Wandering Through Vol. 1 Chapter 4 - Wedding

For years after their marriage, the groom was smaller than she was.

 

The young man had been carried out of the palace by the width of the old queen’s skirts and wept because he disliked my gown. He turned eighteen and began to grow so differently from day to day that one might as well call him a changeling.

His face, which had been incredibly fine for a child, developed thick lines, and he had to tilt his head down to make eye contact.

 

He’s grown in stature. Eyes deepened, cheeks lost their flesh.

 

And he stopped coming home.

 

Once he left, he didn’t set foot in the house for at least a day, if not more. No one knew where he was, who he was with, what he was doing, or anything else.

 

There was no way his wife would be treated like a hostess at home while he was out.

 

The housekeeping and storeroom were in the hands of old Lady Shanggung, the nanny of the Great Lord. 

 

Sometimes she’d cry that she was hungry, but she wasn’t all that hungry. She thought of herself as a temporary guest in the house.

 

The servants in the house treated her the same way.

 

A temporary guest, nothing to be desired.

 

Since I couldn’t eat greasy food anyway, I had to eat whatever was given to me. 

 

Since I was sick and thin, I was unable to grow well, so a winter quilt was enough for me to wear for a few years.

 

Perhaps if I hadn’t gotten sick five years ago, I could have spent enough money on medicine with the money my family gave me…

 

‘How much longer would I live if I was born weak and took medication?’

 

At some point, I realized that there were no servants near my quarters; deathly silence was the order of the day, like that of an old man who had accepted the day of his death.

 

So if it was a dawn like any other day, there was no need to wake up.

 

Not even the old servant who swept the yard would come to the door.

 

But Yi Seo was awakened by the chill of the dawn air, the faint sound of silk rustling, and a heavy gaze.

 

“…Ah.”

 

In the darkened room, where the sun hadn’t even risen yet, the shadow of a man in the doorway lengthened, like the Grim Reaper who had come to fetch her.

 

His face was hard to make out in the darkness, but there was only one man who could have gotten this far.

 

Yiseo scrambled to her feet, but then she felt dizzy and braced herself against the floor.

 

The man watched Yiseo sway wordlessly. 

 

Staring down at the man’s shadow, Yi barely opened her mouth to speak. Her voice was muffled.

 

“What can I do for you…, and why have you come?”

 

Suddenly, Yi felt a little ridiculous at the words she’d said. What a ludicrous question to ask a man who called this his home.

 

“I’ve brought a servant from outside.”

 

The man’s voice was low and clear, a voice she hadn’t heard in a long time.

 

Before the others, the other half had mumbled in the manner of a great lord, but in front of Yi Seo, he never put on an act.

 

If he had behaved like the other half in front of me, I would have thought him a poor husband, but if he behaved like this, I would have known plainly that he hated me.

 

From the first night in our house, he kept telling me how much he hated me.

 

“Since I have a new guest in the house, I thought I should let you know, Madam.”

 

“I don’t think you need to come here, just tell the old lady Shanggung, and she’ll let you have a room in the palace, Great Lord.”

 

Old Lady Shanggung, who managed the affairs of the household, was no longer Shanggung, having left the palace with the Great Lord, but everyone called her Shanggung, and so did she.

 

Often, he would bring people to his house as servants. 

 

Sometimes it was a young slave, sometimes an old scholar. There was no distinction between young and old, male or female.

 

He would say, “We need to get her inside. Gilson wants to greet you. Will you come out?”

 

The words were not meant to be taken as a refusal. Yi slowly pushed herself to her feet. 

 

That day, her right leg felt heavy. On days like this, she had to limp, not even pretend to be able to walk.

 

Even though the man knew she was weak on her feet, she didn’t want him to see her limping. 

 

She stood, leaning on her left leg for support.

 

“I’ll just get dressed and head out. Can you wait outside for a minute?”

 

“I’ll wait here.”

 

With that terse reply, she let out a slow sigh and turned away.

 

It was past the lunar new year, and Yi still wore two layers of quilted clothing to bed, so there was no shame in waking up to find a man in her bedding.

