The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 14 - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: A Duel and Its Price

The factional strife in the military divisions continued in the following days. At first, Maomao couldn’t grasp what the “Empress faction” and “Empress Dowager faction” even were. After serving days and days near the training ground, however, she couldn’t have avoided the talk if she’d wanted to.

The Empress of the Empress faction was, needless to say, Empress Gyokuyou. Not that the faction had formed at her instigation, of course, but her father Gyokuen was involved. One by one, relatives of hers from the western capital had begun to fill positions at court. Moreover, up-and-coming bureaucrats and soldiers from the provinces, along with relatively newly named families, had begun to lend their support to Gyokuen, until as a whole they were being referred to as a new faction.

The opposing Empress Dowager faction was focused around Anshi’s family. The family of the Empress Dowager had long filled the higher bureaucratic positions, but had never been paid much attention. Why not? Because the former emperor—or, more to the point, the empress regnant—had never much liked them. This was not to say that the Empress Dowager was smitten with her family: How could she trust the parents who had sent her as a little girl into the rear palace of an emperor who preferred little girls?

However, the Empress Dowager’s faction included Grand General Lu. Formerly a soldier, he had protected the young Empress Dowager and the current Emperor, rising quickly through the ranks. Unlike Anshi’s family, he had also had the favor of the empress regnant, which counted for much. Many of the houses of long standing, which didn’t care much for this upstart new faction, aligned themselves with the Empress Dowager’s people.

In order to decrease friction among the factions, Lu had been promoted from Grand Marshal to Grand General at the same time as the Gyoku were made a named clan.

Whatever the case, while the bigwigs might be maneuvering carefully and cautiously, the same was not true of the youth on the training ground; their skirmishes continued unabated.

Furthermore, each of the factions backed different candidates for the next emperor. The Empress’s faction, naturally, supported Empress Gyokuyou’s son, the current heir apparent. The Empress Dowager’s faction, meanwhile, did not look kindly upon an heir with so much western blood in his veins, especially not when Lihua had a little boy of the same age. No doubt they also disliked the fact that the Imperial younger brother, who had been the heir apparent for so many years, had been shuffled aside.

The Imperial younger brother would be the Empress Dowager’s son, whereas the heir apparent is the Empress Dowager’s grandson. He’d be closer in terms of blood, making him that much easier to justify as part of the government.

Maomao, who knew the truth of the “Imperial younger brother,” could only try to keep her face utterly expressionless at the idea.

As for the neutral faction, well, she would leave them out of the discussion entirely.

Maomao didn’t understand politics. All she could do was focus on the work in front of her.

“Heeey! We have an emergency!” someone shouted. Maomao decided to leave her inventory of the medicine cabinet for later. There were so many similar emergency cases, she felt like she was doing the same thing every day.

The patient this time had bruises between his chest and abdomen from being beaten: pale, purplish blotches caused by internal bleeding. He was a young man, still in his early twenties.

I’ve seen him somewhere before, Maomao thought, squinting at the man. Just recently, it seemed to her. She could almost place him, but it wasn’t quite coming to her.

“It looks like he tried to hold out longer than he should have,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” the man with the patient answered with rather unsoldierly politeness. “He put up with it for quite a while.”

Well, now, who’s this guy?

Maomao also thought she remembered the smiling young soldier.

“Master Ujun,” she said.

He was Lishu’s half-brother, whom the patriarch of the U clan had chosen to make an example of.

“At your service, milady of the La clan. I’m honored that you remembered my name, but I’m forbidden from using the character U. Please, just call me Jun.”

He was acting very humble.

Maomao looked at Ujun and thought back to the meeting of the named some days before.

Wait! He’s that guy!

The injured man was the one who had attached himself to Yao, the love-letter writer of indeterminate name. At the meeting, he had been done in by Lahan’s Brother—so who had worked him over this time?

“Urrrghh!” Mister Love Letters groaned. Bruises like those hurt worse as time went on—but the noise he was making suggested something more than just bruising.

