The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 11 - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Gyokuen’s Children

Maomao watched Jinshi smack his head into a post. It was practically comical, seeing him bash himself against a pillar in the sumptuous chamber, surrounded by attendants.

“Young master, at least use this,” Suiren said, inserting a wadded-up cotton jacket between Jinshi’s head and the pillar. The sound went from thump thump to bompf bompf, which only made it seem sillier. Suiren didn’t go so far as to try to stop him.

“He played me!”

“Like a two-stringed fiddle, sir.”

“You’re mocking me!”

“Yes I am, sir.”

Maomao had her hands full trying to offer noncommittal responses. Just agreeing with everything Jinshi said was better than letting herself slip and accidentally try to suggest an actual solution. It was the same way she dealt with huffy courtesans; it always calmed them down.

“Are you even listening to me?!” Jinshi demanded.

“I’m listening, sir.”

Apparently, it was still the wrong choice. In this case, instead of offering inoffensive comments, she should have tried to suggest a solution. But at that moment, Maomao didn’t even have any ideas to offer.

Neither did the rest of Jinshi’s entourage.

Gaoshun was the first to speak. “Moon Prince, has there been any communication from Empress Gyokuyou since then?”

When’s “then”? Maomao wondered. She knew Jinshi and the Empress had been in touch with each other about Gyoku-ou’s daughter. Was that what he meant?

“Communication? Yes. But I don’t think she’s in a good position to deal with Sir Gyoku-ou. For one thing, the Empress would have no way to know about this most recent event. Even if I contacted her as urgently as I could, I doubt it would be in time. But thankfully, she’s already put me in touch with certain other connections.”

Makes sense. Even the members of a single family were hardly going to be in lockstep. Maomao wondered who these connections were.

“What about Master Gyokuen, then?” Basen asked.

Jinshi paused for a second, then said, “I can’t be certain, but I doubt Sir Gyokuen had a hand in this. I’ve kept him apprised of the situation here, but there are certain things that I think he wishes to leave to his son’s judgment. He sends only the most ambiguous answers. I can only imagine that what he writes to Sir Gyoku-ou is quite different from what he writes to me.”

“You don’t suppose that his answers conflict with the report you’re getting, Master Jinshi?” Taomei asked. She seemed to be wondering if Jinshi’s letters were reaching Gyokuen at all.

“At the moment, I don’t think so.”

“I would agree,” came a voice from behind a curtain. Maomao was caught off guard for a moment, but then realized it was Gaoshun’s other son, Baryou. Chue flitted over and nudged the drape.

He’s gotten used to us enough to speak, huh?

She had no idea, though, how many more times she might have to visit before she saw his face. Maybe he would open up to her if she wore a duck mask.

Gaoshun picked up the thought. “Master Gyokuen’s policy was always to be on friendly terms with neighboring countries—and thus to keep them in check. He might make ‘suggestions’ or negotiate sometimes, but he never made an open declaration of hostility. I think that means it’s safe to assume Master Gyoku-ou did this on his personal initiative. At the same time, I can see why Master Gyokuen might hesitate to criticize his son’s approach.”

“Sir Gyokuen isn’t a young man anymore. He can’t be forever meddling in his son’s affairs,” Jinshi said.

True enough.

“Exactly, sir. Moreover, there must be more than a few among the populace who are dissatisfied with the way Master Gyokuen has done things. Master Gyoku-ou’s core group of supporters must include many disaffected former believers in Master Gyokuen.”

“One suspects.” Jinshi set the cotton jacket aside and sat down. “After all, not all the neighbors around here are necessarily good people.”

Maomao recalled a marriage ceremony that had taken place in the western capital last year. The wife-to-be, aghast at the idea of being taken to Shaoh by her husband, had tried to fake her own suicide in order to disappear. The entire family had been in on it, and solving the case hadn’t made them any more eager to go through with the wedding.

