The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 10 - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: The Windreader Tribe

Chue led Maomao to where the suspect was being kept. Maomao could hear someone shouting, “I told you already! This is all a big misunderstanding!” The voice seemed a bit too strident to be a woman’s, but when Maomao saw the suspect, she understood.

“It’s some kid,” she said.

The child was perhaps ten years old, with narrow eyes and lighter skin more characteristic of a resident of Kaou Province than someone from the western capital. And although her features looked boyish, the long hair tied back behind her head suggested that this person was indeed a girl. In general, men of the western capital, even young boys, wore head scarfs, or otherwise had their hair back in long braids. It was probably the mask and the long hair that had caused her to be mistaken for a grown woman.

“I’m not just some kid!” she said, puffing out her cheeks, which did not help her case.

There in the room with the suspicious child were Gaoshun, Taomei, Basen, and another guard Maomao saw frequently but whose name she didn’t know.

“Maomao,” Taomei called to her, narrowing her differently colored eyes.

“Lady Taomei? Why are you here?” Maomao asked. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would normally be present at an interrogation—which wasn’t to say she didn’t seem like she would be very good at it.

“First they thought she was a woman, then they decided she was a little boy, whereupon my second son announced that he would conduct the interrogation. Imagine what happened when he realized he was dealing with a girl child.”

“Ah,” said Maomao. She could imagine. “Why is Master Gaoshun here, then?”

Basen wasn’t very good at dealing with women. How bad was he? Bad enough that there were fears that he would never succeed in leaving children for posterity.

“If you aren’t concerned to be alone with Taomei and Basen, Xiaomao, I can leave,” Gaoshun said, although the furrow in his brow was deeper than usual. Maomao decided to roll with it.

“Mother...” Basen groaned. Here he was performing an interrogation under the watchful eye of his parents. Talk about overprotective.

The girl was just a child. Was that still too much for Basen to handle?

He seems to cope with me and Miss Chue all right. She could understand when it came to Chue; she was something of a rare beast. Maybe Basen viewed Maomao as falling into the same category. It made her frown a little.

“Isn’t the questioning going well? Want Miss Chue to handle things?” Chue asked, approaching with a bright smile.

“No, Miss Chue, your help won’t be necessary,” said Taomei.

“Aww. But I’m so good with kids.” Chue unspooled a string of flags from her sleeve.

“I’m sorry, but if I may ask, how far has the questioning gotten?” Maomao said, breaking in between the daughter-in-law and the mother-in-law. The members of the Ma clan were all very characterful, and Maomao feared getting left behind if she didn’t take the initiative to insert herself into the conversation. Basen’s duck could be seen sticking her bill into the room to get a look at what was going on, but she didn’t actually come in. She was scared of Taomei.

“Pardon me. At the moment, this child—her name is Kulumu.”

“Ku...Kulumu?”

“It’s written like this,” Taomei said, sketching the characters on the table.

“I see, thank you,” Maomao said. The name didn’t sound much like something from the area of the Imperial capital. If anything, it had the ring of something from Shaoh, or even farther west.

“Tell her! Tell her I’m just a beautiful young lady whose only crime was trying to get back the bird I raised!”

Beautiful young lady? Everyone looked at Kulumu. Whatever else, she certainly had a high opinion of herself. At the moment, however, saying so only seemed likely to get them further off track.

“She maintains that the only thing she wants is her bird back and that she has no malicious intent of any kind, and she has informed us in no uncertain terms that as such, we should return the animal to her and let her go,” Taomei explained.

“Quite a demanding little so-and-so,” Chue said. Maomao’s thoughts exactly.

“Who cares?! I raised that bird! Here, look at this! You can see it likes me!”

“I’m not sure I can.”

The bird refused to look at Kulumu. Even at such close range, the creature appeared to be wearing a strange mask.

“I told you, I need this!” Kulumu put on a mask to complement her black outfit. Finally, the owl turned in her direction. “Heh, see? I raised it from an egg. And I was dressed like this the whole time.”

“Meaning it would respond to anybody dressed like that. Not just you,” Maomao observed.

Kulumu’s jaw practically hit the floor. “No, it’s true! You’ve got to believe me! How can you not trust such a sweet, innocent child?!” She looked like she might burst into tears. “I even know its favorite food!”

