The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 11 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Strategist Strikes!

No sooner had they returned to the annex than they were summoned to Jinshi’s chambers.

Like it couldn’t wait till tomorrow!

It was the middle of the night; everyone but the guard on duty was sound asleep. The air was cold—and worse, Maomao hadn’t eaten dinner. She was desperate to be done with this.

When she reached Jinshi’s room, she discovered his desk riddled with abandoned drafts of numerous letters. Suiren or Taomei might have picked them up, had they been there; the fact they were still lying around showed that the ladies-in-waiting must really have their hands full. Maomao was clearly not the only one staying up late to work.

For a moment, she thought there was no one in the room—but then she happened to see Baryou peering out from behind a curtain. For a second, a charge went through the air between them, like two feral cats bumping into each other, and then Baryou vanished back behind his curtain without a word.

Something else, however, peeked out from behind the curtain in his stead: a duck with a black spot on her bill. Without Basen around, Baryou must be taking care of her. He wasn’t much for human company, but maybe a duck was all right.

I feel like there’s a real risk of her being eaten by Miss Chue. Apparently her husband’s protection was enough to save the duck from the wife’s cleaver.

“Oh, Maomao, you’re here,” said Suiren, who appeared from a back room. Maomao turned to her as if nothing out of the ordinary were going on.

“Yes, ma’am. I went to do a medical examination on Master Gyoku-ou’s granddaughter. I think Miss Chue told you about it. Tianyu the physician was with me; he’s at the medical office now.”

He’d dumped the entire reporting-to-Jinshi thing on Maomao, on the grounds of “each doing what we’re best at.” When she thought of him sitting down to dinner—late, but still earlier than her—she privately vowed to serve him another cup of swertia tea. For now, she gave Suiren a brief rundown.

“I’ll go call the Moon Prince,” the other woman said. Before she went, she collected the discarded letters and put them in a basket.

“That’s an awful lot of false starts,” Maomao remarked.

“He’s just been writing letters to anyone he thinks he can count on. He must have written close to a hundred—no, two hundred, even.”

“T—Two hundred?!”

From what Maomao could see of the attempted letters, each one began with the sort of fulsome, vacuous description of the season expected of a message from a member of the Imperial family. Yes, there was probably a more or less prescribed way to write such things, but even so, writing every single one of those letters by hand would have been enough to give a person tendinitis.

Maybe I should get a wet compress ready. Unfortunately, she’d come armed only with her usual bandages and balm.

Judging by the number of drafts lying around, Jinshi must have been corresponding not only with the most prominent bureaucrats, but the regional rulers as well.

“It’s great that he’s actually doing his job and all, but won’t begging everyone in sight for help sort of...take away from his gravitas?”

Maomao’s question provoked a sigh from Suiren—she seemed to agree that those who lived “above the clouds” shouldn’t be quite so quick to send letters to those who lived below them.

“Do you suppose that’s the sort of thing that would bother the Moon Prince?”

“No... No, I don’t.”

This was a man who had spent six years pretending to be a eunuch, a position that had given him a thorough familiarity with the slings and arrows of public opinion. He was probably less worried than anyone here about the rather coarse treatment he was receiving in the western capital.

“That’s why we need you to say something to him, Maomao!” Suiren said. “But...”

“But what?”

“Well... Good luck.” Suiren patted Maomao on the shoulder. For some reason, she was smiling.

Maomao soon discovered why, for Jinshi emerged from the bedroom. Chue and Gaoshun were with him, and from the moment Maomao saw the grin on Chue’s face and the way Gaoshun was pressing a hand to his forehead, she had a bad feeling about this.

Jinshi did not look like he was in a very good mood.

“Chue told me everything,” he said. “I gather you enjoyed yourself at the farming village?”

Huh! Haven’t seen him in this kind of mood for a while, Maomao thought. She wasn’t very happy with Chue for squealing on her.

“You and this man Rikuson, it sounds like you’re awfully close,” Jinshi continued. Pretty much what she’d expected.

“I’m not sure I’d say that, sir,” Maomao replied.

“Oh? Is that so?”

Yes? Yes. Yes, it’s so. Maomao glared at him. Chue stuck her tongue out and playfully bopped herself on the forehead. Gaoshun looked at his daughter-in-law as if lost for words.

All right. I’m angry. What did you say to him? Yes, Maomao understood that Chue had only been doing her job. But knowing that only took her so far.

“Then why were you so intent on going with him specifically to that village?”

“Because I know one carriage is cheaper than two. Besides, I thought it might be useful if we could share information with each other.”

“Hrm.” Maomao’s reasoning didn’t seem to satisfy Jinshi.

“Can I go back now? I answered the summons because I assumed you wanted to know about the surgery, but considering the hour, maybe all this could wait till tomorrow?” She’d intended to check Jinshi’s injury as well, but it looked like the thing to do was get out of here. The matter of Gyoku-ou’s granddaughter could wait too.

A high wall, however, appeared in front of Maomao. Thoom. Jinshi had risen from his seat and was standing smack in front of her.

“Yes, sir?” she asked. Jinshi continued to look less than pleased.