They said the foreigners brand their wives like livestock.

There weren’t that many idiots in the world who would deliberately let someone press a hot brand into their skin of their own volition. In fact, as far as Maomao knew, there was only one.

For that matter, he did it to himself.

She glowered at that idiot even as she mulled the present circumstances over in her mind. So the people were upset with the Emperor’s younger brother, and Gyoku-ou intervened. He somehow managed to blame everything on the foreigners, and now Jinshi is going to perform some kind of ritual.

From the sound of things, this ritual had less to do with expunging sickness and more with making ready for the coming war.

At that moment, Jinshi had managed to put off the ritual, briefly, but now he was trying to figure out what to do.

“I don’t suppose Sir Gyokuen would come home,” Jinshi mumbled, but they all knew that was impossible.

“Unfortunately, sir, I don’t think that will happen,” Gaoshun said.

“You can’t rely on others to solve your problems,” Taomei added. Well, that accounted for both husband and wife.

This conversation didn’t look like it was going anywhere fast. Maomao wasn’t even sure why she was here. She had been summoned for the first time in several days, but before she’d had a chance to inspect Jinshi’s burn, he was starting in on his trials and tribulations.

Miss Chue... Maomao thought grudgingly of the whimsical lady-in-waiting who had brought her here.

Maomao decided to try to get them back on track, by force if necessary. “I understand you’re worried, sir, but the general thrust of the ritual has been determined, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jinshi said slowly. “It’s this.” He showed her a piece of paper. It had two characters on it: land and pacification.

“The pacification of the land?”

“It was Vice Minister Lu’s idea. He said this would be an appropriate justification for a state ceremony.”

“I’ve heard of this kind of ritual...but not often.”

“You understand what it means for this to be a state ceremony, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. It’s usually a ritual His Majesty the Emperor performs to venerate the ancestors and spirits, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. But when His Majesty is too busy to perform such a ceremony himself, I may perform it in his stead.”

In fact, one such performance had led to an attempt on his life. If Maomao had studied more diligently for the court ladies’ examination during her time as Jinshi’s lady-in-waiting, she might have figured out his true identity sooner.

“Would you like to know the details of the ceremony?” Jinshi asked.

Maomao didn’t mince words. “No thank you, sir. Just tell me exactly what it means to ‘pacify the land.’”

“Very well. Typically these ceremonies have to do with venerating the ancestors and the spirits, or sometimes the heavens and the earth. In this case, however, since we’re far from the capital, the suggestion was that perhaps the ritual should be focused on placating the local guardian spirit. In short, we pray to the devastated land that it will yield forth a rich harvest.”

“If I may be so bold, sir, it sort of sounds like you just made up a new ritual out of whole cloth.”

“Maybe not whole cloth. They say such rituals are practiced on the islands to the east.”

“Let me see if I’m understanding you. Your hands would be tied if, immediately after the Emperor’s younger brother had venerated the spirits, Master Gyoku-ou were to make a declaration of war on another country. Suppose that, instead, you didn’t venerate the spirits generally, but only the very specific spirit of this area? What if the object of the ritual extended no farther than the borders of I-sei Province? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“You show remarkably sharp insight for someone who claims not to understand politics,” Jinshi said. Funny thing to be impressed by.

“It seems that you would be deliberately placing yourself outside the scope of your own ceremony.”

“Yes, as would Vice Minister Lu, who originally came up with this idea. If we’re lucky—very lucky—Sir Gyoku-ou simply won’t try anything.”

In concrete terms, Jinshi was worried that Gyoku-ou would take the occasion of the ritual to make an open declaration of war on another nation.

“He hasn’t done anything outwardly yet, has he?” Maomao asked.

“No. He talked to myself and Sir Lakan about the possibility of war, but he hasn’t made any public moves. He was only sounding us out; he judged that he couldn’t act without our support.”