“My, but you are cute. It’s chicken,” Taomei said, taking a piece of meat in her chopsticks and holding it out to the owl, who hopped over and greedily pecked it up.

Kulumu looked even more scandalized.

“It turns out you don’t need black pajamas as long as you have food.”

Behind her mask, Kulumu let out what sounded like a choked sob.

Basen, meanwhile, was just standing there, not saying a word. His mother was on top of things. In fact, he looked an awful lot like Gaoshun, who stood beside him obviously praying that nothing would happen.

“N-No... I... I raised it! It’s mine!” Kulumu insisted.

“And can you prove that to us?” Maomao asked.

“I w-w-wish I could...”

“Gosh, Miss Maomao, you’re as ruthless with children as you are with everyone else,” Chue said, pure peanut gallery at this point, while Taomei held out more chicken. Chue, it seemed, was being deferential toward her mother-in-law, despite the liberties she appeared to take with her father-in-law and brother-in-law.

“It’s easy to be critical, but even children can start a proverbial fire. When you’re sneaking around a powerful person’s house, you’re going to get in trouble for it, even if you’re a kid, right?” Maomao said.

“Fair enough.” Chue took the chicken and was about to pop it into her own mouth.

“Oh, Miss Chue, raw chicken is dangerous. Cook it first if you’re going to eat it.”

“Oops! My mistake.”

Chue might have been a gourmand with an iron stomach, but even she should probably steer clear of raw pork and chicken.

“I m-mean it... I raised it! I h-hatched the egg myself,” Kulumu said.

“Is that so? And where did you get the egg? How did you hatch it? And how did the owl escape? Tell us that?” Maomao asked.

Kulumu took another great sniff, then started to talk. “The e-egg, I... I got it from someone. This hunter who was friends with my dad. He said he didn’t need it, but my dad didn’t want to buy it.”

“A hunter?”

“Yeah. He was out hawking, and he found it in this nest, so he brought it back with him. He thought my dad could hatch it and raise it to sell to some rich guy.”

“Ah...”

And this bird had been what emerged.

“How did you hatch the egg, then?”

“D-Dad always keeps the room nice and warm. He uses plenty of fuel, and if it gets too hot, we open the window, and about five times a day he flips the eggs. I couldn’t use any fuel, though, so I kept it tucked close to me. You know, like the way a mother bird might. It hatched after about five days.”

“Hmm...”

“I’m sure she’s right. Duck eggs are hatched the same way,” Basen volunteered. He ought to know; he’d looked after those ducks for long enough. Maomao was only vaguely familiar with methods of hatching eggs, but it sounded about right.

This time Basen turned to Maomao. “Well? What do you think?”

“I think it sounds plausible. Too detailed to be a story she concocted on the spot.”

“Agreed. Interesting, to find out ducks and owls are hatched the same way.”

Interesting, but, unfortunately for Basen, irrelevant. Why was he so infatuated with ducks these days, anyway?

Yes, it’s all basically plausible...

But something still nagged at her. “So you raised this owl with the intention to sell it?”

“N-No, I didn’t!”

“Thought not.” Maomao plucked a handful of Kulumu’s black outfit. “You were hoping to return it to the wild, weren’t you?”

After a second, Kulumu replied, “Yeah... I even taught it how to catch mice and bugs so it could hunt for itself.”

“But then it was sold out from under you.”

“Yeah! By my stupid dad!” She clenched her fists. “When he saw its unusual face and funny color, he waited until I was out somewhere and he sold it. He never even asked me! I didn’t have a mate for it, so I was gonna let it go back to the woods. That was the whole point of this suffocating costume!”

Kulumu was obviously furious, but it was hardly an unusual story. In Li, the head of the household was generally entitled to do as he wished with the possessions of the women and children.

I guess maybe it would be more surprising if you lived somewhere women were in a stronger position, Maomao thought. Daughters were commonly treated as tools to be used in political marriages, or as a way to gain a dowry. Selling a girl to the pleasure quarter was, in essence, much the same thing.

“I understand. Perhaps I could ask you a few questions while I get my thoughts in order? These questions are based entirely on my assumptions, so please correct me if I’m wrong.”

