The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 12 - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: The Bandits’ Hideout

The “town of faith” was remarkably quiet. There were shops packed in around the big religious building, but they were all closed. Instead, filthy men loitered in the streets. They didn’t look like villagers by any stretch of the imagination; they were obviously bandits.

The middle-aged man, the one so full of faith that he had spared Maomao and Xiaohong, now led them along as prisoners. Other bandits sized them up as they went past, but quickly looked away again when the older man glared at them.

It was clear that the outlaws ran this town. These were not men of gainful employment or productive labor; they were feeding off this town, and when there was nothing left to feed on, they would move on to the next place.

Like locusts, Maomao thought, forcing down the bile that rose in her throat.

She was relieved to discover that, if nothing else, her judgment had been correct: the middle-aged man had been the right person to engage with. For one thing, he was a believer of the church here; for another, his status was at least somewhat secure.

She’d guessed at his faith from his necklace. As for his status, his outfit had given her an inkling. He wore a dirty cloak—hardly a valuable item, but from a bandit’s perspective, valuable enough. The blade of his weapon had been carefully honed, and even his cloak was made with sturdy pelt—not something that was going to fall to tatters if he took a modest sword stroke.

In the rough-and-tumble world of bandits, physical prowess translated directly into authority. Maomao guessed that a man’s accoutrements would convey his place in the gang’s hierarchy.

Her efforts had earned her a bloody neck, courtesy of that finely honed blade. Not too bloody, so it quickly dried, but it had distressed Xiaohong, since it always looks like there’s more blood than there is.

I’m lucky this kid is so docile, Maomao thought.

But Xiaohong had a habit of eating her own hair when she was anxious. Some people ate foreign objects when under stress; she probably had a variety of that condition.

“In here,” the man said, leading them into the church at the center of town.

What did they call this faith again? Something something-ism?

She’d asked Chue the name of it, but it had been difficult to pronounce and Maomao didn’t remember it very well.

A man about thirty years old reclined in the middle of the church’s worship hall. It was a ballsy place to set yourself up. He was missing an eye from some kind of injury—and he looked like the kind of guy who would lose an eye in a fight. He was dressed like a member of one of the foreign tribes, with a fox pelt draped over a sleeveless shirt.

The bandits had proved terrible guests in this house of prayer. The man had set out several pelts to lie on, and the hall was littered with empty bottles and scraps of meat. Two terrified women waited nearby to do the man’s bidding.

“I brought a couple more, boss,” the middle-aged man said.

Their boss is...surprisingly young. Maomao had been expecting someone older. Observing the younger man’s physique, though, she realized that maybe he had hauled himself to the top of the food chain through brute force.

“Them two?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Who’s he calling “them two”?

“Huh. I think we can do without the tagalong there.”

There was a second before the older man said, “You said you would spare fellow believers. We could at least put her to work in the kitchen, don’t you think?”

Tagalong? Spare me?

Maomao was starting to think that her assumptions about the situation had been a bit off. It almost sounded like they hadn’t been after Maomao at all.

But if not me, then...

Her gaze turned to Xiaohong.

The boss heaved himself to his feet. He was built like a bear; he towered over Xiaohong, and tears leaped to the young girl’s eyes as she hid behind Maomao.

“Hmmm... Hey!” the leader barked.

“Yes?” one of the women asked, flinching.

“Where’s that wanted poster?”

Slowly, hesitantly, the woman handed him a piece of parchment. The boss unrolled it and looked from Xiaohong to the paper and back.

“It...kinda looks like her? I guess?”

They have a portrait?

The paper showed a child’s face and included a written description of the subject’s most distinctive characteristics. Maomao recognized the person in the picture. Could that be...?

It looked remarkably like the pampered young foreign woman Maomao had treated the other day.

All right, fair enough. She took another look at Xiaohong. The girl did indeed have light hair. From a distance, it wouldn’t be hard to take her for a foreigner. Her eyes weren’t blue, but you wouldn’t notice that unless you were up close.

But they’re hardly the same age!

