To help with the large cast of characters,
I have put together a spoiler-free Dramatis Personae
At the sound of the approaching figure’s voice, Hino Son turned so sharply that he nearly fell out of the cart.
The figure let go of his sword and lifted an arm in greeting. Min La watched as Nŏl, too, let go of the hilt of his sword and turned back to Hino Son.
“Is that—?” he began, but Hino Son had already begun to wave madly.
“Cousin!” he called. Then he looked at Nŏl. “It is Rin Holok1!”
Nŏl almost laughed. Then he turned to Min La and patted his arm. “You needn’t worry, Min San,” he said. “It is Hino Son’s cousin.” When they still did not understand, he added, “The groom!”
The figure jogged the rest of the distance to their cart. When at last he neared them, Min La and So Ga were surprised by the resemblance the young man bore to Hino Son. He had the same pale eyes and thin brows. Like Hino Son, he wore a long golt, but of black wool. His cloak was a deep red. As he approached, he pushed back the hood revealing a fine brow and long, thin hair of deep brown. Unlike Hino Son, he seemed to have the weight of experience which he wore with darkness in his pale, shining eyes. Two or three years older, he seemed more melancholy and thoughtful than his cousin.
Placing his hand on his chest, he bowed to Nŏl, who returned the gesture.
Nŏl motioned to Min La and So Ga and said, “These are friends we met near Rensoth, travelers from Hin Dan. This is Min San and his brother So Nan.”
They bowed.
Nŏl looked at them and said, “This is Rin Holok So Hoth, Hino Son’s cousin and the son of the So Hoth Housemaster.”
Rin Holok bowed and smiled warmly at them. He saw, then, that Min La was still holding his knife tightly. “I’m sorry, my friend, if I alarmed you.”
Nŏl explained, “Our journey has not been an easy one.”
Hino Son, unable to leave his position guarding the prisoner, called to his cousin who went around to the back of the cart to embrace him. The two seemed more like brothers than cousins and Nŏl explained quietly to Min La and So Ga that they had grown up together after the deaths of Hino Son’s parents.
“I’m lucky to have found you,” Rin Holok said. “My horse is tied to a tree just through there. I had been about to start back when I heard your cart. Speaking of which—” He brushed his hand along the worn wood and raised an eyebrow.
Hino Son waved his hand. “It’s a very long story.”
“And who is this?” Rin Holok asked, gesturing to Íso Lin.
“Our bandit.”
Rin Holok offered a sideways smile. “Your personal bandit? Is this the fashion in the east?”
Hino Son answered, “We collected him some distance back. As I said, I’m afraid it’s something of a long story.”
Íso Lin, meanwhile, had returned to the sullen silence he had displayed for the first half of their journey. Min La guessed that he had been hopeful that the stranger might have been someone coming to free him. Again, Min La found himself wondering if Íso Lin expected danger or welcome from the Ŏklo House.
Suddenly, he also found himself wondering the same thing regarding So Ga and himself.
Rin Holok looked at Nŏl and Hino Son, and then at Min La, who had only just put his knife back in his bag, and he said, “I think I might be familiar with this story.”
Nŏl said, “Does it have something to do with why you’re this far from the Ŏklo estate?”
Rin Holok laughed quietly and nodded. “I’m afraid your uncle’s household think me inordinately fond of taking long rides in the forest. Ever since I arrived I have been coming down this road three times a day in hopes of finding you before you reached the estate. They expected you some days ago.”
“We were delayed,” Hino Son said.
Rin Holok looked at Íso Lin and nodded. “I imagine you were.”
“You said you were looking for us,” Nŏl said, his tone questioning.
“Yes. I had hoped...” He paused and glanced up at the darkening sky. “I thought you had better be warned of some things before you enter those walls. But—” he glanced at Min La and So Ga.
But Hino Son reassured him. “You may speak freely, cousin. Our friends have been with us for everything.”
He raised an eyebrow again, but then he nodded. “Very well. But perhaps first you should tell me what has happened to you.”
As Nŏl spoke to Rin Holok explaining the letter his father had received accusing Von Ol of various offenses, the deaths of the Sengí family, and their discovery of Íso Lin at the old inn, Hino Son spoke to Min La and So Ga.
“Rin Holok is my uncle’s only son,” he said. “But he never intended to make him his heir. In fact, until this marriage was arranged, my cousin had intended to shave his head and become a monk. He very much has the disposition for it.”
“Which temple?” So Ga asked.
“Énan, of course.” Hino Son smiled. “So Hoth is very fond of Énan, as I’m sure you can imagine. My uncle and father had helped build a beautiful temple to Énan near our village in Sălov. Rin Holok all but lived there.”
“Is he tolibin?” So Ga asked, referring to Rin Holok’s long hair.
