The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 12 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Foreign Girl

Ultimately, the dispute over Gyoku-ou’s inheritance remained at an impasse. Maomao, for her part, just kept working like she always did. There was no reason for her to stick her nose into a bunch of strangers’ personal argument.

Hulan showed up at the medical office again. This time he said, “There’s a patient who wishes to be seen by a woman, if that’s all right.”

He’s like Rear-Palace Jinshi.

Hulan seemed to spend a lot of time running messages for other people, but he didn’t appear to mind.

“Is the patient a woman?” Maomao asked.

“Yes, the daughter of a good family. You must forgive us; female physicians, or women who have anything like a doctor’s qualifications, are exceedingly rare in the western capital.”

Not so different from the time with Xiaohong.

Maomao looked at the young man, so humble despite his relatively high birth. It was true; even when women got involved in medicine, it was rarely as anything more than apothecaries or perhaps midwives. Even in the royal capital, Maomao had never seen an actual female physician.

“What are the symptoms?” she asked.

“A headache that won’t go away. She’s tried the usual remedies, but nothing helps. Hence talk turned to having her seen by a proper doctor.”

“So you want me to make a house call?”

Hulan smiled as if he’d thought she’d never ask. “It would help very much. I’ll inform the Moon Prince about it.”

“Is this not on his orders?” Maomao was surprised. She had been sure this was coming directly from Jinshi.

“No, this is a personal request from me. An acquaintance asked if I knew any female medical personnel.”

“All right. As far as I’m concerned, if the Moon Prince approves, then I’ll go. But if he doesn’t, then I can’t help you.”

“I certainly understand.”

Hulan left the medical office. Maomao watched him go.

“What’s going on, miss?” Lihaku asked, watching too.

“Nothing. Tell me, what do you think about Master Gyoku-ou’s third son?”

“Huh... Well, it depends what you mean by that, I guess.”

“Something about him just...nags at me.”

She couldn’t put a name to it; it just bothered her. Something about him felt off.

“That right? Maybe it’s because he’s so much like you, miss. Likes repel and everything.”

“S-So much like him? What about me is like him?” Maomao asked. She didn’t actively dislike Hulan. She just found his behavior a little odd.

“Come on. What about the way you casually size people up all the time?”

Lihaku might seem like a big mutt, but he didn’t just wag his tail and go along with everything everyone said. He was no bureaucrat, but he was quick-witted.

“Do I...size people up?”

“You’re looking at me like I’m a shar-pei right now.”

Maomao didn’t say anything. A shar-pei was a large fighting dog. She was all but struck dumb by the perspicacity of Lihaku’s observation.

“The way she does that, it’s just like Lahan,” Lahan’s Brother said. Why was he here? He was having tea with the quack doctor. Fishwort tea, by the smell of it. It was a fast-growing herb with medicinal uses, but it was hard to cultivate in a dry climate, and Lahan’s Brother had given up the attempt.

“Lahan’s Brother, there are certain things you just don’t say to a person,” Maomao huffed. Meanwhile, she started gathering up her medical implements. She suspected Jinshi would acquiesce to Hulan’s request. “Are you implying that I behave at all like Lahan?”

“Absolutely.”

“Every little tic.”

For some reason Lihaku and Lahan’s Brother both answered in the affirmative. Only the quack looked uncertain. “Me, I’m not so sure.” Normally he was no help at all, but at this moment he proved a welcome tonic.

“There it is again. You were evaluating the old doc here, weren’t you?”

“Heavens, no.” Maomao tried to play dumb, but Lihaku’s remark weighed strangely heavily on her heart.

Was I really judging him?

Although Hulan referred to her as “Lady Maomao,” his actual speech was never more than just polite. It wasn’t unlike how Maomao used superficially polite language toward Jinshi.

If Hulan’s intent, however, was to privately look down on her, he had an awfully uncoordinated way of doing it. Maomao didn’t think he was that stupid.

If anything, I think maybe he was testing my humanity because he’s found out who I really am.

As much as Maomao desperately didn’t want to acknowledge it, she was the offspring of the freak strategist and a courtesan. If Hulan had discovered that fact, it would explain his attitude toward her. Would Maomao, the daughter of one of her nation’s most important people, have him punished for his insolence? Or would she maintain her facade of being a commoner and let it go?

Or perhaps the test was of an even more fundamental nature than that: whether she would notice that he was belittling her behind her back, or care.

Maomao shoved the last of her instruments into her bag. She didn’t take well to being made to play the fool.