Xiaohong was seven or eight years old at best. She couldn’t have passed for ten if she’d tried, whereas the girl with the bad tooth must have been at least twelve or thirteen.

But then, foreigners tend to look older. Maybe she had actually been around ten.

No, I don’t think so.

Foreigners didn’t count their age the way people in Maomao’s country did, where everyone got a year older on the first of the year. They counted from the day someone was actually born, so that a person turned “one year old” exactly one year after their birth. By that logic, someone might take Xiaohong for ten.

Maybe somebody spotted Gyokujun with us, and some info about him got mixed into the report?

Maomao took another look at the likeness, which was accompanied by a description.

Light golden hair, blue eyes, about ten years old...

Again, Xiaohong didn’t have blue eyes, so one might think that would make it obvious she was a different person, but the boss hadn’t noticed.

Maybe he can’t read?

The poster listed one other notable feature: May be disguised as a girl.

Now Maomao understood why she and Xiaohong had been captured.

“Ugh, forget it! It’s s’posed to be a boy, ain’t it? Well, one way to be sure. Strip ’er!”

The boss tried to grab Xiaohong’s hand. Maomao stepped between them.

“Whazzis?” the hulking man said, annoyed.

Maomao swallowed hard and barely managed not to flinch back. Yes, she’d made the right call. This would have been a much, much more volatile situation with Gyokujun in tow.

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” she said. “This child is a girl. I’ll help her undress, so please, stay your hand.”

Maomao urged Xiaohong forward again. It should have been fairly obvious whether she was a boy or a girl.

“This will just take a second,” Maomao whispered to Xiaohong, who looked on the verge of tears. Then Maomao began to roll up her skirt. Once the boss saw she was a girl, he could be done with them.

It was at that moment that one of the women who had been attending the boss stepped forward. “M-Master One-Eyed Dragon... Please, let me check the child.”

“Mm,” he grunted. “All right. Whadda I want with some naked kid, anyway?”

One-Eyed Dragon—so that was what the boss here went by.

“One-Eyed Dragon”?

Awfully big name he had there, Maomao thought. The kind of sobriquet a great warrior would have had generations ago.

The woman came over to them and felt at Xiaohong’s skirt—weeping the whole while. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. Xiaohong didn’t say anything.

The woman was trying to spare this poor child as much embarrassment as she could. When she had confirmed that there was nothing “extra” between Xiaohong’s legs, she turned to One-Eyed Dragon with a look of relief. “She’s a girl,” the woman reported.

“Huh! Is she, now? Which jackass told me we should take a look at the next wagon coming through?”

“Our man on the inside in the next town.”

“All right. A hundred lashes, no food for three days.”

“Yes, sir.” The middle-aged man quietly went about his work.

“Ugh, dammit. Here I thought I could finally get Shikyou by the short hairs.” One-Eyed Dragon stamped on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum. He was so big, he made the floor shake.

Did he just say Shikyou?

Maomao stayed in front of Xiaohong, covering her. The girl was shaken to hear her uncle’s name—and the last thing Maomao wanted was for One-Eyed Dragon to realize he was in possession of one of Shikyou’s relatives.

No telling what he would do to her...

What Maomao had seen on that wanted poster made it clear that the foreign noblegirl—no, make that the foreign punk—with the bad tooth had caused some kind of quarrel. The kid had looked awfully sheltered—it turned out he was pretty important.

My fleeing must have been to spare Jinshi some kind of trouble. Whatever, that kid and his tooth were some kind of political key.

“What should we do with this pair?” the middle-aged man asked One-Eyed Dragon.

“Whatever ya want. I don’t care.”

One-Eyed Dragon had lost all interest in them—or maybe he was pouting. Whichever, he curled up on his pelt “bed” like a bear or a tiger settling in for a nap.

“You,” the middle-aged man snapped at the woman who had apologized to Xiaohong. “You take them. They’re fellow believers.”

“Yes, sir.” The woman bowed. Of One-Eyed Dragon she was afraid, but for this man she seemed to have something approaching respect.

“This way,” she said to Maomao and Xiaohong, and they had little choice but to follow her.