The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 11 - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: A Visit to the Ill

Day 49:

More medicine arrived, but it’s not enough. We’re also out of the dandelions that were filling in for tea leaves.

Day 50:

Tasked with disinfecting bandages. These things are tattered rags now; we can’t use them. We’ll have to collect any cloth people don’t need.

Day 51:

Chue told me to keep tomorrow open.

Day 52:

An abandoned building near the city’s main plaza has been turned into a simple clinic. They haven’t started seeing patients yet, and there’s already a line.

The clinic was a lively place: they said they would see those sick and injured on account of the swarm for free, plus it wasn’t far from the food handouts.

“Are you here to help, Niangniang?” asked Dr. Li. He was one of the mid-ranking physicians and a dedicated if sometimes stubborn man. He had also picked up the wrong name for Maomao.

He, Dr. You, and Tianyu saw people at the clinic who had been hurt. This was Jinshi’s doing.

“It’s Maomao,” said Maomao.

“Maomao?”

“Yes, sir. Maomao,” she repeated, wanting to make sure he got it right. She would have to correct Dr. Liu the next time she saw him too. Thankfully she, unlike Lahan’s Brother, wasn’t interrupted by the intervention of some higher power.

I knew anything might happen when we came to the western capital, but look at this.

The dedicated doctor had been tanned dark by the sun, and days of continual work had left his cheeks thin. He looked more gaunt than slim, and there was a certain feral quality now added to the air of the overachiever he’d always possessed.

“To answer your question, sir, yes, the Moon Prince ordered me here. Master Guen can’t leave the Moon Prince’s side, so I’ve come in his place.”

See? Maomao could learn a name too. She’d remembered the quack doctor’s.

Even if he is here as a body double for my old man.

This was one of the few places where she could use the quack’s real name—in the clinic it was only her, her bodyguard Lihaku, Chue, Basen, and Dr. Li. She was just giving a quick hello; she felt bad putting the patients off.

Maomao also wanted to keep it short because Basen had already finished his introductions and was looking around the clinic like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. There were two other guards posted just outside the room to keep him safe—and it was fair to say that even Basen might need bodyguards in this situation.

That would put a person on edge.

Basen wasn’t dressed in his usual soldier’s uniform, but in fancy-ish clothes, and he was wearing a belt Jinshi had given to him. It was a brilliant purple, using a dye derived from shells—not something a commoner would ever own. The perfect way of telling everyone how important he was.

In sum: Basen had appeared on Jinshi’s behalf to pay a visit to the sick and injured.

That’s nice and all, but I’m not sure about this, Maomao thought. Everyone was suited to certain tasks and not to others. Yet she knew Jinshi couldn’t exactly show himself in public right now.

Dr. Li looked at Maomao. “Tianyu told us you took point on refilling our medicine supply.”

“Oh, did he?” Maomao asked, mentally preparing herself to be upbraided for being unable to get them any real medicine.

“The medications you sent over were all right, I suppose. You’re obviously working hard to find substitute ingredients.”

That was praise, she thought, as far as it went. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?” she asked.

“If you want to do some work, we’ve got no end of it. Washing bandages, boiling them, treating the parade of patients injured in countless arguments, scuffles, fistfights, and brawls. Then there are the cases of scurvy and beriberi we’ve started seeing from malnutrition.”

“Understood, sir. Should I consider the treatment of injuries to be the first priority?” Maomao put down her belongings and washed her hands. Injuries, they could treat. About malnutrition they could do little or nothing.

“I’ll get to washing those bandages!” Chue piped up.

“What should I do?” Lihaku asked.

“As a bodyguard, I’d like you to just have a seat and stay quiet. A calming influence is what we need more than anything,” Dr. Li said.

“Yessir! I don’t need to take up one of your seats, though,” Lihaku said, standing near the door.

“Wh-What about me?” asked Basen, clearly discomforted by his unfamiliar status. He looked to Dr. Li, clearly hoping for someone to give him orders.