As if on cue, Chue appeared a little while later. “Permission granted by the Moon Prince!” she drawled. She had her things with her, clearly raring to go out. “There’s a carriage waiting outside—come on! Let’s go!”

“I appreciate this,” said Hulan. Apparently he was coming, too, because he was wearing a cloak to keep the dust off.

“Where exactly are we going?” Maomao asked.

“It’s a bit of a ride. If I mentioned the post town by the port, would you know what I meant?”

So he wasn’t going to tell her exactly—it sounded like he was testing her.

I see what this is.

Maomao remembered something Jinshi had said, about all the foreigners who couldn’t go home on account of the insects being gathered in one place. Gyokuen’s third son, Dahai, had contrived to bring them all to that post town.

A foreigner who can’t go home, and daughter of a good house.

Maomao was getting a very bad feeling about this, but as usual, she tried to act like everything was fine.

Not that it’s usually done me any good.

Even so, she affected ignorance, climbing into the carriage as if she hadn’t noticed much of anything at all.

They bounced along in the carriage for a good couple of hours. It was much closer, actually, than the farming village they’d gone to. Now, in addition to the smells of dry earth and grass, the wind brought them the damp aroma of the tide.

Chue was there and, as ever, Lihaku had come along as bodyguard. That was all well and good, but the carriage had a third occupant: a mysterious, oversize basket. It was equipped so that Chue could carry it around carefully on her back.

“What’s this?” Maomao asked.

“It’s my husband,” Chue said, but her response sounded strangely studied. And also didn’t make much sense.

“Um... Your husband, Miss Chue? Would you be referring to Master Baryou?”

“Yes! I thought he might be of some help on this trip.”

Maomao wasn’t sure what standard of “help” Chue was going by, but she hoped she knew what she was doing. Even worse, she wasn’t convinced the basket was big enough for a full-grown man. If he was in there, he must have been rolled up into a ball. She had a passing desire to peek in, but she didn’t want to accidentally overstimulate Baryou and have him pass out, so she quashed her curiosity.

The carriage went south from the western capital, along the same road they had taken when they had first arrived. Carriages must have traveled it frequently, because it was actually paved. Probably to prevent ruts from forming, which would eventually happen on bare earth even here where there wasn’t much rain.

“There, you can see it,” said Hulan, peeking in at them from the driver’s bench.

“It’s quite something,” Maomao said, and she meant it. She’d expected a speck of a town, but there were easily several thousand buildings there. It was such a brilliant place that she felt sorry to be just passing through.

There was the distinct sense that the place was probably more vibrant at night, thanks to all the sailors it entertained. This wasn’t just a place to shop and eat; it was redolent of a pleasure district as well. It might not look quite like the one Maomao knew, but it was unmistakably familiar, and made her a little homesick. She wondered how her “older sisters” were doing. There was no need to wonder about the old madam, who was certainly alive and kicking.

Unfortunately for Maomao, they were indeed just passing through that area. In ordinary times, the streets might have been lined with stalls selling gifts and souvenirs, but as it was now, only a few places hawking modest provisions and daily necessities dotted the road, like a mouth full of missing teeth. Every once in a while she saw a place selling jewelry or luxury goods that was open, but they were inevitably empty.

She also saw courtesans leaning lazily out of windows; as the carriage went by, their eyes lit up, trying to espy whether there might be potential customers within. She saw dancing girls practicing, balancing bowls of milk tea on their heads and trying not to spill a drop.

The carriage rattled up to the city’s most prominent inn, located on its best plot of land, and stopped. The building was made of stone, the roof tiled, the door painted a vivid vermilion, all in a way that evoked the central region.

“Here we are, my dear husband! You can come out now.”

Baryou slithered from the basket. Maomao didn’t know how he had managed it, but he really was in there. She thought he might be suspicious of what he saw when he emerged, but he was surprisingly sedate.

No, wait...

“Are his eyes closed?” Maomao asked.

“Yes! Eliminating visual input helps reduce stress.”

“Oh, come on...”

Maomao’s thoughts had unwittingly come out her mouth, but Chue and Baryou seemed used to this arrangement. She expertly guided him along as they walked.

Inside, the inn was laid with a carpet so lush it seemed wrong to step on it with outdoor shoes.

“This way, please,” one of the inn staff said. With the care of someone who’d always had to live frugally, Maomao made sure to brush the dust from her shoes before stepping onto the carpet.

