Prologue

Jazgul's mouth hung open in amazement at the biggest boat she had ever seen in her life.

The boat was going to go down the river, go out to the sea, and then travel to a neighboring country, or so she was told. Jazgul was going to spend many days on the boat, more days than she could count on the fingers of both hands (which was as high as Jazgul could count). There were many people around who had come to see them off.

The boat was splendid. She had never dreamed she might ever ride on such a vessel. She came from a poor family; her parents had given her nothing but her name and the most meager of meals each day. Then, finally, they had sold her as a slave.

Jazgul couldn't speak. She could hear, but for some reason, she'd had no voice since the day she was born. She could work, albeit perhaps not as hard as many people. But her family had lacked the means to support her.

Jazgul had been sure she would become a "concubine." She wasn't so bad looking, and if her nose was a little bit low, well, her overall appearance was charming enough to make up for it. Yes, being a concubine would make her happy. It wasn't like being a "prostitute"; those had to work all the time, every day. A concubine, she'd heard, had just one man to please.

Thus when she had been brought to the large house, she'd been overjoyed, sure that she was about to become a concubine.

"What a pleasure to have you here" was the greeting with which she was received at that house. She'd heard that its owner was a regular old pervert, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Instead, she found herself serving someone very, very lovely. Someone with pure, white hair and who was the slightest bit plump.

No one was upset that Jazgul couldn't speak and didn't know how to read or write. Instead, she was given expensive paper and lots of ink and told that if she couldn't write, she should draw pictures instead.

She learned her duties diligently so that she might be of use in this place, and while she learned, she was able to eat plenty of food and wear beautiful clothing. She discovered that she served someone very kind, and that drawing pictures was great fun. She would draw the scenery outside, or the owner of the house, or the senior servants. And, every once in a while, she would draw something she had seen in a dream. She'd had a dream once about riding on a boat, one just as big as the one in front of her now. When she drew that picture, the owner told her that it was an especially good one.

Yes, she had found very good work.

She was asked whether she wished to go with her mistress on a boat to a far country, and she decided that she did. She'd been on a boat once, after she'd been sold into slavery, but it had been awful. This boat looked much more fun. She hadn't gotten seasick even on the slave boat, so she didn't think there would be any problem with this one. But this person Jazgul served was frail and weak, so Jazgul would have to work extra hard and be extra energetic.

The person she served was sick, she gathered, with pale skin, white hair, and eyes as red as the flesh of a fruit. Skin that turned red and burned in the midday sun; this person couldn't even endure very bright places. But white skin and hair and red eyes were the signs of being chosen by God, and that made them special. Her mistress insisted the traits were not a burden. Jazgul thought her mistress lucky, and as if able to read her thoughts, a pale hand reached out and stroked her throat, and she was told that she, too, was special. She had something even more special than a voice. The thought made her very happy.

This person Jazgul served was very important, someone who had the ear of the king. Why would someone so important have to go so far away? The reason was work. They were so special that they could do things the king could not.

Jazgul served somebody very intelligent, who taught her many different things—but she found that the other ladies-in-waiting started to give her nasty looks if she spent too long with the mistress, so she couldn't be there very much.

"Hey, you ready?" called a hulking man who must have been one of the sailors.

Jazgul was practically bouncing up and down with excitement. She was so eager to get on the boat. Would this strange, distant land be full of spreading greenery like she'd seen in her dream?

"Jazgul," a voice said, and she started: her mistress was there, wearing a veil so as to evade the sun. Her face was covered in copious amounts of salve, and an attendant diligently stayed close with an umbrella. The woman had to stand on her tiptoes, though —their mistress was almost a head taller than the lady-in-waiting.

"Honored shrine maiden, please board the ship quickly, if you would. Your skin will burn."

"Yes, I understand."

The skin-scorching sun was fearsome, but the breeze outside was pleasant. Red eyes squinted against the light.

Jazgul had it on good authority that the shrine maiden was already more than forty years old. Old enough for a person to be a grandmother or grandfather in Jazgul's village, where people rarely lived very long. In fact, Jazgul's parents were about that old. Their skin was tanned and wrinkled from long years of field work and tending livestock. The shrine maiden's lovely skin looked quite young by comparison. Perhaps she had been thinner some long time ago, but now she had a touch of paunch. That was a sign of wealth, and in Jazgul's village, would have been considered quite beautiful.

"This country we're going to—it has far more water than

Shaoh."

Jazgul nodded obediently. The other ladies-in-waiting had told her that when she had decided to go.

"They grow wheat and rice there, and it's ever so green."

Grain crops were a luxury; even those who grew them found most of the fruits of their labor taken as taxes, and never got to taste them. Shaoh's urban center bustled with trade, but one didn't have to go far to find no end of indigent villages. When the bugs started to multiply, starvation was quick to follow. Jazgul herself had been sold because her family couldn't grow enough to eat.

It was very important that they become friends with a country that had lots of food. That was why the honored shrine maiden was going on this lengthy journey. They spoke a different language in this new country, but Jazgul couldn't speak anyway, so she wouldn't have to talk. She would, though, have to focus on learning to listen.

The shrine maiden looked at Jazgul and patted her head. Jazgul closed her eyes and smiled like a contented goat kid.

"I wonder, what kind of dreams did you dream last night?"

She'd dreamed of walking through a town abounding with beautiful water. Later, on the boat, there would be time to draw a picture.

As the sailors bustled about getting ready to go, Jazgul, the other ladies, and the shrine maiden made their way to their cabin.

Chapter 1: The Court Ladies' Service Exam

"It's been a long time."

"Yes, sir. A long time," Maomao echoed, all but repeating the words of the man who stood before her. She had been idly making up some medicines at her apothecary's shop in the pleasure district when who should appear but the original fuzzyfeeling inducer, Gaoshun.

"If I may ask, sir, what's going on?" To her knowledge,

Gaoshun was no longer Jinshi's attendant but was serving the Emperor himself. She braced herself: surely His Majesty didn't have some business with her?

"It's nothing. My son, curse his foolish hide, was supposed to come, but considering he recently injured himself in the most ridiculous way possible..."

So Gaoshun had come in his stead, rejoining Jinshi for a brief stint while the boy healed.

"Ah. Yes, his injuries were quite severe," Maomao said, recalling the recent events: it had been a real uproar in that corner of the court grounds. She could still picture the battered young man; it had been painful just to look at him.

"Yes, he was an absolute wreck," Gaoshun agreed.

"I'm impressed he survived."

"My son has always been durable, if nothing else." The remark might have sounded cutting, but Gaoshun's "fool son"—that is, Basen—had sustained those injuries while performing his proper duty. He had sacrificed his own health and well-being to save Consort Lishu, who had thrown herself off a balcony under the influence of the White Lady's drugs.

It was a laudable display, but aside from his right hand, every bit of him had either been broken, scratched, or torn up. Maomao was frankly amazed that he'd maintained consciousness.

"He swore he would go back to work on crutches, so I had to restrain him at home. He's currently recovering under the watchful eyes of his mother and older sister."

Maomao nodded with understanding as she opened a drawer.

There had to be tea around somewhere.

Gaoshun, however, said, "You needn't mind me, Xiaomao."

"You're sure, sir? I have some buns from the main street that they say are gone by noon every day."

She'd gotten them from the courtesans, who said they had been planning to give them to the apprentices until they realized they didn't have enough and didn't want to start a fight. There was only one of Maomao, so there wouldn't be any jealous scuffling.

The buns consisted of steamed dough worked with brown sugar and yam; they were known for their delicate sweetness and rich exterior.

"You've convinced me," Gaoshun said. He might have looked like a stern soldier, but he had an insatiable sweet tooth.

Maomao prepared tea, taking some she'd made that morning and chilling it with well water. Being able to serve a cold drink to a guest during the hot season was the height of luxury. The madam didn't hesitate to allow Gaoshun to be served with a glass drinking vessel, something usually reserved for only their best customers. (Incidentally, Basen was served with something a step lower on the luxury scale.)

Gaoshun started in on the bun, a blissful smile on his face. What could he be there for? He certainly hadn't come just to trade small talk. When he realized Maomao was watching him, Gaoshun shoved the rest of the treat into his mouth and quickly washed it down with some tea. "Ahem! If I may turn to business," he said.

Maomao immediately had a bad feeling about this. "I've got another bun here, sir. Please, help yourself." She offered him the one she had been planning to eat herself. She liked wine better than sweets, anyway. Gaoshun was a thoughtful guy—she knew that one day the bun would come back to her in the form of some decent alcohol.

Gaoshun wolfed down the second bun, then cleared his throat. "Xiaomao, do you have any intention of becoming a medical official?"

"You know that's not possible." Women could not become court doctors, not under the nation's laws as they stood.

"Pardon me. I think I put the question the wrong way. Do you have any intention of reaching a station equivalent to that of a medical official?"

This time Maomao wasn't so quick to answer. A station equivalent to a medical official's: in other words, one that would allow her some access to the drugs in the medical office. She tried to keep her lips in a neutral, straight line, but she couldn't prevent a slight tremble.

A glint entered Gaoshun's eyes. "You could try out new drugs too. We have people who do that, you know."

Still Maomao was silent, but she felt her cheek begin to twitch and the corners of her lips start to edge upward.

No! Don't give in! There's a catch. There has to be.

The entire idea was too good to be true, and that meant it was

a trap. Moreover, it was Gaoshun who had come to her with the suggestion. There would be no free lunches with him, and she knew it. Not to mention, there was this shop to think of. She had an apprentice apothecary, true enough, but he would start squawking if she left him alone again. He was far from ready to stand on his own two feet yet.

Okay, this is the part where I turn him down.

Gaoshun must have known things weren't going his way, because he struck first.

"You know Shaoh, of course? In the west? Do you remember the emissary from that country?"

"Ahh, you mean..." Aylin. That was her name. Maomao and Lahan had met with her on their recent sojourn to the western capital. The thought of her gave Maomao pause. This was the woman who had asked them to provide either provisions or political asylum. Even before that meeting in the west, she and a cousin of hers had come to Li.

Then again, Gaoshun had spoken only of an emissary. Maybe he meant someone else. Maomao chose the safest way of finding out: "You mean the two who were at the banquet where Master

Jinshi worked so hard last year, yes?"

She could probably have described them as "the troublesome pair who were so eager to see the moon spirit from decades ago" without getting in trouble. The pair included Aylin, the woman she'd met in the western capital, along with another woman, Ayla. She was just as twisted as her cousin, and was strongly suspected of having sold the newest sort of firearms to the Shi clan. Both of them were walking trouble, without a doubt.

"I assume you know that Aylin was recently admitted to the rear palace as a middle consort."

"Yes, sir. And if I may ask, are you sure it's all right? Her arrival did seem awfully hasty."

"I'm not at all sure. Her being a foreigner, the other consorts and palace women are by no means well-disposed toward her. Not to mention, she didn't bring so much as a single maid with her from Shaoh." Considering her position, it seemed like a fair enough compromise—but it would also make her look rather sad. "So that's how this involves me?" Maomao asked. If she

occupied a status equivalent to that of a medical officer, she could enter the rear palace easily.

"Ordinarily, it would be ideal for you to enter as a lady-inwaiting. But..." Gaoshun's expression was conflicted.

Against all odds, Maomao had until the previous year been food taster to Consort—ahem, Empress—Gyokuyou. Then she had left that post and returned to the pleasure district. On direct orders, true enough, but for her to turn around and become another woman's attendant would have raised too many questions. Not to mention Empress Gyokuyou herself might have gotten a bit bent out of shape about it.

"With the privileges of a medical officer, you can even be reunited with Empress Gyokuyou as an assistant. The thought made her very happy when we brought it up."

"I haven't agreed yet," Maomao said, but she knew that if Empress Gyokuyou was already on board...

"Certainly. I have here a letter of recommendation from the Empress herself." Totally unfazed, Gaoshun held out a letter to her. It was strange; she thought she'd seen something similar before somewhere. "And I have one from Master Jinshi as well." Gaoshun came up with another letter. Maomao's face began to twitch. "And here's one from His Majesty."

"I can't imagine why His Majesty would..." Maomao physically backed away from this last and most sumptuous letter.

Gaoshun, his brow firmly wrinkled, slowly closed his eyes. "You recall how we once had you take the court ladies' service exam so you could work in the outer court, yes?"

"Yes. And you recall I failed miserably?"

There had been a brief span when Maomao had worked as Jinshi's direct subordinate. During that time, he and Gaoshun had urged her to become a qualified court lady, and many a thick tome had been pressed upon her.

"I do. We assumed you would pass easily. We knew how passionate you were in your study of drugs and poisons, and what a ready learner you are."

"Yes, well, sadly, I'm afraid I let you down."

Maomao wasn't specifically a smarter person or better student than anyone else. She simply cared less about some things most people cared about, and instead shunted that extra attention into fields in which she was interested.

"Just to make sure I'm clear, Xiaomao, it's not that you're incapable of learning things that don't interest you, it's just

difficult for you, yes? For example, you learned the ways of the pleasure district."

"I wasn't given a choice."

The madam might have looked like a walking mummy, but she still had plenty of vitality. Maomao would have been disciplined for not learning what she was taught, and worse, she wouldn't have been given anything to eat. Her father Luomen had tried to cover for her, but her retiring old man was never going to win with the madam. Thus, in order to survive, Maomao had learned the ways of the pleasure quarter, calling on her "older sisters" to help her.

"All right, so what you're saying is you can learn something if you feel sufficiently compelled. A feeling which, I must observe,

Master Jinshi's direct orders don't appear to have inspired in you." Maomao backed away another step.

Gaoshun was holding three letters: from Jinshi, Empress Gyokuyou, and the Emperor. They might not be official communiqués, but nonetheless she felt she was being stared down by three of the least say-no-to-able people in the nation.

"By hook or by crook, Xiaomao, we need you to pass that test."

"E-Easy for you to say..."

Gaoshun threw open the door to the shop. A man who appeared to be one of his subordinates was waiting outside with a package wrapped in cloth, which he brought in and unwrapped to reveal a glittering pile of silver kernels.

"This time," Gaoshun said, and Maomao realized she could see the madam standing in the background holding one of her favorite disciplinary rods and eyeing the hill of silver hungrily. Trapped! Maomao thought. "This time, you're going to pass the test. No ifs, ands, or buts."

And that was the end of it.

Gaoshun's planning was a work of art. The madam had already been paid, the apothecary shop would be minded by the apprentice Sazen, and Maomao would be given a spare room in the Verdigris House in which to study.

Every once in a while, the little brat Chou-u put in an appearance and interrupted her work, but the madam or the menservants would always grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag him off. It was too bad for him, but he was interrupting Maomao while she was trying to study. What else did he expect?

In the room, they burned incense that was supposed to increase focus, and the dulcet notes of erhu and qin sounded from the next room, where courtesans who were especially talented musicians had been chosen to handle the instruments.

Studying was supposed to make you crave sweet things, but Maomao was instead offered salty rice crackers and cold fruit juice.

They'd thought of everything. How much did this cost? she wondered.