This was what made Gyoku-ou a dangerous man: he wasn’t going to go to war by himself; he sought to drag everyone else along with him.

The people of the western capital trusted Gyoku-ou implicitly, and the policy he was now contemplating was inspired by their views. It might indeed make them think he was a fine acting governor—but the world was not so simple.

The people of the western capital had their feelings. Their anger had to go somewhere. It had been pointed at the Imperial younger brother—and now it was pointed at a foreign nation. A simple solution in the short term, but a bad decision in the longer view.

“I opposed Sir Gyoku-ou’s plans, so he’s taken more forceful measures.”

“Yes. Disgusting measures. He ought to be good enough to declare the war himself and suffer the consequences himself,” Taomei spat.

“Now, that’s enough,” Gaoshun broke in. Basen might look like his father, but maybe he got his hot blood from his mother.

And this when there are so many foreigners in I-sei Province, Maomao thought, worried for the danger this might put them in. “How many foreign people are there in the western capital right now?” she asked. She’d seen the state of the crowd. If that mob happened across anyone with foreign blood, there seemed likely to be a violent attack. Where would the foreigners be hiding?

“That’s been taken care of by someone with a talent for such things. The strategist,” Jinshi said.

“That old fart?” Maomao shot back, scowling.

“As soon as the first wave of grasshoppers hit, he brought all the foreign merchant groups to a single place where they could be protected. Because, according to him, it would be ‘a pain’ to have them jumbled everywhere.”

“Do you think he really understands what’s going on?”

The freak with the monocle did everything on instinct, so it could be hard to fathom his actions.

“Many of the merchants went back home by sea, or continued overland to Kaoh Province. Even so, about a hundred of them remain in the western capital.”

“Is there anywhere they can hide?”

“The people here are not monolithic. Some are xenophobic, yes, but others see foreign people as invaluable neighbors. There’s an inn town near the port that caters to foreigners. He rented the entire place out.”

“That’s a pretty good trick.”

“Indeed. He knew just the person to ask. In fact, they should be joining us shortly.”

“Ahem... If we’re going to have a visitor, I’d like to wrap up my work here and get back,” Maomao said. The only person currently at the medical office was the quack doctor, who’d managed to sleep through the last major commotion. Meanwhile, it wasn’t just medicine they were out of. There weren’t enough bandages either, so Maomao had been planning to tear up some unused sheets to make new ones.

“I’m afraid our honorable guest has already arrived,” said Chue. Most unwelcome news.

Jinshi smirked. “You heard her. Wait in back if you would.”

“Yes, sir... But where’s ‘in back’?” Maomao looked around the room.

“Here, Miss Maomao, this way.” Chue urged her to a corner that was curtained off from the rest of the room. Behind it was a table and two chairs, the table already set with tea snacks. The space was small but not cramped. “It was so unfair that only my hubby got a spot. Miss Chue made one for herself too.”

“Wow! It’s so cozy,” Maomao said.

“Yes indeedy! If you need more snacks, they’re on the top shelf. Would you like tea or juice?”

“Tea, please.”

“Coming right up!” Chue bustled through a curtain on the other side.

“Maomao.” She heard Jinshi from the other side of the curtain. “I think things are going to get tiring. I need a charge.” His hand poked through the drapes.

“A charge?” Maomao asked.

She studied the shelf Chue had indicated. She took a mooncake wrapped in paper from a basket on the shelf and pressed it into Jinshi’s hand.

“Huh?!”

The mooncake dropped to the ground. The paper came off and, sadly, it touched the floor. Maomao moved to pick it up, but her right hand was caught by Jinshi’s. She felt his fingers slide between hers as if to make sure she was there. The fact they were both using their right hands made it oddly awkward.

Jinshi’s long fingers pressed into the back of Maomao’s hand, while his palm pressed against hers. She could feel his pulse. His nails were neatly trimmed, but she could feel the calluses on his palm. Ink stained the tips of his fingers, and there was a sheen of sweat on his hand.

