The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 13 - Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Ah-Duo’s Truth

The voice of a rambunctious boy echoed around Ah-Duo’s palace. A lady-in-waiting chased him as he raced back and forth around the huge pavilion.

“Slow down! That’s dangerous!”

“Don’t wanna!” The boy stuck out his tongue and roundly ignored the serving woman. In his failure to look where he was going, however, he ran smack into Ah-Duo.

“Oh! Lady Ah-Duo,” the lady-in-waiting said, bowing her head apologetically. All the women had been with Ah-Duo since her time in the rear palace, and that helped everything go smoothly.

“Ha ha ha! You’re looking lively. Just make sure you watch where you’re going next time,” she said, helping the little boy to his feet.

“Sorry, Lady Ah-Duo,” the boy said.

Another boy came up and tugged on her hand. “Lady Ah-Duo! Wanna play hide-and-seek?”

“Afraid I can’t today. I’ve got a visitor coming.” She mussed the child’s hair, then did the same to all the other kids.

The children at Ah-Duo’s palace were all survivors of the Shi clan. “Yue,” the Moon Prince, had asked her to give them a safe haven.

They still didn’t know what had happened to their parents. Ah-Duo went out of her way not to tell them. The sharper children had figured out on their own that they should keep it to themselves, and the younger ones had forgotten their parents. They all had to forget that they were ever members of the Shi clan. If they ever proclaimed that they were, then they might well be headed for the gallows, no matter how Ah-Duo or Yue tried to protect them.

A slim youth approached. “Now, let’s stay out of Lady Ah-Duo’s way. Come over here.” This person was handsome enough to make young ladies swoon, but she was not a man.

“Will you take care of them, Sui?”

“Of course, milady.”

Suirei was another Shi clan survivor, and she was also the granddaughter of the former emperor. She, too, had been given harbor at Ah-Duo’s residence because, officially, she could not exist.

Suirei was clever and a clear thinker, and knew much about medicine. It was a waste, Ah-Duo thought, for such a distinguished person to languish in this pavilion, but there was no choice. Suirei could live in hiding or she could not live at all.

“Ah, yes,” Ah-Duo said. “Maomao’s coming. You don’t want to see her, Sui?”

Ah-Duo had sent Maomao a letter; Maomao had responded and was on her way.

“Maomao...?” Suirei paused. “I don’t think I will.”

“Aw, and you looked like such good friends on our trip.”

When she’d gone to the western capital, Ah-Duo had induced Suirei to come along. She and Maomao had even ended up treating a wounded man together.

“It’s only your imagination, I’m sure.” Suirei took some of the children by the hand.

“Shame, when she’s one of the few people you can actually talk to...”

Very few knew about Suirei. Outwardly, her existence was not even acknowledged. If you didn’t talk to people when you could, meet them when you could, you would gradually be forgotten.

“I won’t be around forever,” Ah-Duo mumbled, scratching the back of her head. Then she went inside.

Maomao showed up right on time. The reason it had taken her a while to make it over after sending her letter was presumably because, unlike the retired and hidden Ah-Duo, Maomao was quite busy.

“Lady Ah-Duo,” Maomao said. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yes! Quite a long time,” chirped Chue, who was with Maomao. She’d been seriously injured in the western capital, but she kept right on smiling, just like she always had. It was Chue to whom Ah-Duo had entrusted her letter to Maomao.

“Ha ha ha! Sounds like you had a spot of trouble in the west,” Ah-Duo said. She was reclining on a couch, sipping some juice. She could certainly have had wine available—Maomao would have appreciated it—but considering what they were going to talk about, it didn’t seem quite appropriate.

“A lot happened,” said Maomao.

“Oh, yes, quite a lot! Would you like to hear Miss Chue’s story, Lady Ah-Duo?” Chue was being unusually proactive in this conversation. It seemed to spark Maomao’s curiosity, for she looked back and forth between the two women. She must have been surprised when she received Ah-Duo’s letter from none other than Chue.

“What exactly are you and Miss Chue, Lady Ah-Duo?” she asked.

“Considering that I used Chue to deliver my letter to you, surely you at least have an educated guess?” Ah-Duo took a baked treat from the table and took a bite. It was buttery and smelled lovely.

“May I take it that you’re Miss Chue’s real master, milady?”

Indeed, she had hit the mark.

“That’s right,” Ah-Duo said.

“Yes indeedy!” added Chue.

“His Majesty handed Chue off to me not long after I moved here.”

“And me barely back from giving birth! I show up and they say No, no, you work somewhere else now! Isn’t it just terrible?” Chue pretended as if she were weeping.

“It would explain why you and the Moon Prince never quite seem to be acting in concert,” Maomao said. She sighed, but it sounded like it made sense to her.

