The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 14 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: The Horse and the Rabbit

The world was made of a series of farces.

As Lahan’s Brother stood there, totally smitten, Maomao pondered what to do. She wanted to cheer him on on his path of love, but when that path led to En’en—whose real focus in life was Yao—she foresaw only pain in his future.

Maybe we can bracket that conversation for now.

If a problem wasn’t going to be resolved anytime soon, Maomao preferred to just leave it alone. Her attention was taken by the fresh new problem approaching.

The Ma siblings came up to her.

“Miss Maomao,” said Maamei politely.

“It’s been a long time,” Maomao replied.

“Indeed it has.”

“Uh...has it?” Basen asked. Maamei must not have thought much of his attitude because, the smile never slipping from her face, she gave him a vicious backfist. Basen being as sturdy as he was, he didn’t even flinch, but a Lahan would have gone flying backward with blood spurting from his nose.

Behind the brother and sister stood the man who had served as referee in the duel. He looked rather discomfited by Maamei’s actions.

Maomao gave him a polite bow. “Thank you for refereeing the match.” It would not normally have been hers to say, but Lahan’s Brother only had eyes for En’en at the moment, and Lahan was once again deep in conversation with the Shin mistress.

“Think nothing of it. It happens all the time at the meetings of the named. There are plenty of young gentlemen here with a high opinion of their own strength, and the Ma clan frequently referees.”

Maomao found something suspicious in the way Maamei hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh’ed. “Say, Maomao,” she said. “I saw you leaving a room with the U clan earlier. Something going on?”

She doesn’t miss a thing, does she?

The fact that she didn’t mention that the Shin clan had been with them implied she had some business with the U.

“We served as...you might say go-betweens. Which isn’t to say that I have any special influence with the U clan, so please be aware of that.” She didn’t share any details, but she was telling the truth. Maamei would know that it would be uncouth to pry.

“Yes, of course. I won’t ask what you were talking about—but do they really owe you nothing at all for what you did?” Maamei had that predatory light in her eyes.

“If I told you that freak was one of the go-betweens, would that give you a pretty good idea?”

Maomao was telling Maamei, in a roundabout way, that the freak strategist had turned it all topsy-turvy. He must have been concerned about Lahan’s Brother, because he was poking him assiduously.

“Ahh... Yes, I see. Things didn’t seem that grim between you, though.” Even as Maamei appeared to accept Maomao’s explanation, she still gave her a searching glance.

“You might say we came out even.”

“But you must be closer to them than to complete strangers.” Maamei smiled and took Maomao’s hand. “Won’t you come with me for a moment?”

What does she want from me now?

Maomao thought maybe Maamei had mistaken come with for manhandle.

“Going somewhere, Little Sister?” Lahan asked, finally noticing the Ma siblings. He was looking especially well, probably because he had succeeded in putting the Shin mistress in his debt.

“Ah, Master Lahan. I’m just borrowing your dear little sister for a moment.”

Maomao didn’t know whether Lahan and Maamei knew each other; she couldn’t remember. But she was sure that someone as sharp as Maamei knew the names and faces of all the sons of the named clans.

Lahan began working his mental abacus immediately. “A member of the Ma clan? But of course.” He must have figured it couldn’t hurt to have Basen and his sister—with their connection to Jinshi—in his debt.

The U clan and the Ma siblings?

The combination suggested something to do with Lishu—and in that case, Maomao would be happy enough to help. She didn’t like, though, that she would be giving Lahan more face while she did it. As her small measure of revenge she pointed to the freak strategist and said, “You do something about him.”

“All right, Maomao. This way, please.” Maomao followed Maamei, who walked off smiling.

Maamei led Maomao to another garden, not the one where the duel had taken place. There were barren peony trees and rows of daffodils—this must have been the winter garden.

As they walked, Maamei introduced the middle-aged man with her. “Forgive me for waiting so long to introduce you. This is my husband.”

“I’m Maamei’s husband,” he said.

“My brother-in-law,” said Basen.

So it turned out the man who had refereed the duel was Maamei’s husband. It seemed like one person was enough to explain that—but all three of them helpfully clarified it. The man didn’t give his name, but Maomao had no confidence that she would remember a trivial detail like that, so it didn’t matter to her. Presumably he was Mister Ba-something-or-other.

Maamei’s husband was a well-built man with an air of simplicity. He looked like the quiet but considerate type; in fact, he reminded her of Gaoshun. She wondered if all the wives in the Ma clan wore the pants in their respective relationships.