Cost or no cost, she frequently found herself wishing she could sneak in a little nap, but the madam made regular patrols, which put the kibosh on that idea. She herself, having been quite a highclass courtesan in her younger days, was more educated than the average person.

"Can't you recite even one of these poems?" she demanded.

"It's a medical exam! Why is poetry even on it?" Maomao shot back.

Strictly speaking, she wouldn't be taking the medical officers' examination, but rather the exam for court ladies who wished to serve in the medical office. There were a number of qualifications necessary to become a court lady, but the position of a court lady specializing in medicine was something new. In Maomao's opinion, if they were going to go to all the trouble of creating a new specialty, they should have taken the opportunity to get poetry off the test. "It's got nothing to do with medicine. There's history on there too—even sutra-copying!" she complained.

"Knowing history changes a person from the inside out. And the better your handwriting is, the easier it'll be to read. Copying sutras is excellent practice."

It figured that this was the moment the madam would talk sense. Maomao wished she would just say something like "Don't bother learning anything that's not going to make money," like she usually did. Maybe it was too much to hope for, given the amount of silver that was involved this time.

The characters the old woman wrote for Maomao to copy were lovely. Her hand might be like a withered branch now, but once upon a time she had boasted shining nails and fingers as nimble as fish sliding through the water.

Men liked women with beautiful handwriting. Men liked women with beautiful looks. She'd spent her life polishing herself for the benefit of men, and now here she was pounding the same lessons into the ladies of the pleasure quarter. If she'd been so beautiful, why hadn't she chosen some other life? Perhaps there hadn't been a choice.

Maomao voiced a thought that sometimes crossed her mind: "You can write beautiful characters and still say awful things with them."

She thought the next thing she felt might be the madam's knuckles crashing down on her head, but nothing happened. "No one knows if you're beautiful or filthy on the inside," the old woman said instead. "So you might as well write pretty." Then she looked at the examples pointedly, as if to say Now get to it! The flawless, perfectly balanced characters looked like they could have been an answer sheet for the civil service examination itself.

"Yeah, okay," Maomao said, knowing the rod waited for her if she tried to slack off. She rolled up her sleeves and took up her brush.

The court ladies' test was administered with some regularity. Unlike the civil service examination, this test was taken exclusively by young women, who wouldn't serve for as long as the men, so there was frequent employee turnover and a constant need for fresh blood.

For the most part, the women who sought to become court ladies were the daughters of officials or rich merchant households; for them, court service was an achievement to boast as a potential bride, or else a way of finding a husband; very few women applied to the service out of a passion for the work. Maomao had experienced some nastiness at the hands of some of the court ladies during her time as Jinshi's attendant, and it certainly hadn't looked to her like the women had been taking their jobs very seriously.

The test took place in a school building in the northern part of the capital. The civil service exam proper was given in another city somewhere to the north of the capital, but for a test held as often as the women's service exam, it was much easier to do things in the capital itself.

After two weeks of nonstop studying, Maomao arrived at the examination disheartened. There were about a hundred people there, not surprising considering that it wasn't only aspiring medical assistants who were present.

There isn't much to say about the exam itself. It was over in a couple of hours, and Maomao was promptly on her way home. They had already checked her preliminary paperwork, not that she had ever expected to fail at that stage. She almost started to worry she'd passed because of special treatment.

No... If they were going to do that for me, then why would they make me do all that studying? She preferred to think that she could pass by her own merit. She was fairly confident in her work, anyway—if anything was going to trip her up, it would be the classical poetry and sutra-copying, subjects in which she had no interest. Frankly, if she had made a mistake on anything else, she wished they would let her know about it, because the medical-attendant exam had consisted of thoroughly elementary knowledge of drugs and medicine. Maomao could have answered ten times as many questions as they'd asked in the time given for the test.

After dashing off the answers, Maomao had had nothing in particular to do, so she'd figured she would start walking home. And she would have, if only she hadn't heard the moronic voice. "What? What do you mean, I can't take the test?"

There was some sort of argument happening in front of the testing center involving the official in charge of the examination and someone who looked like a test taker—but there was something strange about this particular examinee. They were dressed in women's clothing, but they were physically pretty large. Sure, there were tall women around, but this person also had a low voice...one Maomao recognized.

I feel like this isn't the first time I've seen something like this, she thought. She wished she could ignore the bad feeling she had, but she was unable to dismiss the bizarre scene.

"Why, sir? Why won't you let me in?" the "woman" asked, taking care to speak with impeccable politeness. Her face was hidden with a cloth, and at that point Maomao's suspicions turned to certainty. True enough, the person looked something like a woman, if you only looked at their face. They had attractive, balanced, and delicate facial features, to say nothing of a perfectly good makeup job. But the person was clearly speaking in falsetto, and the way they squirmed was particularly unappealing.

"What are you doing?" Maomao asked. She could have ignored the entire situation, but she felt bad for the official caught in the middle. He was a nice enough man. If Maomao had been in his place, she would have immediately called security. "Kokuyou!"

The "woman" was actually a man Maomao had first met on a ship coming back from the western capital. He had smallpox scars over half his face, which was what the cloth was covering. He was a doctor, but sadly, the scars kept him from being able to get much in the way of decent work. On the other hand, his idiotic personality couldn't be chalked up to misfortune.

"Oh, Maomao! Haven't seen you for a while! Listen, you won't believe this! This mean man won't let me take the exam!" He winked at her with his one visible eye as if to say Play along! She wished he wouldn't do that. It was creepy.

Doesn't matter if I did want to play along with him. "The test is over already."

"What? You're kidding!" he screeched, putting his hands to his cheeks theatrically. Very helpful.

"The poor guy is just doing his job. Come on," Maomao said, and dragged Kokuyou away from the testing center.

It's a frightful thing to be caught up in the flow of events: for example, the above led immediately, inexorably, to Maomao having lunch with a weirdo wearing women's clothing. She wished he would change, but unfortunately, he hadn't brought another outfit with him. (He had, he informed Maomao, borrowed the costume from the wife of the chief of the village where he was living, which caused Maomao to have doubts about her as well.)

"And here I finally thought I'd found my new job. So the next exam isn't for two months, huh?"

"It doesn't matter. You can't take it. You're not qualified.

Although if you're looking to get castrated, I'd be happy to help..."

"Oh, please don't do thaaat!" Kokuyou said, shrinking back and squirming again. So creepy.

"I thought you were helping the old guy, anyway. What happened to that?"

Last Maomao knew, Kokuyou had been assisting an old doctor in a neighboring village. They'd seemed to get along well, even if the old guy was a bit of a weirdo.

"Gramps hasn't been feeling too well lately. He said he thinks he's gonna retire from medical work pretty soon, and that I should find somewhere new while the finding's good."

Maomao's expression was conflicted, for she had an inkling of why the old physician might be feeling so weak.

"That was when I heard about this brand-new opportunity to be an assistant in the medical office!"

Well, check the requirements next time!

Actually, he probably had—that was why he'd shown up in women's clothing. She still wished he would do something about that. He actually looked rather attractive and was drawing stares from some of the men around. His half-hidden face gave him an air of mystery too. If they'd heard his voice, though, it would have taken the wind out of their sails.

Maomao was eating a small, light bun, while Kokuyou was having some steamed dumplings.

"Gramps said he would give me the house if I wanted to stay in the village," Kokuyou remarked. "There's plenty of medicinal herbs around there too."

"So you just take over for him. Sounds good to me. What's the problem?" Maomao asked.

"It's not that simple. Gramps was a former medical officer, right? People came from far and wide to see him because he had that authority. I don't think people will come from far and wide to see some guy who just happened to turn up and take over the place."

There was truth to that. Kokuyou might have gained some measure of trust from people in the village itself, but such a small settlement wouldn't provide enough work to put food on the table. Gather and sell enough herbs and medical concoctions and you might just barely scrape by.

At that moment, Maomao held up her pointer finger. These problems solve each other! "Say, would you be interested in

coming out to the pleasure district a few times a month?"

Kokuyou only had to think about it for a moment. "If you pay my traveling expenses, sure. And it would be great if I could get a meal out of it."

"We have so much rice we can afford to sell some off, so I don't think that should be a problem." They had the rice and wheat they'd gained after the events in the quack doctor's village, and now they had sweet potatoes as well, so many that they were thinking about stewing and candying them.

Maomao went on, "Your brief would be to teach medicinal and herbal knowledge to the apprentice apothecary there, and to continue supplying the herbs we've bought in the past. I'll also want you to mix up any medicines the apprentice can't manage, although he and our landlord, the madam, will need to vet anything you whip up." That much was only fair when she was effectively asking a stranger of unknown origins to do the work. "The apprentice apothecary can handle running the shop, so you won't even have to talk to customers."

"Aww, but I'm a great salesperson!" Kokuyou said, squirming again. Considering he'd been unable to find a job precisely because his looks kept customers from wanting to talk to him, Maomao chose to ignore him.

"How's this for a salary?" Maomao held up one finger. Combined with his work at the village, it would be enough to eat, even if it was on the low side for an apothecary's compensation. "How's this?" Kokuyou said, pulling up a couple more of Maomao's fingers. Then they both burst out laughing. Maomao, though, also shot him a glare: for someone who acted like such an idiot, he sure had a keen sense of the market. So much for going by finger count; she ended up debating every nicety of the budget with him. At least she got to munch on a bun while she did it.

Chapter 2: Harassment

Sazen looked intensely relieved when Maomao told him she'd found another apothecary.

"I'm so glad I won't have to tend the shop all by myself again," he said. Frankly, Maomao would have preferred to hear an indignant "I can handle this on my own!" But very well.

The days after the exam were an all too brief interlude of peace. She'd done what she'd been told to do, but the two solid weeks of being allowed nothing but studying had brought her only pain. She was very pleased to be able to get back to working in the field and making some medicine.

A few days later, a letter arrived—her acceptance, she presumed, and as it happened, she was right.

"It would be a wonder if anybody failed that test," the madam had said when Maomao had told her about the contents of the exam. To get a perfect score was a real challenge, but a passing grade was only sixty percent. Even Maomao, who had relied mostly on cramming, figured she had gotten at least an eighty, and the women who had studied properly for the examination could hardly have done worse than her. Even when it came to the actual medical-knowledge portion, there were few specialized questions; most of the items would be easy enough to answer if you took your time and thought them through.

"Only a really smart person could think that. 'lo Grams, Maomao." Pairin slid into the room, looking particularly slovenly. This princess of the Verdigris House, one of three, must have had a customer the night before, for her skin was glowing. The customer, for his part, had probably been sucked so dry of his essence that he'd gone home looking like a withered fruit. Some people claimed that it was mastery of fangzhongshu, the arts of the bedchamber, that left Pairin's beauty undiminished despite the fact that, at well past thirty, she was the oldest courtesan at the establishment. "Just thinking about that stuff makes my head hurt. I tried to learn it, but it just won't go in my brain!" she said.

Well, everyone had different strengths. By and large you could achieve most things, more or less, if you worked hard enough, but there were some things that effort alone couldn't help with. Maomao's "older sister," Pairin, couldn't write very well; when she tried, the characters often came out backwards, as if in a mirror. The old lady had made several attempts to improve Pairin's handwriting, but the quirk remained, and she always had to have someone check her writing or simply write for her. However, almost as if to compensate, she was an unparalleled dancer; there was none better in the whole pleasure district.

"That's great that you passed and all, but so what? Do you even own clothes you can go to work in?"

"I assume that's their problem," said Maomao, perfectly happy to let someone else do the work and not feeling the least bit obliged to make any special preparations herself. Even the day before the test, a messenger had arrived from Gaoshun bearing clothing and writing utensils. She got the impression the messenger had also been intended to accompany her to and from the testing center, but having a babysitter like that had sounded like a headache, so she'd ignored him. For better or for worse, it had left her free to end up having lunch with the cross-dressing Kokuyou.

The acceptance letter said that everyone who had passed the test was to assemble at court the day after next before each heading to their assigned departments. It was accompanied by a wooden token scorched with a symbol of a flower. Her ticket into the palace grounds, she figured.

Maomao hmmed and put the letter on top of the medicine cabinet, then set about grinding some herbs.

Come the day after next, Maomao went to the place indicated by the letter; it was near a building bustling with civil officials, and not far from the medical office. She judged that she saw about eighty percent of the test-takers among the acceptees, and knowing that eight out of ten applicants had passed the test made her doubly glad she hadn't washed out. On the other hand, she also found herself with a little more sympathy for how

exasperated Jinshi and Gaoshun had seemed when she'd failed the last time.

The ages of the assembled women ranged from fourteen or fifteen to about twenty years old. A handful were older than that, but Maomao couldn't shake the sense that she detected a gleam in their eyes. (She preferred not to think too hard about the reason, namely that they were probably joining the palace service in hopes of finding a husband. It was a matter that came to feel ever more pressing as one got older.)

Actually, I think it's ideal to be at least twenty before you become a mother. It was common for girls to get married at

fourteen or fifteen and start having children, but the body wasn't fully developed at that point. Some women hadn't even had their first period by then. A few years after the "monthly visitor" had arrived and was coming reliably, then you could be sure the body was mature enough to bear children. Marrying too young was, in Maomao's opinion, not a good idea.

The pelvis has to be firm, or it's tough to deliver the child, she thought, her hand brushing her hip. She didn't expect her own body to do much more growing, but if she ever somehow found herself pregnant, it wouldn't hurt to have a little more meat on her bones. Birth was considered kissing cousins with death.

Maomao was keen to try giving birth at least once, but that wasn't something you could just go around saying. People might think you were simply being crass if you claimed you wanted to give birth as an experiment. Besides, if they knew the other thing Maomao thought on the subject, they would probably get upset.

Namely: I wouldn't be able to get a decent placenta out of it.

When a child was born, the placenta was expelled. There were certain regions where the mother would then eat the discarded placenta as a way of strengthening herself. It was said to be quite tasty—like liver sashimi. Of course, animal liver might have parasites in it if you tried to eat it raw, but a placenta should be safe. It would have been part of her own body, after all.

Maomao's father had always sternly warned her not to use any part of a human as an ingredient in her medicines, and likewise not to have any contact with dead bodies, lest terrible curiosity boil up within her. But her own placenta—what about that? It wasn't a dead body, and it wouldn't be like she was using someone else for her ingredients. It was a part of herself! What would be wrong with taking it back in? In short, it would be a way for Maomao to explore an aspect of medicine with which she'd heretofore been unacquainted, while still respecting her father's rules. Of course she wanted to do it.

"Everyone, over here please," an older court lady said. Her gaze was sharp. They'd all been given a standard uniform to wear, but some people had embellished theirs with special modifications. Among peacocks, males had the ostentatious plumage, but with humans the females of the species were the more lavishly attired.

Maomao had simply worn the uniform as it was given to her. She didn't think she should be at all conspicuous, so why did she feel like people were stealing little glances at her? Am I wearing it

wrong? she wondered. It was the same plain, sleeved dress everyone else was wearing. For her, the top was a light pink, the bottom red, but the colors varied by each person's assigned department. There couldn't have been five people wearing the same colors as Maomao. Assistant to the medical office was still a new post, so maybe there just weren't very many of them yet.