 

She grabbed what she could from the closet and pulled off the quilt. It was already chilly. She hesitated to remove the rest of the quilt, but quickly pulled off the lace collar. Leaving the skirt on, she slipped it on top.

 

The fabric brushed against her back, and the man in the doorway, who had been watching her the whole time, asked.

 

“Don’t you have anything on underneath?”

 

My hand fumbled with the clasp on my collar. I reached for my skirt laces, pictured myself undoing them in front of him, and then grabbed them again.

 

“…Doesn’t the dawn air still smell fresh, my lord?”

 

“Take it off.”

 

Not having the energy to argue, I wordlessly untied my skirt and took off my robe. 

 

My calves and legs were chilled in the hem that only came to my knees. Yi shut her eyes, unable to bear the sight of her legs, pale and scrawny as a corpse.

 

It’s not like that’s going to make a difference to a leg that’s as skinny as a winter branch.

 

Not just skinny and limp, but broken and different.

 

Five years ago, after a severe illness, her right foot had not grown since. 

 

Not only her foot, but her whole leg was similar. He tried all kinds of medicines to no avail and grasping at straws, they even tried foot replacements, but to no avail.

 

It’s so disgusting to have mismatched legs of different sizes attached to one body.

 

Even with my back turned, I felt the man’s naked gaze on my calf and realized that he must be wondering how small my knee was.

 

But his eyes skimmed the hollows of her calves, then traveled up to her heavily covered thighs. 

 

She froze. It must be an illusion, she thought, no human eye could be as clear as a snake crawling over flesh.

 

Moreover, the man in the doorway was her husband.

 

Why would a man who could barge in, strip her naked and fondle her body, stand still in the doorway, and covet her body with his eyes alone?

 

Yi Seo bent down with deliberate haste to put the clothes away, convinced that she’d gotten over the illusion. Feeling her mouth go dry, she swallowed.

 

The eyes that crawled through the gap in her bent body seemed to be groping her thighs and now her buttocks.

 

No, it couldn’t be, she thought to herself, shaking her head and quickly pulling up her skirt. Her hands fumbled with the laces, and the knot kept slipping.

 

“Madam.”

 

The voice of the man she thought was standing in the doorway came from directly overhead. 

 

His hand reached out from behind her back and grabbed her hand, which had turned cold as ice.

 

“Are you standing there because you can’t do this?”

 

The large hand pulled the skirt strap from her hand. The fingers intertwined briefly, and the chill of their touch sent goosebumps up her arms. 

 

The large hand that tied the skirt strap moved up to her chest. I don’t know if it was his big hand or her petite body, but if he extended his hand, it would cover her chest to her shoulders.

 

And yet, her chest would be too small for him to grasp or fondle.

 

The man’s hands grabbed the stitches and tied them together, and I laughed softly at how funny it was that the man who had never undone the strings was tying them.

 

The tip of her lips seemed to touch the man’s gaze.

 

“…What were you thinking about?”

 

“I didn’t think of anything, I just thought I had seen my old friend.”

 

Yi Seo squirmed out of the man’s grip as he stood behind her, then pushed herself up on her legs and said, “Our guest will be waiting for you, so you may leave, my lord.”

 

When I heard no footsteps following me, I turned around in the doorway and locked eyes with the man who stood there as if he hadn’t moved a muscle. 

 

A face I hadn’t seen in the darkness was now visible.

 

The groom of her childhood, whom she thought was a pale man, was still the same. He stared at her for a moment, then hurried past her.

 

As I followed him out onto the floor, I saw Nanny Yeongsun stomping her feet in the front yard of the main house.

 

“Madam…”

 

Anxiously, she turned to look in the yard and saw a woman in green robes.

 

She looked a couple of years younger than Yi Seo, and was strikingly beautiful, with pale cheeks and red lips. Her hair was yet undone, but her stomach was full.

 

A woman of full term, brought to the palace by the man who had never laid a hand on me.

 

“Are you Gilson, the one the Lord told me about?”

 

Yiseo asked bluntly. Her fingertips were cold. 

 

Perhaps the day was still young, and the wind was cold. So it was. 

 

And so, therefore, it seemed.