The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 14 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: The Vanished Thief (Part One)

So ended the tempestuous first day of the meeting of the named. When the evening banquet was over, Maomao found the sandman was quickly upon her. She was about to go to bed without even a bath, but—she later remembered hazily—En’en forced her to wash up before she turned in.

The second day turned out much quieter than the first. The most noteworthy thing to happen was that the freak strategist started up some games of Go, complete with wagers, and tried to take the bigwigs of the other clans right down to their skivvies.

Also, Lahan’s Brother questioned Maomao incessantly about En’en.

As far as Maomao was concerned, she’d done quite well: They’d resolved Yao’s problem with Mister Love Letters and had forged a connection between the U and Ma clans. Admittedly, she had a sense that more problems had been created than solved here, but she decided to be happy just to make it home in one piece.

The second day ended in the morning; there was no banquet to speak of, but families who wished to talk to each other could hang around and chat. Some were clearly aglow over profitable business dealings; others were clouded with gloom on account of failed matchmaking attempts.

Lahan spoke at length with the Shin clan, and received written assurances that Yao would be troubled no further. As an adjunct—or really, perhaps this had been his main objective all along—he agreed to sell them any swords or armor of foreign make that his trading business happened to bring into his hands.

As for Mister Love Letters, he must have been feeling awkward, for he kept to himself for the rest of the meeting. He could, however, be seen talking with some people his age whom Maomao took to be his friends.

I hope he’s not planning some stupid revenge plot.

They would just have to trust the Shin mistress to nip any such ideas in the bud.

Thus it was that Maomao and her companions made ready to go home.

“En’en’s a good cook, isn’t she? What vegetables do you think I could whip up that would make her happy?” Lahan’s Brother asked Maomao as they took some baggage to the carriage. He might deny that he was a farmer, but every word that came out of his mouth disagreed. At the moment, he was keen to give En’en a gift.

“I’m sure I don’t have an answer for you,” Maomao said.

“What? After all the times you’ve eaten her cooking?”

“It’s been quite a while since I did that.”

Who was this too-easy-to-read brother, and what had he done with Lahan’s Brother?

“Why don’t you try growing spices, Elder Brother?” Lahan said. No doubt what he was really thinking was that spices would be highly profitable.

“What, you mean pepper or something? I’ve got no idea how.”

“But if you could learn, don’t you think it would mean she could make even more dishes?”

Maomao could almost hear the abacus clicking in Lahan’s head.

“Master Lakan, what shall we do with this bag?” asked Erfan, who was lugging around the freak strategist’s loot from his Go games.

“Hrrm... Do whatever you like with it,” he said. He hadn’t actually taken anyone’s skivvies, but he did have a pile of luxurious robes and belts. Maomao spared a thought for his unfortunate opponents. Lahan would probably turn a tidy profit on the loot later.

“What will you do after this, Maomao?” Yao asked. En’en was busy cramming Yao’s copious luggage into their carriage. Maomao had to wonder if it had really all been necessary for a single overnight stay.

“Good question. I think I’ll head right back to the dorm. I’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“There’s probably plenty to do piled up.”

She and Yao shared a sigh. Just the thought of the next day’s work left them gloomy.

“Hey, Lahan,” Maomao called. Lahan was still trying to convince Lahan’s Brother to grow some profitable crops.

“Yes, what?”

“Let me out by the dormitory.”

She certainly didn’t want them dragging her all the way back to the freak strategist’s mansion.

“Yeah, sure.”

Just as Maomao was about to climb into the carriage, someone rode up at a furious pace, kicking up a cloud of dust.

“What’s all this?” Lahan muttered.

With much neighing and snorting, the horse came toward Maomao.

“Hullo, young miss!” the rider called.

“Master Lihaku? What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

It was Lihaku on the horse, but his usually friendly demeanor, like a big puppy’s, today was subdued and anxious.

“I need you to come to the Verdigris House, right now.”

“What’s going on?” Whatever it was, if it was enough to leave Lihaku in a panic, then it was unlikely to be any minor matter.

“The Verdigris House got hit by a thief. Pairin was hurt.”

“What?!”

If the honorary older sister to whom Maomao owed so much had been hurt, she couldn’t just stand here. She made to jump on behind Lihaku, but Lahan’s Brother called, “Hey! That horse must be tired. Take this one instead.” He loosed one of the animals from their own carriage—in matters like this, he could be very sensitive.