If there was anything that really stood out, maybe it was the band in Maomao's hair. She felt like hers was a slightly darker color than everyone else's. Deciding there was no need to give it too much thought, she went over to where the older court lady had indicated and stood in line with some other women—when she bumped into something.

No, no; that wasn't what had happened. Before she could even stick her hands out, she was on the ground. Perhaps she was lucky her nose didn't stick out too far, for she went face first and ended up covered in dirt from forehead to chin.

She got back up, wiping her face with her palm, not saying a word. At least her nose wasn't bleeding.

"Oh my goodness, I'm sorry!" said a woman with an elegant smile on her face. She was wearing the same colors as Maomao, as was everyone walking by with her.

"Are you all right?" the older court lady asked, hurrying over.

"It's nothing," Maomao said, her face impassive. But she

thought, This brings back memories. She was in a workplace full of women again, and the inevitable consequences of that nearly brought a warm glow to her heart.

The first day of their employment was to be spent being indoctrinated with the principles of court service. Thus the new court ladies, who numbered fewer than a hundred, were escorted into a large hall where they were lectured by their more experienced counterparts. Maomao herself had once given a lecture in a similar hall in the rear palace, which was all well and good, but frankly, listening to other people talk made her sleepy.

There were more than enough chairs and desks for all the attendees, so the newly minted court ladies sat in clusters according to their assignments. Except no one sat near Maomao; the woman who had bumped into her earlier sat in a group somewhere in front of her.

Most women who became court ladies were the daughters of officials, or sometimes of prosperous merchant households, and it seemed that just as in the rear palace, squabbling amongst the ladies was not uncommon. In the rear palace, however, there had been a certain hunger in the air, a sense that the low could overcome the high. Not so here, where it seemed more important to figure out where best to position yourself in the existing hierarchy, a fact that was obvious from the way small cliques had already formed. You could tell who ruled each one just by the way they walked.

I guess having an important daddy makes you an important little girl. A no one from nowhere like Maomao would obviously be excluded from such a system, or at least made to understand her place. It gave their behavior earlier a certain logic. Nonetheless, Maomao thought it was childish.

After almost an hour's lecture, the women were split off by department, Maomao heading to the medical office with the other ladies who had received that assignment. There were actually several medical offices around the palace grounds; for example, the one Maomao had often gone to while working for Jinshi was in the western quarter. That was where her old man, Luomen, was assigned. There was another office on the eastern side,

which was where they seemed to be headed.

Maomao scowled: the western side of the palace grounds was home to many civil officials, while the east was the province of the soldiers. Her father had been assigned to the western office as an act of consideration, to allow him to avoid the soldiers as much as possible, although it hadn't done him too much good in the long run.

And why had he wanted to avoid the soldiers? For the same reason Maomao did.

How did he find me already?

She'd been trying to follow the other women as quietly and inconspicuously as possible. Their group garnered glances from the brawny military men as they went by; Maomao excepted, the new court ladies were all young and lovely. Of course the men would want a quick look.

It was well and truly summer now, the sticky season. Just walking around was enough to make you start to smell of sweat. The men were working out with their shirts off, drawing interested gazes from the court ladies as they went by.

And somewhere in the middle of it all was a most unsettling shadow, following the group from behind. Maomao tried to ignore it, but she kept seeing it out of the corner of her eye. Maybe the person thought they were being sneaky, but they were terrible at it. Who was this strange figure? He had no facial hair, eyes like a fox, and a pointless monocle (maybe he thought it made him look fashionable). By now you ought to know who we're talking about.

One wouldn't wish to say his name.

"Who's that?" some of the ladies began to whisper.

He's more important than you might think around here...

There were higher-ranking military officials out there, but most of them were to be found at desks in the central part of the palace complex. This man had the title to make him important, but seemed to have a lot of free time to waste hanging around.

When they realized the eccentric strategist was on the scene, the other soldiers stopped trying to steal glances at the passing ladies and became hilariously serious about their exercise. There was an ironclad rule among the soldiery: don't get involved with him. He always meant trouble, and lots of it.

Obnoxious, Maomao thought. She wanted to hurry up and get out of there, but the older court lady went ever so slowly, and there was nothing she could do. Although the woman's skirt hid her feet, Maomao suspected from the movement of her hips that they were bound. Can't be easy to walk like that.

The new court ladies, five of them including Maomao, all walked with a spring in their step. With this many officials' daughters in one place, Maomao might have expected at least one of them to have bound feet, but by coincidence, all their feet appeared to be good and healthy.

"That is the medical office," the lady leading them said, pointing to a stern, sturdy building near the training grounds. It was certainly less pretty than the western office.

It was then that Maomao heard shouting from behind them. Everyone turned to see a man being borne on a stretcher. He was limp, and there were bruises all over his body.

"Make way! We're taking this man to the medical office!" shouted some well-built soldiers, hustling the stretcher along in a way that suggested this was nothing new to them.

"Let's follow them," someone said, and Maomao and the others went after them.

They arrived at the medical office to find the soldiers looking worried. "What's the matter?" Maomao asked.

"Well, normally there'd be a doctor here," one of the men said. But there was no one inside, not even a note saying that the doctors were out or when they would be back.

The injured man had been laid on one of the cots, still limp. Maomao couldn't help looking at him: along with his bruised skin, she saw he was still young enough that he had no beard, while his tanned skin showed that he trained hard outside every day.

"What caused him to collapse?" Maomao asked, looking into the young man's face.

"Now just a second, you!" one of the other new medical assistants said, but the older court lady stopped her. She gave Maomao a look that said, Take care of him, if you know how.

"We were training, and he suddenly dropped. We didn't hit him anywhere too bad...I think," one of the soldiers said. He didn't sound very happy about it—maybe because it was obvious to see that they had been working this man to the breaking point. Then again, maybe it was the freak, half-visible peering through the window, that was making him uncomfortable.

The injured man was sweating, and his body temperature was normal. The only thing Maomao noticed was that his pulse seemed somewhat slow. "I'm not so concerned about where you hit him," she said. She took several washcloths from the office's supply and put them in a water jug, then laid them over the young man's body to cool him down.

"May I use supplies from the medicine cabinet?" Maomao asked. She was directing the question at the older court lady, but the response was strange. Instead of the woman answering immediately, the person outside the window raised his thumb. When she saw that, the woman replied, "Yes, you may." So the freak was an eyesore, but he could be a useful eyesore.

Maomao put some water in a bowl, then added salt and sugar, just like she had when Jinshi had collapsed in the heat during the hunt. The young man here had succumbed to heat-induced dehydration. She gently lifted his head, wetting his lips with the water in the bowl. As he started to come to, she let him drink on his own.

The soldiers who had been working the young man looked relieved, although Maomao had half a mind to glare at them as hard as she could. As she was resoaking the lukewarm washcloths to continue to cool the young man, there came a sound of applause.

Several men in white overgarments, showing that they were doctors, appeared. One of them was elderly, the other two of middle age.

"You pass," one of them said.

"Wh-Who passes? Passes what?" asked one of the newly minted court ladies.

"Passes what? Did you really think we would consider you qualified to be our assistant on the basis of a simple written exam? We just wanted to get a look at you all."

In other words, they had been hidden somewhere, watching what Maomao and the others did. Not very nice of them.

"If you didn't look like someone we could use, we could have

cut you loose right here and now," said the elderly physician. He was taking a drink from the water jug and looking at Maomao with what might have been regret.

This guy is going to be trouble. I can smell it. Maomao had to be careful her private assessment didn't come out her mouth. Incidentally, the eccentric strategist was still peering in from outside, but for the moment, she figured she could safely ignore him.

Chapter 3: Medical Assistant

The five new medical assistants, including Maomao, would spend the first month of their employment at the medical office near the army training grounds, learning the ropes. Why that particular office? Because it was the busiest by far.

It didn't matter that Maomao had Jinshi's personal recommendation; she received no special treatment. If she wanted to go to the rear palace, she was going to have to prove herself through her work. Every day, soldiers were carted into the office for care. Scrapes, scratches, and cuts were the assistants' bread and butter, but more than once they had to stitch someone up too. It certainly was the perfect way to get accustomed to the job.

Maybe they're more serious about this than I thought, Maomao said to herself. Both the new department, which she'd thought might be purely an outward display, and her colleagues, whom she had assumed were only there to find suitable marriage partners.

Two of them look particularly dedicated. Of the other four new court ladies, two went about their work with noticeable verve: one whom Maomao had taken to be a leader of the gaggle of women, and another who seemed inward and quiet.

As for the remaining, less enthusiastic two women, they fainted at their first sight of blood. After a few days, they had started to get used to it, although they still looked disgusted on a regular basis. Maomao wasn't sure it was the best idea to make faces like that at sweaty, muddy soldiers.

"En'en, grab me some of those bandages."

"Yes, Lady Yao."

So the demure, quiet woman, En'en, appeared to be the attendant of the court lady named Yao. In this office, they were technically colleagues, but it was clear from their interactions that there was a difference in status between them.

Yao was a well-developed and vivacious young woman; even without palace work on her resume, there must have been many people who would have been happy to have her for their bride. En'en was less outgoing, and didn't show much expression, but she had a pretty enough face, and she exuded an unmistakable competence.

Maomao was washing bandages as fast as she could. They were going to be wrapped around open wounds, so they had to be as clean as possible at all times. After washing, they were boiled to disinfect them and then dried.

Maomao's colleagues continued to give her a hard time. They spared her only the bare minimum of conversation—although since Maomao tended not to initiate talk either, it was a little hard to say who was at fault there. The doctors intended to make full use of the ladies, and since Maomao already knew how to do the work, she rarely had to ask for help. She just did things. The result was that she finished jobs without being particularly friendly with anyone.

She was just putting the boiled bandages out to dry when one of the physicians said, "Might I ask you something?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Are you finding anything difficult about this work?"

The doctor looked familiar. After a second, she realized he was the medical officer she'd become acquainted with while working for Jinshi.

"Nothing specific, sir."

"And I notice you eating by yourself at mealtimes."

"The food here is delicious, if I may say so."

For one thing, it actually tasted like something—the medical office was probably served the same stuff as the soldiers—and unlike at the rear palace, you could get seconds.

"That's not what I'm getting at. Doesn't it hurt that the others are obviously ignoring you?"

"Things might be easier for them if they would ask questions of me, sir, but the reverse isn't really true." If anyone was disadvantaged by the silent treatment Maomao was getting, it was the ones giving it. Okay, so sometimes she missed important messages because no one told her about them, but every time one of the doctors tried to give her a dressing down, he found a freak glaring at him through the window, and eventually the scoldings stopped. The freak's appearances continued, however, such that he had to be dragged away by his subordinates several times each day.

In fact, it must have been the physicians, trying to teach, who were put in the hardest position by the rift among the ladies. Maomao did feel a little bad for them. "I'm afraid I'm not really sure how to make friends with them... But I might know a little

something about how to handle that freak."

There was a beat. "Please, tell me."

The trick was simple: invoke Luomen's name. She felt bad for her old man, but it really sucked having the freak constantly lurking around. Another tactic you could use was to give him a record of a game of Go; he would be a good boy for as long as it took him to read it. The risk was that if he saw any particularly bad moves, he might go into teaching mode.

"May I ask you something else?" the doctor said, keenly aware of the monocled old dude peering at them from the shadows of the trees. When had he gotten back? His gaze was focused, sharp as a knife, on the physician talking to Maomao. "What exactly is your relationship to the honored strategist?" "He's a stranger to me," Maomao said.

"But surely..."

"A total stranger," she said firmly, and went back about her work.

When she started working in the medical office, Maomao took up residence in a nearby dormitory on the palace grounds. The pleasure district wasn't so far away that she couldn't have commuted, but there was a desire to avoid any unpleasant rumors should word get around about where she was living. She was concerned for her apothecary's shop, but knowing that Kokuyou would be keeping an eye on things put her mind somewhat at ease.

Her old man was likewise living in a dormitory. The physicians had frequent night duty, and more than a few medical officers had ended up all but living in the "on-call room" near the medical office. Even Maomao's father seemed to go back to his dorm only rarely. As for Maomao, her room wasn't big, but it wasn't small; there was a bed, a dresser, and enough space for a writing desk, so she had no complaints.

There also happened to be a bookshelf. Books were too expensive for her to buy very many, but you could borrow the books at the medical office if you asked permission. All in all, Maomao found life here fairly congenial. The only problem was that everyone had to prepare their own meals. There was a restaurant not far away, but Maomao often borrowed a stove to make congee for herself.

She sat on the bed and opened some mail that had evidently arrived during the day. There were two letters: the first was from the pleasure district, informing her about how the shop was doing. The madam was leery of Kokuyou, but so far he hadn't done anything to give her cause for concern. Sazen seemed to be doing well enough too.

The other letter was from Jinshi. It had come in Gaoshun's name, but the handwriting was Jinshi's. It read like a basic rundown of what had been going on recently, with nothing that would be problematic if seen. In fact, he was talking about the new middle consort at the rear palace—Aylin, the woman from Shaoh. Just in case the letter should be intercepted by some unintended recipient, she was written of in terms of a "beautiful flower" from a foreign nation.

Still, something was strange. This new woman certainly had her quirks, but when she'd come to the rear palace, she had done so alone. Why be so cautious of her? Maomao finished reading the letter and put it away in her letter box. Aylin, the report related, didn't seem to have done anything suspicious yet.

Some days later, she would understand. But at that point in time, she had no way of knowing.

Maomao was pretty used to the medical office by now. Each day she would work, and the freak strategist would peer endlessly through the window, until her old man came and collected him.

Her father, Luomen, had a bad leg, so it wasn't very nice for him to have to make the round trip repeatedly. Recently, he'd taken to having the freak hauled away on a cart. It didn't look very comfortable, but her father was missing the kneecap of one knee, so what was he supposed to do?

"Hmm?" Maomao said. Luomen had just appeared again— hadn't he dragged the freak away just a few minutes earlier? Maybe he'd forgotten something, she thought, but he came into the medical office. Maomao grabbed the dry bandages and went inside. The other court ladies were already in a neat line.

Apparently she had once again been left out of the loop.

Scowling, the medical officer told her to get in line.

"I'm planning to go to the rear palace today, and I'd like an assistant," Luomen said. So that was what had brought him here. The rear palace had the quack doctor, but recently Luomen had been going there too. The other palace physicians still had their most important of possessions, so only the eunuch Luomen could enter the rear palace.

"If you're looking for volunteers, I'll go," said Yao, the one who seemed to be in charge of the other court ladies, stepping forward. As soon as she did so, two of the others joined her.

"I'm afraid we've already decided who's to go," the medical officer said.

Yao gave him a look. "Would that be referring to this young lady?" she asked, glancing at Maomao but not deigning to use her name.

Maomao didn't much care if Yao didn't want to remember her name, but she wished she wouldn't try to interfere with her going to the rear palace. That was supposed to be the whole job she was here to do.

