Free The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble

case was very mild, and he recovered before either of his parents. He was a tenacious child.
My father conducted himself heroically during this epidemic, dividing his attention between Sado, myself and his new royal grandson Chŏngjo, on whom all our hopes depended. We were all housed in different residences in the palace compound, and the distances were not short: he was our go-between, tirelessly trudging from one to another across the lawns and up the steep steps and granite slopes. He always said that it was the crisis of the measles that made his beard turn white, but as far as I can remember, to be honest with you, it was prematurely white before this episode. Many of the palace servants fell ill and some died. I recovered first, and, in the absence of his usual attendants, I was able to go to nurse Prince Sado myself; I remember sitting by his bed with cool rice water and vinegar, and herbal infusions, as my father read to him, hour after hour, from the old Chinese histories, of campaigns and victories and defeats in centuries long ago. It was through such hours of eavesdropping that I acquired much of my knowledge of the past.
Prince Sado’s sister Princess Hwahyŏp, the seventh daughter of His Majesty, died of the measles at this time – in fact, she had been the first to catch it, and she was blamed by some malicious gossips as the source of the infection. She had brought it into the palace from the town, and there were dark hints as to where she had contracted it. Measles was a killer then, as it can be now, and we knew nothing of vaccination. There was no such practice in our time. It is true that the Turks had long been acquainted with the practice of vaccination against smallpox, which was already being introduced to the West, but measles was still an uncontrollable disease. We were right to fear the illness. Princess Hwahyŏp, like Sado, had not been loved by her father. She was a great beauty, but for some reason her father was always cold towards her. Their disfavoured and rejected status had been a bond between brother and sister, and her death was a blow to Sado, leaving him more lonely than ever. Another sister, another ally gone.
Our son Chŏngjo recovered from his illness rapidly, and put on weight fast. I always remember my little sister, who was then about six years of age, coming into the bedchamber and saying, when she first saw him, ‘What a huge baby! He’s enormous ! He’s not going to cause you any trouble, I can tell you!’ (She was obliged to address me formally, as ‘Your Ladyship’, but she could be quite irreverent, even while employing the courtly rules.) Chŏngjo, who was then about three months old, smiled and chuckled when she tickled him, and all the ladies of the bedchamber laughed. And it is true, he was very plump. After the wasting illness of my first-born, this was a great relief, as you can imagine. I had feared, for a while, that I was a bad vessel, a transmitter of poor health.
But I must also record that my little sister, who herself was also to meet a sad fate, had wept silently over her baby nephewŬiso’s death. I would not like to suggest that she was insensitive, poor girl. I fear that my fate overshadowed hers, and added to her sorrows, but that is another part of the story, which will not be told here. Then, she was young and bright and cheerful, though precocious for her years. We were a gifted and confident family. Our gifts attracted much resentment.
Yes, our son Chŏngjo seemed set to reinstate his father and myself in the good books of His Majesty. He was a fine-looking baby, handsome and strong like his father. I watched over him carefully, for all our fates, as well as my own happiness, depended upon him.
But the birth of Chŏngjo did not reconcile Prince Sado and his father, as I had hoped and expected. After the measles epidemic, things grew even worse between them. I have often heard His Majesty say that it would have been better if Sado had died of the