“I apologize for my wife imposing on you,” Maamei’s husband said.

“Not at all.”

The way he was polite even to those socially below him was just like Gaoshun. Gaoshun claimed that his daughter despised him, but Maomao was starting to think that wasn’t quite the case.

“Are you not going to ask anything about what our business with the U clan is?” Maamei inquired, somewhat belatedly.

Maomao decided that she’d had enough of euphemism and indirectness. “I assume you want to introduce Master Basen, considering he’s obsessed with Lady Lishu.”

“Wha wha wha whaaa!” Basen exclaimed, plainly panicked. He went redder than a cooked shrimp.

“That’s exactly it,” said Maamei. “This boy was so retiring, I worried he might never get married. It was so bad that we had to force his feeble brother Baryou to have children instead. Who would have dreamed he would fall in love with a former high consort?”

“L-Love?! L-L-Love, Sister?!”

“Oh, you don’t like her?”

“Th-That’s not what I’m saying!” Basen said, much too loudly. At that volume, even if they went to one of the private rooms, the conversation wouldn’t stay private for long. They would have been better off staying in this unseasonal garden, where they seemed to be the only people around.

“You know about Lady Lishu, of course, don’t you, Maomao?” said Maamei.

“Yes, ma’am. I know her as someone to whom Heaven has not given many blessings of good fortune—especially when it comes to family relations. I’ve heard that she’s currently a nun.”

As far as Maomao could see, neither Lishu’s father nor her half-sister were particularly nice people. Her grandfather seemed to buck the trend, but it didn’t change the fact that his granddaughter had come to grief because he had trusted his son-in-law.

“All true. Lady Lishu is still just eighteen years old. Even if she lived to be only fifty, that would be a great many long years to spend sequestered away in a temple. If you were a grandfather with any hint of a heart, wouldn’t it sadden you?” Maamei almost made it sound like a riddle.

“The patriarch of the U clan seems like a compassionate man. Assuming there are no political motivations involved, I think an appeal to his sympathy could be very valuable,” Maomao said, drawing on what she had seen of the old man at his meeting with the Shin.

This appeared to be precisely what Maamei had wanted to hear. “My thoughts exactly.” Basen’s eyes were likewise sparkling. Maamei’s husband stayed quiet. It wasn’t clear to Maomao why he was even with them.

“Having said that,” Maomao went on, “Lady Lishu has been married to two emperors, and has retired to a nunnery both times. It’s rather unusual, if I may say so. If His Majesty doesn’t call for her, I’m not sure I see a future for her.”

“No need to worry on that score. His Majesty thinks of Lady Lishu like a daughter. As long as we have the barest excuse, I don’t think it will be hard to get him on our side. In fact, insofar as Lady Lishu isn’t His Majesty’s blood relative, there’s somewhat more flexibility than there would be with an actual daughter.”

An actual daughter, huh...

It was a cruel thing, Maomao thought. A princess, a true daughter of the emperor, was destined to be a political tool simply by virtue of her blood. She thought of how the Emperor doted on Princess Lingli. However His Majesty might love her, in the future he would have to use her as a political pawn.

“We’d like to talk to the U about the matter, but truth be told, there’s no one in our generation who’s very close to them.”

“I’m afraid I’m not really acquainted with them myself. Wait... Does this mean you don’t have an appointment to speak with them?”

That annoyed Maomao. Evidently Maamei’s preparations weren’t as thorough as Lahan’s.

“The former head of the U—or no, I suppose he’s the current head again. Anyway, he’s always cherished finding a quiet moment in the winter garden that his only daughter loved so much in life.”

“Are you sure it’s all right to intrude on his solitude?”

Making the other party upset would not, in Maomao’s opinion, be a promising start to negotiations.

“If we don’t intrude, then there’s no problem. You’ve known Lady Lishu for a long time, right, Maomao?” Maamei took her hand and walked ahead at a stiff pace.

In a pavilion among the peony trees, they could see a group of figures.

“There he is.”

There was an old man, a middle-aged woman who served as his nurse, a young man, and a child. The child was a boy, maybe ten years old, and the young man was looking after him. The old man was indeed the leader of the U clan.

Not even any bodyguards? Careless, Maomao thought.

Maamei patted her clothes and hair to neaten them, gently touched up her lipstick, and then meandered up to the pavilion as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The predatory gleam in her eyes was somewhat obscured by the way they half closed as she smiled. It was a tremendous show of feigned innocence, even if she was doing it purely so as not to scare the child.

“Pardon me.”