“Okay.” Kulumu sniffed and nodded.

“Your father isn’t a falconer himself, but makes his money domesticating hawks and other unusual birds and selling them to wealthy people, is that right?”

Kulumu nodded. “He hunts too. But pets sell for more.”

“And whom did he sell the owl to? Was it the daughter of Master Gyoku-ou, the owner of this house?”

“No! She’s his adopted daughter. The Nightingale King doesn’t have a real daughter that age.” Kulumu had stopped sniffling; she sounded strikingly clear and forceful.

“The Nightingale King?” Maomao asked. She’d never heard that expression before. Adopted daughters were hardly unusual, anyway. She hadn’t expected that to be the point to make Kulumu bristle.

“It’s the name of the main character in this play. He solves the hardest problems with speed and grace! The story is modeled on some old duke. Someone stuck Gyoku-ou with the nickname ’cause his name means Jade Nightingale.”

Kulumu might have looked young, but Maomao was starting to appreciate that she was a pretty sharp kid, with a highly developed vocabulary for someone her age.

“Master Gyoku-ou certainly seems popular in the western capital.”

“I guess. It helps that he’s the oldest son of Master Gyokuen, who made this city what it is, but he’s real friendly. He’ll even talk to commoners.”

“Is that right?” Maomao found that this man, Gyoku-ou, didn’t quite make sense to her. Right now, though, there were more important questions to ask. “So your owl was sold to Master Gyoku-ou’s daughter, but then it escaped and started living here in this house, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“How did you learn the owl had gotten out?”

“Oh, well, the culprit came to me and apologized.”

“The culprit?” Maomao glanced at Chue. Taomei and Basen looked equally surprised.

“I might not look like much, but I’ve got connections with the Gyoku household. They even taught me to write.”

“Wow! And here you just look like a filthy little kid,” Chue muttered.

“Who’re you callin’ filthy?! I’m a gorgeous woman, just like I said!” Kulumu snapped. Apparently she was over her crying fit.

“I’d be very interested if you could explain. If I may say so, you don’t look like someone whose station would normally allow access to this mansion.” Taomei had put it a different way, but she was essentially saying the same thing as Chue. Gaoshun could only look pleadingly at his wife and daughter-in-law, silently begging them not to be quite so rude.

“I was real close with Gyoku-ou’s mom, Master Gyokuen’s wife. She’s a relative of my dad’s. That’s the way we got into selling birds to rich folk. I actually saw Gyoku-ou’s daughter or whoever when we handed the bird over. I tried to ask her to give it back, but it was like she didn’t know what to do. Guess she can’t just give away something she got from my dad.”

“So it was the daughter who let the bird go,” Maomao suggested. She had to admit she didn’t have the most favorable feelings toward the young woman, who had been sent to the Imperial capital as part of a political ploy, but it wasn’t the girl’s fault. Indeed, she didn’t seem like a bad person as such.

“Couldn’t tell you. All I got was a message: It got away. Sorry. I knew what they meant was they wanted me to catch it. Like I said. Innocent.”

“I don’t know about that. You gave the residents of this house an awful fright,” said Maomao.

“Grr,” Kulumu growled, sounding like a wild dog.

“I think we’ve got the idea now, Miss Maomao,” said Chue.

“Yes. As far as it goes...”

“But that’s not far enough for you, is it, Miss Maomao? There’s something else you want to ask about.”

Chue was right. Maomao wasn’t primarily interested in why Kulumu had been lurking around the mansion.

“All right. Maybe you can compensate us for the trouble you’ve caused by answering a few questions.”

“Yes, I think that’s a fine idea,” said not Kulumu, but Taomei.

Maomao kept one eye on Taomei as she said, “Your family raises birds. Do you ever use them as a means of communication?”

“Not these days. I guess we used to, back in the day, and we know these people who raise pigeons.”

Maomao crossed her arms thoughtfully. “Did you ever practice falconry, then?”

“Yeah, we did. Dad just gave it up ’cause he thought he’d make more selling stuff to rich people. We used to hunt rabbits, even foxes sometimes. That’s the whole reason he didn’t want this egg—you need falcons or hawks to hunt big enough game to make it worth it. What’s better to have around, right? A pet, or something that can hunt? Pets’re easier to raise, though.”

