The Last Empress

26. The Truth Revealed

The ancient clock on the mantelpiece ticks loudly, and the sound is deafening in the silence of the library.

"What do you mean?" I whisper. "She was dead. You took her pulse. She struck her head on the edge of the table, and died. She died in the cottage. Hyuk killed her. It was an accident. He didn't mean to kill her. You are lying to me, you want me to feel better to cope with the shock, that's why you are lying."

"Your Majesty, I am telling you the truth; she was alive when we carried her out of the cottage, she was alive when I reached the lake. I am not lying."

"I do not understand what you are saying, I do not understand any of it."

"Then allow me to explain, Your Majesty, and I will try to convince Your Majesty of the truth of what I am saying."

"I received a call from His Majesty on the night of the accident; His Majesty sounded frantic. His Majesty said that there had been an accident in the cottage in the woods, the cottage that belonged to the Empress, that Empress So Hyun had fallen, and struck her head on the edge of a table, and that she was lying motionless, and would not stir. His Majesty urged me to go at once to the cottage."

"His Majesty sounded agitated, and I rushed to the cottage at once in a motorised cart; I decided to use the cart because it is nimble and swift, and accommodates up to three persons in the box-like tin receptacle behind, which is used to carry fresh supplies and unwashed laundry and other waste products to and from the cottage."

"When I arrived at the cottage, the Empress was lying on the floor in the living area; she was unconscious, and her eyes were closed, and blood was pooling from behind her head. I knelt down to take her pulse; there was a steady and unmistakable throbbing in her vein." He raises his eyes to mine, and says, quietly, "She was not dead, as His Majesty had feared. On the contrary, she was alive, very much so."

"But," I whispered, licking my dry lips, "you told Hyuk..." I hear my voice trembling, rising. "You told Hyuk that she had no pulse, you told Hyuk that she was dead."

"I lied."

The words, stark and hard, fall like shards of glass, cutting, slicing through the peaceful, slumberous quietude of the library.

"Why?" I whisper. "Why would you do that?"

He thinks for a moment, his brows furrowed in concentration.

"Because," he says finally, quietly, "I hated her. And I wanted her to die."

The clock strikes seven, a mournful, clanging sound, resonating between the walls of the ancient, musty library. Outside, the sky has darkened, and night is fast approaching.

He looks at me, and leans forward in his armchair, his eyes earnest, both of his hands clasped together neatly, and resting on his lap.

"As I felt her pulse throbbing beneath my fingers, I was filled with a sinking, crushing disappointment: she lived, she was not dead, as I had hoped." He clears his throat. "You see, on the way over, after the phone call, I was overjoyed at the thought that she had died, I was consumed with that thought only, all the way, riding to the cottage, rattling along the winding, twisting path, that she was dead. The thought that she was dead spurred me on, making me ride like a maniac past the trees and the woods; I was in such a fever of impatience to reach the cottage."

"You cannot imagine how disappointed I was, and how angry too, to find out that she was not dead, after all, as I had hoped, but alive." He pauses, and says softly. "But, all of a sudden, the thought came to my mind that all was not lost, and it was up to me to change the course of History, to change the paths of our lives."