It was not Maamei who stepped forward first, but her husband.

Is this why she brought him along?

Within the Ma clan, Maamei was a leader, but maybe other clans wouldn’t see it that way when it came time to talk to them. Better to have someone socially superior interpose. Her husband was a convenient fig leaf.

I would have said Basen could play that part.

Then again, she wasn’t sure Basen could muster a proper greeting for the U clan. Even now, he was standing practically frozen.

“Well, well! The Ma clan.”

“Bakin is my name, sir.”

Not likely to remember that, Maomao thought, positioning herself behind Maamei.

“This is my wife, Maamei, and my brother-in-law, Basen. And this is...”

“Maomao, sir. My apologies for earlier.” She tried to make her greeting as inoffensive as possible.

“Oh, heavens. Earlier was simply... Well, I may have my qualms about it, but—yes, well, some qualms, yes...”

Apparently the old man had a lot of qualms, but he avoided being specific so as not to give away the matter of the Shin heirloom. Maomao hoped that he would at least be kind enough to forget how she had kicked the freak strategist.

“So, what does the Ma clan want with me? And with a La girl in tow?”

It wasn’t just the U patriarch; the other occupants of the pavilion likewise looked askance at them.

Maamei stepped forward. “Maomao here served two years in the rear palace.”

“The rear palace...”

Roughly two years, thought Maomao. There’d been a fair amount of coming and going during that time, so her actual tenure had been a bit shorter. But there was no real need to go into the details now.

“It was an opportunity for her to deepen her friendship with Lady Lishu.”

I don’t think I would have called our friendship deep.

Once again, for the sake of the flow of conversation, she kept this thought to herself.

“I believe you corresponded with Lady Lishu by letter, sir. However, she was so concerned not to worry anyone that I don’t doubt she put a brave face on things on the page. Maomao so wishes you could hear what her life has really been like.”

Maamei spoke like a distraught maiden, her eyes brimming with tears. If Maomao hadn’t known what she was really like, she would have been utterly convinced.

“Mm... Perhaps, but if so, wouldn’t earlier have been opportunity enough for that?”

Maomao agreed completely. There was no need for the Ma clan to get involved.

“My father’s name is Gaoshun,” Maamei said. “He was a milk sibling of His Majesty.”

“Gaoshun... Ah, yes, him. I heard he changed his name, became a eunuch, and entered the rear palace.”

Apparently the leader of the U clan was familiar with Gaoshun—and judging by his tone, seemed to have known him for quite a long time.

“Yes, sir. My father served as the Moon Prince’s bodyguard. And he was ever so sympathetic to Lady Lishu. Lady Lishu may be an U princess, but she’s also the daughter of an old friend of His Majesty and my father. If my father hadn’t been charged with the solemn duty of defending the Imperial family, I don’t doubt he would have objected vocally to Lady Lishu’s unhappy situation.”

What a show!

Maomao was legitimately impressed by Maamei’s performance. She didn’t know if it was strictly true or not, but she couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t. When she’d told Gaoshun about the torment Lishu endured, he had indeed looked very conflicted. That might have been partially concerning as someone whose job was to oversee the rear palace, but perhaps there had also been some concern for a friend’s daughter.

“Most of all, I hear that at one point there was talk of marriage between my father and Lady Lishu’s mother. When I think of that girl, knowing she might have been my own sister, I feel like my heart could break!”

That was some bombshell to drop so casually.

“Ah... Ahhhhhh...” Basen stood with his jaw hanging open. Evidently this was news to him. In order to get him over his shock, Maamei whacked him in the side—where the U couldn’t see, of course. Another blow that only Basen could have endured. If he had been Lahan, he’d have broken clean in half.

“The talk of marriage with the Ma was just a passing suggestion. Think nothing of it.”

“Of course, sir.”

The leader of the U dismissed the issue without special concern. For people in good families, talk of marriage came and went with some frequency.

“As for the tale of my granddaughter—now, that I think I might like to hear,” the patriarch said.

“But of course.” Maamei bowed her head demurely, but it was Maomao who would be doing the talking.

“I first met Lady Lishu at a garden party,” Maomao said, beginning the story of her time in the rear palace. She stepped up to the round stone table and asked one of the servants to make her some tea.

Maomao avoided going into all the little details, but she told the old man about how she had served Empress Gyokuyou, and how that connection had led her to make the acquaintance of Lishu, who at the time was a high consort.

“At the garden party, she wore an outfit that was distinctly out of place.”

