The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 12 - Chapter 17

Chapter 17: A Town of Faith

Maomao and her little band headed for the next town as planned. She soon understood why there were supposed to be so many bandits here. By the standards of the western region, the greenery was lush and the trees plentiful. A copse, grove, or forest would serve as an excellent place for an ambush.

“I-sei Province may look like it’s all grass and deserts, but there are forests too,” said the lady biaoshi as she pointed out the window. Her explanation was partly for Maomao’s benefit, but also, Maomao suspected, to keep the children from getting bored. Wagon travel was not easy for kids who weren’t even ten years old. The biaoshi, however, had put out woven straw mats to ease the rattling and shaking, and so the kids could sleep at any time. Maomao appreciated them too; they certainly made it easier on her behind.

“Is that because we’re near the heights?” Maomao asked.

“That’s right. Rain and snowmelt from the high ground runs down here as fresh water. That irrigates the forests, and the forests attract the people.”

“Don’t the people cut down the forests?” It surprised Maomao that they didn’t; in Shihoku Province, where excellent timber had been plentiful, the mountainsides had been stripped bare, such that logging had to be forbidden by decree.

“Not many of these trees are actually good building material. Mostly people gather nuts from them, or else use the woods as windbreaks.”

“Well, that’s just ordinary agriculture, isn’t it?” Maomao asked. Xiaohong was doing something in between nodding her head and shaking it; she didn’t seem to quite follow the conversation. Gyokujun, looking downright uninterested, had flopped down on the mats. “I thought maybe there was something unique about this area that had turned it into a trade route.”

“There is. This,” the biaoshi said. She put a book in front of Maomao: the weathered old scriptures. “There’s a church in the next town.”

Now it made sense. Maomao didn’t know much about religion. She was a practical person herself, not inclined to believe in things she couldn’t see. She was convinced that gods and immortals couldn’t possibly exist. But she wouldn’t go so far as to tell others not to believe in them. People needed a haven, something to support them—and sometimes that took the form of a silent statue.

Truth be told, sometimes religion even helped in the pleasure district. Maomao had seen more than one courtesan on the cusp of death comforted by the thought that a land of peace and safety awaited her on the other side. Maomao remembered how they went, their belief enabling them to smile despite the agony of their last days.

As long as believers don’t cause trouble for anyone else, that’s all I ask.

They were welcome to worship whatever deities, superhumans, or faeries they wished as far as Maomao was concerned. But there were some who put those characters to a wicked purpose, and many who were taken in by such schemes. Gods were like medicine: they could be dangerous if used the wrong way.

So much for Maomao’s theological outlook. They kept a vigilant watch on the road lest they be attacked by bandits, but they made the passage safely.

“We’ll be there soon,” the biaoshi said. Rooftops had begun to appear beyond the trees, along with a building at least three stories tall.

“Is that the church?” Maomao asked.

“Yes.” The biaoshi said something to the driver, and the wagon rolled to a halt.

“Um...we’re not there yet,” said Xiaohong, mystified. She could see the town, but they had stopped well before they reached it.

“I’m going to go into town first and have a look. I want all of you to stay with the wagon,” said the biaoshi.

“Is that safe?” Maomao asked, starting to feel anxious.

“I’ll leave the two guards with you.”

Not really what I meant.

The biaoshi was a pro, so maybe it was disrespectful of an amateur like Maomao to worry about her safety.

“If everything looks all right, I’ll come back to get you, so just wait here until I do.”

“And...what if you don’t come back?”

Xiaohong went wide-eyed at Maomao’s question and she looked at the lady biaoshi.

“You run,” the other woman said with absolute conviction. “Don’t get any silly ideas about rescuing me.”

Run... Easy for her to say.

Maomao was by no means an accomplished athlete; the best she could hope to manage would be to hide behind a tree somewhere and try not to breathe. She would have to get help from the drivers.

Being a biaoshi doesn’t seem like a great career choice, she thought. Yes, they were paid well, but what salary could possibly be worth your life? And it might well cost your life, since biaoshi dealt in their own trustworthiness. Once they took a job, they had to see it through, even if it turned deadly.

Maomao opened one of the bags of herbs she’d bought, hoping to calm her nerves. They were divided into little cloth-wrapped bundles for ease of use; she tucked them among the folds of her robes as she always did. She still had a handful left over from the western capital, too, including a few of the mushrooms that made you viciously drunk, which she’d dried out. She planned to savor them with a tipple when they got back to the city.

