Post by ajk on Apr 13, 2012 23:42:39 GMT -5
Munno fights his way into the shrine's inner courtyard and into the building. Pushes the protesting midwife aside and runs to the birth-room door...He's the one knocking. Once the king hears who it is, of course he unlatches and opens the door.
Outside, Seolwon arrives with his troops...Just in time to see Munno descending the front steps with a bundle in his left arm. A tense moment of complete stillness--the two stare at each other--and then Seolwon's order: "Stop him." And then Munno, with his sword in one hand and the bundle in the other, manages to fight his way through at least fifteen guards and soldiers, dives underneath a sword-swing from Seolwon, and runs from the scene. (Yes, it was as silly as it sounds.)
Lots more troops come running, to pave the way for Mishil's arrival at the shrine. She arrives just as the king emerges from the shrine, carrying his new daughter (#1). He presents her to all present; her name is Princess Cheonmyeong. Shouts of praise for the king and the new princess.
Munno made it back to his horse, but didn't get very far. Dozens of soldiers surround him and point their spears within inches of him...but still he manages to fight them off, jumping off the horse, then pushing the horse down and jumping on top of the horse up to a balcony (this was even sillier). Soldiers are coming at him left and right, and it looks very dangerous considering he's still clutching that bundle in his left arm. The soldiers don't really know what's in that bundle, though (and for that matter, neither do we...). Then Seolwon, from a distance, takes an arrow-shot and strikes just enough of a glancing blow off Munno's clothing to cause the bundle to fly into the air and hit the ground...and unroll. Just a long cloth, nothing else.
Meanwhile, Sohwa is trying to sneak out of the shrine yard with daughter #2. But a soldier spots her and comes running. She's momentarily paralyzed, but then she actually gives the baby to the soldier, says it's not hers, and tells him to raise it. And her whining and begging annoys the soldier so much that he pushes the baby back into her arms and orders her away....
Mishil is informed by Seolwon and Misaeng that Munno didn't have the baby. So where is it? They slowly realize that they never did see the king's attendant leave the building. Mishil issues new orders to seal the premises, and particularly to watch out for anyone with a baby.
The soldier is still hovering over Sohwa. "Standing there will be of no use. Before I put you behind bars, head to your abode at once!" She fake-tries again, putting the baby back into his arms and crawling through a hole in the wall near where they're standing. The guard runs after her, puts the baby through the hole, and threatens her with death if she pushes it back. The soldier thinks it's her baby and she's just trying to evade responsibility: "It cannot be helped. From here on in, you are a mother. A mother!" And as she sits there on the other side of the wall, in the dark with the baby (a very cute four-month-old newborn--gotta love TV!), the soldier's words hit home. For now, at least, she's gotta step up. "My child. I am now your mother." As clever as she just was to get out of that situation, she's off to a good start.
Back inside the wall, the soldier's officer catches him by the wall and demands an explanation. Turns out that the soldier had recognized Sohwa as the king's attendant; as he explains what happened, Mishil's cabal emerges from inside and overhears him. Where is she?, they demand. He fidgets uncomfortably.
Sohwa is in the countryside outside of the city. It's a brightly moonlight night--not great for fleeing or eluding. But she has no choice, does she....
Still questioning the soldier; she hasn't been gone even fifteen minutes, we learn. But now why is Mishil staring at the sky? That bright moon? No...it's Mizar's new companion star. Everyone looks up and sees it; it's real (UGH!!!). And Munno's words are echoing in Mishil's mind--the prophecy about no one being able to contend with her might unless another star appears in the Big Dipper. Then an officer arrives to announce that Munno managed to make his escape, and brings a written message that Munno left behind for Mishil. In the message he reveals his second revelation--that the eighth star portends "someone able to contend with Mishil's might." Mishil is visibly trembling as she reads it. She crumples up the paper, then calmly walks over to the soldier. Takes his sword from him, and kills him with it. And then kills the officer. And then one more soldier, just because. And then turns around and smiles, with a warning that "My people cannot." As in, screw up. She orders Chilsuk (the Hwarang officer in her cabal, finally now identified) to find the other baby: "How long it will take, how many will perish, does not concern me!!"