She was right; an owl would only be able to hunt mice, or small rabbits at best.

“In that case, could you train the birds you raised to hunt only specific animals?”

Kulumu frowned at that. “We never did, but I guess it’s not impossible. Sometimes people feed birds one specific thing from the day they hatch, to influence their diets that way. Or you can give them specific rewards based on what they hunt for you. See, in falconry, when the bird brings a kill back, you trade it for food. They could learn what gets them their favorite treats, and then they might start looking more for those things.”

Yes, Kulumu was a sharp one, all right. Notwithstanding her shrill voice, she was far more grown-up than her contemporary Chou-u.

“That means maybe you could teach birds to target grasshoppers,” Maomao mused.

“Grasshoppers?” Basen said immediately. Whatever he thought was going on, it made him turn toward the duck, whose bill was still peeking through the crack in the door.

“Grasshoppers?” Kulumu echoed. “You’d need a bird that wasn’t very big, like this guy. And they like meat better, so it’d be more practical to teach them to trade grasshoppers for food.”

“I see. One more question, then,” Maomao said. She took in a deep breath, then let the words out all at once. “Are you a member of the Windreader tribe?”

That set Kulumu back on her heels for a moment. “How do you know that name?”

Maomao clenched her fist. “So you know about them!”

Kulumu, the self-proclaimed beautiful woman, crossed her arms and went, “Hrm...” Then she said, “I’m not sure I’d go that far. I’ve heard my great-grandpa used to go by that name back when everyone was still living on the plains. My grandma mentioned it to me a few times, but I wouldn’t say I know much about them.”

“Would you tell us what you do know?”

“Hmm. I dunno...” Kulumu was very pleased to discover she had something Maomao wanted. “Can’t tell ya for free...” She smirked. She wanted money!

A predatory pair of eyes glinted behind her. “Speaking of free, perhaps you’d prefer to be handed over to the authorities?” Taomei was smiling. For some reason Basen, who wasn’t even involved here, shrank back, and even the owl fluttered its wings and quivered. Gaoshun wore the impassive expression of a monk contemplating Emptiness, while Chue appeared to be pretending to be a tree.

Kulumu grimaced. No wonder even Gaoshun lived in awe of his wife.

Maomao coughed pointedly. “The negotiating is already over. You answer our questions, and we don’t give you to the law. There’s also the matter of certain future treatment...”

“Yes, for example, we’re still considering what will happen to this owl,” Taomei said, picking up the theme.

“Fine, I get it... My grandma told me that way back in the old days, one of the nomadic tribes was attacked, and most of them were killed. She said the women were taken as brides and the kids were sold as slaves.”

That accorded with what Maomao had learned. But something bothered her.

“I heard the Windreaders used birds. Would this mean that their method of hatching and raising those animals didn’t die with them?”

“Sorry, I don’t think I put it quite the right way. The Windreaders were wiped out. At least, that half of them were.”

“Th-That half?” Maomao and the others stared at Kulumu, open-mouthed.

“Yeah, sure. The Windreaders were always wandering the plains, doing some sort of ritual or whatever. So why would they all go everywhere together, in a big clump? It’s better to split up, right? Especially since they could use birds to talk to each other and stuff. Okay, so I don’t know for sure if it was exactly half. Maybe it was a third, even a quarter. My great-grandpa was with one of them.”

“What happened to the rest of them?” Maomao asked. “Everyone treats the Windreaders as if they were gone. And the ritual wasn’t able to continue, was it?”

“Hrm... Gotta say, I don’t really know. My great-grandpa was from the part of the tribe that survived, I guess, but he died when my grandma was about ten. She said he taught her a bunch of stuff about birds, but that by that time they weren’t nomads anymore. He was already living in town. She said they never had to worry about food, though, ’cause he had a regular customer who bought the pigeons he raised.”

“A regular customer?”

“I guess. Probably some VIP from somewhere, she said, but that was all she told me. I don’t think she knew much about it herself.”

Everyone fell absolutely silent.