Maomao’s palm had started sweating as well. She was hoping to get away before it got too bad. “Sir? What are you doing?” she asked.

“I told you. Charging.”

“Charging.”

Dammit, so he hadn’t been talking about getting some extra sugar? She looked reproachfully at the mooncake on the floor.

“I wanted to do it before I had to start pushing myself too hard.”

“Maybe just don’t push yourself too hard?”

Maomao breathed slowly, trying to keep her heart rate down, trying to keep the flush out of her cheeks and hands. Even so, her heartbeat and the sweating got away from her, and she could feel her hand growing slick.

“Only the most incompetent of leaders would find that an option, I’m afraid.”

“If you let someone else steal credit for everything you do, you don’t look like much of a leader anyway.”

“That doesn’t bother me. Those who know will know, and that’s enough.” He squeezed her hand tighter. Then the quality of his voice changed: “Our visitor is here.”

“You must pardon my intrusion, Moon Prince,” a man’s voice said.

“Not at all. My apologies for summoning you when you’re so busy,” Jinshi replied easily, but his hand remained wrapped around Maomao’s.

Is he going to hold the whole conversation this way?

Jinshi’s back was to Maomao, but she couldn’t even see that because of the curtain between them. All she knew was that his right hand was growing increasingly sweaty, betraying the emotions that he couldn’t allow to show on his face.

Who was this visitor he was entertaining? What expression was he leveling at them? Did they really not realize that Maomao was right there, just out of sight?

She couldn’t stand it anymore. She pinched the back of Jinshi’s right hand with her left.

This doesn’t count as disrespect! It doesn’t!

“Please, be seated,” Jinshi said. Was it her imagination, or had his voice gone up an octave? At last Maomao worked her hand free, and his disappeared past the other side of the curtain.

Maomao held up her hand and inspected it. There were faint red marks on the back.

“Charging, huh?” she muttered.

“Who’s charging?”

Maomao just about jumped out of her skin and was lucky not to cry out. Chue was standing there with a tea platter.

“It’s nothing,” Maomao said.

“Really? Aww, look, you dropped your mooncake.” She grabbed it off the floor, blew the dust off it—and ate it. Then she said, “You don’t look very relaxed, Miss Maomao.”

“It’s your imagination, Miss Chue.” She tried her best to seem calm as they whispered back and forth.

“Okay, we’ll say it’s my imagination.”

Maomao didn’t answer immediately. She could never tell how much Chue actually knew. Instead she sat in one of the chairs and sipped her tea quietly. She could see the visitor through the gap in the curtain. “Isn’t he going to notice us watching him?” she asked.

“Not to worry. Lady Suiren is keeping an eye out to make sure he doesn’t see us. And he won’t hear us as long as we keep our voices down like this.”

If Suiren thought it wasn’t a problem, then it was fine.

The visitor looked to be in his mid-thirties, with tanned skin and red hair that seemed more weathered by the sun and sea breeze than due to foreign blood. Jinshi and the man sat across from each other at a table; Maomao and Chue could see them both in profile.

“Who is he?” Maomao asked.

“One of Master Gyokuen’s sons!”

A sibling to Empress Gyokuyou and Gyoku-ou, then.

“But he doesn’t look like either of them,” Maomao observed.

“That’s true. He has a different mother. Master Gyokuen has eleven wives and thirteen children.”

Maomao was quiet for a moment. Many rich men had a mistress or two in addition to their official wife, and apparently the easygoing old governor was no exception.

“That man there is his third son. His name is—well, you probably wouldn’t remember if I told you, so maybe we can just call him Gyoku-ou’s Little Brother.”

Chue was very offhand for someone saying something so rude, but as it was the undeniable truth, Maomao didn’t object. Instead she said, “Like Lahan’s Brother, you mean? Makes sense. I like it.”