Sohwa is making good time, gotta give her credit. She's still running, putting good distance between her and the city. But now here come teams of Hwarang searching on horseback. Visually it's a beautiful sequence, unfortunately for her because of that darned bright moon. But now some fog has settled in, maybe improves her odds a bit? Uh-oh, not so fast; she stumbles into a pile of leaves. Not enough to hurt the baby but enough to set it crying. Loud enough for Chilsuk's team, looking around cluelessly, to get the break they needed. "This way!" And now they're gaining on her. But she's arrived at some sort of construction site--hard to tell in the dark--with a "No Trespassing" sign in front. Reluctantly--but what choice does she have?--she presses ahead.
The soldiers arrive at the site and press on ahead. Now Sohwa has hidden herself in some sort of tunnel or cave. Fortunately the baby has stopped crying. Outside, the soldiers are canvassing the place, but they hesitate; apparently there are a lot of cave entrances there and they don't think they can search them all adequately. So Chilsuk orders fires set at all of the entrances. Smoke her out, or kill her in the process? They set the fires, and inside Sohwa's cave it's getting very hot and very smoky, very quickly. This is getting scary--she's coughing, the baby's starting to cry again, she's actually breathing into the baby's mouth to keep it from breathing smoke--until finally it's too much and she has to run out of the cave. It worked. And there she is, holding the baby and gasping for breath, on her knees in front of the soldiers. They take the baby from her as she screams at them. They bind her with thick rope, and then head over to some sort of pond on the site, apparently to drown the baby, or her, or both. And then, suddenly, arrows fly in and take out two soldiers. Munno! So obviously this place was a rendezvous point that he and Sohwa agreed to earlier. Well, now there are three soldiers left with Chilsuk, and three against Munno, we know the answer by now. One charge and they're history. And now it's just Chilsuk standing there, holding the baby. Before Chilsuk can harm the baby, Munno takes out the bow and arrow and fires an arrow into Chilsuk's side. As he falls, the baby is thrown into the air--fortunately close enough for Munno to dive and catch it. And he ties it to his chest papoose-style. But Chilsuk, this is one tough dude--he stands up, glares at Munno and breaks off the arrow shaft sticking out of his side. And now he and Munno are dueling with swords, and give Chilsuk credit, arrow in his side and all, he hangs in there for a good 34 seconds (maybe Munno was just being cautious) before Munno gets him with some sort of strike across the head that takes him down--but not fatally. Munno cuts Sohwa's ropes and they get on his horse and leave. Why didn't he finish off Chilsuk? Bloodied in the face, Chilsuk wearily gets up and onto his own horse and gives chase....
--------------------
Subtitling tells us that fifteen years have passed and that it's now 617 A.D. (Which makes absolutely no sense; the number and the math, both are wrong.) Our new location is in the Taklamakan Desert, in the Xinjiang region of China. If that doesn't ring a bell, Xinjiang is the westernmost Chinese region--it actually borders India and Kazakhstan. So we're roughly 2,000 miles from where we were.
"And in the end, I lost them." Evening, out in the desert. A man is talking to a perky teenage girl. The man, it's Chilsuk! None the worse for the arrowhead that must still be stuck in his side (hmmm). "I did find their hideout after an odd month, but I once again was too late, as they already rode away on a boat headed to Hangzhou (on China's eastern coast)." He tells her he spent two years searching for the child, wandering farther and farther from home. "I should have rather returned to my homeland, and perished with honor before Her Highness." But he never did. Now he's headed towards the Eastern Roman Empire; "I hear that Roman merchants remunerate their guards quite generously." He doesn't know the area, and the girl tells him he's lucky to have encountered her. She shows him one of the nearby sinkholes that can swallow an unwitting traveler alive. She's grown up here and knows the desert well. He's surprised that she's speaking the native Shillan language (Gyerim) so well; it's because she lives among traders, she tells him. "Most traders coming here are conversant in at least a couple of languages." Then subtitling identifies her: "Deokman (King Jinpyeong's daughter, future Queen Seonduk)". As they walk through the desert together, each leading a camel and conversing comfortably as a jaunty little tune plays, our minds try to make sense out of this: fifteen years later and thousands of miles away, pursuer and pursued have unwittingly stumbled onto one another. The lightness of the scene, and the gravity of what we know and they don't, it's surreal.