"She only ever does the laundry," interjected another of the court ladies, one whose name Maomao hadn't bothered to remember herself. "I don't even know if she can do real medical work. Although I suppose she's all right at cleaning up. Do you suppose she's better suited to being a maid than a court lady?" Two of the women snickered to each other.

I have to do it because you don't, Maomao thought. She wasn't particularly offended by the idea of being a maid as such, since she'd been exactly that for quite a while. She did wish, though, that they wouldn't try to stop her from doing her literal job.

Just when she was thinking maybe she needed to say something back to them, the second medical officer—the elderly one who'd tested the women upon their arrival at the office— clapped a hand on the anonymous ladies' shoulders, smiling, and said, "Yes, I see. You two can go home now."

The sudden pronouncement left them wide-eyed. "B-But why?" one of them asked.

"Because I told you all to make sure to do the laundry, yet you seem to have decided it doesn't fall within the scope of your duties. And you think I can keep you here like that? I particularly dislike that kind of person." His tone was gentle enough, but it was clear there would be no arguing. "You did pass the test, but I've discovered you're not cut out for medical work. You'll be able to go to a different department instead, but you should prepare yourselves for the fact that most places do much more laundry and cleaning than we do here."

With that, he gestured to the younger medical officer to show them out.

"L-Lady Yao!" one of them exclaimed, hoping for a lifeline. Yao and En'en, though, just looked at her. Maomao had taken them to be such a clique, but it turned out maybe they weren't so close after all.

The doctor turned to Maomao, the other two remaining court ladies, and Luomen and said, "Now that it's a little quieter in here, perhaps I should add one more thing. There's something else I despise: nepotism."

Luomen's eyebrows knitted in an expression of consternation.

Don't tell me, Maomao thought, looking from one of them to the other. She'd believed she had successfully passed the test, but judging by the men's looks...maybe she hadn't. Even if she had, there was no denying that productivity had taken a hit since her arrival thanks to the constant incursions of the freak strategist.

"Those who are not here because of family connections are invited to demonstrate it through the excellence of their work. That's all I have to say. Now, hurry off to the rear palace or wherever it is you're going."

Maomao's old man, still looking concerned, gave a dip of his

head. He ended up taking all three of them with him to the rear palace.

Chapter 4: The Rear Palace

Be they a palace woman or a eunuch, all those entering the rear palace were subject to a physical inspection. Maomao and her old man were used to it, but Yao and En'en seemed to find it pretty embarrassing. They recoiled at the idea of being touched by a eunuch; the looks on their faces all but screamed Don't

touch us! Luomen finally gave up and summoned one of the rear palace women.

"This is the only time," he advised them.

"Yes, sir," they said. At least it looked like they weren't going to argue with him. Still, Maomao couldn't shake the sense that their attitudes toward him had taken a turn for the worse since they'd found out that he was a eunuch. That's hardly unusual. Eunuchs were widely dismissed and looked down on. Luomen himself was all too used to this, and it seemed to roll off his back, but it still made Maomao angry.

It felt so familiar to be back in the rear palace. In this garden of women, the only men around were eunuchs. It was a strange situation—and yet here, it was also perfectly ordinary. The combination created some real characters.

People kept sneaking glances at Maomao and the others; when you couldn't come or go freely, you developed a sensitivity to anyone from the outside world. Eyes shone as they fixed on the newcomers, wondering if they might have any interesting gossip to share. Maomao even recognized a few of the faces they saw. It was no one she was especially close to, just maids who had been around sometimes when everyone was chatting at the laundry area. They were openly perplexed by the way that every time Maomao got out of the rear palace, she seemed to wind up coming back.

To begin with, Luomen headed straight for the medical office. The two other court ladies looked around in fascination as they went, but Maomao and her old man betrayed no special interest in the place as they walked along. That must have bothered Yao, because for once, she spoke to Maomao.

"Why do you look so used to this?" she asked.

"Because I worked here for two years." Not quite consecutively, but she'd been there until the past autumn. "That's the term of service for ladies in the rear palace."

Telling the whole tale would have been a pain, so she left it at that and hoped Yao would too. That put an end to the conversation, and they were silent until they arrived at the medical office, where they found a familiar loach-mustached man fast asleep.

"Hello?" Luomen said apologetically, catching the man right in the middle of a snore, which turned into a snuffle, then a grunt, and then the quack doctor sat bolt upright.

"Oh! Oh, Luomen, it's you," he said. "And the young lady! It's been quite a while." He walked over to them, his hands clasped around his large belly. It had been several months since Maomao had accompanied him to his home village.

Speaking of nepotism, she thought, remembering what the medical officer over by the military camp had said.

"And who are your friends there?" the quack asked, looking at Yao and En'en. The two of them seemed a bit conflicted. This man was a eunuch, but he was also a medical officer, and while that was easy enough to grasp intellectually, they seemed to be struggling to decide exactly how to behave toward him.

Either unable or unwilling to read the look on their faces, the quack said, "Who wants some tea and snacks?" He started rifling through the medicine cabinet. In one sense, his ignorance was indeed his bliss.

"These three are court ladies who are going to be helping in the palace medical offices in the future," Luomen explained. "I've brought them with me today as an experiment. You and I alone can't handle the entire rear palace forever. Didn't you get my message?"

At that, the quack glanced guiltily at his desk, where there was an unopened letter. But let's spare him any further embarrassment on the subject.

"Ahh, yes, of course," he said, as if, in fact, he had been

entirely aware that they would be coming. "And what do you plan to have them do?"

Maomao knew this was pretty standard for the quack, and her old man was giving him a wry smile; meanwhile, Yao and En'en had already started to sense that there was something wrong here and were looking at the quack suspiciously. Maomao guessed that it wouldn't be long before they figured out what a quack he was.

"We're going to visit Consort Lihua's pavilion today, and then the middle consorts."

Among the high consorts, Loulan had disappeared after the Shi rebellion, Gyokuyou had become Empress and left the rear palace, and Lishu was effectively stuck in her nunnery. Lihua was the only one remaining in the rear palace.

I heard she gave birth to a boy. I wonder how he's doing, Maomao thought. It had been a long, long time since she'd last seen Consort Lihua. She had a certain attachment to the consort, whom she'd personally attended for a long stretch while nursing her back from an illness. It could be said that Lihua had had her share of misfortune, if perhaps not quite as much as Lishu. She'd gotten rid of her most problematic ladies-in-waiting, and Maomao wondered how things were going for her.

She was also curious about the real reason they were there— Aylin, the new woman from Shaoh. She was the entire reason Maomao had become a court lady in the first place.

"In any case, how about we start by heading to the Crystal Pavilion?" Luomen said, and then they were off.

Since they were visiting a high consort, they were accompanied not just by the doctor, but by other eunuchs who acted as bodyguards. Partly they were there for the safety of the medical officer, but they would also keep a close eye that no harm was done to the consort. Turnover wasn't that high among the eunuchs, so Maomao recognized their guards.

Ever faithful to their duty, the men only spoke to Maomao and the others when absolutely necessary, so she didn't even know their names. That didn't bother her, though. She figured that as long as she didn't cause trouble for them, they were happy too.

She was perfectly content with these sorts of well-defined relationships.

Lihua, also known as the Wise Consort, had always kept a lovely house, and her pavilion was as stunning as ever. Now there were roses everywhere, a legacy of the time Maomao had borrowed a building on the grounds of the Crystal Pavilion to grow some; she'd given the consort all the flowers she hadn't used, and they had been planted all over. Maomao had grown only white roses, but the groundskeeper must have considered the colorless flowers a bit sad, for now there were red and yellow roses, and even a vibrant green variant. They could have renamed the place the Rose Pavilion. Maomao was only sorry they'd come near the end of the flowers' season.

The lady-in-waiting who had come to greet them saw Maomao standing in the Pavilion's entryway and let out an "Eep!" Apparently not all of the old ladies-in-waiting had left, for several of them wore undisguised looks of distress when they saw Maomao. They never did cease to treat her like some kind of monster, and Maomao got the feeling that it was earning her renewed suspicion from Yao and En'en. For that matter, even her old man was looking at her, his anxious eyes asking: Did you

cause some kind of trouble even here?

They were shown into the inner chamber, not the bedroom but the reception room. A few minutes later, there was a rustle of cloth, and a consort who looked like a gigantic rose herself appeared. She carried a plump young baby in her arms, its mouth working open and closed gently. There was a faint aroma of milk in the air, suggesting she had been feeding the child until a moment before.

Consort Lihua wore only a touch of rouge on her lips and no whitening powder on her face; she had such lovely skin that she hardly needed it to make her look more pale.

Maomao and the others followed the example of Luomen and the quack in how to greet the consort. Maomao was pleased to find her looking so healthy. The child in her arms had a fine pallor as well, and was now well past the age at which the former crown prince had died. Remembering that there really should have been another rambunctious young boy running around brought a pang of sorrow to the heart.

Empress Gyokuyou's son was now the presumed heir apparent, but the little boy in Consort Lihua's arms would be the next in line.

Unless they're still treating Jinshi as the heir apparent? The thought of the succession disputes that could arise gave Maomao pause, but at the moment she was just happy that the child seemed to be doing well.

"There's no need to spend too long on greetings. Could we go straight to my checkup?" Lihua said, passing the baby gently to Maomao. She was a little taken aback to suddenly find an infant in her arms, but the boy, unbothered to be held by a stranger, stuck his thumb in his mouth and smiled.

Babysitting isn't really one of my talents...

Maybe Lihua wanted Maomao to see the child. To know that the consort, who had been like an empty shell after the death of her first son, had given birth to this beautiful, healthy boy.

Knowing that, who could fail to cherish him?

The new ladies-in-waiting who'd been brought into the Crystal Pavilion proved quite good at their jobs: a chair was brought so that Maomao could hold the child securely, and a cup with a piece of absorbent cotton in it was prepared. If the child wanted some water, Maomao could put it to his mouth.

Meanwhile, Luomen began Consort Lihua's exam, taking her pulse. The quack stood by smiling, not doing anything in particular. In his place, En'en passed Luomen any tools he needed.

Maomao took a good look at the child. There was a bit of sweat around his neck, maybe because it had gotten rather warm. Other than that, she saw nothing out of the ordinary; he was the picture of health. She whispered as much to the grinning quack, who passed the message on to her father. Luomen seemed not the least bit surprised; he told the quack to get some medicine for sweat out of the medicine cabinet.

The most important thing was that the child was growing up healthy—but Maomao couldn't shake the sense that Yao was glaring at her the entire time she held the baby.

After Consort Lihua, they went to see the new middle consort from Shaoh. There were three spare high-consort pavilions available, but Aylin didn't live in any of them. Like the other middle consorts, she'd been given a more modest building to herself. So she wasn't getting any special treatment. It was located slightly east of the center of the rear palace, and looked like it hadn't been used for a while; the scenery around it was a bit desolate.

The ladies-in-waiting who came out to greet them smiled broadly at Maomao and the others and showed them inside. There were five of them, a pretty average number for a middle consort.

"Hello." They were greeted by the new consort, a woman with golden hair, wearing a wide-sleeved robe, probably an unfamiliar outfit for her. She was voluptuous and tall, her skin so pale it seemed almost translucent and her eyes the color of the sky. Certainly an appearance that made her stand out from the crowd.

You can understand why they thought they would make it in here on their looks alone, Maomao thought. Even if Jinshi had shown them up when he put on women's clothing. Anyway, it hardly mattered. Aylin had finally achieved what had then been her objective: to enter the rear palace. When she had arrived, she had not spoken well of the other former emissary, Ayla—had they had a falling-out sometime during the last year? They certainly

looked like they got along well enough. Maomao knew that

women's friendships could be fragile and easily broken, but she couldn't help wondering what had shattered this one. She knew better than to ask, of course.

Aylin reclined on a couch, watching one of her ladies prepare tea.

She certainly checks all His Majesty's boxes. Notably, the curves. Foreign women tended to look older than they were, and Maomao had heard Aylin was only in her late twenties. The Emperor could certainly be energetic after dark, but Maomao also knew he was a sharp thinker. He had two perfectly healthy sons already; he didn't need to be in a rush to add a third. For that matter, if he had a child with a woman who had come seeking political asylum, it could be a source of much diplomatic strife later.

And there's enough sources of that already.

Maomao looked at the woman with whom Lahan had been so pleased to chat out west. At the moment, she sat demurely sipping her tea, but it was impossible to say what thoughts she harbored in her inmost heart.

The lady-in-waiting beside Aylin tasted the tea for poison and then poured it for the visitors. Luomen sounded unhurried as he began the conversation. "Have you gotten used to life in the rear palace?" Aylin spoke the local language fluently, but slowing down a little bit could only make it easier for her to understand.

"Yes, thanks to the kindness with which everyone has treated me." Her long fingers wrapped around her cup, a foreign-style mug with a handle. Her fingernails were conscientiously painted red. From the faint sweet aroma of the tea, Maomao guessed it was the fermented stuff they served in the west. She was eager to try a sip, but only her father and the quack had been given cups. They included us at the Crystal Pavilion, she thought. A bit of politeness on Consort Lihua's part, perhaps. Normally, it seemed, there was to be no tea for assistants.

Luomen started his examination by taking the consort's pulse. One thing that set him apart from the other doctors was that he wrote down numbers as he did his exams. He wasn't as mad about them as Lahan was, but he valued numbers greatly as concrete guides to a person's health. Now he placed a portable writing set on the table and began scribbling down figures.

Maomao noticed that his writing wasn't the ordinary kind. Western characters? she wondered. At a glance they appeared twisty, like earthworms. Long ago, her old man had recorded his medical knowledge in characters like this, but Maomao had worked furiously to decode them, and he had ended up switching to another mode of writing.

Even as Maomao wondered why her father had decided to use those letters, she noticed several people stealing peeks at him and his writing. The quack clearly didn't have the slightest idea what any of it said and simply handed Luomen his tools as he asked for them. One of the ladies-in-waiting was brewing some more tea, but also sneaking little glances at the physician's notes.

And there was someone else, too: En'en was taking it in with a subdued expression.

The notes didn't say anything particularly interesting. Even Maomao could read them. Pulse normal, health good—short, simple words like that.

"I don't see anything unusual," Luomen said at length.

"In-deed, sir?" Aylin's otherwise fluent speech still had an occasional lilt. Maybe it had something to do with the pronunciation of her native language. She kept taking little looks at Maomao—did she remember her?

With nothing out of the ordinary to report and their job completed, they were just about to leave when Aylin stopped them. "Since you've come all this way, perhaps you'd take some treats with you," she said.

She held out bundles of baked goods wrapped in lovely cloth. They seemed to be cookies in an unusual shape; the aroma of butter rolled off them. Only the court ladies were given snacks; the quack doctor was left to gaze enviously at the unique treats. Maomao would have to share a bit of her bounty with him when they got back to the medical office.

En'en's cloth, and hers alone, boasted a pattern rather than a solid color. Maybe Aylin hadn't been able to find three pieces of the same color cloth.

