Dawn broke.
Rainwater that had collected overnight dripped from the edge of the eaves. Jang Isu stood before the main gate, having spent the night wide awake. He had never once left his post in three years. Today was no different.
The overturned table and smell of soup from last night had probably already been washed away. The moment Wang Ho was shoved face-first into the mud. The moment Jwa Woryang was doused in red wine. Both belonged to the night that had passed. But just because the night was over didn't mean everything ended with it.
Footsteps approached from inside the walls. It wasn't Wang Ho or Jwa Woryang. A man he'd never seen before. He wore silk, but there was no wasted motion in his stride. A short saber hung at his waist.
"Jang Isu?"
"That's right."
"A message from the Vice Chief." The man pulled a folded note from inside his robe and held it out. "He wants you to come to Cheongnyu Inn outside the estate tonight, during the Hour of the Dog. Alone."
Jang Isu didn't take the note.
"May I ask why?"
"Because of what happened last night. What other reason could there be?" The man folded the note back up. "The Vice Chief wants to settle this quietly. In a way that's good for you and the estate."
"What does 'settle this quietly' mean?"
"All you have to do is say you'll consider last night's incident forgotten. You aren't in a position to refuse the Vice Chief when he's coming to Cheongnyu Inn in person."
"I refuse."
The man's eyes narrowed.
"You still don't understand what this means. The Celestial Blossom Gang stands behind the Vice Chief. Three escort contracts with the estate, even the transactions with the money houses—all of them are in their hands. You refusing to come to Cheongnyu Inn means those contracts could come back down on the entire estate."
"The estate's contracts are the estate's business."
"The Estate Master already knows." The man lowered his voice. "This reached the Estate Master's quarters first thing this morning. If you don't go to Cheongnyu Inn tonight, it means you might not be the one standing in front of this gate tomorrow."
"Does the Vice Chief decide whether I leave or stay?"
"Then who does?"
"I do."
The man was speechless for a moment, then laughed under his breath.
"Let's see if that nerve of yours lasts until tonight."
He turned away, leaving only those words behind. His footsteps faded into the estate.
During the day, the estate carried on as usual. Carts loaded with escort-contract cargo came and went, and the servants never mentioned what had happened the night before. Yet that silence itself was proof the rumor had already spread.
Around noon, the escort bureau chief who had done nothing but drink in the corner the night before passed through the main gate and stared at Jang Isu for a long while. He offered neither greeting nor words. But before climbing into his sedan chair, he was clearly seen murmuring something to an attendant. His eyes already belonged to a man who had found somewhere to sell information.
A passing servant glanced at Jang Isu and hurried on. There was no need to ask how his name was circulating inside the estate. After a single day, he had already become three different people in three different rumors: the Gatekeeper, a benefactor, and a man who would soon leave the estate.
None of those were names he had chosen for himself.
The sun slanted low, and the shadows of the eaves stretched long. As the Hour of the Dog drew near, Jang Isu was still standing before the main gate. He had no intention of going to Cheongnyu Inn. A Gatekeeper did not leave the gate. It was the only place he could keep watch over.
When darkness had fully settled, several presences approached from the street beyond the wall. Four of them. The silk-clad man from the afternoon wasn't with them. Instead, they were men in shabby cotton clothes with sabers at their waists. They weren't swordsmen from the estate. Their steps belonged to men who had been hired.
"You're Jang Isu, right?"
"That's right."
"You didn't come when you were told to. So we came to you."
The four spread out in a fan. One in front, two to either side, and one circling around into the alley behind him. They had him surrounded. Jang Isu didn't retreat. He didn't even put a hand on his sword hilt.
"Come along quietly, and you won't get hurt." The man in front spoke. "The Vice Chief has no intention of killing you. He merely wants to have a conversation."
"We can talk here."
"That's not for you to decide."
Before the words had even finished, all four moved at once. The man on the left thrust his saber at Jang Isu's side, while the man on the right reached for his opposite shoulder. The man in front drove straight into him, and footsteps closed in from behind.
All four men's strength converged on a single point—the spot where Jang Isu stood.
Jang Isu moved his right foot back half a step. That was all.
The side where the left man's saber should have grazed was no longer there. Instead of cutting through empty air, the blade sliced into the right man's forearm. The man on the right choked back a scream and dropped his saber. With the body in front of him gone, the man charging from the front pitched forward and slammed headfirst into the man rushing in from behind. The crack of their foreheads colliding rang loudly through the alley.
Three of the four went sprawling across the ground at once. The last man froze at the sight, his hand trembling around his saber.
"...What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"Don't lie. Just now, you clearly—"
"I only changed the foot I was standing on."
One of the men on the ground tried to rise and dropped something from inside his robe. A folded slip of paper. Jang Isu picked it up first from where it had fallen in the mud. The men's eyes followed it.
When he unfolded it, he found several names, dates, and an unfamiliar seal. The place written on it wasn't Cheongnyu Inn. It was somewhere else. A different location from the one where Jwa Woryang had summoned him tonight. He couldn't tell what the list was for. But the shape of the seal resembled one he had seen only once, on a certain night ten years ago. A small sword drawn inside three overlapping circles.
Jang Isu's fingertips stopped on the paper.
"What is this?"
None of the four could answer. The last man still holding his saber slowly backed away, then turned and fled out of the alley. The man with the cut forearm and the two who had slammed their foreheads together limped after him, supporting one another. None of them came back for the paper.
Jang Isu folded it and slipped it inside his robe.
Silence settled over the alley again. The faint sounds of a late drinking gathering drifted over from inside the walls. Even tonight, Jwa Woryang would be sitting at Cheongnyu Inn, waiting for a Gatekeeper who wasn't coming.
Footsteps approached again. This time, they were hurried. It wasn't the silk-clad man from the afternoon. It was Wang Ho. Traces of mud still clung to his hem.
"I heard there was a disturbance outside—"
Wang Ho stopped when he saw the marks left by the fallen men at the mouth of the alley. Footprints stamped into the mud, spots of blood, and an alley with no one left in it.
"...Was this your doing too?"
"I never left this spot."
Wang Ho couldn't find an answer. Without knowing what Jang Isu held in his hand, he could only stare for a long time at the scene before him. The fact that men sent by the Vice Chief had surrounded one Gatekeeper four to one, only to end up sprawled across the alley—Wang Ho seemed able to imagine what kind of rumor that would make its way through the estate by tomorrow.
"...I don't know what to tell the Vice Chief."
"If you have something to tell him, do it before the night is over. I'll be standing here tomorrow too."
Wang Ho couldn't continue. He turned and went back inside.
Jang Isu returned to the main gate and checked the gate bar. The feel of the paper still lingering on his fingertips was unfamiliar. He knew exactly where he had seen that seal. What he didn't know was why it had appeared in this alley tonight, inside the robe of a man sent by Jwa Woryang.
A man who sells information will one day be brought down by information.
That was the thought that came to him tonight. Just as Jwa Woryang had sold out the Sword Pavilion ten years ago, the men he sent today were selling something too. Jang Isu simply didn't yet know who was buying it.
The last lantern inside the main gate went out. Jang Isu secured the gate bar.
The gate was closed, but the single sheet of paper in his hand still hadn't found the place where it would be unfolded.