The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 10 - Chapter 14

Chapter 14: The Past and the Possible

The beautiful room was suffused with the rich aroma of tea. The tea, which was served (ploop-ploop-ploop) out of a foreign-style teapot, was red as a rose. This was dark tea in the most literal sense, Maomao observed as she savored the smell. People sometimes took this kind of tea with sugar or cow’s milk, but Maomao declined them—she couldn’t abide sweetened tea.

“So, what’s your take on the matter?” asked Jinshi, who managed to look elegant just stirring some milk into his drink with a spoon. That was the right way to do it to avoid making himself sick to his stomach. Suiren had heated the milk to make it easier on his digestive system.

Maomao sat across the table from him and sipped her own tea. Are we sure about this? Is this the right setting for this conversation?

Taomei had led Maomao directly to Jinshi’s chambers, but no matter how you sliced it, she found herself at a tea party. Suiren didn’t appear to object, meaning they had her tacit approval, but Maomao couldn’t help wondering.

“Here, for you,” the old lady had said with a smile as she pushed tea toward Maomao. She’d felt she couldn’t refuse, so decided to enjoy just a sip while she spoke with Jinshi.

“I must warn you, sir, my opinion—”

“—is merely speculation, and might not fully accord with the true facts. Yes, yes. I assure you, I’ll take an objective view of things and not accept all you say uncritically. Does that make you feel better?”

“Yes, sir,” Maomao said. It was all she could say. Jinshi glanced at Taomei. Was his diligently official tone in deference to her presence? “Where would you like me to start?”

“With the Windreader tribe. Put it all together for me, even the things I’ve heard before.”

“Very well, sir.” That at least made things easier—she would be spared the effort of trying not to repeat herself. “We first heard about the Windreaders from Nianzhen, the former serf at the farming village we visited. He said the tribe had been destroyed in an attack meant to gain his people wives and slaves. The Windreader tribe was responsible for a ritual of some kind and, according to Nianzhen, was under the protection of the Yi clan.”

This much she had already told Jinshi, so he continued to sip his tea and munch on a snack as he listened. The snack, incidentally, was a foreign-style cookie well matched to the exotic tea.

“We can speculate that whatever the ritual was, it somehow helped stop plagues of insects before they happened. It might have been a practice called fall plowing, which involves turning over the earth to not only improve soil quality, but destroy the eggs of pest insects. I think Lahan’s older brother would know the specifics.”

“You mean Lahan’s Brother. The La clan is full of highly accomplished individuals, isn’t it? To think, they have two virtually professional farmers.”

So it had come to this: even Jinshi called him Lahan’s Brother.

I get the impression Lahan’s Brother learned farming under duress, though.

With his distinctive diligent streak, she knew he must have dedicated himself to learning the ways of the soil. If he’d been born into an ordinary family, he might have become a more ordinary overachiever.

“Where is Lahan’s Brother?” Jinshi asked.

“We received a message that he should be returning to the western capital tomorrow. He’s mostly finished teaching the villagers how to farm,” Basen reported.

Oh, yeah. We left him there, didn’t we? Maomao thought. She wondered if he’d been successful in teaching them how to cultivate potatoes.

“When he gets back, tell him to come talk to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Basen withdrew. There was a stray duck feather on his back.

Maomao looked at Jinshi to see if it was okay to continue.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“Yes, sir. The Windreader tribe used birds in some capacity, but the former serf didn’t know exactly how. The suspicious character we caught today—Kulumu—however, claims that the Windreaders were not wiped out, and that they passed on the secret of their birds, which is how their descendants now make their living. As you suspected, they appear to raise messenger pigeons. They might also have raised other kinds of birds.”

Kulumu had seemed to believe that the knack for raising birds was primarily about cultivating pets to sell to rich people, but that wasn’t true.

“Depending on how the birds are raised, I believe they could be used to help find insects. But I do think that messenger birds are the clan’s stock-in-trade.”

This was simply the answer Jinshi had already arrived at.

“I think the Windreaders’ greatest strength was their ability to use birds to communicate. Although I must emphasize that this is only my guess, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were serving as an information network.”

Jinshi didn’t so much as flinch. “What of the tribe’s survivors, then?”

“Again, this is only speculation—but I think they might have been protected by those who saw value in their abilities.” Maomao spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully.

“And who do you think protected them?”

After a moment she said, “I’m not sure. The Yi clan, perhaps, or maybe some other power.”