“Huh? Hey, uh... Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Maomao said slowly. “No, in fact, thank you very much.” For the first time, she truly appreciated what was meant by “a bolt from the blue.” No, that wasn’t quite true—she’d thought Kulumu might have been somehow tangentially connected to the Windreader tribe, but she had never expected to come so close to the heart of the matter.

“So, can I take my friend here home or what? I’ve found the perfect place to let it go.”

“You’ve finally got it back, and you’re going to release it?” Maomao asked.

“That was always the plan. It’s what my grandma taught me.”

Maomao caught Taomei’s eye. She gave a single nod, and Maomao handed the caged bird to Kulumu, who broke into a big smile.

“Perhaps you’d answer one final question for me?”

“Yeah? What?” Kulumu was in high spirits now that she had her owl back; Maomao could see her front teeth as she spoke.

“You said your father was a relative of Master Gyoku-ou’s mother. Can I assume that his mother was also a member of the Windreader tribe?”

“Couldn’t say for sure about that. She seemed to like birds a lot, though, and definitely knew how to handle them.”

If Gyoku-ou’s mother was a Windreader, a great many pieces of this puzzle would start to fall into place.

This is some valuable information... But if Maomao believed what Kulumu had told her, it would also produce several contradictions. For example, if the Windreader tribe wasn’t completely annihilated, why didn’t they continue the ritual after the attack?

It would call into question the point of what Nianzhen the serf had been doing.

Then there was the question of why the surviving Windreaders had disappeared.

Yes, a great many questions.

I can think of a possibility.

Suppose someone let people think the Windreaders had been destroyed, and then put their talents to other uses.

People who could communicate information quickly would have a tactical advantage.

If you could corral a people who had been “wiped out” and keep them in one place, there would be any number of uses for them. It made sense when Maomao thought about Kulumu’s great-grandfather, who had already been living in town. It would also explain his rather untimely demise.

Once the necessary knowledge had been passed along, people who remembered the past would only be a hindrance.

“Hey! Heeey! Miss? Can I go home now?”

Maomao snapped out of her reverie when Kulumu poked her. She must have gotten lost in thought. “Sorry about that. Could you tell us how to contact you? I might be able to introduce you to a client who’d be very interested in your birds.”

“Yikes... Why do you look so scary?”

Apparently Kulumu wasn’t being taken in by Maomao’s attempt at a smile. She was trying to look friendly, but instead her face conveyed: I’ll be damned if I let this precious source of information slip through my fingers.

“Ho ho. Don’t worry, we would never mistreat a child. Come, now, won’t you introduce us to your daddy?” Taomei asked, eyes bright. Kulumu twitched, then nodded.

Taomei is too strong, Maomao thought. She was a masterpiece of a woman, in a way distinct from either Suiren or the madam.

It’s gotten awfully quiet.

Chue was restraining herself, and Basen had adopted his father’s studiously contemplative expression. Maomao wondered if this was how Gaoshun had been fashioned into the man he was today. Presently he stood there, doing what appeared to be his best impression of a wall.

They sent Kulumu home with one of the menservants, then Taomei summoned Maomao.

“Would there happen to be anything you’re still not telling us?” she asked. Her tone was polite, but the message was unmistakable: If you know something, spit it out.

“I have my suspicions, ma’am, but they’re nothing more than that. Guesses, full of absurd conjecture. I hesitate even to give voice to them.”

Luomen had taught Maomao that she had to take responsibility for her words. She wasn’t about to draw concrete conclusions on nothing but the strength of unproven assumptions.

“Perhaps, but my—our—master isn’t looking for crystal clear conclusions. It’s in his nature to take in everything that he can. Perhaps you could share your thoughts with us in order to help him consider how to prepare for what’s going to happen.” She turned those predator’s eyes on Maomao. Out with it! they said.

“Very well, ma’am.” She knew Taomei would take whatever she said to “their master,” Jinshi.

“Don’t tell me. I think you should speak to him directly.”

“I really don’t think it would be a problem for us to simply talk here.” She was confident Taomei wouldn’t twist her words when telling Jinshi about them.

“By no means. My husband was just saying that the Moon Prince could use a chance to relax a little.”

“Excuse me?”

Taomei’s smile was almost mischievous. Maomao glowered at her, but she could do no more than that.