Chapter 19: The Latter Beggar (後丐)

Chapter 19: The Latter Beggar (後丐)

The three of them shut their eyes a while in a ruined pavilion beyond the pass, then took the road again before dawn broke.

On the afternoon of the third day, where the mountains met the open fields, a high city wall showed itself. As befitted a town where many roads converged, carts and travelers tangled before the gate, and the shouts of porters clashed with the whinnying of horses in the thick dust. There were no few martial artists bound for the Martial Alliance, but the eyes of the merchants along the road turned more often to the rough-looking men who had taken up position before the apothecary than to the rising talents in their new martial robes.

A black wolf’s head was embroidered on their collars.

When one of the men put out his hand, the apothecary’s owner set a purse of money on it with a stiff face, and the man, after counting the silver, threw two coins onto the ground and patted his shoulder.

“Business has been poor this month.”

“That’s why we have to protect you. What would you do if thieves came?”

Forced laughter spilled from those nearby, and a porter close at hand muttered low as he turned his cart.

“Those Heuksubang bastards—that’s no protection fee, they’re gouging out the price of a man’s life.”

His companion hurriedly jabbed him in the ribs, and the two vanished into the crowd before their eyes could meet those of the men wearing the black wolf mark.

Heuksubang.

Pung fitted the name and the emblem together in his mind. The wooden tally he had obtained in the cellar beneath Nohachon bore the same wolf’s head, but only now did he learn that the organization using that mark was called Heuksubang.

“It is the same mark I saw in Nohachon.”

“If they use the same mark, the chance that they are connected is great. Even so, what they did together, and how far, must be uncovered separately.”

Even while checking any hasty conclusion, Hyeonheo examined closely the hands and the waists of the Heuksubang men. Pung too opened his meridian sight shallowly, but all that showed was coarse inner energy, blocked here and there, and the traces of strength hauled up by force. Meridians might reveal the tracks of a man’s training, yet they did not tell him whose orders those men had followed when they harmed people.

Just then, from the alley opposite, came the sound of wooden crates collapsing and a burst of cursing.

“Get him! Break that beggar’s legs before he slips away!”

A young beggar in rags vaulted a fish stall and burst out onto the main road. The tattered sack on his back sloshed, and in one hand he held a dented wine gourd; a short knife thrown by the man chasing him grazed past his ear and lodged in a pillar.

Even as he ran with his body half turned, the beggar raised his voice.

“Since when does a man throw knives over one mouthful of wine! You gentlemen who haul people in from the frontier and sell them to some lofty lord of an orthodox sect for silver—how can you be so mean over a few coins of wine money?”

The faces of the Heuksubang men in the alley changed. The two guarding the front blocked the way, and the three who had come chasing tried first of all to stop the beggar’s mouth, so the passersby would hear no more.

“Did he say they sell people?”

A-yeong’s voice sank low.

Instead of answering, Pung watched the beggar’s feet. He staggered as though drunk, yet every time a blade’s point came near he twisted his body half an inch aside, and even when a gap opened toward the main road he circled deliberately where the stalls and passersby were thickest. It was not that he could not flee; he had drawn the Heuksubang men out before the eyes of the crowd so that they would open their mouths.

“Blame your own ears for hearing what they shouldn’t.”

The pursuer drew his saber. The beggar ducked beneath a stall and avoided the first cut, but the two men blocking the front stepped in together and closed his retreat, and with his back to the wall he hugged the wine gourd to his chest and put on an aggrieved face.

“Last night you were calling me brother and pressing side dishes on me—was it such a great secret, that you move people to the north gate warehouse?”

“Tear his mouth open.”

The blade fell toward the beggar’s face.

Pung had already kicked off from the ground.

His finger flicked the flat of the saber, and a clear ring of metal sounded. While the deflected point buried itself in the wall, two sabers bored in from left and right, but in Pung’s eyes the path of force running from shoulder to elbow to wrist stood out clearly. Slipping half a step aside, he let the first saber flow past, then pushed the other man’s elbow; when the two weapons struck each other and a gap opened, he drove inside and pressed, one after the other, the pressure points below the throat and beneath the arm.

Tak, ta-dak.