“Thanks, Lahan’s Brother! It’s a big help!” Lihaku said, grabbing the horse’s reins. He was clearly an experienced rider.

“Maomao, wait!” Yao called, but Maomao jumped on the horse.

“I’m going on ahead!” she shouted.

“Giddyup!” Lihaku yelled and kicked the horse’s flanks. Maomao clung to him as tightly as she could, just trying not to be thrown off as they galloped away.

The carriage ride out to the meeting had taken two hours, but on the dash back, Lihaku made it in one. As the familiar pleasure district appeared, and then the familiar brothel, Maomao could tell something was different. There was a buzz about the place, although the evening business had not yet started.

“I’m back! And I brought her!” Lihaku called as he and Maomao jumped off the horse and raced into the Verdigris House. The courtesans, who normally would still have been taking their afternoon naps at this hour, were gathered in the foyer without so much as their makeup.

“Ugh, the dramatics!” said a voice that knew the world all too well—much, much too well.

“Grams,” said Maomao.

It was the old madam, smoking her pipe as usual.

“My dear Lihaku. However worried you may be about Pairin, you shouldn’t exaggerate so much.”

“Hee hee hee! She’s right, you know. I just fell on my poor bum because that thief startled me so badly.”

This new, sultry voice was Pairin, who sat in a chair as an apprentice brought her water.

“Thief? It wasn’t a robbery?”

“No, and because of that I haven’t provided treatment,” said Sazen, the temporary operator of the apothecary shop, popping his head in and then pulling it back out. Maomao had press-ganged him into running the place while she was at court, and she was glad to see he seemed to be doing a decent job.

“Lihaku is such a worrywart,” Pairin said, smacking her paramour on the chest.

“Aww, you know. It’s just, when I think of anything happening to you, I can’t control myself.”

“I told you there was no need to go all the way to get Maomao.”

“I really would have liked to bring Mister Luomen, but they say he’s in the rear palace, and I couldn’t trust just any old medicine man. I figured I could get the little lady at least, but they told me she was away—I was beside myself!”

Evidently Lihaku couldn’t keep his cool when it came to Pairin—but the women were right; he was a little too out of sorts.

“Hee hee hee! I thought you were gone awfully long, considering you only said you were going to get Maomao,” said Pairin.

The two of them were busy flirting, but meanwhile, Maomao, who had been dragged here as fast as a horse could gallop, didn’t know what to do. She settled for giving the besotted couple a cold stare.

“Gee, sorry I’m not good enough for you!” Sazen grumbled, this time only sticking half his head in from the apothecary shop before popping out again.

“May I go home?” Maomao asked the old madam, still scowling.

“Well, just a second. Since you’re here, take a look around and see if you can’t find any clues about our departed thief before you go.”

That was the old lady, wasting no time foisting a task on Maomao.

“You didn’t catch him?” she asked.

“He got clean away, I’m afraid.”

“Then call an official, not me.”

“Ha ha ha! A brothel appealing to the officialdom. That’s rich. You know what kind of rumors would start up?”

Maomao had to admit she was right.

“Maybe you could just take a look at my room?” This request came from Joka, who sounded deeply tired; she yawned as she spoke. Maomao’s “sister” was usually dressed to impress at all times, but today she was in sleepwear.

“At your room, Joka?” Maomao asked.

“Pairin’s room wasn’t the one the thief hit—it was mine. You’re good at finding criminals and that sort of thing, aren’t you?”

“I’ll take a look. But I’m not making any promises.”

Maomao went to Joka’s room, which was on the third floor. The higher the floor, the more important the courtesans who lived there, and the more spacious the accommodations. Joka’s room comprised three adjacent chambers.

“Yikes,” Maomao said.

“Not a pretty sight, is it?”

The place was a shambles. Every book on the bookshelf had been thrown on the floor, every desk drawer pulled out and turned upside down. The other two rooms looked just as bad.

“They even went through my clothes,” Joka said. Her silk robes had been trampled and her hair sticks scattered everywhere.

Maomao inspected the clothing, narrowing her eyes. They were wrinkled and ruffled, but for the most part not dirtied—a small blessing. One of the hair sticks must have been stepped on or something, because it was broken in pieces. Something seemed off about it—Maomao picked it up and put it in the folds of her robe.

“They’ve got some nerve, sneaking in here while I was in the bath,” Joka said. “Thanks to them, I didn’t even get a chance to change. I’ll be ‘taking tea’ tonight.”

“If it was this morning, I take it you were washing your hair?”