So no tea, but we get snacks? It seemed strange, but they couldn't refuse a gift. Maomao tucked the cookies in the folds of her robe and then her father led them off to the next consort.

The sky was turning red by the time they had visited the remaining middle consorts and headed back toward the medical office. It was about the time of day when Maomao, who always ate modestly, started feeling peckish. She wondered if she could entice the quack to serve up a little tea in the office.

"That takes care of the middle consorts, but we'll have to go around to the lower consorts, and eventually see the ladies-inwaiting too," Luomen said genially. Maomao seemed to remember he only used to visit down to the middle consorts. It seemed he'd gotten busy lately. The quack was looking at him admiringly.

Luomen was back as a medical officer, and there were court

ladies to help too. He was getting on in years and wouldn't be able to do these examinations forever; he probably intended to turn the work over to the court ladies eventually. Chances were he was also taking into account the fact that the population of the rear palace would be shrinking, which would make things easier in the long run.

Luomen didn't lead them to the medical office, but made for the gate they'd come in by. "I think we'd best be on our way home," he said.

"Surely you could stay a little longer?" the quack said.

Yeah! We've got snacks! Maomao added silently, but her father shook his head.

"I'm afraid we can't. There's more work yet to do."

The quack looked positively crestfallen. He didn't have many friends to share tea and a bite with, just the eunuchs who came by occasionally. Even Maomao's friend Xiaolan was gone, since her term of service had ended the year before. I wonder how

she's doing, anyway, Maomao thought. Xiaolan was a sweet girl and had found herself work in a good part of town. Maomao thought maybe she should send her a letter soon.

The quack doctor was still looking sadly at their treats, so Maomao took hers out, intending to share some. She stopped when she noticed something odd: the cookies were essentially cylindrical in shape, and there seemed to be something inside them. She grabbed at one, managing to extract a small piece of paper. There was one in each of the cookies.

What's this?

She slipped the snack back into her robe and left the rear palace. As for the distinctly disappointed doctor, she decided to pretend she hadn't seen him.

Chapter 5: Fortune Cookies

Once Maomao got back to the dormitory, she pulled out the treats, opening the cloth and laying the cookies on top of it. There were seven in total, all with papers of about the same size inside them.

The heck is this?

The characters looked like a cross between snakes and earthworms. They were western characters, just like her father had been using; she thought she recalled that this was called cursive, a form of the letters adapted for writing quickly. The papers were covered with little clumps of two or three letters, but they weren't words; unlike the language of Li, in the west you had to put several characters together or they wouldn't mean anything. So she couldn't "read" the isolated, individual letters.

Were they supposed to mean something?

She's testing us, Maomao thought. This consort certainly had her quirks. She was, after all, gutsy enough to enter the rear palace almost completely alone.

Realizing that she was being put to the test angered Maomao.

But even more, it made her want to solve the riddle.

She looked from the cookies to the papers and back. Each of the papers had either two or three letters on it, and the papers themselves didn't have neat corners, but rather ragged edges, some of them on a bit of an angle. Maybe they'd been torn. The paper was stained with grease from the cookies, but thanks to the high quality of the material, it hadn't come apart.

This is awfully involved for a practical joke. What was the woman after? Maomao looked through the paper, but she didn't see anything.

She was still puzzling over it when there was a knock at the door. She answered it, a piece of paper still in her hand, to discover Yao and En'en standing there. They lived in the same dormitory—not that it mattered much to Maomao, seeing as they never spoke to her.

"Can I help you?" Maomao asked politely.

Yao, however, looked incensed. "I know you got some treats from the consort this afternoon. Give them to me."

Funny thing—Maomao didn't even have a special attachment to sweets, yet the moment she heard the demanding tone in Yao's voice, she decided she wasn't about to hand the cookies over. To be fair, she could tell that Yao wasn't asking for them as a snack. So she decided to tweak her a bit.

"I'm very sorry, but I ate them for my dinner. Western cookies are rather papery, aren't they? Do you suppose they have germ in them?" She tried to make it sound like she could still feel the funny texture in her mouth.

The blood drained from Yao's face and she virtually pounced on Maomao. "Spit them out! Spit them out right now!" She was shaking her. Ah. Her cookies must have had paper in them too. "Where are the rest?! You couldn't have eaten all of them without noticing!"

"Lady Yao," En'en said, finally stopping her from the violent shaking she was giving Maomao. She looked as dispassionate as ever. "I think I detect a slight smile on Maomao's face, as if she thinks she's made a fool of you. I believe you're being teased."

So En'en remembered Maomao's name! And could read her expressions, no less.

"You're teasing me?! Is that true?!"

Jig's up, Maomao thought, straightening her collar and meeting Yao's eyes. "I admit I was having a bit of fun with you, but I might suggest you were uncivil to me first. I don't know what you have against me, but bursting into a person's room and trying to take their things is theft and nothing but."

What Maomao was saying was perfectly right and true; no one could have objected. The blood rushed back to Yao's face, until she was so red she looked like steam should be coming out of her like a teapot. She took a deep breath, then let it out again and looked straight at Maomao. "Was there anything unusual about the cookies you were given? If there was, I want you to give them to me. I'll pay you enough to get another snack."

"What do you mean by 'anything unusual'?"

"Anything, you know, unusual! Like, was there something weird inside them?"

The idea of getting some pocket change appealed to Maomao, but she couldn't let go of the riddle of the mysterious paper. She didn't want to just fork over the cookies. It sounded like Yao and En'en had found something similar in their snacks, but Maomao doubted they would be too eager to tell her what it was.

She glanced at En'en. The young woman played the part of Yao's attendant to perfection, but when she looked back at Maomao, she seemed far more coolheaded than her mistress. Maybe I should try talking to her, Maomao thought, trying to figure out how to move the conversation along.

"If you're asking whether there was anything inside the treats I received, it implies there was something in yours, yes? If you tell me about it, I'll share what I know too."

Yao didn't say anything, but she looked awfully put out. En'en was watching her mistress's reactions closely. Maomao held out the piece of paper in her hand. "Show me what you found, and you can see the rest of these."

Each piece of paper had different letters written on it. If they were ever going to decipher the meaning, they would need all of them, which meant Maomao had no qualms about revealing just one.

"Where are they?" Yao said.

"You show me yours and I'll show you mine," Maomao replied.

Ultimately, she and Yao were equals. They'd both taken the same test and they'd both passed, so now differences in social status weren't supposed to matter. Many people might feel they still did, but here, at this moment, they were on even terms.

"Lady Yao," En'en said.

"Fine," Yao said at length. All she could do was nod her agreement. "But I won't have this conversation standing out in the hall."

"Certainly. In my room, then," Maomao said.

"No, in my room!" Yao responded. Maomao couldn't have cared less which room they talked in, but to simply roll over and let her have her way would have handed her the initiative.

It was En'en who saved the situation from becoming a

stalemate. "How about we use one of the meeting rooms, then? I can go reserve one for us." She was referring to the dormitory's meeting rooms, which could be used for business—and locked for more private conversations.

"Very well. I'll get ready," Maomao said. She scooped the rest of the cookies into a carrying cloth and they left the room.

En'en succeeded in reserving one of the meeting rooms immediately. The place was big enough for at least ten people, which made it feel pretty massive with just the three of them in there.

"We each show what we have at the same time," Yao said.

"I know, I know," said Maomao. They were on either side of a long table, with En'en sitting at the head.

They each opened their carrying cloths simultaneously, revealing piles of cookies numbering seven, seven, and six. One person had fewer cookies than the others—and that person was Yao, who looked bashfully away from Maomao. "I... I might have tasted one."

"Ah," Maomao said, seeing that one of the pieces of paper was partially torn, the characters damp. At least Yao had a full complement of seven pieces of paper. Like Maomao's, each one had some letters on it.

Then there was En'en, who had cookies but no paper.

"You haven't taken yours out yet?" Maomao asked, but En'en shook her head.

"None of mine had so much as a scrap in them," she said, showing them the holes in the mysterious cylindrical cookies. It was clear there was nothing inside. If she was telling the truth, then they had seven and seven pieces of paper, fourteen in all. Could they make some kind of sense out of the letters written on them?

Maybe if we line them up the right way, we'll see something? Maomao thought. Yao appeared to have had the same idea, because she was setting the pieces next to each other, trying them in different arrangements. She'd put slight folds in

Maomao's pieces so they would remember whose were whose. No matter how they swapped the pieces around, though, all any of them could do—including Maomao and En'en, let alone Yao—was stare at the letters, perplexed.

"Can you tell what it says, En'en?" Yao asked.

"I'm very sorry. I've only dabbled in Shaohnese. I can carry on a bit of a conversation, but this..."

So Maomao had been right—En'en had been watching her father write during the exam because she could read a bit of the language herself.

Yao turned to Maomao, though she wasn't very happy about it.

"What about you?"

"I'm not much better, I'm afraid. If I had actual words front of me I might be able to understand them, but putting them together from pieces?" She was probably about as likely as En'en to figure it out. As they arranged and rearranged the pieces of paper, she kept thinking it was about to come to her, only for it to not quite click. If they just kept trying combinations, she felt like they would hit on something eventually, but it would take a tremendous amount of time. Not to mention that, unfortunately, the letters on one of the paper pieces had been obscured by teeth marks and spit and weren't legible anymore. Perhaps remorseful for what she'd done, Yao was a little less imperious now.

"I wonder if there's anything else that might serve as a clue here," Maomao said, looking at the cookies. All of the treats were the same shape. Well, not identical, of course, but you couldn't have told them apart with the naked eye.

"How do they taste?" Maomao wondered next, giving the cookies an experimental sniff. All of them smelled the same, and when she tried a few pieces, they tasted the same too: they made her tongue tingle slightly. There must have been ginger in the recipe, for flavor.

At this point, there was no way of knowing which piece of paper had come from which cookie anyway.

"Do you think it's possible there just isn't any meaning?" En'en asked.

"You know, I remember hearing about some temple where they baked fortunes into their treats," Yao said.

Fortunes. Might the letters on the paper strips refer to good or bad fortune? It didn't look like it to Maomao. "But if these are supposed to be fortunes, why did one of us get cookies with nothing in them?" Maomao said.

The other two nodded. The consort hadn't looked like she was making a deliberate decision about whom to give which cookies when she passed them out. But if they weren't just snacks, then what—

"Could it be?" Maomao said. She looked at the cloth the cookies had been wrapped in. Hers and Yao's were solid colors, but En'en's had a pattern on it. She studied the pattern: there were angles everywhere; the cloth appeared to have been dyed only after the pattern had been applied. She could see something, ever so faint—were those brushstrokes?

"Look at this," she said, spreading the cloth open on the table. She looked from the pieces of paper to the pattern and back again, then began to line up the papers with the angles in the pattern. Before long, she found that she had neatly filled all the gaps. "I knew it."

The letters formed two rows composed of several words each.

A message.

"Um... What's it say?" Yao asked, squinting at it. It clearly bugged her to be the only one who couldn't read the words.

"I see 'pale' and a question mark," Maomao said.

"And this one means 'to know,' right? And this one...'the truth'?" En'en added.

Between them they tried to work out what they could. Even with the faded and unreadable paper, by piecing together the rest of the context, they thought they could make sense of it.

"Does this say...'woman'?"

"Looks like it."

They put their heads together, and bit by bit they decoded the message, until they read: Do you want to know the true identity of the pale woman?

Maomao broke out in gooseflesh. Give me a break! She'd been so sure that was all over. Why was it coming back to haunt her now?

The pale woman: she had to be the one they called the White Lady. But she was supposed to be imprisoned, unable to do anything more. Did Aylin know something about her that she hadn't told Jinshi or Basen? And why would she choose to reveal it to some court ladies working as medical assistants?

"Who or what is the pale woman?" Yao asked, cocking her head. Apparently she didn't know of the White Lady or all the talk she'd stirred up among the populace.

En'en only studied the row of letters quietly. For her part, Maomao thought this was something they should report to Jinshi immediately, but when she stood up, someone grabbed her wrist.

It was En'en. "Where do you think you're going?" she asked.

"Where? To report this, that's where. We have to, don't we?" Maomao was a careful person; she didn't like having to keep dangerous secrets all to herself. What she was doing was perfectly rational.

"I think it's the right thing to tell someone about this," Yao said, for once taking Maomao's side.

Maomao assumed that En'en would give in and follow Yao's decision, but instead she said, "Just what kind of person would give a riddle like this to some medical apprentices she just met?" She looked at Maomao; the way she asked the question, it almost sounded like she thought Maomao knew Aylin.

I really don't, Maomao objected privately. She did know one thing, though: Aylin was a skilled operator. Even if they went to someone with this story, she'd probably already prepared some way of getting out of it. Or could it be...

"Do you think this is some sort of test as well?" En'en said.

"A test?" Maomao asked.

When she thought about it, it seemed plausible. Candidates for the medical assistantship had been screened more aggressively than the other court ladies, and even those who passed the test could be cut loose without a moment's notice if they were deemed unsuitable. Yes, the possibility was certainly there.

But then again...

If this was a test, it seemed to go well beyond what could ordinarily be expected of helpers in the medical office. For one thing, solving it required some knowledge of the language of the west—and of course, it had never been a given that the three young women would share the information from their snacks with each other. Someone was searching for people with the ability to consider multiple sides of a situation and adapt.

Almost like...

Almost like a spy.

If Jinshi had some part in this, then it was possible. What connection could there be, though? But go far enough, and— Nope. I don't understand.

If that was the case, then they didn't have to report things willy-nilly. They could try to talk to Aylin, play it by ear. Yes, they could, but...

"I'm reporting it," Maomao said.

"You think I can't hear you two talking? What if it's a test?!" Yao demanded.

If it was a test, then she would fail; that was all. Maomao had already qualified as a medical assistant. She didn't expect they would take work away from her because of this. Frankly, she was already on more than her maximum tolerable dose of work.

"Please, don't worry. You're both welcome to talk to the consort."

And I'll be mixing up medicines in the medical office.

The two other young women could pass the test; they would be more than enough. There was no telling what they might be called on to do when and if they passed this additional test.

I'm not interested, Maomao thought. She was perfectly content to hang around the medical office, doing laundry or making tea or whatever other little chores were needed, having her old man and the other medical officers teach her new formulae. Maybe occasionally trying them out on some sturdy-looking soldier who came by. That was all she really wanted. A modest happiness, but enough for her.

The other two ladies, however, wore scary looks. They had a firm grip on Maomao and were glaring at her. Particularly Yao.

"We couldn't have solved this without the three of us together.

If you go telling, she'll assume we agreed." So what was she trying to say?

"You're in this with us!" Yao and En'en chorused.

All Maomao could do was hold up her hands a little and smile wryly.

Chapter 6: Strategist Down

Maomao sighed as she stood doing the laundry under the baking sun. This was really a huge pain. Not the laundry, no. The net she'd found herself caught in since Aylin had given them that riddle and they had solved it. All morning, Yao and En'en had been giving her the evil eye, making sure she didn't sell them out.

I'm in this too, huh...