All the servants bowed their heads. Many looked distinctly foreign.

They were shown upstairs, to the biggest room on the third floor. A golden-haired, fortyish man stood before the door. His skin and hair color, along with his deep-carved features, made it easy to guess that he, too, was from another land. Perhaps Shaoh, Maomao thought, although his skin tone made him appear to be from slightly farther north.

“Pardon me.” A woman, also foreign-looking, came up and began patting Maomao down, checking for anything dangerous. “What’s this?” she asked.

“Herbal medicine, ma’am. It treats stomachaches.”

“And this?”

“Salve, ma’am. It treats burns.”

“And this?”

“A bandage, ma’am. It’s for the treatment of injuries.”

This went on for some time. Maomao was just lucky she’d decided not to tuck her needles or scissors into her robes. They were in her bag.

Chue was next up for a body search. Maomao wondered if it might take even longer than it had for herself, but it was over in a flash. Maomao found the triumphant grin Chue gave her strangely galling.

Lihaku wasn’t going to have any qualms about someone searching him, but Maomao wasn’t so sure about Baryou. To her surprise, though, he didn’t flinch. No, wait. He’d fainted standing up.

Are we really sure he should be here? Maomao was growing increasingly anxious, but at last they were allowed into the room.

The huge chamber was full of exotic-looking furniture, not to mention a massive canopied bed. Beside the bed was a middle-aged woman in a foreign-style skirt. She was slim and black haired, and there was a tinge of green in her eyes.

Only Maomao approached her; Chue stayed about five steps back, while Lihaku and Baryou took up station by the wall near the door.

“Thank you for coming. The young mistress, she...” the woman began, and other than a polite bow, launched directly into explaining the patient’s condition. She seemed to want Maomao to conduct the examination before any such frivolities as introductions.

“If I may, then.” Maomao pulled back the bed curtain to find a young woman with an angular face and cheeks dappled with freckles. Maomao felt unaccustomed fondness for that. The young woman had platinum hair and blue eyes; she looked to be twelve or thirteen, but then, foreigners often looked much older than the Linese. Perhaps it was safe to assume that she was somewhat younger than she appeared.

So that would make her about ten? Maybe even younger than that?

They had told Maomao that she was suffering with a headache, but she looked notably engaged.

“I’d like to check your condition. May I touch you?” Maomao asked.

“No-you-may-not” was all the girl said.

Maomao gave the middle-aged woman a questioning tilt of her head.

“She means that you are to conduct the examination without physical contact with the young lady,” said the woman, who, unlike her young mistress, spoke fluent Linese.

“If-you-are-a-truly-great-doctor-you-can-do-it,” the girl added.

Okay, wait. This is not what I signed up for.

Why was she even here, then? She felt like the girl was mocking her. Maomao looked at the young patient, wondering how she was to achieve this patently unreasonable demand of doing an entire medical examination without touching her.

“How close would be acceptable, then?” she asked.

The girl cocked her head, apparently not understanding what Maomao had said. Her attendant whispered in her ear.

“The young mistress will permit you to examine her from a distance of sixty centimeters.”

Sixty centimeters?! A lot of examining she could do from there!

“All right,” Maomao said. “How much clothing is the young mistress willing to remove?” She suspected the answer was not a scrap, but it was worth asking.

“If she may leave her underwear on, and if the menfolk will leave the room, that would be acceptable.”

Huh?

She was willing to do all that?

On top of everything else, conducting an examination of a patient who didn’t really speak your language presented problems of its own. Is her head pounding, or throbbing, or aching? Maomao could ask, but she was convinced she wouldn’t get an answer.

To be fair, even being able to speak a few words of Linese was a respectable achievement—it just wasn’t enough to really make herself understood.

“In that case, please allow me to ask about her symptoms.”

Chue took up position next to Maomao, brush in hand and ready to write, simply oozing the confidence of a woman who could get things done. She was ready to make some notes.

“When did she first feel this pain?”

“It started about ten days ago. She looked rather unwell before that, but we assumed it was because of the unaccustomed lifestyle she’s been living the past few months. I’m embarrassed to admit that we overlooked the possibility of actual illness,” the attendant explained.

“What kind of pain is it?”

“A dull ache, she says. However, sometimes it becomes so intense that she drops to her knees.”

If it was so bad that it brought her to her knees, that sounded like a serious problem. But something nagged at Maomao.

“Has she been getting enough exercise the last several months?”

