Prologue
"Make sure you smile."
Her mother was always saying that to her. To be certain her father would be happy on those rare occasions when he visited.
To ensure he would give her that coveted pat on the head.
Her mother was not her father's main wife. Her father was old enough that he could have passed for her grandfather; he had a son by another woman who was as old as her mother. More like an uncle than an older brother.
Perhaps her older brother didn't like having a sister so much younger than he was, for his own children were forever teasing her, pulling her hair and pelting her with mud pies—ordinary childish cruelty. They would repeat what the adults said about her. Always careful to travel in packs large enough that she couldn't fight back.
They jeered at her, called her a concubine's daughter. So she grinned back. The corners of her mouth turned up, just showing her teeth. Her brother's children, who had known only obsequious smiles, backed away. She'd only smiled. What did they see when they looked at her? Their reaction seemed so ridiculous that it made her smile bigger.
Just at that moment, her father appeared. How must she have looked to him, covered in mud?
He began smiling too. He ignored his grandchildren, dressed in their finery, and came over to his filthy daughter. He wiped the dirt from her face and patted her head.
"I'm going to make you first," he said.
She asked him what he was going to make her first in.
"First in the whole nation. I know you have what it takes."
The other children didn't have it. Only she did. Learning that she was special like this made her heart pound.
"Don't let the sparkle fade from your eyes. The one thing you must never do is lose hope. Smile. And never let it slip."
Smile? She could do that. So long as there was something the least bit amusing, it was easy. She didn't need her father to tell her that. She spent all her time seeking out fun and pleasant things. Even after he sent her away. Away, to that den of iniquity full of women...
Chapter 1: The Go BookThe wind was getting colder every day. Maomao began to sleep under an extra blanket.
She wasn't sleeping at that moment, though. She was staring open-mouthed at a veritable mountain of books piled in the entryway of the dormitory and marked To Maomao.
"What are those? I mean, they're books, obviously," Yao said as she emerged from her room. She'd managed to recover from her episode of poisoning, thankfully. It had taken a while for her to get back into action, but she would be starting work again in a couple days.
She came and stood beside Maomao. Her lovely face was now marked with jaundice. Her liver and kidneys had been badly compromised by the poison; she would have to avoid alcohol and salt, probably for the rest of her life. And they'd have to find her food that would be good for her skin.
"They're all the same book," En'en observed. She could naturally be found whenever Yao appeared. She was holding a bag of ingredients for their dinner—she'd been furiously gathering medicines and foods that would alleviate Yao's jaundice. It saved Maomao the trouble. "It looks like it's about Go. It says it's by Kan Lakan."
This was the doing of the freak strategist. Associating with troublesome people could only bring you trouble, Maomao knew, but knowing it and staying out of trouble were different things.
"I told him we didn't want these sitting around here, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He gave me a letter for you too," said the middle-aged woman who ran the dormitory.
She gave Maomao the letter. It contained a great many fulsome and indirect expressions, all written in a lovely script, but translated into plain language it said, I made a bunch of copies of this book about Go. You can have some too. It was clear that he'd forced some subordinate to write it for him. The poor guy.
"What are we supposed to do with these?" Yao asked. The stack of books was tall enough for her to lean against. Books were valuable objects—just one could cost enough to pay for a month of meals. Yet here was a whole stack of them. They were printed books, so somewhat cheaper than hand-copied manuscripts, but producing so many of them was still no mean feat. Maomao could picture the strategist's adopted son Lahan hyperventilating over the amount of money involved. Oh, well.
Not her problem.
"We burn them," Maomao said flatly. But then she changed her mind. "No... That wouldn't be nice." It wasn't the books' fault that they had been written by this particular author.
She flipped through one of the books and found that it was surprisingly well done. It contained game records, diagrams of games of Go, accompanied by explanations of the salient features of the board situation. It would probably go over the heads of beginners, but it seemed like something experienced players might enjoy. There was even an illustration of calico cats playing Go together, but Maomao chose to ignore it.
En'en was peeking at the book with evident interest.
"Want a look?" Maomao said.
"Sure!"
Maomao passed her a copy and she started flipping through it, eyes sparkling. Who knew she had interests besides Yao? thought Maomao (who did pick unusual things to be impressed by).
"Does it look interesting?" she asked.
"Yes, it does! You can tell this is the work of our honored strategist—it's very well done. The first half consists mainly of games that rely on a lot of joseki, while the second half shows off less-conventional play."
Maomao's "older sisters" had taught her the basics of Go and Shogi, but she still didn't quite follow what En'en was saying.
Instead she asked, "Want one?"
"If you're offering, then sure. If you're trying to sell it to me, I'd be willing to pay up to one silver piece. Not only is the material excellent, but the paper and print quality are both beautiful."
"One silver piece?" Maomao looked at the mountain of books. She'd had no idea they were that valuable.
"Just one? You think she should let them go that cheap?" Yao said, looking over the construction of the books. Being from a rich background, her sense of what was "cheap" was a bit out of step with most people's. One silver piece could easily pay for two weeks' worth of meals.
"I grant she could probably get more," En'en replied. "I was hoping for a friendly discount."
Not collegial—friendly. So we're friends now? If En'en considered Maomao a friend, then it would be rude not to treat her as a friend back. Therefore, En'en was a friend. Maomao felt she could trust En'en's valuation of the book (if not the somewhat financially unmoored Yao's). If she said the books were worth one silver, they probably were. It looked likely they were going to go into mass production, however, so maybe she should price them a little lower than that.
"You and Maomao are friends, En'en?" Yao stared at them fixedly. "What does that make me, then?"
"You are my precious and irreplaceable young mistress!" En'en said, thumping her chest and smiling broadly.
I don't think that's what she wanted to hear, Maomao thought. The "young mistress's" expression immediately turned sour. She seated herself on a chair in the entryway and crossed her legs, sulking.
"Er?" En'en said, taken aback.
"You can just have the book, En'en. But if you know anyone who might like Go, would you spread the word?"
"You're looking for Go players? Yes, I know a few. The physicians like to spend their days off playing Go."
Ah, now that was useful info. Maomao felt a smile creep over her face as she regarded the books. With a little money in my
pocket, I could buy some valuable medicines. A wide variety of
items from the west had accompanied Shaoh's shrine maiden to the capital. The most exotic of them would be snapped up by the city's richest residents, but soon what remained would work its way to the markets. Even there, such imported goods would not come cheap—but, yes, that's what money was for.
"Do you think you could tell me who those Go players are?" Maomao asked. En'en responded by pulling out a silver coin from her purse.
"Here," she said. "Payment."
"I said I would give it to you."
"I'm happy to pay for it. But in exchange..." En'en glanced significantly at the pile of books. "Cut me in on the deal." She gestured at the coin.
I knew she was a smart one. Maomao gave her a look indicating she understood. That was when they heard the thumping behind them. Yao was stamping her feet. Foot tapping was not the sort of thing that refined young ladies were supposed to do, but Yao was making a special effort.
"Y-Young mistress, don't do that!" En'en said immediately, exactly the rise Yao had been looking for.
"En'en! Isn't dinner ready yet?" She fixed the two of them with a scowl.
"Oh! I'm sorry. I'll make something right away!" En'en said and hurried to the kitchen. Maomao looked at Yao, contemplating how adorable she was. She let her hand brush the books. She decided to put them in her room for now. It was going to be tight quarters for a while.
"Maomao," Yao said.
"Yes?" Maomao looked back, a few books already in her hands.
"Are you free tomorrow?"
"I suppose, in a manner of speaking. But then, in a way, I also have work tomorrow."
All three of them, Maomao, Yao, and En'en, had the next day off. Maomao could do what she wanted—poke her head in at the apothecary's shop in the pleasure district or wander around town to see if anyone was stocking any interesting medicines.
"It's got to be one or the other!" Yao said.
"Busy, then," Maomao said.
"You're free! I know you are!" Yao took Maomao by the shoulders and shook her. The young mistress could be so headstrong.
Maomao nodded. "Is there something you want to do tomorrow?"
In response, Yao's hand went to her cheek, brushing a blotch of jaundice. "I'd like to go shopping for some medicine. I thought you'd know more about it than En'en."
I get it. Yao was fifteen, an age when young women were worried about their appearance.
"Perhaps you'd like to shop for some makeup while we're at it?" Maomao knew a place that served all the highest courtesans. When some good-for-nothing customer struck them, that was where they went. The shop knew how to hide even the nastiest bruises. Maomao was sure Yao would like to look her best when she came back to work.
"Makeup?" Yao looked closely at Maomao. She was studying the area around her nose. "Why do you draw freckles on your face, anyway?" They lived in the dorm together; Yao had long ago realized that Maomao's freckles were fake.
"Oh, you know," Maomao said. She'd resolved to stop once, but Jinshi had ordered her to keep doing it. Having to explain
why, though, was tricky. It was risky to bring Jinshi into it. Finally she said, "Religious reasons." It seemed like the best way to not have to go into details.
Yao, though, wouldn't give up. "Does it, like, represent some apothecary god or something?"
"No. It's a charm, if you will. To help me grow taller."
"Huh. All right." Yao didn't need to get any taller, so such a charm was singularly unhelpful to her. Maomao was relieved to see her losing interest.
"Maomao..." It was at that moment that En'en entered carrying the evening's side dish. She was giving Maomao a look that clearly said: Please don't lie to the young mistress.
Chapter 2: A Jaunt Around TownThe next day, Maomao went shopping with Yao and En'en. Their little expedition took them to a commercial district along a main avenue south of the dorm. Shops lined the street, with open-air stalls filling the spaces between them. The place was bustling, busy and alive.
"What's that you've got, Maomao?" Yao asked, pointing to a cloth-wrapped package Maomao was carrying.
"Some of the books from yesterday," she replied. "I thought maybe I could sell a few copies to the bookstore." She'd brought just three, knowing that they wouldn't be interested in a large pile of copies of the same title.
"You're selling them?" En'en scrunched up her face. "Just trying to get a sense of the market value." "I see," she said, apparently satisfied.
Yao was peering at the sky. "I'm not sure I like the look of this weather," she said.
Maomao looked up: the sky was heavy with leaden clouds. "You're right. Strange for autumn. It can't be a typhoon at this time of year."
"It's a little chilly without the sun," said Yao, who had a scarf wrapped around her neck. It helped ward off the cold, yes, but Maomao suspected it was also to hide her jaundice. I knew it must be bothering her. She renewed her resolve to find Yao some good makeup.
"I'd like to start by picking these up," En'en said. She showed Maomao a list she'd written. It mostly consisted of fruits and vegetables. "Anything I'm missing?" she asked.
In response, Maomao looked at Yao. "You like white rice, do you, Yao?"
"Like it? I mean, I guess. Isn't it just basic food?"
"Let me put it this way: Do you prefer to actively avoid other kinds of rice?"
White rice was rice that had been polished. It tasted far better than unpolished rice, but the polishing process removed many of the nutrients that made rice worth eating. Maomao's old man had told her that eating unpolished rather than polished rice would help you avoid beriberi.
"Are you saying I have to eat unpolished rice?" Yao asked. The frown on her face suggested how she really felt about it.
"Not necessarily, but you should consider mixing things into your white rice. Grains, barley, or maybe sesame seeds. Any of them would give you a broader variety of nutrients." If rice was going to be her staple food, it would be best if she could get a range of other nutrition with it.
"How about we toss in some buckwheat berries, then, mistress? I know you like those," En'en said, but Maomao made a big X with her hands. En'en looked worried. "No buckwheat?"
"I'm afraid not. Because I can't eat it." Buckwheat gave her hives.
The other two women stared at Maomao, unimpressed.
What am I supposed to say? En'en's meals are delicious. And she'd frequently made enough for three recently.
"P-Perhaps I might suggest seaweed?" Maomao said.
"Seaweed," En'en repeated. She didn't seem very enthusiastic.
"Certainly. And meat can be replaced with beans or fish. Not all of it, of course, just some."
Fatty foods were supposed to be bad for you. Yao was looking more despondent by the minute. People her age liked to eat lots; she would naturally be disappointed to hear she shouldn't have too much meat. She would also have to limit her intake of salt and alcohol. En'en was looking concerned too.
Hmm, Maomao thought. The saying went that you are what you eat: food was kissing cousins with medicine. But it still had to
taste good. I think I know what to do.
Maomao had a favorite place for moments like this. "Come this way," she said.
"Why? What's over there?" Yao said.
Maomao led them off the main road, farther and farther down the back alleys, glancing back occasionally to make sure they were still following her. Soon there were as many houses as there were shops, and eventually they arrived at a restaurant with a soot-stained sign. It didn't exactly look like it specialized in haute cuisine. There were two tables crammed into the restaurant itself, with another poking outside. Instead of chairs, the tables were lined with upside-down barrels.
"Are you both feeling hungry?" Maomao asked.
"It's a little early for lunch," Yao said, but she looked intrigued. She couldn't help noticing, though, that the restaurant seemed deserted.
"A little early is best. It gets crowded at lunchtime," Maomao said. She peered into the shop, warm steam drifting out. "Auntie?
Are you open?"
"Sure enough," came a voice from within. A woman who must have been something more than forty years of age shuffled up.
"Hoh. The apothecary girl. Don't usually see you at this hour." "We hoped to get a meal in before it got crowded."
The woman was one of Maomao's customers; she came all the way to the pleasure district to buy medicine. She'd been a regular ever since Maomao's father had cured her of an illness she'd suffered from many years ago.
"Three portions, please. Whatever you have on hand. Ideally, something that's not fried."
"Coming right up. Don't usually see you without your father either..." She looked at Yao and En'en and grinned.
"Less talk, more food. Please." Maomao seated herself on one of the barrels.
"Maomao, why did you suddenly decide to take us out to eat?" En'en asked. She and Yao both looked mystified.
"Trust me. Sit down," she urged them.
They sat. The woman soon brought their food, a pot full of congee and several side dishes. Maomao apportioned the side dishes among the three of them, passing a bowl each to Yao and En'en.
"All right, if you don't mind..." Yao, ever the proper young lady, made a gesture of thanks and picked up her spoon. She didn't look entirely sure about this; the restaurant wasn't the cleanest place around.
"Is this potato congee?" En'en asked, sipping a spoonful of porridge. Sesame seeds floated in the congee, which included stewed potato. At the first mouthful, her eyes opened. "Is this potato congee?" The sweetness of it must have startled her.
"Yes—it's sweet potato," Maomao said. The very tubers that Lahan's biological father was growing. They came from the south and were ordinarily a rare treat—but this woman's restaurant was able to procure a supply through the Verdigris House.
"That's absolutely amazing," Yao said, going for another spoonful. Maomao grinned: she already knew that.
"You see? And sweet potato with sesame fits perfectly within your diet. You could probably get away with putting some barley or oats in there too." The modicum of salt in the dish was perfect for flavor, although if it needed a little something extra, minced kelp might make a good addition.
"Try some of this too," Maomao said, passing her some sticky stewed tofu.
"It really is wonderful," En'en said, almost regretfully. As a confident cook, perhaps it touched a nerve to eat something quite so delicious. "The flavor is so robust, but it never becomes overbearing."
"That's what ginger and garlic will do for you," the middle-aged woman said. "And instead of seasoning, we use xiandan." That is to say, a salt-cured egg added when seasonings ordinarily would be. "We get the viscosity with kudzu root. It warms the body— good for the type who catch a chill easily." (Kudzu root was also used as a medicine.)
"How did you make this?" En'en asked, her eyes shining as she pointed to some grilled fish.
"Fragrant herbs and just a dab of butter for taste. I know you said nothing too fatty, but surely a dab won't hurt." She rubbed her sides as she spoke.
"Our hostess can't eat rich foods because of an old illness," Maomao explained to the other girls. "But she proves that you can still make wonderful meals without much fat or salt."
"Gracious, Maomao, you'll make me blush." The woman was grinning again. "Here, cow's milk. You can drink some of this if the smell of the condiments bothers you."
"C-Cow's milk?" Yao said. It was a regional thing; not everyone was used to it.
"I've warmed it up and added a bit of honey. It should go down easy. I'd like to put my best foot forward for friends of Maomao's." She was careful to emphasize the word.
"Gah. Yeah, fine. Don't you have any other side dishes?" Maomao practically shoved the woman back into the restaurant, her tone clearly communicating that she wished the lady would butt out. People evidently regarded Maomao as someone who had no friends. When Maomao had told her "older sisters" at the Verdigris House about the girls her age she used to hang out with at the rear palace, they'd all looked shocked. Pairin had gone so far as to wipe the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief.
I can't believe them. Really. Of course she had friends. Emphasis on had, maybe. She could think of at least two—but one of them she couldn't see anymore, and the other...well, Maomao hoped she was doing all right for herself. Where did Xiaolan end up working? she wondered, recalling the talkative palace woman. Maomao knew she'd found work at a mansion somewhere in the capital, but that was all she knew. She'd received a few letters, written in Xiaolan's unsteady hand, but none of them included the crucial detail of where she was actually living. Maomao couldn't reply to her even if she wanted to.
She grabbed a bit of one of the side dishes, still mostly staring into space. Yao was digging into the congee with gusto, apparently quite taken with the taste. En'en was busy trying to deduce exactly how it had been seasoned.
"Would you like to go to the makeup place after our meal?" Maomao asked. En'en had suggested shopping for ingredients first, but then they would end up carrying the groceries all over. True, the best stuff might sell out if they didn't hurry up, but on the other hand, what was left would be marked down. Maomao considered that a fair trade.
"I'm surprised you know so much about makeup, Maomao," Yao said.
"My line of work has exposed me to a lot of different things," she replied. At the shop, she sometimes had to mix up concoctions of dye and white powder for customers who were self-conscious about a scar—experience that had come in very handy for disguising Jinshi.
"Is the makeup place close to here?" En'en asked. Now she was jotting down a recipe with a portable writing set.
"We'll have to walk a bit, but it's not far. And perhaps we could make a quick detour on the way back?" Maomao held up her bundle of Go books.
"Still have your heart set on selling those?" En'en sounded like she still couldn't quite believe it.
"Well, I certainly don't intend to just carry them around forever," Maomao said. Her mind was made up.
After the meal, the girls worked their way back to the main street. The most famous courtesans in the capital used white powder every bit as good as anything that could be found at a noble girl's dressing table, and the shop Maomao had in mind occupied a prime location in the commercial district.
"Skewers! Delicious skewers! Who wants one?" A man with a handful of chicken skewers was trying to draw in customers. The meat was cooked over a charcoal fire, dripping juices. The man didn't really have to bother hawking his wares—the smell was more than enough to keep the customers lining up. If she hadn't just had lunch, Maomao would have been with them.
"Is it just me, or does the marketplace feel a little different from last time?" Yao said. She looked around, perplexed. Their sheltered young mistress was really getting the hang of doing the shopping!
"As the seasons change, so do the shops. And you might be noticing all the imported stuff," Maomao said. There were colorful textiles, exotic accessories, and—
"Fine grape wine, all the way from the west! You won't find it anywhere else! Have a taste, if you please!" A merchant was dispensing a red liquid from a barrel. Maomao started to shuffle over to him, but En'en caught her by the collar.
"Not even one drink?" she said, looking at En'en.
"Not when the young mistress can't have any. You'll survive."
"I really don't mind," Yao said. She couldn't have alcohol now, but since she hadn't been a drinker to begin with, it wasn't really an issue.
"Getting drunk is not the way to go shopping," En'en replied.
Maomao's shoulders slumped and they wandered back to the main street. Other customers, ones who hadn't had somebody grab them before they could try a tipple, were buying bottles almost as soon as they tasted the stuff. Maomao normally preferred good, dry alcohol, but something fruity wasn't so bad every once in a while.
Is it really imported? Maybe it wasn't from another country, just sort of from that general direction. Then again, the alcohol Maomao had tried in the western capital had been good stuff. She would have been happy to have another taste of it—but she would worry that the flavor might have changed during the long journey east. Wonder if there might be time to buy some on the
way home.
They walked past the wine shop, but Maomao kept looking regretfully over her shoulder.
The makeup shop patronized by the Verdigris House was smaller than many of its competitors, but it was more than lovely enough to set the heart of a young woman aflutter. Paintings of beautiful women were posted out front, and rows of makeup products were visible within. Every woman who passed by stole a look at the place, clearly having an internal argument about whether to go inside. The owner never shouted, summoned, or cajoled. Elite establishments like hers didn't stoop to base hawking. Those who wanted what she had for sale would come to her without any prompting.
"All right, just so I know, what's your budget?" Maomao asked.
"We'll pay any price as long as we can get the best stuff!" En'en responded, clenching her fist for emphasis.
Don't think so. I know you can't afford that on your salary... Maomao presumed En'en was making the same amount she was, which would definitely put the finest makeup out of reach. Maybe she was getting a stipend from that uncle of Yao's that she hated so much?
"Welcome, ladies," said the proprietress, a middle-aged woman who sounded as refined as she looked—which was quite refined indeed. Her makeup was perfect, as befitted someone who sold the stuff. Her skin was pale and her mouth was perfectly highlighted with rouge. A simple hair stick held her hair up, but closer inspection revealed it was lacquered. Her nails were likewise perfectly painted, complementing her skin tone. I can see
why the old hag would shop here, Maomao thought. The ladies of the pleasure district always had to be on the cutting edge of style —as of course did the madam who managed them.
