A deep hoarse voice frightened Lady Jang. "You are awake at last!"
Oh no! Why? Why him?
The unknown man's face illuminated as the light coming from the torches exposed his long beard and wrinkled as a prune face.
"Minister... Yeol?" She gasped in disbelief.
"Yes, Lady Jang. Have you not expected it would me?"
Lady Jang started questioning herself. War of thoughts happened inside her head, trying to figure out why the old minister had done that. She realized that he was the Queen's father after all.
"So now what? After messing the whole ceremony, were you planning to leave?"
Lady did not respond. She looked away from the minister, afraid of what he might do to her. Annoyed with her stubbornness, the elderly minister signaled one of the hwarangs to splash a bucket of water to Lady Jang. The water was so cold that it pinched every part of her skin like a thousand needles pricking her face simultaneously. It felt like her soul was going out of her body. She shook her head and totally got back to her senses.
She groaned. "Minister."
"How dare you fool us, Lady Jang? The King has trusted you!"
He continued, "I am just following the King's orders, but most of all, I am just a father trying to protect my daughter."
"My Lord, I do not understand what you are saying."
She sniffed, holding back any tears that could come out from her eyes.
The elderly minister gritted his teeth upon hearing the Head Priestess' obvious lies. He lifted an arm and struck her face with his heavy palm, in an intense slap. His whole arm moved as quick as a viper striking its prey. He could not think straight, emotions fueling his actions. He could not contain himself, and he wanted to inflict more pain to her (a more painful one compared to a sting of a slap).
"You have fooled the King and the entire kingdom regarding the arrival of the eclipse. Now everyone is praising the Prime Minister's name. You have planned this ahead with him!"
"I do not know anything. Please believe me." Beads of tears started to come out from her puffy eyes.
"Clearly, this is an act of treason. You need to pay it with your life." The stern tone and narrow eyes of the minister sent more shivers inside the Head Priestess, knowing that anytime she could be dead.
"Please have mercy, My Lord. Spare me, please!" she pleaded with a muffled cry, her voice barely audible.
"Punish her. Do not stop unless she confessed everything," Yeol ordered. Lady Jang started to panic and wiggled her body, trying to get out from the chair. She started screaming and pleading for her life.
Two guards took a thin wooden bar and inserted those in Lady Jang's thighs. After the count of three, they pumped those wooden bars slowly, trying to separate her thighs, which were tied on the chair. Lady Jang screamed in pain, her hoarse, piercing voice echoed on the four corners of the dungeon.
"Again!" Yeol exclaimed with a blank facial expression.
Lady Jang wailed, "Ahhh!"
"Again!"
At the first rounds, Lady Jang had the energy to scream at the top of her lungs because of extreme pain. However, as the guards continued, her screams had lost their intensities as her entire body surrendered. All of her little energy was drained by the combinations of excruciating pain, screams, and the fear of dying.
"My Lord, the Head Priestess has passed out," one of the guards notified.
Yeol shook his head. "Your stubbornness is the one that will kill you." He turned his head to the guards and ordered, "Do not give her water or food unless we have told so."
The guards bowed their heads, and the elderly minister left.
~~•~~
After ordering Dae Wong to get Lady Jang, The King, who had no idea about what Yeol did, tried to take a nap at his chamber. His eyes were very stubborn, not shutting off even a minute despite his physically and emotionally exhausted body.
A lady-in-waiting notified him about a visitor seeking his audience. He was not in the mood to accept visitors because of what just happened, but he shrugged his emotion off and accepted the visitor.
He rose from his bed, "Let them in." his voice was cold and dry. When the visitors came, he was surprised to see that it was his nephew, the Prime Minister's eldest son—Jung Min, together with his personal matron, Lady Seo.
"Jung Min? What a wonderful surprise! Good timing," Jae Joong greeted, trying to conceal his weary emotions in a smile.
"Good to see you, Sire." Jung Min knelt and bowed his head to show a sign of respect. The King somehow forgot the entire burden that he had and embraced the kid. His heart was delighted as he felt the warmth of the child's body.