The two men sank down without strength. The one behind who had aimed at Pung’s waist took A-yeong’s scabbard across his wrist, and as he dropped his blade and fell back, his nape was pressed and he went to his knees.

Of the remaining two, one thrust a hand into his robe, and before his fingertips could touch the poison-needle case, Hyeonheo’s staff came down on the back of his hand.

“It would be better not to draw it out.”

Unlike the quiet voice, the force carried in the staff was heavy as a boulder. The last man abandoned his companions and fled toward the end of the alley, but a pebble kicked up by Pung struck his ankle bone, and he tumbled before he had gone a few steps.

Pung swiftly checked the breath and pulse of the five who had fallen; no one had broken bones or an injured heart meridian. Only then did he hold out a hand to the young beggar leaning against the wall.

“Are you all right?”

The beggar looked back and forth between Pung’s hand and the men sprawled on the ground, then grinned shamelessly.

“All right and more. Thanks to you, this Makdong has saved both his life-thread and his wine bottle today.”

The moment Makdong got up, he looked to the gourd before his own body, and when Pung swallowed a dry laugh at the bottle that had not even cracked, A-yeong narrowed their eyes.

“That blade—you could have dodged it, couldn’t you?”

“If I dodged, it seemed the bottle would break.”

“Is a wine bottle worth more than your life?”

“Lose my life and I can drink no wine either, so I meant to keep them both. The path was only a little tricky.”

For all his absurd words, Makdong’s breathing was not disordered. The inner energy gathered in his dantian was considerably pure, and the force reaching down both legs was thin yet tough; so his being cornered by the Heuksubang men was likely not from any want of skill, but to draw out of their mouths the talk of people and of the north gate.

Perhaps sensing Pung’s gaze, Makdong narrowed his eyes.

“You look young in years, yet you laid out five grown men with blades without a scratch on them. Might you be that boy master who saved people from under the earth of Nohachon?”

Pung glanced back at Hyeonheo without meaning to.

“You have mistaken us for someone else.”

When Hyeonheo stepped forward, Makdong nodded, and still did not put away his smile.

“Of course, of course. Merely ordinary martial gentlemen who happened to pass by and lay out five Heuksubang men in the blink of an eye.”

Pressing no further, Makdong brought his two hands together. On the shoulder of his rags hung a knot woven of many scraps of cloth, and on one side of his sack remained the mark of the Beggars’ Sect, which keeps eyes and ears in every corner of the jianghu.

“Are you a disciple of the Beggars’ Sect?”

“A lowly one without even a byname, but I earn my board on quick feet and sharp ears alone. Some call me Little Drunken Beggar because I’m fond of wine, though I don’t care for that name at all.”

“Why?”

At A-yeong’s question Makdong stroked his chin.

“Isn’t the word ‘Little’ far too shabby?”

“You want a ‘Great’ hung in front of a beggar?”

“Great Drunken Beggar. Now that has a fine, booming ring.”

As A-yeong stared as though at a loss, a brief smile spread at the corner of Pung’s mouth as well. Still smiling, Makdong searched the waist of one of the Heuksubang men and drew out a bronze tally stamped with the black wolf mark and a wooden slip. On the slip were written the character meaning north gate and the hours of entry to the warehouse.

“You looked as though you knew this emblem.”

Instead of answering, Pung lowered his voice.

“First let us hear about people being handed over like goods.”

The laughter went out of Makdong’s face, and after scanning the people crowded at the mouth of the alley, he led the party into the deep shade of a wall.

“Heuksubang is the gang that holds the back alleys of this town. They use the black wolf as their mark and have hung their name at the bottom seat of the Heterodox Alliance. Rumor runs thick that by day they squeeze protection fees and by night they seize people with no kin. Lately even herb gatherers and physicians’ assistants have been disappearing.”

At the words herb gatherers Pung’s face stiffened, but Makdong did not ask the reason.

“Last night at an inn I heard two of those bastards babbling in their cups. They pick out the people brought in from the frontier, load them on a cart and send them to the north gate, and said that for the usable ones some lord of an orthodox sect pays a better price. I was trying to hear a name and the place of handover when my tail was stepped on.”

“You said orthodox sect, not the Demonic Cult?”

