I.
A man sits in a boat on a river. He does not drink, for it is a busy river, especially on days like this, when merchants from neighboring villages would row their boats upstream to transport and sell their wares in one of the most populated port settlements in Baekje. Instead, he checks on the wooden carts they are carrying, makes sure everything is tied down and secured and would not be disturbed by the swaying of the boat as they weave their way around the turns and curves of the winding river. His manservant on the oars has been staring at him reproachfully for the better part of their journey.
"The storeowner will not be pleased," he says, perhaps for the twentieth time since they started back.
"I know," he answers, calmly, for the same number of times since he told him so. A deal had not gone through as expected, and they have come out of it with less than they had hoped to get. He has long realized that he does not have the patience nor the haggling skills for this; there is an innate haughtiness in his tone and manner he has yet to unlearn, that often put off other merchants and drove customers away. Still, he tries his hardest to learn how to cajole and haggle and beg and sweet talk and swallow his pride a little easier, if only to stop the storeowner from going on these trading expeditions herself, at least for a little while longer.
"Ten pieces of silver she had wanted for the porcelain," the manservant keeps on, doggedly, "and we're only taking home five. She won't like it."
"I'll take care of it."
"We should have stayed a couple more days and waited for a better deal. Like she told you to."
"I don't care," he says, a little less patiently this time. He has had enough of sneering, crafty-eyed merchants stringing him along, when he already knew from the beginning that they would cheat him and he was always going to walk away with the poorer end of the bargain.
Three weeks he's been away from home, and seconds were starting to feel like decades again. Walking listlessly around the foreign town's marketplace one day, he had suddenly caught the scent of jasmines and almost crashed into some irate old man's stall, so quickly did he turn and look around him, fully expecting to see her standing right there in the middle of the crowded street. A wild, irrational hope, for of course back then she was miles away, and all he had found was a young street urchin selling wildflowers and herbs. He gave him a couple of copper coins for a few flower sprigs and went back to the dingy room in the local tavern that the ill-tempered manservant had gotten as their accommodations. He had gone to sleep that night with the flowers tucked underneath his pillow like some lovelorn boy, and decided right then that enough was enough. He went and finished all of his business in the town as quickly as he could, and was on his way back the very next day.
The manservant is right, of course; and in truth, he regrets not having gotten her a better price for her porcelain. The jeomju has always been an excellent merchant, and in the few years since she had set up shop in that part of Baekje, she has built herself a reputation for her exceptional trading skills and a knack for procuring the rarest items for her store. It would be just like him to involve himself in something that is precious to her and end up ruining it with his foolishness, but if he is to keep bringing her this kind of abysmal trades, that might well be where they are headed soon. He strengthens his resolve to do better, be smarter and more patient, perhaps learn how to bear not having her scent on his pillow and the feel of her beside him in bed for longer periods of time. Otherwise, there is bound to have another entry in the ledger of his sins he had asked her never to forgive him for – sins which, in her usual remarkable fashion, she had moved heaven and earth just to punish him for. Atone he must, then, for the rest of his life, not in some icy road in the afterlife, but here, on a winding river in Baekje, on his way back to her.
The man sits, unforgiven, in a boat on a beautiful day, lifting his face to the sun, hoping he would have a hundred more lifetimes to spend, atoning.