“Er, you, Master Basen?” Dr. Li, always the high-achieving type, didn’t look sure what to say. He seemed worried that it would be rude to specifically tell Basen to do something.

Basen comes from one of the named clans too. Not to mention he was there as Jinshi’s second-in-command. He wildly outranked Dr. Li.

“Perhaps you could have a seat over here and hand out medicine, Master Basen. I’ll prepare the prescriptions, you just put them in bags and give them to the patients.”

“All right.”

They couldn’t put him to random chores or physical labor, so that was a pretty good compromise.

“And try to say something comforting to them!” Chue chirped.

“L-Like what?”

“Oh, you know. ‘I want the people of Li to be hale and healthy!’ Something like that. A simple ‘Feel better’ wouldn’t sound right coming from you, Master Basen.” Even she saw fit to refer to her brother-in-law as “Master” at that moment.

“That’s a good point. Emphasizing ‘the people of Li’ would be an excellent idea,” Dr. Li said.

The way he said it got Maomao’s attention. “Where’s Dr. You?” she asked him.

“Dr. You is visiting patients who are unable to come to the clinic. He’s from these parts, so he knows the lay of the land.”

“I see.”

There was something less than friendly in Dr. Li’s tone when he spoke of the other physician. Maomao couldn’t help herself. She asked, “Has something happened with Dr. You? It seems like there’s something on your mind.”

Normally, it would have been a rude question, but at the moment Dr. Li seemed to be looking for someone to complain to. “Dr. You isn’t a relative of Master Gyoku-ou’s, even though they share the same name—but the average patient is apt to think he is. He’s a superb physician, but he’s never had a mind for politics. That’s the problem.”

Ahh. Maomao clapped her hands. In other words, people would think the doctor was related to the governor, and although he wouldn’t mean to, Dr. You would implicitly affirm it by failing to deny it. And the more patients he saw, the more credit would go to his “relative” Gyoku-ou and not to Jinshi.

I wonder if they made a bad choice, bringing him along.

No—he’d been the right person for the job when they had started out. It was only the timing that was bad.

Thinking of the people they had brought along reminded her of someone else on the medical staff.

“Where’s Tianyu?” she asked.

“Attending Dr. You today. On account of his superb surgical and sewing skills.”

Maomao was well aware of Tianyu’s accomplishments in this area. The way he had handled the surgery on Gyoku-ou’s granddaughter was exemplary. Maomao had removed the girl’s stitches and hadn’t seen her since then.

Still, Tianyu was the youngest man on staff, and they seemed intent on taking full advantage of him.

“All right,” Dr. Li said. “There are patients waiting for us. May I go ahead and open the clinic?”

Maomao and the others nodded.

Just as Dr. Li had warned them, they were inundated with patients. People were desperate to take advantage of the opportunity for free medical care. Even on-duty soldiers showed up, so the staff really had no chance to rest.

The bulk of the examinations were left to Dr. Li, while Maomao and her companions did whatever he told them. Depending on the condition a person was in, Maomao would treat their injuries or dispense the appropriate medicine.

Although Basen still looked distinctly uncomfortable, he managed to offer words of comfort and encouragement and successfully bag the medicine for the patients. Once he seemed to be getting the hang of it, Maomao handed him paper and scissors and asked him to cut paper for the medicine packets, if he would be so kind—and so he did; quite successfully too. He seemed to think it was better than sitting around empty-handed while everyone else was working so hard. The only problem was, Maomao didn’t want the patients to see him doing scut work, so she put him somewhere he wouldn’t be seen.

He can work, when he needs to.

In fact, Basen was doing just as well as any civil official. The problem for him was that, as Jinshi’s right-hand man, people simply assumed he should be able to do three times as much work as anyone else, so he looked bad in every comparison. Poor guy. Given his military background and then his assignment as direct subordinate to the Emperor’s younger brother, it just seemed like he should be able to do this kind of thing.

It didn’t help that Gaoshun probably did do all this stuff effortlessly.