“I should say so. I might even say she’s been getting a bit too much.” The woman looked at the girl and seemed a bit exasperated. The child was lying placidly in bed at the moment, but apparently she could be quite a firecracker.

“How’s her appetite?”

“Appetite? Well, as a matter of fact, she started eating less about two months ago, but we also attributed that to the unfamiliar environment. The last few days, though, she’s eaten hardly anything at all, and can only take liquid foods.”

“So the symptoms include headache and severe loss of appetite?”

“That’s correct.”

Ahh. This is starting to make sense.

She didn’t want to be touched or examined at close distance, but she was willing to take off her clothes. Maomao thought she knew what might explain all those things—but she still didn’t have quite enough evidence to say for certain.

“Miss Chue.”

“Yes, Miss Maomao? How can I help?”

“Could you get these for me?” Maomao dashed off a list of the items she needed on the memo paper.

“I’m on my way!” Chue dipped her head and hustled out of the room.

“We’re going to prepare some medicine. Please be patient,” Maomao said.

“Did... Did you really figure it out just from that?” the attendant asked, looking at Maomao suspiciously. And well she might: the young woman hadn’t removed her clothing or even let Maomao touch her. It was easy to think Maomao was blowing smoke.

“If this draught works, it will confirm my diagnosis. Or am I not permitted to administer medicine either?”

“Of course you may.”

“Is there any foodstuff that disagrees with the young lady?”

“Nothing in particular, I think. As long as the medicine isn’t unbearably bitter, it should be all right.”

Well, that at least was reassuring.

Chue came trotting back into the room. “Thank you for waiting!” She held up a glass. It carried a sweet smell of citrus and honey, and the glass was perspiring.

Maomao transferred the drink to another cup and took a sip. “This is simply to demonstrate it’s not poisonous,” she said.

“May I try it as well?” the attendant asked. Maomao gave it to her. She took a sip and said, “This is medicine? It tastes...good. It’s so cool and refreshing.”

“Yes, ma’am. If you would be so kind as to ask the young lady to drink it.”

“All right.”

The attendant took the glass to the young lady, who blinked but took a hesitant sip. She pursed her lips and slowly drank a little bit at a time. Finally she stopped drinking at all, her face all scrunched up.

“What’s the matter? Please, drink it down,” Maomao said.

The attendant whispered something to the girl, but Maomao couldn’t catch what it was. She didn’t need to, though; she had the proof she needed.

“So I can’t touch or approach her, but you can?” she asked the attendant. “I think the problem is in the young lady’s mouth. A back tooth, I suspect. If you would kindly check for me?”

“A—A back tooth?” The attendant tried to look, but the girl shut her mouth fast.

“Perhaps you could poke her in the cheek,” Maomao suggested.

The attendant tried it. Maomao almost found the moment funny; it reminded her of Yao and En’en, back in the capital.

When the attendant pressed on the girl’s left cheek, she flinched visibly.

I thought so.

“The source of her headache is a rotten tooth,” Maomao announced.

A minor indisposition as of several months prior, worsening rapidly over the past ten days. Most likely, a slightly infected tooth had been left until the hole had gotten too big. At first it would simply sting, causing the girl to eat a little less eagerly. She would start to chew on the right side of her mouth, to avoid the bad tooth. That would put strain on her shoulder and neck, causing the headaches.

The girl had wanted to hide the bad tooth, but she couldn’t conceal how poorly she was feeling. So she covered by reporting only the headache; meanwhile, her impossible stipulations were presumably intended to avoid having to treat the rotten tooth.

The attendant was looking at the young lady as if she had a few choice words she wished she could share with her—maybe in their native tongue. But since Maomao and the others were present, she refrained.

They did need to do something about that tooth, however, and as such, the attendant abandoned her dignity in favor of expedience. She began a distinctly unladylike wrestling match with the girl, who proved every bit the firebrand she had sounded like.

“May I be permitted to touch the young lady and examine the inside of her mouth?” Maomao asked.

“Y-Yes, please go right ahead,” the attendant said, keeping the “young lady” firmly in hand despite the grip the girl had on her hair. The attendant seemed completely different than she had at first.

The young woman, overpowered, was left with no choice but to open her mouth.

“Yikes! It’s completely black. This must be extremely painful,” Maomao said. This would be way beyond a bit of tingling when she drank cold water. Packing the tooth with medicinal herbs was one way of treating such a problem, but for a tooth this far gone it seemed unlikely to help.

“Can you treat it?” the attendant asked.