The leader of the U frowned, and the young man with him averted his eyes, continuing to play with the child instead.

“The meal had been changed for one with blueback, which Lady Lishu could not eat. Someone did it as a prank; I examined her arm when it broke out in hives.”

“Maomao has some medical knowledge,” Maamei interjected. “In fact, she’s working in the medical office right now.”

The leader of the U knitted his brow. His nurse watched his expression carefully; the young man gave some fruit to the boy.

“Among other things, at a tea party, she was served a drink with honey, and no one told her. They tried to get her to drink it.”

At this, the leader of the U heaved a sigh. It was clear with how much care he had raised the frail Lishu when she was younger.

I guess this is a pretty depressing story.

Maomao was less concerned about the leader, however, than she was about the man beside her. Basen was grinding his teeth audibly, and his eyes were bloodshot. Maomao could hear his breath whistling through his nose.

Is he going to be okay?

She worried, but Maamei stood beside Basen, keeping a firm grip on his belt so that he couldn’t go rushing off. Her husband was watching him closely too—Maamei had probably brought Ba-whatever-it-was in part so that he could be there to stop Basen if there was any trouble.

“She got a new chief lady-in-waiting, who served her well,” Maomao said. The former chief lady-in-waiting and the rest of Lishu’s women, unfortunately, had remained unchanged. They would find excuses to steal Lishu’s possessions—they even took her mirror, her cherished memento of her mother.

“Her mirror? That mirror?” the clan leader asked.

“Yes, sir. The one in which Lady Lishu could see her mother’s face.”

At the time, Lishu said she’d seen a ghost in the bathing area of her residence at the rear palace. It turned out to be just a curtain on which the mirror had projected the image of her mother, but Lishu hadn’t realized that, and Maomao vividly remembered her showing up at the great bath in a state of terror.

She decided there was no need to add how, on that occasion, she’d given Lishu a full-body hair-removal treatment.

She talked about her first trip to the western capital. At the time, she never would have dreamed she would ever go back, let alone that she would stay for a whole year.

“And Lady Lishu was attacked by a lion at the banquet.”

It was supposed to be a function for Jinshi to find a wife; the lion was there for entertainment and had broken out of its cage.

“A lion! That fool only told me that there had been ‘some trouble,’” the old U man said, clenching his fists. A vein pulsed in his forehead, and his nurse anxiously wiped his sweat away with a cloth. The young man hustled the boy a bit farther away, apparently not wanting him to see the enraged clan leader.

“The one who rescued her that day was this young man, Master Basen.” Maomao’s introduction of the lion-slayer, the hero of the hour, was quick and breezy. Basen, who had been about to explode, jumped when he heard his name.

“You saved my granddaughter?” the leader asked.

“O-Oh, it was nothing, sir. I only did what anyone would do.”

Maomao glowered at this uninspired display of modesty.

The old man looks like he’s about to pop. I guess that’s enough unhappy stories for now. Even though there are plenty more I could tell...

Maomao was ready to give up the upsetting narrative, but then—

“It’s such a terrible shame that Lady Lishu’s unhappiness turned out to have been orchestrated by her own father. Even the lion attack, I heard, was because of some perfume her half-sister had enticed her to wear—a smell that attracts wild animals.”

Why would you say that?!

Maomao had carefully left those details out, but Basen spilled them all.

“Call Jun,” said the leader of the U in a low growl. His beard was quivering, and his eyes were starting to go bloodshot.

His nurse gave a quick bow of her head, then went to summon the young man who was minding the boy. “What do you need?” he asked with a polite bow.

“I told you to tell me everything your little sister did, hiding nothing. Why did you keep this from me?”

His little sister? Maomao recalled belatedly that Lishu had a half-brother as well as a half-sister. This young man, Jun, was the former consort’s older half-brother.

“My sister has repented of causing harm to Lady Lishu and won’t appear on the public stage in the future. I can only beg you to be merciful, sir.”

Jun’s words sounded polite enough, but he had said one thing he should have avoided.

“What do you mean, she won’t appear on the public stage?! Lishu is a nun now! And whose fault is that?”

“My father, Uryuu; myself, Ujun; and my sister, sir.” The young man named Jun listed off the names quickly and easily.

“Who said you could use the character U?”

“My apologies, sir,” Jun said, bowing deeply again.

“You’ll accept my punishment for making such a mess of Lishu’s life.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Now get away from me.”

Maomao’s heart was pounding—she’d almost thought the old man was going to hit Jun. As it happened, however, he had more forbearance than that.