“Yes, his mother’s side are all tolibin.” Then Hino Son smiled. “You and he have that in common, do you not?”
As the day was growing colder and the sky darker, before Rin Holok told them why he had come to meet them, he suggested that they start off again. The others agreed, for which Min La was glad as So Ga had begun to shiver in the building chill. The fog had not yet faded, and he expected more rain tonight.
Rin Holok began by telling them something that seemed to surprise both Nŏl and Hino Son immensely. He and his future bride, the lady Ona Lín2, had been corresponding for almost a year.
“It began when our fathers first started to discuss a marriage seriously,” he said to Nŏl. He sat astride his horse, leading it alongside the cart. Hino Son had taken over driving the cart, while Nŏl sat with the others. “She said she was curious about me and so asked me to write to her and…” he paused, and before he continued his cheeks had crimsoned slightly, “she asked that I send her a drawing of myself.”
Nŏl smiled. “That’s my cousin. Her mother — my father’s sister — was known for being very direct. Ona Lín inherited the trait.”
“In any event,” Rin Holok went on. “We have been writing to each other ever since then. And it is because of her letters that I became aware that something might be wrong within eastern Ŏklo. Whenever she asked for my advice, I never knew what to do. Eastern matters are different from western matters. And Ŏklo is different from So Hoth. But for months she has been more and more troubled.” He looked again at Nŏl. “I told her she should write to you, but she was hesitant to pull your father into Von Ol’s matters.”
Min La listened to Rin Holok without saying anything. From time to time Nŏl would glance at him, as if to determine his opinion from his expression. But Min La was careful not to react too strongly to anything Rin Holok told them. It had been apparent for some time that something was wrong within Von Ol’s Ŏklo. Though, in truth, Min La had never been ignorant of this. As a child, he had heard his father and brother discuss the House often enough. Even his brother-in-law had, from time to time, made mention of the quiet decline of eastern Ŏklo.
Like most of the Fourteen Ancient Houses, Ŏklo was known throughout the whole of Láokoth for a strict adherence to the principles of the early era of unification. According to this belief, there was a hierarchy to the Houses with some bearing greater importance than others. For Nŏl’s father Nŏnol, the Ŏklo Housemaster in the west, this meant that his proud and storied House bore the weight of great responsibility. But for men like Von Ol, this meant that the rest of the smaller Houses of Láokoth were obligated to serve solely the continued existence of the Fourteen Ancient Houses. For this reason he was able to justify to himself and to his own loyal council of obsequious servants the pressure the Ŏklo House was placing upon the smaller Houses of Sona Gen to uplift the failing eastern Ŏklo estates.
Fifteen years of failure had brought eastern Ŏklo to the brink of ruin. The rearrangement of the great farming estates had resulted in a sharp decline in the farms’ management. This had been done, it was said, to bribe certain estate masters to support Von Ol’s efforts to have himself named minister, a campaign that had died quietly when he was unable to find a way around the law that no member of the Fourteen Ancient Houses could hold a position in the king’s court. And thus most of the Ŏklo farms in Sona Gen were still in the incapable hands of estate masters who knew nothing about farming. Just as the trading estates near the Ŭthol Na border were in the hands of men who had no mind for business or diplomacy. And the swords of eastern Ŏklo were managed by men who knew little of the martial life.
Von Ol had transformed the management of eastern Ŏklo into a series of ill-deserved gifts to ill-deserved men. And as these estates declined, Von Ol had turned to the small Houses that surrounded him to bear the responsibility of his own actions.
“He tells them that without the prestige and might of the Ŏklo House the rest of Láokoth will weaken and fade,” Rin Holok explained. “It’s an illogical claim but is supported by hundreds of years of tradition. After all, Ŏklo used to be grand.”
Min La watched Nŏl’s face darken at these words.
“Anyone who looks closely can see that the eastern estates are unlikely to last the decade. Many will collapse with the next year or two. The farms near the border had a harvest this year that was less than a fifth the size of last year, which was already smaller than required. He does not have what is owed the court. He has been trying to buy it from the Sengí House this year, as they are some of the last competent farmers in the Osa Len mountains.”
Rin Holok sighed and rubbed his face. It was plain to see that he had not slept in several days. He had already taken Ŏklo’s matters as his own, even though the marriage ceremony had not yet occurred. Min La glanced at Hino Son. The So Hoth House certainly was worthy of admiration if these two young men were a fair representation of it.
“In short,” Rin Holok said, stretching his shoulders. “Von Ol Ŏklo lacks resources.”
Nŏl asked, his voice quiet and grim, “And so Von Ol has been absorbing the smaller Houses? That’s true, then?”