“Yes, I was.”

That would explain why Joka was still in her sleepwear. At the Verdigris House, the women washed their hair on a specified day, and because it required more hot water and more time than usual, they bathed first thing in the morning. The exact order in which they bathed varied, but in general the highest-ranking courtesans—and the best-selling—often went first.

“So you were in the bath. Exactly what time was it?”

“I was the first in the bath—Pairin had a customer staying extra long. It must’ve been about eight a.m. I still can’t believe it—I got my hair all nice and clean, then I thought I heard shouting, so I came back to my room only to find everything in this filthy condition. It’s terrible, just terrible.”

“Yeah, it’s a mess. And is it just me, or does something stink?” Maomao scratched her nose and went over to the window. She took a deep breath of fresh air, having been almost sickened by the cloying smell of roses in the room.

“That bastard broke a bottle of my perfume on his way out, to add insult to injury. I only had one bottle of that—a customer gave it to me. I can’t even bring myself to want to clean up.” Joka was obviously furious.

Since she was standing there already, Maomao had a look just outside the window. They might have been on the third floor, but there was a railing and other fixtures, so it wasn’t impossible that the thief had climbed up. Below them was the courtyard, still mostly deserted so early in the day.

In spite of all this, the Verdigris House’s menservants were hardly pushovers. So why had they let the thief get away?

“What did this person steal?” Maomao asked.

“My wood puzzle box. I still can’t find it.”

“What?! That thing?”

“Yes, that thing,” Joka said, even more peevish than usual. The puzzle box contained the jade tablet, the one on which she staked her living. It was very important to her, yet she seemed surprisingly calm.

“Were any of the other rooms hit?”

“Just mine,” said Joka.

Maomao put her hand to her chin. The Three Princesses were the prime earners at the Verdigris House—although now they were more like the Two Princesses, since Meimei had recently been bought out. Their rooms—or maybe the madam’s—would be obvious targets for anyone looking for loot.

“Was Pairin in her room the entire time?” Maomao asked.

“Heh! The ‘good man’ who brought you extended until noon. He’s been here a lot lately.”

“Ah.”

Lihaku had been in the western capital for an entire year. Now he was using the money he’d saved during that time to come visit Pairin.

He’s not saving to buy her out?

It wasn’t easy to buy a courtesan out of her contract. You had to have the money for it, but you also had to be a regular customer or the establishment wouldn’t even entertain the idea. It was a tough balance to strike.

“Pairin’s room is right next to mine. She thought she heard something over here, and when she came to look, there was the thief. He fled through the window.”

“That’s when she got so startled she fell on her behind?” It still seemed odd to Maomao. “Pairin noticed a noise—but Lihaku didn’t?”

“He was probably asleep, don’t you think? I think the way our sister yelled when she fell woke him up, but he was probably still groggy. He went all the way to wherever you were to bring you back, Maomao. I know he’s smitten and all, but that’s a bit overboard.”

Groggy, right...

Maomao stroked her chin again. The Lihaku she knew wasn’t so easily put off his guard. If anything, in spite of how he sometimes looked, he was remarkably calm and quick-witted.

“I’m going to take a quick look in Pairin’s room,” she said.

“Fine by me.”

“I wouldn’t clean up your chambers yet,” she added as she went. She felt a little funny just walking into Pairin’s room, so first she called to the other woman downstairs. “Pairin! Mind if I have a look at your room?”

“Go ahead! I still haven’t cleaned up from last night, though!”

“That’s fine. Perfect, actually.”

With Pairin’s blessing, Maomao entered her room. It was indeed not cleaned up. There were empty wine bottles, breakfast bowls, clothing tossed everywhere, and rumpled bedsheets. The smell of perfume was accompanied by a distinct animalistic odor—but that was par for the course in a brothel, and Maomao ignored it. Instead she picked up one of the wine bottles and gave it a sniff.

“Hmm?”

Then she picked up one of the bowls of congee—there were two, one for Pairin’s breakfast and one for Lihaku’s. The food was already dry and flaky. She sniffed each of the bowls as well.

There it is!

Maomao raced downstairs, still holding the bowls.

“What’s the matter, little lady?” asked Lihaku, who was drinking tea in the foyer. The other courtesans had gone back to their rooms—it would be time to get ready for the evening soon.

“Aren’t you going home, Master Lihaku?”

“Ah, well, I figured I should stick around to finish what I started. I’ll go home tomorrow morning.”