“If I don’t have to explain, so much the better.” Ah-Duo offered the treats to Chue and Maomao. Chue immediately began to help herself; indeed, she was probably welcome to. She’d lost the use of her dominant arm because she had faithfully carried out Ah-Duo’s orders. Her mistress was probably ready to wink at a bit of outrageous face-stuffing. “You’re correct—Chue serves me.”

“Yes,” Chue affirmed, wiping some crumbs from the corner of her mouth. “Miss Chue was told that Lady Ah-Duo’s orders rank even above His Majesty’s.”

“But all this time you’ve acted like you’re serving Ji—I mean, the Moon Prince,” Maomao said.

“Feel free to call him Jinshi; I don’t mind,” Ah-Duo said. “I call him Yue, myself.”

Maomao looked hard at her. Maybe she had a sense of what Ah-Duo was going to say today—and that sense was probably correct.

“Lady Ah-Duo said that my job was to make the Moon Prince happy,” Chue said, and Ah-Duo nodded.

“So I did.”

Maomao remained silent. She hesitated, Ah-Duo knew, because sometimes even when you were sure about something, you weren’t sure it was right to say it. That was why Ah-Duo would be the one to give it voice.

Chue leaned back in her chair, knowing she had nothing more to contribute. She was normally a very lively presence, but she understood her role. Ah-Duo was confident that Chue would tell no one of what she was about to say to Maomao.

“Why would I order her to do that?” Ah-Duo began. “It’s because Yue is my son by birth.”

As far as Ah-Duo could tell, Maomao didn’t appear surprised. Instead she glanced away from Ah-Duo, looked at the ground, and then gave a little sigh.

She looked like someone who’d been told the answer to a question they wouldn’t have asked.

“From your reaction, I take it you already guessed the connection between me and Yue long ago.”

“I thought it seemed like a possibility.”

“And the possibility that the real Imperial younger brother and my son were switched?”

After a moment, Maomao said, “Yes.” It was clear from her expression that she had strongly suspected, but would have preferred not to actually know. Ah-Duo occasionally heard talk about Yue and Maomao from others, but now she thought she saw why their relationship wasn’t getting anywhere. Maomao was doing everything in her power to pretend it didn’t exist.

“Why would you tell me this, milady?”

“Oh, come now. Every rumor I heard made it sound like things between you and Yue had developed in the western capital.”

Maomao immediately scowled at Chue. Maomao was presumably the kind who didn’t like talk of her love life getting around. Ah-Duo knew her pain: She’d often been teased about her relationship with His Majesty, and more than once she’d been on the point of strangling one of the other palace women. At the time, Ah-Duo had viewed His Majesty as merely a milk sibling and an old friend. She remembered how profoundly unpleasant it had been to endure people’s taunts.

The hell of it was, when it came to other people’s romances, she suddenly saw the fun in it.

She shook her head: No, no! It was wrong to do to others something she hadn’t enjoyed suffering herself.

“Yue is quite a handful, if I may say so myself,” she said.

“I’m aware,” Maomao said with a distant look.

“At the same time, he’s also, well, a young man. I expect he’ll summon you to his palace in due course.”

“Chue gave me that summons along with your letter, Lady Ah-Duo.”

Ah-Duo looked at Chue, who made a point of whistling innocently.

“Do you understand what it means to answer that summons?”

Ah-Duo didn’t know for sure if Yue had called Maomao to his palace because he wished to establish relations between them as a man and a woman. Maybe he just wanted to talk about the weather or ask for her advice on something. But in the general understanding, when a man of the nobility called a woman to his personal residence, it was as good as a command to spend the night with him.

“I come from the pleasure district,” Maomao said, heaving a sigh.

“Yue’s not just another trick,” Ah-Duo cautioned her. “The most noble blood in the nation runs in his veins.”

After a second, Maomao said, “I’m more familiar than most with how to avoid pregnancy. I intend to make sure there’s nothing to regret afterward.”

Maomao would always take the realistic perspective. As Yue was Ah-Duo’s son, he was the child not of the former emperor but of the current one—and the difference between His Majesty’s younger brother and the reigning Emperor’s own eldest son was immense. On the one hand there was the Empress’s boy, not even seven yet. On the other, the son of His Majesty’s consort, already well into adulthood. From the Empress’s perspective, the only thing she could do was pray that nothing happened to His Majesty before her own son had reached maturity.

Li functioned on a system of hereditary succession, with inheritance usually going to the oldest son. And it was Yue who, by this calculation, was closest to the throne.

Empress Gyokuyou had much foreign blood, and no small number of the Emperor’s advisors looked askance at the young prince’s red hair. Some also made the case to the Emperor that he should prefer Consort Lihua’s son on the basis of consanguinity.