The proprietress continued to smile but didn't approach them.
She would be there if they had any questions.
"How about we start with powder?" Yao said, standing in front of a shelf boasting an array of white powders, a whole range of them, organized by ingredient. They went from pure white to varieties that included some sort of dye or pigment to match a range of skin tones. Everything was neatly arranged—but one shelf had nothing on it.
"Excuse me, are these sold out?" En'en asked.
"Ah, those..." The proprietress walked over, an aroma of perfume wafting after her. She was a slightly built woman, and her pale skin made her seem almost like she might vanish at any moment. "The items that used to be on that shelf were prohibited when it was discovered that they contained a toxic ingredient. It's a shame; they always sold very well. They held to the skin quite nicely."
Hoo boy, do I remember that, Maomao thought. So the ban on the poisonous whitening powder hadn't stopped at the walls of the rear palace; it had evidently gone into effect all over the capital. That was laudable in its own way, but it had to be a blow to businesspeople like this woman.
"That's a lot to get rid of," En'en observed.
"Yes. We offer a wide enough range of products that we were able to absorb the loss, but some establishments are still offering the toxic powder, or so one hears."
Not hard to understand. The stuff coated the skin well, making the wearer look pale and beautiful. One of the main ingredients was quicksilver: it didn't go bad like plant-based cosmetics, and it could be mass-produced, making it easy to buy. There were plenty of courtesans who had continued to use it despite Luomen's warnings. There would always be fools who didn't listen, just like the ladies of Consort Lihua's Crystal Pavilion.
Well, maybe "fool" is being ungenerous. Some people might have something they valued more highly than their health or even their lives. As for those who sold the poisonous stuff, well, were they so different? Without money they couldn't eat, and if they couldn't eat, they would die. And some people wouldn't hesitate to shorten the lives of others in order to extend their own. Maybe the merchants dealing in the toxic powder had no other way to make a living. Not to say Maomao thought it had been the wrong choice to ban the substance, the very production of which could have deleterious effects on the body.
And then there's this stuff, she thought, picking up another powder. "Is this calomelas?" she asked. This was another white powder that her father had looked less than pleased about. It, too, contained mercury, which was also sometimes used as a treatment for syphilis.
"Indeed it is. Thankfully, it's helped make up much of the shortfall in sales," the proprietress said.
Calomelas should probably have been regulated too, but if you started saying "this is poison, and that's poison, and that's poison" and ordered everything off the market at once, it might actually inspire even wider circulation of the problematic products. They would have to pick their moment to implement new rules.
"Maomao, which do you think would be best?" En'en asked. She and Yao had picked out a selection of possibilities—wisely excluding anything that used calomelas.
"Rice flour and talc?" she said. Both appeared to have other ingredients as well, but they weren't described in detail. "May I try some?"
"Go ahead," the proprietress said, using a cotton bud to dab a little on Maomao's palm. Maomao checked the viscosity and the smell. Both okay. Quite good, in fact. She thought this powder might be almost on par with what Empress Gyokuyou used.
"What do you think?" En'en asked.
Maomao glanced at the proprietress. "Honest opinions, good or bad, help us improve our products and service," the woman said. So she didn't just sell decent products—she was a decent person. No wonder she could handle the madam in a business
negotiation.
"I think both seem like excellent powders," Maomao said. "The particles are fine, and they hold to the skin well. I have a question about the rice flour powder."
"What's that, may I ask?"
"Rice flour can rot. And given the size of the container, I have to think that during the rainy season, it would start to go moldy before you got halfway through it. I assume there's some additional ingredient added as a preservative, and it makes me somewhat uneasy not to know what it is." Knowing that Yao would be using the powder, safety was foremost in Maomao's mind. "Talc doesn't go bad and isn't toxic. I think this one would be the simplest to use."
Talc had diuretic and anti-inflammatory properties, and was often used medicinally with bracket fungus. In all the times Maomao had used it, she'd never known it to cause any undesirable side effects. That doesn't mean it doesn't have any,
but I won't know until I encounter them, she thought. Vigilance would be her watchword until she was sure.
"You'll take the talc, then?" the proprietress said.
"No, ma'am. I think they both have an admixture. I'm concerned—if it's anything that's bad for you, it would defeat the point."
The proprietress frowned subtly at what might have sounded to her like nitpicking. En'en, meanwhile, was thinking the matter over; Yao, evidently having decided to leave things in En'en's hands, was eyeing some eyebrow pencils made out of spiral shells.
"In that case, perhaps some of this," the proprietress said, going into the back of the store and emerging with a ceramic container. It was about half the size of the one on display. "Our rice powder is made exclusively with plant materials. Why, you could eat it if you wanted. Would a size like this be more in line with the amount you'd be using? Or if you'd prefer to bring your own container, I would be happy to fill it for you. With, of course, a discount for bringing your own holder."
This lady knows how to make a sale, Maomao thought. She was trying to cultivate repeat customers by addressing their needs directly.
"Would you specifically recommend this powder?" Maomao asked.
"Certainly. I use it myself. It sticks beautifully. Very easy to use." A look at the woman's skin showed that it was, indeed, excellent stuff. Yet still something nagged at Maomao.
Yao wandered back up and said, "Why not just go with the rice flour powder, En'en?"
"It's not a bad idea," En'en said. "I could try to make some myself, but I don't think I could ever get it so fine." She'd apparently considered making her own powder to ensure it was safe, but there was no substitute for a specialist. And Maomao assumed the proprietress wouldn't be generous enough to reveal the secrets of how she made her wares.
"In that case, we'll take—" Maomao was interrupted by a young woman who emerged from the back of the store.
"Mother!" she said.
"I'm with a customer," the proprietress replied. A frown crossed her face. Nonetheless, her daughter, with a quick, polite bow to Maomao and the others, began to whisper into her ear. Whatever was going on, it seemed to be urgent. As her daughter talked, the woman's expression changed. Finally she said to Maomao, "I'm terribly sorry. I'll be right back. If you'll excuse me." Then she left her daughter to take care of things and went to the back.
Some kind of trouble? Maomao wondered. She was curious, but it wasn't her place to stick her nose into whatever was going on. The woman's daughter wrapped up their purchase and did the bill. En'en took the change, which had white smears on it.
"Oh, pardon me," the young woman said, taking back the whitened coins. Maomao saw that her fingertips were white, and the fresh change she pulled out to give them was quickly smudged as well. Even their package had a white smear on it.
"Oh, no! I'm so terribly sorry!" "It's all right," Yao told her.
"Were you checking the merchandise?" Maomao asked with a glance at the young woman's fingers. Three of the fingers on her right hand were whitened, as if she had been taking fingerfuls of powder to check the feel.
"I'm impressed you noticed," she said.
"Let me guess: you discovered something unusual about the powder and felt it was worth mentioning right away." The young woman didn't respond to that, but her face made it clear that Maomao had guessed right.
"Was there something in the powder there shouldn't have
been?" En'en pressed. They'd picked the best stuff they could find, but if there were impurities in it, then what was the point?
"What is it?" she said, leaning closer to the young woman.
"En'en," Yao said, holding her back.
The young woman was on the verge of tears. "I... I'm so sorry. We got a new dealer recently. He insists he's brought us exactly what we ordered, but it just doesn't feel right to the touch. When I asked him if he was sure he hadn't added any other ingredients, he snapped at me to stop trying to talk my way out of our deal. I was scared, so I came to let my mother know..."
An unsavory merchant? Or an honest misunderstanding? Maomao wondered. The dealer certainly sounded shady, but she'd only heard the young woman's side of the story. The proprietress still hadn't returned. Whatever they were talking about back there, it was taking a long time.
"My mother doesn't want to sell a product if she doesn't know what's in it. The powder that was brought in today uses the same formula we always use, so we should be able to tell whether anything is wrong by touch. But the man who brought it today says we don't have any proof of our accusations and refuses to leave."
Hmm. Maomao crossed her arms. En'en was obviously deeply concerned about whether there was anything mixed into the white powder, and Yao—bless her earnest heart—looked ready to give someone a piece of her mind. Maomao suspected the exact feel of rice flour could change depending on how and when it was used, but it looked like there were some unanswered questions here. Well, can't go home now.
"If you'll pardon me," she said, opening the door to the back room. She found the proprietress and the dealer locked in a staring contest. Between them sat a large jar.
"I told you! I followed the formula exactly as you gave it to me! Tell me what you think I got wrong!" The merchant, a man not quite in middle age, was shouting so loud that spittle flew from his mouth, which was open wide enough for Maomao to see that several of his front teeth were missing.
The proprietress didn't back down. "Oh, I know what you got wrong. There's something in this. You added something. It doesn't feel like it should."
"You won't shut up about the feel, but that has nothing to do with anything! The feel of rice flour changes with the humidity, and you know it!"
They were talking past each other. Nothing was going to get resolved at this rate. "Excuse me. It looks like this discussion isn't going anywhere," Maomao said.
"Oh! I'm afraid you really shouldn't be back here, miss," the proprietress said when she noticed Maomao, giving her a look of reproof. Her tone remained deferential, but her eyes were grim.
"I'm sorry, my dear, but as you can see, we're in the middle of a business negotiation. Maybe you'd be so good as to wait outside until we're finished," the merchant added, likewise polite but implacable.
Maomao ignored both of them, peering into the jar. It was filled to the brim with white powder. There was a spoon inside, so she scooped up some of the merchandise.
"What do you think you're doing?!" the merchant cried.
Maomao put a finger in the powder. "It's rice flour, all right. Would this be the same stuff my companions and I were about to purchase?"
"No, not quite," the proprietress said. "The price of rice flour shot up recently, you see... We asked another dealer to produce something with the same formula..." She didn't quite seem to want to finish any of her sentences.
An increase in the price of rice flour? It was the season when new rice was usually readily available—had the harvest been worse than usual?
She could tell from the feel that this was, in fact, rice powder. It was smooth, and about the same color as the stuff they were on the verge of purchasing. She agreed too, though, that it felt somewhat different under her fingers than the powder she'd been handling earlier.
"You can tell, can't you, miss? Tell her my product is unadulterated! This stubborn mule is just trying to get me to lower my price!"
"A mule! I take pride in being able to offer my customers only the safest products! Every detail matters when it's going to go on someone's skin."
Maomao could see both their perspectives. The merchant was right that the consistency and texture of rice flour could change with the weather—which wasn't very good today. It could simply be more humid than usual.
"I'm afraid I can't purchase this if we don't know for certain which of you is telling the truth," En'en interjected. She took a hard line when it came to products that Yao was going to use.
"Shall we do a little test, then?" Maomao said.
"Test?" the others asked in unison.
"You told us this rice flour is made entirely of plant components, all safe for human consumption. In which case..." She was going to try to eat it.
"You're going to eat it? The powder?" the merchant asked.
"It'll give you an upset stomach if you simply eat it dry. Perhaps if we dissolved it in water and made a baobing flatbread out of it?" the proprietress suggested.
"H-Hold on! You think you'll actually be able to tell?" Yao said.
"I'm very confident in my tongue," Maomao replied. She hadn't done all that food tasting for nothing. She turned to the proprietress and the merchant. "Just to be sure—there's no buckwheat in this, is there?"
"Corn, yes, but no kind of wheat," the merchant said.
No problem, then. The corn would explain the powder's slight yellow tint. "I'll need a bowl and some water, and also a pot and a flame."
"Ah... Our house is right behind the store. You can use the stove there," the proprietress's daughter said. She was probably concerned about the possibility of an explosion if they lit a fire in a space full of white powder.
"Very well. Finally, do you have any leafy vegetables and some chicken?"
"Focus. Please," En'en said, giving Maomao a rap on the back of the head. She'd just wanted to make the powder as tasty as possible. Maomao picked up the jar and headed for the main house.
The finished flatbread was tasty (although not as tasty as it
would have been with some greens and meat). "In a perfect world, I think a little more corn might have been nice. And some white-hair scallion and lamb's meat to round it off."
"Maomao, we're supposed to be talking about the powder." En'en had cut up the bread and was conducting a visual inspection. She appeared to be thinking that flatbread might make a nice dinner. "Maomao says it's okay, young mistress, so I don't think the white powder should be any problem as such."
"Uh... I think everyone is getting pretty impatient," Yao said, concerned.
"You see? It's just like I told you. You keep insisting I must have added something, but I followed your formula exactly. There's nothing wrong with my product!" The merchant slammed a wooden writing scroll containing the list of ingredients on the table.
The proprietress and her daughter both looked like they wanted to offer a rebuttal, but there was nothing they could say.
They still weren't prepared to accept they'd been wrong.
"Would you like some? It doesn't taste unpleasant," Maomao said.
"But..." the proprietress started.
"But it felt different to you, didn't it?" Maomao took the woman's hand. Her fingers were caked with white powder; it was even on the red of her nails. "Perhaps you could think of it another way, then."
"What do you mean?"
Maomao wiped the pad of one finger across one of the woman's fingernails, leaving a white streak. She'd been wondering about the woman's nails. "What if it was your previous supplier who'd been adulterating his product all this time?"
The woman went almost as pale as her product.
When a person came into contact with a poison, such as arsenic or lead, it often showed in their fingernails. "You said yourself that some other stores continue to sell the prohibited whitening powder. There could easily be merchants who continued to supply it without saying anything. Suppose, for example, that they had white powder of questionable quality, and added something to it as a stabilizer."
The symptoms of the poison would be minimized by the quantity of other stuff in the mixture. But someone who used the powder every day, like the proprietress did, would show the signs.
"Have you had any loss of appetite? Poor digestion? Trembling of the fingers?" Maomao asked. She wondered how the woman's skin tone looked beneath that makeup. The woman's expression was enough to answer her questions.
"So you're saying this—" En'en looked at the jar of powder they'd bought. Maomao took it and opened the lid. "Shall we try another flatbread? With this powder?" She was most interested to see the results.
It was dark outside when they left the shop. The heavy clouds had opened up, and the ground was soaked. "Shoot! We're going to get all wet," Yao said.
"I thought this might happen," said En'en, pulling out some umbrellas Maomao hadn't even known she had.
"You brought umbrellas?" she asked.
En'en tapped the sign of the store they'd just left. "It looked like it might rain, so I asked the shopkeeper's daughter to go buy some for us. Not too much to ask for our trouble, I'd say, right?"
"When did you... I mean... Too much to ask?"
True, the shop had sold them a harmful product, whether intentionally or not. When they'd dissolved their powder in water and baked with it, the results had been undeniably different from the first time around.
"I think you already asked quite a lot," Yao said. En'en was carrying some of the new, safe powder, and the proprietress had thrown in some perfume that was supposed to be good for your skin. The aromatic oil was safe to eat but didn't hold to the skin very well, so it could be combined with the powder to form a liquid makeup.
"Not at all," En'en replied. "I wouldn't know what to do with myself if my mistress got sick."
"I think you should be talking to Maomao. Tell her not to put awful stuff in her mouth." Yao was looking at Maomao as if she still couldn't believe what had happened. Maomao had made every effort to eat the flatbread with the poisonous powder, but Yao had pinned her arms to stop her.
"I would have spit it out right away. It would have been fine. I just wanted to see how it tasted."
"I don't understand what you see in these things," Yao sighed.
"Let's finish our shopping before the rain really starts coming down, mistress. We've eaten up a lot of time." En'en opened an umbrella and ushered Yao under it with her. Then she held out another to Maomao. It was En'en, of course, who had requested
only two umbrellas. After all, two people could fit under one
umbrella...if they squeezed.
En'en said, "If anyone is still selling ingredients at this hour, I'm sure they'd be near the bell tower. I think the market should still be open there."
The bell tower was at the center of the capital and rang the hours. It was a well-trodden area, so the shops there stayed open until late.
"We should be hearing the evening bell any minute n—" Maomao said, but she was interrupted by a searing flash of light accompanied by the booming of the bell.
"Yikes! Wh-What was that?" Yao said, looking around in astonishment. At the same moment, an earsplitting noise followed hard upon the ringing of the bell. Yao almost jumped out of her skin and clung to En'en. Her mouth was working open and shut, but no sound came out. En'en gave Yao a protective (and none too unhappy) hug.
"Thunder," Maomao said. "That was a big one." "Are you all right, milady?" En'en said.
"Y-Yeah! I'm fine!" Yao said, although her face was awfully pale.
"A thunderclap that loud means it'll start pouring soon. Shall we hurry and finish our shopping?" En'en said.
"Y-Yeah, let's," Yao said. She was trying to look unintimidated, but kept stealing little glances at the sky. En'en looked at her fondly and kept close. No doubt she was concerned for Yao, but also tickled by her display of fear. She was a twisted one. But Maomao already knew that.
Looks like I won't be selling these today, Maomao thought, looking at the Go books in their cloth wrapping. Then she trotted off after the others.
Chapter 3: TrendsJinshi's office looked much the same as it always did:
mountains of paperwork, bureaucrats waiting their turn to speak with him, and the occasional court lady appearing from nowhere trying to get a look at him. It was bustling, no doubt, but it was substantially calmer than it had been not long ago.
His usual workload, which already kept him busy, had doubled since the shrine maiden from Shaoh had come to Li. He'd arranged a banquet in her honor, during which she had been poisoned, and Jinshi had spent many a sleepless night pursuing the case. Ultimately, it turned out to be all the shrine maiden's own doing, a whole act, but that was no small problem in itself. It was enough to leave him with his head in his hands.
The shrine maiden had survived the entire affair and was now living with the former consort Ah-Duo. Jinshi felt a bit bad about the way her home was turning into something of a safe house. The shrine maiden had left him with troubles of his own, though: he, along with a small number of others, had had to deal with the fallout of her "death." A number of officials were convinced that Shaoh would use the shrine maiden as a pretext to attack Li, but no such offensive materialized. Shaoh was principally a commercial and trading power; they couldn't start a war without substantial backing from someone else. If anything, the leaders of Shaoh were probably breathing a sigh of relief to be rid of the shrine maiden, who had been something of a thorn in their side.
Shaoh had made some demands over the incident, but they were nothing that Li hadn't anticipated. They wanted import duties reduced, particularly on foodstuffs. No one had expected them to come right out and say they didn't have enough food. The shrine maiden knew Shaoh's king and bureaucrats very well— their personalities and sense of political judgment. Nothing they did or asked for was unexpected. In fact, Jinshi was almost set back on his heels by the extent to which everything had followed the script. Which wasn't to say international issues were simple. So it was that until a few days before, he had been so busy that the amount of work now felt like a relief.
"This is for you, Master Jinshi," Basen said, putting another paper atop the towering pile. And to think—this was after Jinshi had delegated more than half the work.
"I don't suppose we could delegate half of what's left," he said. "I don't suppose, sir..."
The paper bore the personal chops of a number of high officials, and the civil servant on whom Jinshi had foisted the work couldn't ignore something with so many important seals on it. Such petitions inevitably ended up on Jinshi's desk, even if they concerned trivial matters. He sighed and pressed his chop to the paper.
Amid the bustle, one of the bureaucrats handling some of Jinshi's work stood up, looking restlessly in his direction. It was the same man who'd been with Jinshi when someone had attempted to poison his tea. He'd entered Jinshi's service to help until Basen was fully recovered, but he'd proven capable enough that Jinshi had asked him to remain. The man seemed eager to get back to his ordinary place of work, but the eternally understaffed Jinshi was loath to let him go. "What's the matter?" asked Basen.
The man flinched. "N-Nothing..."
He seemed awfully anxious for someone who thought nothing was wrong. Now that Jinshi thought about it, he realized the man had been acting a little funny for a few days. Curious now, Jinshi narrowed his eyes.
"Is it really nothing? I want the truth." This interrogation came not from Jinshi, but from Basen, who had cornered the man. Strange things, dangerous things, had been happening around
Jinshi of late, and Basen—who was responsible for Jinshi's safety —was on edge. If he waited to act until after something happened, it would be too late.
"H-Heek!" The bureaucrat's face was taut with fear. He reached into the folds of his robe with a shaking hand, whereupon Basen was on him, pinning him down. He could be merciless when he thought someone was hiding something.
"Who put you up to this?" he demanded, grabbing the man's wrist. Clutched in his hand was a scrap of paper.
"Let him go, Basen," Jinshi said, relieving the man of the paper. He looked at it—and let out a sigh. "Is this what was making you so nervous?"
"Huh?" Basen looked puzzled—indeed, downright flummoxed. "Ow, ow, ow! Please let me go," the bureaucrat said.
Basen obliged, instead looking at what Jinshi had in his hand.
"What's this?"
"I don't know when he had time to make such a thing, but it's quite thorough, isn't it?" Jinshi said. The paper announced that someone would be putting out a book. The date given was that very day, when, so the paper proclaimed, the book would be available at bookstores all over the capital.
"I... I really wanted one. Once a book sells out, you never know if you'll be able to get a copy," said the bureaucrat, rubbing his arm. He looked on the verge of tears. Judging by the look on his face, Basen at least had the good grace to feel guilty.