Over the past few days, Maomao had noticed that whenever she was working with her herbs, Xiaohong would have nothing to do with her. She would give Maomao an annoyed look, then start playing pebble-marbles by herself. Gyokujun would still give his cousin a hard time occasionally, but not nearly as hard as he used to, so Maomao left them alone. She had no intention of getting overprotective.

There came two quick raps: someone knocking on the wagon.

“Yes? What is it?” Maomao asked, sticking her head out from under the cover.

“Pardon me.” It was one of the guards, a clean-shaven man about forty years old. He always came across as gentle; he had a daughter himself and was especially kind to Xiaohong. The other driver, for his part, was a younger man who didn’t speak much, but he did sometimes play-fight with Gyokujun.

“It’s just a small thing,” the kindly man said, “but I thought you might enjoy this.” He rolled a pine cone into the wagon.

“A pine cone!” Xiaohong exclaimed, her eyes shining.

“Haisongzi!” Maomao exclaimed, eyes equally bright.

“Who cares?” Gyokujun said, the only one of them to show no interest whatsoever.

“Did you find that around here?” Maomao demanded. She was far more forceful than either of the children, causing the kindly guard to take a step back.

“Er, y-yes. There’s a big pine tree just nearby.”

“May I go and harvest more of them?!”

“Erm... If you promise not to leave my side, then...”

“Perfect!”

Maomao leaped down from the wagon, and Xiaohong followed.

They picked up every pine cone they could find. They had been at it for about half an hour, and a small pile of pine cones had formed near Maomao. She didn’t care about the pine cones themselves, but she was very interested in the nuts inside them. Pine nuts, called haisongzi or songzi-ren in herbal medicine, were very high in nutrients, including oils and fats. Toast them gently and they acquired a lovely sweetness.

The only downside is that the nuts are so tiny it’s hard to get them out, Maomao thought, but a simple matter of physical labor was not going to stop her when it came to her medicines. Xiaohong collected the pine cones, which Maomao would immediately begin stripping of their scales. Much as Xiaohong seemed to enjoy collecting the pine cones, she was less thrilled to see Maomao dissect her prizes. She tucked one particularly well-formed specimen she was especially happy with into the folds of her robes.

The middle-aged guard stayed close at hand, while the other guard ate some food at the wagon and occasionally checked on Gyokujun, who was sleeping in the back.

Maomao was just thinking that she needed to get the seeds out of her pile of pine cone scales when the middle-aged guard tugged on her sleeve. “Excuse me,” he said. He had Xiaohong in his arms.

“What’s the matter?”

The guard didn’t say anything, but glanced toward the wagon. There was someone there: a thirtyish man.

“I’m a messenger. I was told to come and call you,” the newcomer said.

“Yeah? All right.” The younger guard jumped down off the driver’s bench and, with a single, unstudied motion, lunged forward and slashed the messenger’s throat.

Maomao jumped; for a second, she couldn’t grasp what had happened. Beside her, the kindly guard had his hands over Xiaohong’s eyes and mouth.

“Into the forest,” Maomao’s escort said, and then he set off running, cradling Xiaohong. The younger guard grabbed the sleeping Gyokujun from the wagon and carried him, stuffing a cloth in the boy’s mouth so that he wouldn’t bite his tongue or shout. These men knew what they were doing.

I see. Maomao realized why the guard had attacked the alleged messenger. She remembered what the lady biaoshi had said: “If everything looks all right, I’ll come back to get you, so just wait here until I do.” But it wasn’t the biaoshi who had come; it was someone claiming to be a messenger. Which meant there had been trouble.

Covered in an unpleasant sweat, Maomao had no choice but to follow the guard. They fled through the woods, stopping to hide each time they heard pursuers’ footsteps behind them. The pursuit parties were never large, and the two guards dealt with them.

But how long could this go on?

“Ugh, that hurts.” The younger guard had sustained an injury to his arm; someone among the most recent band of pursuers had gotten a slash in.

Maomao daubed the wound with some coagulant herbs she had available and bandaged it. There didn’t appear to be damage to the nerves, but it would slow the man’s reactions.

More to the point, they had no idea how many more people might be after them, or if running was going to be enough to get them out of this.

In a game of cat and mouse, Maomao’s group was at a disadvantage. They had two guards, yes, but they also had two kids who had to be carried during the flight. Again and again, their pursuers nearly caught them.

