Chanyeol ended up coming with them to the retired court scribe’s house.  It was a little way out of town, just uphill near a little grotto that had been built to the Buddha, and Kyungsoo looked quite happy at having got rid of Sehun and Jongin, who were still giggling like they were on laughing gas when the other three ditched them in the square with the fountain.

The elderly gentleman welcomed them in, and Jinsu, much to her and the boys’ irritation, was immediately whisked away by his wife for a tea ceremony which she insisted she had to do with such a lovely guest.  Once she had got over her initial annoyance, Jinsu allowed herself to relax and take interest.  It wasn’t as formulated as tea ceremonies she’d gone along to back home – and she remembered reading somewhere that the current form of the tea ceremony actually had its origins more in the Joseon dynasty.  As far as she could make out, this one was more rooted in an offering of thanksgiving to some ancestral god for her safe arrival and for the health and wellbeing of her fellow group of religious pilgrims.

“We’ve all heard about you all over town,” the lady told her enthusiastically.  “Do tell me more about yourselves!  It’s amazing that so many of you so young are making such a journey for the gods.”

Mentally thanking Taehyun for the conversation the previous night, Jinsu launched into the vaguest explanation she could give of their imagined religion, aware that if the woman found it interesting enough, she would probably tell her husband and he would probably put it into his history and then they genuinely would have created cult in a manner that would effectively be a grandfather clause.  The woman was delighted and asked questions, but as soon as she could, Jinsu steered the topic back onto more neutral ground by asking about the Lord of the Manor and his daughters who she vaguely remembered overhearing about the previous day.  The woman pursed her lips.

“Lord Hae is not well-liked here,” she said after a moment or two.  “I wouldn’t normally say this, but you’re not from round here, so it doesn’t really matter.  He’s a bully and very manipulative.  We’ve seen fifteen people just in the last year he’s managed to kick out of their homes with all their families, and innocent people he’s locked away in his prisons.  He up to the king all for his own benefit.”  She shrugged and laid her teacup aside.  “Still, he’s not as bad as his son, probably because he spends most of his time at court.  The son more or less runs the surrounding area and we’re all praying he’ll stay out too late or have a hunting accident and meet a very angry leopard, but the gods don’t seem to want to arrange that.”

Interested, Jinsu set her own cup down and leant forward.  “Why?  What does he do?”

“As far as he’s concerned, his word is law.”  The woman grimaced.  “And as far as he’s concerned, he can treat any woman as though they owe him marital responsibilities.  There’s a gisaeng house here that was more or less established because of his habits.”  She pursed her lips, looking over Jinsu.  “You’d do well to stay with those young men you came with, because you’re a pretty little thing and if Hae Insu spots you on your own, he might decide he’s partial to you and that would be tragic.”

Jinsu didn’t bother to hide her expression of disgust.  Until she’d been hauled away from Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, she’d forgotten that she was in a more gender-segregated society than she was used to, and also that the bad parts of humanity were just the same down the ages, even if the forms were only slightly different or the cultures around them viewed them with different degrees of acceptability to what she was used to.

The sun was beginning to set when Kyungsoo and Chanyeol finally came into the room Jinsu and the lady were sitting in.  The three of them courteously took their leave and bade goodbye to the master of the house as well before starting out.  Kyungsoo looked quite satisfied.

“How did it go?” Jinsu asked, more to her cousin than to Kyungsoo, but it was the latter who responded.

“Quite well.  We asked him about what he was writing about and to talk about his favourite parts of that and recorded it all, and then he dozed off so we took stealth photos of what we could.”  He beamed and tilted his gaze up towards the sunset.  “I don’t think I’ve ever met such a polymath before.  He knows everything.”

“I tried out Fermat’s Last Theorem on him and it didn’t phase him at all,” Chanyeol agreed.

“He was confused by the Roman numerals,” Kyungsoo pointed out.  “You did have to e