.”
The doctor and Han-sook left my bedchamber, and I was alone with my son. I ran my hand over his legs, and they didn’t respond to my touch. I pinched his thigh hard, wanting desperately for him to feel the pain. Again, he didn’t respond. I brought his mouth to my breast and teased his lips. He pouted, but did not open his mouth.
And as he slept, I cried. I tried to stifle my crying so I wouldn’t disturb my baby, but my chest heaved and sobs escaped my throat. My son slept through it, innocent of his terrible fate, or perhaps at peace with it. It was the spine disease that destroys a newborn’s nerves. First the legs, then the torso. Then, death. Five days, the doctor said. Five short days.
I held him tight as the seconds and minutes and hours rushed by.
They came for him in the morning of the fifth day. It was two guards from the Taewŏn-gun’s staff, and a tearful Han-sook let them in. I had not left my bed and had not let go of my baby since he was born. No one had visited me, save Han-sook, who brought me tea that I drank, and rice that I refused. I had Han-sook keep the doors closed and forbade her to light the lamps. I was grateful that she never once asked me to give my baby to the doctor.
My son was still alive that morning. He had suckled every day, though each day was weaker than before. He no longer fussed or cried, almost as if he knew it was useless for him to protest his fate. Or perhaps he didn’t have the energy for it.
The guards bowed at the door and came to the bed. They said they had orders from the Taewŏn-gun to take the baby. I protested and ordered them to leave. The guards said that the orders had the king’s blessing. And so they took my baby from me.
At first I tried to resist them. I truly did. But I didn’t have the strength to fight two strong men with orders from the Taewŏn-gun and the king. And inside, I knew I had to let them take my son. He was dying as the doctor had said he would. Though I would always love him, I would never again hold him close, feel his quick breathing against my body, suckle him at my breast.
I let them take my son. And when they did, I did not cry. Instead, I rolled to my side and embraced the fading warmth of him.
EIGHTEEN
I cannot say how many days or weeks I stayed in my bedchamber with the walls closed to the sunlight and the lamps unlit. Perhaps it was more than a month. I ate very little and refused to let anyone see me, save Han-sook. Every day, she brought tea and broth and encouraged me to eat. She changed my linens and bathed me by hand. On warm days, she opened the wall to the courtyard to let in fresh air. I never once went out. We didn’t talk about what happened outside of my bedchamber, and we didn’t talk about the baby. She constantly asked if she could do anything for me, and I always said no.
Inside my dark bedchamber, the spirit of my dead son haunted me. He was everywhere—as a baby lying next to me in bed, as a boy playing on the mat near my bed, as a man in the dark corners staring at me. I had trapped my son’s spirit inside me because I had kept him with me those five days. So I ordered shamans to come and set my son’s spirit free, so it could go to heaven. The shamans came and prayed, lit incense, and chanted as I lay in bed with my silks tight around me. After five days, my son still haunted me and I sent the shamans away.
Late one night I lay half-awake in my bed, numb with hopelessness. I believed that I would die in my bedchamber, and truly, I wanted to. Then a sound came from my study. At first I thought it was the Taewŏn-gun’s guards coming to take me away or perhaps to kill me. I almost hoped it was. The sound came again, and I listened more closely this time. It sounded like crying. I thought it was the spirit of my dead son. Weak and confused, I crawled out from under my blankets and put on a robe. I lit a candle and took it to the door of my study. I peeked inside but didn’t see anything. As I turned to go back to bed, I heard the crying again. It sounded like the wailing of my mother those last days before she threw herself into the Han River. I lifted the candle to the room, and it cast long shadows against the walls. I thought I saw a ghost move next to the tapestry with the two-headed dragon. I took an unsteady step inside the study. “Ummah?” I whispered. “Mother?” The sound of my voice fell silent inside the room. I went closer to the tapestry. I lifted the candle to the dragon. Its eyes glowed in the candlelight with a piercing stare, as if it was trying to tell me something. Its claws reached for me, and its tongues seemed to move up and down. I had never seen it like that before, and it scared me. I took a step back, but the dragon continued to stare and its tongues still flicked. I couldn’t tell if it was mocking me, pleading with me, or sending me a warning.
“What is it?” I shouted at it. “What do you want from me?”
