Chapter 20

Act 4. The royal wedding, which had dominated the newspaper headlines for weeks, was now upon them. The foreign crown prince arrived with his entourage to claim his bride. Wearing an extraordinarily long veil, the emperor’s sister rode to the cathedral in a flower-adorned carriage. Ordinary commoners like Hwani could not witness what followed, so the rest came solely from newspaper accounts. In any case, the venue was decorated with enough flowers to suffocate anyone with their fragrance, and the orchestra played as if buried beneath them.