In the past, Ah-Duo had conspired with the Empress Dowager to exchange their infants. She could not turn back time; Jinshi would have to live in his false position, not knowing the truth.

Ah-Duo could hardly turn motherly at this late date. Yet nonetheless she asked Maomao, “If something does come of it, would you consider raising the child in secret?”

In spite of all antipregnancy medications and abortifacients, a child would be conceived when a child was conceived.

“Might it not be that tens or hundreds of lives could easily be stolen away for that child’s sake?” Maomao feared that political war could break out. “And if so, wouldn’t it be much easier for me alone to pierce my belly with a long needle?”

“A needle? Is that how you usually do abortions in the pleasure district?”

“Do you think it would be better for me to drink quicksilver, be punched in the stomach, or maybe dunk myself in freezing water?”

Maomao understood. She was not a woman who would fall head over heels for Yue just because of his good looks. She knew what resolve would be required if she accepted his feelings.

All the more reason Ah-Duo pitied her.

“That’s not the only thing. If you accept Yue’s affections, Maomao, you’ll never be able to leave this country again.”

“Most people in this country can’t leave it. Most of them can’t even leave the land where they live.”

“True enough.”

The life of a Linese woman was decided by the household she was born into. The better a girl’s family was, the less free she was to leave her home; there were even those who spent their entire lives inside the family estate.

Nonetheless, Ah-Duo looked into the distance. “If I said that someday I’d like to leave this land and learn more of the great wide world, would you think me naive?”

“No, ma’am.” Maomao shook her head. “In far places you’ll find many things we don’t have here. And not just things—words, cultural achievements, as well as medicinal herbs, drugs, and methods of treatment. It’s only natural—with a different climate and environment come different illnesses!”

Maomao seemed to grow notably more passionate as this declaration went on. Ah-Duo sensed in this woman a kindred interest in foreign lands. She’d been to the western capital twice, which was more traveling than many people did in their entire lives. Her knowledge was certainly broader and deeper than that of most women her age.

“Heh heh! My dream ended when I was fourteen,” Ah-Duo said. She thought back to when she had been at liberty. As the daughter of the crown prince’s nursemaid, she’d been brought up as a milk sibling to the current Emperor.

“Call me Yoh,” her “younger brother” had said. The name meant “sun.” Yue was Yue, “the moon,” precisely because he formed a pair with the sun, but could never surpass it.

Ah-Duo dressed in men’s clothing, and she and her “little brother” had snitched snacks together, climbed trees, occasionally played hooky from their teachers’ classes, and laughed with each other when they teased Gaoshun, who was in many ways like an older brother to them.

If Ah-Duo had in fact been a boy, perhaps they would still be doing those things now.

Ah-Duo had regarded Yoh as a friend—but she mustn’t forget. He stood at the very top of the nation’s hierarchy, and Ah-Duo was merely one of his subjects. When she had been asked to be his “instructor” she could not refuse.

Again and again she’d thought of trying to get out of it, but there was no way she could do that. Eventually she’d arrived at a sense of calm resignation: She was his companion on the path, she saw. The emperor was a man who had no freedom, not from the moment he was born. Setting aside the foolish ruler who had forgotten his role—Yoh was too smart for that. Only within the walls of the rear palace could he do as he pleased. He knew that when he received the emperor’s crown, it would bind him hand and foot his whole life long.

To Ah-Duo, Yoh was a friend, but to him, she was not. She knew there could be no equality between a man and a woman, yet all the same Ah-Duo felt as if her feathers had been plucked.

Yes, the members of the royal family lacked freedom from the time of their birth—yet they could also steal the liberty of anyone they chose.

Yoh hadn’t realized. He’d forgotten that he stood in the place of the one who steals, and he’d made Ah-Duo his “instructor,” and made her spend the night with him.

Now Ah-Duo was speaking to Maomao, who looked set to walk the same path she herself had. As a mother, perhaps it would have been right for her to encourage her own son’s blossoming love. Yet her conscience—or perhaps, rather, the pity she felt for her memories of her old self—caused her to say, “At this moment, it’s still possible for you to escape. I would help you.”

Maomao looked dubious at that.

“Oh, that look,” said Ah-Duo. “I still have some modest privilege left, you know.”

Less than modest, really, but if she stretched, she could manage something.

It was not Maomao but Chue who responded: “Now, now, wait just a moment!”

“What?”

“Lady Ah-Duo, I can’t square this circle. If you do that, I’ll never be able to carry out my orders! Didn’t you say my job was to ‘make the Moon Prince happy’?”

Ah-Duo laughed. “Come, now. If a man can be despondent over losing one single woman, well, that’s all the more man he is. Surely a talented servant could find others to fill the gap?”