“His ribs,” Ujun said on behalf of Mister Love Letters, who could only make pained noises.

“Are they broken?”

“Cracked, maybe. He did get sent flying quite a distance.”

That much was obvious, and Maomao suspected Ujun had not been the one to do it.

“What did he get hit with? These marks don’t look like they came from a wooden training sword.”

“No, it was a bare hand.”

“An empty hand? Of what, a bear?” The bruises were so vicious that even the normally stone-faced Dr. Li cracked a joke about it. Maomao blinked in spite of herself.

She decided to let Dr. Li handle the initial treatment; she went to get bandages to secure the collarbone and a cold compress to reduce the swelling. If there was damage to the internal organs, they would need surgical tools too.

“How’s he look?” she asked Dr. Li as she returned to the cot.

“He seems to have just avoided any internal damage, although of course we’ll keep an eye on his progress. Help me restrain him.”

“What should we do to cool the patient?”

With an Imperial family member one might be able to afford ice, but that would be a luxury for a wounded soldier. They might get chilly well water if they were lucky.

“Get a rag ready. But first, we need some painkillers.” Dr. Li was evidently going to prioritize setting the bone over cooling the body.

“Yes, sir.”

Despite having awakened to his muscularity in the western capital, Dr. Li was an eminently sensible practitioner. The way he studied the patient without muss or fuss was practically pleasant to watch. Mister Love Letters appeared not to have any internal injuries and was taking his medicine obediently. The one thing he couldn’t do was explain the circumstances of his injury.

“Did he get hurt while he was training?” Maomao asked.

“Yes, well, after a manner of speaking,” Ujun replied evasively. Maomao was surprised, in fact, to find him there among the soldiers. One might have described him as gentle—or, less generously, as soft—and he was far smaller than Dr. Li. “There was a bit of an argument, you see, and they decided to settle it with fisticuffs.”

A duel, Maomao figured.

Mister Love Letters does like his duels.

He seemed to have a certain confidence in his skills, but he was very poor at picking his opponents.

“Settle it? My ass...” Mister Love Letters grunted amid his groans, his voice thick. “That man is a monster. Breaking a wooden sword with his bare hands...”

“His bare hands?” Maomao cocked her head inquisitively. That story sounded familiar.

Who was it?

She was about to ask who had done it, but Dr. Li got there first.

“Just what on earth could you have been arguing about?” he demanded. Depending on the circumstances, they might have to report it to the higher-ups. Recently, there had been a great many injuries on account of factional strife, and they would have to make a written report if it had happened again.

“It was really nothing much,” Ujun said with a pained look.

This, however, incensed Mister Love Letters. “What are you calling nothing much?!” His stomach still hurt, though, and the moment he made this outburst, he clutched his abdomen where he’d been hit. “You... You don’t care if somebody mocks your own sister?” he continued.

“No, for I’ve told myself that whatever anyone may say of Lady Lishu at this point, it’s nothing to do with me. In fact, I should think it would be rather more disagreeable to her if anyone should think I was related to her.”

“I get it. Someone insulted a friend’s sister, and you got angry and challenged the ruffian to a duel,” said Dr. Li, looking to Mister Love Letters to see if this was right.

“No, sir, not quite,” Ujun said. “It was Master Yuuen here who insulted my half-sister. Another soldier who happened to be passing by got upset, started a fight over it, and Yuuen lost.”

Evidently, Mister Love Letters’s real name was Yuuen. As there was no need for Maomao to remember it, however, she expected she would forget.

“Excuse me?” Dr. Li said, cocking his head.

Maomao imitated him, and tried to summarize the situation. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. First, your little sister was insulted.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Ujun.

“And you were the one who insulted her.”

“Yes,” Mister Love Letters replied.

“Meanwhile, a completely separate third party who happened to be walking by got angry, a duel-cum-brawl started, and you got hurt. And the guy whose sister you insulted brought you here.”