Chue had a funny way of working; she seemed to shuffle and fidget and move around far more than was necessary. The strange thing was, she nonetheless worked very quickly. She disinfected a whole pile of bandages in the morning, then with Maomao’s help she set about concocting lunch out of whatever was available. Sometimes she would stop to do a magic trick to delight a young patient.

The one who really had time on his hands was Lihaku. As the bodyguard, his entire job involved standing at the doorway. Chue occasionally put the other two guards to work, but Lihaku simply stood the entire time.

“Man, I look like a bump on a log,” he said. He laughed a little—but the truth was, he was serving an important purpose. Dr. Li, despite the weathered look he’d acquired, was substantially scrawnier than most of the westerners. And he’d mentioned how many rough-and-tumble types came by the clinic for a quick exam. Having a 189-centimeter man standing by the door, even if he was effectively a statue, was a useful deterrent. And if any visitor seemed like they were going to start something, Lihaku silently went over near them, which was a big help.

It wasn’t so awful if they went for Maomao or Dr. Li, but if someone tried to go after Basen, that would be a real problem. He was there as Jinshi’s personal representative, so they couldn’t have him flying off the handle—and besides, if anyone was going to come off worse in an encounter like that, it was going to be the patient. They almost certainly wouldn’t beat Basen in a contest of strength; they’d be lucky to get off with just a broken bone or two. Worse, although Maomao didn’t know exactly what the laws were in the western capital, laying hands on a member of the Imperial family—or even his representative—seemed like a beheadable offense.

In any event, things went on until Dr. You and Tianyu got back.

“We’re back!” Dr. You called as if entering his own home. His tanned skin did indeed make him look like a local. Tianyu came behind him, looking a bit ragged.

The first to answer was Chue. “Welcome home, good sir! Will you do some exams? Or have a bite to eat? Or maybe do some exams?” She didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word tired, and couched in her friendly greeting was a less than subtle message that Dr. You should keep working.

“I’d love something to eat—but I’m sure Dr. Li hasn’t eaten yet either, has he?”

“What? We’re not going to have any food?” Tianyu groaned. He was tired. In his right hand he carried some tools, while in the left was a cloth-wrapped package. He might be smart-mouthed and occasionally obnoxious, and Maomao might not always know what he was thinking, but apparently he couldn’t get the better of Dr. You. Frankly, Maomao loved to see it.

“Let’s break for a meal, then! You’ve got thirty minutes!” Chue said, clapping her hands. Who had made her the emcee?

“Great! What’s the side dish?” Tianyu asked.

“Side dish! We should be so lucky. Miss Chue took everything there was and put it all into this meal: Miss Chue’s Special Homemade Fried Rice! The secret to the flavor is the stash of dried mussels they keep around to go with their booze!”

With a shwp! she whipped out a ladle and a plate and struck a pose. Yes, the fried rice was basically made with leftovers, but what with the condiments, spices, and fried egg, it looked pretty appealing. Chue always claimed she preferred eating to cooking, but she could clearly handle herself in the kitchen.

“For a drink, you have a choice of watered-down grape juice or goat’s milk. The water is looking a little cloudy, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”

That was good advice—there were grasshoppers floating in the well. Chue had been straining them out as she did the washing.

Maybe we need to distribute drinking water too, Maomao thought. If people drank contaminated water, they would only get sick. Maybe that explained where all the diarrhea medicine had gone.

People need to at least filter the water, and ideally boil it.

In point of fact, washing and boiling the bandages was quite a luxury in the western capital, where water and fuel were both more precious than they were in the central region. The water, obviously—but as for fuel, charcoal and firewood were scarce; what there was plenty of was animal dung.

Coal, huh...

In the central region, people thought of coal as a substitute for firewood or charcoal at best; people here in I-sei Province would value the resource very differently.

It might be worth so much to them that they would actually dig it out of a mountain to use it.

Gold and silver had to be mined; there was no substitute for them. But no one—at least no one in the central region—would think to dig something out of the earth when there were trees all over that were exactly as good. The people of I-sei Province, though, wanted a fuel source that wouldn’t run out, something they could use on a grander scale than livestock excrement.