“Yes, exactly. Just be aware that unlike Lahan’s Brother, this man does have a real, actual name.”

Was she implying that Lahan’s Brother didn’t?

“Gyoku-ou’s Little Brother is in charge of the port. It’s thanks to him that we were able to rent out the inn district. He was very receptive—he seems to be on good terms with Empress Gyokuyou.”

“So he’s the mysterious connection.” But then Maomao stopped and tilted her head. “Huh? If he has all that power, why wouldn’t he speak up about what’s going on in the western capital right now? And what about all the other siblings?”

There were apparently thirteen of them, and Maomao only knew about three. Weren’t the children of powerful people supposed to squabble more?

“I think that has something to do with the way Master Gyokuen educated his kids. Gyoku-ou’s Little Brother’s mother was a sailor. And all the other mothers each work in a particular field.”

“So basically, the siblings all follow in their mothers’ footsteps?”

“Pretty much. Master Gyokuen has a talent for more than just collecting wives. He brings exceptional people in each field into his family. Just like how he maneuvered his way right into the Imperial bloodline!”

As a merchant, nothing Gyokuen did was wasted. He had sent Empress Gyokuyou to the rear palace, armed with the twin weapons of her beauty and wit.

“All right, but let’s be frank. Master Gyokuen’s only actual successor is Master Gyoku-ou, right? I know he’s the eldest son and all, but the other siblings really don’t have any problem with that?” Maomao asked. The bigger a household was and the more assets it had, the more likely family strife was to break out. Eleven wives and thirteen children seemed like a recipe for disaster in that department.

“Master Gyokuen’s wives appear to have a hierarchy. A nice, clear division between Master Gyoku-ou’s mother, his official wife, and the rest, who are all concubines.”

“I see.” Gyokuen had only one “true” wife, Gyoku-ou’s mother—the rest were merely mistresses he had taken to forge specific relationships.

He’s more ruthless than he looks. Gyokuen came across like a pleasant, not to say doddering, old man, but Maomao found her image of him completely changed.

“I understand what he’s doing, then, but I can’t help thinking his many wives’ many families might have something to say about it.”

“By all appearances, he’s handled that situation very well.” Chue stuffed some mooncake into her mouth and peeped out through the curtain. Gyoku-ou’s Little Brother was reporting on the situation of the foreigners holed up at the inns.

“We’re managing so far, somehow,” he was saying.

“That’s a great help,” Jinshi replied. “Even if one considers the current emergency an extenuating circumstance, an attack by the people here upon the foreign population could quickly spiral into a diplomatic incident.”

“A diplomatic incident,” the tanned man repeated with some sarcasm. “Depending on how my older brother plays his cards, it may turn out there was no point to me hiding anyone.”

That was a very unsettling thing to hear. Gyoku-ou’s Little Brother was built like a rough-and-ready sailor, but he seemed to know how to put on a polite tone in front of the Emperor’s younger brother.

“If you’ll forgive my saying so, Sir Gyoku-ou seems set on war. How has he behaved among you siblings?” Jinshi asked.

“I couldn’t say for certain, but I have an idea.” Gyoku-ou’s Little Brother clasped his gnarled hands. “All of us called our eldest brother’s mother Lady Seibo, ‘the Western Mother.’ Perhaps you know that she was formerly a member of the Windreader tribe?”

“Yes, I’ve heard.”

Perhaps the name was derived from that of the goddess Sei-ou-bo, the Western Queen Mother; or perhaps they called her that because she was the “mother” of the western capital. Or maybe her name even included the character for “west.” Maomao didn’t know.

“Lady Seibo was a kind woman, very concerned for those who had formerly been members of her tribe. She went with our father on his business expeditions, and any time she saw a former Windreader among the slaves, she would free them, or so I’ve been told.”

“That would mean Sir Gyoku-ou went with her?”