That explained why En'en was smack next to her, her bucket right beside Maomao's. She was working industriously on some bandages, and because she'd thought ahead and gotten some soapberry pulp ready, the wrappings came clean nicely.

After the bandages were cleaned, they would be boiled. Blood could have toxins in it, and getting other people's blood on you or ingesting it could spread infection. Then there were sexually transmitted diseases, whose ravages Maomao was all too familiar with.

Yao was out with the medical officers; they were going to teach her how to shop for medicines.

I wanted to go on that trip, Maomao thought, but she had been left behind, along with En'en, who had felt Maomao shouldn't be left alone. It was terrifically boring. So boring that before long she found herself wanting to take it out on her companion.

"Here I thought laundry was maids' work," she said.

"I never once said such a thing," En'en replied, and it was true —it was the now-dismissed court ladies who had said it. Maomao wondered how they were getting along these days. Given that neither Yao nor En'en had looked particularly distressed by their departure, it seemed the ladies weren't so much old friends as sycophants who had been trying to ingratiate themselves with Yao when they heard about her family background. Unfortunately for them, Yao wasn't soft enough to stick her neck out for such fairweather toadies.

"I wanted to go on the shopping trip," Maomao grumbled.

"So did I," En'en said. "For that matter, they could have just taken you, for all I care." In other words, she'd just wanted to be with Yao. It turned out neither of them was exactly happy, so Maomao resolved to stop griping about it.

They were just wringing out the washed bandages and putting them in a bucket when several people came running into the medical office. Maomao squinted, trying to see what was happening, and saw they had someone on a stretcher.

"An injury?" Maomao asked as she and En'en went back to the office, carrying the buckets. With the real doctors out shopping, the apprentice physician was the only one watching the place, so they figured they'd better get back and see what was going on.

"Uh! Umm..." The apprentice physician was in a tizzy, lost for what to do. Given their proximity to the military camp, injured men were hardly uncommon here, and even the apprentice should have been more than comfortable with them by now. When Maomao worked her way into the gaggle of people and saw who was lying on the stretcher, however, she couldn't refrain from a disgusted "Ugh!"

Who should she find but the monocled freak laid out on the stretcher, tossing with pain.

"They say he's been poisoned," the apprentice told her, his face pale.

"Unbelievable..." Reluctantly, Maomao took a look at the eccentric strategist. He was pale and shaking, holding his stomach. Which was fine as far as it went, until...

"I c-can't hold it in..."

At that, needless to say, his stretcher bearers paled, then hefted him up and hurried him off to the toilet. Let us refrain from saying which end "it" came out of.

It came in waves for the next hour or so, until the strategist's condition finally stabilized. Expelling so much had dried him out, though, so Maomao and the others gave him water with some salt and sugar mixed in to make it easier to absorb. For the record, it was the apprentice physician who administered the drink; Maomao only stood by and watched. She knew it might have

been even easier for him to drink if they'd mixed it with a little juice, but she felt no obligation to go that far. At least he was able to get the water down. When it came to vomiting and diarrhea, staying hydrated was key.

When things had calmed down a bit, Maomao got out a pot, intending to boil the cleaned bandages, but she was interrupted when Lahan came rushing in.

"I received word that my honored father collapsed!" he said.

Maomao simply pointed to the room where the freak was sleeping. The crowd of his subordinates had dwindled to just one, left behind to keep an eye on him, and the apprentice had gone to call the doctors back. Maomao didn't blame the guy for being a little disturbed, but she suspected it wasn't a great idea to leave oversight of the all-important medical office to two court ladies.

En'en gave Maomao a funny look as she poured water into the pot. "Do you know him?"

"Unfortunately."

"You seem to have some kind of connection to Grand

Commandant Kan too. May I ask—"

"No relation." Maomao pointedly began preparing the fire.

"If you don't want to talk about it, that's all right," En'en said, but there was something in her voice. She was asking—but she'd probably already looked into it herself.

It's all that old bastard's fault, Maomao thought. It would be a lot easier to play dumb about him if he wasn't constantly lurking around their place of work.

Lahan returned from the sickroom when the bandages were boiling nicely. "I don't see my granduncle," he said.

"He's shopping today. He probably won't be back for another couple hours. And I think the rest of the doctors are at one of the other medical offices."

"Hrm..."

Freak though the strategist might be, he was also a rather important person, and it might be best to keep his indisposition quiet. Notwithstanding his injuries, however, they'd probably brought him to the medical office in hopes of summoning Maomao's old man, Luomen.

"They said something about him having been poisoned," En'en ventured as Lahan stood with his arms crossed. Maomao realized how unusual it felt to see En'en taking the initiative like that.

"Yes, that's right," Lahan said. "But my honored father isn't just anyone. Who could have managed to poison him?"

"Surely there are more than a few people with grudges against him," Maomao said, her tone relatively polite. She could have gotten away with speaking less formally to Lahan, but with En'en standing right there, she decided to mind her words. Anyway, when someone climbed as high as the strategist had, and done it in part by deposing his own father, there had to be as many grievances against him as there were stars in the sky.

"My father is an excellent judge of character, if nothing else. I don't believe he would leave someone in his orbit who would poison him."

"I agree with you. Take away his ability to judge people, and you're left with nothing but an old man starting to stink of age," Maomao said.

"How rude. He can play Go and Shogi, you know."

"Both of you are positively awful," En'en said calmly, stirring the contents of the pot with some chopsticks. She was pretty enough that Lahan clearly felt it was worth his while to talk to her. The way his glasses flashed, you could almost see him turning her body into a series of numbers. His gaze was growing dangerously perverted, so Maomao gave him a sound smack on the head.

"My apologies if this question rubs the wrong way coming from an outsider, but for my future reference, perhaps you might tell me what it was he was poisoned with?" En'en said.

"Good question," Maomao replied. "Everyone is using the word poison, but is it possible this is simply from bad food? Did he eat

something he found on the ground?"

"I have a guard watching him at all times to make sure he doesn't," Lahan said proudly.

You do? Maomao thought.

"U-Um... Excuse me..."

They turned at the voice to find the soldier who had been stationed by the eccentric strategist. He was rather slim and looked somewhat retiring.

Rikuson was something of a pretty-boy too, Maomao recalled.

Aide-de-camp to the strategist was a military position, but no doubt it involved a lot of paperwork. Now that she thought about it, she realized she'd hardly seen Rikuson recently. Had he been prized away from the strategist?

"I wrote down what you asked for," the soldier said. He handed them a ratty piece of paper, some of the characters smudged and indistinct. They spelled out what the freak had been doing and what he'd eaten over the last several days.

"Let's see. Immediately before the incident he was... Ahem. Well, I feel sorry for the Moon Prince. It seems my honored father was intruding on him again," Lahan said.

In other words, immediately before falling ill, the freak had been bothering Jinshi. It sometimes seemed like that weirdo didn't even have a job, except when it seemed like he did. Occasionally, he would put his stamp on some important paperwork, or make a snap personnel decision. He might be useful if a war broke out, but in peacetime he was less helpful than a lantern at midday. While it was one thing to be useless, he had to go bothering everyone else.

"This says he ate one mooncake and drank some juice, and that he offered the mooncake to the Moon Prince. It also says he was angry that he wasn't offered tea."

"That's right. The prince was as lovely as ever, if I may say so," the strategist's assistant replied, his eyes glistening at the memory. Another of Jinshi's victims.

Anyway, someone might try to poison Jinshi, but Maomao didn't think Jinshi would try to poison anyone else.

"Maomao, how much poison are we likely to be talking about here?" Lahan asked.

"There's no single answer. It depends on the poison. Also, with some poisons the victim can appear to get better, only for the effects to recur later and cause death." She glanced toward the sickroom. The aide's face was pale. "Although I think he'll be fine," she added.

"Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired," Lahan growled. He put the piece of paper on the table. Before he'd visited Jinshi, the strategist had apparently been lazing around at an open-air pavilion in one of the palace gardens. With its cool breezes and the river flowing by, it was apparently one of his favorite spots. He'd brought along a snack, a steamed bun, which he'd been eating.

"Wage thief," Maomao grumbled.

"This might be a good moment to not say everything we think," En'en chided, but privately Maomao was sure she agreed with her. The freak had arrived thirty minutes late for work in the morning, truly the kind of privilege afforded only to the bosses. For breakfast he'd had congee with sweet potato mixed in and a mooncake.

"It's all sweets," En'en remarked.

"He's going to get diabetes," Maomao said.

"My honored granduncle told him the same thing," Lahan replied. "Incidentally, Maomao, any ideas yet?" He was looking closely at her. He would normally have turned to her father, but since he wasn't here, Lahan was left with no choice but Maomao. No doubt the attempted poisoning of a military official was a case they wanted solved as quickly as possible.

"If there's anything left of the food he was eating, I might be able to figure something out," she said.

"I'm afraid not. He ate all of it."

"U-Um," the aide once again volunteered weakly. "There's still a few sips of the juice he was drinking..."

"Can you bring it here? Right away?" Maomao asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

The aide left the room but was soon back; it took him exactly as long as it took the boiled bandages to dry.

"Here it is," he said. He gave her a glass drinking vessel with a wooden stopper, about one-third full of a pale liquid. The coloration implied grape juice, diluted with water to make it more drinkable.

"That's quite large," En'en said, looking at the vessel with interest. It couldn't have been easy to carry it around all the time, but since the freak always drank juice instead of water or tea, he probably needed it.

"I don't believe it's poisoned," the aide said.

"What makes you say that?" Maomao asked.

"Because I had some too. Anyway, I should think it would be extremely difficult to slip poison into a container that never leaves his side."

"Then I guess we can ignore this," Lahan said, taking the bottle and placing it on the table.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" En'en said.

"Not as beautiful as you," Lahan replied smoothly. Stupid abacus-face. He was no looker himself, but he never failed to chat up a pretty girl.

En'en only said "Thank you" and smiled courteously. Purely businesslike. It was patently obvious that she had no interest whatsoever in the tousle-haired man.

Maomao, meanwhile, studied the glass bottle, observing the liquid inside. "Hm?" She cocked her head. "This really is quite an impressive piece."

"I agree, ma'am. I believe Master Rikuson gave it to him. He's quite fond of it."

"Speaking of Master Rikuson, I haven't seen him lately. Whatever happened to him?" The perfect chance to ask the question that had been on her mind.

"Ah. He went to the western capital. This bottle was his parting gift to the strategist. I'm his successor, and I must say, he left big shoes to fill." The aide bowed his head.

"You didn't know?" Lahan said.

"I certainly didn't." She and Rikuson had both been in the western capital only recently. And now he'd gone back?

"With Master Gyokuen coming to the capital, he requested that someone knowledgeable about matters in the central regions be sent west in his place. Master Rikuson has gone to fulfill that request," the aide said.

Gyokuen: the father of Empress Gyokuyou. As father of the Empress, he might well be expected to come to the national center. Maomao thought it seemed a bit sudden, but then, she'd heard that Empress Gyokuyou's son—which was to say, Gyokuen's grandson and, if things remained as they were, the future emperor—would be formally presented soon.

The Crown Prince's presentation would be a lavish affair, with even VIPs from other nations present, so Gyokuen could hardly fail to attend, even if he was the most powerful person in the western capital, and even if it was a very long trip.

"He insisted, and I'm afraid we were in no position to turn him down," Lahan said. "And he was so useful..." Lahan knew Rikuson well and was clearly distressed by his loss. The strategist's erstwhile aide was able to remember any face he saw even once, which certainly made him an excellent counterpart to the freak himself, who couldn't even tell one face from another.

En'en probably couldn't follow even half of the conversation, but she was listening without too much interest anyway. She seemed like she could be an excellent lady-in-waiting, for she knew how to keep to herself at the right moments—but then again, it was intimidating when you couldn't be sure how much of the conversation she actually understood.

"All right, let's get back on topic. As far as who poisoned the strategist..." Lahan said.

"Oh, I've already figured that out," Maomao said offhandedly, her gaze still on the bottle.

"What?" exclaimed all three of the others at once.

"Well, who in the world was it?" Lahan demanded, adjusting his glasses on his face.

"The freak himself," Maomao replied. She flicked the bottle with the tip of her finger; it produced a delicate ring and the juice inside rippled.

"You're out of your mind. I think I can say for a fact that my honored father would never attempt suicide. Even if he might drive others to it."

"Awful," En'en interjected.

"Nonetheless, he put it here himself—right in this juice," Maomao said.

"H-Hold on a second. It didn't look like there was anything in it. Did he put something in there when I wasn't looking?" the aide said.

"Oh, he put something in it, all right. And he did it right in front of your eyes." Maomao pointed to the mouth of the bottle, which was closed with the wooden stopper. "Question: I know he always keeps his juice with him, but does he usually have a cup, as well?"

"No, he just drinks straight from the bottle."

"Did you do the same, drinking directly from it?"

"Absolutely not! When I escorted him back to his mansion last night, we bought the juice on the way home. That's when he gave me some." People frequently purchased drinks using their own containers. The strategist had probably washed an empty bottle, then had it filled with juice.

"So you bought this yesterday, correct?"

"Yes, that's right."

Now she was certain: the strategist had poisoned himself.

"So? What kind of poison did he use? If this is your idea of a joke, then let your dear big brother inform you that it's gone too far," Lahan said.

"Who's my big brother?" Maomao growled, temporarily forgetting to be polite. She stole a look at En'en, who was making an I-knew-it face. She really must have checked Maomao out. Maomao cleared her throat and regained her composure. "It's the same poison we all carry with us. Right here," she said, and pointed at her mouth. Or more specifically, at what was inside it.

"Saliva."

"Saliva?"

If the strategist wasn't drinking from a cup, then he was drinking directly from the bottle, and some of his saliva would get mixed back into the juice.

"What could possibly be poisonous about saliva?" Lahan said.

"You know how if a dog bites your hand and you let it go untreated, your hand will swell up? It's the same thing. Canine and human saliva aren't quite identical, but both can be poisonous." And if the poison had nutrients to feed on, it would multiply. "If he's lounging around an open-air pavilion on a warm night, carrying that juice everywhere without ever cooling it down, then the poison inside is going to grow, until it gets bad enough to be harmful."

The glass bottle seemed likely to be especially good at retaining heat. Maomao had once used a goldfish bowl to focus the light of the sun, and she suspected this bottle could do something very similar.

"People know that fish will rot if you leave it out, but for some reason they never imagine that a drink might go bad in as little as half a day. But it does. And then you get..." She gestured in the direction of the indisposed strategist. "...a lot of trouble."

"Trouble, yes..." Lahan crossed his arms, wondering how he was going to explain this one.

"Should we simply say he ate something he found lying around? It seems easier to believe," the aide said—sounding reluctant, for his suggestion would certainly not help the strategist's authority.

"No, when it comes out that the contents of the bottle were poisoned, the situation will explain itself. Maomao, taste the juice for poison. I know that's your specialty," Lahan said.

"Absolutely not."

"Why not? Normally you can hardly stop yourself from sampling a poison."

"Because I'm not drinking from something that old fart put his mouth on. Do you want to try it?"

