Seesaw Girl (6 page)

"Yes, Father."

"Those men, they do not believe in the Five Virtues. They speak of other laws, other kings, other lands. There are those who are angry that they should dare challenge Confucius' teachings, but our King wishes to understand these men. At his request I have spoken with them myself on many occasions. And though we have many differences, there are things about their laws that are in harmony with ours."

Jade's father looked up from the ball, but his eyes were focused on some place or something not in the room. He continued to speak quietly. "I believe we have much to learn from each other. It is time for our people to look beyond our borders. We have kept to ourselves for too long."

It was an uncharacteristically long speech—indeed, the greatest number of words Jade had ever heard her father speak. Suddenly he seemed to realize that she was still there; he glanced at her, replaced the ball carefully in its niche, and walked to the door. It was the signal that their meeting was at an end. Jade stood and bowed to her father.

Her father nodded to her. As she prepared to leave, he said one more thing.

"I do not forget, Daughter, that right behavior is only one of the Five Virtues."

And the door closed behind her.

Chapter Thirteen

Royal Decisions

It seemed to Jade that she would never find the chance to speak to Tiger alone. It had been several days since her escape and then her conversation with her father—days during which her father had spent most of his time at the palace. Some days he had not returned home at all.

Yesterday had been a momentous day. The King had heard from all those at the court who wished to express an opinion on the fate of the prisoners. Jade was sure that her father would have been among those to speak, and she felt almost frantic with desire to learn what he had said.

For the first time in his life Tiger had accompanied his father to the King's court. He had been among the crowd inside the palace walls; he had heard everything that had been said. But since his return in the evening Jade had not seen him except while she served the men and boys their meals.

Late during the following afternoon Jade loitered about the men's quarters, hoping to catch Tiger coming or going. Her efforts were at last rewarded; when Tiger came out of his room, Jade stepped forward from a corner.

"Brother! Please, can we talk for a moment?"

Tiger did not look surprised to see her. "I was just coming to find you," he said. "Come, let's go for a walk in the garden."

They walked in silence until they reached the little bridge and stood there together as dusk strengthened the shadows. Then Tiger Heart began to speak.

"I am to tell you what I saw and heard yesterday, Jade," he said slowly. "It is our father who requests that I do so."

Jade's surprise was so great that her body stiffened; her brother glanced at her quickly. "Our father has told me that, as you already know, these events are not the affairs of women. But he also knows what you saw that day, and he believes that unanswered curiosity can build a road to danger. I will tell you what I know."

Jade nodded solemnly, grateful beyond words for her father's understanding.

"First, you must picture this: The King sits on a throne at the head of a wide set of stairs. His guards and ministers stand or sit on either side of him. Anyone who wishes to address him comes to the foot of the stairs and speaks to him from there. The rest of the room is full of other people—junior ministers, scholars, royal retainers, servants. I was lucky; as we had arrived early, I had a position near the stairs. Otherwise, it is very difficult to hear.

"Many people spoke. I cannot remember everything that they said, but it was easy enough to see that most of the court wanted the prisoners beheaded. Adviser after adviser spoke to the King about their insolence and treachery—that they say there are kingdoms far greater than our own, greater than China, even, and that our Five Virtues are not enough. They speak of ten laws, written in a little book they all carry. The advisers believe they are enemies of the worst kind.

"All day long such men spoke. Believe me, Jade—being able to leave our household is not always a wonderful thing. There were times yesterday when I thought I would die of boredom." Tiger turned to her with a wry grin.

But Jade was too anxious to respond to his gentle teasing. "Please, Brother, go on."

Tiger grew sober again. "At last our father took his turn. He spoke for only a few minutes. And yet, what he said..." Tiger paused, deep in thought. "Perhaps it is only because he is my father, but I do not think so. His words had great power; you could see it in the faces of all who were there.

"He began by speaking of the men. They were not a great army—just a few sailors. If they truly wanted to topple the King, would they have come here in such small numbers?

"Then he spoke of the harm that grows from ignorance. We know very little about these men and their ways, he said. Supposing they are friends, it would be a terrible injustice to execute them. And if they are not, it is always best to know as much as possible about one's enemies. It would serve the King well to let these men live so that more could be learned from them.

"Our father told the King that, as it now stands, we do not know enough. He finished by saying that the path to wisdom lies not in certainty, but in trying to understand."

Tiger's voice had grown in strength as he spoke of his father's words. Jade had a sudden inkling of the future. One day, she realized, it would be Tiger who spoke before the King.

Tiger continued, "After all had spoken, the King withdrew to his chambers, to consult with his Council. Our father, as you know, is a member of the Council. It took a long time, but they finally reached a decision.

"The men are not to be beheaded, nor will they be allowed to return to their homes. They must remain here in Korea and swear allegiance to the King. If they will do so, they will be given positions in the army and may live here freely.

"Our father's desire was that these men be allowed to come nn and go as they please, between our country and theirs. He believes it is time for us to know more of the world. The King did not agree, but neither did he heed those who were calling for the men to be killed. His decision, Father says, walks in the middle of the path."

Tiger Heart seemed to feel there had been enough serious talk. He finished by saying that the prisoners had been brought in to hear of the King's decision. "I know they are men, Jade, but from all the hair on their faces, you might think they were a kind of man-bear!"

Jade smiled gratefully at him. For once she did not have to imagine something she had never seen.

Chapter Fourteen

A Mountain of Stitches

Jade's mother inspected the small scrap of fabric carefully. On it Jade had stitched a many-petaled yellow-and-white chrysanthemum. It was the work of many painstaking days. Jade held her breath as her mother turned the scrap over. No knots or loose threads showed. The back and front were mirror-perfect.

Jade's mother did not smile, but her eyes twinkled.