“Yes, sir. A great many members of the Windreader tribe were found in Shaoh. Many of them had been viciously mistreated by the people there; they were practically skin and bones. My mother met many of them in their last moments.”

Maomao listened. This sort of made sense to her...but sort of didn’t. Chue seemed to be of the same opinion; she was frowning.

“What do you think, Miss Maomao?” she asked.

“I’m not sure how to answer that. It would certainly be one reason to want to go to war, but it seems like it must be just one reason out of many.”

That was her honest opinion. She understood it, as a justification, but on its own it was too little. Wanting revenge for one’s people was understandable, but tribes all over the plains had attacked the former Windreaders. Meanwhile, foreigners hardly had a monopoly on mistreating their slaves. As a political matter, such things were barely more than excuses.

Jinshi, as it turned out, had much the same questions as Maomao and Chue.

“Is that the only reason?” he asked bluntly. “I realize Sir Gyoku-ou is your eldest sibling, but surely that doesn’t silence the younger members of the family completely. Is it not precisely because you disagree with him, Sir Dahai, that you were willing to entertain what I had to say?”

So Gyoku-ou’s Little Brother’s name was Dahai. It meant “Great Sea,” certainly an appropriate name for a sailor.

But he doesn’t have “gyoku” in his name.

That, Maomao realized, was the sign that this man didn’t stand in the line of succession. She wondered if Gyokuyou had always had the “gyoku” element in her name because of her exceptional qualities, or if she had changed her name when she entered the rear palace.

“I presume Sir Gyoku-ou can’t afford to ignore the master of the harbors just because that man is his younger brother. What did he use to negotiate with you?” Jinshi asked.

Dahai flinched, but then smiled. “You should get out among the people more, Moon Prince. Then they might cease to believe that you’re nothing but a figurehead.”

“Get out among the people and do what? Would you have me paraded around like a portable shrine at a festival?” Jinshi continued to look every inch the royal, but his tone had grown rather informal. He must have already met this man several times before; Maomao just hadn’t known about it. Otherwise, Dahai would never have dared to speak as frankly as he just had.

“My eldest brother tempted me with the rights to Shaoh’s ports. Currently, ships from other countries pay through the nose to use them. Products from a great many lands find their way to Shaoh, coming on a great many ships, and Shaoh has them all over a barrel. They need those ports. My brother informed me of his intention to take the ports and put me in charge of them. I would clear at least this much easily.”

He held up five fingers to indicate the amount. Maomao couldn’t even imagine that many zeros.

“And?”

“And what?”

“He may speak of giving you rights, but all I see is a drastic increase in your workload. As capable as you are, Sir Dahai, even you can’t single-handedly manage two major ports with foreign ships coming and going. Unless you have some plan for splitting yourself in half and becoming two people? Have you become a master of the immortals’ arts without my knowing it?” Jinshi was teasing—taunting—him.

Dahai’s expression didn’t change. “I have someone who serves as my right hand. And my left. And both feet. I’ll let them handle things.”

“You’d send your most valuable people to a land that seems set to become a battlefield? I’d heard mariners valued their shipmates, but perhaps I was misinformed.” Now Jinshi was openly provoking the other man.

What’s he up to? Just witnessing this was enough to put Maomao’s nerves on edge. It had to be taking a toll on both Jinshi and Dahai. Now I see why he wanted a “charge.” It had to be mentally and emotionally draining to keep up this conversation.

“Perhaps that suggests to you how important these rights are,” Dahai said.

“Very well. Then what’s keeping the rest of your siblings quiet? There can’t be many carrots as large as those harbor rights. If anything, I would expect the opposite—that they would find the costs of invading another country unduly burdensome.”

After a moment, Dahai said, “I have no doubt my brother explained to each of our siblings the advantages of supporting him.”

Maomao and Chue were still peeking from behind the curtain. They were out of mooncakes, and Chue had moved on to nibbling on a fried dough twist.

“Are you sure I should be seeing this?” Maomao asked her.

