The Beast Player Page 7

  Suddenly realizing that he had stopped his work, Joeun hastily began cranking the handle. “That’s not an easy question to answer,” he said. “I promise I’ll teach you everything I know, but for now you must be patient because first we’ve got to extract the honey. Wait until we finish.”

  From that day on, Joeun took every opportunity that arose to share all he knew about honey with Elin. Her appetite for knowledge was like that of a newborn chick searching for food. But he only realized how extreme her desire was one rainy day when it was almost summer. He had ridden to town to make a deal with a trader, leaving the house in Elin’s charge. On the way home, it had begun to rain and by the time he reached the house it was pouring. The last time he had been caught in a sudden downpour, Elin had come down the road with an umbrella to meet him. He had been expecting her to do the same today, but when the house came in sight, she still did not appear.

  He led Totchi into the stable where he rubbed her down and gave her some hay. Then he walked to the house. Even at the entranceway, not a sound could be heard from inside. He opened the door anxiously, wondering where on earth Elin could have got to on such a miserable day, only to see her sitting in the far room beyond the earth-floored kitchen. She had her back to the door and did not turn around even when he entered the house. Walking quietly up behind her, he peered over her shoulder to see what she was doing and raised his eyebrows in surprise. She was totally absorbed in one of his books—a medical tome on poisons. Her head was moving slowly as she followed the words on the page, and she seemed to be murmuring something.

  “Hey there,” he said. She started and whipped around to stare up at him.

  The blood drained from her face. “I’m sorry!” She seemed to be expecting a severe scolding for taking a book without asking permission.

  Joeun stepped up into the room, sat down in front of her and took the book in his hand. “No need to apologize… but can you read?”

  Elin nodded.

  “Did you go to school?”

  She shook her head. “My mother taught me.”

  Joeun waved the book in front of her. “Your mother taught you well enough to read something as difficult as this?”

  Elin hunched her shoulders. “It was too hard. I couldn’t read a lot of the words.”

  Joeun smiled. “I see. That’s a relief. To tell you the truth, you gave me goosebumps. I come home on a dark, rainy day to find a ten-year-old girl totally absorbed in The Book of Poisons.” Elin ducked her head sheepishly. “This is a high school textbook for sixteen-year-old youths of the upper artisan class. If you had been able to read it effortlessly, you would have to forgive me for thinking you were some kind of supernatural creature.” The color was returning to her face, and he looked her in the eye. “But you were really concentrating, weren’t you? You didn’t even hear me come in. Was it that interesting?”

  Elin nodded, wondering how she could possibly explain. She had discovered Joeun’s extensive book collection the other day when he had gone into town to trade. It had been raining, and she was bored. She had opened the cupboard in the living room with the intention of mending Joeun’s clothing. To her amazement, the cupboard, which was large enough to walk right into, was jammed with stacks of books. Never in her life had she seen so many books in one place. She knew she shouldn’t touch his things without asking, but she could not resist. She just had to know what kind of books they were.

  She had taken them out one by one so as not to disturb the order, looking at the titles with rising excitement. There were books full of stories, books about honey, books about different countries… it was like having a pile of treasure right in front of her. There had been no time to read before Joeun returned home so she had been longing for a chance to be alone in the house ever since. Today, as soon as he had left, she had opened the cupboard and pulled out the books. She knew she only had until he came back but still it took her a long time to decide what to read. She had begun reading the medical book quite by accident.

  After thumbing through several books to see what they were about, she had noticed the heading “Change in Odor” in this one. Instantly, she recalled her mother wading into the Pond to see why the Toda had died. Elin had asked her why their odor had changed but her mother had looked shocked and warned her to tell no one. Why had she told her not to tell? Why had the Toda’s odor changed? As she pondered these questions, another memory surfaced in her mind—something her mother had said when they shared their last meal together: Toda living among men grow weak.

  Think about it. What can Toda in the wild do naturally that Toda raised in the Ponds can’t? I’m sure you’ll find the answer for yourself one day. But when you do, don’t tell anyone. Not until you understand why you shouldn’t tell them what you know.

  These words had stuck in the back of her mind. When she had seen the heading, she had hoped to find a clue to this riddle. But there were so many unfamiliar words that she could not grasp the meaning, no matter how many times she read it. Still, she had understood one thing. Poison changes body odor. The book had said that you could identify what poison had killed someone by smelling the person’s mouth. This made her think. Her mother had told the inspector that the Toda had died of poisoning. Perhaps the poison had caused their smell to change. She was just starting to think this over when Joeun had returned. She could not tell him why she had chosen this particular book to read so instead, she kept her head bowed silently.

  Joeun closed the book with a snap. “…Do you want to learn how to read this kind of thing?”

  Elin’s heart gave a great thump, and she raised her face abruptly. “Yes.”

  He gazed at her steadily and then smiled. “All right then. I’ll teach you whenever we have a break in our work.”

  At one time in his life, Joeun had thought that there was no greater joy than teaching an uneducated child who was so much slower than his classmates that he was convinced he was a failure, and seeing his eyes light up with comprehension and the realization that he could do it after all. When he began to teach Elin, however, he discovered another joy: that of teaching a child with extraordinary potential.