There certainly were advantages...

But enough to go to war for it? There must be something better.

Maomao let out a groan—just as someone clapped her on the shoulder.

“Miss Maomao, Miss Maomao! You seem to be lost in thought a lot these days! Your mind’s waaay off somewhere!”

“Miss Chue, Miss Chue. Am I really that zoned out?”

“Yeah! Or, well, anyway, you seem to sigh a lot.”

Maomao put a hand over her mouth.

“All right, come on, Miss Maomao. Let’s have something to eat. And I think Dr. You has something to say to Basen.”

“Huh. I’m sure that’ll be fun.”

“Oh, yes! It will be very interesting, no doubt.”

Maomao sometimes thought she and Chue didn’t mean the same thing when they said things like this.

When Maomao got to the table where the fried rice was laid out, she found a smiling Dr. You and a rather unhappy-looking Basen. Tianyu plainly wanted to hurry up and eat, but he couldn’t touch the food before they did. Apparently, even he understood the basic rules of etiquette.

“Ha ha ha! So you’re his substitute, Sir Basen?” Dr. You asked him.

“May I ask what exactly is so funny about that?” Basen replied. Things between them seemed tense. Maybe they should have brought the duck to keep the mood light.

Maomao elbowed Chue.

“Yes? What’s the matter?”

“Do they know each other or something?” Maomao whispered.

“No, I think this is the first time they’ve met,” Chue whispered back.

“So what kind of person is Dr. You?”

“Oooh! Miss Chue would also like to know!”

“Oh, don’t do that. Just tell me. I promise I’ll suggest a walk around town.”

“Oh! That’s a great idea!”

Chue tended to follow Maomao whenever she went out. She seemed to love gamboling around the city, so she was quick to take Maomao up on this plan—as Maomao had guessed.

“Dr. You is a real upbeat go-getter, very dedicated to his work. But he wears his heart on his sleeve. He makes quick friends with anybody, but I don’t think he’ll ever truly understand my husband if he lives to be a hundred. Because he’s a man of the light!”

Even Maomao hadn’t really seen Chue’s husband, Basen’s older brother. She feared she might go mad if she got too close to someone who raised her hackles like that.

“What do you mean, he wears his heart on his sleeve?” she asked.

“Just like Dr. Li said, he doesn’t seem to have any interest in politics. He knows the climate and the lay of the land in the western capital, and is an excellent doctor—and he has no interest in politics. He was an excellent choice for this trip.”

Was. Past tense. Because there had been a miscalculation.

“Who could have predicted a sudden grasshopper plague, and that the Moon Prince wouldn’t care about his reputation, and that Master Gyokuen’s oldest son would be extremely popular here?”

“So Dr. You...?”

“He’s a fine person who would certainly never betray the Moon Prince.”

Maomao found that reassuring, although she wasn’t entirely sure why. If she felt better, though, there was one person who didn’t seem convinced.

“What are you after, here?” asked Basen, who was managing to act calm, although his nostrils had flared noticeably.

“What am I after?” echoed Dr. You, looking genuinely befuddled.

“Yes. You’ve come here on the Moon Prince’s orders—but what about the Prince’s reputation in the western capital? It’s not just the food for the handouts. The Moon Prince’s generosity is the whole reason you have this clinic, isn’t it?”

“Yes, certainly. He’s a man of great discernment. Every time I look around, I’m reminded that the fact that the western capital is so quiet despite that terrible plague is thanks to the Moon Prince.”

“You almost sound as if this isn’t the first grasshopper plague you’ve experienced. Like you know what’s happening, and that’s why you’re so relaxed,” Basen said. It was exactly what Maomao had wanted to ask, and she energetically applauded him in her mind.

“No as if about it. I’ve seen plenty of swarms in my time.”

“You have, Dr. You? Plenty of them? But I thought there hadn’t been a swarm here in decades,” Maomao said.

“Oh, there has. Just nothing big enough to bother the royal capital about.”

That certainly was plausible. But Basen pressed the point. “You didn’t report them? Isn’t that negligence?”