"I am so happy to see you, my nephew. How are you?"
"I am good, Sire. I am happy to see you too."
"Come here, have a seat and tell me everything about your stay... Lady Seo, could you please wait outside? I want to have a word with my nephew." Lady Seo bowed her head, turned around and walk out of the chamber.
"So, Jung Min. How was your vacation in Manno?"
"Sire, I did not really enjoy it. I felt like a prisoner. I just spend my day reading books all day."
The King bit his lip in response to the sorrowful tone of the boy. "I see. Just think that it is for your own good. Reading books will provide you with good knowledge."
"But Sire, it is not just about that. My father..." Jung Min paused as tears gradually fell down from his little hazel eyes, for he could not hold his burdens anymore. He felt like his uncle was the only one who could understand him.
The boy continued, "I felt like he does not want to see me at all."
"Hush. Say no more." The King wiped Jung Min's tears, noticing the extreme loneliness in his swollen eyes.
"He always blames me that I lost my mom because of me. Sire, do you know anything about this?"
The King was flabbergasted upon hearing the question. He bit his lip and darted his eyes sideward. "No...Err no. I do not know anything about that," Jae Joong answered as a heavy breath escaped from his lungs.
Jung Min bowed down his head. "He does not like me. He chose to let me live far from the palace. He does not even look at me in the eyes. Why is he like that? What did I ever do wrong?"
After bursting out more words of pain, another liter of tears fell down from the boy's red eyes. This time, it was partnered with a loud cry of extreme sorrow. Hearing the young boy's cry broke the King's heart into pieces. He stood up and embrace his nephew.
Jung Min, please forgive your uncle for I cannot tell you about your mother.
The voice of the lady-in-waiting outside interrupted their moment. "Sire, Minister Dae Wong wants to talk to you."
Holding the child's both arms, Jae Joong ordered Jung Min to go to Dae Wong's house, and without a word, Jung Min nodded. The King had arranged the house for his nephew before he came, as the last part of their plan: using the kid against his brother, Jung Min's blood father.
Without a word, Jung Min dipped his head in a bow and turned around, leaving the chamber.
"Let him in!" Jae Joong commanded. Before Jung Min could had completely left, he met Dae Wong's eyes at the door and glanced a bit into him before leaving.
"What is it?" Jae Joong asked.
"Sire, bad news. Lady Jang is missing. We have searched her chambers in the shrine and entire palace already. We even went to Mt. Toham to check if she was in there, but the monks said she had not arrived. We searched the whole temple and found nothing."
"Have you already searched enough? So what does that mean? She cannot be punished for what she has done?"
Jae Joong frowned, making the minister bowed his head as he apologized. The King had a thought for a while, wondering where the Head Priestess could be.
"Jung Ho!" he blurted. He continued, "She is being hidden by Jung Ho. I will go to his..." Just as when the King had stood, Yeol suddenly entered, his face was pale as a snow.
"My apologies Sire for entering without permission. I deserve to die." The minister bowed his head. Confused with Yeol's strange actions, Jae Joong asked him about his sudden storming in the chambers, probably expecting for a rational reason.
"I know where Lady Jang is!"
Jae Joong's eyes widened in both shock and confusion.
~~•~~
Yeol led the two towards the official prison in the palace, located in an underground of the Pavilion of Morals. Unlike the previous cell where Lady Jang was detained, there were hwarangs guarding the area. The prison cells were also bigger, and there were adequate holes for more air to come in. In terms of the prisoners' welfare, they were ten times healthier compared to those cadaverous people, who were very skinny and weak.
"She is there." Yeol pointed out Lady Jang who was barely breathing because of the torture she had experienced. The King's eyes widened, and he frowned at his father-in-law.
"Minister Yeol, explain!" the King firmly ordered.
"I know this is against the law. I deserve to die for doing this. However, I really cannot forgive those people who have tried to harm my daughter and my grandsons. Please accept my apologies, Sire."
