The autumn that year was the kind that couldn't make up its mind.
Cold mornings that turned warm by afternoon, then dropped again after dark so suddenly that the inn's regular guests — traveling merchants, minor sect members on personal business, the occasional wandering fighter passing through on the road to somewhere more significant — started leaving their heavier coats draped over their chair backs instead of stored in their room trunks. Yeonpo's market adjusted accordingly. The cloth sellers moved their winter stock to the front. Old Madam Gwak from the dumpling stall started heating her broth earlier in the day. The fish market prices continued to be, in Park Doo-shik's carefully documented opinion, a moral crisis.
"One gwan and twenty nyang," he said.
Ha-jun looked up from the accounts ledger. "For what?"
"Everything. That's what I paid this month. Between the market and the medicine shop — because my knee is doing the thing again, the grinding thing, don't look at me like that, I'm sixty-one years old and I held a gate for twenty minutes against eleven men and my knee is allowed to grind — and the incense for Lady Yeon's memorial tablet, one gwan and twenty nyang." He settled onto his usual bench with the gravity of a man presenting evidence before a tribunal. "In my day, a gwan lasted a family two months."
"In your day," Seol-ah said from the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a cloth, "a copper mun bought three persimmons. Times change, Doo-shik ajeossi."
"I know times change. I am of the changed times. I am personally acquainted with how changed they are." He pointed at her. "You're agreeing with him."
"I'm agreeing with arithmetic."
"Same thing." He grumbled into his sleeve. "One gwan and twenty nyang. And the croaker was forty mun on top of that."
Ha-jun turned a page in the ledger. The Cheongsu Inn's accounts for the ninth month showed nineteen occupied room-nights, four private meal orders, and two requests for bath water heated after the Hour of the Dog — which he charged extra for, because heating water at that hour meant Seol-ah had to do it, and there was a limited supply of things he was willing to let inconvenience her for insufficient coin.
Total income: two gwan and eight nyang.
He looked at the number. Looked at it the way he looked at most things that were technically sufficient and quietly insufficient at the same time. The inn ran. It did not thrive. There was a distinction, and he was aware of it in the same low-grade, constant way that one was aware of a stone in one's boot — not debilitating, but present. Always present.
He closed the ledger.
"We have four rooms tonight," Seol-ah said. She came to the counter and slid a folded paper toward him. A list written in her precise, economical brushwork — guest names, room numbers, notable details. She always included the notable details. A small asterisk beside room three: asked twice about the road south. Paid in worn coin, mixed denominations.
Ha-jun looked at the asterisk.
"Probably fine," she said, before he could ask.
"The road south leads to the Baekhwa Sect's secondary trade route," he said.
A half-beat of silence. Seol-ah's expression did not change. "I know where it leads."
"I know you know."
He folded the paper and put it in his robe pocket. Doo-shik, who had been tracking this exchange with the focused attention of a man watching a chess game he wasn't allowed to touch, cleared his throat elaborately. They both ignored him.
********
Kim Cheol-gu arrived with the evening.
He arrived the way he always arrived — loudly, with wine, and with the kind of expansive goodwill that made everyone in the front room feel immediately included in something. He was a large man, broad-shouldered in the way of someone who had actually done physical labor before discovering that commerce paid better, with a face that seemed constitutionally incapable of severity. Ha-jun had never seen him enter a room without immediately finding something to admire about it.
"The Cheongsu Inn," he announced to the front room, which contained at the moment only two farmers nursing the last of their evening soup, "remains the finest establishment on the Namgang. I have said this. I maintain it. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to take the northern road and find superior accommodation, and they will not find it."
"Cheol-gu ajeossi," Seol-ah said. "Room three is empty."
"Room three." He beamed at her. "Still the best room."
"It's the smallest room."
"It has the best window." He dropped a small pouch on the counter — the sound of it was reassuringly heavy, silver nyang by the weight — and leaned his elbows on the wood. "The usual arrangement, Seol-ah-ssi. Five nights, morning meal included, and I'll need the stable space for my cart."
"The stable rate went up a mun per day in the eighth month."
"Criminal." He produced another coin from his sleeve and set it down without the slightest hesitation. "Have you eaten? I brought wine. Let me buy wine for everyone in here." He turned to the two farmers. "Gentlemen. Wine."
The farmers looked at each other. One of them shrugged. Ha-jun, coming through from the back with a fresh fire-iron for the common room hearth, caught Cheol-gu's eye and received the man's fullest, most unguarded smile.
"Ha-jun-ssi! How's business? How's the river? I saw your front sign — it's slightly—"
"Don't."