Rain had been falling for three straight days.
At the red gates of Everblue Estate, said to be visible from a hundred li away at the edge of the official road, Jang Isu took one step back beneath the eaves. Rain fell even where he moved. The eaves were old, and water leaked between the tiles, landing with uncanny precision on the back of his neck.
“Been standing in that spot for three years, and you still couldn’t fix the leak?”
A man who had come out from inside the gate laughed. It was Wang Ho, one of Everblue Estate’s thirty-six swordsmen. The scabbard at his waist had a fresh coat of lacquer, and there wasn’t a speck of mud on his shoes.
“To fix it, I’d need a ladder. To use a ladder, I’d have to step away from the gate.”
“So?”
“If a Gatekeeper steps away from the gate, he isn’t a Gatekeeper anymore.”
Wang Ho’s laughter stopped for a moment. He looked Jang Isu over. Thirty-two years old. Three years as a Gatekeeper. No one knew where he had been or what he had done before that. There was no sign he had trained in martial arts, and even the angle at which he bowed before the mountain estate’s elders was always exact. If there was one thing about him that grated, it was those eyes. Only his waist ever bowed. His eyes had never once lowered.
“A guest is coming tonight.”
“I heard.”
“The Vice Chief of the Celestial Blossom Gang. If there’s any discourtesy at the gate, it won’t be your neck that suffers. It’ll be the Estate Master’s reputation.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t just say yes.” Wang Ho tapped Jang Isu’s shoulder with the end of his scabbard. “Smile. A Gatekeeper’s face is the gate.”
Jang Isu smiled. It was a smile in which only the corners of his mouth rose, exactly as instructed. Wang Ho clicked his tongue and went inside, and the red gates closed again.
Only the sound of rain remained.
Jang Isu opened his hand. Between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, a thin layer of callus had peeled away. He hadn’t held a sword in three years, yet that spot was still hard. The body never forgets. People were the only ones who forgot.
He rubbed the spot once with his thumb. Only once.
The guest arrived during the Hour of the Dog.
Four sedan chairs. Twelve guards. The man carrying a lantern led the way, stepping through the mud, and behind him a black-lacquered sedan chair glided to a stop before the gate. Jwa Woryang, Vice Chief of the Celestial Blossom Gang, didn’t even get out. He lifted the curtain halfway and stuck out only his face. His oily face had small eyes, and after those small eyes swept over the gate, they stopped on Jang Isu.
“Gatekeeper.”
“Yes.”
“It’s raining.”
“For three days.”
“My bearers’ shoes are wet.” Jwa Woryang spoke slowly. “The mountain estate’s threshold is too high. The sedan chair will jolt when it crosses. Remove the threshold.”
Jang Isu raised his head.
The threshold of Everblue Estate’s gate had been carved from a single block of granite and set in place. Removing it would take ten men with chisels half a day. He wasn’t telling him to remove it. He was telling him to kneel and offer his back. There were people in the martial world who measured others that way. They demanded humiliation, watched to see whether the other person submitted, then decided where to place them based on the result.
Ten years ago, this man must have measured people the same way.
“You’re the Estate Master’s guest today, Vice Chief,” Jang Isu said. “Guests enter through the gate. The threshold is part of the gate.”
“Got a lot to say for a Gatekeeper.”
“To put it briefly, no.”
The guards beside the sedan chair all placed their hands on their sword hilts. The sound of twelve hands moving at once was louder than expected. For a moment, the rain sank beneath it.
“Are you planning to spill blood at the mountain estate’s gate?” Jang Isu asked.
“Spill blood? Nothing like that.” Jwa Woryang crooked a finger. “An ear will do. If we leave a line of blood at the gate, the next Gatekeeper will learn to keep his answers short.”
One of the guards moved.
He was fast. The sound of his sword leaving its scabbard came before the sound of his toe striking the ground, which put him at the upper end of second-rate. The sword came in aimed at Jang Isu’s left ear. It wasn’t meant to kill him—the angle was precise enough to cut off exactly one ear. That kind of swordsmanship took years of practice. This man had cut off someone’s ear before.
Jang Isu didn’t dodge.
Instead, he slid his left foot half a step forward.
Half a step. That was all. The center of the arc traced by the sword shifted off course, and the guard’s elbow folded toward his own torso. Jang Isu’s right hand touched the place where it folded. He neither pushed nor pulled. He only touched it, yet the guard was dragged forward by the weight of his own sword and pitched face-first into the mud. Mud splattered up and dirtied the sedan chair’s foot.
Silence.
The guard couldn’t get up. Because he wasn’t injured, he couldn’t get up all the more. Someone who knew where and how he had been struck could stand again. Someone who didn’t know had no idea how to rise.
The remaining eleven men drew their swords. After drawing them, not one stepped forward.
Footsteps stopped inside the gate. It was Wang Ho. He had come out after hearing the commotion, then stopped at the edge of the courtyard. He looked at the guard with his face in the mud, then at the Gatekeeper standing beside him. He looked twice, and both times failed to understand. Jang Isu stood in exactly the same posture Wang Ho had known for three years. His shoulders drooped, and his hands were empty.
What did he do?
Wang Ho took a step back. When he realized he had done so, his face stiffened.
For the first time, Jwa Woryang’s small eyes widened.
“…What is your name?”
“Jang Isu.”
“What sect are you from?”
“I’m the Gatekeeper of Everblue Estate.”
“That’s not what I asked!”
The sedan chair’s foot shook hard. Jang Isu didn’t answer. Instead, he released the gate bar of the red gates. The wood was swollen with rain and heavy, but it made no sound in his hands.
When the gates opened, the courtyard lanterns inside dyed the falling rain yellow. He stepped aside and bowed at the waist, exactly as he had every day for three years without missing a single one.
“Please enter. The Estate Master is waiting.”
The sedan chair crossed the threshold. It jolted hard once. As he passed over it, Jwa Woryang never looked at Jang Isu again. It was less that he chose not to look than that he couldn’t.
That night, a drinking party was held inside the mountain estate. Laughter spilled over the walls, then was washed away by the rain.
Only the sound of rain remained at the gate once more.
Standing beneath the eaves, Jang Isu rubbed his wet hand against the hem of his clothes. His fingertips trembled faintly. It wasn’t fear. It was closer to anticipation, which made it worse.
I’ve waited ten years.
He closed his eyes. Behind his shut eyelids, an old scene rose up. The Sword Pavilion in flames. Rafters collapsing. And the back of an old man who had stood at the gate, guarding it to the very end before he died.
The old man had said this until the end.
“Isu. A gate isn’t a place for opening. It’s a place for standing.”
That was why he had stood before the gate for ten years. Without taking up a sword. Without revealing his name. Watching through the crack in the gate as the people who had killed his own were growing old while posing as elders of the orthodox sects.
There were ten of them.
Ten people had set fire to the Sword Pavilion, and Jang Isu had memorized their ten names in order. The order wasn’t based on the gravity of their crimes, but on how close they were to the gate. That was what his Master had taught him. If you looked to the distant enemy first, your feet would move forward. If your feet moved forward, the gate would be left open.
So he had placed the one who crossed the threshold first in the first position.
Today, the first name had entered through that crack in the gate.
The rain grew heavier. Jang Isu opened his eyes. Water dripping from the eaves struck the back of his neck again, but this time he didn’t step away.
“You said a gate was a place for standing.”
He murmured in a low voice.
“But, Master. Today, I think I’ll have to open it.”
Laughter erupted inside the gate again. It was Jwa Woryang’s voice.
Jang Isu stood facing the red gates. Then, quietly—very quietly—he placed his hand on the gate bar.