“Now you’re talking silly talk.” Chue crossed her arms and tilted her head.

Ah-Duo had once been part of a banquet in the western capital that had doubled, in a way, as a chance for Yue to meet potential matches. Everyone gathered there had been present in hopes of becoming the consort of the Imperial younger brother, so Ah-Duo had resolved not to intercede: Anyone he might pick had been there because they had hoped he might pick her.

After that, and after briefly being under the misimpression that Yue had some strange proclivities, Ah-Duo had been relieved when she heard that it was simply that his heart was set on Maomao. That, she was confident, meant that no vixen or villainess would take advantage of him.

However, Ah-Duo also knew Maomao, and she couldn’t help seeing herself in the young woman.

Now Maomao looked at Ah-Duo. “Lady Ah-Duo. I couldn’t care less about Miss Chue’s mission, but it was because she accepted it that I’m in the position I am now.”

“Are you sure about this? You won’t regret it?”

“I mean to negotiate as best I can to ensure that I don’t.”

“Hee hee! Planning to have a big greenhouse built on the palace grounds?” Chue drawled.

“Sounds pretty good to me.”

The fact that Maomao and Chue could banter even at a moment like this went to show how well they got along. If anything, Ah-Duo’s words seemed to strengthen Maomao’s resolve.

“Maybe an orchard while you’re at it? Miss Chue would love to be able to stuff herself with fresh lychees! Just like one of those legendary beauties.”

“It might be possible, if we grow them in my greenhouse. But too many lychees can make you dizzy.”

“Oh me, oh my! Surely a hundred or so should be all right, though?”

“Stick to about ten.”

It was a silly conversation, but somehow, Ah-Duo found herself relaxing as she listened. She had always thought Maomao was a young woman who simply lived as she pleased, anyone else’s expectations be damned. She would have to apologize for having misjudged her. Though she was free, Maomao was a more flexible person than Ah-Duo had realized. Faced with a confined place, she didn’t seek to escape or even destroy it, but changed her form in order to get whatever she could out of the situation.

It was a way of living that had never occurred to the fourteen-year-old Ah-Duo.

“But it’s certainly one way to go about life,” she murmured. She remembered the request she had once made of Yoh: “Make me the mother of the country.”

She had been sure that, if those were the strings she attached, he would give up on keeping her around. They could just say they’d been joking, that it was all in good fun.

But they had been the wrong words.

“Let me remain your friend.”

That was what she should have said, even if it was futile. She should have told him what she was really thinking.

Even now, some twenty years after that promise had been made, Ah-Duo couldn’t be apart from Yoh. She had left the rear palace, but found herself faced with the unorthodox measure of being sequestered in an annex. Normally, a high consort—even a former one—would have had to continue living within the rear palace walls.

Because she had been given her own residence even after being expelled from the rear palace, no one could or did ignore Ah-Duo.

Simple banishment might have been easier. Instead Ah-Duo was kept here in her pavilion, entrusted with Suirei and the Shi clan children. As if to tell her that even now that she was no longer the Emperor’s “instructor,” no longer his consort, she still had work to do.

Abruptly, Ah-Duo sighed. “Have I become a weight around his neck?” Was Yoh now trying to constrain not just Ah-Duo, but her son as well?

And was that son trying to constrain Maomao?

That was the thought that had made her ache at her powerlessness, that had led to her suggestion to Maomao. But she had misread the young woman. Maomao was far more flexible and strong and stubborn than Ah-Duo.

“Maomao,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Is there anything you want?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“I don’t know much about herbs and all that, but I could give you a treasure from my time as consort. If you sold it, I presume it would bring in enough to buy you a nice medicine or two.”

The suggestion was Ah-Duo’s way of apologizing for having called Maomao out here. Covering one’s faults with money and gifts was somewhat crass, but she didn’t expect Maomao to object.

“A treasure, ma’am? You wouldn’t happen to have any pearls, would you?”

“Pearls? That’s unexpected. Are you a fan of them?”

“Oh, yes! They’re good for eye diseases, skin problems, and all kinds of other things!” Maomao’s eyes lit up. “I’m honestly more concerned about quantity than quality—I’m just going to grind them up, anyway.”

She knew perfectly well that any of Ah-Duo’s accessories would have been gifts from His Majesty, but she didn’t hide the fact that she planned to destroy them.

Ah-Duo couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Ha ha ha ha! Take whatever you like. And what about coral—do you need some of that?”

“If I could, ma’am!”

“Oh! What a waste!” Chue was practically sucking her fingers in an I wish I could have some gesture, but she soon replaced her fingers with baked treats.

Ah-Duo laughed uproariously, and privately she made a wish:

Don’t let Yue walk the same path as Yoh.