Lahan didn't say anything for a moment, but his expression was one of utter comprehension. At length he said, "Couldn't you be just a little kinder to him? He is still grieving, you know."

"I wouldn't want it to go to his head," Maomao said flatly.

The entire incident had been an all-around pain in the neck.

Not long after, the medical officers got back.

"My goodness, really?" Maomao's old man asked in exasperation when he heard the story. En'en, meanwhile, looked dejected; Yao was filling out paperwork regarding their purchases and wouldn't be back for a while yet.

The freak strategist had seemed basically fine, so Maomao had sent him home. Specifically, she'd had him carted away while he was still asleep, lest he wake up and cause even more headaches.

At least the medical officers were back, but now she found herself tasked with sorting and organizing the medicine they'd bought. Maomao enjoyed the work, but after the day's events she was awfully tired.

"Talk about exhausting," En'en said to her.

"Yeah," Maomao replied. En'en had seemed unusually willing to talk to her that day, maybe thanks to Yao's absence. She was fundamentally reticent and not very expressive, so she'd never actually come after Maomao herself, who realized now that En'en didn't necessarily dislike her. It was just that with Yao around, she probably didn't talk much for the same reason Maomao didn't.

Because talking is a lot of trouble.

She was probably a lot like Maomao, actually.

"I think I should apologize for some of what's happened so far," En'en said as she organized some medicine in a drawer.

"What do you mean?" Maomao said.

"The way I've been acting. I know I haven't been terribly nice to you. As for Lady Yao... Well, I can only ask you to be generous with her. She was so sure she would enter this job as the top student, but here you are."

"Top student?"

"Hadn't you heard? The person who gets the best grade on the test is given a slightly different color of hairband."

"Ah." Maomao remembered how her hairband alone had been a darker color. No, I hadn't heard...

She'd left the matter of her outfit entirely to Gaoshun, and when he'd brought her a change of clothes there had been too much badgering on the part of the madam to leave time for explanations. She felt a bit bad about it now, but she was also surprised. She'd figured she had only barely passed the test.

"Setting aside the general-education portion of the test, when it comes to the specialized knowledge, getting even half the questions right is considered good," En'en said.

General education? Did that refer to the history and poetry Maomao had choked down so unwillingly? She'd wrung herself out for those questions. Oh, how she had worked!

"Lady Yao swore she got all of the general questions right, so she must have lost out to you in the specialized-knowledge portion. I was confident my grade was as good as anyone's, too, so I admit that at first I wondered if you'd been hired because of your family connections."

"Is that what this was all about?" Maomao said. Her only regret was that if she'd really done so well, it meant she could have afforded to study a little less. Not that it would have made much difference; from the moment she'd been sold out to the old lady, she'd been left without a choice. "I'm an apothecary by vocation, you see..."

"Yes, I know. You proved it today. But I don't think that will take the sting out of it for Lady Yao."

Maomao could understand, and she didn't necessarily have a problem with people like that. She certainly liked it much better than if Yao had tried to suck up to her instead. The problem was that it was all too easy for other people to misinterpret such aloofness. Because Yao was from the best family of any of the newly minted court ladies, the others had felt obliged to follow her.

"She's not a bad person," En'en said. "I hope you won't hold this against her." En'en's handling of the situation was downright adult. Maomao hadn't asked how old she was, but she suspected they were about the same age. En'en added, "Lady Yao is just fifteen. She still has some growing up to do."

"Did you say fifteen?" That made her four years younger than Maomao—yet her body was so developed! "She's quite large for her age." (Maomao didn't specify where.)

"Yes, I've worked hard to help her grow," En'en replied, sounding strangely proud of the fact.

If she's just fifteen, then I guess I can hardly blame her, Maomao thought, although she suspected that if she said out loud that Yao was still a bit childish, En'en would get upset.

All this still left one issue. Namely, En'en was obviously Yao's attendant, yet she was also quite intelligent in her own right, as evidenced by the fact that she knew a smattering of the western tongue, which even Yao didn't speak.

"May I ask you something?" Maomao said.

"Yes? What?"

"If I hadn't been here, Lady Yao still wouldn't have been the top examinee, would she? You would have."

A fixed smile came over En'en's face. As she was putting away the next medicine in the drawer, she said, "Such a thing would

absolutely never have happened." Absolutely, huh?

Cheating in order to raise one's grade was a problem, but deliberately missing questions you knew the answers to? That wasn't even cheating.

En'en was polite and circumspect, but Maomao saw she had to stay on her toes around her. She was one shrewd young woman.

Chapter 7: Aylin's Intentions

About every ten days one of the physicians from the outside, principally Maomao's father, would visit the rear palace. The system was simple enough. Upper consorts were seen once a month, while middle and lower consorts received exams every three months. Even this made seeing everyone something of a challenge, but if Luomen was ordered to do it, then he would have to do it.

It had been nine days since their last visit to the rear palace. Nine perfectly normal days for Maomao, other than the two court ladies keeping a constant eye on her.

If there was a problem, it was that any letters that came to her were examined. Thankfully, none of them arrived from Jinshi personally; they usually came in Gaoshun's name. Also (not that it mattered to her), it seemed Basen was back at work. His recovery struck her as preternaturally quick, considering the severity of his wounds.

Maybe he's just built differently. One day, she hoped she would be able to test his powers of recovery against those of other people.

A letter came from Sazen letting her know that the apothecary shop was doing just fine, although he also complained that Kokuyou was obnoxious. Yes, Maomao knew he could be obnoxiously cheerful, but Sazen would just have to live with it.

Once in a while, pictures of Maomao the cat were mixed in with the letters; these came from Chou-u. In lieu of a personal seal, Maomao's toe beans would be pressed on the pictures in scarlet ink. The scratches on the pictures suggested she signed them under duress.

In the name of careful inspection, Yao studied one picture of the cat particularly hard. At length, she handed it regretfully back to Maomao. En'en later asked if Maomao wouldn't give her the cat painting; Maomao suspected it would then make its way to Yao.

Yao and En'en seemed to think the "pale woman" was just a code name. It seemed to nag at En'en, but Yao didn't pay it much mind, so En'en didn't pursue the matter too far.

The pale woman... Maomao was almost certain it was the same person she knew as the White Lady, although she couldn't be absolutely sure.

If it's not... She thought of the painter she'd saved from food poisoning. His house had had a painting of a beautiful woman with white hair and red eyes, someone he claimed to have seen in the western reaches. Could that be the woman that Aylin, who herself hailed from Shaoh, was referring to?

But why the riddle, then? No, it had to be the White Lady, Maomao thought, shaking her head. Yet still the woman in the painting wouldn't leave her mind. Could there be some sort of

connection?

Her question would be answered the very next day, when they saw Aylin again.

There were not quite a hundred women in the rear palace with the rank of consort. Rumors always swirled whenever an upper consort left the rear palace, but lower-ranking consorts often departed without anyone remarking on it. Sometimes they were given in marriage to deserving officials, or returned to their families, never having been visited by the Emperor. Many of the palace women scoffed at the idea of leaving the rear palace, but it didn't particularly bother Maomao.

Maomao, Yao, and En'en were with Luomen and the quack doctor, making the rounds of the rear palace. This was their second time on this duty. They found the room with the flower and number indicated by their tag. It belonged to a lower consort, but the door had a black cloth over it, a sign of loss indicating that the owner of the chamber had died.

"Do you suppose she was ill?" Yao asked. But this was one of the women Maomao's father had seen on their last visit, and he hadn't noticed anything. Which implied...

"Suicide, I suspect," Maomao said. It wasn't that unusual. As long as the death was obviously self-inflicted, with no signs of foul play, the rear palace hardly batted an eye. It wasn't exactly an everyday occurrence, but it was nothing to get excited over.

The ladies in the rear palace might represent every different kind of "flower," but most of them arrived convinced of their own beauty. Many had an awfully high regard for themselves, and more than a few were driven to despair by the gulf between their expectations of the rear palace and the reality.

The group heard some ladies chattering: "They say she was addicted to alcohol." They were so caught up in their gossip that they didn't notice the gaggle of medical personnel standing right nearby. As soon as they spotted the white overcoats, they scurried back to their posts.

It truly is a graveyard of women... Or rather, a battlefield, Maomao thought. Those who were defeated in combat had no choice but to disappear. On some level, the maids could be said to be freer than the consorts. They might be worked like dogs, but they had a fixed term of service. If they could just hold out long enough, they would get outside the palace walls again.

Today's plan was to visit the lower consorts' chambers, then lastly head to Aylin's residence. They hadn't initially planned to see her, as they had visited her last time, but the plan had been changed because of a personal request from the lady herself. Was she not feeling well? Or was there something else she wanted to know?

First, they came to the room of a lower consort with a camellia symbol on the door.

"No, no particular problems," said the consort, who reeked of perfume, as one of her ladies fanned her. The bountiful odor came drifting toward them, making Maomao want to scrunch up her nose. It was summer, yet amazingly, the room was shut tight, giving the smell nowhere to go.

Too bad for her. She has His Majesty's preferred body type. Even under the consort's robe, the collar of which was fastidiously closed, it was clear she was voluptuous. Her facial features gave her a somewhat aggressive look, but she seemed intelligent enough. Very much within the scope of their ever-energetic Emperor's interests.

Maomao stole a glance at the quack's notebook. It was open to

a page with the name of the odiferous concubine before them, along with notes about illnesses she'd suffered in the past—not to mention how many visits she'd had from His Majesty.

I was right. She is his type.

Only one such visit was recorded. She suspected it was the thick smell of perfume that had kept him from coming back for more. The odor seemed to be something imported. It was a shame, really: a touch of it behind her ears might have been quite pleasant.

It might seem startlingly frank, even uncouth, but in the rear palace records were always kept of the Emperor's nocturnal visits, which were required to be reported to the physician. But being required didn't make it any less trying sometimes. Like for

Empress Gyokuyou. His Majesty had sometimes visited the Jade Pavilion every third night. It wasn't just for show—oh, it definitely wasn't—but someone had to be posted outside the bedroom just to make sure. The duty usually fell to Hongniang, Gyokuyou's chief lady-in-waiting, but when His Majesty came on consecutive nights or the job otherwise grew too demanding, Maomao had sometimes taken up the post.

I had the advantage of being used to this stuff from the pleasure district...

From what Maomao could deduce, the Emperor and Gyokuyou were engaged in some pretty advanced hanky-panky. Just the noises that could be heard through the wall... For Hongniang, more than thirty years old and still single, it must have been a trial.

The simple fact that they kept a tally of such things was enough to prove that you weren't in the outside world. Maomao suspected that visits to this lower consort wouldn't resume at this point, but the one visit she'd had appeared to have left this woman imperious and proud, though in Maomao's eyes it only made her seem the more sad. That lone visit put the world beyond the inner palace all but out of her reach.

Maybe if it weren't for this stink... It was so overdone, Maomao wondered if there was something wrong with the woman's nose. In fact, it seemed there might be: the consort's small, shapely lips kept opening; it seemed less like a tic and more like she was breathing through her mouth.

Living creatures normally breathe through their noses, like dogs and cats do—and, normally, humans. If she was breathing through her mouth, it might suggest that her nose was blocked, and if she'd had that habit since she was a child, it would have affected the alignment of her teeth.

The alignment of her teeth... Maomao mused. Her old man was just checking the woman's mouth, evidently having had the same thought, but the woman's teeth were more or less straight.

"Do you sneeze often?" Luomen inquired.

"I do."

"Any stuffiness in the nose?"

"Frequently, especially from spring to early summer. And especially since coming to the rear palace."

"Do you have trouble sleeping?"

"I could sleep just fine, if only my nose weren't blocked up."

Luomen scribbled some notes. The quack was simply standing and watching, so Maomao took it upon herself to grab the portable medicine chest and give it to her father. He took out something for nasal inflammation. "Try using this. Stop if it gives you trouble sleeping. You may also find yourself urinating more frequently, but I don't think that should be an issue." Then he added, "I think the perfume you're currently using may not agree with you physically. If you must use it, use just a little, or consider switching to a different kind."

"All right," the consort said. Maybe her meekness was inspired by gratitude that he had understood about her nose.

Maomao knew that if she noticed something, her old man could hardly fail to do the same. What was more, he'd managed to tell the consort that her perfume was too heavy in the gentlest possible way. Though if he hadn't, when her nose got better, it would probably have dawned on her just how badly she'd overdone it.

Once they left the consort's room, Luomen began inspecting the garden, where there were colorful summer flowers everywhere. "Where did this consort come from, I wonder," he said.

The quack flipped through his notebook. "She's from far to the northwest, close to the desert. Oh, the climate there must be very unpleasant."

Maomao's old man turned slowly toward her and the other two assistants. "Well, let's make this a teaching moment, shall we? What do you think caused the lady's rhinitis?" His riddle was accompanied by a gentle smile. Maomao's hand was in the process of shooting up when she saw him give her a bit of a look, and she put it back down. He wasn't asking her so much as Yao and En'en.

Slowly, Yao put up her hand. "Is it because her room was so stuffy?" It was certainly true that her chamber was closed up tight; that was one reason the smell refused to dissipate.

It won't have helped, Maomao thought. The room had looked clean enough, but it didn't seem like the consort was getting much fresh air in her living quarters. And they hadn't seen her bedroom; there was always the chance it was dusty in there.

"It's also possible her room is unsanitary," Yao went on. "If her sleeping area was dirty, it could breed bugs that harmed her body."

It was possible, but Maomao didn't think that was what was going on. That consort didn't look like a woman who had given up

on attracting His Majesty's notice. If she was hoping for an Imperial visit, she wouldn't fail to keep the bedchamber clean and ready. Even her overdone perfume was, as far as it went, an attempt to doll herself up. She just hadn't known when to stop thanks to her stuffy nose.

Maomao observed the grasses and trees growing in the garden. She said the inflammation was worst from spring into

early summer. She crouched down, plucking some grass growing

by the edge of the path. Mugwort. Maomao knew it well; she often used it in moxibustion treatments. It was a perfectly ordinary plant around here—but not, she suspected, where the consort had come from.

As Maomao crouched there looking nonplussed, her father took the mugwort from her like she was being a little brat.

He said, "I'm sure the consort's bedroom is in good order. No doubt she keeps it that way so it will be ready anytime His Majesty might see fit to visit her. Particularly given that she has in fact had one such visit."

Yao looked put out to be told (if not in so many words) that she'd given the wrong answer.

Luomen, however, knew how to soothe a wounded ego. "You were focusing on the right things. Illness often follows from a lack of sanitation, especially in bedrooms."

Now Yao seemed conflicted: praise, good, but...praise from a eunuch...good?

I would have gotten the right answer, Maomao thought. Call it something less than mature—Yao was younger than her, after all —but Maomao's adoptive father was one of the few people whose approval she craved.

"However, sneezing can also be caused by grass and flowers like these," Luomen went on. It wasn't the same as having a cold; plant pollen and spores could get into the body and cause fits of sneezing or seemingly unstoppable floods of snot. "Pollen can wreak havoc in the body. Hence the sneezing."