  In addition to living creatures and books, Elin discovered yet another passion—the harp. One day when they went into town to buy supplies for the summer, they came across a band of traveling musicians who visited a few times a year. They were just setting up their instruments on a rug spread out under the bright blue sky. “Would you like to stay and listen for a bit?” Joeun asked. Elin looked up at him and nodded.

  The troop gave a fine performance, presenting a repertoire that ranged from melancholy love songs to gay dance tunes. Elin listened as if entranced. As they walked along the mountain path toward home, Totchi bearing their luggage, she began singing one of the love songs the musicians had performed. “Frogs chirrup in the moonlit night, in the dawn mist the bird’s song flows, oh how it flows, disturbing the still night…” As the song reached its climax, Elin sang soulfully, “Don’t weep, dawn bird, don’t weep, for I’ll recall your voice from last night…”

  “Elin, do you understand what that song means?”

  “He’s asking the bird not to cry, right?”

  Joeun choked on a laugh and shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “You’ll understand soon enough… Everyone knows that song around here, but I didn’t realize it was popular in Aluhan territory, too.”

  Elin blinked. “Really? I never heard it before.”

  Joeun looked at her in surprise. “What? But you were just singing it.”

  Elin frowned, obviously confused. “…Because I heard them sing it.”

  “You can sing a song you’ve only heard once?”

  Elin did not know what to say. That particular song had stayed with her because it had been pleasing to her ear, but whether she could remember any song in the same way, she was not sure. As they walked along, Joeun kept glancing at her as if thinking about something. As soon as they reached home, he opened a cupboard and pulled out
a small harp.

  “I haven’t taken this out for some time…” he muttered. He plucked the strings one by one, listening intently and loosening or tightening the small screws on the frame. Finally, he nodded to himself and then looked at Elin. “Do you know this song?” he asked. The tune he played conjured up an image of gentle spring sunlight. She shook her head.

  “No, I never heard it before.”

  “No? It’s a nice tune though, isn’t it?”

  Elin nodded, her eyes shining. “Yes… And you play really well!”

  Joeun laughed. “I fell in love with the harp when I was twelve. My father permitted me to play as a hobby, but when I stopped being content with merely playing and began learning to build my own harps from an instrument maker, he put his foot down, demanding to know if I planned to become a musician. This harp is one that I made. It has a good sound, doesn’t it?”

  Elin nodded. Joeun strummed the harp, effortlessly plucking out tunes that made her think of gazing up at the moon in the night sky and light reels that made her want to dance. She leant forward eagerly, moving her head in time to the music and humming along.

  “Elin, try humming this one,” Joeun said. He played the song that he had played first, the one that made her think of spring sunlight. When he finished, Elin hummed the tune perfectly from beginning to end. Joeun was amazed. What surprised him most was not the fact that she could hum a song that she had only heard twice, but that she reproduced the notes in the same pitch as he had played them, without any trace of hesitation or uncertainty. Joeun’s harp teacher had once praised him for having an excellent ear for music, but Elin’s sense of pitch clearly surpassed his own.

  From that day on, he began to teach her the harp. Just as he had noted, she proved to have an exceptional ear for music and the ability to reproduce a tune accurately after hearing it only once. However, her ability did not extend to composing new pieces of music. She was drawn not to composing music but to creating sounds. She was fascinated by the fact that the sound of the harp changed subtly depending on how it was strung, the type of wood used and the shape of the instrument.

  When Joeun taught her the basics of harp making, she threw herself into making harps of all shapes and sizes out of different kinds of wood. Of course, she could not make harps as exquisite as those of an instrument maker, but her enthusiasm for harp making was to last for many years.

  2 THE SUMMER SHACK

  Summer arrived. The shadows of the trees stood out starkly in the bright sunlight and cicadas sang from dawn to dusk. Joeun lived in the highlands, higher than the village where Elin had lived with her mother, and the dry air and cooler evenings made summer much pleasanter. One day, after the saloh flowers by the lake had faded and the yellow nosan flowers that had blanketed the fields were beginning to fall, Joeun went to the nearest farm and borrowed a horse. He and the farmer had a long-standing agreement that once the farmer’s wheat had been harvested and the next crop of beans had been planted, Joeun could rent the horse until the fall.

  Upon his return, Joeun uncovered a cart that had been securely wrapped in waterproof cloth, brought it out into the sunlight and began cleaning it. Just then, Elin ran up. “Did you finish taking care of Noro and Tochi?” Joeun asked. When she nodded, he handed her a rag. “In that case, help me clean this thing. If you notice any loose or twisted boards, let me know.”

  Nodding once again, Elin clambered inside and began rubbing the sides of the cart with the rag. The bed of the cart was far longer than those she was used to seeing. “What are you going to put in here?” she asked.

  “All of the hives, along with our food and bedding.”

  Elin paused to stare at him. “What? Are we going somewhere?”

  Joeun grinned. “We’re going to follow the flowers. All the way up the mountain. I have a summer shack about three-quarters of the way up. In summer, the slopes are covered in flowers like fujak and sasha. It’s quite spectacular.” Seeing her face light up, he continued, “At least that will give you something to look forward to while you work. We have an awful lot to do before we go!”