"Yes, Jade. You are ready. You may begin your first panel."

Jade let out her breath. An embroidered screen of many panels was one of the things a well-bred girl made for her wedding dowry. Only a few months ago it had seemed to Jade that her own wedding day was still far away. But Willow's marriage had changed all that. Jade tried not to think about the day that she would leave her home. She concentrated instead on the knowledge that being allowed to begin her screen was a sign that her embroidery skills had reached a high level indeed.

Jade began to plan her first panel. Once—it seemed long since—she had thought of embroidering the cranes she had seen flying over the house, but all memory of them had vanished in the face of her first glimpse of the mountains that day on the road. It was the mountains she would depict on her panel.

Jade knew what they should look like. They would be a misty blue-gray color, with white on top. There would be bright green rice fields at the bottom. She chose her colors carefully.

Somehow the mountains had gotten tangled up in her mind with the strangers, with Willow's refusal to see her, and with Servant Cho's misfortune. They remained a background of steady reassurance in a scene of confusion and pain.

The time she spent planning her panel took her mind off the fact that Servant Cho had not been rehired. At first Jade had hoped that the events at the court had been keeping her father too busy to attend to the matter. But the days went by, and Servant Cho did not reappear. She had failed.

Her mother brought out the precious bolt of blue silk, dark as the night sky. It had been saved especially for this purpose. She measured and cut the proper length. "Have you chosen your subject?"

"Yes, Mother," Jade answered. She hesitated only a moment. "I wish to show the noble mountains that guard Seoul, where the graves of our ancestors lie."

Jade's mother looked at her sharply. But her voice was gentle as she said, "That is not the usual subject for a panel, Jade. Have you considered, perhaps, a peony blossom or a water lily? Your flowers are very fine. They would make an excellent panel."

Jade had been prepared for this response. She spoke respectfully but firmly. "If it would not displease my honorable mother, I would like to show the mountains. I know that it is not usually done, but it is my wish to try."

Jade's mother sighed almost inaudibly. "All right, if it is your wish. But I think you will soon find that they do not make a good subject."

Jade took the length of blue silk, vowing silently to prove her mother wrong.

***

It took only a few attempts for Jade to learn that her mother knew far more about embroidery than she did. The texture of the thread on the silk
was
somehow wrong for mountains. The tiny, fine stitches that melded together so smoothly to show a flower petal or a fish's shiny scales would not make the greatness and solidity of mountains.

Jade tried different stitches. She changed colors often. She picked out as many stitches as she put in. She worked so long and hard that her fingers were raw from the needle and her back and shoulders ached from bending over.

Her mother tried to tease her gently. "You need not work so hard on the panel, Jade. You have plenty of time before the matchmaker comes!"

Jade heard the worry in her mother's voice and smiled halfheartedly in response. But when her mother turned away, Jade sewed all the more stubbornly.

Her stitches were only part of the problem. Each day she feared that her memory of the mountains was fading, little by little. From the special spot in the garden, she would stare at what little she could discern of the peaks, then close her eyes, trying to remember what she had seen from the seat of the cart that day. Jade had first thought she would never forget how the mountains looked in their entirety. But her failure to embroider them as she wished combined with the passing of time to make her feel as if those same heavy clouds were slowly closing in over the picture in her mind.

Chapter Fifteen

Brushes and Scrolls

Schoolmaster was ill. He had woken one morning with a bad spirit of sickness in his head and had been in bed for several days now. Jade's mother sent special soups and tonics every morning and evening, and he would soon be well. But for the time being the boys had no classes.

Tiger Heart alone among the boys still went to the Hall of Learning each day to study on his own. In a few years he would take examinations at the King's court. He would have to do well to become a royal scholar like his father.

One afternoon Jade put down her embroidery in despair. She stretched her aching back and shoulders and took a walk around the Inner Court. The door to the Hall of Learning was open, and she saw Tiger bent over his books. She stepped inside quietly. The Hall was forbidden to girls only during the boys' lessons, but Jade had not been in the room since the day of her prank with Willow.

She liked the Hall of Learning. Many beautiful scrolls hung on the walls, with elegant calligraphy for the boys to copy. Jade could not read, but she knew by heart some of the poems written on the scrolls. Rolls of fine rice paper and porcelain jars of ink were arranged on the shelves, next to the rabbit-hair brushes. It felt like a place of wisdom.

It was winter, and while there was not much snow outside, the air was still frosty. But the stone floors of each room in the house were always warm and cozy because of the long pipes underneath that reached all the way to the kitchen stove. Jade crossed the room to the low table where Tiger was reading and sat down next to him, grateful for the warmth that rose through the floor's waxed-paper tiles.

"What are you reading?" Jade asked.

"It's a scroll about Tan-gun," Tiger answered. The famous story about the founder of their nation was familiar to all Korean children, but Tiger had to know every word perfectly for his examinations.

Jade bent over his shoulder and let out a gasp of surprise. In the middle of the scroll was a picture of two mountains. Between them a graceful swash of ink made a river. A few tiny, deft brushstrokes indicated a man near the river.

"That's Tan-gun." Tiger pointed. "He will escape from his enemy by crossing the river."

Jade hardly heard him. The mountains in the picture looked almost as they had when she had seen them from the road. Here was the magnificence and mystery and reassurance she had felt. Here was the way to keep the picture forever, not with thread on silk but with ink on paper.

"Brother, can I try that?"

Tiger looked surprised. "What, reading it? You don't know how to read."

"No, no, not reading it. I want to try to paint—to make a picture like that."

Tiger wrinkled his brow. "I don't know ... Schoolmaster might not like it."

"He won't know; he's still sick in bed. Just a small bit of paper, Brother, please!"