“That is certainly what they said. Only, I cannot swear those men know their trading partner themselves. Underlings are told no more than where to deliver and how much they’ll be paid.”

Pung met Hyeonheo’s eyes. The ledger he had copied in Nohachon also carried the number of people handed north and the dates, but the trading partner had been hidden behind cipher. Dokgo had wrapped himself in the standing of an orthodox sect Elder and joined hands with the Demonic Cult, and here the word was that a gang under the Heterodox Alliance abducted people and handed them to someone of the orthodox sect.

The names of orthodox and demonic made no shield at all for those who had been taken.

“Do you know where they confine the people?”

At Hyeonheo’s question, Makdong drew the north gate and the waterway on the dirt with his toe, and marked two warehouses set against the city wall.

“The suspicious places are here. Covered carts come and go every night, and the windows are blocked from within. Only, I haven’t yet laid hold of hard proof that people are shut inside. Two young disciples watched in turns, but now that I’ve been spotted, the faces doing the watching will have to change first.”

Outside the alley a whistle sounded twice, short, and Makdong’s eyes turned sharp; he set his foot on a sliver of bamboo that had rolled out from under a collapsed crate. It looked like ordinary rubbish, but on the turned side three small knife-notches were carved.

“Heuksubang’s people are coming this way. Linger long and even the warehouse watch will be laid bare.”

“Can we not go and see the warehouse now?”

The moment he asked, Pung recalled the poison jar in the cellar of Nohachon. When the enemy caught the scent and moved to destroy the evidence, the people shut inside had nearly all died at once, and there was no guarantee that Heuksubang used only two warehouses.

“No.”

Pung withdrew his own words and looked down at the marks in the dirt.

“Strike the place we know first, and they will empty the others. They may move the people inside or kill them, and word will reach the orthodox sect’s trading partner as well.”

“Having strength and swinging it first is not the only quick road.”

At Hyeonheo’s words Pung opened his tightly clenched fist. Breaking down the nearest door would be easier on his heart, but he could not declare it the fastest road to saving those who were confined.

“Can you put more watchers on?”

Makdong pointed his toe at the fallen Heuksubang men.

“I can. In exchange, those bastards must not vanish without a sound. If Heuksubang decides it was struck by some unknown enemy, they’ll clear out the warehouses first.”

Keeping watch on the end of the alley, A-yeong asked.

“What do you mean to do?”

“Hand them over in front of the magistrate, shouting loud about the trade in people. Heuksubang must first decide whether to silence the captured ones or pull them out, and they must watch the magistrate’s reaction too, so their eyes will be tied there. In that gap the Beggars’ Sect will put people on the two warehouses and the north gate. If a cart moves, we’ll keep one band to save the people and another to follow the trail.”

“And if the magistrate is of the same party?”

“That is all the more reason to hand them over noisily. With many eyes watching it is hard to kill them at once or let them go, and the underling who runs between the magistrate and Heuksubang will show himself as well.”

Beyond the wall the footsteps of several men drew nearer, and when even the sound of a scabbard brushing cloth could be heard, Hyeonheo wiped away the map in the dirt.

“See to the people first. Once the warehouses begin to empty, do not chase only the carts—be sure to check whether any have been left inside.”

“I’ll pass that on.”

Makdong drew out a grimy hemp cord and swiftly retied it into a different knot, while Pung and A-yeong gathered the weapons of the fallen Heuksubang men and bound their wrists without releasing their pressure points.

The two Heuksubang underlings coming into the alley turned on their heels the moment they saw this sight, and Makdong shouted deliberately toward the main road.

“We’ve caught the men who loaded people onto carts and sold them to a lord of an orthodox sect! Let us find out this time which official in the magistrate has been shielding them!”

Passersby halted, and even the merchants put their heads out of their doors; the fleeing underlings split and ran, one toward the north gate and one toward the magistrate, and when Pung started after them, Makdong put out an arm.

“Let them go. Their eyes will only divide if those two carry the news.”

“The one going to the north gate as well?”

“My brothers are at the end of the alley. They’ll follow without showing their faces.”

A pebble came rolling down from the roof. Makdong confirmed the signal and pulled at the front rank of the bound men, and Pung’s party too went out onto the main road, using the gathered crowd’s gaze as a shield.

