The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 8 - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: The Hair Stick Thief

The chicken did indeed turn out crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside. Just the memory of it was enough to make Maomao salivate.

That was one delicious dinner, she thought, letting her mind wander over the previous day’s meal as she did her work. She powdered some herbs in a mortar and swallowed her drool.

Maomao thought of herself as a halfway decent cook, but she had to admit she couldn’t hold a candle to En’en in the kitchen. En’en had mentioned something in passing once about her older brother being a professional chef, but she was no slouch herself when it came to preparing food. The chicken skin had been grilled to perfection, hiding light-pink meat beneath. When Maomao had bitten into it, warm juices exploded in her mouth. It had been seasoned with salt and a crunchy black powder that seemed to be, of all things, pepper! En’en didn’t hold back when it came to feeding Yao; Maomao had to think most of her wages went to food. And with Maomao getting in on so many of their meals recently, it couldn’t be getting any cheaper.

Maomao paused. When she thought of it that way, she realized that maybe she should at least be contributing some food money. This was sure better than eating at some crappy diner somewhere; maybe she could at least cover ingredients.

“Hmm, all right,” she said, nodding to herself.

Yao appeared beside her. “What are you nodding about? Dr. Liu’s been calling for you.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, cleaning up the mortar and herbs.

“I can do that. Just get going. What did you do, anyway?”

“Nothing yet.”

Nothing at all—so far. Yao’s expression suggested that the question was intended as her equivalent of a joke—if a somewhat pointed one. Maomao was substantially more experienced as an apothecary than either Yao or En’en, so she was often given assignments the other two weren’t. She was frequently sent out to collect ingredients, for example. The disparity in their tasks pained Yao—hence her barbed humor.

She’s really softened since we first met, though, Maomao thought. Had Yao changed, or did Maomao simply see her differently now?

She went to the room where the doctor was waiting. “You needed me, Dr. Liu?”

“Mm. Here.” He handed her a letter, sealed in wax with a familiar seal.

Empress Gyokuyou...

There were probably other ways to get a letter to her, at least under normal circumstances. The fact that it was in Dr. Liu’s hands implied it was something urgent.

“You’re wanted at her palace immediately,” he said. The letter said much the same; it contained no details.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll find Luomen and—”

“No. Just you.”

She didn’t understand. A eunuch like her old man should have been perfectly qualified to examine the Empress. Why her alone?

“I can see you have questions—but you know who sent this letter and you know what she wants. There’s nothing I can add. Don’t waste time; get going.” Dr. Liu seemed to have some qualms of his own, but this was the Empress they were dealing with. Even a chief physician couldn’t argue with her.

“Yes, sir,” Maomao said, and then, as instructed, she went.

She was taken from the medical office to Gyokuyou’s palace by carriage. She wouldn’t be leaving the palace grounds, but it would have been unseemly for her to simply walk between the outer and inner courts. She passed through a series of gates, and finally arrived at the Empress’s pavilion.

Gyokuyou’s residence in the rear palace had been perfectly sumptuous, but it was dwarfed by her current dwelling. The Empress’s home must have been at least three times the size of the Precious Consort’s. Maomao got out of the carriage and stood at the door, which was opened for her by a slim, pretty woman.

Haku-u, Maomao thought. They’d served together at the Jade Pavilion, if only briefly. She was one of three ladies-in-waiting who had come from Gyokuyou’s hometown, a trio of sisters each separated by a year. They looked a lot like each other, so they wore differently colored accessories to help people tell them apart. The white hair tie this young woman wore reminded people that she was Haku-u, whose name meant “white feather.” The others were Seki-u and Koku-u, although Maomao hadn’t had much to do with any of them except the youngest, Seki-u.

“It’s been a while,” Haku-u said. Maomao was typically greeted by Yinghua and her companions, and she hadn’t seen Haku-u or her sisters the last time she’d been here on rounds. “We’ve been waiting for you. Please, come this way.” She took the tone one might use with a stranger. Unlike Yinghua’s garrulous trio, the three sisters were more taciturn—or perhaps one might say more mature. Maomao got the message, in any case: No need for pleasantries. Just come in.

Maomao was used to Yinghua, Guiyuan, and Ailan hovering around when she arrived, but today it was quiet. “Has something happened?” she asked. She’d been suspicious from the moment she’d been called here alone.

Haku-u only showed Maomao to the reception room and said, “Here. You can ask Her Majesty yourself.” Then she left.

Maomao entered the room to find Gyokuyou sitting on a couch, Hongniang standing beside her. Maomao offered a slow, respectful bow.

“It’s been quite some time,” Gyokuyou said, nodding at her in return.

“Yes, ma’am. I regret that it’s been so long.”

In point of fact, it had only been a month or so since the medical exam; not all that long.

“Do you have any inkling as to why I summoned you?” the Empress asked. Maomao shook her head. Gyokuyou sounded more subdued than usual; the mischievous twinkle in her eye was missing.