As night falls, the pair arrive at a settlement, obviously a trading post. They go into an inn. It's active and lively; obviously the center of the community's life. Lots of eating, drinking, talking, gambling. Deokman calls for her mother, and yep, there's Sohwa. She's serving food; apparently she runs the place. She and the new arrival look at each other briefly; neither appears to recognize the other. Deokman talks him into taking a room for the night, saying that she may have a connection that could help him. And then runs to meet a friend of hers, a young Roman trader named Cartan. He's been teaching her Latin and she's been teaching him Gyerim, and they practice their language skills on each other.
Sohwa shows the new arrival to a quiet room. His back to her, he asks for some tea--speaking Gyerim. She almost responds, but doesn't; clearly she's hiding her Shillan background. So he asks again in Mandarin (I think) and she responds. He tells her he assumed that she'd know Gyerim because her daughter speaks it. As she leaves, he stares at her.
Deokman has been reading a book by Plutarch (the Roman essayist/historian) that Cartan gave her. She's fascinated by the stories of the Roman Empire. Then some friends of Cartan's enter the inn (five of them; a diverse-looking group), talking about a new local edict banning all tea trading. A new feudal lord has decreed this, under penalty of death.
Sohwa brings her guest the tea he requested. She seems uncomfortable now, and measures her words carefully. She leaves. For a moment, is that an apparent glimmer of familiarity we see in his face? Guess not; he turns his head and laughs off the woman's odd behavior.
Speaking Mandarin, Deokman explains to the new arrivals that the new lord wants a tea monopoly, which is the reason for the trading ban. Apparently the guy is trying to raise a private army for some unknown reason. This doesn't go over well with the new arrivals; they're traders and a big part of the reason they came this way is to trade tea. And it took them more than a year to get this far. "If we cannot acquire any tea, we are done! It is over for us!" They resolve to try to do something about it.
The same evening: Now we see the feudal lord's estate. It's fairly large, and busy. The lord has received a visitor, who's offering him a chest of beaded necklaces. The lord receives him, speaking Cantonese, which surprises the visitor (who must be from the south). Apparently the chest is a bribe, for the lord to suspend his ban on tea trading for just the local area. The visitor thinks he's got a good offer; you can see his confidence. But the lord responds by showing him two jade coins in his hand. One says "live" on the other side; the other says "die." Or so he says. Pick one. "Choose!" The visitor hesitates. "I said choose!" And the lord's guards flash their swords. So he chooses. Badly. He's carted off on the spot to be beheaded. The lord turns over the other coin; it matches the first one. What a sweetie. He warns his guards that "not a single leaf of tea shall be traded within these premises!"
Back at the inn, Cartan and the five other traders are talking about doing a trading deal in a fortressed city somewhere, and how they can get past the fortress gates safely afterwards. During the conversation we learn that Cartan "rescued" Deokman and Sohwa and helped them settle here. Deokman says she has an idea for how to get their trade completed safely. But she's not sure if it will work for the whole group of them. So they start to give her gifts; a copy of a written calendric system, in book form, and a magnifying crystal. She loves them both and readily agrees to find a way to help them all. "Tomorrow I shall show you how to safely go past the gates." She excitedly leaves the group to go upstairs to bed...and runs into Chilsuk on the stairs, who asks about that job contact she mentioned. She points to Cartan, says he'll be good for a job and she'll talk to him about it tomorrow.
Upstairs, Deokman squirrels away her new gifts. She talks to her mother about the new visitor; her mother is relieved to hear that Deokman didn't tell the man that her father came from Shilla. "I didn't," Deokman assures her. "You told me not to, no matter what." Sohwa is relieved. "You must never tell anyone." But it bothers Deokman that she knows nothing about her father. She starts to press Sohwa about it...but Sohwa has a coughing spell. Deokman hugs her, and suggests that they go to Rome. "If we go there, we will find physicians who can treat what happened to your lungs, because of the fire." As in, the cave fire? Wow. Deokman smiles, thinking about far-away places, and looks out the window at the stars. There's the Big Dipper....
....and inside the royal shrine at Seorabeol, Mishil is looking at a star chart. She hasn't aged a day in the fifteen years since we saw her. Seori hasn't either. Mishil is still concerned about that weird star, but Seori reminds her that the twin "has long lost its light." And it's been fifteen years since Munno and Chilsuk vanished. Seori thinks that Chilsuk must have completed his assignment, which is why the star dimmed out. Mishil isn't so sure....but then confesses to some vanity, worried about what the passing of fifteen years has done to her beauty. (I suppose, as in, can she still sleep her way to the top!) Then Seolwon enters with news: "Divine providence must truly be on your side. This prince...perished like the others."