All the way to the magistrate, Makdong repeated aloud, time after time, that Heuksubang bought and sold people. The bound men poured out curses, then shut their mouths as the onlookers swelled, and one who tried to signal a companion with his eyes had his chin lifted on A-yeong’s scabbard.

“Don’t roll your eyes. Plenty of people are watching, so walk quietly.”

The constables before the magistrate came out with bored faces, then mended their manner at the sight of the crowd. While Makdong gave the inn’s name and what he had heard, Hyeonheo asked for and committed to memory the names of the constable chief and the officer on duty, and A-yeong spread out the confiscated goods before the eyes of the passersby.

When the bronze tally with the black wolf mark, the poison needles, and the north gate warehouse pass were laid bare, the murmuring grew; the instant the constable chief saw the pass his eyebrow twitched, and he cleared his throat and moved to cover the goods with a cloth.

“Everyone gathered here has seen the evidence.”

At Hyeonheo’s single word his hand stopped.

“It will be dealt with according to the law, naturally.”

Wearing a stiff smile, the constable chief dragged the Heuksubang men inside. Before the magistrate’s gate had even closed, a low official slipped out by a side door, entered the teahouse across the road, and hurriedly exchanged words with a man wearing a black sash.

Makdong saw that too, but did not move; instead he pushed a hemp-cord knot into a crack in the stone stair before the magistrate, then withdrew among the onlookers. About the time the four of them were passing beneath a bridge, a child in rags appeared from behind a taffy peddler and took up the knot, then vanished along the waterway without acknowledging them. On the roof opposite, a man in a straw hat was trailing at a distance the underling who had run toward the north gate.

“Two on each warehouse, one each on the magistrate and last night’s inn. If a cart moves we’ll pass word by knot, so it won’t be easy for them to catch on.”

Pung looked toward the north gate’s wall. The thought that people might be confined somewhere close held his feet fast, but leaping in now could endanger the victims and the watchers alike.

“If it turns dangerous, save the people before the evidence.”

“I’ve already passed that word. There is no ledger more precious than a human life.”

Hyeonheo looked at Makdong a while, then asked.

“We are on the road to the Martial Alliance. Are you well informed of matters there too?”

“As it happens, I was headed back that way myself. How would it be if I served as your guide, in return for your saving my life-thread?”

A-yeong ran their eyes over his tattered sack and wine gourd.

“You’d have us trust a guide who was being chased a moment ago?”

“To know both the road on which one is chased and the road by which one escapes—is that not a true guide?”

Pung could not believe everything Makdong said. Even so, he had stood before a blade to dig into the trade in people, and in his caring first for the lives inside rather than the warehouses there seemed to be no falsehood.

“I would be glad if you came with us.”

“If you ask us to pay your wine money too, we’ll leave you behind.”

At A-yeong’s addition, Makdong hugged the gourd tight to his chest.

“The terms of companionship are cruel indeed.”

A faint smile brushed the corner of Hyeonheo’s mouth.

“Let us go together. Only, do not go digging into matters we have not disclosed, and do not blab carelessly of what you come to learn.”

“A mouth must look light for others to talk freely in front of you; that does not mean the stories it picks up are light as well.”

The four of them made one circuit around the magistrate and the north gate, checking that no one followed. In an alley near the north gate a straw-sandal seller had settled where there had been none a moment before, and on the roof across the waterway an old woman taking in laundry gathered a single red cloth last of all. Makdong glanced at the sight and then went ahead without a word.

When they took a room at a nearby inn, Makdong leaned by the window and watched the alley, and A-yeong barred the door, then tied a thin thread beneath the window frame. When Hyeonheo sat down at the table, Pung drew out the copied fragment of the ledger he had tucked for the time being inside his inner robe. If the record salvaged from Nohachon and what Makdong said he had heard ran along one stem, then whether he would remain a wayfarer newly joined to them or become a companion worth trusting would be decided here as well.

Hyeonheo covered with a hand the passages that could not yet be revealed, leaving only the dates, the number of carts, and the notation meaning north gate, and pushed the paper across.

The hand toying with the wine gourd went still, and Makdong, the laughter gone from him entirely, leaned toward the table.

His fingers came down slowly over the fragment of the ledger.