The generosity he had shown the Shin clan was nowhere to be seen. The leader of the U clan was a man of character, but it was clear that he had scant sympathy for those who had tormented his granddaughter for so long. He’d lost all faith in his son-in-law and his children.

Then again, maybe this is the generous response.

Maomao didn’t know how many members of the U clan there were, only that there were a lot more of them than of the La. The collapse of a household could leave dozens or even hundreds of people out on the street. The leader of the U clan had taken the headship back from his son-in-law and returned to his original position—but it must have been a tremendous effort for a man of his age to attempt to right the listing ship of his family. Ujun was probably just lucky he hadn’t been chased out of his house. He claimed that his sister felt bad for what she had done, but she also wasn’t struggling to put food in her mouth.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” the old man said. His nurse wiped his sweat away, while the child wandered up and offered him a drink. Only Ujun just stood there, smirking. He almost seemed like a clown, Maomao thought.

“Normally I’d have booted them out of the family and that would have been the end of it, but Lishu begged me in her letters not to be too hard on that man.”

That man: presumably, Lishu’s father. Bringing Ujun here was, probably, a way of teaching him a lesson.

I guess you could call it spiteful, in its own way.

But then, what Lishu’s father had done to her was far worse. Ujun might not have been the immediate cause of Lishu’s sufferings, but nonetheless he was lucky that this was the harshest “lesson” he would be taught. Above all, Ujun seemed accustomed to humiliation—and there were times when it was easier to get by in life if you didn’t have too inflated an opinion of yourself.

Ujun was reaping what he had sown, yet at the same time one could sympathize with him. Not that Maomao was going to stick her neck out for him. There were some things even a man of character couldn’t abide. It wasn’t her place to make pretty arguments and tell him not to take it out on the young man.

“May I continue?” she asked the U patriarch.

“Please.”

“Thank you. But having said that, I really have nothing more to say.” The old man wouldn’t feel any better hearing more tales of Lishu’s misfortune. “The one thing I can say with certainty is that Lady Lishu’s loss of her position as consort, and her eviction from the rear palace, were no fault of her own. Further, I believe His Majesty the Emperor deliberately distanced her from the rear palace for her own benefit. I think it’s safe to believe that Lady Lishu still has a future.”

The old man pressed a hand that seemed to be shaking slightly to his forehead. “But she wrote to me that she was doing her duty as a high consort...”

“I’m sure she didn’t want to worry her grandfather, sir.”

“If only I had noticed. I should have noticed.”

The old U man appeared angry with himself for having left Lishu to her own devices for so long. At this point, he could not punish the ladies-in-waiting who had tormented her—although they’d probably been dealt with when Lishu was put out of the rear palace. No doubt they had been drummed out as well, shamed by their dishonorable dismissal. It might even impact their marriage prospects.

Is this really what we want?

Maomao, as instructed, had sat at the same table as the U patriarch and told him about Lishu. She’d spoken of how Basen had rescued the young lady, and had made clear that Lishu bore no blame for what had happened. She could pass the conversation back to Maamei now and be fully satisfied that she had done her job. Yet Maamei was looking at her as if to say You’ve got a little more in you, haven’t you?

Come on, you’re asking the impossible! Maomao thought. But she’d developed a reputation for taking on the impossible.

“So Lady Lishu wrote in her letters that she was fulfilling the duties of a high consort?” Maomao asked.

“Yes, she did.”

“She must have pushed herself so hard,” Maomao said, her voice deliberately soft.

“Pushed herself? How so?”

The leader of the U leaned forward with a concerned look on his face, his beard swaying with the movement.

“Surely, sir, I don’t need to tell you what a consort’s duty in the rear palace is...”

She glanced at Basen. At first he didn’t appear to understand what she was talking about, but then he blinked a few times and seemed to get it. He went red again, but not from anger this time. It was embarrassment and not a little bit of distress.

A consort’s duty is, of course, to bear the Emperor’s children.

Empress Gyokuyou and Consort Lihua had done it. Even Shisui—or rather, Loulan—had at least given the appearance of doing it. Only one high consort had gone without any nocturnal visits from His Majesty: Lishu.

“The Emperor treated Lady Lishu like a daughter. He never once visited her chambers, and she was never his bedmate.”

Maomao shook her head slowly. This gave her a chance to spot Maamei, who was smiling in a way Maomao took to indicate satisfaction. Basen, too, looked deeply relieved, if somewhat surprised.

“Otherwise, His Majesty would never have allowed her out of the rear palace,” Maomao added.