  It was only at dawn five days later that they finished closing up the house and loading the cart with all the hives and luggage. After hitching up Totchi and the other horse, Joeun began leading them along the mountain trail, through the morning mist. Elin followed after the cart, herding the goat, Noro, ahead of her with a small switch. Their pace was fairly slow as they had to be careful not to jar the hives too much. Although the trail was covered in summer grass and shaded by trees, Elin was soon drenched in sweat. Gnats tried to crawl into her eyes and mosquitoes hovered around her sweat-soaked skin with a high whining sound.

  They had covered the hives with wire net so that air could pass through, but Joeun still sprayed the hives frequently with water to keep them from getting too hot inside. When they came to a spring burbling from the rocks, Joeun stopped the cart. Elin cupped the water in her hands and gulped it down. It was so cold it numbed her fingers, but she felt much refreshed after washing her hands and splashing her neck. When she ducked her head under the stream of water and then shook her dripping hair, Joeun laughed. “Just like a pup. How about behaving a little more gracefully? You’re a girl after all.”

  Elin grinned and shook her head vigorously. “I’d rather be a puppy.”

  Smiling, Joeun looked at his little charge, with her darkly tanned skin and stick-like limbs. He could not braid her hair so he had cut it at collar length, which made her look like a boy. “You’re impossible!” His heart filled with tenderness. What a priceless gift he had been given.

  They continued along the mountain trail, stopping occasionally to rest. It was not until the sun began sinking low in the sky and the orange-tinged light slanting through the branches struck the trunks of the trees that they stumbled out into the open. Elin gasped in wonder. Before her stretched a gentle slope carpeted in a profusion of colorful flowers that finally dropped away into nothingness. Rosy clouds drifted slowly by, grazing the edge of the cliff. A hush fell as the cart came to a standstill. The only noise to be heard was the soft rustle of grasses swaying in the wind and flowers brushing against one another. Beyond the deep valley that lay beneath the meadow, the snow-capped peaks of the Afon Noah soared. Standing in the field where only the voice of the wind could be heard, Elin felt as though she had wandered into another world.

  “Let’s get a move on,” Joeun said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not much farther.”

  The summer shack was less than half the size of the house Joeun lived in from fall to spring. The boards he had tacked over the door last fall were still in place, undisturbed by animals. “Here we are at last,” he said. He pounded his back with his fist and then stretched his arms above his head. “After you’ve put the animals in the pen, look after the horses. I’ll set up the hives and then unboard the door and sweep out the chimney.”

  “All right.”

  Nights on the mountain were chilly, even in midsummer, and Joeun knew they wouldn’t be able to sleep without a fire going in the hearth. But as birds frequently roosted in unused chimneys, his first task was to clean out any nests. Although he had always been strong and healthy, this annual move was exhausting and from the age of fifty-five, it had begun to drain his strength more every year. Last year he had been too tired to sweep out the chimney and had just wrapped himself in a blanket for the night. That wouldn’t do this time, though, not with Elin here. He endured this hardship each summer not just to get more honey, but because he liked this place.

  I wonder how many more years I’ll be able to do this.

  Gazing out over the meadow bathed in the light of sunset, he felt some of his fatigue lift. Rainfall had been plentiful this year, and the field was thick with flowers. The bees would gather lots of nectar. This year he intended not only to make honey, but also to collect herbs for medicine.

  Once he had found chigo growing on this very mountain. The root of the plant was a miracle cure for inflam
mations of the internal organs, and it brought a high price because it only grew in steep, inaccessible ravines. The place where he had seen it was a sheer bluff, and he would have to be very careful if he were to gather any. One slip and he’d be at the bottom of the valley. Wild Toda lived in the river that flowed through it. Of course, if he fell, he would be dead anyway. Still, it was worth trying. Just one small chigo root would bring him a large gold piece.

  Until now, he had only had to feed himself. When he grew too old to move, he had thought that he would just lie down in this meadow to die while watching the clouds drift in the sky above. But now, there was Elin. In six or seven years, she might marry. She would need a proper dowry if she were to wed into a good family, and clothes and furniture to start a new household.

  Even as this thought passed through his head, however, something told him that she would never live the life of a normal girl. She was too unusual. He had become even more aware of this when he had begun teaching her to read. If only she were a boy… he thought… And not part Ahlyo. Then he could have used his connections from the past to get her a place at the school in the capital. Every time he thought about how her potential might blossom with a proper education, he was overcome with frustration. …But I’ll have to worry about that later. Either way, he would need money. He did not mind this. In fact, the thought gave him energy and drive. The desire to set her on the road to happiness consumed him, just like it had when he had cradled his own child in his arms for the first time.

  Their days in the summer shack passed quietly and midsummer approached. One evening as they were eating dinner, Joeun said, “You’re used to living here now. You won’t mind if I go away for a day or so, will you?”

  “No, I’ll be fine.”

  “Good then. I’ll leave the place in your hands tomorrow. Be sure to take good care of it.”