Grant Me Your Grace

“Oh, crap, there’s a crack in the sky, pouring down like this.”

Mindhu returned to the house, ripping off his clothes furiously.

 At his entrance, the servants began to move in unison. The young servant, who had already received a slap on the cheek for failing to keep the rain at bay, hurried to open the door for Mindhu’s arrival.

The maids who followed Mindhu changed his wet clothes and brought water to wash his hands and feet.

“And Hegret?”

One of the maids bowed politely as Mindhu asked for his wife.

“She has gone to bed early after dinner.”

“Tsk, her husband hasn’t even come home, and she’s off to bed first.”

Clicking his tongue briefly, Mindhu looked at the servant before him. 

The young servant, who had been slapped earlier, was cowering in the corner, watching his master’s eyes, wondering if another slap would come.

His swollen cheeks were red and flushed, attracting attention.

“You two get out of here. You come closer.”

Mindhu waved the other maids away and motioned to the servant. 

As the last of the maids quietly closed the door behind them, the servant staggered over to Mindhu.

Mindhu sat up in bed and stared at the servant before him. The servant, who was just transitioning from boyhood to manhood, had copper-colored skin and a strong, lean body.

He shivered slightly as his gaze swept over him from head to toe. 

When Mindhu’s gaze lingered on the roundness of his buttocks beneath his thin clothing, the servant blinked rapidly, his face tense with nervousness.

“Sit down here.”

Mindhu patted the seat beside him. When the servant sat down beside him, Mindhu held his puffy cheeks and spoke in an uncharacteristically gentle tone.

“You know very well that I wasn’t being hard on you earlier because I didn’t like you, right?”

Mindhu gently stroked his cheek where he’d held it. The swollen spot throbbed, and the servant forced a smile that had been crinkled for a moment.

“Yes, my lord. I know, my lord. It was my poor defense against the rain.”

“Oh, yes. Oh, how I adore you…”

The hand that had been stroking his round cheek slowly moved up his neck to his shoulder. 

A single firm squeeze of the modestly parted shoulders, then the hand began to travel down the spine. The servant bit his lip, unable to resist.

The hand that had been caressing his waist, which was quite ample for a man, slid down to his private parts. 

‘Hmph’, the terrified servant closed his eyes tightly and endured the humiliation. 

A sneering Mindhu was about to strip the servant’s clothes off when he bared his teeth.

“Master, you have a visitor.”

A maid’s voice came from the doorway. 

Mindhu was just getting into the swing of things, but the unexpected visitor made him fall flat on his face. He grabbed the hem of the servant’s robe and shouted angrily at the maid at the door.

“What kind of madman comes to visit at this time of night? Tell him to come back tomorrow morning!”

“Well, he says if I tell you, it’s Ammonces, you’ll know…”

“What?”

The name Ammonces stopped Mindhu in his tracks.

“At a time like this, tsk.”

Clicking his tongue, Mindhu lashed out at the servant. The servant scrambled to gather his clothes as if he’d caught a straw off a cliff. With his mouth agape, Mindhu made his way to the parlor.

Once inside, a merchant in black robes bowed to him.

“My lord, I am pleased to see you.”

The harsh voice, like scraping iron, sank low to the parlor floor. Displeased at being interrupted, Mindhu asked with a hint of annoyance.

“The goods.”

The merchant placed the sack he was carrying on the table. He untied the tight straps, and it was filled with dried blue hydrangea.

The blue hydrangeas were to be used to make blue gold for the Emperor Khankundra. Ammonces was their secret word for these plants.

“This isn’t a bad deal.”

“Our merchandise is always of the highest quality, and with this blue lapis lazuli, anyone would be a perfect puppet in the hands of the Chancellor.”

After a quick sniff to check its condition, Mindhu nodded in satisfaction and closed the sack. He tossed the heavy bag of money to the merchant and handed it over.

“Come back another time, then.”

Taking the money, the merchant turned and slipped quietly out of the mansion. 