“You really saved a lot, didn’t you?” Maomao said, nudging him with her elbow.

“Oh, stop,” he said, but he didn’t exactly look unhappy.

“Hee hee hee! I guess I can look forward to another night,” said Pairin, draping herself over him.

“Ha ha ha ha!” he laughed. She would be draining him dry for a second night in a row.

“On that note, did you eat your breakfast here?” Maomao asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“From these bowls?”

“We sure did. What about them?”

Maomao put the bowls down and looked intently at Lihaku. “How was the congee? Tasty?”

“It was great—lots of ingredients today. The Verdigris House sure knows how to treat its visitors.”

“He liked it so much that he even ate mine!” Pairin said.

“That would explain it,” Maomao said, folding her arms.

“That would explain what?”

“Master Lihaku, you felt very tired after breakfast, didn’t you?”

“I sure did.”

“He ought to! We spent the whole night exercising.” Pairin nudged Lihaku in the chest. Maomao had not been fishing for innuendo.

“In the western capital, though, I remember you being able to wake up in an instant any time, day or night.” Lihaku had been Maomao’s bodyguard for a whole year, so she knew that no matter how deeply he might be sleeping, he could jump into action at the drop of a hat. “I have trouble believing that you would doze right through something that woke up my sister Pairin.”

“You’re saying someone gave him something?” asked Joka, coming down from the third floor.

“That’s right. This congee—it’s the stuff we serve to bad customers.” Maomao held up the empty bowl.

Bad customers meant exactly what it sounded like: customers who were behaving badly. It could be those who got violent with the women, or tried to force them to do more than they had been paid for, or even those who were simply too energetic and threatened to sap a courtesan’s stamina. What to do in those situations? The Verdigris House had its menservants, of course, as well as formal bodyguards. If a client was openly violent, it was simple enough to kick them out and tell them not to come back. But what about cases that didn’t go that far? Worse, what if those cases became repeat customers, leaving the women exhausted?

Sometimes the solution was to gently usher them into dreamland using wine or snacks prepared with a bit of sleeping medication. Just such medication had been in Lihaku’s congee. Even with the bowl empty, there was no deceiving Maomao’s nose.

“Was... Was I a bad customer?” Lihaku asked, shaken.

“No, sir. For the other courtesans, maybe, but Pairin needs someone at least as capable as you.”

“It’s sooo true,” Pairin cooed. She was something of a special case among the courtesans, but she was who she was.

“You’re sure?” Lihaku asked.

“Very sure! Please do come again.”

“I sure will!”

Lihaku’s spirits quickly revived, but it still left the question of what the drugs had been doing in the porridge. Perhaps they were even responsible for Lihaku’s uncharacteristically frantic behavior today.

The sleeping drugs used at the Verdigris House had a much amplified effect when taken with wine. They were always careful to make sure the dosage they used wouldn’t harm the customer, even if he was bad, but if someone had simply thrown the stuff in there, there was no telling what might happen.

There’s nothing else in this, is there? Maomao gave the empty bowl another good sniff. Then she said, “So Joka was in the bath when the thief came in, and the two of you had been given congee laced with sleeping medicine.”

It hardly seemed like coincidence.

Currently, only Pairin and Joka had rooms on the third floor.

“Pairin, the thief escaped out the window, right?”

“That’s right.”

“How was he dressed?”

“He had a brown outfit on. I couldn’t really describe his jacket, because I only saw him from behind, and only for a second. But underneath he was wearing loose pants.”

Something very common; easy to move in. Any number of people in town might fit that description.

“He was real lean and agile too; he had muscle everywhere.”

Very much the kind of detail that Pairin, with her appetite for meatheads, would notice.

“All right. And who brought the breakfast congee?”

“One of the apprentices. It was that girl, Zulin. Even Chou-u popped his head in, since Lihaku was here.”

“Chou-u did? I haven’t even seen him.” Maomao clucked her tongue. Chou-u was a boy with a past, and temporarily in Maomao’s care—but he hadn’t deigned to show his face to her in some time. Maybe he was going through a phase.

“Speak of the devil,” Pairin said. Into the foyer came Chou-u and his little shadow, Zulin.

“Chou-u!”

“Yikes!” The moment Chou-u saw Maomao, he braced himself.

After so long, it turned out the little brat wasn’t so little anymore. In fact, he was taller than Maomao now, and he had lost some of his baby fat. He didn’t have any facial hair yet, but he was now more a young man than a boy.