Books were luxury items—except for the most popular titles, second runs were uncommon. If a book sold out before you could get a copy, all you could do was wait for it to appear on the used market.
"If they've gone to all the trouble of distributing an announcement, don't you think they probably plan to have a lot of stock ready?" Jinshi said. Printing in and of itself implied they were planning to make a lot of copies. You had to, to recoup the costs.
"I-I couldn't say, sir. I expect it to be very popular..."
"Is the author so beloved?" Jinshi asked, looking the paper over as carefully as he could. Printing and distributing announcements like this to anyone and everyone—that was a new idea. He couldn't help but be impressed. Whoever could have thought of it? Then he saw the name—and almost choked. He immediately wished he could unsee it.
Basen was giving him a puzzled look. "Grand Commandant
Kan, sir?"
When Jinshi saw the title of the book, he understood. Kan was a reasonably common name. But Grand Commandant—that was a title, and only one person in the country held it. Kan Lakan, otherwise known as the freak strategist.
"Would you mind telling me who gave this to you?" Jinshi asked.
"A f-friend of mine at the Board of Revenue. An acquaintance of the Grand Commandant's son. He was asked to give them to everyone he knew."
The Board of Revenue was the department charged with overseeing financial matters—and the friend of a friend was Lahan. If he had a hand in this, then the book would be more than a passing fancy on the part of the strategist. It would be done well.
"So he's written a Go book," Jinshi mused. He had, he recalled, heard that the strategist had been going around telling people he was going to write such a book. Jinshi simply hadn't imagined the project taking place on such a scale.
As far as it went, he appreciated the help in making books more universal. He himself had been trying to promote paper and printing projects. He was surprised, though, to discover that even this unassuming and dedicated bureaucrat lusted after a copy of the strategist's book.
"I never realized the honored strategist had the gift of belles lettres," he said.
"Who cares whether his lettres are belles?!" the bureaucrat said, going from grumbling to garrulous in the blink of an eye. "It's almost impossible to understand what he's talking about, anyway. But they say the book will contain records of Grand Commandant Kan's games! No one would want to miss that!"
Jinshi thought he'd caught a rather uncomplimentary reference to Lakan in there. But in any case, some people really got fired up over their personal interests, and in this man's case, that interest appeared to be Go.
"I only have a passing acquaintance with Go. Is Grand Commandant Kan that good at it?" Basen asked, more perplexed than ever.
"That good?! Why, the only person in the country today who stands any chance of beating the Grand Commandant is His Majesty's own Go tutor!" The Emperor's tutor held the rank of Go "sage"—meaning he was the best player in the nation. Jinshi himself had had a few lessons from the man. How many stones' handicap had he had the last time they'd played together? He couldn't remember.
"Grand Commandant Kan is known for the elusiveness of his play. You never know what he's going to do next, how he'll come at you. A chance to study and understand his records is a mouthwatering prospect for any connoisseur of the game." The bureaucrat clenched his fist emphatically. His eyes were shining now. His delight in the subject seemed to have overwhelmed his resentment toward Basen over the manhandling.
"Yet even the Grand Commandant is only human. Surely no one is truly unbeatable?" Basen said. Another not particularly polite way of talking about the strategist—but also true. Jinshi had to agree with him.
"How can you say that?" the bureaucrat said. "Yes, the Imperial tutor is victorious over the Grand Commandant in six out of ten games—but the tutor is a professional player! The Grand
Commandant has a real job he must attend to!" Jinshi didn't say anything.
"To say nothing of the fact that no one at all can beat him at
Shogi."
Basen didn't say anything.
Jinshi realized he really was very bad at handling people. "Very well. Basen, do you have your purse with you?"
"Er, yes, sir." Basen produced his wallet from the folds of his robes. Jinshi handed it to the bureaucrat, who looked from him to Basen and back, suddenly nervous again.
"It's not much, but take it. A modest recompense for the discomfort Basen caused you," Jinshi said.
"S-Sir, I couldn't... It's not even his..."
It was, sadly and indeed, not Basen's purse. The young man simply held on to Jinshi's money in case there was a need to purchase anything. Jinshi knew little about market prices, but he figured this would be enough to compensate the man for his troubles.
"I'm sure your hand must be hurt. You should leave work for the day. Go to one of those bookstores. I assume that purse will cover the cost of a book."
"A-And then some, sir! I can't accept this," said the bureaucrat, who was proving too honest for his own good. He should have just taken the money, Jinshi thought. Very well. He would try a different approach.
"What are you talking about? I don't mean just one book! Make sure you get one for me as well. And if there's money left over, then one for Basen too. What are you waiting for? Go! Go, before they're sold out! Or are you hoping for some hush money?"
"Not—Not at all, sir! I'm going!" The bureaucrat hurriedly showed himself out of the office.
Jinshi listened to his footsteps fade, then let out a sigh.
"Basen. It's not polite to pinion somebody with no warning."
"Y-Yes, sir. But he could've..." Basen at least sounded apologetic.
"In any case, what's done is done. You didn't break his arm.
You've learned at least that much control." Jinshi knew that with Basen's preternatural strength, that bureaucrat's arm could easily have been pulverized. Jinshi would give Basen this much: he was growing up a bit.
"Master Jinshi, if you'll forgive my saying so, I don't have any interest in Go." He seemed to be referring to Jinshi's instructions to the official to bring a copy of the book for Basen.
"Interested or not, it can't hurt you to learn. Even the most sheltered young lady at least learns to play Go. Suppose you meet a prospective marriage partner but find you have nothing to talk about—you can at least play a game together. Who knows where it might lead?" He was trying to be lighthearted, but Basen went beet red.
"I-I'm sure... I'd never... N-No such young lady and I would ever..." Basen fell silent before he ever succeeded at getting out a complete sentence. Jinshi gave him a curious look. When he sat back down at his desk, he felt a pang of remorse: the mountain of paperwork was still there, but now his helpful bureaucrat was gone.
Within a few days, every palace, pavilion, and hall of the court resounded with the click, click of stones on boards. On the way to his office, Jinshi noted that even the soldiers in the guardhouse were playing Go.
"It's become quite the trend," Basen observed.
"Indeed," said Jinshi.
Needless to say, it was the freak strategist's book that had started this craze. Jinshi himself was carrying no fewer than six copies of it. Why so many more than the single copy he'd requested from the bureaucrat? They'd arrived for him accompanied by a short note: Someone gave these to me. Help
yourself.
They'd come from the apothecary, Maomao. He assumed, much to his sorrow, that she hadn't sent them out of affection for him. More than likely, she was just trying to get rid of stock. He knew her; she would never go out of her way to buy a book by the strategist. They must have been sent to her in copious quantity. He sometimes wished he could ask her if she really understood the meaning of what he'd said during their last encounter.
Maomao was the strategist's daughter, and although she herself seemed intent on disavowing Lakan, from Jinshi's perspective the family resemblance was obvious. In any case, she certainly wouldn't want to be stuck with a gift from the father she so detested.
Jinshi didn't feel the money he'd given the official had been wasted, but still, he wasn't quite sure what he was going to do with six copies of the same book. Basen already had a copy. Maybe he would try giving them to Gaoshun, Ah-Duo, and the
Emperor. The apothecary's thinking might have been similar to his —or not. He knew her to be strong-willed and careful, so it might be best to assume she had some sort of ulterior motive.
Jinshi had started by thinking about Maomao's books, but soon he found himself thinking about Maomao—specifically, how he might talk her into accepting his proposal. He would have to prepare, set everything up so that she had no comeback and no reason to refuse. He wanted to be a man who did what he said he would.
Still lost in thought—and under scrutiny from court ladies who watched him from afar—Jinshi arrived at his office. An official standing outside came over looking frantic when he spotted him.
It was Basen, however, who asked, "What is it?"
"Pardon me, sirs. But if you would look at this..." The official handed Basen a letter. He opened it and read it. His eyebrows twitched. Jinshi looked at the missive, but remained expressionless as he entered his office.
"Send a damage assessment immediately," he instructed.
"Sir!" the official said, and went out again. Jinshi trusted that a messenger would be sent if there was anything new to report.
Finally, he sighed. "So it's come."
The paper had read simply: There has been a plague of locusts.
There had been reports of small-scale insect swarms, but while Jinshi had seen the memos, the matters hadn't been substantial enough to warrant his personal involvement, and he'd been obliged to let his subordinates handle them. None of the other outbreaks had been too large, but this...
"So we're going to lose thirty percent of the harvest," Jinshi reflected. That was a major blow. He pricked up his ears when he heard that the location of the outbreak was to the west, a major grain-producing area. "Isn't it a bit late for the wheat harvest?" he asked.
"It's not the wheat that's been hit—it's the rice," answered Sei, Jinshi's Go-loving bureaucrat. Other than his timid streak, the man was proving quite capable. "For about twenty years now, they've been experimenting with growing rice in the area using largescale irrigation. From one perspective, this could be considered fortunate. Only the areas with unharvested rice were affected. We were lucky this didn't overlap with the wheat harvest."
"They're drawing water from the Great River?" Twenty years ago would have been just about the time Jinshi had been born. He did recall hearing something about a major flood control project that had taken place around then. They must have built something to divert the water at the same time.
"Yes, sir. It was purely a local endeavor, something they tried out in a couple of places. The rice harvest is more reliable than wheat, but if they made the scale too grand it would impact everything downstream. As such, the project never got any larger than it already is."
Twenty years back—that would have been the time of the empress regnant. She'd been a woman among women, not afraid to experiment with even the most outlandish policies. Sei drew a large circle on a map. Jinshi observed that while it wasn't too close to the capital, it wasn't so far away either. Four or five days' round trip, perhaps.
The paperwork still formed a mountain on his desk. He looked first at Basen, who had stayed silent throughout the conversation, and then at the obviously nervous Sei. The last thing he wanted was to make more work for himself or either of them. But he just couldn't leave something alone when it had his attention like this.
He stifled a groan.
"I-If I may?" Sei raised a hand hesitantly.
"Yes?" said Jinshi, trying his best to maintain a neutral expression.
"I w-wouldn't wish to be impertinent, Moon Prince, but is it possible y-you've taken on a bit too much work?"
"It is possible, and I'm well aware of it. But what exactly am I supposed to do about it? These matters can hardly be left to anyone else."
Sei blanched slightly. "I hardly d-dare to say this, sir, b-b-but..." His eyes seemed to look everywhere except Jinshi's face. "Other honorable personages have been known to entrust their subordinates with—"
"What injustice do you speak of?!" Basen demanded, slamming his fist down on the table. Sei yelped and cowered. "Who would have the audacity to do such a thing? Speak up! You must know something!"
Basen closed in on Sei, but Jinshi held him back. "Basen. You're scaring him. I would, however, be interested in the answer to his question. Who is doing such things?"
"Er... Er... Grand Commandant Kan, sir." It would certainly be plausible for the "honored strategist" to engage in such behavior, but the look on Sei's face said he was hiding something.
Jinshin leaned in. "May I assume he's not the only one?" Sei's cheeks flushed. Jinshi had been under the impression that he'd managed to avoid picking any personnel with those tendencies, but it looked like he was going to have to rethink putting his face too close to Sei's. Jinshi brushed the scar on his cheek. "A-Also...His Majesty the Emperor..." Jinshi and Basen were both struck dumb.
"I-Is that good enough?" Sei said, looking studiously at the ground, obviously desperate for them both to leave him alone.
Basen wasn't finished, though. "Who in the world could fill in for His Majesty himself?" He pressed toward Sei again, his breath hot in his nostrils.
"M-Master Gaoshun! He does it!"
Again the other two men had no recourse but silence.
"Of course, His Majesty puts his own seal on the documents when they're ready. I j-just thought if you could have an intermediary, someone to clean and organize things, they might cut down the number of memorandums that actually reached you, Moon Prince, by two-thirds. If they were given the proper job title, surely they could exercise some personal discretion..."
Jinshi's heart skipped a beat at the suggestion that he might have only a third as much work to do. Such important tasks, however, couldn't be entrusted to some random bureaucrat— someone he might not even know.
Jinshi looked at Basen. He briefly entertained the idea that if Gaoshun could do such a job, then his son might be able to do it as well, but unfortunately, Basen wasn't really cut out for desk duty. He was a diligent worker, but knowing his stern-mindedness and inflexibility, Jinshi suspected the jobs would simply back up. Was it being greedy, he wondered, to wish for someone with both the loyalty and family background to handle his work, who was also capable and judicious?
"Master Jinshi," Basen said.
"Yes?"
"I do know someone particularly gifted at this kind of work..."
Jinshi's eyes widened. "Do you? I hadn't realized you had any acquaintances among the civil officials."
"Just one, sir. Someone who passed the civil service exam last year, but presently languishes without an appointment."
Jinshi realized he had an idea who Basen was referring to.
"You don't mean..."
"Yes, sir. Baryou. Perhaps you would know him better as Elder
Brother Ryou."
As his name implied, he, too, was a member of the Ma clan— Basen's older brother.
Chapter 4: The Ma SiblingsBaryou: Gaoshun's son, Basen's older brother.
The Ma clan produced many members of a military persuasion, but Baryou's talents ran more toward the literary and bureaucratic. As the eldest son, it was actually he and not Basen who should have been Jinshi's attendant, but Gaoshun knew his offspring too well to do that to him. Instead of forcing him to practice swordsmanship, he gave him a book. Baryou had all the physical prowess of a limp bean sprout, but he took to academic studies like a fish to water.
Then, last year, he had taken the civil service examination, which was held only once every four years—and he had passed on his first attempt. Even the most jaded eye could see that Baryou had all the makings of a superb civil servant. Yet he was unable to get a job. Why? A quick look at his current situation explained much.
"Impressive. As I knew he would be," Jinshi said. The papers that had been forming mountains on his desk had been reduced in height enough that you could see the other side. He let out a sigh of relief, and looked at where a man was working away silently in a corner of the room. His corner couldn't be seen from the entrance, and anyway he'd placed a partitioning screen between himself and the room, so visitors wouldn't know there was anyone there. Quite frankly, the man might have preferred to build four solid walls around himself, but Basen had discouraged that idea. And who was it behind this screen doing all that work?
"Master Jinshi..." said a man bearing an armload of paperwork. He was very slim, of average height, and his skin was so pale it bordered on sickly. He didn't exactly look healthy, but it was oddly amusing to see how his face—and only his face—looked so much like Basen, the picture of physical fitness, who was standing beside him. This man was perhaps a good sun shorter than Basen, and the way he stooped made him look shorter still. If Basen hadn't had such a baby face, it would have been hard to tell which of them was the older brother and which the younger.
But the stooped, feeble-looking man was indeed the older brother, albeit only by a year. Gaoshun's other son, Baryou.
The Ma clan, as we've remarked, traditionally produced soldiers. The bodyguards of the Imperial family were typically Ma people, as Gaoshun was for the Emperor and Basen was for Jinshi. By right, it should have been Baryou who acted as Jinshi's attendant. He was Gaoshun's second child and oldest son. But this scrawny sprout of a man wasn't made for guard work. Baryou was given the "Ba" name—the same character as Ma, reflecting the clan—but so was Basen, who was born the next year. "Quick work. You're finished already?" Jinshi said.
"I am, sir. With you a statue, the work is done."
"I'm afraid I don't quite follow."
Baryou's explanation seemed to be elliptical at best, a jump somewhere in the train of thought, and Jinshi didn't understand what he meant. Thankfully, another person appeared at that moment—a tall and beautiful woman with a hard look in her eyes.
For a moment even Jinshi wasn't sure where she'd come from.
Baryou could be seen wincing at her appearance.
"What Baryou is saying is this," she said. "'As you are as beautiful as a sculpted statue, Master Jinshi, one can hardly think of you as a human being. Thus even I, who find myself uncomfortable around human beings, can think of you as some creature by no means human, and therefore focus on my work.'"
Jinshi was quiet for a moment, unsure how to take that. He was quite casually being treated as inhuman. Then again, Baryou had always been like this.
The beauty with the cruel eyes who had interpreted for Baryou was his and Basen's older sister. Her name was Maamei and she had two children of her own. Basen and Baryou resembled their father Gaoshun, but Maamei took after her mother, who had been Jinshi's wet nurse. For that reason, Jinshi still found Maamei somewhat intimidating.
She resembled her mother in more than looks; she'd also inherited her strong will, and Jinshi was given to understand that Maamei quite dominated her husband. Until a few years before, she'd also regarded her father Gaoshun with all the affection she would feel for a hairy caterpillar, although she claimed that at some point she'd upgraded him to "moth."
She was, however, also the only person Jinshi knew who could wrangle the otherwise difficult-to-handle Baryou. He might have passed the civil service exam with flying colors, but he had ended up quitting his job due to a combination of poor health and unique ideas. And given his minimal ability to build new relationships, he found himself the target of a good deal of resentment almost before he knew what had happened. His colleagues and superiors had come to dislike him before they'd ever had the chance to get to know him. All of it had ended up giving him a stomach ailment.
Talent Baryou had in spades, but his personality made things difficult. In that respect, he was somewhat like the members of the La clan, although they tended to combine their personal quirks with a forcefulness of spirit that left others with the upset stomachs. It was enough to make a person jealous of their brazen approach to life. If only Baryou could have half—for that matter, even one-tenth—the La clan's disregard for what people around him thought.
Basen sighed and put the finished work on Jinshi's desk. Jinshi started to review what Baryou had done, but one of the papers made him stop and frown. It was a circular that Jinshi himself had sent for approval to a series of other departments. Once again, it had been rejected as unfeasible. How many times was this now?
"So they really won't do it," he said.
"Rejected again, sir?" Basen asked.
"It's the timing. If it were for next year, they would approve it."
"The martial service exams are next year, aren't they?"
"Yes. Someone thinks we should wait for those."
What was this idea of Jinshi's that was failing to get approved? It was to expand the military. He wanted more troops stationed in the north, but the proposal had been slapped down. The martial service exams were essentially the soldiers' equivalent of the civil service test. They weren't as well attended as the bureaucrats' version, but still they would no doubt attract plenty of strong young men who would make excellent officers.
The military had been shrinking these past few years, for two reasons. One was a simple lack of wars, but the other was a personnel matter. Specifically, the two people who stood at the top of the military hierarchy.
"Grand Commandant Kan and Grand Marshal Lo," Basen said.
The Grand Marshal was the highest-ranking civil official involved in military matters. The Grand Commandant, for his part, was considered one of the san gong, the three most important leaders of the country, and like the Grand Marshal, his was a military role.
"I must wonder how Grand Commandant Kan attained that title," Basen said. Jinshi would have liked to know the same thing, but all he had to go on were some unsettling rumors. Some claimed that once Lakan had finished dispensing with all those who opposed him, there were no other high-ranking officials to take the post. Others said that he had been favored by the former emperor's mother, the empress regnant, and that it was she who had guaranteed his swift rise in the world. Still others held that after ascending the throne, the current Emperor had set Lakan to taking care of any relatives who might envision themselves on the country's high seat.
"Truth be told, I'm not sure," Jinshi said. One thing he thought he knew, or at least could guess, was why the man had sought such great power. Maomao had spoken of it once, although with open disgust the entire time. She'd said that there was something he could not get without power. Lakan was a man who would do anything to get what he wanted—but there were not that many things he wanted. He wasn't the kind to let his greed multiply endlessly.
"A military man ought to want a little more," Jinshi grumbled. Someone who would make any pretext to have more pawns at his disposal would be easy to understand, easy to work with. But if Lakan had his board games, his family, and some sweet treat to enjoy, then he was satisfied. In fact, he wanted very little out of life, but he was irrepressible in action, and that was what made him such a thorn in the side of those around him.
"Perhaps if you were to try speaking directly with Grand Commandant Kan..." Basen suggested.
"I think that would cause more problems than it solved," Jinshi said. Lakan did not like him very much, for reasons that should be obvious. Sometimes he would drop by Jinshi's office and waste his time, eating some snack and filthying up the paperwork. He hadn't been seen much in these parts recently, and Jinshi knew why—he was busy hanging around the medical office. He could well imagine how displeased Maomao must be.
"Grand Marshal Lo, then," Basen said. Not just anyone could hope to simply sit down for a chat with the Grand Marshal, but Jinshi was the Imperial younger brother. Basen assumed that would be enough to get him in the Grand Marshal's door—but it wouldn't be that easy.
"Have you forgotten where Sir Lo's allegiance lies?" Jinshi said. Grand Marshal Lo held his position by the personal appointment of the reigning Emperor. And why had the Emperor been willing to push through that appointment? "Do you believe our mother...ahem, I mean the Empress Dowager would ever permit it?"
The Emperor might be substantially older than Jinshi, but the same mother had given birth to both of them. The Empress Dowager had entered the rear palace as only a servant, but the former emperor had chosen to take her into his bed as a consort. Many in the rear palace had sought the Empress Dowager's life at the time. With all the former emperor's siblings dead of disease, everyone knew that her son—the one who would later become Jinshi's older brother and the reigning Emperor—would be crown prince.