Already exhausted, Mindhu placed the blue hydrangeas back in the wooden box and went upstairs to his bedroom alone.

Leaving the mansion, the merchant walked out into the pouring rain. Stealthily, he turned into an alleyway.

There, in the darkness, barely penetrated by the moonlight, was a shadow. 

The merchant raised a fist to his left chest at The Shadow and handed him the pouch of money from Mindhu.

The Shadow checked the money in the pouch, pulled out a single gold coin, and handed the pouch back to the merchant.

“Glory.”

The merchant raised his fist to his chest once more and disappeared into the darkness. 

The Shadow turned toward the direction of Mindhu’s mansion and disappeared as well.

✨

A night when even the great moon hid behind clouds.

Dahlia was staring out the window, trying to escape a nightmare she couldn’t remember.

“Huh? What is that?”

As she stared at the pale sandy dust blowing in the wind, a strange movement caught her eye. Dahlia clung to the window and watched the strange movement.

Beyond the northern wall, a small creature was staggering along, stumbling to its feet, almost falling, but not quite collapsing. 

In its desperate flight, it resembled a young creature being chased by a wild beast.

At last, the moon, hidden by the clouds, reached out through a faint gap, and the little thing raised its head in the direction of the moon.

Dahlia quickly clamped her hand over her gaping mouth.

The fleeing boy was a prisoner of the dungeon. The same boy who looked to be her age, who had been mercilessly dragged away at the end of a long, long line of prisoners.

Not long ago, the Emperor had led a hundred-thousand-strong army to crush a small nation. 

Behind the returning army, as usual, hundreds of prisoners were dragged like criminals.

The boy was one of them.

That day, Dahlia ran outside, unable to contain her curiosity about the whole tumultuous Empire. 

She pushed her way through the crowds, outrunning even her nanny, until she tripped over someone’s foot.

When she looked up, she saw a group of filthy-looking people walking toward her, tied together by long ropes.

They looked like skeletons rising from their graves, their eyes dead and lifeless.

Terrified, Dahlia didn’t know how to stand up.

The boy who noticed Dahlia fell to his knees. He helped her to her feet when no one else would.

“Be careful.”

The words sounded exhausted and bitter, like an adult speaking in a child’s voice. The boy, one eye swollen shut, stared at Dahlia, who was soon struck by a soldier’s whip and moved slowly away again.

Dahlia, who had seen that face right in front of her, felt a pang of sympathy for the boy she hadn’t seen in days.

The boy was as thin as she’d ever seen him, even from a distance. He was lying on his back in a desert of stretches that made it difficult to put one foot in front of the other.

Sometimes he collapsed to the ground, but he kept moving, as if he were determined to get out of here, no matter how long it took.

He’s going to get caught soon. I watched him with bated breath.

“Ack!”

The soldiers who had been chasing after the boy swung their huge batons. 

After giving the boy a good beating, the soldiers exchanged a few words with each other, then grabbed his limp arms and legs and lifted him like a piece of luggage.

The boy’s eyes, barely open, turned toward them. Stunned, Dahlia couldn’t look away from those eyes, as if bound by something.

Time stretched as if frozen. Her breath caught in her throat, as if something unfamiliar had burrowed into her chest.

It was a strange feeling, so strange that she had no words to describe it, and she had no idea why she was feeling it. As if something invisible was tugging at her heart and pulling her toward the boy.

The soldiers tossed him haphazardly into the vast wilderness. Dust rose over the boy as he lay buried in the dunes.

Dahlia’s heart grew impatient. She couldn’t wait to get outside and see how the boy was doing.

It didn’t matter to her now that the boy was wearing the prisoner’s uniform of the dungeon, where only those who had committed terrible crimes were kept.

What felony could a boy who looked no more than three or four years older than me have committed?

‘He must be a servant who was taken from the palace without knowing anything.’

Determined, Dahlia sneaked out of the palace without the maids and headed straight for the gates.