It was unusual for Luomen to state the facts quite so plainly when he was dealing with Maomao. It was enough to make her wonder if there was something else going on with the woman. But, no: the straightforward approach was probably easiest for Yao and En'en; even the quack was looking at Luomen with undisguised admiration.

You're supposed to be one of the teachers! Maomao thought at him.

Yao's hand slowly went up again. "Um... If pollen 'wreaks havoc' on the body, why aren't we all sneezing?" she asked.

Luomen smiled. "A good question. Just as there are those who catch colds more easily than others, there are those whose bodies aren't affected by pollen. It's also possible to find your body is suddenly affected when it wasn't before. For example, if you're already in ill health from something else. A long journey from a

far country to an unfamiliar land, for example." Rather like their consort.

I knew all that, Maomao pouted. Her father looked at her apologetically. Physicians were supposed to hand down cryptic pronouncements from which students had to unravel the truth for themselves, but Maomao's father didn't work like that. He was kind enough to explain things so that anyone could understand.

It still stung a little, but Maomao could act adult, too, even if she didn't always like it. She forced herself to assume a neutral expression once more as they went to the next consort's residence.

After they had seen ten or so of the other consorts, they finally came back to Aylin. Maomao found it challenging, somehow, to think of her as "Consort Aylin." Not because she was a foreigner. (If that were the case, she would surely have faced a similar difficulty with Empress Gyokuyou.) No, Maomao had trouble with Aylin's title for one simple reason: she didn't believe Aylin had really come to the rear palace as a consort.

A lady-in-waiting opened the door for them, exactly as a ladyin-waiting should, and they were shown to the same room as last time. Just before they entered, Maomao felt En'en tug on her sleeve. Yes, yes, I know, she thought. Maomao was a coconspirator, but Yao would play the part of the ringleader. Maomao thought En'en would be better at thinking on her feet, but that wasn't how things worked around here. En'en's role was to support Yao.

The first question was when to broach the subject. Aylin's face was red and feverish; Maomao had no idea if it was an act or a real condition, but it certainly helped explain why she had specifically asked for them, and the flush gave her face a striking beauty of its own.

God, her chest is big, Maomao thought.

Being in ill health, the consort was wearing what amounted to sleepwear. One of her ladies looked like she wanted to object about the propriety. Maomao spotted En'en discreetly comparing Aylin's chest with Yao's, but she could keep that to herself. Was En'en hoping to help Yao "grow" even more?

"I'll take your pulse, then," Luomen said politely. However ravishing the consort might look, the men here lacked the means to respond. Anyway, they were an old man and an older man, their libidos already long withered.

Luomen considered the woman's symptoms and then prepared

a medicine: she complained of some stiffness in her neck, so he made a concoction of arrowroot. "You just have a cold," he said.

"The unfamiliar environment here must be stressful."

"Thank you very much. I was thinking after your last visit, I'm glad to discover that the phys-icians here use more than chants and charms." Aylin wore a look of wonderment.

"Some doctors do practice that sort of medicine. It simply happens that I don't," Luomen said, refusing to specifically denigrate folk practices like "chants and charms."

"Of course, there must be some."

"If you'd prefer magical practices, I can certainly bring someone who specializes in them."

Aylin shook her head. "No; in fact, I've been very pleased not to encounter any such. I once served as an apprentice shrine maiden, you know, and I would rather not find myself subjected to the rituals of another faith."

"Ah, I hadn't realized. Yes, if you follow the 'shrine maiden's faith,' that's certainly understandable."

The Emperor was not cruel enough to make his women abandon their beliefs when they entered the rear palace. As long as they practiced their individual religions discreetly, he was willing to look the other way.

She abandoned her country—

But it seemed faith could not be put aside so easily.

"I'm familiar with the shrine maiden-ism of Shaoh. What will do you do during rites here?" Luomen asked, referring to the sacred observances sometimes held in the rear palace.

"It is no problem. As long as I receive per-mission to take part,

I will follow the ways of my new home." A very flexible response, then.

Yao fidgeted as she listened to the conversation, clearly feeling she was missing her chance to talk to the consort. As it was, it seemed it might be best not to try to talk to her at all.

The mark of a good subordinate, however, is the ability to come to the rescue at such moments. The medical examination was interrupted by a distinct crack: the sound of En'en (ever expressionless) biting into one of the lightly toasted rice crackers that had been put on the table along with the tea.

"En'en!" Yao exclaimed. Since she had spoken up, there was no need for Luomen or the quack to intervene—but Maomao knew En'en would never normally do something so impolite.

"My sincere apologies. They simply looked so enticing," En'en said.

"Do not worry. That is why they are there," Aylin said, still looking languid.

At that, En'en glanced at Yao as if to say this was what she had been waiting for. It was only then that Yao finally seemed to realize what the other woman was doing. "Why yes, they do look delicious," she said. "Almost as good as those treats you gave us the last time we saw you. They were most unusual, those palecolored cookies."

The cookies had indeed been a strange shape, but they hadn't been pale. Yao was trying to communicate that they had cracked the code.

Aylin's expression didn't change, although some of the ladiesin-waiting looked perplexed. Perhaps they hadn't known about the papers in the cookies, or perhaps they'd been told they were simple fortunes.

"I'm so glad you enjoyed them. Baking treats happens to be a hobby of mine. I made more for today. I do hope you'll take them with you," Aylin said, a slight smile crossing her face. The smile didn't reveal whether or not she had understood Yao's meaning— but the young women couldn't wait to find out what kinds of snacks the consort would give them this time.

The treats Aylin gave them on this occasion contained no puzzles, as the three medical assistants confirmed when they got together to see what they had after their work in the rear palace was over. Instead the treats contained a letter, telling them to go to a restaurant near the dormitory. The fact that the same letter was in all three of their cookies suggested that they had been right to think they needed to pass the test together or not at all.

Many of the establishments in the northern part of the capital city were luxurious places, and the location named in the letters was a fancy drinking establishment. A lot of government bureaucrats spent time there, so there were plenty of private rooms available.

"Is it just me, or do we look out of place here?" Yao said. This was, again, a drinking establishment—a very fancy one—and despite her family's wealth, it wasn't the sort of place Yao, at just fifteen, was very familiar with.

It also wasn't the sort of place three women usually went alone. Most of the patrons were men, the waitresses the only women in sight. The average person would probably have advised the girls to keep their distance, although Maomao, well acquainted with drinking and drunkards from the pleasure district, was unbothered by the cold looks their party received. At least no one seemed too drunk to think straight.

They were greeted by a waitress in fancy makeup. "Can I help you?" she asked, polite but obviously not regarding them as potential customers. Maybe she thought they were there to look for a job.

"We're customers from the west," Maomao said, exactly as the letters had instructed. The waitress took the hint and led them inside.

No sooner were they settled in their private room than Maomao felt herself go limp as the tension left her body.

"Hullo," said a small, tousle-haired, spectacles-wearing man sipping some fruit liquor—no, more likely fruit juice. It was the freak strategist's nephew and adopted son, Lahan. There was another man there as well, someone Lahan occasionally brought along as a bodyguard, but Maomao had never known him to say a word and figured it was safe to ignore him.

"Why, you're—"

"Do you know this man?"

En'en had met Lahan when the strategist had collapsed the other day, but Yao had been away from the medical office at the time and didn't know who he was.

"I'm so glad you made it here safely. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come," Lahan said.

"I'm going home," Maomao said, spinning on her heel.

Yao grabbed her arm. "Why are you going home? Do you know him too?" The question mark was practically visible over her head as she looked from Maomao to Lahan and back.

"This is Master Lahan," En'en offered. "Maomao is Grand

Commandant Kan's daughter, you see."

The freak strategist's full title! She really had done her homework, Maomao realized, scowling bitterly. She resorted to her usual insistence: "He's a stranger."

Meanwhile, Lahan seemed entirely unbothered. "I'm impressed you know that," he said to En'en with genuine admiration.

"I would naturally investigate anyone who insisted on hanging around so often. Even if there does appear to be a certain tacit approval of his actions."

Damn freak! Maomao cursed the strategist silently. He was only ever a nuisance. She'd heard that since he'd managed to give himself food poisoning, his subordinates had been watching him closely at every meal.

"And this man is the Grand Commandant's son," En'en said.

"So he's your older brother?" Yao said, giving Maomao a curious look.

"That's right," Lahan said.

"That's absolutely wrong," Maomao said.

"Which is it?!" Yao said. Maomao was bent on keeping Yao, at least, out of Lahan's web. But the other woman went on, "So you've had someone on the inside all along." She was under a misunderstanding, but not the one Maomao had feared. And who could blame her, when she found out that an acquaintance of Maomao's was the ringleader?

It was Lahan who intervened. "Now that is wrong. We have no use for anyone who can't solve a riddle as simple as that one, even if I am related to them. After all, if we sent someone without a working brain into this situation, it would only make things more dangerous for everyone." He squinted his already fox-like eyes behind his large, round spectacles.

Maomao knew he wasn't simply standing up for her; it was what he really thought. This was the man who had betrayed his own family and chased them out of their house. This was Lahan.

There was a crook to En'en's lips; Maomao thought it was a smile, but if so, it was a distinctly sarcastic one. Maybe she'd heard rumors about Lahan, what kind of person he was. She certainly seemed more wise to the ways of the world than Yao, who was still cocking her head in confusion.

Maybe she has to be so she can help her more-sheltered mistress...

She was the right woman for the job, then.

"But why stand around to talk when we can do it while we eat?

Sit, sit, and let's have a pleasant meal."

Maomao, still openly upset, took a seat. By dint of his social standing, the meal was presumably Lahan's treat. She would take the opportunity to order the most expensive thing on the menu.

"So there you have it," Lahan said, and although his tone was light, the content of his explanation sounded very troublesome indeed. It certainly warranted reserving a private VIP room at a lavish restaurant. What he'd said couldn't go beyond these walls.

In outline, the story went something like this: Lahan had been involved in getting Aylin into the rear palace. That much, Maomao had known. Aylin claimed a political enemy of hers was making a bid for power and that she was in danger of her life. Her request for Li to export food to Shaoh had been, after a fashion, an attempt to give herself a lifeline: in times of famine, having a ready supply of food could make you powerful. She had probably hoped that would be a major card for her to play.

"But ultimately, even that didn't faze her enemies," Lahan said. The populace could be frightening if angered, but no weapon was powerful enough if you were assassinated before you could use it. So instead, Aylin had elected to enter Li's rear palace. As such, outwardly, Li wasn't offering her political asylum; in fact, it could even appear to be strengthening its bonds with a neighboring nation.

Maomao looked puzzled.

"Question?" Lahan asked.

"No, just thinking that women seem to do exceptionally well for themselves in Shaoh."

A situation like Aylin's would be almost unthinkable in Li, simply because outside the rear palace itself, a woman couldn't hope to rise higher in the hierarchy than a man. Even serving as a court lady was, in most cases, ultimately undertaken in order to make oneself a more attractive bride. Women might be important tools for their use in political marriages, true enough, but rarely would they have the influence that Aylin seemed to.

"What, didn't you know that?" Yao chuckled, sounding pleased to know something Maomao didn't for once. She was obviously itching to explain. Maomao was increasingly starting to see the charm in her personality. "The country of Shaoh is supported by two pillars," Yao said. "One is the king, and the other is the shrine maiden."

Maomao had heard tell of Shaoh's shrine maiden, at least a little bit. Her prognostications could influence the country's politics, and that was what the faith sometimes called "shrine maiden-ism" consisted of.

"That's right. You know your stuff," Lahan said. Yao and En'en were both pretty young ladies, and he was no doubt happy to be talking to them.

"Traditionally, the king has the final word in political matters, because the shrine maiden has always been a young woman, mostly an image or symbol. But in recent years that's changed," Yao said. In the past, shrine maidens had rarely served more than a few years—maybe a decade at most—for by definition, only a girl who hadn't begun to menstruate could serve as shrine maiden. "The current shrine maiden, however, is in her forties now, older than the king, which means she can stick her nose where a shrine maiden wouldn't have dared before. In fact, it's made women all over Shaoh more politically influential."

"I see," Maomao said. Again, she'd already known parts of this story, but this put everything in a new light.

Forty years old and still her menarche hasn't begun? That definitely got Maomao's attention. It was very unusual, but not unheard of; it could be caused by a number of things. Maomao didn't know how the shrine maiden felt about the situation, but as for her, she was intensely interested. "Has that ever happened before?" she asked.

"The answer to that question bears directly on why we're here, so let me pick up the story there," Lahan said, munching on a thin-sliced pig's ear. "There have been cases in the past. When their visitor fails to arrive, however, the next shrine maiden has always been appointed after the current one turns twenty."

That made sense from both a political and a symbolic perspective. "So how has the current shrine maiden managed to stay in office so long?" Maomao asked.

"She's special."

Lahan took a piece of paper from the folds of his robe. It looked like a classical painting of a beautiful woman, except that the hair seemed to be only sketched in. It resembled the picture the artist had drawn of the woman with white hair and red eyes.

"The current shrine maiden is albino. There are several conditions governing which children might be chosen to be shrine maidens, but the most revered candidates of all are 'pale' children."

An albino: rare even among shrine maidens. So venerated that she could still occupy her position in spite of all precedent. Maomao didn't say anything, but the dots finally connected for her.

Do you want to know the truth of the pale woman?

She thought of the painting of the pale beauty the artist had encountered in the west. Could she have been this shrine maiden? She would have been just the right age at the time.

Albino people were said to lack whatever it was that would ordinarily have given their skin color. Sometimes "pale" children were born through sheer chance, but some bloodlines were more prone to producing them than others. Although they were supposed to be as rare in Shaoh as they were in Li.

"The shrine maiden is currently indisposed with an illness," Lahan said. "She's come to our country for medical treatment, but no man, not even a eunuch, is allowed to lay hands on her."

"Hence court ladies serving as medical assistants."

"Hence court ladies, yes. The shrine maiden coming from where she does, there's a long trip involved, not to mention the distinct possibility of causing an international incident if anything goes awry. We needed people who know how to improvise." That explained why the test had taken such an odd form.

"What if none of us had passed the test?" En'en said.

"Then we would simply have had to ask someone else to go. A last resort, of course."

Maomao was pondering who they might have sent when she thought of a lovely person who looked quite good in men's clothes. With the exception of her parentage, Suirei was the most suitable person in every respect. She was probably considered a last resort because she was, in the end, a prisoner.

"If I may say so, Consort Aylin seemed rather worried about the shrine maiden and her illness. Would that be because the maiden is a check on her political enemies?" En'en said.

"You've got the general idea," Lahan replied. Well, that was ambiguous. It was true that there was nothing specifically selfcontradictory about what Lahan had said, but nonetheless something nagged at Maomao. The most successful lies were wrapped around a kernel of truth. She suspected that while Lahan wasn't lying to them, he wasn't telling the whole truth either.

Should I try to press the point? Maomao thought. But no: if she wasn't careful, En'en or even Yao might catch on. Instead, she decided to stay silent for the