| Trouble In Times of War (Part I)

It had been only a day since General Min-Jun's last battle.

A Tang military leader kept causing them trouble by mounting swift attacks on defenceless villages, then laying in waiting to ambush old General Min-Jun's troops. This was not the way of an honourable General. Min-Jun called his opponent, who wore a lion on his helmet, the lion with the heart of a weasel. By the grace of the gods, General Min-Jun pushed the enemies back behind the border and hoped never to hear from them again. The clash however left his precious armour stained and battered.

As his camp aide, Soo-Ah made it her creed to bring it to its former glory. After taking the sword to the blacksmith bright and early in the morning, and then helping with the injured at the tent clinic, what remained of the day was spent painstakingly polishing every lamellar scale and the decorated breastplate.

"Look grandpa...'" she resumed calling him affectionately when they were just the two of them. "I am gonna make your armour deadly shiny." She looked expectantly at her grandfather who sat at his table to write down a detailed report of the latest attack.

"What do you mean deadly shiny?" Min-Jun asked, not pulling his attention away from the words he laid on paper with his thin paintbrush.

"I mean it's going to shine so bright the enemy's eyeballs will burst out of their sockets like magic. Then all you need to do is to command them to surrender, and they will quiver in fear. What do you think about that?"

Having her grandfather back safe after she had spent one night and day in anguish gave Soo-Ah a childish exuberance. It also made the old man chuckle before sharing some of his attention with her.

"How old are you again, child? I thought you said some time ago you no longer believed you could do magic."

"This is not real magic. This is a skill turned into magic, grandpa. And I have lived through almost ten and seven winters. I am too old for you to call me a child." She frowned at him.

"Never too old to be my beloved grandchild." He raised his head to meet her eyes, then admired her polishing work but noticed something was missing. It made him frown. "You sure are old enough to go fetch my sword from the smith to complete the armour."

Soo-Ah jolted, suddenly remembering and making a run for the tent exit.

Ming-Jun yelled as a joke after his granddaughter. "I have no sword! What kind of general has no sword? A crappy one, that's who."

Soo-Ah heard him say the word "crappy" and that sounded so strange coming from his well-mannered style of speaking. It made her chuckle a couple of times while finding her way in a hurry to the blacksmith.

The sky's color could no longer be identifiable between dark blue and black but the camp was well-lit. This being the day after the battle, soldiers did their best to find a way to unwind and forget they were on the verge of death. The atmosphere was louder and raunchier while the stench of sweat, and merriment filled the air.

It was what had becometh familiar. Her old family, Jung-In, Ha-Rin and Han-Gyeol were out of reach, but not out of thought. Only the life she led back then was slipping into oblivion all the time, as how her old friends looked. She had been only a child back when they said their goodbyes. Now the only faces she remembered were the faces she would see in her day-to-day life as a boy.

Her song was the only thing she did not let go of from her recollections. She would sing it to herself now and then or when she was at the field hospital tending or to the men laying on their sick beds. Singing to them gave them as much comfort as her helping hands, tending to their wounds, did.

A man laying helpless, injured or on the brink of death would shake the hatred she felt towards them and allow her to see that they were as human as she was. Some had tender stories about the loved ones they left behind or about the ones they lost. This feeling of ease would disappear however whenever she saw the other facet, of them acting like beasts after getting drunk and fighting among each other or when she passed the brothel area, and she would hear those sounds that had marked her so deeply in the past.

This night, Soo-Ah made her way back to her grandfather, holding tight to the freshly polished ancestral sword, delicately wrapped in thick red cloth. She walked proudly among the tents, looking with a smug expression at those few who were making a show of themselves as a consequence of their drinking. Men bonding together, men gripping their female entertainers and making licentious comments.

Though she was at that particular age now, she found she had no interest in exploring the primal aspect of life. And apart from an annoying itch, she would feel now and then that she struggled to ignore, she maintained her original disinterest in men. Out of fear of being discovered, she also kept her friends in a small circle of one or two.

Unusual sounds coming from a tent further down the road made the smug on her face slowly disappear as she slowed down her pace. It sounded as if a girl was trying to scream but her screams were muffled. Soo-Ah had heard a lot of mentions about how some men partook in orgies and other activities she could not even imagine so she decided to simply keep walking. Until a sharp "Help!" defeated every other noise, before the sounds coming from the tent returned to muffles.

Soo-Ah realised one of the kisaeng girls must be in trouble. She stopped and gazed at the tent's covered entrance. Light came from underneath together with harsh words made in coarse men's voices as someone else was clearly having trouble speaking. Or screaming.

Interfering with another one's trouble might spell trouble for her as well. Soo-Ah sighed and decided to continue on her way but then the girl's voice was heard again uttering a gut-wrenching, "Please!"

That word held more power on Soo-Ah than she would have ever given it credit. It stopped her in her tracks and made her remember another fateful night from her childhood at her grandfather's manor. She could do nothing for that woman back then but this time, this time she had her sword, so she had a voice.

Pivoting with determination she headed fast towards the tent and flung aside the tent cover, taking a couple of steps inside.

A woman was forced down on one of the cots, clothes torn, one bosom exposed. Her cheeks might have been flushed but it could have also been from the slapping. Eyes, round, red, big, streaming tears that smudged what looked like young, fair skin. Her mouth was kept prisoner by a calloused hand, but most heart-wrenching of all was the hope etched in the look she offered Soo-Ah.

Then Soo-Ah noticed them. Three bulky soldiers, clearly inebriated, one with his pants almost pulled down, struggling to lift the hems of the young girl's dress. Another kept one hand snagged in her lush hair, with the hair ornaments hanging loose, while the other hand was holding tight to the delicate wrist of the girl, impeding her to defend herself. The third man had his hands strangling the girl and covering her mouth while keeping prisoner under his bent leg the girl's arm.

"What are you doing to her?" Soo-Ah yelled, appalled.

The soldier pulling at the ginseng's hair let go and approached her, almost sounding inviting in a mocking way. "What boy, you want a piece of this whore? Well, come here, there's plenty to have."