Even more sought to curry the Empress Dowager's favor in hopes of gaining power for themselves, but Lo, it was said, had been her ally since her days as a palace woman. Barely ten years old, she'd become the emperor's favorite, such that although she was a palace woman, she was permitted to go outside the rear palace at times. Always with a bodyguard, of course—and that guard was frequently Lo.
Jinshi wondered what Lo must have thought of this palace woman whose body was barely developed enough to bear a child. She'd had other guards, but he was the only one she had given such patronage to later. He had clearly earned her trust. And yet, he must have felt some hesitation as well. He would not defy her orders—but she was just too kind a woman.
The system of slavery had already been shrinking, but the Empress Dowager's influence loomed large in its final abolishment. And in the rear palace, she reached out to those who had become the former emperor's bedmates and could no longer leave the rear palace. Yet her goodness could sometimes be a liability. She hated war. She rarely spoke about the matter publicly, but she wielded substantial influence with the Emperor and the Grand Marshal.
Jinshi could talk to the Emperor; he would understand. Indeed, he already approved of Jinshi's idea. Still, though he was the Emperor, he was only the Emperor—not an absolute ruler. That was why Jinshi's memorandum was stuck in limbo: if it never got to the Emperor, he couldn't officially approve it.
Perhaps he and Lo might have found some common ground had Jinshi held some sort of military position, but he'd spent years as a "eunuch" in the rear palace, performing only his ritual duties as the Emperor's younger brother. It left people unsure how to deal with Jinshi. He'd been given the rank of Grand Protector, but this was normally an honorary title, something awarded to people who were retiring from the public eye.
Considering that Jinshi was the Emperor's younger brother, some said he should have been made Prime Minister. In addition to his youth, however, there were other qualified candidates for that position, and so the calls quieted. One might have expected an honorary title to bring with it only a minimum of actual work. That might have been nice, but instead he found himself deluged with papers, every day a rush to get things done. They seemed to take him for some sort of jack-of-all-trades.
"So much time wasted talking about piddling details," Maamei broke in, replacing their now lukewarm tea with fresh.
"Sister, politics turns on such delicate matters," Basen said.
"Delicate? Hardly a word I associate with you," she said with a mocking edge. Basen's lip twisted, but as hot-tempered as he might be, even he knew that he wouldn't get the best of his sister. "What it comes down to is, you want to get them to accept your demands," Maamei said.
"If it were as simple as that, I wouldn't be losing so much sleep," Jinshi said. He was no happier than Basen about Maamei's interjection. She was simply supposed to be an assistant; it wasn't her job to go pontificating about political matters.
"I'm not saying it's simple. I'm just saying possibilities arise, if you keep yourself open to them."
They weren't sure what she had in mind. She went over to Baryou's corner and disappeared behind his screen. They heard a series of exclamations—"Sister!" "Hey, you can't just—" "Argh!" It seemed it wasn't only Basen who was cowed by Maamei.
When she emerged, lo and behold, she was holding the notorious Go book. She hadn't needed to steal her brother's copy; there'd been plenty of them right in Jinshi's desk drawer.
"Do you recognize this?" she said, taking out a piece of paper tucked into the book. For a second, Jinshi thought it was the promotional leaflet about the book that he'd seen before, but then he realized it was something else.
"A Go tournament?"
"Yes," Maamei said. The paper announced it proudly.
"I didn't see that in any of my copies," Jinshi said. Not in the ones Maomao had given him, or in the ones Sei had bought.
"Did you purchase them yourself, Master Jinshi?"
"No, I sent someone to do it for me."
"Ah. Perhaps they thought you would object, then." Maamei pointed to the details of the tournament, outlined on the paper. It would be held at the end of the year. There would be a fee of ten copper coins to participate. And...
Jinshi goggled. The location of the tournament was to be a lecture hall on the palace grounds.
His jaw hung open and he couldn't seem to close it.
"That is abuse of power if I ever saw it," Basen said, astounded.
Maamei said, "Go connoisseurs are supposed to make up one percent of the population. If there are 800,000 people in the capital, that would make 8,000 players. How many do you think are going to participate in this tournament?" She made it sound like a riddle.
People wouldn't have to buy the book to know about the tournament—word would spread among friends. And anyone could pay ten copper coins; even a child could afford it if she saved her allowance. It was impossible to say how widely the book was being read, or exactly how many people might be or become interested in Go. The thought of how many people might show up for the tournament was frightening.
"If they tried to hold the tournament in a marketplace, the venues that could accommodate them would be limited. Most open spaces are given over to markets, so getting permission to use one would be difficult. The Merchants' Association keeps its own counsel in such matters. Even bureaucrats find it difficult to throw their weight around with them."
"That doesn't mean he should hold it in the palace! It can't be done!"
Maamei pointed a finger at Jinshi as if to say that was precisely her point. "I agree, and I'm sure he's not happy about having to do it that way. After all, how many potential participants could actually enter the palace grounds? Very few. No doubt he would have been overjoyed to get a proper tournament venue out in public somewhere."
"I see," Jinshi said slowly, looking at the pile of paperwork.
"Indeed. Everyone may try to push everything on you, but you may find that once in a while you want to push back, using the rights of your office." Maamei gave him a significant look.
"I seem to be veritably surrounded by strong and intelligent women," he said.
"Nothing of the sort," Maamei replied. "It's simply that they're the only ones who can get close to you."
The remark wasn't self-deprecating. Jinshi and Basen traded a look, both of them clearly feeling outmatched. Jinshi found himself having to take back what he had thought a few minutes earlier: Maamei understood politics very well.
Chapter 5: Cards"If you have a trump card to play," Maamei had said to Jinshi, "it's better to use it sooner than later."
Prompted by her remark, Jinshi found himself outside Lakan's office. He'd sent a messenger the day before to alert him to his business, but to be completely honest, he wasn't sure if the Grand Commandant was going to be there. He probably wasn't, he thought as he entered.
"Pardon me," he said.
To his surprise the eccentric strategist was there, lying on a couch and sipping from a gourd. To all appearances he was quite at his ease, but a secretary placed some paperwork sheet by sheet on a table and gave Lakan a stamp to press on them. "Ah, His Majesty's esteemed younger brother. And how might I help you?" Lakan drawled.
Jinshi wasn't sure how Lakan had recognized him—maybe it was because of the messenger he'd sent. Maomao had told him the strategist was abysmal at telling one face from another.
If Jinshi were to behave the way the strategist did, he was sure Basen would take him to task for it. And he wished Lakan would stop using mooncakes as paperweights. They left little round oil stains on the documents.
Basen wasn't there at the moment; Jinshi had a different bodyguard. He'd been pretty sure Basen would never get along with the strategist, but he'd also been warned against going to see Lakan completely unprotected.
He had another companion as well—Maamei. Lakan spared each of them a glance before returning his gaze to Jinshi. It was abundantly clear he didn't like what—or whom—he was seeing.
"Please, be seated. No one wants to talk standing up. Come, now, not even any snacks for our guests?" He was being completely reasonable, but the juice he poured for them came out of his gourd—the one he'd been drinking from until a second ago.
Didn't he remember getting food poisoning from drinking directly from the container? His aide rushed to get fresh drinks.
Mister Monocle made a show of stroking his unkempt beard.
"Now, what brings you here today?"
"It sounds like you're planning a most interesting event—but in a less than ideal location." Jinshi pulled out the piece of paper that had been tucked in the pages of the Go book and placed it on the table. "Did you get official permission to use one of the palace lecture halls?"
"Oh, that." Lakan looked away, and his lower lip stuck out a little, almost like he was pouting. "I'm the one in charge. If there were any objections, I might have expected them to come from Old Lo. Surely this is outside the Imperial younger brother's purview."
It's none of your business, so screw off, seemed to be the message.
Jinshi's smile never faltered, even as he knew he was dealing with someone who saw people's faces as Go stones. Against Lakan, he was robbed of the one weapon in his arsenal in which he had complete confidence—but the strategist's aide promptly flushed and looked at the ground.
"I wouldn't expect someone as serious and hardworking as yourself to understand, but ever since the envoys from the west went home, people have been starved for entertainment," Lakan said.
"Starved? There are more trade goods available than ever before." Everything Jinshi had heard told him that the shops were full of unusual items and the markets were bustling.
"Ha ha. That may be so, but a fine meal leaves a diner craving the next great dish, and such memorable happenings have left the people seeking something more. Something even better to amuse the tongue or dazzle the eye. Let it be said that exotic goods from foreign lands are of scant use when one has no money in one's pocket to buy them. And taxes have crept up lately, bit by bit. It's a subtle thing, but I gather the rates are growing onerous out in the farming villages. And what are these strange new laws I hear about? Encouragements to eat insects? I don't prefer six-legged dishes myself, but perhaps you do, honored brother of the Emperor?" Jinshi said nothing.
"Go is a simple pleasure, something one can indulge in with nothing but a few stones. Doesn't it seem the perfect way to disperse the malaise that hangs over the people?"
Lakan was hitting him where it hurt. Having tried the malnourished grasshoppers himself, well—if you asked Jinshi whether they were good or bad, his answer would emphatically not be the former. Likewise, the increase in taxes was a hedge against grain shortages. The tax hike was the one proposal of his that had passed readily. He wasn't sure what that said.
By this point, Basen would have been all over Lakan. Jinshi had been right to leave him behind. He took a deep breath and, still smiling, said, "I think you're laboring under some kind of misapprehension, Sir Lakan." He let his fingers slide along the leaflet, stopping on the word Location. "I have no qualms with the tournament itself. Only with where it's being held."
"Well, what do you want me to do? Where should I hold it? I'm a man of few friends. I don't have the connections to bring the merchants around to my point of view."
Jinshi knew that very well. He did, however, think Lakan might have had at least one friend who could help him in this situation— but this wasn't the time. "Let me suggest this venue," he said, producing a piece of paper on which was written Argent Theatre. It was the same place where the White Lady had displayed her miracles, but it had been closed ever since her arrest. It had a prime location along a major thoroughfare, the perfect place for a competition like Lakan's. The whole matter involving the White Lady had been left to Jinshi, for reasons he didn't fully understand. But he was pleased that the piecemeal work he'd been given was finally proving helpful in some way.
The Argent Theatre was the "trump card" to which Maamei had so astutely alerted him. The place couldn't remain closed forever, she'd said, and, even if one did suspect the theater owner of being in league with the White Lady, in her opinion they'd been punished quite enough.
Now, there were civil officials who had been poisoned by the
White Lady; the owner was never going to get off simply by claiming he'd only given her a place to perform and had known nothing about what her act involved. Basen had been irate at Maamei's suggestion, but his sister had replied: "There's more to politics than punishing people. We get him to play along, do everything he can for us. If we're careful about how we squeeze him, he'll thank us and ask us for more. Isn't that what a wise ruler would do? And if there are any problems, it's Grand Commandant Kan running the show. There should be plenty of soldiers around to curtail any trouble."
Lakan himself was a profound hassle to deal with, but of fine subordinates he had an abundance. There would be people to help out on the day. Plenty of military types to contain any problems that arose.
If Maamei had been a man, she would have been Jinshi's aide, and he would have trusted her implicitly. She was quick-witted and had studied swordsmanship until she got married. Unlike her brothers, each of whom inclined a little too far to either mind or muscles, Maamei seemed able to do anything.
Lakan scowled, but he looked intrigued by Jinshi's suggestion. "The Argent Theatre? What's that?" he asked. His question was directed not at Jinshi, but at his solicitous bureaucrat. Jinshi had been under the impression that the Argent was fairly well-known.
He was surprised Lakan hadn't heard of it.
"It's a theater in the north of the capital, near the residential area. It is, however, currently closed after a series of performances there by a miracle-worker called the White Lady," the other man said.
"The White Lady?"
Jinshi knew Maomao made no effort to remember things that didn't interest her, but Lakan went above and beyond. Jinshi could hardly believe that he had no recollection of someone who had caused so much commotion.
"It's the place Rikuson went with Master Lahan and Miss Maomao," the aide advised him.
"Ah! That place!" the strategist said, leaping off his couch and pounding the table. He was shaking with rage now that he remembered it. Jinshi suspected he'd wanted to go there too.
"Might I continue?" Jinshi asked with mounting annoyance.
Lakan looked put out, but sat down. "The Argent would be a perfect location. More than enough space. Far preferable to the lecture hall, which would be accessible only to those permitted to enter the palace."
"You're saying you'd approve the event there?"
"Yes. It's currently shut down, but I can have it opened again. I came to ask for your opinion, however. Instead of simply allowing them to resume their normal activities, might it not be better to hold an event there ourselves, overseen by someone who could keep things in check if need be?"
Everything Jinshi was saying was true, as far as it went. And no further. He felt a trickle of cold sweat: Lakan might not be able to judge people's expressions, but he had other ways of knowing what was going on. Other gifts that compensated for his inability to distinguish faces. For one thing, he was exceptionally good at sniffing out lies.
At the moment, Lakan was staring at Jinshi as if trying to peel away the layers of his words, his plans. He looked Jinshi in the eye and stroked his chin. "And what is your purpose in making this generous suggestion?" he asked.
Jinshi fought off a desire to swallow hard. He took a single breath to steady himself.
"The same as always."
At last Maamei stepped forward. She placed a pile of paper on the table. "We're returning to you matters that should always have been in your hands, Sir Lakan. Naturally, we've also given the other officials back their work as well."
"I think I see." Lakan looked at the pile with undisguised distaste. It was three times as much work as he'd been listlessly doing earlier. Maamei had brought as much as she could carry, but there was still more back at Jinshi's office.
Jinshi's hardworking streak caused him to try to take care of all the various paperwork he received, but Basen, his second-incommand, wasn't gifted when it came to desk work, and the Goloving bureaucrat Sei was merely on loan from somewhere else and didn't feel he was in a position to express his opinion on such lofty matters. With the arrival of Baryou and Maamei, it was decided to give the work back to those from whom it had come. "You don't think I'll simply shove it back your way, honored
Imperial younger brother?"
"Oh, there's not enough there to warrant the effort. You could go through it with a snack in one hand, yawning all the while, and you'd still be done by this afternoon."
Lakan's aide looked openly terrified—Jinshi's words were nothing short of a provocation—but Jinshi saw nothing to gain by holding back at this moment. He was confident that Lakan would do as he asked, even if Jinshi did put his nose a bit out of joint in the asking.
"You need the Argent Theatre, and you need the surrounding street closed off for an entire day. Who else can do that for you but me?" Jinshi asked.
Lakan looked at his assistant. "If we change the venue to the theater, what happens?"
"One expects that the number of participants would increase dramatically, sir. We would see far more commoners and children. Enough that I doubt our plan to hold the proceedings in a single day would suffice." It was a shame for him; he would surely be expected to help—outside of normal working hours. "We'll have to consult Master Lahan to be certain, but I think we would need at least three days, including time to get the place ready. Also, since we don't know how many more people might show up, we might find ourselves short on Go boards. We'd have to get more of them, or else reconsider whether to put a cap on the number of participants." The aide's fear seemed to be giving way to volubility.
"No caps. The whole point is for as many people as possible to play Go," Lakan said. It took Jinshi by surprise. He'd always assumed the strategist thought only of himself.
Then again, when he'd spoken to Lahan before having this meeting, the other man had said, "My honored father is acting differently this time. That Go book is his tribute to my dear departed mother." Even the notion of holding a tournament like this was out of character for Lakan—but he had a reason. He'd bought out the former courtesan who was Maomao's mother, but she had died barely a year later. Lakan had created his book to commemorate a woman who had been a master Go player, preserving the records of their games—and this tournament was an extension of that impulse. This was not one of his ordinary flights of fancy.
While Jinshi was lost in thought, Lakan's aide had been drawing up a simple schedule. "If we say admission is half price for those who sign up ahead of time, we'll be able to gauge the level of interest. An admission fee of five copper pieces would enable even those with the lowest incomes to take part if they so wish. We're also considering prize money for the top performers." (Jinshi knew that one copper piece could buy a steamed bun; Maomao had told him once.) Now in his element, the aide showed none of his previous hesitancy. This man didn't have the obvious quirks that had characterized Lakan's last assistant, Rikuson, but it seemed he wasn't entirely undistinguished either.
Lakan folded his arms and regarded the mountain of paperwork. He still looked unhappy about it. Maybe one more push.
"There's something else," Maamei said, and produced, of all things, a list of names. It appeared to enumerate the medical staff. "An event this large brings with it the possibility of unexpected trouble. In addition to security, I think we should have some people versed in medicine present."
Strictly speaking, the idea was well beyond a court lady's place to suggest, but Jinshi wanted to give her a thumbs-up and an emphatic "Nice work!" If Jinshi had tried to bring the subject up, it might only have made things worse, but now Lakan's eyes were sparkling. The list included the names of two of the people he loved most in the world: his daughter and his uncle.
"I-If you insist, then...I suppose I have no choice," Lakan said.
It was all Jinshi could do not to grin openly. He'd finally forced a concession out of an opponent who always seemed to be the one giving him the short end of the stick. It was just one small step, really a trivial one, but for Jinshi it was a giant leap.
He was basking in this feeling of triumph when Maamei nudged him, giving him a look that said don't let your guard down
yet.
"If you would be so kind as to write up the details and send them to me, then," Jinshi said.
"Hrm," Lakan grunted, apparently taking the compromise in bad grace. He waved his empty gourd at his aide, demanding more; to Jinshi's surprise, the man hurriedly produced another gourd and gave it to the strategist. Lakan took a mouthful—and spat it right back out.
"Master Lakan?" the aide said.
"What in blazes is this?!"
"Erm, it's—uh—it should be juice, sir," the aide said, checking the gourd's contents with an expression of concern.
"Well, something's wrong with it. You didn't get it from the usual place, did you?" Lakan was good and upset now.
"I-I'm sorry, sir! It appears to be fruit liquor..." The aide rushed to get some water.
"I'll show myself out," Jinshi said, eager to leave before he couldn't keep a straight face anymore. As he left, he found that Lakan's next visitor was already waiting.
"Ah! Oh, ahem—ah. Moon Prince..." A young civil servant clutching an armload of wood writing strips bowed his head at Jinshi's appearance. Certain departments preferred the wooden strips to paper—and those who were especially obsessed with propriety and decorum seemed to love them most of all. Jinshi wondered which office this young man had come from.
"Let me see those." Lakan got up from his couch and snatched the strips from the official. He turned and made for a large desk in the corner of his office on which there was a map with pawns arranged on it. He studied the writing strips, shifting the figures around as he read. "Let's do this, then."
"Y-Yes, sir," said the young official, making a note of every movement. Jinshi spared him one last glance as he left the room. The entire court knew Lakan as the eccentric strategist, and while the emphasis tended to be on eccentric, one could not forget that he was also a strategist, and that as he moved those pawns across the map, soldiers marched in their hundreds, their thousands, even their tens of thousands.
Lakan was not like Jinshi, who had been given a civil post as befitted the Emperor's younger brother, but an empty one. Jinshi could only sigh at his own ordinariness—and wonder how an ordinary person like him was going to outwit a genius like that.
Chapter 6: ThunderclapIt was an autumn afternoon, and Maomao and her father were both looking puzzled.
"Think it might rain today?" her father asked, looking at the sky out the window of the medical office.
"Cats and dogs...uh, sir," she said, catching herself before she spoke too brusquely to him. There were other members of the medical staff around and she had to be careful. Yao and En'en weren't there, however. As the medical assistants grew more comfortable with their jobs, they were increasingly assigned to different places, wherever there was work to be done. Maomao happened to have been sent to help out today at the medical office where her father worked.
Luomen held a message in his hands—orders from one particular person. The problem lay in exactly who that person was.
"Guess he's been hard at work. I'm a little surprised," mumbled a young physician nearby, seemingly in spite of himself. Maomao had met him when she was working for Jinshi—and if you're wondering, no, she hadn't learned his name yet.
"He ought to be. He ought to be working," Luomen said, but he sounded somewhat less firm than usual.
"What does Grand Commandant Kan want with you, though,
Dr. Kan?"
In short, the freak strategist was trying to foist his work on Maomao's dad. The letter was phrased as a polite request, not an order, but nothing about the contents said if you'd be so kind.
"I must admit, I'm not confident that I'm the best person for an interrogation," Luomen said. He was being asked to speak to a trio of suspects. Normally, that would be the business of some legal functionary. Why ask a doctor to do it?
"One might have expected them to be a little more discreet about a matter like this," Maomao said.
"Yes, one might," Luomen agreed. The suspects were three soldiers—this was an internal investigation.
"What exactly is it that you're supposed to ask them about?" the young doctor inquired. He seemed like the kind who was too professional to ask gossipy questions, but it appeared his interest had been piqued.
"I can see why they might want to keep this quiet. There's a woman involved," Luomen said.
"A w-w-woman?" said the doctor, studying the ground with all the embarrassment of an innocent boy.
Why do they want my old man to handle this? Maomao wondered. Maybe there hadn't been anyone else suited to the task. She grew more surprised, however, the more she learned about the interrogation subjects. "They all have the same family name," she said.
The number of family names in Li amounted to no more than several dozen, so it wasn't unusual for people to share a name, but for all three of the suspects to happen to have the same one —that was a little odd.