Typically, those who had slept with the Emperor, even for just a single night, had to live out the rest of their lives in the rear palace. Ah-Duo was a special exception, but even she resided in one of the Emperor’s villas. It was clear that she was still under his protection.

The leader of the U seemed to accept that. “I wondered if it might be so.”

“Yes, sir,” Maomao said with a long sigh. “I hear that many consorts who leave the rear palace without having been known by the Emperor find new marriages.”

It would be easy to mock such women as rejects, but not when it came to the Emperor. Whether she was the daughter of an official or a merchant, service in the rear palace raised a woman’s stock. Many were drawn to the mysterious garden that was the rear palace. Not to mention that being chosen as a consort amounted to official validation of a woman’s beauty and the quality of her family.

“If Lady Lishu hadn’t retired to a temple, I should think she would have a great many suitors,” Maomao said.

“Is it selfish,” the old man asked, “to wish to see my granddaughter again in my short remaining time?”

Perfect!

Now Maomao looked at Maamei: There’s nothing more I can do, she said with her eyes. Maamei had the look of a hawk in her own eyes, but was clearly happy. She raised her hand. “Might I ask a question?”

“Yes?” the patriarch said.

“Is Lady Lishu’s seclusion to be without end?”

“Lishu was told only to recuperate for a while.”

“A while, sir?”

“Those were the words.”

“Meaning that if His Majesty so ordered, she would be able to leave her temple?” Maamei sounded like she had secured a promise. “Might Lady Lishu not return to the U clan and take a husband? She’s your last remaining direct descendant, isn’t she?”

“So she is. My only grandchild, by my only daughter.”

Ujun looked away. He, too, was a victim, Maomao thought, hemmed in by his status as the son-in-law’s bastard child, not a direct descendant. If his father hadn’t had to marry into another clan, he might have led a less constricted life.

“However, I won’t let what happened to my daughter happen to Lishu. I’ve already picked this child as my successor. There will be no more unhappy marriages.” The U patriarch patted the head of the young boy, who was eating his snack. It was the boy Ujun had been looking after this whole time.

“Then you wouldn’t object if the Ma clan brought a proposal for Lady Lishu?” Maamei said, broaching the real subject at last. Basen bit his lip so hard it turned purple.

“The Ma clan has a proposal for us?”

“Yes, sir. If Lady Lishu were going to succeed to the main household, she would need to marry a son of one of the branch families. But if she isn’t, then I’d like to introduce her to someone from my own family.”

“Hoh.” The old man glanced at Basen—he’d realized immediately who Maamei was talking about. “I did once hope to establish marital ties with the Ma. However...”

However?

“There’s no point in you establishing ties with us. The U clan has nothing like its former power. A proposal from some other clan I might understand, but the Ma have nothing to gain by this union. And I hesitate to take at face value a match that seems to offer no benefit to the other party.”

“I believe I saw you talking to the Shin clan earlier,” Maamei said. “May I take it that your enmity with them is at an end?”

Maomao wasn’t sure whether Maamei knew more than she let on—or if she was just making an educated guess. Either way, Maomao privately implored the leader of the U to understand that she had not said anything.

“Much has passed between me and the Shin, but I can’t imagine what it has to do with you.”

“Of course, of course. Perhaps you would hear us out on the matter of Lady Lishu, however, if we said our proposal is quite unrelated to your family’s status?”

“You mean it’s Lishu herself that you want?” The U patriarch gave Maamei and Basen an appraising look. He clearly regretted having stuck his daughter with a worthless husband. “I grant, I’d been considering a few candidates, in case Lishu ever got married.”

Maamei pressed ahead. “Would you be so kind as to consider the Ma among them?” Her methods bordered on impertinent, but the leader of the U would see that it wasn’t a bad idea—indeed, it should be quite attractive to him.

He refused to nod his head, however.

“At the moment she’s not marrying anyone. I don’t know where there might be enemies. My family was weakened by my own misjudgment—but some things have happened that my oversight alone can’t explain. I almost feel like I’m being punished for ignoring Lishu’s plight.”

“How so, sir?”

“Ha ha ha! You ask me to speak even further of my family’s humiliations? Well, so be it. Gaoshun’s daughter is a woman of sharp intuition, and I suspect you know already. It seems the new faction in the army doesn’t like me much at all.”

That was all he said on the matter.

The new faction in the army?

That subject sounded oddly familiar.

“I’d like to resolve this issue before this child succeeds, while I still live.” The leader of the U seemed to be whipping his old bones along. “Now, I think it’s about time to be getting back to the banquet.”