“Why would the Yi do that?”

Maomao knew as well as Jinshi that her answer created some inconsistencies. If the Yi had been seriously protecting the Windreaders, the tragedy of fifty years before would never have occurred.

“I make bold to refer to the former emperor’s mother, the empress regnant, sir.”

“You have my permission.”

“It’s because she destroyed the Yi clan.”

“Hmm.”

Maomao could see that it made sense to Jinshi. The empress regnant had ruled the country by proxy, controlling her son like a marionette. She seemed to have been a thoughtful and logical person; there had been obvious reasons for her to expand the rear palace and forbid logging in the forests. But when it came to the annihilation of the Yi clan, there was much that remained unclear.

“You’re suggesting that the Yi clan tried to keep the Windreaders to themselves, not letting the Imperial family know about them, and when it transpired that they were in effect a private spy network, the clan was punished for it.”

“I think it’s a possibility, sir.”

It was only Maomao’s hypothesis. She offered it to Jinshi merely as something to consider in making his judgments.

“Understood. What about the possibility that someone other than the Yi clan was harboring this tribe, then?”

“I remembered that the White Lady used pigeons to communicate. She might have learned to do that in Shaoh—and it’s not impossible that it reached her, or Shaoh, from the Windreaders.”

“So the Windreaders’ art found a home in Shaoh. Which leaves us with the question, did it get there before the tribe was destroyed, or after?”

Now, that wasn’t a very nice question.

“In my view, it would have to have been before their destruction,” Maomao said.

“So it was treachery?”

“Yes, sir. They committed subterfuge.”

Maomao thought once more about the reason the Windreaders had been destroyed. The tribe had been priests of some kind, yes, but suppose they had also been spies serving the Yi clan. If the Windreaders had betrayed their masters, then it would make sense that the Yi would choose to simply stand by as another tribe massacred them.

Then they collected the last of the Windreaders in the cities, where they could keep an eye on them, and made sure their arts were passed down to the next generation—then eliminated them.

Kulumu’s responses had put the idea in Maomao’s head and she couldn’t get it out again. It would be easy to justify moving the Windreaders into town: the Yi simply wanted to protect them. When, in fact, they wanted to keep them close.

Jinshi seemed to agree with her; he was nodding along and sipping his tea. Maomao took a drink herself; her throat was parched.

“So the Yi are involved, and Shaoh. Is that all?” Jinshi asked.

“No—there’s one more group.” Kulumu had said something else that had gotten Maomao’s attention. “Kulumu said something that implied that Master Gyokuen’s wife, Master Gyoku-ou’s mother, was of Windreader origin herself.”

Jinshi didn’t mince words. “That’s right.”

So he’s already looked into it.

Why even bother asking about her speculation, then? Behind Jinshi, Chue held up two fingers and grinned. She must have been the one to get the info.

“It seems Sir Gyokuen’s wife played a substantial role in helping his business prosper. Information is as good as gold in business dealings, after all. For him to have amassed as many resources as he has over the course of these several decades, he must possess a power others don’t.”

And now his grandchild stood next in line for the Imperial throne. If Gyokuen was a self-made man, he had made himself better than any other man in the nation.

“No one has a bad word to say about this wife of his. They all say she was intelligent and warm.” That made sense; Kulumu had said she was kind as well. Funny, considering she had something of a shady son.

That was about as far as Maomao needed to delve into this, in her own opinion—but there was one other thing she had to ask. “May I bring up something slightly off the subject of the Windreader tribe?”

“What is it?”

“It’s about the farming village we visited. Master Rikuson was there just before we were.”

“Ah, that.” Jinshi looked away from her for a moment, apparently thinking. “I had Rikuson investigated as well. I know he went to inspect the local agriculture. Even though it seems to have been quite difficult for him—he’s been very busy here in the western capital. The visit, though, was about confirming something we’d suspected since his days in the central region.”

“All the way back then, sir?”

“Yes. The reports from I-sei Province didn’t show any major damage to the harvest last year, but it was hard to be sure without seeing for ourselves. So Rikuson found the problem on his desk. Or rather, I put it there.”

“You did, sir?”

“You doubt me?”

“Not exactly. Just curious.”

Rikuson hadn’t been looking his best when they had first arrived at the western capital. It was hard for Maomao not to wonder what he’d been up to. Maybe she was just paranoid?