"They're brothers. Triplets, at that," Luomen said.
"Triplets?" That got the attention of both Maomao and the young doctor.
"A woman claims that one of the three tried to force himself on her, but she brought her charges without being completely certain which of them it was. Since the woman is related to a soldier, it was decided that the investigation should begin as an internal matter. However..."
"Yes? What?"
"The triplets' father is a high-ranking official with the Board of Justice, and he's insisting that no trial can be held until they know for sure which of the three did it. My understanding is that this wouldn't be the first time the boys have used their father's privilege to shield them from responsibility for their wrongdoings." Geez, Maomao thought with an instinctive scowl.
"We'll have one chance and one chance only to question them, and to make it clear who committed the crime. We must not fail."
That was why the freak strategist had turned to Luomen. Why he'd suddenly become such an industrious worker remained a mystery, but he continued to display excellent judgment in his choice of operatives. Maomao's father was brilliant, a man who could hear one fact and deduce ten more.
Luomen wasted no time; he went to hear the young men's stories the very next day. "Would you come with and write down what they say, Maomao? I'd like to have a third party's opinion."
"I'd better not. I always bring out the freaks." Or more precisely, the freak. She shook her head, imagining what would happen if the strategist showed up.
"You needn't worry. Lakan won't be there."
"All right, fine, but what about Yao and En'en?" She glanced over. The two were working in the same office as she was today, and they would be sure to notice if she slipped away.
"I've spoken to them. Yao declined; she said she's not versed in shorthand."
Neither am I, Maomao thought, but she chose not to say it. If Yao happened to overhear, she might go ahead and volunteer— and En'en would never let her be in a room with men accused of perpetrating violence against a young woman. No, the wise choice here was to stay silent. Yao might be frustrated by her own shortcomings, but she was willing to accept the limits they placed on her.
Yao had been watching Maomao regretfully from behind a post for some time now. Behind her, En'en was waving a white handkerchief as if to say Get going! See you later!
"I guess we'd best be going," Maomao said, knowing that the sooner they got started, the sooner they would be finished.
They were given a conference room amidst the military offices in which to work. It wasn't cramped, but it wasn't spacious either, more of an interrogation chamber than a real meeting room.
The incident they were here to investigate had occurred about five days ago. The question was which, if any, of the men had laid hands on a fourteen-year-old girl. Maomao assumed someone would try to claim that it was partly the girl's fault for letting herself be taken in by a handsome face, but there had been a sudden thunderstorm that day and the girl, who'd gotten separated from her attendant, said she'd been scared.
That's the day I went shopping with Yao and En'en. Maomao felt a flash of anger; she wanted to find some way to punish the man who had taken advantage of a frightened girl. No, no. Calm
down. She had to remain fair-minded. They didn't know for certain which of the triplets was the culprit, and there was, admittedly, the possibility that the accusation was false.
"Oh, it's you!" said the soldier who met them at the door.
Maomao recognized the big mutt—er, that is to say, Lihaku.
"Thank you for being here," her father said with a polite bow.
"Sure. If there's any trouble, just shout. There's another official in there, a secretary, but he's just a bureaucrat." He thumped his broad chest, outgoing and direct as always.
"What brings you here, Master Lihaku?" Maomao asked.
"Orders from above. The suspects being who they are, we can't have anyone getting violent. They wanted a capable guard on hand. Plus, I outrank those three brothers, and I know you. I think that's why they chose me."
"Very interesting." It made sense. Although it might have been more accurate to say not that Lihaku knew Maomao, but that he knew Maomao would be impartial.
"Besides, assignments like this are a nice change of pace from time to time." Lihaku grinned at her, ever the good-natured fellow. She noticed that the sash of rank around his waist was different from before.
"Looks like you're really moving up in the world, if I may say so," she said.
"Sure am. Thing is, I've started getting so much desk work that my body is losing its edge."
Maomao was eager to know how much money he was making these days, but she knew it would be uncouth to ask, so she refrained. She was most curious, however, if he would be able to redeem Pairin, the Princess of the Verdigris House whom he so adored.
"My apologies for the interruption, but might I ask you a few things?" Luomen said, looking at Lihaku.
"Oh! Yes, of course. Sorry, go ahead."
"It sounds like you have some personal acquaintance with
these three young men. What kinds of people are they?"
Lihaku put his hand to his chin thoughtfully. "You know, I'm not quite sure how to answer that. All three of them are clever scoundrels. They look identical, and they even sound a lot alike. I guess their personalities are pretty similar too. I couldn't be sure, though—I haven't known them long enough to really tell one from the others. I guarantee no one meeting them for the first time could tell them apart, and I think they're using that to give that young lady the runaround. They're good-looking, no doubt about
that. Definitely handsome enough to pull the wool over an idealistic girl's eyes."
"Hoh."
"That's why they only go after sheltered girls, young women who don't know how the world works. There's even... There's even stories that they've assaulted girls as young as twelve years old." Lihaku looked like he found the idea incomprehensible.
That tears it. We don't need the likes of them. Trying to make time with girls who might not even be menstruating yet—the thought was as much as Maomao could stand. She could imagine a great many of the girls crying themselves to sleep after it was all over.
Her father nodded. "Are the brothers close with each other?"
"Not to speak of," Lihaku said. "Once, one of them screwed up on the job, and when there was an inquest to see who'd made the mistake, there was no covering for each other or trying to help each other out. In fact, they all seemed to want to make it as bad as possible for the others."
"So, this mistake—they didn't try to conspire to keep it under wraps?"
"You think they could? Lak—I mean, the monocled old fart, he'd see right through them." How nice of Lihaku to remember what Maomao had told him.
The freak strategist was basically worthless as a human being, but he was good at Go, Shogi—and judging character.
He should've dealt with this case himself, then, Maomao thought. Then again, what they really needed was hard proof. Even if he had a gut feeling who the perpetrator was, they'd have to produce some evidence.
"Phew, that was something to see! Oh, that reminds me," Lihaku said.
"Yes?"
"I assume two of the three brothers will be honest. They do whatever they like, 'cause they know their father will protect them, so they won't expect to be punished if they haven't done anything wrong. I think they'll tell the truth if they don't think it will do them any harm."
"You're quite an honest person yourself," Luomen said, his face softening into a smile that made him look like a kindly old lady.
"G-Gee, you think?" Lihaku said.
"In any case, thank you for your help. We'll be counting on you to jump in if we need anything in the way of more...physical assistance."
Her father walked into the room, and Maomao trotted after him.
They found a man with the air of a civil official waiting inside. He must have been the secretary Lihaku had mentioned. When he saw them, he got up from his chair and bowed. "They should be here soon. If you'd have a seat."
"Thank you kindly," Luomen said, sitting down. There was a table with a sheet of paper—which detailed the three brothers' jobs as well as exactly who their family members were. Are they
trying to intimidate us? Maomao wondered. The paper seemed to mean: We're here because the strategist ordered it, but you don't
have any authority to punish us.
"Now, how are we going to handle this?" Luomen mused.
They were to speak to each of the three brothers individually, and the first of them had arrived. Time to get started. Maomao dipped her brush in ink, ready to take down everything she could.
You've clearly got something wrong somewhere, because I haven't done anything. I mean, for one thing, I find it unthinkable to lay hands on a girl a mere fourteen years old. What evidence do you have against me?
Hrm? Where was I five days ago? I was downtown, getting a drink after work. Anyone would want a tipple when they're finally off for the day, wouldn't they? I didn't want to break the bank, though, so I headed for the southern side of town—I know a place that sells good grape wine for cheap.
No, I didn't go to the pleasure district. That part of town's not for drinking, I can tell you that much. And you always run the risk of accusations just like this one. And you wonder why men say women are so frightening!
Thunder? Ah, yes, that huge thunderclap. I certainly do remember it. Who could forget a boom like that? The lightning must have struck very close to the capital—I heard that tremendous noise almost as soon as I saw the flash of light. I don't mind saying, it gave me a good start! The rain only got worse after that, so I stayed at the tavern until it let up.
You want to know when this all happened? It was right about the time the evening bell was ringing. First I saw the sky light up, then I heard the bell, and it wasn't a moment later that the thunder came.
So, as you can see, I'm completely innocent. You can ask the tavern keeper, he'll vouch for me. One of my younger brothers did it. Dispose of them however you like. But if you try to pin this crime on one of us without some very good evidence—well, I assume you know what'll happen to you.
The eldest brother was the first to speak to them. He was good-looking, just as Lihaku had said, but his pallor was poor and he was given to the occasional twitch. His fists were clenched, and stayed that way the entire time they questioned him. Perhaps he was hung over from the drink he was so fond of—or maybe it was nerves taking their toll on him. Nonetheless, he answered their questions with alacrity, although in a tone that defied them to finger the culprit.
Luomen gave a thoughtful "Hmmm" and stroked his chin. Maomao knew that even if she and the secretary hadn't recorded a thing, her father would remember every word. He was simply that gifted.
The eldest brother left; in his place came a man who looked
just like him, but with much better color in his cheeks. This was the middle brother, according to the paper. How polite of them to go from oldest to youngest, in an easily identifiable order.
What a pain. I'm trying to get my work done, you know, and you call me away for an interrogation? How do you plan to make this up to me when you realize I haven't done anything wrong?
Well, anyway. Since I haven't done anything wrong, I'm perfectly happy to talk to you and get this over with, after which I will be leaving. I suppose you want to know where I was and
what I was up to five days ago. I just happened to not have any duties that day, so I took a short trip on horseback. Not too far, though—I had work the next day, so I knew I had to be back by evening.
What's that? Where did I go? Not far from the capital. And I was back in a hurry, since the heavens looked ready to open at any moment. I was tired, so I came home and went straight to bed. I'm sure you know which house is mine? Since you must know who my father is. Then again, maybe you don't—or you would never have dragged me here.
Do I have anyone who can vouch for my alibi? Well, there're my servants, but I don't suppose you'd believe them. I'm sure you'd whine and cry and claim that I ordered them to lie on my behalf. I'm afraid it is what it is, though. My quarters are in an annex, not the main house, so I doubt anyone else even noticed me coming or going.
You want to know where I was when the evening bell sounded? Ahh, you mean around the time there was that clap of thunder. Believe me, the rainstorm that came after that put the finishing touches on a tiring day.
It surprised me something terrible—the sky lit up just as the bell was sounding, and then there came that terrible crash. It must have been an awful fright for the bell ringers—they might well be struck by lightning themselves, being all the way up there.
They weren't, of course... More's the pity.
There. Are you quite satisfied? I'm going back to work. It must've been one of my brothers who did it—the older or the younger. I'm sure you'll look into it. Very carefully, of course. We wouldn't want any...mistakes.
This second brother was no less provocative than the first. He had a mocking smile on his face from beginning to end. Maomao caught a glimpse of blisters on the palm of his hand, but that wasn't surprising. As a soldier, he practiced swordsmanship and rode horseback. A few blisters was nothing unusual.
Maomao finished recording his testimony, scowling slightly. Her father nodded and made a twirling motion with his finger. They both wanted to get this farce over with.
The third and youngest brother came in. He looked, of course, just like the others. Maomao was getting a bit sick of that face, but she would have to suck it up. As for the youngest brother's health, he looked ordinary, neither ill nor particularly exuberant.
What, I'm last? Wish one of my brothers had gone ahead and confessed. I could have been spared all this. Ah, well. Can we hurry up and get through this? I'm already done with work for the day.
Five days back, I was working all day. Yes, yes, it was quitting time, but they'd piled some more work on me. Ugh. Go to the archives! Fetch this book! That's a bureaucrat's job, if you ask me.
Blast that freak strategist... Ahem! No, er, I didn't say anything. Nothing at all. Anyway, I went to get the books, but I got to having a pleasant chat with a court lady I bumped into. No, she wasn't fourteen! Her name and department? Err, it was... You know, I guess I don't remember.
Which archive was I in? The storage building in the western quarter. Soldiers don't get out there too often. But at least I have a new friend to show for my little excursion.
So anyway, before I knew it, it was past time to go home. Yeah, I think I was in the archives when the evening bell rang. It was dark outside and there was a bit of a rain shower. I didn't hear the bell, but it must have been about then. But that thunder, oh yeah. I heard that. I had an armload of documents, and the flash spooked me so bad I dropped them all over the floor. I bent down to pick them up, but then I heard the sound—it felt like the earth was shaking! Boy, it was big.
How long before I finally worked my way to the floor? I was a bit dazed, but it couldn't have been more than four or five seconds.
There, how's that? I'm dying to get home, so I'll be on my way now, thank you.
She'd hoped at least one of the brothers would turn out to be a halfway decent person, but no. All three of them were hopeless. Maomao was exhausted, and she'd only been transcribing the interviews.
Luomen, however, alone among the three of them, was nodding as if this somehow made sense to him. The secretary promptly went about making a clean copy of what he'd written down. Maomao leaned over, whispering so she wouldn't be overheard, and said, "Did you get anything, pops?"
"Eh. I think we have most of the pieces we need," he said. He sounded downright blasé. Maomao looked at him in confusion. She liked to think she'd picked up a thing or two from her dad, but there was still so much she didn't know—such as what was going through the old eunuch's head at that moment. "Perhaps we can organize our thoughts when we get back," he said. He lifted himself out of his chair, using his cane to steady himself. Outside, they saw their would-be guard. "Didn't need ol' Lihaku, huh?" he said, although he sounded a bit dejected about it. Maomao was sure he would have loved an official excuse to punch in at least one of those three infuriating faces.
As soon as they got back to the medical office, Maomao's father requested a map of the capital and its environs. Maomao was just wondering if she would have to go to the archives to get it when Dr. Liu brought out a copy and saved her the trouble. "Just keep it clean," he warned them. Luomen, who'd had every intention of marking it up, quietly hid his brush. He looked around for something he could use instead and found some small ceramic knickknacks in various colors, normally used to keep medicine packets from flying away.
"What are you doing?" asked Yao. She and En'en came over with much curiosity. Dr. Liu could hardly object—they were both already done for the day. It was up to them what they did with their free time.
"Just trying to organize the information we have," Luomen said. "Would you two like to help?"
Yao flushed at the way he was obviously hoping they would say yes; she looked away, meaning: Well, I suppose I have no
choice. It was very much like her to not quite be able to simply say "Yes." En'en was clearly burning the image of her young mistress into her retinas; her intensity was a little frightening.
"For starters, one marker goes here," Luomen said, placing a red piece of pottery in the center of the capital.
"What's that represent?" Maomao asked.
"This is where they ring the evening bell, yes?" Luomen replied.
"Yes, that's the place. It's located so you can hear it anywhere in the city," Yao said. She knew very well where it was, since they'd walked right by it on that stormy day.
Next, Luomen put down three blue markers, one round, one triangular, and the other square. "The round one represents the eldest son—where he claimed to be at the time of the incident. The triangle is on the house where the second son said he was, and this square I've placed at the western archives, where the youngest claimed he was."
"So no two of them were in the same place on the day of the attack," Yao said.
"That's right. And this is where the young woman says she was." Luomen pointed again to the red object, right near the shopping district.
"But that..." Maomao said. It was right near where she and her friends had been.
Yao frowned. "If we'd found that poor, frightened girl, maybe none of this would have happened." She looked pained, then cast her eyes to the ground. They'd barely been able to see a thing for the rain that day—and anyway, they'd been intent on finishing their shopping as quickly as they could. They'd been too occupied for anything else.
"'If' means nothing in the face of what is already done," Maomao's father said, not unkindly. "The most we can do now is to help ensure that this doesn't happen to anyone else."
"All three of the suspects claim they have witnesses who can testify to their whereabouts, but all three of their alibis seem fishy. Do you know which of them is lying, sir?" Maomao asked, mindful to speak politely in Yao and En'en's presence.
"I believe I do. But first, I think a little more information would be helpful." He looked at the three of them. "Do you all remember that thunderclap five days ago?"
"I do! What a noise!" Yao said.
"We were outside when it happened. It was quite surprising," En'en added.
"You said you were near the bell tower, yes?" Luomen asked, tapping the red object. "And from what I've heard, the lightning struck near the northwestern part of the city." He placed a yellow object by the city walls.
Maomao and the others blinked. They couldn't fathom what he was getting at.
"Might I ask one more question?" Luomen said.
"Please do."
"Which came first—the lightning and thunder or the evening bell?"
His question prompted En'en to clap her hands. Well, now. This was surprising. "The sky lit up at the same moment as the bell sounded, and then the thunder came after," she said.
"I see you remember very well," Luomen said appreciatively. Maomao realized that En'en's memory must have been tied to her image of the flustered Yao. It was the only answer. But why does
he want to know that? she wondered. She looked at the map,
comparing the locations of the various objects—and gasped. She returned to what she'd written down during the interviews, looking at what the three men had told them.
"What's the matter, Maomao?" Yao asked.
"Read this. Does it give you any ideas?" she asked, showing Yao the testimony, particularly the parts about the thunder.
"Hmm... Yeah. Something seems off." She looked intently at the eldest brother's testimony. "The order is wrong here." His claim was, in a few words, that the sky lit up, then the bell sounded, and then the thunder crashed. "And here too!" she said as she read the second brother's testimony. That claimed that the flash in the sky and the sound of the bell came at the same time, followed by a dramatic thunderclap. "This last one might be accurate, but it doesn't say when the bell sounded." The youngest brother had said that four or five seconds after the flash of lightning, the thunder had come like an earthquake. "So does that mean the oldest and middle brothers are lying?" Yao asked.
"Not necessarily," Maomao replied. She thought to herself, Now I see what this is about. She looked at her old man, who was regarding the three of them with a gentle expression, waiting to see if they would reach the answer.
She remembered what Lihaku had said: that at least two of the brothers could be expected to tell the truth. The big mutt might not have needed to come in swinging, but he'd given them some very interesting advice all the same. If he was right, then the three men wouldn't try to cover for each other. He'd said the brothers who hadn't assaulted the girl wouldn't lie to Maomao and Luomen as long as they didn't think it would make trouble for them. Which led to one conclusion...
"Maomao, tell us what's going on here," En'en said.
Maomao looked at her father. "If indeed you've figured it out," he said with a smile.
Well, now she really wanted to get it right. She took a deep breath and got her thoughts in order, trying to decide where would be the easiest place to start. After a moment she said, "Yao, En'en—do you know how to tell how far lightning has struck from you?"
"You can tell by how loud the thunder is, right? And how soon you hear it after the flash..." Yao had a good head on her shoulders. She just needed a push to see the answer. "So you're saying that the earlier they heard the sound, the closer they were to where the lightning struck!"
Luomen nodded. Yao's brow wrinkled as she compared the three men's testimony.
"It's hard to work out the time line. They all mention the thunder, but they don't agree about the bell."
Her confusion was understandable. Maomao said, "The farther you are from the lightning, the longer it takes the sound of the thunder to get to you. Wouldn't the sound of the bell behave the same way?" That explained why the men reported hearing the sounds in different orders. And when they compared those details, only one man's testimony stood out as clearly wrong.
"It's the middle brother, isn't it? If he was really at his house when the thunder sounded, like he says, it wouldn't make sense." En'en used her fingers to measure the space between the yellow, red, and blue objects on the map. "Even without knowing the
exact distance, you can see that if he was at home, there's no
way he could have heard the bell at the same time he saw the lightning."
The bell tower was far from the house where the second brother claimed to have been. Instead, he'd heard the sounds in much the same order as Maomao and the others—meaning he was near the same place they had been.
"The middle brother must have been around here," En'en said, moving the blue triangle over beside the red object. Precisely, in other words, where the young woman said one of the men had accosted her.
Maomao, Yao, and En'en looked at Luomen. Was this what all his questions had been about from the start? Who would think to
establish a person's location by the sounds they heard? Maomao
thought, nearly unable to believe it.
"Now then, we have the secretary's records and our own conclusions. I think it's time we reported to Lakan," Maomao's old man said, heaving himself up from his seat.
"How did such an astonishing person end up as a eunuch?" Yao breathed. Maomao, supporting her old man with his bad knee, knew exactly how she felt. He was a doctor, yes, but one people could afford to value a little more highly.
Chapter 7: The ExpeditionDry air brushed Jinshi's cheeks. As it had the past several days. Still, he hadn't been on a proper excursion since his trip out west. Watching the scenery go by as his carriage rumbled along wasn't a terrible way to pass the time, but he couldn't deny a desire to ride out across the fields on his own horse.
"You can just leave things here to us. Don't worry, our world will keep turning without you for a few days," said Maamei, who stood with her chest out proudly. Jinshi pretended he couldn't see Baryou (whose look said Are you really leaving me here?). Instead, with Maamei's proverbial push, he headed out to do his observations. His destination: a village where the crops had been ravaged by insects.
It meant a day and a half of riding along in a rattling carriage. In an effort to get the job done as fast as possible, Jinshi planned to change horses and drivers at each town. Despite the stiff pace he meant to set, he had at least ten people with him including his bodyguards. A relatively modest number for an expedition involving someone of Jinshi's status, but traveling large would only make things take longer. He pressed ahead with his comparatively small band in hopes of reaching the village that much quicker.
