The Red Queen Read Online Free Page B

strife that tore our country apart? Do I blame the dead hand of Confucianism and its reverence for the dead parent? ‘Filial piety’ was the everlasting refrain of our culture. As you can well imagine, its rigid dictates were not always observed as faithfully as they should have been, and many a child rebelled against its parent, but nevertheless those who rebelled did so at a high psychic cost.
My father-in-law the king was suspected of gaining the throne through fratricide. His brother, King Kyŏngjong, was a man weak of mind and body, and, after a brief rule, he died, and Yŏngjo succeeded. Foul play was suspected, and many rumours circulated. This was ten years before I was born, but the rumours did not die away – they multiplied. My slave Pongnyŏ, who cared for me as a baby, and who came to the palace with me when I was married, was full of gossip about these old scandals. She loved to frighten me with her tales. Some said the feeble-minded king had been bewitched, and had died through the black arts – by powdered bones, by incantations, and by mystic writings on eaves and lintels. Others said that his garments had been treated with the venom of snakes. One story held that a eunuch had poured a noxious ointment of henbane and mandrake into his ear, as he lay sleeping in the royal arbour. But the most popular version was the one in which Prince Yŏngjo had sent his brother a dish of poisoned mushrooms. The king tasted them, praised them, went into a spasm, and died within the hour. And so Yŏngjo gained the throne. That was the version that Pongnyŏ liked best, though she could never offer any first-hand evidence for it.
I wonder what gossip she spread about me. She lived to a great age, and she had seen much and no doubt guessed at more.
At times of strife or uncertainty, the poisoned mushrooms and the accusation of fratricide were sure to surface again. King Yŏngjo was always in fear of threats to the legitimacy of his rule. Our country has a long history of such scandals. We are not unique in this. I now know that all monarchies in all countries produce scandals of succession and murmurs of conspiracy and murder. Against this poisonous backdrop of gossip and innuendo and occasional outright denunciation, we attempted to survive, and to appear virtuous. Later accounts of our country describe this century, the eighteenth century, as a period of peace and prosperity, and it is true that King Yŏngjo initiated many reforms, but it was not peaceful to me and mine, as you shall hear.
My husband and I were ten years old when we were married in 1744. We were children, and we had no say in that matter – or in any matter. We were fifteen when the marriage was consummated. This was in the first month of the year 1749.
I cannot remember the marriage ceremony well, though I do recall that my mother looked magnificent, in her high wig and her rich and courtly robe with a lemon-yellow top beneath a violet overjacket. I cannot remember clearly what I wore. I was sick with fear that I might make a false step. I have to say that my father-in-law the king was kind and indulgent to me at this stage of my young life: on this point my subsequent testimony, however diplomatic and indeed obsequious in intent, has not lied. I do not know why, but he seemed to favour me and to wish me well, and he encouraged me when terror overcame me. I was often speechless, often faint. He spoke to me gently, and gave me his advice about etiquette and court behaviour. I wonder, now, if he did not, in fact, prefer women to men. He was very fond of some of his seven daughters, particularly of the princesses Hwap’yŏng (his third daughter) and Hwawan, who was three years younger than his only son, Sado. Perhaps from Sado’s birth onwards the king saw my husband as a rival, as a potential parricide. Necessary though that birth was, for the survival of the dynasty, maybe he resented it. All fathers find a rival in a son. Maybe that is why we talk so