Zulin had come to the Verdigris House with her older sister by Maomao’s intervention. Evidently she was still attached at the hip to Chou-u. Being fed regularly had made her much plumper and prettier than when Maomao had first met her.

“Chou-u, Pairin says you brought her breakfast to her room?” Maomao said, asking Chou-u instead of Zulin because Zulin didn’t speak.

“Yeah, I did. So what? Got a problem with that?”

Maomao found herself oddly irritated by the fact that Chou-u’s eyeline was some three centimeters above hers. It was also, however, something she could do nothing about, and it was only going to get worse when he hit his growth spurt.

“That was bad-customer congee.”

“Huh?” Chou-u’s sound of befuddlement didn’t seem to be an act; confusion showed plainly on his face. “Well, I didn’t do anything to it.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that the sleeping drugs were in there,” Maomao said. Even if Chou-u had supplied the food in ignorance, she had to keep pressing him.

“Zulin, did you do something to the congee?” Chou-u asked. Zulin didn’t say anything out loud, but shook her head.

Then Chou-u clapped his hands as if he’d remembered something. “Oh, but you know, the congee was already waiting for us.”

“Waiting for you?”

Zulin nodded her silent affirmation.

“When we went to get it after the old lady told us to take it upstairs, there were a couple bowls already sitting there, so we grabbed them.”

Zulin nodded again.

“Maybe they grabbed some that was meant for another woman with a customer who’d overstayed his welcome?” Pairin suggested, squeezing Zulin’s cheeks. She’d done the same thing to Maomao when Maomao was young—Zulin just rolled with it.

It was the apprentices’ job to prepare the congee, but courtesans of middle rank and below made their own. There were customers besides Lihaku who stayed into the morning, and if they were unwelcome, some sleeping medicine in their breakfast was hardly unusual. But no one would simply leave “bad-customer congee” sitting there unattended.

“Congee’s no good after it dries out,” said Chou-u. “Serve a customer bad congee and they’ll just get mad, but if you waste congee, the old lady will. So we took the stuff that was ready.”

That was all true as far as it went. The madam was forever haranguing the courtesans and apprentices about not wasting food.

“They’re telling the truth. I’m the one who told Zulin to take the congee upstairs,” said the madam, coming into the room. “And I appreciate that they didn’t waste any. But now I want to know which good-for-nothing girl left congee sitting out!” She took a notepad out from a private desk drawer. Beside the desk stood the incense that was used to measure time. “Let’s see here. This morning we had five men stay long, not including our guest Lihaku. But none of them seem to have been bad customers.”

There were indeed six sticks of incense standing nearby, one for each of the men including Lihaku. One of the incense stands was particularly ornate—that must have belonged to Pairin, a high courtesan.

“You don’t think it’s someone whose behavior took a turn for the worse recently?” Maomao asked.

“I doubt it. Hell, see for yourself.” The madam handed her the notebook.

“I don’t know any of these names!” Not just of the customers—only two of the women were people who had been around long enough for Maomao to recognize them.

“We’re a business. We can’t keep selling the same tired old wares forever.”

“I see what you mean.”

Some women would be bought out of their contracts; others might move to other establishments. The lucky ones would be able to safely retire, but no small number of courtesans stopped working when they were laid low by illness—or death.

“Hey, Grams, you have a breakdown of the rooms on the second floor?”

“What do you want with that?”

“Just tell me.”

Maomao got the diagram from the old lady, then proceeded out to the courtyard.

“What are you doing?” the madam asked.

“I just want to see it with my own eyes.”

She moved so she was directly below Joka’s room. The madam, intrigued, followed her.

“I just figured, if he jumped out the window, there would be footprints right about here.”

“There was a rain shower two days ago.”

The ground was wet.

If he jumped from the third floor, you’d really think there would be some footprints.

But she saw nothing.

“Did anyone except Pairin see the thief?”

“Afraid not.”

“Not even one of the menservants?”

“That time of the morning, there just happened not to be anyone around. But you’re right—I’ll have to make sure those holes-for-eyes take a little discipline.” The madam’s eyes glinted. It might sound harsh of her, but one of the menservants’ jobs was to keep an eye out for any courtesans trying to make a getaway. Letting a thief escape so cleanly suggested some issues with security.

“You learn anything?” Lihaku asked.

“I want to keep looking around,” Maomao replied.

“Looking at what?” asked the madam.

“The second floor, just below Joka’s room.”

The madam made no move to stop Maomao—just gave her a look that said Make sure you find that thief.