“Sure, it’s fine!”

“No, I mean... If Dahai found out, wouldn’t he be upset?” Maomao knew she would be, if she found out that some ladies-in-waiting had been eavesdropping on secret conversations she’d been having.

“I think he’s already upset just having to deal with the Moon Prince. His Majesty’s younger brother may have a low opinion of himself, but he always manages to get the job done.”

True enough.

Dahai had to be more than a dozen years older than Jinshi, but it was the prince who held the initiative in this conversation. It looked like he knew something, something important.

Did Empress Gyokuyou give him some kind of inside information? No, wait...

Jinshi placed a black lump on the table.

“Would this be the advantage you’re talking about?”

It was some kind of rock. The glossy sheen on its surface made it look like obsidian, but it wasn’t.

“I believe in I-sei Province you call this the burning stone,” Jinshi said.

The burning stone... A stone that burns... Coal?

Maomao remembered what tousle-glasses had written in his letter.

“They say there’s a mountain near the port in Shaoh that produces coal. Take control of the port and one could—and no doubt would—start digging it up, yes?” Jinshi asked. Then he said, “I see that I-sei Province is more desperate for fuel than we are in the central region. Dramatic temperature differences between day and night, no doubt many deaths of freezing in the winter. Without much timber, your main sources of fuel are straw and animal dung, but the supplies of both are unstable. The suggestion that there might be a steady stream of fuel to be had is one that could easily sway an entire family of siblings. Now, here is the question...”

Oh, man, I hate that look.

Jinshi was making the face he always made when he was about to bring Maomao some kind of problem. She’d lost count of the number of times when, in the rear palace, she’d met that unctuous expression with the look of someone observing an upside-down cicada.

“Sir Dahai, neither you nor Sir Gyoku-ou brought up the subject of coal. Why not?” Jinshi asked.

Argh! I really hate that look!

Maomao was starting to sympathize with Dahai. Jinshi could be brutal. He only acted when everything was ready and there was no longer any escape.

“Records show that there used to be mining in I-sei Province—a modest amount, I grant, but it was there. Now you no longer do it. May I ask why not?”

“Can’t a mine dry up?” Dahai replied.

“Did it?”

Dahai studied Jinshi for a moment. “What are you saying, sir?” There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“Oh, nothing. I’ve simply been wondering what would happen if the central region were to reconsider the value of coal, and perhaps include it on our surveys. What do you suppose would happen if it turned out someone had been hiding coal that they should have been sending to us?”

Lahan’s riddling letter had been a way to try to tell them that I-sei Province had a hidden coal mine.

“All reports of coal mining ceased seventeen years ago. Did something happen in the midst of the chaos surrounding the Yi clan?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir.”

“You’re telling me you’ve been using coal without knowing it?”

“Is that an accusation?”

Dahai and Jinshi squared off. The easy friendliness of their conversation earlier only made this moment harder to bear.

“I’ve heard that the western capital’s ironworks are thoroughly blackened.”

“That happens when you make iron.”

“True. Ash is ash, whether you burn wood or coal.” Maomao thought she saw Jinshi glance in her direction for a split second. “However, the smell—that can’t be hidden, can it? More to the point, we have confirmation of large quantities of coal being brought into the ironworks.”

Chue had told Maomao about coal’s unique smell. It had led them to the ironworks, where they had collected indisputable evidence. Jinshi was very thorough.

Dahai continued to play at being evasive, however. “It’s not so unusual to import coal from other countries. I question how you can be so sure our supply comes from I-sei Province itself.”

“Perhaps you’d let me see your manifests, then. Presumably any imported coal would have to come via ship.” Jinshi’s perfect lips curled into a smile.

“You seem willing to be much firmer with the younger brother than the elder.” Dahai looked openly exasperated.

