Free The Living Reed: A Novel of Korea by Pearl S. Buck Page A

since the gods had given them a land which surrounding countries envied and longed to possess, the people were calm but firm in purpose and they were not afraid. They gave their greetings and went about their business while Il-han went on his.
    His father was wont to meet him at the palace. When he entered the gate, however, the guard, peering through to see who stood there, opened the gate hastily and closed it at once.
    “Is my father here?” Il-han inquired.
    “Sir, he is already with the King and has been since dawn,” the guard replied, “but I have orders from the Queen that you are to go alone to her palace in the Secret Garden for audience. Meanwhile your father says I am to tell you that if his audience with the King ends first, he will await you here. If yours ends first, you are to wait.”
    Il-han hesitated. It puzzled him that the Queen should send for him privately in such fashion, and what would he say to his father, or even later to the King? Nothing is hidden in palace or hovel and all would know that his father was already in audience with the King while he was only now waiting upon the Queen, an inexplicable division. Yet what could he do but continue to obey the royal command? He followed the guard through the palace grounds without further speech.
    It was the season of chrysanthemums, and everywhere the noble flowers lifted their brilliant heads. In the Secret Garden the path was lined with potted chrysanthemums in waves and clouds of color, and thus escorted he came to the steep stone steps which led to the high terrace before the palace. At the carved and painted doorway of this palace he waited until the gate guard announced his presence to a palace guard, who announced it in turn to a palace steward. Then the doors opened and he was ushered into the large waiting room he knew well from other times when he, but always with his father, had been summoned by the Queen. Low tables of fine wooden chests bound in brass and cushioned floor seats gave the room comfort. Upon the wall opposite the door were scrolls painted by ancient artists, and the corners of the room were banked with rare and beautiful chrysanthemums in porcelain pots.
    “Sir, be seated,” the steward said. “The Queen is finishing her breakfast and her women are waiting to put on her outer robes. She will receive you in the great hall as usual.”
    Il-han sat down on a floor seat and gave thanks for the tea which the steward poured from a pottery teapot into a fine silver bowl. The tea was an infusion of the best Chinese tea, the tender new leaves of spring unscented by jasmine or alien flowers, and he drank it with pleasure and slowly. In a few minutes the steward entered.
    “The Queen,” he said in solemn voice.
    Il-han rose and followed the man into the next hall, a vast room bare of furniture except for the throne set upon dais at the west wall, the hall itself facing south. No one was there, but he knew the custom and he stood in respectful waiting, his head bowed, and his eyes fixed upon the floor.
    He had not long to wait. In less time than he could have counted to a hundred, the curtains at the north wall were put aside and the Queen entered. He saw the edge of her crimson robes moving about her feet as she walked to her throne, and lifting his eyes no further until she gave permission, he bowed low three times in silence.
    It was for the Queen to speak first and she did so, and continued thus after suitable greeting.
    “I have received your memorial,” she said, “and doubtless you think it strange that I have sent for you apart from your father. But you are so dutiful a son that if the two of you come together, as you have always in the past, whether I am with the King or alone, your father speaks and you keep silent or you defer to what he says, and do not speak your own thoughts.”
    Her voice was fresh and clear and young. He did not reply, perceiving that she would speak on, and thus she continued.
    “I have read