“I’m afraid it is. He pressures them first to offer Ŏklo the bulk of their possessions: lands, crops, even estates. When the Houses can no longer support themselves, he offers to allow their members to join Ŏklo. When this time comes, the only other option to them is ruin.” He paused, adjusting the clasp of his cloak. Then, without looking at Nŏl he went on. “I cannot say for certain as I have not seen it with my own eyes, but it has been said that he has used swords to force the Houses. I have heard accounts of village raids deep in the mountains. It’s said that this is how he acquired the gíth quarry near the Ména River.”
“By force?” Nŏl asked, breathless.
Rin Holok nodded.
“Who told you this?”
He did not answer for some time. But then he said in a soft voice, “Your cousin.”
“Ona Lín?”
He nodded again. And Nŏl was silent.
Rin Holok went on, “It cost Von Ol greatly to lose the silver mines to Koda. Ona Lín said that he sold the portion of eastern Ŏklo’s wheat crop that year that had been put aside for the Palace to bribe officials into helping him gain the silver mines. Had he succeeded he would have been able to replenish the crop by purchasing it from the Sengí House. When he failed, he had to find another solution. That was when he began to use force.”
“And the bandits?” Nŏl asked.
Rin Holok glanced back at Íso Lin. “I don’t know. Ona Lín has mentioned that there is something to the rumors, but I haven’t spoken to her since I arrived at the estate.”
“She knows?”
“I think she might. She implied that her father was aware of the matter, but I don’t know anything else, I’m sorry.”
“I did not know,” Nŏl said, “that matters had decayed to such a state here in the east. Is this all Von Ol’s incompetence? What of his council?”
“His council are all fools. He has surrounded himself with men who agree with him. And he rewards them for doing so with estates stolen from smaller Houses. And he has been careful enough for his crimes to go unnoticed by the royal court. There is no one in the east who will stop him.
“The Ŏklo estate is many things at once, my lord,” Rin Holok said to Nŏl. “It is a home to Von Ol and his niece and several other Ŏklo families. It is a fortress tucked into the Osa Len mountains, close enough to Osa Gate to borrow the shadow of their protection. But it is also a place of secrets. And I cannot help but sense that some kind of danger lurks there.
“These last few months the air in the estate has changed. In Ona Lín’s last letter she said that the number of servants had decreased by nearly half. Only her own maids had not changed. The estate has a feeling of emptiness. And at the same time, it feels like anticipation has pulled the air out of every room and corridor, like held breath.
“Fear,” Rin Holok said. “The estate is filled with fear and I do not know why.”
While he had been speaking, they had been ascending a low hill. Having reached the top, Min La saw that they were leaving the forest and coming at last to the primary road to the Ŏklo estate. In the distance, shrouded by lingering shreds of thick, gray fog, he could see the shape of it sharpening the soft rolling hills of the valley with its pointed towers and peaked rooftops.
“If you wish to know more, my lord Ŏklo,” Rin Holok said to Nŏl, “You should speak to your cousin.”
“To Ona Lín?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
“Have you not guessed already?” Rin Holok smiled and pushed his horse in front of the cart as the road narrowed. Looking back over his shoulder, he said, “It was she who sent your father that letter.”
The narrow road to the Ŏklo estate looped through furrowed fields in which men were laboring to ready the soil for the approaching winter season. These men lifted their eyes as the cart passed, but otherwise paid the visitors little attention.
Min La tensed as they approached the wall around the estate, and So Ga pulled his blanket over his head. Rin Holok then led them to a path that diverged from the main road. He was not leading them to the front gate of the Ŏklo wall, but to a different, less grand gate near the back, where the afternoon’s shadow shrouded the wall and gate in chill darkness.
Nŏl had asked Rin Holok to help them find a less conspicuous way to enter the estate. Glancing at Íso Lin, the young man had nodded.
“This road,” he said, glancing back at them, “is the least used on the estate.”
Dismounting at the gate, Rin Holok knocked on the wooden door and turned to Nŏl. “The stables are just here. I frequently use this gate, but it is not watched very closely. It should only be the stable master in here.” While they waited, he motioned to the right. “That is the road that leads farther up the mountain. Some miles hence it meets the mountain road, the one that leads to Osa Gate. There is also a village a little ways on which is large and mainly Ŏklo. It is known for its temple to Ávoth. If the circumstances were not what they are, I would like to visit it. Ona Lín says they have extraordinary frescoes. This estate stands at the center of mountain life.” He paused, frowning, then added. “I suppose some might say now that the Koda estate stands at the center of mountain life. But they’re on the other side of the mountain road.”
Min La was struck by the silence. If what he said was true, this estate should have been alive with sound. The fields should be filled with Ŏklo farmers, the stable filled with horses, the gates guarded by swords, the walls filled with voices and activity. But while they waited, a heavy silence fell. Min La looked at Nŏl, who had tilted his neck to gaze up at the highest tower of the Ŏklo estate.