“It has come to my attention that this man with whom you claim not to be especially close recently proposed marriage to you.”

At least he was to the point.

“I’m given to understand that it was a joke, sir.”

“Does one say such things in jest?”

“Perhaps it was a social nicety, like the hair stick Master Lihaku gave me at the garden party.” She recalled Jinshi had been likewise petulant on that occasion. Maomao, for her part, had faith that there would be no problem if she was upfront and honest.

Jinshi fell silent. He looked like he very, very much wanted to say something, but—despite all appearances to the contrary—he was a busy man with much to do.

In a bid to change the subject, Maomao decided to make the report she had come here expecting to make. “The surgery on Master Gyoku-ou’s granddaughter was a success. However, I’d like to continue doing periodic exams to check the progress of her recovery. I assume that will be all right?”

“Ah, yes... I’ve already been in touch with Sir Gyoku-ou. He tells me you may do as you see fit.”

“I see, sir.” Didn’t grandfathers usually dote on their granddaughters? Gyoku-ou’s answer seemed so...disinterested. Perhaps it only sounded that way because she was hearing it through Jinshi.

So he hates foreign blood, does he? Maomao thought, recalling what Gyoku-ou’s daughter had told her.

“And what was the trouble with the patient?” Jinshi asked, sitting in a chair.

Maomao let out a deep mental breath and resolved to avoid the subject of Rikuson in the future if at all possible. “It was an intestinal blockage. A foreign object stuck in her innards, which we removed in a surgical procedure. The actual surgery was handled by Tianyu, that new physician. I served as his assistant.”

“Hoh. Here I would have guessed you would be champing at the bit to do it yourself.”

“I would have been willing.” It was, after all, a rare opportunity to gain surgical experience with a relatively safe procedure, and Maomao was as eager as anyone to take advantage of it. “However, the simple fact is that Tianyu far outstrips me in surgical skill.”

“There’s a surprise.” Jinshi almost looked a little disappointed, as if he wished Maomao had performed the surgery.

The last thing I want is anyone complaining about my surgical treatment. Maybe it was too late with Jinshi—he knew about Maomao’s extensive, personal experience with poisons, and was also aware that she had once lopped off a man’s arm in the name of saving his life.

“So what was this blockage?” Jinshi asked.

“Trust me, sir, you’d rather not know.”

“Tell me it wasn’t grasshoppers.” Maomao saw him blanch a little.

She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. The blockage was a lump of fruit and hair.”

“Hair?” Jinshi looked perplexed, and Chue and Gaoshun also glanced at Maomao, curious.

She gave them the summary. This included mentioning Gyoku-ou’s distaste for foreigners, but that seemed to come as no shock to Jinshi. He simply said, “He hates foreigners, does he?”

“Do you have someone in mind, sir?” Maomao asked.

“Yes,” he murmured, then intertwined his fingers and narrowed his eyes. “Are you aware of the relationship between Empress Gyokuyou and Sir Gyoku-ou?”

“Vaguely.”

Some time ago, there had been a commotion when the Empress had lost a hair stick. Haku-u, a lady-in-waiting who was quite close with the Empress, had said a few things that came back to Maomao now.

“This is about the matter of Empress Gyokuyou’s ladies-in-waiting, isn’t it?” she asked.

“That’s right. When I was in the central region, the Empress seemed to get along perfectly well with her brother.”

“Only seemed to, sir?” Maomao gave him a puzzled look.

“I mean, I assumed—because during her time in the rear palace, she often got letters from ‘her brother.’ That was true, as far as it went—in that Gyoku-ou is not her only brother.”

“Ah!”

Gyoku-ou and Gyokuyou were far enough apart in age to be father and daughter. It would be no surprise if there were other siblings between them.

“Once I realized that, I saw that there had been signs, even back when I was in charge of the rear palace. The minimal number of her ladies-in-waiting, for example, should have been a tip-off, don’t you think?”

It was certainly true that Gyokuyou had had fewer ladies than the other upper consorts. Even the fact that Maomao, a simple laundry girl, had been admitted to the Jade Pavilion was only thanks to Jinshi’s finagling. Yes, Gyokuyou had lost several ladies-in-waiting to food tasting, and her home was far away in the west, but it now transpired that such things had been only cover, excuses.

“Does Master Gyoku-ou view Empress Gyokuyou as an enemy, then? I mean, because he takes exception to her foreign blood?” asked Maomao.

“That, I don’t know. For all his alleged hatred, he did send an adopted daughter who looks much like the Empress into the rear palace.”

“With a pucker on his face, perhaps.”

Had Gyoku-ou had some negative experience with foreigners in the past? True, it was considered bad form to have strong preferences—in people as in food—but Maomao herself had people that she, ahem, couldn’t stand. She was in no position to judge.

Nonetheless she said, “If he really hates foreigners, he must have a hard life. Living as he does in the one place in Li with more foreigners than anywhere else.”

“That may be precisely the problem. More people, more points of friction.”

Maomao was starting to feel that further discussion of this topic wouldn’t get them much of anywhere. Time to bail out of this subject. She glanced around the room, looking for some chance to escape.