“Negligence? Let me ask you something, Sir Basen. How many crops must be consumed by the bugs before it’s considered a plague?”

“Well... Enough to make people’s lives harder, I guess.”

“And how much is that? So long as each person has enough grain to feed themselves, where’s the problem? There are other things we can sell; so long as we make up the shortfall, there’s no issue. Suppose, then, that we planted twice as much as normal, but then there was a swarm of insects, and in the end we only harvested the same amount as in an ordinary year. What then?”

“Er... Well...” Basen didn’t know what to say.

Dr. You was an upper physician, and he had the wits to prove it. He spoke as if all this were hypothetical, but presumably it was something that had actually happened in the past.

Increasing the size of the area to be planted, even if the harvest was ultimately unchanged, would demand much greater labor and expenditure. If, nonetheless, the same amount of taxes were exacted—now, that would make life harder.

“Li is a vast and wide country,” Dr. You said. “But the very greatness of its size means that the royal eye does not see all the way to its western edge. If the harvest is known only as a series of numbers, then what use is reporting a swarm of insects? It would only be dismissed out of hand. In that case, I should think it would be self-evident that the only choice for I-sei Province would be to deal with the matter itself.”

Dr. You wore his heart on his sleeve—so he didn’t hold back from telling Basen what he thought.

This is Dr. You, and even he feels this way, Maomao thought. The low opinion of Jinshi in the western capital seemed to have a lot to do with the perception that the central region didn’t do anything for I-sei Province.

“The Moon Prince, however, did act appropriately. It reminded me of the Yi clan.”

“The Yi clan?” Maomao asked before she could stop herself.

“Yes. Do you know them?” asked Dr. You, unperturbed at Maomao’s bursting into the conversation. Basen would have to absorb that before he could come back into the talk, so Maomao decided to take over.

“Say, maybe we should have this discussion over some food?” Dr. You said at last. “Come, now, let’s eat.”

“Food!” said Tianyu, ecstatic to finally be getting a meal. Evidently it was sheer lack of energy that explained his silence.

“Whenever there was a swarm of insects, the Yi clan would step to the front and give instructions,” Dr. You said.

“If you’ll forgive my asking, sir, weren’t they rebels?”

“Rebels? Hrm. Well, anything they did, I trust they did for the sake of I-sei Province. I personally never knew any of them to be rebellious.” Dr. You took a bite of fried rice with his spoon while he spoke.

“What exactly were the people of the Yi clan like?” Maomao asked, taking a bite herself. The rice gave the dish plenty of body and the egg gave it plenty of flavor, nuanced by the spices and mussels. She shot Chue a discreet, approving thumbs-up.

“They were beautiful, all of them. And if you got close to them, they had a wonderful smell.”

“A wonderful smell?” Maomao repeated. Then she said, “I heard they were matriarchal.”

“Yes, exactly. The women ran the clan. It’s not so different from the founding story of Li itself, is it? With Wang Mu, the Mother Royal? It’s not so surprising if such a fine and powerful woman should have other accomplished women among her inner circle. The Yi clan were the descendants of those women.”

Maomao discovered she couldn’t bring herself to continue eating. Tianyu, altogether uninterested in the story, had no such difficulties.

“I’m impressed you knew about that element, that they were matriarchal. Most young people today are so woefully ignorant of the Yi clan.” Dr. You was openly appreciative of her.

“Miss Chue knows too!”

“And so do I,” added Basen. Those who served the Imperial family probably learned of these things as a matter of course. But the average citizen of the central region would see no reason to know anything about the rulers of a land far to the west. Especially rulers who had been annihilated long ago.

“It was probably because they were women that they defended the border so stubbornly. The Yi clan took no husbands, yet they always had the most beautiful children; they looked like they had come from some other country. Their female children the Yi clan raised to be rulers, and their male children they would send out on the road.”

It was the continual mixing of blood that produced the beautiful people, and which helped keep other countries in line.

“They got along particularly well with Shaoh, with its shrine maiden. But the former empress dowager, the one called the empress regnant, perhaps didn’t get along with her so well, even if they were both women.”