That look on her face, Maomao thought. She remembered that look. It was the same one she’d had the very first time Maomao had seen her, confronting Consort Lihua over the mysterious illness that had threatened both their children. A look of anxiety.

“Beating around the bush will serve no one. Better to explain things at once. Don’t you agree, Hongniang?” Gyokuyou said, and looked at her chief lady-in-waiting.

Hongniang placed something wrapped in cloth on the table. She undid the wrapping to reveal a hair stick worked in silver with an intriguing design: a charm that resembled a lantern or a basket hung off the end. It was intricately sculpted, the work of a true master.

But there are some dark splotches, Maomao observed. Silver was quick to corrode, and the blotches made the hair stick half as lovely as it should have been. The sculpting itself was spectacular, yet when you looked at the thing as a whole, it somehow seemed lacking—mismatched or inconsistent. Like it was missing something, some crucial piece.

It’s not really...nice enough for an empress to wear. Maomao gave the hair stick a quizzical look. “What’s this, milady?”

“This is what I was wearing at the garden party,” Gyokuyou replied.

“You were, ma’am?” Maomao furrowed her brow. Gyokuyou had been wearing this in public? That seemed unlikely. Not least because Hongniang would never have allowed it.

“I know what you’re thinking. No, the Empress would never have worn it to the party had it looked like this,” Hongniang interjected.

Should’ve figured. If even Maomao could tell that the accessory lacked something, then the far more perceptive—and far less quiescent—Hongniang would never have stayed quiet about it. Maomao wondered what outfit Gyokuyou had been wearing to complement this accessory.

“We had the craftsman make this on rather short notice, but it was a fine piece of work. It has these dark patches now, but it was flawless when we got it. And there used to be a decoration in that charm. Something about half the size of the little basket.”

“A decoration?” Maomao asked. Perhaps some sort of gemstone. Certainly it would look striking there. Perhaps it would even make a tinkling sound like a bell when the Empress walked. “If I may say so, it doesn’t appear to be there anymore.” The mesh of the basket was fine enough that she doubted the stone had simply fallen out.

“I wore this with my first outfit at the garden party,” Gyokuyou said. “I left my seat just before noon to change clothes, and that was when I discovered it was missing.”

Maomao didn’t say anything immediately. There hadn’t been a change of clothing during the garden party at the rear palace. Regardless, there weren’t that many people who could have approached the high ladies. Perhaps only their attendants.

“Might one of the ladies-in-waiting around you have had sticky fingers?” Maomao ventured. Not one of Empress Gyokuyou’s own servants, of course, but perhaps one of the women who had come to serve the meal.

Gyokuyou shook her head, but it was Hongniang who spoke up. “Quite frankly, we would be less worried if it had simply been stolen. But this hair stick was among some gifts that were offered to Her Majesty today.”

If they were very lucky, that meant simply that the thief had had an attack of conscience and decided to return it. But then, the thief herself would need to be quite lucky to be able to tuck the item in among tribute intended for the Empress.

Not likely, huh?

Which meant it was a threat. I can get close to you, it said. I can even sneak things into your palace.

As a consort in the rear palace, Gyokuyou had been the target of more than one attempted poisoning by other women. Now she was the mother of the Crown Prince and lived in her own palace. That should have taken her further from danger, but then this happened...

“You can come back anytime you feel like it.”

It was an offer Maomao had been given more than once, an invitation to come back and work for Gyokuyou again. She realized now, belatedly, that it wasn’t just personal familiarity that had moved the Empress to make the suggestion.

“Maomao... Do you think you might be able to find the culprit?” Empress Gyokuyou asked. There was a smile on her face, but it was uneasy, and her hands shook visibly.

Maomao had always taken Gyokuyou for such a carefree person. In the rear palace, any woman who possessed His Majesty’s Imperial affections was subject to brutal reprisals from her compatriots, yet Gyokuyou had never stopped smiling. She maintained a childlike curiosity about the world which, combined with her personal toughness, had made Maomao assume she would be perfectly fine without her.

But maybe I was wrong. She might be the Empress, the mother of the nation, but she was still a human being.

Maomao was in a room in the Empress’s palace, looking at the hair stick. It was already late by the time they finished their conversation, so she’d been ordered to stay the night. She was told that her dormitory had been informed. Meanwhile, she was served dinner in her room.

She was still a little surprised. Her dorm was less than thirty minutes away. Staying out all night was one thing—but an outsider staying the night at the Empress’s palace, that had to be a real nightmare.

I guess she won’t feel safe until she finds out what’s behind this hair stick. Still, had there really been no one but Maomao to whom the Empress could entrust this matter? Or was it something else?

Maomao sat down on the bed in the room that had been prepared for her and folded her arms. Splotched silver...

Silver corroded easily; it was quick to cloud up if you didn’t take proper care of it. It had to be polished constantly. Nonetheless, the nobility liked using silver tableware—or perhaps more accurately, they had to use it. For silver also fogged when exposed to arsenic. Arsenic had no flavor, no smell, not even any color, but thanks to this unique property of silver, it was easy to detect. One might say people in high places couldn’t afford not to use it.