“When a person has proof, he can be as firm as he wishes.” It was a bit of a fig leaf for the Emperor’s younger brother, but it was his way of signaling that he was not going to simply force matters using his authority. “Besides, we don’t have to make this difficult. I have an easy way out for you.”

After a long moment Dahai said, “I should have known I would never get the better of you.”

“There was a secret agreement with the former emperor—or perhaps I should say with the empress regnant—regarding the use of coal, was there not?” Jinshi asked.

“What would ever give you that notion?”

“You have no idea how prickly the bean counters in the royal capital can get. The mere annihilation of an entire clan would never convince them that they should get less tax money than they did the year before.”

Maomao could just picture Lahan working his abacus, which he always carried despite the fact that he did all his math in his head. It was frankly obnoxious.

“So there was a tacit agreement with the court about the matter of the coal. And yet you come here with your accusations, Moon Prince?”

“I said, didn’t I? That it was a secret agreement with the former empress dowager, the empress regnant. The current sovereign had, and has, no part in it. Say the Emperor doesn’t know about it, or knows but stays silent. How would people react if I spoke up? I can already see the gleam in the eyes of the Board of Revenue. They would demand seventeen years’ worth of back taxes, every last pebble they’re owed. Yes, I think that would cause a reevaluation of the worth of coal.”

Stupid, stupid face!

Had he really needed a charge? He seemed well in control of this situation.

“Are you threatening me? Here I thought you had saved our people from the depredations of the grasshoppers. Has it been your true aim all along to ravage us in their stead?”

“It was merely a suggestion. Did I not tell you that there was an easy way out? Let’s say I am all too ignorant in these matters. I hardly know coal exists, let alone what it’s worth. It’s just a bunch of stones. Good enough?”

“And...what do you ask in exchange for this ignorance?” Dahai scowled at Jinshi.

“To be quite frank, I see no advantages in making war. A man is welcome to gamble with his own money if he wishes—but I cannot approve of dragging the entire country into such a wager. Should Sir Gyoku-ou use the occasion of my ritual to make anything resembling a declaration of war, I expect the people to be very much on his side. I may object, but I could easily see us sliding into an invasion of another country just the same.”

“You’re saying you wish me to stop my elder brother’s plan, then?”

“Precisely. If there is war, I think the consequences to you will be far more dire than an investigation into coal by the royal capital. But Sir Gyoku-ou will be unable to make any war without your ships to carry the invasion force.”

It was as Jinshi said. Maomao pictured a map of the region in her mind as best she could. I-sei Province was home to vast plains, where food was scarce. An invasion entirely overland seemed impossible.

“I also think it’s you, Sir Dahai, who understands best of all the problems that can be caused by strife among siblings. Do you think you could bring some of the others around if you used my name?”

“Would there be any advantage to me in doing such a thing?”

“As I said. Coal is merely a rock, worthless to the central region.”

Maomao sipped her tea, long gone cold, and felt a pang of sympathy for Dahai. It had to hurt, being tied into knots by a boy more than ten years his junior. But if it did, that pain wasn’t apparent on his face.

Puzzled, Maomao turned to Chue, who was looking sadly at the very last of the fried dough twists.

“Miss Chue, Miss Chue,” she said.

“Yes, Miss Maomao? What is it?”

“I just had a thought. Is this what they call a rigged game?” she asked idly.

“Hoo hoo hoo! It’s tough being on top, isn’t it? You need a good pretext to convince any of the siblings!”

Maomao realized why Dahai looked so placid even as Jinshi used him mercilessly. He was, and always had been, on Jinshi’s side. But there was a hierarchy to the sibling relationships; he couldn’t just bull around doing what he pleased. He needed there to be some reason he was forced to cooperate with Jinshi, and he had come here to get it.

Suddenly, Maomao felt stupid for having been on tenterhooks the entire time.

A charge, my ass! The cold sweat—all of it felt silly. God, I hate politics.

Maomao was reminded, painfully, of why she loathed being involved with anything political.