The King spat out in disappointment, "Father-in-law, we will do this in due process! We shall not do what Jung Ho does. We must not be like him. Let the Prosecution Department handle this, not you. I have released an official order to interrogate Lady Jang, and I have handed it to Minister Dae Wong."
In an instant, Jae Joong looked at the guards, and he ordered, "Release her!"
Immediately, the guards poked Lady Jang with a long wooden stick. She woke up shortly and adjusted her sight. Upon seeing the King, her body jerked in shock and fright.
"Sire?"
She gasped. "Please forgive me! I am begging you!"
The guards untied her, and she groveled to the King.
As Jae Joong walked slowly towards her, she felt numbness all-over her body, restricting her to move even a strand of hair. The King bent a bit and leaned forward to Lady Jang's left ear.
"Scared?" Jae Joong whispered.
He looked at Lady Jang's trembling lips, "This is just the beginning. Do not expect that you will get away with this just because you were temporarily released. If you are planning to escape, be sure no one among my people catches you because if they do..." The King turned his head slowly and gave Lady Jang a burning gaze before he continued. "I will forget this due process, and I will immediately cut your head off. Do you understand?"
Lady Jang nodded repeatedly in fear and closed her eyes.
~~•~~
Leaving the underground prison, Lady Jang was assisted by hwarangs and discretely took her to her private chambers in the shrine inside the palace. Her face was blank but inside her head, the words of the King were repeatedly ringing. She could not think properly because fear and anxiety were clouding up her head. In this entire game where the King and the Prime Minister were two opposing forces, she was trapped in an arena between them, and choosing her fighter would be pointless because, in the end, she would not be saved.
Due to extreme exhaustion and traumas from torture, she fainted again. The shrine maidens panicked and assisted her to her chambers.
Time's clock ticked quite fast as the sun had already set, giving its way to the mistress of darkness. This was the time where Dae Wong and the King proceeded with their next plan. After discussing the details back in the King's chamber at the table, Dae Wong stood.
"Sire, it is time!" he firmly said.
The King nodded slowly, looking hawkish to the minister.
~~•~~
Chil Yook was walking on the palace grounds near the Pavilion of the Queen. He saw nurses and court ladies busy transferring things from the pavilion to the carts at the back of the palanquin. He saw white cloths, and several maternal robes and ornaments whom he thought belong to the Queen. He also noticed the yellow and blue group hwarangs guarding the palanquin and the carts behind it. Hiding at the strong pillar on a pavilion a few meters away, he contemplated the strange activities of those people.
"Wait, what does this mean? Where are they going?"
After a minute for more observation, he realized that the Queen was pregnant with the twins, and she might had wanted to deliver the babies somewhere away from the palace in order to hide the fact about the twins. A few moments later, she saw the Queen wearing her plain white robe while wearing a black hat with a see-through veil, getting in her palanquin, with nurses assisting her.
"I need to report this to the Prime Minister."
~~•~~
When Chil Yook arrived at the Prime Minister's chambers, he saw him very busy, reading scrolls at his table. He observed the Prime Minister's smile in his face.
"Make sure it is important. I do not want to be disturbed while I am reading." the Prime Minister rolled a scroll, dropped it and picked another one from a pile.
"My Lord, I saw the palanquin of the Queen outside her pavilion. Nurses and other personnel transferred a lot of things. I think the Queen is planning to have her delivery somewhere else."
Jung Ho replied while reading the scrolls, "Are you certain? Maybe it is a trick. If they are really planning to sneak out of the palace, they should have done that somewhere very few can see them."
"No. I guess not, My Lord. I saw the Queen herself riding the palanquin. She was wearing a white robe and a black hat with a see-through veil."
The Prime Minister's eyebrow met and his lips slightly parted. He leaned his elbow on the table and caressed his chin. There was silence for almost two minutes. Chil Yook knew based on the Prime Minister's look that he was planning something.
"Hmm, all right. Follow them." Jung Ho smirked.
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