Had Empress Gyokuyou been exposed to arsenic in some way, then? No, not likely: her mood notwithstanding, she seemed in fine physical health. She showed no signs of having been poisoned. But then what had happened to the hair stick?

Maybe it corroded after it was stolen? Suppose someone had tried to poison the Empress and failed, so they’d stolen the hair stick instead to blackmail her. No, Maomao decided. Too complicated. If there was some intention here, Maomao couldn’t fathom what it was. What could the thief be after?

There was something else that bothered her too: “There’s no sign that it was broken open.” Hongniang had said there was supposed to be a large crystal inside, but it was now nowhere to be found.

A crystal...

Maomao gave the hair stick a gentle shake. It wasn’t as if she expected the stone to fall out from some hidden crack—but to her surprise, a small, white granule landed on her skirt. “What’s this?” She picked it up and squinted at it. She tried sniffing it. Silently, she got some water and a hand rag, then placed the particle on her tongue. “Hey. This is—” She’d just caught the taste of it when there was a knock at the door.

“Maomao? Do you have a second?” It was Yinghua, of all people.

“Yes? What’s the matter?”

Normally, Yinghua might have shown up to chat or gossip, but today she didn’t look in the mood. Maomao was glad to see her, though—there was something she wanted to ask.

“A-About the hair stick...” Yinghua said. She looked uncomfortable, but for Maomao, her timing was perfect.

“The ‘crystal’ that was mounted in this hair stick. Is there any chance...” She thought back to something she’d made when she’d served at the Jade Pavilion. “Was it a salt crystal?”

White lumps, salty to the taste. She’d made a few of notable size while she’d been at the Jade Pavilion, and she’d given some of those that had come out best to then-Consort Gyokuyou. If you didn’t know what they were made of, you’d have sworn they were real crystal. She’d kept them secret from Hongniang, so the chief lady-in-waiting didn’t know about them.

Yinghua looked surprised for a second, but then she nodded. “Very nice, Maomao. I’m impressed you figured it out.”

“So I guessed right.” She picked up the hair stick with the cloth and gave it a shake. “What I don’t understand is, why mount a chunk of salt in a hair stick? It was only ever going to break apart and fall out.” She’d warned Gyokuyou when she gave her the salt crystals that they would melt if they were kept anywhere too humid. Maomao had given the lady some charcoal to act as a desiccant—but salt was salt, no matter how pretty it looked.

“Lady Gyokuyou’s just been so bored lately. She thought she could at least entertain herself at the garden party.”

So Empress Gyokuyou had been the mastermind behind this. Naturally, she hadn’t told her upstanding chief lady-in-waiting. Maomao could see why Yinghua seemed uncomfortable.

“What did she plan to do if the crystal broke during the garden party?” These were events where the women appraised each other from the hairs on their heads to the tips of their toes. Back when she had been at the rear palace, a great many middle and lower consorts had imitated whatever Gyokuyou did in an effort to earn the Emperor’s interest. No doubt many still would. An empty ornament on her hair stick would be humiliating.

“That’s why she planned to change clothes. She figured it would last the hour before she swapped outfits.”

The hair stick’s lantern shape was striking and unique; it would draw everyone’s attention. They would all be asking what that stone was in the ornament. Particularly the women helping out with the banquet: it wasn’t only within the rear palace that ladies sought to gain His Majesty’s affections. Perhaps Gyokuyou had enjoyed baffling the people around her, knowing that they were pondering what kind of stone she had used and where she’d found it. Or perhaps she savored the thrill of not quite knowing what she would do if the “stone” broke while she was still in this distinguished and vicious company. It was very much, well, Gyokuyou-ish, Maomao had to admit—but it was also dangerous.

Could it have been the lady-in-waiting assigned to keep watch on the hair sticks who took it? Maomao asked herself. It was certainly possible. If all the woman had done was take it, then have a change of heart or an attack of fear and return it, really, it would be a relief. But the hair stick wasn’t such a simple thing to return.

“Would you mind if I asked you what the environs were like at the garden party?” Maomao said to Yinghua.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean the seating arrangement, for example, and how things were behind the scenes.”

“I see.” Yinghua left the room and came back with paper and some writing utensils. Then she sketched a quick diagram of the banquet. “This is the center of the feast, where His Majesty was. To his left was the Lady Empress Dowager and Master Jin—I mean, the Moon Prince. Lady Gyokuyou was to his right. Master Gyokuen was a little ways away—he’s still technically just a local governor, so he was given a place equivalent to a prime minister’s.”

A local governor—in other words, someone who ruled one of the provinces. In essence, Gyokuen was in charge of the entirety of Li’s western reaches, centered around the western capital. (So, a little bit of that studying had stuck with Maomao.) The Prime Minister’s seat was currently vacant; there had been some expectation that Jinshi would take it now that Shishou no longer occupied it, but he had been given a different rank.