Gyokujun was crying and didn’t seem to understand what was going on, but Maomao didn’t take the cloth out of his mouth. The last thing she wanted was for him to start howling and get them all captured. Xiaohong was silent, but her whole body shook with fear. Her breath came hard and it was clear she was nearing her physical limit.

We’re as good as cornered. And if Maomao, who was new to all this, realized that, then the two guards must be very well aware.

“All right, listen,” the kindly guard said to Maomao, his face grim. “There are too many of them. To be honest with you, this job isn’t worth what we were paid anymore. We might be able to evade them a little longer, but as long as we stay in these woods, protecting the three of you is going to be impossible.”

Maomao didn’t say anything; she knew the man was right. Even if they did leave the forest, they’d abandoned their wagon, along with their horses. They had hardly any water or food, and getting back to the last town they’d visited would be a tall order. Yet neither could they return to the wagon, and they certainly couldn’t go into the new town nearby.

This was not looking good.

“Again, in all honesty, I think continuing to run would be pointless. I didn’t become a biaoshi because I’m some great fighter. You see me—it’s my cowardice that’s kept me alive!”

Maomao could understand that too. Those who knew how to evade danger made better guards than those who charged into the teeth of it.

“What I’m saying is...we’re leaving you here. We’ve failed in our mission.”

A bit too honest for his own good, this guy. Maomao could hardly have blamed him if he’d run off and left them without explaining a thing. She respected this more than him just fleeing.

After a moment, she sighed. “All right,” she said. “Just to be sure, I suppose it wouldn’t do any good to say we’ll pay you extra?”

The words crossed her mind: I’ll pay any price! What a cliché.

Maybe there was a thin ray of hope, a possibility that they could finagle horses somewhere and the guards could lead Maomao and the kids out of this...

But the men looked at each other and shook their heads. The younger one gestured at his wounded arm. “The best possibility is that we could capture a couple of the wild horses who use the nearby watering hole. He and I could ride them, but could you ride an untamed horse without a saddle? I don’t think we could ride two to a horse and still hope to escape the enemy. With my arm like this, I think I’ll be lucky to be able to ride by myself.”

Maomao was quiet for a moment. Now she really wished she had learned how to ride a horse.

But where there’s life, there’s hope. In truth, these two guards had proved themselves remarkably good-hearted.

They didn’t betray us and turn us over to our pursuers, or steal the last of our money and leave us.

They had sincerely tried to fulfill their duty, and when they judged that that wasn’t possible, they’d told Maomao as much.

“You’re still young, and a woman. There’s every chance they’ll leave you alive even if they capture you.”

Maomao was quiet again. Alive. Sure.

There was no telling what they would do to her. Bandits weren’t exactly renowned for their hospitality. But one thing was certain: if they captured these guards, they would kill them.

“I understand. But could you possibly take one person with you? One of the children?”

“What do you mean?” asked the middle-aged guard, already getting ready to go.

Maomao took out a bandage and tore a piece off. “Xiaohong, what’s your mother’s name?”

“Yinxing.”

Right, that was it. Unlike the other siblings, Maomao reflected, it wasn’t an animal-related name. Instead, it meant “silver star.” She wrote a short note on the bandage.

“Is it all right if I borrow this?” Maomao asked Xiaohong, taking her hair decoration.

“Uh-huh.”

Maomao wrapped the bandage around the hair ornament, then gave it to Gyokujun, so that he had a cloth in his hands as well as his mouth.

“Mmmrf!”

Gyokujun seemed to want to say something, but Maomao ignored him.

“Could you possibly take just the young man back to the western capital?” she asked.

“This kid? Alone?”

“Yes.”

Maomao was, as they had said, a woman; Xiaohong was, too, and lovely to boot. Gyokujun, however, was a young man, and not smart enough to play the game when he had to. If they were caught, the first thing he would probably do was inform the pursuers of who his father was.

There’s no telling if Shikyou’s name would work for us or against us.

She considered the possibility that the bandits would keep them alive to ask for ransom, but then again, a lot of people seemed to have grudges against Shikyou. And hostages so rarely made it home in one piece.

Maomao determined that having Gyokujun with them would dramatically increase their chances of getting killed. She would have liked to give priority to the younger Xiaohong, but the situation forced her hand.

“Would it be too hard to take just the one child?” Maomao felt in the folds of her robes, looking for something, anything to pay them with. She had a few small coins, but hardly more than pocket change. That left...

Argh. This is such a waste. I hate to do this.