“Uh-huh.”

Maomao and Dr. Li both looked quizzical again.

“Don’t you think you’re a little too forgiving?” Maomao said, looking at Ujun.

“I shouldn’t say so. The Shin and U clans have finally reconciled. I can’t let them come to grief again because of me.”

In other words, he wouldn’t let a member of the Shin clan, even one like this, go abandoned, even if that person had also insulted Lishu.

I wonder what his clan leader would make of that.

Perhaps in reaction to all that had happened, the U leader seemed to dote on Lishu. He might even have preferred if Ujun had left Mister Love Letters to his fate for insulting her.

“We’ll need to at least know who it was that hurt you,” said Dr. Li.

“...sen,” Mister Love Letters mumbled.

“Come again?”

“I said, Basen,” he answered, not sounding very happy.

“Master Basen did this?” Maomao asked, but even as she spoke it made sense. Mister Love Letters’s wounds were severe, but coming from Basen, it was understandable. In fact... “You’re lucky he didn’t burst any of your organs,” she muttered. She looked back almost fondly on the way he had snapped those bandits’ arms like twigs in the western capital. Further back in her memory, there was the time he had broken a lion’s nose. He’d probably tried not to use his full strength as best he could today, but he’d still broken several ribs—and Mister Love Letters was lucky it hadn’t been worse.

“Wha? I defended against his blow with a wooden sword, and look! The sword is broken, and I’ve got—Cough! Cough!” Mister Love Letters still wasn’t in good enough shape to be shouting like that.

I know he lost to Lahan’s Brother, but he did know his way around a fight, more or less.

Mister Love Letters might have been a questionable human being, but he certainly knew how to handle himself.

Dr. Li cinched down the bandages even tighter, as if to instruct Mister Love Letters not to talk.

He fought a bear masquerading as a man. Bad luck.

A person who encountered a bear was fortunate just to live to tell the tale. They should probably be applauding the fact that he was alive at all.

“I’m actually impressed you were able to duel Master Basen. But I would have thought his strength and power were well-known to the other soldiers.”

“When Master Basen duels other soldiers, he often does it at a handicap. He fights bare-handed, unless his opponent is a particularly capable fighter,” Ujun explained.

A monster indeed.

The other day, Mister Love Letters had been beaten by a farmer. Today, a bare-handed opponent. His pride must have been in tatters. He’d done it to himself, though, so Maomao had scant sympathy. Instead she set about preparing painkillers, but she didn’t hurry.

Once they were done treating Mister Love Letters, Ujun left again, politely giving Mister Love Letters his shoulder to lean on. Maomao watched the people-pleasing young man go, then returned to the medical office, where Dr. Li heaved a sigh.

“This is getting to be a lot of trouble,” he said.

“How so, sir?”

Dr. Li scratched his head. “The fighting among the soldiers has gotten bad recently, right? The higher-ups have instructed us to get the story from both sides—the injured party and the person who inflicted the injury. Even if it was just a training incident.”

“Well, we just heard one side. Where’s the problem?”

If Lishu had been the source of the argument, it was understandable why Basen had gotten involved.

“I like to think I understand something about Master Basen, at least a little bit,” Maomao said. “I suspect he could never have ignored a slight against a young woman, let alone a former high consort.”

Maomao put this in the way that seemed the most discreet. In fact, Basen was in love with Lishu, and his sister had even worked on the U clan to bring up the possibility of marriage—but there was no need to tell an outsider like Dr. Li all of that.

“We’ll still have to write it up, but...Master Basen, huh? We can’t exactly bring him in for an interview,” said the doctor.

Maomao didn’t respond, but she had a thought. Her personal impression of Basen wasn’t that frightening. He was the son of the diligent lover of all things cute, Gaoshun, and very much cowed by his father—as well as by his mother, and his older sister; meanwhile, his sister-in-law teased him relentlessly. He could be like a bear in a man’s clothing, charging straight ahead, but if you didn’t bother him, he wouldn’t bother you.