The seating arrangement was reasonable enough, considering that one of the major objectives of this party was to give Gyokuen his name. Which, of course, would be accompanied by a promotion in prominence.

“And where did Lady Gyokuyou change clothes?”

“The banquet was close to her palace this time, so she just went there.” There was a bathroom there, too, so it was easier on the ladies than before. “That made it a bit of a hike from the kitchen, though. I know the food always goes cold, but it must have been especially bad having to carry food for so many people so far.”

Maomao knew that the food always cooled off during the time it took to check it for poison. She always thought it was a waste, those fine flavors disappearing with the chill.

“They put a big pot here, by the palace,” Yinghua said, making a mark on her map.

Maomao studied it for a second. “Was there a guard by it?”

“I don’t think so. It was probably the food for people without seats.” The food for the people who needed their meals to be checked for poison would be staged elsewhere.

“And the hair stick disappeared while that pot was present?”

“Yes, that’s right. Right in the middle of the meal. I was sent off to handle something, so I left Lady Gyokuyou for a little while, but when I came back everyone was all in a tizzy about the hair stick.”

Ahh, so that’s what’s going on here. Maomao looked at the hair stick. It made sense now. She knew where the discolorations had come from.

“You look like you’ve got an idea, Maomao.”

“Do I?”

“You totally do! What is it? Tell me!”

That was a tricky request. She couldn’t prove it yet; so far, it was all assumptions. “I don’t have enough information.”

“Sure you do! Tell me!” Yinghua pressed.

Maomao groaned, but she knew that continuing to refuse wouldn’t make Yinghua any less vehement.

“All right, all right,” she relented. “But I want to check one more thing first.”

“What is it? I want to know what’s going on! Right away!”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and confuse the Empress.”

Yinghua puffed out her cheeks, but was forced to accept that.

“Do you know who was in the palace during that time? It doesn’t matter if you’re not sure about everyone who was there. Just let me know who you’re aware of.”

“Okay, well...”

She started giving names, and Maomao wrote them all down.

It might be misleading to say she had solved the mystery, but she had a good idea where the hair stick had disappeared to.

That poses a problem of its own, though.

Between the information Yinghua had given her and Maomao’s own guesses, things were pointing in a very fishy direction. She wanted to set Empress Gyokuyou’s mind at ease, but she wasn’t sure if she should tell her the whole truth. She worried that that might only upset her more.

How do I tell her? Maomao was just mulling over the question when there was a knock at her door. Who is it this time? She opened the door to find Haku-u. “What’s the matter?” Maomao asked.

“It’s a little chilly. I thought you might be cold, so I brought you an extra blanket,” Haku-u said.

“Thank you very much. I’ll take it from here.”

“No. Today, you’re a guest.” Haku-u showed herself to be every bit as diligent as she looked, coming in and making sure the blanket was arranged just so on Maomao’s bed. Maomao stood by the window and watched, feeling a little funny. She glanced out between the window slats and saw it was snowing. “I guess it really is cold,” she said.

Next, Haku-u added some coals to the brazier. “Would you like any incense?” she asked.

“No, thank you.”

Haku-u was clearly very good at her job, but Maomao didn’t feel there was any special need for her to do everything for her. As she recalled, Gyokuyou had known Haku-u since her youth in the western capital. She hadn’t been here very long, but Yinghua and the other women Maomao had known since her time in the Jade Pavilion seemed to respect her.

She could’ve sent someone a little lower down the ladder.

“Certainly not. You’re far too important a visitor. We wouldn’t risk anything being done less than properly,” said Haku-u. Oops. Had Maomao said that out loud? She squeezed her mouth shut to stop anything else getting out of it.

These people don’t quite make sense to me, Maomao thought. Other than Seki-u, the youngest, Maomao had no real sense of what the sisters were like as people. She’d seen them teasing their little sister—but only a bit. Maomao silently watched Haku-u work for another moment, then took out the notes she’d made during her chat with Yinghua. She was glad she’d kept them close; she wouldn’t have wanted Haku-u asking any questions if she’d noticed them.

Maomao resolved to go to sleep early tonight, but her heart was racing.

Sleep isn’t very restorative when you have something on your mind. Maomao rubbed her tired eyes and sat up. She was glad Haku-u had brought the extra blanket; her breath fogged in the morning air and her ears were red. When she opened the window, she found snow had accumulated on the ground outside. She shivered as she changed into her day clothes, and no sooner had she gotten dressed than she heard a voice from the hallway.

“Maomao! Let’s have breakfast!” It was Yinghua, bright and early.

Maomao decided to take her up on that. Guiyuan and Ailan were at breakfast as well. Guiyuan didn’t seem to have changed much, except perhaps she was a little plumper than before; she was still gentle and easygoing. Ailan appeared to have continued growing, for Maomao had to look up even higher than usual to meet her eyes. It was enough to inspire jealousy in the vertically-challenged Maomao. Still, she couldn’t help smiling a little to be back among such familiar faces.

“Breakfast is extra special today,” Yinghua announced. “There’s dried abalone!”