Agonized, she took out a small pouch. Inside were several pearls—imperfect, but pearls just the same. She’d intended to use them for medicinal purposes, but the situation, again, dictated their fate.

“A-Are these pearls?” the guard asked.

“Yes. I assure you, they’re real.”

The two guards swallowed heavily.

God, this is such a waste!

There were enough pearls in that pouch (Maomao had heard) to buy a small house.

Finally, she took the wad from Gyokujun’s mouth.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” he demanded.

“Xiaohong and I are staying in this forest,” she told him. “You’re going back to the western capital with these guards. And you’re going to give Xiaohong’s mother this.” She pointed to the hair ornament.

“What? I’m going by myself?”

“That’s it! Time’s up!” Maomao shoved the cloth back in Gyokujun’s mouth, then bound his hands and feet so he wouldn’t be able to fight.

The middle-aged guard hefted the thrashing Gyokujun onto his back and secured him with a rope tied fast around them both, as though Gyokujun were riding piggyback.

“I’m sorry about this,” the guard said, and then he and his companion left Maomao and Xiaohong in the woods. Xiaohong clung to Maomao and mournfully watched them go. She was smart enough to understand that the guards—and Gyokujun—had left them there.

“Sorry. Maybe I should have asked you,” Maomao said.

“This is the best way?” Xiaohong asked.

“I hope so.”

All right, then. Dallying would get them nowhere; action was everything.

Maomao looked around. She saw no sign of anyone, but their pursuers would be there soon enough. Very well—she found a large tree and dug into the ground, making a small hole. They climbed in and covered themselves with leaves.

“We’re hiding?” Xiaohong asked.

“For the moment, yes.”

“But what if they find us?”

“There’s no if about it.”

It was only a matter of time until they were spotted. But maybe...

A short while later, they heard footsteps charge past. Everyone Maomao could see was armed—some carried swords, but some had farming implements.

There’s two possible outcomes here—they kill us to shut us up, or take us as hostages. Maomao didn’t know which way this was going to go. Nor how they would be treated if they were taken.

“Sorry about this,” Maomao whispered to Xiaohong. Then she balled up the sleeve of her outfit and stuffed it into Xiaohong’s mouth.

One set of footsteps approached. Maomao stole a glance out of the corner of her eye.

Not him.

She could feel Xiaohong’s heart pounding as she held her. The girl could probably sense Maomao’s heart racing the same way. Although they were deep into autumn and the air was getting cold, Maomao felt inordinately warm. She almost worried that steam would rise off her and give them away.

Not him either.

Each time a bandit approached, Maomao held her breath, but one by one she let them go past. Their pursuers were being careless. Maomao and Xiaohong had been accompanied by a pair of guards until a few minutes ago; most likely, nobody suspected the two girls might be hiding a stone’s throw away.

Not yet. Wait for it...

Maomao waited and waited.

Finally, a man with a curved blade approached. He had thick facial and body hair; what was on his head was unkempt, and he had a filthy cloak wrapped around his shoulders. Maomao took him to be in his fifties. Something hung from his neck.

This one. He’s the guy.

Maomao didn’t know if they were going to find anyone else who was a better bet, so even though she had no idea who he was or what he was like, she would have to try her luck.

Just as the man was about to pass them by, Maomao stood up.

“Hey! You’re...” the man said.

Maomao kept her mouth tight shut. The man pressed his curved blade against her neck.

Stay calm. Stay calm...

She felt like her blood had slowed down, but she opened her mouth. “O Lord, do You see us?” she said. The words Chue had taught her from the foreign scriptures. Maomao was careful to enunciate clearly, bent on not tripping over her own tongue.

Then she looked straight at the man. You could even call it a glare. Her pulse skyrocketed and she thought her knees might start shaking, but she couldn’t let him see that. To sell this bluff, she would have to be as imperious as she possibly could.

There was a beat—but at length the man muttered, “Oh, c’mon” and let the sword drop. He sounded disappointed.

Does this mean my gamble paid off? Maomao felt like she might collapse on the spot, but she had to keep up the act.

“If they’d been nonbelievers, we could’ve just offed them!” the man grumbled.

That was close!

Much, much too close.

Maomao took another look at the necklace dangling around the man’s neck. It was a simple thing, just a scrap of wood hanging from a leather strap. The piece of wood bore the same design Maomao had seen on the holy book she’d read to pass the time.

The same book whose teachings were propounded at the church in the town nearby.