Likewise, in order to ensure that things went smoothly, he'd decided to be a bit...demanding about who would be on his staff.
"You're not uncomfortable simply sitting for so long, sir?"
"If you're so worried about it, let me ride."
"I'm afraid not, sir."
Sitting beside him was not Basen but Gaoshun. Basen was present, on horse among the guards. With apologies to him, Gaoshun was still more capable when it came to serving as
Jinshi's aide-de-camp. Hence Jinshi had borrowed him from the
Emperor. It was also, as it were, Jinshi's little revenge on His
Majesty, who'd been making his own life easier by having
Gaoshun do his work.
"Are you sure Baryou is going to be all right? Even with Maamei?" Jinshi asked. He was concerned. "I know he's always been somewhat frail. I thought I'd heard he was on bed rest at home on account of an illness."
Admittedly, it was Jinshi himself who had nonetheless pushed for Baryou to enter his service, but he quailed at the thought of the man getting sick again.
"It was only his usual complaint." Gaoshun offered Jinshi a tangerine, already peeled—but not before he took a single segment and put it in his mouth. Jinshi wasn't sure it was really necessary to check such a trivial thing for poison, but making the practice habitual would discourage people from thinking about trying to poison something that might slip through the cracks.
"I know the gist of his story, but perhaps you could tell me the rest?" Jinshi gave Gaoshun an inquiring look as he took a bite of fruit. It was still sour, the perfect thing to wet his dry throat.
"Yes, sir. He never got along with his supervisor in his department, to the point that Baryou ended up with a hole in his stomach. The matter climaxed with an incident of copious vomiting on the supervisor's desk, after which Baryou was taken to the medical office and soon thereafter withdrew from his duties. That would have been about three months ago, as I recall."
And this was the man Gaoshun claimed was going to be just fine? Jinshi had known Baryou long enough to know that he wasn't always very comfortable around people—and that people he really didn't get along with could, well, give him the runs.
Gaoshun must have seen the concern on Jinshi's face, because he added placatingly, "There won't be any trouble. Maamei is with him. Ever since she had children, she's become a much more wellrounded person."
"Well-rounded?" She seemed just as forceful as ever to him. She must be, to come up with an idea like foisting the eccentric strategist's own work back on him.
"Indeed. For example, she's stopped complaining every time I touch my grandchild—as long as I wash my hands first."
Jinshi didn't say anything to that. Maybe it was simply the fate
of this particular daughter's father. Gaoshun had spent many years with Maamei treating him like a cockroach.
Gaoshun had a distant look in his eyes, but as he gazed out the window he said, "There, you can see it."
Jinshi looked, and saw a village nestled among cozy rice fields. As they got closer, he could make out rows of simple houses. One of them was bigger than the others. A sentry stood at the village gate, watching Jinshi's party suspiciously.
"We'll go straight to the village headman's house. If that's all right?"
"Summon Lihaku for me first, if you would," said Jinshi.
Lihaku, a soldier who had the air of a friendly dog about him, never seemed particularly intimidated, even in Jinshi's presence. More importantly, he was a man of strong character, which made him most valuable. Jinshi had once again asked for him by name to be among the guards.
"As you wish, sir." Gaoshun called out the window for Lihaku. It might have been quicker for Jinshi to summon him personally, but it would be best if his face wasn't seen too often. He planned to wear his mask while outside. It wouldn't exactly make him look less suspicious, but with Gaoshun to vouch for him, he assumed even the village headman wouldn't press too hard about it. He'd relied on Basen for something similar before, but it had all been a bit...nerve-racking.
"Yes? What do you need, Master Jinshi?" Lihaku asked, hopping easily into the still-moving carriage. He'd known Jinshi back when he had been pretending to be a eunuch and eschewed the euphemistic nickname "Moon Prince" in favor of the name Jinshi had used in the rear palace.
"You're from the provinces, aren't you? How does this village strike you?"
"From the provinces? Yes, sir, albeit not around here. This village, though..." Lihaku looked out at it, not quite sure what to say. "The houses look awfully sturdy for a farming hamlet. I know they might seem pretty plain from your perspective, but they're perfectly respectable out here. I heard the insects really
devastated this place, though."
It was the exposed and weathered posts that made the houses look something less than luxurious to Jinshi.
"My grandpa told me that grasshoppers don't just eat all the grain—they go for timbers and even textiles," Lihaku said. They had insatiable appetites—they seemed bent on robbing the people not only of their food, but of their clothes and shelter as well.
"According to reports, the only grain that survived was whatever had been fully harvested and put in the storehouses. Virtually everything else was consumed," Gaoshun said, reading from a piece of paper.
"It's enough to make your head hurt, isn't it?" Lihaku said, frowning. "Though I guess you could say we were almost lucky that it happened here and now." The damage would have been so much worse had the swarm come in the middle of the wheat harvest, or farther south, in rice country.
"It's hard to see from here, but I'm sure there are dead bugs all over the ground out there. It might look ugly, but they were able to keep damage to a minimum because orders had already gone out to get ready to exterminate the insects." Lihaku shook his head and sighed. It was a somewhat familiar way to behave around a member of the Imperial family, but Jinshi knew Lihaku was aware of his place, and chose to overlook the indiscretion. The choice was as much for Jinshi's own benefit as for Lihaku's—it made his life easier. Gaoshun could read Jinshi's reaction and said nothing to Lihaku. If Basen had been here, he would have been all over the other soldier, and frankly it would have been a little bit annoying.
"Well, I'll head back out," Lihaku said. "Master Basen's going to give me the glaring of a lifetime otherwise."
Before he could leave, however, the carriage came to a halt. They must have arrived at the headman's house. Basen didn't seem to like the fact that Jinshi valued Lihaku's service, and the big mutt wasted no time showing himself out. As for Jinshi, he put on his mask and emerged a moment later.
Though the timbers and roof showed some signs of having been nibbled on, the headman's house was suitably impressive. Jinshi knew because of the touch of mockery in Lihaku's tone as he remarked, "More of a mansion than a regular house, isn't it?"
Canals ran around the mansion, flowing to a pond that had
been created in the middle of the garden. It was a fancy idea, but the conspicuous lack of greenery made it appear forlorn. Specifically, trying to dress up a rice paddy as a pond was clever— too clever by half. But Jinshi would keep that to himself.
He stood behind Gaoshun. The headman appeared at the door, wringing his hands and bowing obsequiously to Gaoshun while shooting the masked man suspicious looks. He led them inside, where Jinshi surmised, based on Lihaku's whispers, that the interior was just as relatively sumptuous as the exterior. Lihaku might look simple, but he was actually quite sharp.
"This way, if you please," the headman said, leading them into a room where a feast had been prepared. The food looked rather poor to Jinshi, who'd had his fair share of ornate meals in the capital, but there was every chance it was more extravagant than might have been expected from a rural village headman.
Jinshi stayed silent. Gaoshun never so much as glanced at him, yet he knew what his master would want to say. "We've not come to eat. Tell us about the state of your village, this minute," he said.
"Y-Yes, sir," said the headman. To Jinshi, who was used to Gaoshun sounding deferential, the commanding tone was bracing. Even Maomao always spoke politely to him. It could get stultifying.
The headman promptly ordered a servant to take away the meal, leaving the large table empty. The room had been thoroughly cleaned and the window offered a view of the garden. Jinshi suspected it was the headman's pride and joy, but at the moment it was strewn with insect corpses.
The headman brought out a map of the village.
"You can skip the pleasantries. Give us the situation. As many details as you can, but keep it short," Gaoshun said.
"Yes, sir. It started about two weeks ago..."
About two weeks ago, a black cloud had appeared on the northwestern horizon, the headman said. It had been a strange sight, a storm cloud outside the rainy season. They had soon noticed that the cloud was accompanied by a terrible buzzing. It was, in fact, no cloud, but a great swarm of grasshoppers.
The swarm reached the village and began eating all the unharvested rice in sight. The villagers fought back with torches and nets, but no matter how many they killed or caught, it never seemed to make a dent in the swarm's numbers. They simply continued to eat, and not just the rice, but the villagers' clothes and shoes—even their hair and skin felt the insects' bites.
The men would catch the grasshoppers and burn them or simply kill them. The women and children tried to shelter indoors; the women would kill any bugs that got through cracks in the walls, but the children could only hunch in the corner, trembling. The grasshoppers' assault lasted three days and three nights.
"These are the clothes I was wearing that day," the headman said, holding up an outfit of sturdy hemp fiber. Holes had been made clean through it—and judging by the bright colors of the fabric, it wasn't time that had done the work. "We made insecticide, but the swarm was simply too big. We didn't stand a chance."
Jinshi bit his lip: so the chemicals hadn't been enough after all.
"And then there's this," the headman said, going out into the garden and brushing the trunk of one of the trees. "This was covered in new leaves... But the bugs ate every last one." He sighed deeply.
"Where are the bugs now?" Gaoshun asked.
"We killed all that we could, burned what we were able, and tried to gather the rest of the dead ones in the back of the village.
Do you want to see them?"
They did. The headman led them out behind the mansion. As they went along, they started to see more dead locusts on the ground, and then the bodies began to crunch under their feet as they walked.
Jinshi remained silent as they approached the place. We'll refrain from a detailed description; suffice to say a large hole had been dug, and a dark mound could be seen above the edge. A couple of the guards put their hands to their mouths, fighting the urge to vomit. Clearly some of the men in the detachment were not fond of insects.
"Is this all of them?" Gaoshun inquired.
"All of the ones we were able to stop," the headman replied.
"And about how many would you say got away from you?"
"I couldn't guess."
Gaoshun stroked his chin. "Basen."
He was quick to come when his father called. "Yes, sir?"
"Go to the other nearby villages and find out exactly how much damage has been done. If you take a swift horse, you should be able to get back in decent time." "Yes, sir."
Basen went to ask the locals about other nearby settlements. Behind his mask, Jinshi raised his eyebrows and then let them drop again.
"Is something the matter, sir?" Gaoshun asked him quietly.
"Not exactly..."
Jinshi needed to deal with what had happened—but there was something even more important that required his attention. He asked himself what the demented apothecary would do if she were here.
Quite abruptly, he crouched down on the ground. The grasshoppers were dead and still, but he could see that their bellies were swollen. He'd heard before that locusts in swarms took on a darker coloration and their legs grew shorter. These were indeed dun-colored and plain.
Jinshi took out a small dagger. Without a word, he plunged it into the body of one of the bugs. He didn't enjoy the sensation— but he was certain that if Maomao were here, this was what she would have done. He went about dissecting one locust after another. The villagers watched the masked man in horror, but Jinshi couldn't afford to be bothered by what they thought of him.
He lined up the carved bugs in a row.
"Those are..." Gaoshun started. He seemed to grasp what Jinshi was aiming at. Jinshi was no entomologist, but even he could guess what might have caused the stomachs to appear swollen. They were packed with what looked like long, yellow tubules.
It was autumn, and after autumn came winter. These insects wouldn't survive the cold months—they would entrust the future to the next generation.
"Eggs?" Gaoshun whispered, and Jinshi responded with a nod.
Another thing he could guess was what the egg-laden insects would do next.
"This plague isn't over yet," he said softly, the mask muffling his voice. "We burn this land."
Any surviving eggs had to be destroyed with fire—or the spring wheat harvest would fall to the spawn of these locusts.
Chapter 8: HarassmentIt was a cool autumn morning, and Maomao was just about to head to the medical office for work when she was stopped by a delivery. She would have been perfectly happy with a gift, but that's not what this was. At least, it wasn't the kind of gift she wanted.
"Is somebody harassing you? You know you can tell me, right?" Yao said, giving her a rare look of pity. The look was coming from a safe distance, though—Yao had backed up, frowning intensely.
"Not as such, no..." Maomao said, but she couldn't blame Yao for wondering, for inside the basket she'd received was something brown—a mass of dead bugs.
Grasshoppers, specifically.
Normally, it would have been a challenge to collect so many of them, but here they were—meaning they'd come from somewhere where the collecting wasn't so challenging.
"I left that there because it came from the higher-ups, but I'd be very happy if you would get it the hell out of here," Dr. Liu said, thoroughly unimpressed. He was older, the highest-ranking man in the medical office, which meant there were very few people to whom he felt the need to be deferential.
And take it where? Maomao thought. She didn't want a basket full of dead bugs in her room. She had a good idea who had sent it, but that only left her more puzzled about what to do.
Dr. Liu seemed to sense that she was between a rock and a hard place. He beckoned her over. "Use the empty room in the next building over," he said. "It wouldn't normally be mine to give you, but...hrm...just round up a few people with time to kill and do what you have to do. Quickly." He seemed to consider the matter to take priority over doing chores at the medical office.
Very well then...
"Say, uh, what was all that about?" Yao asked, tugging on Maomao's sleeve. Her lovely features were marred by a look of distress.
Maomao grinned and decided to enlist the cowering Yao to help her with the bugs.
Yao put another insect on the scale, her pallor deathly. En'en observed her with a flush in her cheeks. For her part, Maomao was silent as she measured the grasshoppers' legs and wings.
"Um, h-how many more...bugs...do you need?" Yao asked, picking up a grasshopper with chopsticks and no small degree of loathing. She did not love bugs. They'd put ten of them on the scale, one by one; they would take the average of their weight.
"I don't suppose we need to weigh all of them," Maomao said.
"But certainly the more the better." As she took her measurements, she put any specimens with unusual coloration into a separate pile.
"If you find you can't stand it, milady, I'll take over for you," En'en offered.
Yao, though, said, "N-No, I can do it. It's p-p-part of the job..." The question could only make her more determined not to be second best—as En'en had known perfectly well. That was why she'd said it.
"Young mistress..." En'en said; the flush was growing deeper, her heart beating harder, and goosebumps standing on her skin as she watched Yao work with the bugs.
Twisted, twisted, twisted, Maomao thought, giving them both something of a scowl. But she didn't stop working.
They'd gotten through about a third of the pile when a visitor arrived—a small man with round spectacles, tousled hair, and, today, a grin. "Well, hullo." It was, needless to say, Lahan. Maomao didn't stop working, but now she looked angry. Lahan appeared unconcerned as he scanned her numbers. "Hmm. Maomao, think you could be so kind as to explain this figure here to your older brother?" She pointedly ignored him—so he whispered in her ear, "I brought your reward from last time. The one I mentioned? I guess maybe you forgot about it."
Maomao's eyes flitted to Yao and En'en. Yao appeared not to have noticed; En'en had, but she was pretending she hadn't. Lahan was referring to Maomao's investigation of the Shaohnese shrine maiden—which she had conducted without the knowledge of the other two women. She'd assumed the matter had been lost in the shuffle surrounding the attempted poisoning of the shrine maiden, but it seemed Lahan had remembered.
Maomao finally stopped working. "We've done about three hundred of them. I measured the length of their legs and wings, and recorded their color and weight, as well as how many eggs the females are carrying. I think these grasshoppers flew in from quite a ways away."
Lahan made noises of acknowledgment, flipping through the papers. What was he thinking? The collection of measurements might seem meaningless to ordinary people, but to this man, nothing was more interesting than numbers.
Yao was still openly dismayed about the entire thing, but she finally noticed Lahan and did her best to say hello in spite of her fatigue. Maomao, thinking that this might be a good time for a quick break, was about to make some tea, but then she realized that maybe it would be cruel to offer Yao something to drink at this particular moment.
"Here you are." En'en placed a cup of tea in front of Lahan, and Lahan alone. He sipped it, so absorbed in the numbers that the mountain of dead grasshoppers didn't even bother him.
"Maomao, what are these figures here?" he asked, pointing to a group that was off on its own.
"Those are the values for our local grasshoppers. They're green rather than brown. I separated them from the ones that flew in from elsewhere based on their color, form, and weight."
During a plague of grasshoppers, the insects themselves could experience physiological changes. The ones that had developed short wings were the ones that had flown from afar.
"Fair enough. How far do you think these could fly, if they were to do so?"
Maomao didn't answer. She was no specialist. At that point,
Yao entered the conversation, although she looked as puzzled as Maomao felt. "I can't imagine it could be very far," she said. "A few li at most. I mean, they're just bugs."
Lahan nodded. "Interestingly, there was no other insect damage in the vicinity of the village where the swarm appeared. But to have so many of them—they must have been getting food from somewhere." Yet not, evidently, the surrounding area. He produced a map from the folds of his robe, an illustration that encompassed the entire country. "You suggested they would only be able to fly a few li, yes?"
"Yes—and I think I was being generous," Yao said.
"However," Lahan said, and here he took out a piece of string that he laid on top of the map. He must not have wanted to write directly on it, and was using the string instead. He oriented it diagonally from the northwest toward the location of the afflicted village. "This is the direction of the seasonal wind," he said.
"You think they came in on the breeze," Maomao said.
"Yes. In which case, they could most likely travel tens of li if they wanted." Next he placed several white Go stones on the map.
"What are the stones for?" Maomao asked, gesturing.
"They represent areas where there was insect damage. I think it's reasonable to assume that this area is only the latest victim of
the swarm as they travel from the northwest."
"That's the direction of Hokuaren," Yao said.
Maomao didn't say anything; she felt an unpleasant bead of sweat run down her neck. Yao had only stated the fact; she hadn't seen the implications. Lahan was talking about something more. En'en seemed to see it, but she chose not to say anything; she only watched her mistress fondly.
Lahan bundled up the papers with Maomao's numbers. "I think we've got enough here. Someone else should be able to handle the work after this, yes?"
"I wish you would have let someone else handle it before this," Maomao grumbled.
Lahan shook a reproving finger at her. "I'm not the one who ordered this grasshopper investigation. I was only asked to see if the numbers were good. I may not look it, but I'm a busy man." He tried to sound indignant, but it was hard to take him seriously given that he was fiddling with the Go stones while he spoke. As for what he was so busy with, the stones in his hand told the story: he was occupied with a side job. "If the numbers aren't accurate, then what might otherwise be seen is obscured. We had to make sure we started with good measurements."
Maomao understood what he was trying to say. He probably already had perfectly good numbers. As he made to leave, however, she grabbed his sleeve. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Oh! Yes, of course." Lahan theatrically produced a package, inside of which was a root vegetable. Maomao couldn't help it; she felt the breath start to come hot in her nostrils. "I'll show myself out, then," Lahan said. Maomao had gotten what she wanted; she had no more business with him.
"What's that? Ginseng?" Yao asked, peering at it.
En'en seemed to know the vegetable's secret. "Yes, it is, but..."
As for Maomao, all she could do was stare intensely at her prize. She couldn't have looked away from it if she'd wanted to. It was irresistible to her, beautiful. She began to laugh: "Hee hee hee hee hee!"
"Uh... Are you okay?" Yao asked.
"Haaah hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!" was her only answer.
"En'en, I think there's something wrong with Maomao..."
"You're just now noticing, milady?"
As far as Maomao was concerned, they may as well not have been talking. Everything else at that moment seemed trivial compared to her ginseng.
"Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!"
"There's something going on here, I know it! That thing he gave her is some kind of awful drug, isn't it?"
"It's all right, young mistress. Yes, it's a drug, but there's nothing awful about it."
Maomao held up the ginseng triumphantly and spun around.
"Ginseng!"
Ginseng. Indeed. But this wasn't just ginseng. This was medicinal ginseng. People had never succeeded in domesticating it; the only thing one could do was to search for it in nature. It sometimes went by the name of bangchui: boiled without peeling, it had become "red ginseng." Such a large one was quite a rich gift.
For the first time in a long while Maomao danced her happy dance, in a room full of dead bugs, while Yao (increasingly concerned) and En'en (unworried) looked on.
Chapter 9: Jinshi's IdeaQuestion: What do you do when you have too much work and it's becoming a problem?
Answer: You get other people to do it.
Obvious. Simple. But difficult to implement. Nonetheless, Maamei had been industrious on Jinshi's behalf, and when he got back from his trip, he found much less work piled up than he had feared. Maamei's solution had been quite elegant: as Jinshi's title was always supposed to be chiefly honorary, she'd simply sent all the various jobs, chores, and sundry tasks back to the departments that had foisted them on him in the first place.
Including the issue of the bugs.
"Let the Director of Waters or the Master of Agriculture deal with it" was her assessment. The former was in charge of flood control, while the latter oversaw both currency and cereals. Jinshi had tried passing the matter off to them before, but they'd each rebuffed him with a "It's not our job. We're busy people, sorry."
He tried to explain as much to Maamei, but she was having none of it. "They said what? Just push right back! You outrank them, Master Jinshi, even if it is only honorary. What—you're young, so you're going to see what they think or something? Are you worried about hurting their feelings? Let them use one of those good old boys, the ones who wander in at noon, sip some tea, and go home again. If they say they're busy, that they don't have a free hand? I guarantee it's only because their hands are too full grabbing the women in the pleasure district all night long. Go find them in their brothels and give the work to them right there. I guarantee the departments are full of those people."
There was no besting Maamei in a verbal exchange. Basen and Baryou both looked like they wanted to interject, but they dared not contradict their sister.