“Wow!” the others chorused; even Maomao was moved to applaud. Maybe she’d swiped it from the leftover ingredients for Empress Gyokuyou’s dinner last night.

The soup was simple, with good stock and only the faintest hint of salt. With the abalone in it, though, it proved highly edible. The rice was likewise the best stuff, demonstrating that when a woman became Empress, her ladies’ diets benefited accordingly.

As the four of them chatted, Maomao looked around. Prompted by her restless demeanor, Guiyuan asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing really. Don’t the others have breakfast, though?” She didn’t see the -u siblings, or the other new ladies-in-waiting that Gyokuyou must have accumulated upon being made Empress.

“Oh! Miss Haku-u and her sisters eat in another room, and the other ladies-in-waiting don’t eat in the palace at all.”

“Yeah,” Ailan added. “It’s too bad. This would be a good chance to get to know them. They’re always so serious at work.”

I think it’s more that you three are a bit lax... Still, that made it easy to be around them.

Yinghua and her cohort had served Gyokuyou a long time, since her days as a consort in the rear palace, but Haku-u’s acquaintance with the Empress went even further back, which must have been why Guiyuan felt obliged to refer to her respectfully. Haku-u might not rank as high as Hongniang, the chief lady-in-waiting, in their eyes, but Maomao got the sense that she still stood above Yinghua and the others.

Maybe even more so than the last time I was here. Yinghua and her friends had been known to push back against other consorts’ ladies-in-waiting—but really only if they spoke ill of Gyokuyou. Haku-u and her sisters were companions and colleagues, and Maomao doubted Yinghua or the other girls felt any real hostility toward them.

Speaking of Yinghua, she asked, “So, Maomao. Do you know who the culprit is yet?”

“It’s a little tricky,” Maomao said. A neat way to dodge the question. The other girls looked deflated.

“If you haven’t figured it out yet, Maomao, you could come back here,” Yinghua suggested. “We probably can’t convince them to let us have you just to make medicines and stuff, but if there was some sort of reason...”

“That’s right,” Guiyuan added. “We’ve got lots more rooms than we did in the Jade Pavilion. And plenty of stoves!”

“I’ll bet you could get your hands on some imported medicines here,” offered Ailan.

Imported medicines! Maomao very nearly jumped at that opportunity. No! Bad Maomao!

She took a sip of her tea to calm herself. “I’m learning my craft from my father and the other doctors right now. I can’t just switch jobs. Imagine what a burden it would put on the people I’m working with.”

She freely admitted that the idea of serving Empress Gyokuyou had its attractions. But joining the great lady’s staff would bring problems of its own.

Like that freak.

What if the monocled strategist started lurking around the Empress’s palace? In his own mind, he would just be trying to see Maomao, but that wasn’t what scandalized onlookers would see.

It was inconceivable that Empress Gyokuyou didn’t know about the relationship between Maomao and the strategist by now, wasn’t it? Specifically, that it’s all a delusion on his part, and we’re complete strangers.

To be quite blunt, Maomao wondered if there hadn’t been some mistake; if she wasn’t the offspring of some other patron of the Verdigris House. At least, so she liked to think. Although she knew the chances were slim.

Things would have been so much easier if Gyokuyou had simply viewed Maomao as a pawn to be used, but she had genuine regard for Maomao’s abilities. I can’t just ignore her. Not to mention that the gazes of Yinghua, Guiyuan, and Ailan were practically burning a hole in Maomao at that moment.

She was just trying to decide how she could get out of this situation when a young woman with a red hairband came in. She looked a lot like Haku-u, but her face revealed that she was somewhat younger—about Maomao’s age. She was the youngest of the three sisters, and the only one Maomao had any real acquaintance with. She used to deliver Xiaolan’s letters to her.

“What’s up, Seki-u?” Yinghua asked.

“Empress Gyokuyou is asking for Maomao,” she answered without elaboration. Maomao finished her breakfast and picked up her bowl.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it. Just leave it there,” Guiyuan said, so Maomao did.

“Can’t wait to hear when you’ll be joining us!” Yinghua called, all three of the young women waving encouragingly. Maomao offered a bow in return, then went to see the Empress.

In Gyokuyou’s room Maomao found not only Hongniang and Haku-u, but the prince and princess as well. The princess was setting a panoply of toys around the Crown Prince, who was mostly ignoring them. Maybe she thought they were playing together.

When Haku-u saw that Maomao had come, she picked up the Crown Prince. “Seki-u, the princess,” she said.

“Yes, of course,” Seki-u replied, taking Lingli by the hand.

“Play more!” the princess said. She must have been about three years old now, and was obviously learning to talk. She didn’t seem to remember Maomao, though, studying her face as if seeing her for the first time. Maomao was a little disappointed by that, but it was what it was. She gave the princess a friendly wave.

Haku-u was about to leave with the prince in her arms when Maomao impulsively grabbed her sleeve. “What is it?” Haku-u said, her expression betraying her displeasure at this show of impropriety.