"My child! My child!" Maya is weeping bitterly, clutching the body of her toddler-age son. He's dead. This is her third boy, and the third to die. Jinpyeong arrives, seemingly in a hurry but not after he sees what we're seeing. He walks back outside, thinking back about the baby daughter that he sent away in his panic. Then Maya comes outside and kneels at his feet. "May you punish me," she says with anguish; It's my fault because of the twins I bore you. "I shall gleefully sacrifice my life," she tells him; "Cheonmyeong and I must be sacrificed." He comforts her and tells her no such thing will ever happen. And the princess, well, "She survived Mishil's direful subterfuges. Cheonmyeong will surely be able to contend with her might." Not sure what that refers to...but just then the now-teenage girl shows up, and she's in tears as well.
But over at Mishil's place...A young man is laughing and gleeful about the death. Subtitling identifies him as Hajong, son of Mishil and Sejong. Misaeng is with him and warns him to be respectful, but then he starts laughing about it as well. Wonderful. Then Mishil enters with Sejong and admonishes the two of them (Good for her, at least for that). And she and her husband discuss possibly nominating a crown prince at some point in the near future. "Seorabeol has now no males of sacred bone left." The prospect tantalizes her, we can see that.
At the royal shrine: Maya and her daughter are together, praying. And crying, too. Cheonmyeong wonders if she were somehow the cause of her brothers' deaths, and asks her mother directly. Maya assures her that the idea is nonsense, and can't fathom how her daughter ever got that idea....Flashback to a younger Cheonmyeong encountering Mishil after her second brother has died. Mishil bends down to hug the crying girl and comfort her...and whispers into her ear that "What caused another prince to perish...was you!" Wonderful. "And the next prince, the one after him...they shall all die because of you."...Flash-forward to the present; Cheonmyeong has gone to visit Mishil, who serves the girl tea. Mishil puts on her phony smile; obviously she's ready to play the girl like a harp. The princess has come because of the years-ago encounter we just saw and the terrible thing that Mishil said to her. "I wondered what you meant by that, so here I am." Oozing phony sincerity, which the girl is eating up, Mishil calmly tells her, "Your Highness. Not a single thing is what you shall do. That will bring you survival. Not doing a single thing, that will save you."
Outside, Seolwon arrives with his troops...Just in time to see Munno descending the front steps with a bundle in his left arm. A tense moment of complete stillness--the two stare at each other--and then Seolwon's order: "Stop him." And then Munno, with his sword in one hand and the bundle in the other, manages to fight his way through at least fifteen guards and soldiers, dives underneath a sword-swing from Seolwon, and runs from the scene. (Yes, it was as silly as it sounds.)
Lots more troops come running, to pave the way for Mishil's arrival at the shrine. She arrives just as the king emerges from the shrine, carrying his new daughter (#1). He presents her to all present; her name is Princess Cheonmyeong. Shouts of praise for the king and the new princess.
Munno made it back to his horse, but didn't get very far. Dozens of soldiers surround him and point their spears within inches of him...but still he manages to fight them off, jumping off the horse, then pushing the horse down and jumping on top of the horse up to a balcony (this was even sillier). Soldiers are coming at him left and right, and it looks very dangerous considering he's still clutching that bundle in his left arm. The soldiers don't really know what's in that bundle, though (and for that matter, neither do we...). Then Seolwon, from a distance, takes an arrow-shot and strikes just enough of a glancing blow off Munno's clothing to cause the bundle to fly into the air and hit the ground...and unroll. Just a long cloth, nothing else.
Meanwhile, Sohwa is trying to sneak out of the shrine yard with daughter #2. But a soldier spots her and comes running. She's momentarily paralyzed, but then she actually gives the baby to the soldier, says it's not hers, and tells him to raise it. And her whining and begging annoys the soldier so much that he pushes the baby back into her arms and orders her away....
Mishil is informed by Seolwon and Misaeng that Munno didn't have the baby. So where is it? They slowly realize that they never did see the king's attendant leave the building. Mishil issues new orders to seal the premises, and particularly to watch out for anyone with a baby.