“Have you ever been here?” he heard So Ga ask him.
“Once, when I was very young.”
“Has it changed much?”
Nŏl shook his head. “I don’t know why, but it seems larger.”
At last the door opened and a small, aged man poked his head out. With a dark expression, he considered them.
“Master Élo3,” Rin Holok said with a small bow. Turning to the others, he added, “This is Élo, Von Ol’s stable master. He has been in that position for forty years.”
The old man shuffled out of the gate and, leaning against the wall, regarded them with narrowed eyes. “Is that young master Nŏl?” he asked, his wrinkled face contorting into a toothy grin. “Oh my, bless the Ădol, it is indeed. How wonderful it is to see you again after all these years. I don’t suppose you remember me. You were barely up to your father’s knees at the time.”
Nŏl seemed taken aback. He blinked in stunned silence, and then, like light spreading into shade, realization came over his face. He smiled and bowed.
“I do remember you,” he said. “You let me ride that pony you raised.”
“And then you slipped away from us and took the creature all the way up to your uncle’s hall, if I recall.”
Nŏl laughed lightly and then asked, “You had a son, did you not? I remember playing with him.”
The old man’s smile remained, but his eyes darkened. “The boy’s with Ávoth now, along with his mother.”
“Oh, I am sorry,” Nŏl said.
“Never mind, never mind.” Élo waved his hands. “The young lord Nŏl in my stables again after all these years. It is terribly good to see you, my lord, if you don’t mind my saying. Come, my lord, let’s get you inside.”
Once inside the Ŏklo walls — and within the large, but mostly empty, stable complex — Hino Son remained in the cart with their prisoner while Nŏl took the old man aside and spoke to him at length.
Min La, who had taken his and So Ga’s bags and leapt down from the cart, watched this exchange with a dark expression. So Ga, still wrapped in his blankets, followed.
“It would be better,” Min La whispered to him, “to enter the estate without alerting Von Ol.”
“But Nŏl is expected. As is Hino Son.”
“But the rest of us—” he glanced back at Íso Lin in the cart, whose leg bindings Hino Son was untying “— the rest of us would be better unseen and unknown.”
The promise of Nŏl’s physician was beginning to seem like it was potentially not worth the risk. Though why the House of Ŏklo would be a dangerous place, Min La could not imagine. Perhaps they did allow bandits to roam in their forests, perhaps it was nothing more than incompetence and laziness, or the inability of their swords. Even if these things were true, it shouldn’t make the estate a place of danger or fear.
But Rin Holok had been right. There was a strange air inside the walls. Besides being all but empty, the silence that filled the place was like a held breath. And whatever secrets that silence concealed, they could easily spell danger for So Ga as well.
In that moment Min La resolved to leave the estate as soon as So Ga had seen their physician. And also, during their time here, to keep both of them entirely hidden from the workings of the household. Whatever festered in the silence of Ŏklo, he did not want to be here when it was forced into the light.
In time the stable master, Élo, took possession of the prisoner. He had told Nŏl of a stone house where his son had been preparing to live with his betrothed before his death. He was the only one who ever ventured there these days. It was safe and it was hidden.
Nŏl thanked him and Hino Son went with Élo to deposit Íso Lin in his new, temporary prison. Nŏl returned to Min La and So Ga and said, “I will not know what to do with him until I see how things are inside. But for right now, my promise.”
Turning to Rin Holok, he said, “My friend is quite ill. I hoped our physician could see him. I have heard he is exceptional.”
Rin Holok looked at So Ga with concern and then his look changed to one of amusement. “Well,” he said, “that works out very well, then.”
“How do you mean?”
“You wish to speak with Ona Lín about estate matters, do you not?”
Nŏl nodded. “I must, I’m afraid.”
“Within the eleven days before the wedding, no one but her own maids may see the bride, which is still seven days hence. But because of this you might be able to do so.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Von Ol’s old physician, the one you speak of, died last autumn. But for the last nine years he has been teaching Ona Lín everything he knew.”
“Ona Lín?”
“Indeed. Von Ol cannot afford to add an unfamiliar face to the estate, as I’m sure you can imagine. So Ona Lín has been the primary physician here. If you come with me, I can take you as far as her residence and ask them if she will make an exception. But Ona Lín has never turned anyone away; you could probably even see her today.”
Min La breathed a sigh of relief. If that was true, they could leave the estate as soon as tomorrow.
He and So Ga bowed their thanks to Rin Holok. Perhaps the tiles of fate had finally offered them a bit of good luck.
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RIHN-hoh-lohk
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EE-loh
Another great read. Thank you. You are amazing.