“Could you remain here?” Maomao asked.

“To what end?”

“I’d like you to hear this conversation.”

Haku-u’s expression didn’t change, but Hongniang stepped into the hallway and waved down Ailan, who happened to be passing by. “Watch the child, please,” she said, taking the prince from Haku-u and giving him to Ailan. The child burbled and pulled on Ailan’s hair; she carted him off with a strained smile on her face.

“Do you have something in mind, Maomao?” Empress Gyokuyou asked. Neither she nor Hongniang said anything about Haku-u’s continued presence. They figured it would be quicker simply to forge ahead with the discussion.

“This,” she said, and held out the Empress’s hair stick.

“You’ve figured out who was behind its disappearance?” Gyokuyou asked.

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. But I believe I can explain why it became blemished and why the stone inside disappeared.”

“You mean it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Maomao took out the diagram Yinghua had drawn the night before. “You retired to your palace to change outfits, correct? And it was while you were doing so that you realized that the hair stick was missing.”

“That’s right. Unfortunately, there was no time to look for it. I had to get changed.”

I thought so. The commotion hadn’t occurred at the time the hair stick disappeared.

“Did you think perhaps you had simply dropped it, rather than that it had been stolen?”

“Yes, I was in such a hurry. A branch brushed my head as I went by. I thought maybe it fell out then.”

“Would that have been around here?” Maomao asked, pointing to a spot on the diagram.

“Yes, right there. There was a stand right in my way, and as I tried to go around it the branch caught me.”

A platform: in other words, the stewpot, Maomao suspected. She glanced over at Haku-u, but the other woman’s expression remained unchanged. Maybe I’m wrong about this, she thought, but either way, having Haku-u there would make things quicker.

“To make a long story short, I believe the hair stick wasn’t stolen—I think it simply fell,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Gyokuyou asked.

“Precisely that. Milady, the cause of your distress is that you believe the hair stick was stolen, then sent back to you as a threat.” The hair stick was discolored, the stone placed in it missing, as if to say: This is what I’ll do to you. Any noble who saw clouded silver would immediately think of poison.

“Wouldn’t you feel much better if you knew that neither of those things was intentional?”

“I suppose...”

“Furthermore, milady, am I wrong in thinking you have some idea what happened to the stone?”

Empress Gyokuyou twirled some hair around a fingertip. Her eyes brimmed with emotion.

“Get to the point, please! What happened to the stone that was in the hair stick?” Hongniang demanded, finally unable to wait any longer.

“Empress... Have you any more of those stones?” Maomao said.

“I guess I have to come clean eventually,” Gyokuyou said, resigned. She stood and fetched a small box from a corner of the room. She opened it to reveal a translucent, many-faceted crystal.

“May I use this?” Maomao asked.

“You were the one who gave it to me.”

Maomao picked up the stone in one hand and a carafe of water in the other. “Could somebody please get me a vessel?” Haku-u brought a bowl. Maomao put the stone in the bowl and then filled it with water.

“It’s...melting?” Hongniang said.

“Perhaps you’d like to try a sip. Although I warn you, you may cringe. Because that’s salt.”

“Salt?!” Hongniang really hadn’t known. If she had, she never would have allowed the Empress to use the faux crystal in her hair stick. “L-Lady Gyokuyou! What’s going on?” she exclaimed.

“H-Hee hee... Well, it was so very pretty. And nobody noticed, did they?” A mischievous smile came over the Empress’s face. It suited her much better than grim anxiety.

“I never knew salt could take on such a fine form,” Haku-u said, observing the dissolving crystal.

“It often doesn’t. I chose the ones that had crystallized in the most appealing shapes. You put some salt in boiling water, not too much, so it can all dissolve. Then you let it cool. You have to put something small in it to form a core, and then you let everything evaporate. As you repeat the process, the crystal gradually gets bigger. I suppose the important thing to note is that silk is the ideal material for the thread from which you hang it.”

“Maomao... You even made that while you were in the Jade Pavilion?” Hongniang asked.

Maomao didn’t say anything. She couldn’t get mad at Maomao now, could she? The statute of limitations had to be up.

“All right, so the ‘stone’ dissolved. It’s gone,” Hongniang said. “But what about the discolored silver?”

“A great many things can cause silver to grow cloudy,” Maomao said, drawing a small circle in a corner of the diagram. “Eggs, for example.”

“Eggs?” The other three women looked at her, puzzled.

“That’s right. You know the smell a rotten egg gives off?”

All three of them shook their heads. It was the maids who took out the garbage—they had probably never smelled the odor of rot before. Maomao decided to try a different analogy.

“How about boiled eggs? You know how those smell, yes?”

“Ah, that I know,” Gyokuyou said.

“It’s a rather unique aroma, but there’s another place you can smell the same thing—at certain hot springs.”

“Oh! I know what you mean,” the Empress said. She must have bathed in a hot spring before. Maybe there were one or two of them on the journey from the western capital to this city.