The soldier is still hovering over Sohwa. "Standing there will be of no use. Before I put you behind bars, head to your abode at once!" She fake-tries again, putting the baby back into his arms and crawling through a hole in the wall near where they're standing. The guard runs after her, puts the baby through the hole, and threatens her with death if she pushes it back. The soldier thinks it's her baby and she's just trying to evade responsibility: "It cannot be helped. From here on in, you are a mother. A mother!" And as she sits there on the other side of the wall, in the dark with the baby (a very cute four-month-old newborn--gotta love TV!), the soldier's words hit home. For now, at least, she's gotta step up. "My child. I am now your mother." As clever as she just was to get out of that situation, she's off to a good start.
Back inside the wall, the soldier's officer catches him by the wall and demands an explanation. Turns out that the soldier had recognized Sohwa as the king's attendant; as he explains what happened, Mishil's cabal emerges from inside and overhears him. Where is she?, they demand. He fidgets uncomfortably.
Sohwa is in the countryside outside of the city. It's a brightly moonlight night--not great for fleeing or eluding. But she has no choice, does she....
Still questioning the soldier; she hasn't been gone even fifteen minutes, we learn. But now why is Mishil staring at the sky? That bright moon? No...it's Mizar's new companion star. Everyone looks up and sees it; it's real (UGH!!!). And Munno's words are echoing in Mishil's mind--the prophecy about no one being able to contend with her might unless another star appears in the Big Dipper. Then an officer arrives to announce that Munno managed to make his escape, and brings a written message that Munno left behind for Mishil. In the message he reveals his second revelation--that the eighth star portends "someone able to contend with Mishil's might." Mishil is visibly trembling as she reads it. She crumples up the paper, then calmly walks over to the soldier. Takes his sword from him, and kills him with it. And then kills the officer. And then one more soldier, just because. And then turns around and smiles, with a warning that "My people cannot." As in, screw up. She orders Chilsuk (the Hwarang officer in her cabal, finally now identified) to find the other baby: "How long it will take, how many will perish, does not concern me!!"
Sohwa is making good time, gotta give her credit. She's still running, putting good distance between her and the city. But now here come teams of Hwarang searching on horseback. Visually it's a beautiful sequence, unfortunately for her because of that darned bright moon. But now some fog has settled in, maybe improves her odds a bit? Uh-oh, not so fast; she stumbles into a pile of leaves. Not enough to hurt the baby but enough to set it crying. Loud enough for Chilsuk's team, looking around cluelessly, to get the break they needed. "This way!" And now they're gaining on her. But she's arrived at some sort of construction site--hard to tell in the dark--with a "No Trespassing" sign in front. Reluctantly--but what choice does she have?--she presses ahead.
The soldiers arrive at the site and press on ahead. Now Sohwa has hidden herself in some sort of tunnel or cave. Fortunately the baby has stopped crying. Outside, the soldiers are canvassing the place, but they hesitate; apparently there are a lot of cave entrances there and they don't think they can search them all adequately. So Chilsuk orders fires set at all of the entrances. Smoke her out, or kill her in the process? They set the fires, and inside Sohwa's cave it's getting very hot and very smoky, very quickly. This is getting scary--she's coughing, the baby's starting to cry again, she's actually breathing into the baby's mouth to keep it from breathing smoke--until finally it's too much and she has to run out of the cave. It worked. And there she is, holding the baby and gasping for breath, on her knees in front of the soldiers. They take the baby from her as she screams at them. They bind her with thick rope, and then head over to some sort of pond on the site, apparently to drown the baby, or her, or both. And then, suddenly, arrows fly in and take out two soldiers. Munno! So obviously this place was a rendezvous point that he and Sohwa agreed to earlier. Well, now there are three soldiers left with Chilsuk, and three against Munno, we know the answer by now. One charge and they're history. And now it's just Chilsuk standing there, holding the baby. Before Chilsuk can harm the baby, Munno takes out the bow and arrow and fires an arrow into Chilsuk's side. As he falls, the baby is thrown into the air--fortunately close enough for Munno to dive and catch it. And he ties it to his chest papoose-style. But Chilsuk, this is one tough dude--he stands up, glares at Munno and breaks off the arrow shaft sticking out of his side. And now he and Munno are dueling with swords, and give Chilsuk credit, arrow in his side and all, he hangs in there for a good 34 seconds (maybe Munno was just being cautious) before Munno gets him with some sort of strike across the head that takes him down--but not fatally. Munno cuts Sohwa's ropes and they get on his horse and leave. Why didn't he finish off Chilsuk? Bloodied in the face, Chilsuk wearily gets up and onto his own horse and gives chase....