Just then, the door flew open with a crash. “Moon Prince!” In came a young personage with a duck on his head. In all the western capital, there was only one man who fit that description.

“You’ll wake up half the household, Basen,” Jinshi said, paying no heed to the avian.

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s urgent...”

“Urgent? Well, what is it? Tell me!”

“Grand Commandant Kan is on his way here!”

“Does he know what time it is?”

Maomao’s hair stood on end, and if she’d had a tail, it would have puffed right up. Since their arrival in the western capital, the grand commandant had visited Jinshi on several occasions, at which times Maomao had always been careful to make herself scarce, or otherwise to leave matters to the quack doctor.

“I’m here...” said a most terrible voice. Behind Basen loomed the face of an old man, a creature so filthy he just looked like his feet must stink. The duck seemed to mistake his hair for nesting material, because she reached over from atop Basen and pecked at his head.

“Basen!” Jinshi fixed the other man with a glare.

“I’m sorry, sir. The Grant Commandant is...already here,” he said, correcting himself.

“Maomaoooooo! Thank goodness you’re safe!” The monocled old fart tried to shove past Basen, but Basen didn’t budge. The best the freak could do was sort of shloop himself in between Basen and the doorway.

Gaoshun immediately positioned himself to defend Jinshi, while Chue stood in front of Maomao and gave her a let-me-handle-this wink and a thumbs-up.

You can act as friendly as you want—it doesn’t change the fact that you sold me out.

For the moment Maomao made it her priority to put some distance between herself and the old guy sidling in her direction.

“All those bugs must have been so scary, Maomao! But oooh, don’t you worry. Daddy made a bug extermination squad and will get rid of all those nasty, nasty insects for you!”

Sure. This is when he decides to get off his ass.

Maomao and the freak strategist shuffled right, then left, stopped, and shuffled again, Chue between them.

Jinshi, observing the moment, cleared his throat to draw the strategist’s attention to himself. “Sir Lakan. I believe I’ve asked you—repeatedly—to inform me before you come here. But since you’re here, what is your business?” A blue vein bulged on Jinshi’s forehead. He knew the answer to his question all too well.

For just a second, the strategist deemed to look at him. “Heavens. I don’t need a reason to come visit my beloved daughter! I went to see her this evening and found she was out, so I just tried somewhere else.” He gave them a sort of mischievous leer. Maomao felt bad to take the opportunity from Basen, who was holding his temper in check quite well, but she wondered if she might be allowed to give the strategist a good kick.

He returned his gaze to Maomao and grinned again, but then his face grew serious. “That was my main motivation for coming, anyway. But there is one more little thing. I’d like you to take the Sage in.”

“The Sage? He’s here?” Jinshi asked, disbelieving.

I think I recognize that name. As Maomao recalled, it was the man who had been watching Jinshi’s game against the freak strategist in the Go tournament. The Emperor’s personal instructor in the game.

“No, no, not him. Maybe I should call him the Western Sage. He’s a prodigy in Shogi, not Go.”

“Shogi?”

The freak strategist was a brilliant player of both games, but he was said to be even more dominant in Shogi than in Go. And yet here was someone he referred to as a “sage” of the game.

“He lost his home in the insect plague, you see. So he turned to me, an old friend.”

Old friend, huh?

Maomao had heard that the strategist had spent some time in the provinces in his younger days. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that he had visited these distant western reaches.

“I see. Yes, there’s been trouble all over,” Jinshi said, and hmmed thoughtfully.

“’Scuse meee!” Chue, with scant respect for the gravity of the moment, stuck her hand in the air. Her mother-in-law was absent today, so there was nothing to stop her. “Not to be rude, but do you think you might be making it all up?”

Rude—yes, it was, but Maomao agreed with the question. This was, after all, the freak strategist, a man who couldn’t remember people’s faces to save his life. If someone came along impersonating an old acquaintance, how would he know the difference?

“I doubt it. There aren’t that many gold generals running around, although I do want to try to be certain.”

A Gold General! Luomen had told Maomao that the strategist often spoke of people in terms of Shogi pieces, but the average listener would probably have no idea what he was talking about.

“So perhaps we could have a game of Shogi here, just to be sure?” the strategist suggested.

His idea was met with a moment of silence. Maomao wasn’t sure how it followed that there should be a game here and now, but the aide trailing behind the Grand Commandant was carrying a splendid Shogi board. The strategist himself evidently considered the game a foregone conclusion.

“I reiterate... Do you know what time it is?” Jinshi said.

“Oh, please. If he’s the real thing, you might gain some useful information yourself, Moon Prince.” The freak gave Jinshi one of his unctuous smiles.

Jinshi glanced at Maomao. She tried to respond with a don’t-do-it gesture, but from the moment the strategist had found her, there had been no escape. Better to let him waste his time playing his game, then—and anyway, she wondered at his ominous remark.

“All right. I’ll provide a place for you to play Shogi. However, the game will wait until tomorrow.”

“That’s very kind of you, thank you indeed,” the strategist said. (It was hard to tell whether he was genuinely grateful or not.) Maomao tried to ignore the freak, who was smiling to himself. Instead she rubbed her grumbling belly and hoped she could eat dinner soon.