“Certain substances in those springs contain sulfur. So do boiled eggs—if you eat them with silverware, the utensils can become discolored.”

“Yes, of course,” Hongniang said, looking like she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. She had a good guess now why the hair stick had darkened—for she knew what had been served at the garden party.

“The hair stick dropped into a pot containing boiled eggs,” Maomao said. “The salt crystal dissolved in the water, while the eggs discolored the silver.”

It probably also explained why Lihaku had found the soup so unbearably salty.

“But how did the hair stick end up in the pot?” Gyokuyou wondered. “Do you suppose it simply fell in there by chance?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. It could have been coincidence, or someone could have put it in there.”

“Why in the world would they do that?” Haku-u asked, squinting at Maomao.

“Suppose someone is preparing a meal when they find an ornate hair stick. Then, a lady-in-waiting appears asking if they’ve seen just such a hair stick anywhere. What do you think they would do?”

Would they immediately hold it up and say, “Is this what you’re looking for?” Or might they try to play dumb? Or a third possibility...

“They might panic and try to hide it somewhere,” Maomao said.

“You’re suggesting that before they knew what they were doing, they’d thrown it into the cookpot in front of them?” Haku-u said.

“Yes,” Maomao said, although she felt somewhat guilty about the vague nature of her hypothetical situation. “So the hair stick ends up in the pot, whether intentionally or accidentally. But when it’s taken out, the silver is clouded and the stone is gone.” Hardly a state in which it could simply be returned.

“Just a moment. If one of the servants found it—well, wouldn’t it be quite difficult for them to give it back?” Hongniang asked.

“Indeed it would.”

So they came to the matter of how the hair stick had made its way back to the Empress.

“I don’t believe a mere servant could have hidden the hair stick among a delivery of gifts to you. They must have had help.” And this was when the hair stick, which had seemed simply lost, came to look like a threat.

Maomao couldn’t be sure about what had happened—but she had her suspicions. This was why she’d had Haku-u stay in the room. But although she’d been keeping a close eye on the other woman, she’d seen nothing unusual in her look or behavior. Maybe her poker face was just that good—or maybe she really didn’t know.

What if one of the ladies-in-waiting, someone who served the Empress, had found the hair stick near the palace? Someone in that position could easily have tucked the hair stick into a delivery. Maomao was virtually certain that it was one of Gyokuyou’s own ladies who had returned the hair stick, even though she must have known the distress it would cause to get the accessory back in such a state.

Hongniang would have reported the matter directly to Gyokuyou; she knew the Empress well enough to know that she wouldn’t need to fear some arbitrary punishment. The same for Yinghua, Guiyuan, and Ailan. The three all knew about the salt “crystal”; they would have been able to explain what had happened, and would have had no reason to hide anything.

But what about Haku-u? Given her position, one might have expected her to simply be honest and report the hair stick to Gyokuyou. She knew the Empress was gracious, that she would be unlikely to mete out harsh punishment over one ruined hair stick. There had to be some reason she had chosen not to come forward.

“It’s almost as if one of the ladies-in-waiting deliberately returned the hair stick without saying anything in order to make the Empress think she was being threatened,” Maomao said.

“Wh-What do you mean?” Hongniang asked, disturbed.

“Exactly what I said. Empress Gyokuyou is a kind and cheerful woman. Personally, I like her very much. But I could see someone thinking that she’s too soft to survive in this den of iniquity.” Maomao looked at Haku-u. She’d considered the possibility that some other palace serving woman had been involved, but when she looked at Yinghua’s list of people who had been around the Empress during the garden party, she’d seen no names she didn’t recognize. It had been only the “classic” four women and the trio of sisters.

“Ahh. I see what this is about,” said Empress Gyokuyou, a touch of frustration in her voice. She slowly turned to Haku-u. “It was a warning to make me mind my behavior so that those around me might not take me too lightly.” She’d said precisely what was on Maomao’s mind. The Empress seemed to have her own idea of who the culprit was.

“You didn’t do it, did you, Haku-u? And I know Seki-u wouldn’t dare,” Gyokuyou said. “Which leaves...”

“Koku-u,” Haku-u said, no emotion in her voice as she spoke her sister’s name.

“Koku-u? But why?” said Hongniang. She sounded surprised, but Gyokuyou looked as if everything made sense to her.

“I think it must have to do with the letter I received the other day,” she said. “Koku-u was the one who brought it to me.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Haku-u.

Letter? Had someone sent the Empress something threatening? Maybe it came from a political enemy, Maomao thought. She briefly entertained the possibility that it had been Consort Lihua, who also had a young son. But she quickly thought, No, not her. Then perhaps the former heir apparent, His Majesty’s younger brother Jinshi. Yeah, not likely.

But then... What about Haku-u and her sisters? No one would accuse them of being less than devoted to Empress Gyokuyou, but one thing set them apart from her longer-serving ladies.

“If I may ask a question of Lady Haku-u,” Maomao said. “Did you think, perhaps, that it was Master Jinshi who had stolen and then returned the hair stick?”