--------------------
Subtitling tells us that fifteen years have passed and that it's now 617 A.D. (Which makes absolutely no sense; the number and the math, both are wrong.) Our new location is in the Taklamakan Desert, in the Xinjiang region of China. If that doesn't ring a bell, Xinjiang is the westernmost Chinese region--it actually borders India and Kazakhstan. So we're roughly 2,000 miles from where we were.
"And in the end, I lost them." Evening, out in the desert. A man is talking to a perky teenage girl. The man, it's Chilsuk! None the worse for the arrowhead that must still be stuck in his side (hmmm). "I did find their hideout after an odd month, but I once again was too late, as they already rode away on a boat headed to Hangzhou (on China's eastern coast)." He tells her he spent two years searching for the child, wandering farther and farther from home. "I should have rather returned to my homeland, and perished with honor before Her Highness." But he never did. Now he's headed towards the Eastern Roman Empire; "I hear that Roman merchants remunerate their guards quite generously." He doesn't know the area, and the girl tells him he's lucky to have encountered her. She shows him one of the nearby sinkholes that can swallow an unwitting traveler alive. She's grown up here and knows the desert well. He's surprised that she's speaking the native Shillan language (Gyerim) so well; it's because she lives among traders, she tells him. "Most traders coming here are conversant in at least a couple of languages." Then subtitling identifies her: "Deokman (King Jinpyeong's daughter, future Queen Seonduk)". As they walk through the desert together, each leading a camel and conversing comfortably as a jaunty little tune plays, our minds try to make sense out of this: fifteen years later and thousands of miles away, pursuer and pursued have unwittingly stumbled onto one another. The lightness of the scene, and the gravity of what we know and they don't, it's surreal.
As night falls, the pair arrive at a settlement, obviously a trading post. They go into an inn. It's active and lively; obviously the center of the community's life. Lots of eating, drinking, talking, gambling. Deokman calls for her mother, and yep, there's Sohwa. She's serving food; apparently she runs the place. She and the new arrival look at each other briefly; neither appears to recognize the other. Deokman talks him into taking a room for the night, saying that she may have a connection that could help him. And then runs to meet a friend of hers, a young Roman trader named Cartan. He's been teaching her Latin and she's been teaching him Gyerim, and they practice their language skills on each other.
Sohwa shows the new arrival to a quiet room. His back to her, he asks for some tea--speaking Gyerim. She almost responds, but doesn't; clearly she's hiding her Shillan background. So he asks again in Mandarin (I think) and she responds. He tells her he assumed that she'd know Gyerim because her daughter speaks it. As she leaves, he stares at her.
Deokman has been reading a book by Plutarch (the Roman essayist/historian) that Cartan gave her. She's fascinated by the stories of the Roman Empire. Then some friends of Cartan's enter the inn (five of them; a diverse-looking group), talking about a new local edict banning all tea trading. A new feudal lord has decreed this, under penalty of death.
Sohwa brings her guest the tea he requested. She seems uncomfortable now, and measures her words carefully. She leaves. For a moment, is that an apparent glimmer of familiarity we see in his face? Guess not; he turns his head and laughs off the woman's odd behavior.
Speaking Mandarin, Deokman explains to the new arrivals that the new lord wants a tea monopoly, which is the reason for the trading ban. Apparently the guy is trying to raise a private army for some unknown reason. This doesn't go over well with the new arrivals; they're traders and a big part of the reason they came this way is to trade tea. And it took them more than a year to get this far. "If we cannot acquire any tea, we are done! It is over for us!" They resolve to try to do something about it.
The same evening: Now we see the feudal lord's estate. It's fairly large, and busy. The lord has received a visitor, who's offering him a chest of beaded necklaces. The lord receives him, speaking Cantonese, which surprises the visitor (who must be from the south). Apparently the chest is a bribe, for the lord to suspend his ban on tea trading for just the local area. The visitor thinks he's got a good offer; you can see his confidence. But the lord responds by showing him two jade coins in his hand. One says "live" on the other side; the other says "die." Or so he says. Pick one. "Choose!" The visitor hesitates. "I said choose!" And the lord's guards flash their swords. So he chooses. Badly. He's carted off on the spot to be beheaded. The lord turns over the other coin; it matches the first one. What a sweetie. He warns his guards that "not a single leaf of tea shall be traded within these premises!"