So why does Dr. Li look like he’s bracing himself for disaster?

Maomao might be puzzled, but all most people saw of Basen was that he was one of the elite who served the Imperial younger brother.

“Do you really think I should be talking to him directly?” Dr. Li said.

Come to think of it, Dr. Li didn’t have much contact with Master Basen.

During their time in the western capital, Dr. Li had mostly been at the clinic. Basen had visited the place once, but had been acting on behalf of Jinshi, who had supposedly been there to comfort the patients. As Jinshi’s representative, Basen had been effectively playing the part of an Imperial family member, so it was understandable that Dr. Li might want to keep his distance.

Okay, so he probably didn’t seem as...approachable as usual that day.

“I don’t think you have to worry so much about him,” Maomao offered. “If you tell him it’s a work matter, he won’t twist your arm off or anything.”

“If he’s apt to twist anyone’s arm off, let’s give him Tianyu.”

“Tianyu? Master Basen might twist his head off,” Maomao replied. Dr. Li made the funniest jokes sometimes, she thought—but his eyes weren’t laughing.

“In general, the only people who can speak to members of a named clan on equal terms are high-level bureaucrats or other named clanfolk,” Dr. Li said.

“But didn’t you comport yourself with considerable authority toward those two earlier, doctor?”

True, the young men might not have actually held the characters U or Shin, but they were members of named clans nonetheless.

“Whether or not they come from distinguished families, when I’m providing medical treatment, I outrank them. Dr. Liu always tells us, remember? Never let a patient think they can take you lightly when they’re under your care.”

That was good advice, Maomao acknowledged. You couldn’t let yourself be scared off of giving appropriate medical treatment just because a layperson gave you grief about it.

“Nonetheless, I can’t believe the way that boy acted. I’ve heard that the U clan’s status has nose-dived since Lady Lishu left the rear palace, but still—to take such an attitude even toward Master Basen...” Dr. Li sighed as he cleaned up their tools. He might be brawny now, but he was still very dedicated, and could be quite sympathetic to people. He was a hard worker himself, albeit in a slightly different way from Gaoshun.

“If you’ll pardon my asking, sir, are you married?” Maomao said, hoping the question was not too abrupt.

“No, but I am betrothed—my parents chose the match.”

“I see, sir.”

That’s too bad.

Empress Gyokuyou’s chief lady-in-waiting, Hongniang, was older than Dr. Li, but still a perfect match in Maomao’s opinion—but she wouldn’t even get to bring it up.

“And you think Master Basen has more than just physical challenges standing against him?”

“Yeah. The Ma clan serve the Imperial family directly as bodyguards. Instead of having formal ranks, they simply always serve their masters. But some fools confuse having no rank for having no talent, and try to start fights with them.”

“Sounds like such fools would be lucky to get away with some broken ribs—they could end up with broken heads,” Maomao said as she put the last of the bandages in the cabinet. Dr. Li was proving quite voluble today. “Um, Dr. Li?” she said.

She watched as the physician got out some paper to write his report. He tried to slide it toward her—it seemed to be an attempt to “just happen” to let her see what was written there, but Dr. Li wasn’t cut out for these little charades.

“Is it possible, sir, that you don’t want to go interview Master Basen in order to write your report?”

“W-Well, no, it’s not that...” Dr. Li said, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look Maomao in the eye.

“Are you scared to visit Master Basen, sir?”

“Well, you know, if my work demanded it, I would go...”

He didn’t sound very eager, however.

Maomao clapped her hands. “If you ordered me to, sir, I could go on your behalf.”

“Oh! You would do that?” He sounded like he’d thought she would never ask.

If she had been dealing with anyone else, Maomao might have tried to wring a few extra favors out of them for this, but this was Dr. Li. She already owed him quite a bit; she could do this for him.

“But of course, sir,” she said.

Once in a while, even Maomao could simply, earnestly do as she was asked. Once in a while.