After a grudging pause Haku-u said, “Well, doesn’t that seem like the obvious thing?”

“Haku-u, I told you that he of all people would never do such a thing.” Gyokuyou had a sad smile on her face. She knew very well that he had no interest in being part of the succession. Hongniang as well as Yinghua and the others were likewise familiar enough with Jinshi to know that he wouldn’t make threats like that. Maomao was fully aware that Jinshi saw his own status as nothing more than a burden. All of which was why she’d deliberately approached Haku-u with her supposition.

“You think that the way she acts, it’s only a matter of time before some unsavory person insinuates themselves with Lady Gyokuyou,” Maomao said.

“I’m sorry, but yes, I do,” Haku-u said, and it was hard to miss that she was looking at Maomao. Hongniang looked scandalized.

Really? That’s where she’s taking this? Maomao thought, a little uncomfortable.

“Lady Gyokuyou needs to realize that there are enemies all around her,” Haku-u said.

“I do understand that,” Gyokuyou said. “But it’s no reason to show my fangs even to my friends. Say, Haku-u... Is this something you heard from your father?”

“No, ma’am. I thought of it on my own.” She turned her almond-shaped eyes on the Empress. “But are you saying that even Master Gyoku-ou can be trusted?”

Gyoku-ou? That was a new name to Maomao, although she assumed he was a relative of Gyokuyou’s.

“What was in that letter he sent you?” Haku-u pressed.

“I see. Koku-u must have secretly read it,” Gyokuyou said. Her head drooped.

So Koku-u stole a look at...a letter? What’s going on here? It was all over Maomao’s head, but this Gyoku-ou was evidently someone to watch out for.

“He’s my older brother. He didn’t write anything out of line,” said the Empress. Maomao was aware of Gyokuyou’s older brother, and knew that he was in charge of the lands to the west while their father was here in the capital. The eccentric strategist’s former aide, Rikuson, had been sent westward for Gyoku-ou’s benefit. But it looked like there was something going on here.

“Are you so sure he’s no villain?” asked Haku-u. “Surely you know who it was that continually came up with reasons not to send you new serving women as the number of your ladies-in-waiting dwindled one by one.”

That startled Maomao, but Haku-u wasn’t finished. “If we hadn’t come, milady, you wouldn’t be able to live as befits your station!” There was force in her voice, nothing like her usual detached demeanor.

Maybe I should excuse myself? Maomao thought. This had nothing to do with her, and it might have been best for her to leave—but try as she might, she couldn’t find an appropriate way to orchestrate her exit.

“If you won’t tell me what’s in the letter, Empress Gyokuyou, then I’ll guess. Before I left the western capital myself, I learned that Master Gyoku-ou had adopted a young foreign woman. It’s been over a year now—more than long enough for her to acquire the refinements expected of a well-bred young lady.”

“Haku-u!”

“Lady Hongniang, I will not go about furtively, as Koku-u did. I’ll speak my mind. I don’t care if Master Gyoku-ou is Master’s Gyokuen’s son or Lady Gyokuyou’s older brother; I don’t trust him! He’s trying to send a young woman who looks exactly like Lady Gyokuyou to the rear palace. Why? Well, imagine if she gained the affections of both His Majesty and the Crown Prince—and then something happened to our mistress.”

It was pure speculation, what she had said—and yet it was by no means outside the realm of possibility.

“My father would never allow it,” Gyokuyou said.

“Master Gyokuen is certainly more than intelligent enough to see through Master Gyoku-ou’s feeble scheming,” Haku-u said.

Hongniang looked relieved. “There’s no problem, then.”

“His perspicacity is the problem. Master Gyokuen will certainly back whoever he thinks will bring him the greatest benefit,” Haku-u said, her voice hollow. “Just as he did when he destroyed the Yi clan.”

The Yi clan!

They had formerly been one of the named clans, and had ruled over the western reaches—until they’d incurred the wrath of the empress regnant and been annihilated.

“We owe you so much, Lady Gyokuyou, and one reason we serve you here is in order to protect you. Master Gyokuen is not my—our—ruler, nor is his son.” There was a fire in Haku-u’s eyes as she spoke.

I wonder what she’s seen in her life, Maomao thought, but she could only imagine. It wasn’t her place to press or pry.

“Please, be careful of Master Gyoku-ou. I’m begging you. I’m asking you with all my heart...” Haku-u’s gaze went slowly to Maomao. “...Please, surround yourself with people you trust. You never know what may happen.”

Gyokuyou and Hongniang likewise looked at Maomao, who said, “Wh-Why is everyone...?” She had a bad feeling about this that wouldn’t go away.

“Maomao... I do hope you’ll consider it,” Gyokuyou said, her eyes like a puppy’s.

“You wouldn’t want to see Lady Gyokuyou get poisoned, would you?” Hongniang asked with a slight smile.

“The world is a rough place, but there are people who would never betray a trust,” Haku-u added. Was she in on this?

Maomao pointedly avoided all three of their gazes, but she could feel they almost had her cornered.