“I’ll refrain from commenting on the quarrels of women,” Maomao said. Nonetheless, she had learned something very surprising—something Jinshi had never mentioned to her. Maybe she was the only one there who hadn’t known.

“So where were you seventeen years ago, Dr. You?” Maomao asked.

“Already practicing medicine in the central regions, I’m afraid.”

“Oh?”

As Maomao and Dr. You talked, Basen finished his fried rice and set down his spoon with gusto. He must have absorbed the moment while he was eating, because he said, “I see what you’re saying, Dr. You. The Moon Prince is now paying the bill for a central region that has done nothing. Fine, let’s assume you’re right about that. It doesn’t change the fact that all of his successes now are being credited to Sir You Gyoku-ou, and I have to say I don’t like that. And you bear part of the blame, doctor.”

“Me? How?”

“People take you to be acting on behalf of Sir Gyoku-ou on account of your name.”

“Really?” He looked to Tianyu for confirmation.

“Aw, Dr. Li said the same thing, remember? He said you should start every interaction by mentioning that you’d come from the central region. I think what he meant was you should communicate that you were there on the Moon Prince’s orders.” Tianyu didn’t look very happy about having to explain all this. He had some rice stuck to his cheek.

“What a strange thing to say, ‘I come from the central region.’ I don’t, I come from around here. A lot of the people we’ve seen even know me.”

“Well, then just say you’re here on the Imperial younger brother’s orders or something.”

“Hrm. Doesn’t that make it sound like I’m claiming to be...close to the Imperial family? It’s a bit embarrassing.”

“Huh?” said two voices at once. What was this guy talking about? He’d gone to the big city and made his fortune, and now he was too shy to let his friends and acquaintances celebrate him for it?

“Miss Maomao, Miss Maomao. Can I think of him as being in the same category as Mister Quack?”

“I don’t know; I don’t think he quite fits into the ‘adorable old guy’ box. Put him somewhere else. Closer to the duck, maybe.”

“Understood!”

Maomao thought she had a pretty good idea what this “category” was that Chue was picturing.

“Anyway,” Dr. You was saying, “anyone from these parts ought to know the difference between the old Yous and the new ones.”

“The old and the new...what?” Maomao asked, tilting her head.

“The You family of doctors is the older Yous. Gyokuen and his kin came later. Now he’s got a whole big family, children and grandchildren of all kinds, but when Gyokuen and his wife first got here, it was just them and their only child, their oldest son. Although they did bring plenty of servants with them.”

“I don’t know. I think even a local would have to be at least forty years old to be aware of the difference,” Chue suggested. And among commoners, whose lives often barely extended into their fifties, there were not that many people older than forty to know the difference. Moreover, Gyokuen and his family were the face of the western capital now. To younger people, You would almost certainly mean Gyokuen or Gyoku-ou.

“Huh. So that’s how it is,” Tianyu muttered.

“I’m surprised. I thought for sure the family was way older than that,” said Maomao.

“There was a time when people started coming here to do trade. I think they moved here around then. You could find out exactly when if you checked the family register,” Dr. You replied.

“No, I don’t think you could. The family register’s been burned up,” Chue said as she sipped some goat’s milk.

“That’s a shame.”

“So anyway, you just make sure to tell your patients that it’s by the Moon Prince’s good graces you’re treating them,” said Chue, driving home the point in lieu of Basen.

“Do you suppose I have to?” the old-but-not-that-old guy said, looking abashed.

“You’re not even afraid of some thugs, Dr. You, so how can you possibly be embarrassed about this?”

“Quiet, Tianyu,” he snapped.

Apparently he was the kind who was embarrassed to make himself look too good, even if he had the ability. He’d probably only managed to make upper physician because he had Dr. Liu for a boss—someone who looked for good people and found them.

“Excuse me?” said someone who now looked fixedly at Maomao and the others. “If you’re done eating, could you get out here and relieve me?” It was Dr. Li, looking reproachfully through a crack in the door.