I heard voices saying, “One Korea.” I covered my ears to silence them, but they did not go away. I looked at the tapestry and I decided that I hated it. Why should I be the one to speak for the spirit of Korea? I never wanted to be queen. I never wanted the responsibility to bear a prince for the king and the country. Let the king’s concubine be the queen and give the country a prince. I no longer wanted the heartache.
Still the dragon stared. The voices shrieked, “One Korea! One Korea!” I tried to shake them out. Then I lunged for the tapestry and clawed it off the wall. I crumpled it in my hands and threw it on the floor. I stomped on it with my bare feet and kicked it to the side. “Go!” I screamed. “Leave me alone!”
Leave me alone. I remembered the day my mother said the same thing to her orchids. I knew my mother was insane then, and as my own words echoed off the walls, I thought now that I might be. I stood over the tapestry breathing hard, trying to understand what I had just done. The voices went quiet.
“Majesty!” someone said from the other side of my study. “What is the matter?”
In the shadows, Han-sook stood in her nightclothes, wringing her hands.
“Burn it,” I said, pointing to the tapestry. “I do not care what it says I must do. I never want to see it again.”
“But, my lady,” Han-sook pleaded, “you love that tapestry.”
As I stood above the tapestry staring blankly at Han-sook, I was completely confused. At that moment, I wasn’t sure why I was there, in my study with the tapestry crumpled at my feet. I thought I might be walking and talking in my sleep and all I needed to do was wake up from this nightmare and everything would be all right. But I knew it was not a dream.
I sighed and leaned heavily against the wall where the tapestry had been. Han-sook ran to my side. “You are not well, Majesty.”
“I think you are right,” I said, and I let my lady’s maid lead me back to my bed.
As Han-sook arranged the blankets around me, I looked at her and said, “I must leave Gyeongbok Palace. This place haunts me. Tomorrow we will move to Deok
su Palace, where I will be safe. Tell Kyung-jik. I want to leave in the morning.”
Han-sook nodded. “Yes, Majesty. I believe a change will be good for you. I will make the arrangements.” When she had placed my blankets just so, she sat on the floor next to my bed and watched over me as I slipped into a restless sleep.
Deoksu Palace was nothing like Gyeongbok. It was not far away, nearer to the Han River, and much like Gyeongbok before it was rebuilt. Years earlier, several palace buildings had burned down and now there were only a few structures left, none nearly as grand as the new ones in Gyeongbok. But I chose to come here primarily because the Taewŏn-gun never visited it. He preferred his new, extravagant quarters in Gyeongbok or spending quiet days in the Changdeok East Palace old gardens when he wanted to get away from Gyeongbok’s comings and goings.
It was midday when my procession arrived at Deoksu. We had walked through Seoul, my royal palanquin flanked by eight guards, led by Kyung-jik. Nearly my entire staff followed in wagons and on foot, thirty people in all. Two carts carried my wardrobe, books, bat chest, and desk from my study. Three more carried supplies from Gyeongbok—food, clothes, and necessities for my staff. As we walked past, people on the streets bowed. I watched them through the curtains of my palanquin, and wondered if under their breaths they were cursing me for making such a sickly prince that he had to be killed.
My staff had warned Deoksu that I was coming, and they were ready for me when we arrived. Unlike the grand new gate at Gyeongbok, Deoksu’s gate was old and small. The eunuchs had to lower my palanquin to fit underneath it. Inside, there was a rank of guards and the palace staff standing in a line. They bowed at the waist when I entered the courtyard. I stepped out of my palanquin, and Han-sook and Kyung-jik helped me into my new quarters. The queen’s quarters consisted of only two rooms—a main anteroom and, behind it, a bedchamber. It was small and dark and smelled musty. Han-sook followed me in. She apologized for the palace’s disgraceful state and promised that they would quickly make it appropriate for me. In my weakened condition, the trip had made me tired and I said I wanted to rest. Han-sook led me inside the bedchamber. It was less than half the size of my bedchamber in Gyeongbok. There were no paintings on the walls or fancy Chinese chairs and tables. It reminded me of my tiny room in the House of Gamgodang. The palace staff had put fresh silks on the bed and had opened the wall to the small courtyard to let in fresh air. Small and unadorned though it was, I felt safe there.
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