Maamei was a highly capable woman, but she was just that—a woman. Thanks to her gender, no one was willing to give her any official jobs. But if Basen was a one on the getting-work-done scale, and Baryou was a five, Maamei ranked a solid three. People didn't know what they were missing. She didn't get as much done as Baryou, but when she was present to act as his assistant, she served as a force multiplier, making him two or three times more effective. If she'd been a man, she would almost certainly have been Jinshi's aide. But given what an able talker she was, it was perhaps for the best that she was a woman.
"I also have a warning for you, Master Jinshi, considering that you're getting tunnel vision," she added.
"Y-Yes? What's that?" He trembled a little in spite of himself.
"Ordinary people would consider a delivery of a mountain of dead bugs to be nothing short of harassment. Especially when that delivery goes to a young woman."
That left Jinshi speechless. He could only slump his shoulders and slap himself on the forehead.
"Parcel out the work," Maamei said. "Make use of anyone you can. And anyone you can't, give them something indifferent to do, just to keep them out of the way." With that, she chased Jinshi out of his office, with orders to use his influence—or his charms, if necessary—to get the papers off his desk.
She insisted that people would sing a different tune if he came in person, but he wasn't thrilled about the idea. People were apt to impute a great deal of meaning to his appearing at their door. Back when he'd been a "eunuch" at the rear palace, he would have been more than happy to make use of Maamei's strategy, but as the Imperial younger brother, he hesitated. Still, it was better than having no way to get anywhere, so he went. "My charms, indeed," he grumbled.
"I must apologize for my sister," said Basen, who was accompanying him as his guard. (Jinshi wasn't the only one who found he could hardly look Maamei in the eye.) Then, looking around, he added, "I must say, though, there's some truth to what she says. Look at all the people who don't even bother to do their work."
Many of them hurried to hide something as Jinshi approached. People leaned against railings reading the Go book. They played games of Go on their breaks, surrounded by other bureaucrats watching them. Some of them scurried to at least pretend they weren't playing when they saw Jinshi, and others averted their eyes, but there were some who were so absorbed in their games that they didn't even notice him. He found himself agreeing with Maamei: they needed to do their blasted work. He was starting to feel silly for having worked himself sleepless all this time. "I knew it was popular, but I think this might be getting out of hand," he said.
"Master Jinshi, I'm not so sure about allowing this sort of thing here," Basen said. He was looking at a notice board that was normally reserved for imperial edicts.
"Well, we did change the location," Jinshi said. Basen was looking at the newly reprinted leaflet about the Go tournament. Jinshi's personal involvement had been taken as an excellent opportunity to advertise the competition far and wide. "Tournament or no, though, these people all seem a bit...too eager about this game, don't you think?" Jinshi said.
The answer to his question could be found right on the leaflet. "It appears there's a price of ten silver pieces to challenge Grand Commandant Kan," Basen said, puzzled. He let his fingers brush the words.
Jinshi had thought the entry fee of ten copper pieces was a reasonable and decent thing to do—but here was where the enterprising impulse came out. Jinshi was sure he could sense the presence of the eccentric strategist's nephew somewhere behind the scenes. Lakan could never have orchestrated an event like this all by himself; it had to be largely Lahan's doing.
"He's got another book coming out too," Basen observed. "A collection of Go problems, limited to five hundred copies. You think it'll sell?"
"They clearly believe it will."
How far did they plan to push this? Then again, Jinshi reflected, Lahan might have considered this the minimum necessary to make the whole project viable. A year ago, the "fox strategist" had bought out a courtesan's contract at a price high enough to build a decent villa—and he still hadn't paid for the wall of the rear palace that he'd damaged either.
"Ten silver pieces for a single game of Go, though. Doesn't that seem a little expensive?" Basen asked. A commoner could live comfortably for a month on that sum. Jinshi, who had been learning to sharpen his money sense at Maomao's and Gaoshun's insistence, understood that it was not a small amount.
Nonetheless, he replied, "I dare say it's something of a bargain."
"A bargain, sir? I can't imagine that."
Basen was right—if the game were merely about learning at the Commandant's hands. "What if you beat Grand Commandant Kan? You'd practically be making money," Jinshi said. Basen caught his breath. What a way to gild your reputation! "This says the challenger takes the black stones, and the game will be played with no komi."
In Go, the player with the black stones went first, giving them an advantage. To make things more fair, the white player was typically given a number of points, known as komi, to compensate.
"You know, I do feel like the Grand Commandant is relatively more respectful toward people who are good at Go," Basen said.
"I suspect because if he were too dismissive of them, he'd soon run out of people to play with." In any event, relatively was the operative term.
"If you were to beat him, Master Jinshi, maybe he'd stop coming to your office just to make a scene. Don't you worry he'll go back to his usual 'workload' once the tournament is over?"
Jinshi had induced Lakan to do some of his actual work in exchange for a place to hold the tournament, and Basen feared that when everything was done, Lakan might do something to retaliate. Yet against the strategist, Jinshi suspected that even the black stones wouldn't help him much. That fox was a far better player than even your average professional.
Still... It might be worth a try.
"Ten silver pieces," Jinshi mused. That wasn't so expensive at all.
Jinshi still savored the simple feeling of being able to go home before sunset. He would have to make sure to thank Maamei.
"If you'll excuse me, then, sir," Basen said. He was going back to his own home. Someone else would take night guard duty. Basen had pushed to be allowed to stay at Jinshi's residence and be on call, but to be quite frank, Jinshi thought it would be draining to be attended by Basen all day, every day, and politely declined.
Suiren greeted him as he reached his pavilion. "You'll be wanting a meal," she said with a smile.
"No, I'd prefer to bathe first," Jinshi said, but then he stopped. Something in the air seemed different. His favorite incense was burning, but it smelled sweeter than normal. And the guards inside weren't ones he recognized. "A visitor?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
There were only so many people who might drop in at Jinshi's residence. Jinshi went to the living area, the guards in the hallway bowing as he passed by. There, he found exactly who he expected lounging and waiting for him.
"Are you not needed at the rear palace tonight, sire?" Jinshi asked as he bowed to the Emperor.
"These days, the overseer keeps trying to foist all these new consorts on me," His Majesty replied. He had a drink (which he was sipping) in one hand, a book (which he was reading) in the other, and extraordinary facial hair. A Go board sat before him. So —another one on the bandwagon. "It's all about which girls he thinks will meet my tastes."
Meaning well-endowed ones, no doubt. But the leader of the entire country wasn't choosing his bedfellows based purely on bust size. A particular consort might match his preferences, but she could still turn out to be politically disastrous—that seemed to be the gist of His Majesty's complaint. But it wasn't the only thing on his mind. There was his newly chosen Empress, Gyokuyou, as well. Her father Gyokuen was currently in the capital. It remained unclear whether he would go back to the west from whence he'd come, or if he would remain as a prominent citizen of this city, but the latter seemed more likely.
"Uneasy with your father-in-law around?" Jinshi asked. This was his residence; he could get away with being a touch flippant.
"Throughout history, the one who wears the crown has always
had to be alert to the feelings of those around him." The Emperor placed a stone on the board with a click, then gestured at the empty chair across from him, urging Jinshi to sit.
Jinshi sat down, smiling at His Majesty. The Go bowl beside him was full of white stones.
"Gyokuyou has it no easier than I do, though. If I have to watch out for my father-in-law, she's got to think about her mother-in-law each and every day." Gyokuyou had left the rear palace and was now situated near the Empress Dowager's residence. For the new Empress, it was probably an even more tedious existence than life in the rear palace had been. "Speaking of which. When I went to visit her the other day, she asked a favor of me."
"What's that?"
"Considering the...vulnerability of her new position, she wants a food taster. She mentioned how pleased she would be if it were someone she already knew."
Jinshi resisted the impulse to frown. "And what will you do about the girl?"
"Heavens. Which girl?"
Jinshi didn't rise to the bait. The Emperor shook his book at Jinshi, patently enjoying himself. Jinshi was sure His Majesty was teasing him. Like Gyokuyou, he had a playful side.
The Emperor said, "I would have considered her, if she'd been of less distinguished stock." He set down his book—which, needless to say, was the one by the freak strategist.
Lakan aligned himself with no faction within the court, yet neither did he form some group of his own. It was considered common sense in the palace that one left him alone unless absolutely necessary. He'd always been single and had even taken an adopted son, so no one had imagined he had a child of his own. Lakan, for his part, said that he hadn't been trying to hide her; people had simply, and quite on their own, misunderstood his behavior.
Even before Maomao had entered the rear palace, Jinshi was given to understand, the madam of the brothel would meet Lakan with a bucket of cold water when he raced up exclaiming, "Daddy's here!" Most people thought he went there to see a favored courtesan and was just an abrasive old fart who wasn't allowed inside anymore.
On some level, it was sort of incredible. Only when he smashed through the walls of the rear palace, and later when he started dropping in on (and disrupting work at) the medical office on a regular basis, did people begin to consider: Oh, he has a
daughter? Though Maomao resolutely refused to acknowledge it, what she chose to do in the palace could impact the very power structures of the court. Gyokuen was already letting the situation run away with him. If Lakan's daughter became the Empress's handmaiden, it would not make matters better.
"I'm going to give Gyokuen a clan name. His position will rise. I would hate to throw any more fuel on the fire." Even as he claimed to be cowed by his father-in-law, the Emperor was planning ahead. These were not thoughts he would voice to anyone else; he could almost have been talking to himself.
Suiren brought Jinshi a drink in a vessel of clear glass. The bloodred liquid looked lovely in the translucent drinkware.
"This wine is quite acidic," said the Emperor, who already had a glass beside him.
"It's how I prefer my wine," Jinshi replied.
"I'm not saying I don't like it. But I'm told sweeter wines have been all the rage lately."
At the words "sweeter wines," an image of Maomao scowling drifted through Jinshi's mind.
"Something the matter?" the Emperor asked.
"No, nothing." Jinshi realized he was in serious danger of smiling and quickly quashed the expression.
The Emperor gave him a curious look, but simply swirled his glass. "The sudden passion for Go has a way of making us forget, but there are quite a few foreign goods making their way through the markets."
"Yes, sir." Jinshi was aware of that. A wide variety of imported products had arrived from the west along with the shrine maiden.
It probably helped that they had temporarily relaxed taxes again.
"Do you know what the most popular of them is?"
"I'm afraid I don't, sir."
The Emperor grinned. He could never act so relaxed while performing his official duties, and he seemed to make up for it whenever he was alone with Jinshi. "Grape wine."
"Grape wine?" Jinshi cocked his head. "You don't mean the stuff from the western capital?" The area around Gyokuyou's hometown was a rich land for grapes—in fact, the wine they were drinking at that moment came from the region.
"The wine from the western capital has that unique astringency. But this new stuff is sweeter. Quite good, I've heard." "Is it really of such high quality?" Jinshi took a sip of his drink. The wine from the western capital was bitter, yes, but that wasn't a sign of low quality. He also knew that it should have been sweeter: the wine he'd had in the western capital itself had almost tasted like it had honey in it.
The subject of the wine brought something back to him, a memory. When had it been? Around the time Maomao had entered his personal service after leaving the rear palace. He swirled his drink. "Do you believe it's really foreign-made?" he asked.
"I haven't drunk it yet myself, but my advisors tell me it's divine."
"It might be best you not try it." Jinshi glanced at Suiren, and when she came over to him, he whispered something to her. She was a very talented lady-in-waiting and understood what he wanted right away. She left the room and came back with a package.
"What's this?" the Emperor asked, stroking his beard.
Jinshi showed him what was inside: a metal cup. "I received it as a gift. Sometime last year." His thoughts took him back to the previous spring.
"I think perhaps you'd better not drink the wine, sir," the taciturn young apothecary said as she cleaned up the servingware. Jinshi had just poured himself an after-dinner drink.
"Why's that? I saw you check it for poison." He swirled the liquid in the cup.
The apothecary had recently left the rear palace to return to the pleasure district—though Jinshi had subsequently hired her on as his lady-in-waiting and food tester, sealing the deal with the offer of an excellent salary.
"Yes, sir, I did. There was no poison in it, as far as I could tell.
But if you want my opinion, I think it's rather acidic."
"That's perfect, then." Jinshi, in fact, liked wines that were somewhat sour or acidic over those that were simply sweet. Suiren must have prepared a drink in accordance with his preferences—and this wine had come all the way from the western capital.
"The problem is with your cup, sir."
"My cup?" He looked at the metal vessel he was holding. "You think it might be poisoned?"
"No."
"Then what?"
The apothecary plucked the drink from his hand. "If you'll pardon me." She dipped a chopstick in the wine and put just a drop of the stuff in her mouth. She spent a long moment tasting it, then she left the room. To spit out the wine and wash out her mouth, Jinshi assumed.
She returned shortly with the bottle of wine. "Now it's poisonous," she said.
"What do you mean, now it is?"
"It's noticeably sweeter than it was when I sampled it," she replied. "If you let it sit a little longer, it would probably get sweeter still."
"I don't know what you mean by that, but may I take a guess at what's going on?"
"Please do," the apothecary said with a nod. Her expression remained impassive.
"I assume the wine isn't toxic by itself—but combine it with something else and it becomes so."
The slightest of smiles came over the apothecary's face. It seemed he was right. "Metal tends to dissolve when exposed to highly acidic things. I suspect this cup is made of lead—and when you mix lead into sour wine, it makes it sweeter, or so I've heard. They even say that in the west, lead is sometimes mixed into wine deliberately as a sweetener." And people who drank it frequently got very sick. "Ultimately, I can only offer you my father's opinion, but he felt strongly that the lead was likely to be behind the cases of poisoning." Her father being the former medical officer of the rear palace and a gifted physician. He'd even studied in the west at one point.
Jinshi set down the lead cup without a word.
"I'm not certain you would develop acute poisoning symptoms by drinking from that cup once or twice, but if you used it consistently it could be dangerous." The apothecary was hedging her bets; she didn't like to speak out of speculation.
"If the poison were to have an effect, what kind of symptoms would I see?" Jinshi asked.
The apothecary thought for a second. "Do you remember the toxic whitening powder from the rear palace?"
"Of course. How could I forget?"
"I've heard tell that it contained a mixture of lead and vinegar."
In other words, Jinshi would develop symptoms much like those who had been poisoned by the toxic powder. He nodded his understanding.
"You might wish to investigate the drinking habits of whoever taught you how to drink wine," she said. If they used a lead cup themselves, then they had most likely given the same thing to Jinshi in good faith. Otherwise, however, there was the possibility of foul play.
It wouldn't be the first time someone had made an attempt on Jinshi's life. He would need to look into the person behind this cup, and what they had been thinking when they gave it to him.
"May I add something else, sir?"
"Yes?"
The apothecary regarded the wine still in the bottle. "You seem to think this wine is bitter on purpose, because the land made it so." She gave the bottle a gentle shake. "But I think it's begun to turn to vinegar because of the long journey to get here."
He was quiet. She was saying that the wine he'd been drinking so fondly was actually stuff that had gone bad.
"I think with more careful consideration of transport methods, it's possible the wine could get here without its character changing so drastically." After all, the western capital was far away, and the journey was long and hot.
"Strange, then, that it tastes good to me," Jinshi said, puzzled.
Maomao's expression hardened. "Fatigue dulls the sense of taste, making you less sensitive to bitterness..." Jinshi didn't say anything.
"Also, I prefer drier alcohols, myself."
Nothing like having your food taster make implicit demands. Unfortunately for her, Jinshi had always preferred sour flavors. Or at least, so he told himself.
"I think I'm going to stick to grape wine for a while," he said.
"Very good, young master," Suiren said obligingly, earning a scowl from the apothecary.
"Well! I hadn't heard that story before," the Emperor said, draining his cup. Some baked treats Suiren had prepared sat beside him. "So you're saying the wine that's been so popular recently is..."
"Technically ruined, or perhaps fake."
This alcohol came from a foreign country—the journey would certainly be longer than that from the western capital. It would be hard to preserve the wine completely unchanged, and given that enough of it had been imported to flood the city markets, some of the bottles were almost certainly bad. It needed to be made sweet in order to sell—which implied that the wine making the rounds of the city was poisonous.
Alternatively, someone could have been making wine locally and passing it off as imported stuff, in which case they were committing fraud. Imports involved substantial taxes, and even with the customs burden light, there were still transport costs to consider—and scarcity value. Imported wine commanded much higher prices than that made in the western capital.
There was always a chance that a few decent, untainted bottles had made it all this way, but it wasn't the most likely scenario.
"The same poison as the face powder," His Majesty said thoughtfully, swishing his drink and stroking his beard. "Speaking of which, I understand that after banning the stuff in the rear palace, you went on to prohibit it from sale in the marketplaces, yes?"
"Yes, sir. It seemed the most appropriate course of action."
"Supposing the former ingredients of that powder became the sweeteners for this wine?"
Jinshi caught his breath, his eyes going wide. How could he not have realized? It made so much sense. "I'll launch a thorough investigation," he said. He put down his cup and took a bite of one of the baked treats to calm himself. These treats were distinguished by their soft dough; inside, they contained dried fruit. They smelled faintly of alcohol. Each bite was comfortingly warm and sweet. Suiren must have known the Emperor was coming. She'd been his nursemaid as well as Jinshi's, and she must have wanted to give him some special treats to enjoy.
"Suiren's baking is always wonderful, no matter how often I eat it," the Emperor said, clearly pleased. He was stuffing one of the treats into his face; no sooner was it in his mouth than he was washing it down with his (freshly filled) cup of wine. He brushed a hand through his beard to get the crumbs out, then picked up a black Go stone with his free hand. "I don't think we've played Go since before you entered the rear palace," he said, fondly returning the stone to its bowl.
The former emperor had passed away when Jinshi was thirteen, and Jinshi had become crown prince. That same year, he challenged the Emperor to a game of Go, and when he won, he earned the right to enter the rear palace as the "eunuch," Jinshi.
All so that he could abandon his position as crown prince.
"Ever since then, I've held that a man shouldn't bet on a game of Go," the Emperor said.
"I'm afraid you can't take it back now."
"I told you, if you wish to be Emperor, I'll happily give you the title when the time comes." He still hadn't fulfilled his end of the bargain with Jinshi.
"I don't wish it." He hadn't even wanted to be crown prince. But at the time, His Majesty had had no children, and the former emperor's other offspring had perished long before. He'd been forced to make his own new substitute.
"I've never regretted losing a game so much as I did that day," the Emperor said.
"Oh, I doubt that's true."
Empress Gyokuyou had a son, the Crown Prince, and she'd also given His Majesty a daughter whom he doted on. Consort Lihua had a son as well. What would be the point of restoring Jinshi to the princehood now? Even if there were some reason to do so, it would certainly cause sparks to fly.
The autumn garden party was approaching, when it was expected that Gyokuen would finally be introduced with his new name. If it hadn't been for the trouble with the Shaohnese shrine maiden, the Emperor would have done it already. He couldn't afford to anger his father-in-law any further—and Jinshi couldn't afford to upset the grandfather of the next emperor.
He didn't want to become the reason for a civil war; yet he also needed to avoid the sparks that were already flying. As it stood, Jinshi had so much to do, and not enough means by which to do it. He needed more power.
"Perhaps I might make one request of Your Majesty?"
"You're not dreaming up another harebrained scheme, are you? I'm warning you, no more wagers."
"It's a small thing," he replied, taking the bowl of black stones. Or trying to—the Emperor seemed to wish to play black as well, and wouldn't let it go. "If I win, I'd like you to lend me your Go tutor, the Sage, for a little while."
Giving Jinshi a questioning look, the Emperor let go of the bowl.
Chapter 10: BaitangThe aroma of medicine drifted through the room. Maomao gazed at her creation, pleased to have been able to put it together right in her own chambers in just the few minutes since she'd gotten back from work. Now she would finally be able to do some experiments.
I think this should do it. Her invention included two types of herbs: some to prevent anything poisonous from getting into a wound, and some to revitalize the body. She'd mixed them together, added oil to prevent them from drying out, and finally added a bit of beeswax to produce a balm. She nodded in satisfaction as she rolled up her left sleeve and readied her knife. She wiped it with alcohol to make sure it was clean, then flourished the blade and—
"Eeeek!" someone cried. It was Yao. "Maomao, what are you doing?!"
"I'm not sure I understand the question." She set down the knife, a fresh cut visible on her left arm. She'd just been trying out a new medicine in her room. Par for the course for Maomao, but it must have been an unnerving sight to Yao. "Don't worry," she said. "I've got medicine right here."
She didn't mention that the whole question was whether or not it was going to work. Trial and error, that was the way forward when developing new cures.
I admit it would be nice if there were someone else I could test things on, she thought. She could practically see her father's
frown, though. Once in a while she managed to use one of her concoctions on a sturdy-looking soldier, but with a few precious exceptions, they didn't come back after she had helped them.
What they need is a good, violent training accident, she thought. Not very nice, true. People got angry when she tried to keep mice, and once when she'd had the bright idea of shaving Maomao the cat in order to test a hair-growth potion, the dismay from the other inhabitants of the Verdigris House had been so intense and vociferous that she'd had no choice but to give up on her plan. (It wasn't like she was going to waste the shaven fur!