His nurse started rolling his wheeled chair away.

“Thank you for hearing me out, sir,” Maamei said. Apparently she wasn’t going to pursue the subject any further today. She bowed her head deeply and simply watched as the leader of the U clan was wheeled away.

When the members of the U clan were at last out of sight, Maomao felt a wave of fatigue wash over her.

Phew!

She let her shoulders slump.

“I knew I could count on you, Maomao. You did a perfect job.” Maamei was full of praise, but Maomao found she couldn’t quite take it at face value.

“Maybe, but the leader of the U didn’t seem that eager.”

“It’s better than nothing. We’ve planted a seed. We’ll just have to see whether anything grows from it.”

Her husband watched her, smiling to see his wife so engaged. As for her younger brother, he was even more overwhelmed than Maomao and hadn’t managed to reboot himself yet.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to excuse myself. I trust that’s all right?” Maomao said.

“Heavens, of course. You must be exhausted. I thought you were used to this kind of thing.” Maamei must really have been pleased, because in place of the polite smile she’d worn earlier, there was a genuine grin.

“Suddenly discovering information I never knew before has a way of tiring me out,” Maomao said.

“Ahh, you mean the talk of the betrothal between the U and Ma clans? It’s nothing special. When boys and girls are close in age, that sort of chatter always comes up.”

“I admit, it sounds common enough.”

And yet, such stories particularly seemed to abound among Maomao’s acquaintances. Just being in the orbit of the Imperial family made human relationships more complicated.

Lishu’s mother was childhood friends with His Majesty and Lady Ah-Duo both.

It shouldn’t have surprised her that the Emperor’s minder, Gaoshun, had found himself running in that circle.

I think it’s time for a change of subject.

“You know, I haven’t seen Miss Chue today,” said Maomao.

“Miss Chue had other work to do. Oh, how she dragged her feet—but when she was told this job absolutely had to be done, she went to work.”

Maomao and the others walked at an easy pace as they spoke. The two men brought up the rear, neither of them saying anything. Maamei’s husband really was the silent type.

“Miss Chue may look like—well, Miss Chue. But she does have a genuine gift for languages, and even with a useless limb or two, she’ll be quite helpful so long as her head and her mouth still work.”

Maomao understood that Maamei was saying she valued Chue, but it seemed a rather uncharitable way to say it.

“Is she interpreting for some foreigners or something?” Maomao asked, purely out of curiosity—but it was the wrong choice.

“She is. We’ve got a whole heap of them all together in prison at the moment, and she’s keeping a close ear on them to make sure they aren’t hatching some plot together.”

“My goodness.” That didn’t sound like fun for anyone.

It wasn’t unusual for foreigners to be captured along the Li border. Most of them were bandits or the like, and were dealt with promptly and lethally. If they’d been taken prisoner instead, it implied that there were people of some rank among them.

“Miss Chue may not be able to use her right hand, but it doesn’t seem to have impacted her ability to do her job,” said Maomao.

“Not at all—but I think she’ll have to give up her position as the Moon Prince’s lady-in-waiting. I presume my mother will take the post instead. It is so terribly hard to find good help.”

“You’re telling me. Lady Suiren works people to the bone.”

Maamei’s mother Taomei was no pushover herself, of course. But to survive under Suiren’s watch, a woman probably had to be either extraordinarily capable or at least as sanguine as Chue was.

“Almost anyone else would have retired by Lady Suiren’s age. Not to mention that considering her position, it’s not really right, the way she dotes on the Moon Prince.”

“Her position?” Maomao echoed.

“You don’t know who Lady Suiren is, Maomao?”

“I heard she was a legendary lady-in-waiting who defended the young Empress Dowager when she had no one else to protect her.”

It sounded like a description out of a stage play.

“She was that. Lady-in-waiting and wet nurse both. The young Empress Dowager was unable to produce enough milk for her child, so Lady Suiren even nursed the Emperor.”

“Lady-in-waiting and wet nurse,” Maomao repeated. She’d heard that Suiren had been not only Jinshi’s wet nurse, but His Majesty’s as well. Despite the expression, however, a wet nurse didn’t necessarily nurse a child, and Maomao had assumed Suiren had merely looked after them.

“I’d been told Master Gaoshun was a milk sibling of theirs, and I just assumed it was his mother who had nursed them,” Maomao said.

“My grandmother did serve as a wet nurse, but she was assigned to His Majesty after he was already weaned.”

“Wha?”