“Pulling it would be quicker,” Maomao informed her. “It’s a milk tooth; it shouldn’t cause any problems to do that.” She didn’t know how much the girl could understand, but she froze with her mouth still open.

“All right. If you’d be so kind.”

The girl didn’t seem to know much more than the smattering of Linese she’d spoken at first, so she didn’t quite follow the conversation. She understood, however, that she was in imminent danger, and she began to thrash so hard that the guard outside had to be called in to help hold her down.

She could stand to be a little bit ladylike! It was getting so bad that Maomao was contemplating calling Lihaku to help too.

Once Maomao was sure they had the girl’s mouth held open so she wouldn’t get any digits bitten off, she plunged her fingers in.

“Ah, it’s loose. This will come right out.”

“What would you like to do for an anesthetic?” Chue asked. “Miss Maomao?”

“An anesthetic would hardly make a difference. It won’t take long. She’ll just have to be so kind as to put up with it.” The girl was healthy enough to require two full-grown adults to hold her down; she would be fine.

Even Maomao hadn’t packed forceps for tooth-pulling, so she asked for some to be brought.

“All right. This isn’t going to be pleasant, but it’ll be over in a second.”

All attitude of deference toward the young mistress had evaporated. The attendant, in particular, looked furious that the girl had kept the tooth pain a secret from her, and was hell-bent on getting the problem fixed.

The girl was pinioned, her mouth held open; she couldn’t have screamed if she’d wanted to.

I really am sorry about this, Maomao mentally told the girl—and then she grabbed the rotten tooth with the forceps and pulled. The girl pulled back almost as hard, but she was surprised to discover that the tooth popped right out.

“There we go. I’m going to put some medicine on there.” Maomao daubed on something to stop the bleeding, then gave the girl a wadded bandage to bite down on. “When the bleeding stops, throw the bandage away,” she said. “If it doesn’t stop, have her bite on another bandage and wait until it does. The young mistress should avoid any vigorous activity. I would also advise taking it easy on the wine—but I gather she’s a little young for that anyway.”

She also gave them some painkillers, although she didn’t think they would be necessary.

The attendant and the guard both looked bedraggled, while the young woman was staring at the gaping hole in her milk tooth.

Judging by how many of her adult teeth she has, I’d say she’s about ten years old.

Maomao gave them the medicine and a written sheet of instructions, then got ready to go home.

“Amazing! I knew I was right to ask you,” said Hulan. Maomao could practically see him rubbing his hands obsequiously. “When they first told me to find a female physician, I didn’t know what I would do!”

“Yes, it must be difficult in the western capital,” Maomao replied. In light of what she had learned, she suspected it was the young woman who had requested the female doctor—something she had assumed they wouldn’t be able to find anywhere around here. One more strategy for concealing her bad tooth.

These brats. No end of trouble.

With the job successfully concluded, Maomao was back in the medical office.

“Great! That’s it for us,” Chue said, trotting away with her Baryou basket on her back.

“You know, what was he even there for?” Lihaku pondered.

“Search me,” replied Maomao, who still worried that the basket looked pretty cramped. Well, nothing to do but get back to work.

○●○

“Age—twelve, thirteen. Possibly a bit younger. Platinum hair, blue eyes.”

“What do you think? Ring any bells?” Chue asked her husband in his basket.

“One. Just one. But...”

“But what?”

“That person is a boy.”

“Hoh, hoh!” Chue pictured the girl with the rotten tooth. Yes, at that age, a child’s gender could still be concealed. “If it were a boy, who would it be?”

“There’s a nation that’s part of Hokuaren, the kingdom of the Ri people. I believe the fourth son of their royal family matches that age and description. I recognized a few of the words the ‘young mistress’ used while they were holding her down—they were oaths in the Ri language.”

There was a tendency in Li to lump together every country in Hokuaren, to the north, and view it as a single entity, but in fact it was the name for a collection of different nations.

There was also a tendency for people to think of Chue’s husband as nothing but feeble, but he was by no means incompetent.

Baryou’s job was to look at every scrap of paper that came to the Moon Prince, and to understand even those things that escaped the Prince himself.

“Now, why would someone so important stay put in the western capital instead of going home to his country? Ooh, it’s like a little mystery!”

“I only pray that it’s not really him. My stomach hurts.” After that there were no more sounds from the basket, as if to say Please, speak no more. So Chue returned silently to their room. She would have to make something nice and easy on the stomach for dinner.