She would have turned it into writing brushes!)
For all these reasons, then, Maomao's only option was to experiment on her own body.
And now Yao was all upset. "You big, dumb dummy!" she said.
"What's the matter?" En'en asked, drawn by Yao's shouting. She was greeted by the sight of Yao holding Maomao's left arm and looking very unhappy.
"Say something to her, En'en!" Yao exclaimed.
"About what?" En'en must have been in the middle of making dinner, because she was holding some bok choy. Perhaps some sort of soup was in store for them. En'en made a rich, delicious baitang soup by boiling fish and pork bones. Maomao resolved to help herself to some later.
"About this! Just look at this arm!" Yao gestured with Maomao's left arm.
"I see it. I would guess she's testing the effects of medicines." "Is that true?" Yao demanded.
"It is," confirmed Maomao. En'en had sharp eyes; she'd probably guessed what Maomao was doing even though she'd never actually seen it.
"If you knew about this, why didn't you stop her?" Yao asked. "I thought your arm never seemed to get any better. It's because you've been giving it fresh injuries!" Maomao had noticed Yao never commented on her bandage. It turned out it wasn't because she hadn't noticed it; she'd been trying to be sensitive and not mention it.
"Mistress, this is something Maomao's doing purposefully. It's not simple self-harm; she's trying to develop effective pharmaceuticals. I didn't think there was any reason to stop her." "She's right. I have an objective in mind," Maomao said. "Medicine and poison are two sides of the same coin. You have to balance your formula so that it becomes one and not the other— but the only way to know what you have is to try it."
Any student of medicine ought to have understood the importance of experimentation. The medical office even kept several kinds of domestic animals on hand for the purpose of testing medicines—a fact that always caused Yao to look very conflicted, though in the end she never said anything about it.
She knew it was necessary.
Maomao thought this was similar—not something Yao really had any right to argue about—but Yao, scowling, wasn't about to back down. "I don't care. That's no excuse to go on like this!" She wouldn't let go of Maomao's arm. "Friends don't let friends do...this to themselves!"
Maomao and En'en both looked at her wide-eyed. "Friends. Right," En'en said. "Friends wouldn't... I suppose..." She looked at Maomao with a hint of jealousy.
"Right... Friends..." Maomao echoed. Come to think of it, she'd been spending a fair amount of time with them outside work recently—sharing meals, going out together, or just chatting. Those were things that could arguably be classified as activities one did with friends.
As first En'en and then Maomao tried out the idea out loud, Yao's face got redder and redder. "Th-That was a slip of the tongue! I meant colleagues! Work colleagues! Anyone would stop their professional counterparts from doing awful medical experiments on themselves. Wouldn't they, En'en?"
En'en paused a second to think about it. "To be perfectly honest, I don't think it would help to try to stop Maomao, and anyway, if it's serving a higher purpose, maybe we should let her do what she wants."
Maomao nodded.
"All right! Well, I can do the same thing!" Yao said.
"You most certainly cannot!" En'en burst out, dropping her bok choy. "I won't brook a single scratch on your beautiful, flawless skin, Lady Yao! It can't be allowed! I dare not think of it! If you did any such thing, I would make ten times—no, a hundred times —as many wounds on my own body! Could you live with that, milady?!"
En'en had Yao by the shoulders and was shaking her. She looked very serious and was talking very fast, working herself into a frenzy. Maomao couldn't help thinking it didn't seem like a very delicate way to handle one's "mistress," but she figured En'en couldn't stop herself. The more you cared for someone, the more you wanted a say in how they behaved—especially if that behavior involved hurting themselves.
Yao had finally freed Maomao's arm, so she dabbed some medicine on it and rewrapped the bandage. Then she picked up the bok choy En'en had dropped. "Say... Do you smell something burning?" she asked, sniffing the air.
"I left the stewpot on the fire," En'en said.
There was a short pause—and then all three of them raced to the kitchen.
The pork buns En'en had been making were burned to a crisp. She'd prepared a multiple of three, which made Maomao think (or at least hope) that En'en had been including her, but it was impossible to work up any desire to eat the blackened food.
"I'll clean up later," En'en said, deflated. She seemed less upset about wasting food than the prospect of having to scrape up the charred bits.
That's going to be a chore, all right, Maomao thought.
Congee and soup made for a somewhat simpler meal than usual, but En'en's baitang was exquisite, as Maomao reaffirmed to herself with every sip. She'd asked for the recipe once, but En'en wouldn't tell her—she'd only looked at Yao and grinned. Maomao had decided it seemed wise not to press the subject.
I do wonder what's in it, though. Unlike Yao, Maomao didn't mind lowbrow ingredients, so it didn't really matter to her what was involved.
Yao looked somewhat disappointed by the dearth of side dishes, but she thoughtfully held her tongue when she saw how despondent En'en already was. As mistress-servant relationships went, this one was highly functional—in Maomao's view, because Yao was the object of En-en's intense, if not necessarily requited, affections.
She picked up a scallop with her chopsticks and popped it into her mouth. It was still full of flavor. "By the way, Yao, did you want something with me?" she asked. The entire chain of events that had led to the burned food had, after all, begun with Yao coming to Maomao's room. She was too timid to visit Maomao without a good reason, or at least a good excuse.
"Oh yeah, I forgot," Yao said, setting down her chopsticks, which still had some pork between them. She took a piece of paper from the folds of her robes. "I've got a schedule here."
"What kind of schedule?"
The physicians from the medical office often had to be on-site when there was a festival or ritual occasion, so each month the office produced a schedule showing if and when any doctors would be required for anything. As Yao unfolded the paper, Maomao saw two very familiar words:
"A garden party!"
Indeed. The bane of all the consorts in the rear palace in these days when winter was approaching.
"It looks like it's mainly that and the end-of-year observances," En'en said, peeking over their shoulders.
"But isn't it a little late for a garden party?" Maomao asked. She felt like the year before, the party had taken place at least a month earlier. There wouldn't be any flowers left to admire in the garden by now.
"It is," En'en confirmed. "But if I had to guess, I would say this party is just a cover." Her fingers brushed the words on the page. She always seemed very in-the-know about what was going on. "I think it's a chance for them to present the new 'name-holder.' The one they've kept putting off."
"You mean the 'Jade'?"
The jade, that was to say, gyoku: as in Gyokuen, father of Empress Gyokuyou. It was now more than six months since he had been summoned to the capital from his usual abode in Li's western reaches. Normally, he would have been formally presented immediately, but it had been delayed by the attempted poisoning of Shaoh's shrine maiden.
Yao and En'en both looked a shade uneasy. They didn't know that the shrine maiden was still alive. At least, En'en certainly didn't. Perhaps Yao suspected something, but if the Yao-crazed En'en had known, there was no telling what she might do.
"They've started conscripting soldiers again out west. Being close to the border as they are, the western capital tends to do what it wants, without any input from the palace. Although maybe having Master Gyokuen out there will help the situation a little."
Where does she get this information? Maomao wondered. She was continually surprised at how much En'en seemed to know.
"Conscripting?" Yao asked.
"Yes, mistress. If the central authority would go ahead and just expand the military, everything might be fine, but the government's been slow to act. Supposedly, they want to wait until after the martial service exams next year."
Is someone expecting an attack from one of our neighbors? If so, it would make sense to start levying troops, even here in the central regions—but if there was no present threat, then perhaps there was something holding the government back. In any case, it wasn't for a medical assistant like Maomao to question.
"En'en, can I ask you something?"
"Yes, mistress?"
"Can we trust those people from the west?"
Maomao took a quick look around: her question was a little too blunt. But there was no one else in the dining hall, and the doors and windows were all shut against the cold. She doubted anyone had heard them.
"Young mistress..." En'en said. But Yao replied, "I know. That's why I'm asking here." Yao was many things, but she was not stupid. She'd waited until the three of them were alone.
"I've heard about Empress Gyokuyou," Yao went on. "People say she never has her nose in the air, even though she's so beautiful. That she was kind and considerate even to her servants in the rear palace. I guess you'd know more about that than I do,
Maomao."
"Empress Gyokuyou certainly isn't the type to bring a country to its knees with her demands. His Majesty isn't the kind to let a woman completely wrap him around her little finger, anyway." Then Maomao, realizing that she'd gone a little too far, added, "...is, ahem, what I heard from the rear-palace physician." The quack would have to take the fall for this one.
Yao and En'en knew Maomao had worked in the rear palace, but they didn't know that she'd been at the Jade Pavilion. Then again, maybe En'en did, but recognized that Maomao's life would be easier if she didn't mention it. If either of them asked, Maomao would be willing to talk about it, but until then, she saw no need to bring it up.
"Not the kind to bring the country to its knees," Yao said thoughtfully, taking a spoonful of congee. "I know some women of the past have been accused of that sort of thing, but I wonder if they were really all so bad." She let the congee slide back off the spoon.
Maomao saw what she was getting at. "No matter how upstanding Empress Gyokuyou might be, I wouldn't know about her family." For example, Maomao knew almost nothing about the man called Gyokuen. And the marshaling of troops in the western capital could be a frightening prospect, depending on what you thought it was for. Given what had recently happened to the rebellious Shi clan, Maomao wanted to think they wouldn't do anything so stupid—but the possibility was always there.
Yao had an impulsive streak, but she proved strikingly perceptive at times. "I agree," she said. "I dearly hope Empress
Gyokuyou is more than just a very refined tool."
"Lady Yao," En'en said, worried now. Yao was her own uncle's pawn. What if she believed Empress Gyokuyou had assumed the highest position in the nation simply in order to help her family advance in power and glory? What would she think of the Empress then?
Yao took another spoonful of congee, and this time it made it to her mouth.
Chapter 11: Sport and FearWith just a few days to go until the garden party, Empress Gyokuyou was coordinating her clothing with her ladies-in-waiting.
"Are you sure this isn't a bit too plain, Lady Gyokuyou?" Yinghua asked. She was busy trying to match an accessory to her outfit. The women were wearing red, just as they always had, but it was of a darker shade than when Gyokuyou had been only a consort. "Wouldn't it be better to...stand out?"
"It'll be perfect for the colors of the banquet itself," replied Hongniang, the chief lady-in-waiting, who was running a comb through her mistress's hair. "And it matches what His Majesty will be wearing. That's especially important."
Despite her assured response, Hongniang looked somewhat out of sorts herself; she set down the comb and went to the wardrobe. Yinghua added another hair stick to the one she already had. Before, when they'd been in the rear palace, the only question had been how to outshine the other consorts, and the ladies-in-waiting had devised ways to have fun while staying within the bounds of good taste—and good sense. Now, however, they were in a different position.
"Are you sure that will work, Lady Hongniang?" Yinghua asked, blanching when she saw the hair stick Hongniang had chosen.
"Hmm. You don't think it's the right look?"
"I think it looks fine. But we used that one at the last tea party with the Empress Dowager. I guarantee her ladies-in-waiting will notice."
"Huh. That's too bad," Hongniang said, putting the hair stick back. By and large, clothing or accessories once used at a large banquet were not used at such a function again. The loveliest accessories would be refashioned into other forms and relegated to use as fashionable touches at some small tea party. Smaller accessories might be used several times, but it would never do to have people thinking you had only one thing to wear.
"It does look like it could use some decoration, though," Yinghua said, taking in Gyokuyou's apparel.
"Yeah..." Hongniang agreed. The two of them made thoughtful noises. Gyokuyou sympathized with them.
"Matching colors are all well and good, but I wish we had something that really jumped out. A big jewel or something," Yinghua said.
Jade the Empress had in abundance, but it didn't match this outfit. Something more translucent, something that could suck the viewer in, would be ideal.
"Like crystal," said Yinghua. "Or one of those polished diamonds from the west!"
"I doubt we could get one of those on such short notice. If we had an unpolished diamond, we could get a craftsman to polish it, but he would have to work fast. Diamonds aren't easy to work with," Hongniang said. Diamonds were hard, so hard that only another diamond could scratch them. That made it difficult to do fine work on them. Nonetheless, one did wish to find something appropriate. Hongniang turned back toward the room containing Gyokuyou's wardrobe. Gyokuyou had always been less given to ostentation than the other consorts, but she was Empress now.
Surely she had a crystal or two lying around.
Gyokuyou herself, though, stuck out her tongue playfully and said, "It just doesn't sound like much fun." She'd had so few things to amuse her since she'd left the rear palace. Yes, spending her days with the children was enjoyable, and the Emperor showed her, his Empress, as much favor as he could—but her most recent request, he had denied.
If only her food taster, Maomao, were here, she might have been able to while away the hours. Gyokuyou was just a bit past twenty years old; her girlish curiosity was still undimmed.
"As long as I'm going to wear something, it might as well be something interesting," she said, getting up from her chair with a smile. She calmly took out one particular item. The two ladies-inwaiting didn't notice what she had taken, or from where.
"Hongniang, Yinghua," Gyokuyou said.
"Yes, milady? Is something the matter?" they said, going to her. She showed them some stones resting on a piece of cloth.
Three stones, highly translucent crystals, so clear you could see through them to the other side.
"I didn't know we had gemstones like this," Hongniang said, flummoxed. Yinghua, however, looked from Gyokuyou to the crystals and back, her eyes wide. Gyokuyou saw what she was thinking and winked at her, giving her a thumbs-up where Hongniang wouldn't notice.
The Empress went to her desk and picked up a brush, sketching out a simple picture. "Perhaps we could have them shaped like this," she said. She'd drawn a hair stick that looked a bit like a traditional lantern; the crystal would be tucked inside as if into a basket. She handed the crystal and the paper to Yinghua.
"Go ask them for that if you would, Yinghua."
"But Lady Gyokuyou, I always place such orders for you..." Hongniang began to reach for the items, but Gyokuyou stopped her.
"Surely we can give Yinghua something to do once in a while too. I'm sure she understands what I want."
"I'm sure she does, milady, but... Lady Gyokuyou, what are you planning?"
The Empress didn't answer immediately. Hongniang was sharp. She wasn't chief lady-in-waiting for nothing—and she knew how Gyokuyou ticked, having been her minder since the Empress had been a girl. Just as Hongniang knew Gyokuyou, so Gyokuyou knew Hongniang.
"I can't make you do all my chores forever, can I?" the Empress asked. She let her gaze drop to the floor, then fixed Hongniang with a beseeching look.
The other woman's expression only became firmer. "So long as I am your chief lady-in-waiting, Lady Gyokuyou, I vow I will do my duty."
"But how will you ever get married that way?"
That word, married, had the desired effect. Hongniang looked as shocked as if caught by an unexpected clap of thunder. "M-MMarried..." she said. Hongniang was still vivacious and lovely, but she was also well past the average age of marriage. Where most people got married between their mid-teens and early twenties,
Hongniang was now thirty years old...plus two. It was such that when they had been in the rear palace, she'd angled to make a match with Gaoshun, even if he was a eunuch. In point of fact, he
wasn't a eunuch, but he did have an older, domineering wife of his own already. Upon learning of this, Hongniang had summarily abandoned any interest in him.
"You always want to handle everything yourself. What will I do if you ever leave? I need some of my other ladies to get some experience."
Hongniang's excessive competence would also discourage the unfairer sex from approaching her. When Gyokuyou had entered the rear palace at age fourteen, Hongniang had come with her. The rear palace was too much of a den of iniquity for a young woman to make her way on her own; she needed capable attendants. Gyokuyou had been accompanied by several other long-serving women as well, but when she became His Majesty's bedmate and attempts on her life became a real possibility, and indeed an actual occurrence, her women went home one by one. Some had gotten married, but others had been incapacitated tasting her food.
Finally the only ones left were Hongniang, Yinghua, Guiyuan, and Ailan, and the latter three were young and inexperienced. Gyokuyou could understand why Hongniang felt she had to be in charge of everything.
A nursemaid had been hired, temporarily, upon the birth of Princess Lingli, but Gyokuyou had still taken on no new ladies-inwaiting. Having been raised in a place of blowing sands and never sure who was an enemy and who was a friend, she preferred to continue to keep the company she already had.
Into the middle of all this had come Maomao. Things had been so much fun when she was around. Gyokuyou could have easily gotten lost in the memories, but she knew there was no time to reminisce. Right now, she had to focus all her energies on throwing Hongniang off the scent, if only to continue killing time.
"My father remarked to me that we simply must find some fine prospect for you, Hongniang."
"Master Gyokuen said that?" Hongniang asked, visibly moved. It wasn't not true. Gyokuyou's father had remarked, "If that
Hongniang had a child, it would go far in the world, son or daughter." It would be much too late for any such child to be a milk sibling, but it would no doubt serve well.
"I've got more ladies-in-waiting than before," Gyokuyou added. "You don't have to carry everything on your shoulders." Upon the birth of the Crown Prince, three more young ladies had come from Gyokuyou's hometown to attend her. "I understand your misgivings. For a woman, this is still a battlefield, even if it's not as bad as the rear palace. None of us knows what might happen. But you're not alone anymore. You need to start thinking about your own future and living for yourself."
Frankly, Gyokuyou impressed even herself with the fluency of this little sermon. With a tongue that quick, she might even survive this women's war.
"Lady Gyokuyou... I had no idea you felt that way about me..."
Hongniang's eyes were brimming with tears. "Very well. I'll go call Ailan and Guiyuan. Although I question how many of my duties those girls will actually be able to handle."
Hongniang trundled out of the room, rather suddenly on board with Gyokuyou's thinking. Her cheeks as she went were as bright as a maiden's in the first flush of love.
Left alone in the room, Gyokuyou reached for her writing brush again. She wasn't going to let this be just a simple prank. She would write to her father, who was in the capital now, to ask if he didn't know of any good potential matches.
"Lady Gyokuyou?"
She was so surprised by Hongniang's reappearance that she almost dropped her brush. "Yes? Is something the matter?" she asked. She tried to look cool and calm even as she studied Hongniang. The face of her chief lady-in-waiting was suddenly pale, and Koku-u was standing outside, her cheeks equally bloodless.
"This... This is for you," Hongniang said, and held out a letter. It was folded neatly and sealed with wax. The seal bore an impression of a common poppy, but it was wearing away, a sign of how far the letter had traveled. Gyokuyou knew the insignia at once—would have known who sent the letter, even if it had no name on it.
"It... It's from my elder brother," she said. The words that had come so easily a few minutes earlier now felt heavy and difficult.
Her older brother was the son of her father's proper wife. Gyokuyou's own mother had been a dancing girl performing in the western capital when Gyokuen had spotted her and fallen in love. She bore Gyokuyou sometime thereafter; the Empress got her red hair and jade eyes from her mother.
Gyokuyou and her brother were separated by more than twenty years, closer to niece and uncle than sister and brother. Of familial warmth there was none between them.
"Foreign spawn!"
By the time Gyokuyou had been able to understand the import of those words, she'd already run far away from her brother. Yet from her brother's children it seemed she could never escape. Naturally the children would imitate their father in his open contempt. What could she do but laugh? She let the corners of her mouth turn up and guffawed no matter what they did to her. Crying would only give them more pleasure, and if she got angry, they would turn around and claim it was she who had been mean to them. She could only laugh off whatever they did.
When her father ordered her to enter the rear palace of the newly ascended Emperor, Gyokuyou saw her chance. A chance to go where her brother and his offspring couldn't touch her, where there would be all kinds of fun things to enjoy. Yes, she was sad to leave her home, but she also felt much happiness.
Gyokuyou broke the seal on the letter, or at any rate finished what the elements had started. The letter was written in flowing, elegant script, uncharacteristic of her brother.
"What does he say?" Hongniang asked, her face a mask of concern.
Gyokuyou let the corners of her mouth turn up and willed her heart to stop beating so fast. Smile, she told herself. Laugh.
"He begins with a perfectly ordinary comment about the weather. At least he knows how to show a modicum of respect." She was sure he'd written it with clenched teeth. She knew how much he despised this daughter of a foreign concubine.
With their father Gyokuen in the central regions, no doubt Gyokuyou's brother was treating the western capital as his personal fiefdom. There was every chance that Gyokuen would simply remain here, and her brother would take over overseeing their home.
Gyokuyou had several other older brothers as well, but only the eldest showed this desire to rise in the world. Hence why their father had requested someone from the capital as an aide. She'd heard that one of Grand Commandant Kan's men had been sent. When she had first learned that the Grand Commandant was Maomao's father, she was shocked—but, on reflection, maybe not that shocked.
As she read her brother's letter, she caught glimpses of a new ambition.
"He says he wishes to send his daughter to the rear palace," she told Hongniang. That would be Gyokuyou's niece. She was said to be sixteen years old, but Gyokuyou didn't recall her brother having any daughters of that age. She must have been the offspring of a concubine, or otherwise some girl he had adopted from somewhere. A small portrait of her was included.
What had motivated him to do that?
Gyokuyou regarded it silently for a moment, and then, still without a word, she tore it to pieces. She knew full well that it wasn't the girl's fault that she was being sent to the rear palace— but her brother's intention was transparent, and it disgusted her.
The portrait showed a girl with red hair and green eyes. The marks of a foreign-blooded child. Just the kind her brother hated so much.