Hold on a second.

That would mean there should be one more milk sibling. Typically, a woman didn’t produce milk without bearing a child herself, and stopped lactating when the child got older. So Lady Suiren must have had a child roughly the Emperor’s age.

“Is it possible Lady Suiren is Lady Ah-Duo’s mother?” Maomao asked with a perplexed tilt of her head.

“So she is. You didn’t know?” Maamei tilted her head right back.

“Okay, wait, hang on. They’re nothing like each other, are they?”

Suiren was so grandmotherly at first glance, and Ah-Duo was slim and well-built. They couldn’t have resembled each other less.

“I’ve heard Lady Ah-Duo takes after her father.” Maamei stopped walking, lest they arrive at the banquet hall before they were finished with their conversation.

“Hang on, wait, whoa. But Lady Ah-Duo and Lady Suiren act completely different!”

Maomao had never seen them specifically interact, but Maomao had the impression that Suiren treated Ah-Duo less like a daughter than like a noble who ranked far above her.

“Lady Suiren comes from common stock, and ever since Lady Ah-Duo was chosen as a consort, she’s been scrupulous about respecting decorum toward her. Which would be one reason why she would never have told you about their relationship herself.”

“Then how was I supposed to know?!”

Maomao couldn’t help reflecting on the clothing she’d been given to wear when she had gone out on the town—it had belonged to Suiren’s daughter.

I can’t imagine Lady Ah-Duo ever wearing an outfit like that!

It might explain why Suiren had seemed to take such pleasure in dressing Maomao up—her own daughter hadn’t been so amenable to it.

Which leaves the question of Jinshi.

It was partly Maomao’s fault for not asking about Suiren’s daughter, but it was also Jinshi’s for not saying anything. Then again, maybe Jinshi thought Suiren had told her.

Maomao felt her head beginning to spin. Yes, relationships surrounding the Imperial family were complicated indeed—complicated and obnoxious.

“So Lady Suiren became a wet nurse even though she was a commoner,” Maomao said. Repeating what she had heard was her way of trying to organize the information in her head.

“That’s right. Lady Suiren’s husband passed while she was pregnant, and she went back to her home before the succession could become an issue. It doesn’t sound like her parents were very caring; almost as soon as Lady Ah-Duo was born, they sent Lady Suiren to serve in the rear palace, to get a little extra coin out of her.”

“As soon as she’d given birth?”

That was terrible. A woman needed time to recover after a delivery.

“Indeed. The rear palace at the time was obsessed with producing children at any cost, you see. Back then, a woman with childbearing experience was valued highly and treated accordingly.” Almost the opposite of the way things were now.

It was all the fault of the former emperor, with his penchant for very young girls; of course no children were being born.

“Thanks to that, Lady Suiren discovered Lady Anshi, who was concealing her pregnancy at the time, and became her lady-in-waiting.”

It turned out this legendary attendant had a suitably epic origin story.

“But would the mother of an Imperial consort normally be assigned as wet nurse to the Emperor’s younger brother?”

Would a ruler send his own consort’s mother to nurse someone who could one day cause a succession crisis?

“It was a rather unique situation, I must say. But assigning the same nursemaid to siblings from the same mother is nothing unusual in itself.”

That was true, Maomao granted.

“The strange thing about it was how far apart in age His Majesty and the Moon Prince were, and that His Majesty chose his own milk sibling Lady Ah-Duo as a consort.”

Maomao agreed; that was strange.

“Many members of the Ma clan across the generations have become Imperial milk siblings, but that never guarantees them a particular role. And they never become consorts.”

This was to ensure that they didn’t become Imperial family members and find too much power concentrated in their hands. Now that she thought about it, Maomao realized she had never heard Basen or Gaoshun referred to by any specific job title when she was with them. It only made her realize how unique Ah-Duo’s position was.

Then again, Jinshi’s position was even more unique—Maomao struggled not to let the realization show on her face.

“Empress Gyokuyou’s young prince, the current heir apparent, is guarded by my husband and another member of our clan. When Consort Lihua’s child leaves the rear palace, I expect at least one more of our number will be assigned to him.”

“The Moon Prince seems to keep much of the Ma clan to himself,” Maomao observed, as dispassionately as she could.

“Yes; because he was heir apparent for so many years, he naturally found himself on quite familiar terms with us. Now, what do you say we get back to the banquet?”

Was that really the only factor? Maomao wondered, but she decided not to think too hard about it. She was more concerned about whether any further trouble had started at the banquet hall in their absence.