“Allow Miss Chue to explain why he wasn’t looking his best!” Chue said, stepping forward with an enthusiastic snort. Apparently “Miss Chue” served as her first-person pronoun even in Jinshi’s presence.

“Chue,” said Taomei, a bird of prey eying a presumptuous sparrow.

Geez, Taomei is scary...

“It’s all right. Let her speak,” said Jinshi.

With his permission safely gained, Chue let out a big breath. “Miss Chue already looked into it. On his way home from the village, Mister Rikuson was set upon by bandits! You know the ones, Miss Maomao. Those poor guys who got their arms broken by Mister Basen.”

“Yes, I remember, thank you.”

I remember that “Miss Chue” used me as bait!

“Of course you do. Well, you also remember that the bandits who attacked Miss Chue and her friends were arrested and taken to prison. Later, the bandits’ leaders were apprehended too—one of our informants kindly told us what we wanted to know. We also learned that one of our guides had taken Mister Rikuson to the farming village a few days earlier.”

So, in sum, the guide passed information about his clients to the bandits, who attacked people unused to traveling the plains. The same guide had been responsible for the attacks on both Maomao and Rikuson. Chue, anticipating the bandit connection, had put on a little show for him.

“It really was complete coincidence that Miss Chue and her friends were attacked—”

Hey, don’t lie to us!

Maomao had to pinch her lips tight together to make sure this rejoinder didn’t come out of her mouth.

“—but in Mister Rikuson’s case, it seems there was someone besides the guide pulling the strings.”

“Someone who wanted to interfere with his visit to the village?” Jinshi asked.

“It’s possible. Or it might just have been regular old intimidation. The other possibility Miss Chue can think of is that it goes the other way, and Mister Rikuson wanted to look like a victim. Then again, of course, maybe it really was just a regular bandit attack. If you’d prefer.”

Chue had a surprising talent for drawing lines by implication. She spoke only of facts, without mixing in her own opinion.

Even if she does use me as bait.

Did Maomao bear her a grudge for that? Maybe a little one.

“Understood,” Jinshi said, and gestured to Chue to step back. She straightened up and gave him a perfect bow.

From what I’ve just seen, it almost looks like...

It almost looked like Jinshi himself wasn’t completely sure who Rikuson really was. Everything Maomao had heard, though, made her think he was at least a man loyal to his work.

Jinshi took a sip of his tea, contemplating all he’d just heard. Maomao likewise took a drink, although her tea was cold by now.

This tea’s flavor should make me want something sweet, but... What she really wanted was something salty. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than a tray of snacks appeared in front of her, delivered by Suiren, who caught Maomao’s eye as she set it down. It bore a pile of plain rice crackers.

“Join me,” Jinshi said, picking up one of the crackers. “It wouldn’t be seemly for me to eat all these by myself.”

“If you don’t mind, then,” Maomao said, one of the crackers practically already in her mouth. There was a noisy crunch as she bit into it. It didn’t seem like particularly fine etiquette, but the salty cracker was so good.

I’ll be able to take some of these with me, right? she thought. Some cookies to take as souvenirs for the quack doctor would be nice too. Ahh, but then there’s Tianyu to worry about.

She could throw the quack off the scent easily, but pulling the wool over Tianyu’s eyes would be harder. Better make sure first.

“Moon Prince. May I ask you a question?”

“Yes? What is it?” Jinshi raised an eyebrow. She had used the name “Moon Prince” because Taomei and the others were there, but he didn’t seem to like it much.

“What shall I do about my position when it comes to one of the new physicians, Tianyu? Unlike the qu—I mean, the master physician, if I come here too often, it will be difficult to keep him from connecting the dots.”

“That’s a good point. Let’s see,” Jinshi said, but then he paused.

It was Suiren who continued, with a smile. “He’s been informed that you’ve known the Moon Prince for some time, since you were training in etiquette in his chambers. Put your mind at ease.”

“Training in etiquette?”

“Yes. It’s not untrue as such.”

“I suppose not...”

The description, frankly, made Maomao feel a little ill. To “train in etiquette” by serving a man of elegance typically meant to prepare to be his wife.

“It’s not untrue,” Suiren reiterated, still smiling.

Maomao took another bite of rice cracker, feeling not the least bit reassured by Suiren’s explanation.

Jinshi appeared to be thinking about something as he ate. “Perhaps we should proceed faster,” he mused.

Inquiring about what he felt should be hastened seemed likely to invite a very long conversation, so Maomao decided not to ask.