Back at the inn, Cartan and the five other traders are talking about doing a trading deal in a fortressed city somewhere, and how they can get past the fortress gates safely afterwards. During the conversation we learn that Cartan "rescued" Deokman and Sohwa and helped them settle here. Deokman says she has an idea for how to get their trade completed safely. But she's not sure if it will work for the whole group of them. So they start to give her gifts; a copy of a written calendric system, in book form, and a magnifying crystal. She loves them both and readily agrees to find a way to help them all. "Tomorrow I shall show you how to safely go past the gates." She excitedly leaves the group to go upstairs to bed...and runs into Chilsuk on the stairs, who asks about that job contact she mentioned. She points to Cartan, says he'll be good for a job and she'll talk to him about it tomorrow.
Upstairs, Deokman squirrels away her new gifts. She talks to her mother about the new visitor; her mother is relieved to hear that Deokman didn't tell the man that her father came from Shilla. "I didn't," Deokman assures her. "You told me not to, no matter what." Sohwa is relieved. "You must never tell anyone." But it bothers Deokman that she knows nothing about her father. She starts to press Sohwa about it...but Sohwa has a coughing spell. Deokman hugs her, and suggests that they go to Rome. "If we go there, we will find physicians who can treat what happened to your lungs, because of the fire." As in, the cave fire? Wow. Deokman smiles, thinking about far-away places, and looks out the window at the stars. There's the Big Dipper....
....and inside the royal shrine at Seorabeol, Mishil is looking at a star chart. She hasn't aged a day in the fifteen years since we saw her. Seori hasn't either. Mishil is still concerned about that weird star, but Seori reminds her that the twin "has long lost its light." And it's been fifteen years since Munno and Chilsuk vanished. Seori thinks that Chilsuk must have completed his assignment, which is why the star dimmed out. Mishil isn't so sure....but then confesses to some vanity, worried about what the passing of fifteen years has done to her beauty. (I suppose, as in, can she still sleep her way to the top!) Then Seolwon enters with news: "Divine providence must truly be on your side. This prince...perished like the others."
"My child! My child!" Maya is weeping bitterly, clutching the body of her toddler-age son. He's dead. This is her third boy, and the third to die. Jinpyeong arrives, seemingly in a hurry but not after he sees what we're seeing. He walks back outside, thinking back about the baby daughter that he sent away in his panic. Then Maya comes outside and kneels at his feet. "May you punish me," she says with anguish; It's my fault because of the twins I bore you. "I shall gleefully sacrifice my life," she tells him; "Cheonmyeong and I must be sacrificed." He comforts her and tells her no such thing will ever happen. And the princess, well, "She survived Mishil's direful subterfuges. Cheonmyeong will surely be able to contend with her might." Not sure what that refers to...but just then the now-teenage girl shows up, and she's in tears as well.
But over at Mishil's place...A young man is laughing and gleeful about the death. Subtitling identifies him as Hajong, son of Mishil and Sejong. Misaeng is with him and warns him to be respectful, but then he starts laughing about it as well. Wonderful. Then Mishil enters with Sejong and admonishes the two of them (Good for her, at least for that). And she and her husband discuss possibly nominating a crown prince at some point in the near future. "Seorabeol has now no males of sacred bone left." The prospect tantalizes her, we can see that.
At the royal shrine: Maya and her daughter are together, praying. And crying, too. Cheonmyeong wonders if she were somehow the cause of her brothers' deaths, and asks her mother directly. Maya assures her that the idea is nonsense, and can't fathom how her daughter ever got that idea....Flashback to a younger Cheonmyeong encountering Mishil after her second brother has died. Mishil bends down to hug the crying girl and comfort her...and whispers into her ear that "What caused another prince to perish...was you!" Wonderful. "And the next prince, the one after him...they shall all die because of you."...Flash-forward to the present; Cheonmyeong has gone to visit Mishil, who serves the girl tea. Mishil puts on her phony smile; obviously she's ready to play the girl like a harp. The princess has come because of the years-ago encounter we just saw and the terrible thing that Mishil said to her. "I wondered what you meant by that, so here I am." Oozing phony sincerity, which the girl is eating up, Mishil calmly tells her, "Your Highness. Not a single thing is what you shall do. That will bring you survival. Not doing a single thing, that will save you."