The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 4 - Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The Fox Village

Maomao could feel them being carried along by the current. Ugh, the rocking... She leaned against a post, somehow managing to fight off a wave of nausea. She must have been in the ship’s hold, because she was surrounded by cargo. The entire place smelled damp and humid.

“Wonder where we’re going,” Shisui said, not sounding unduly concerned.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

They weren’t restrained, but Suirei, still in her male outfit, stood guard outside. Maomao and Shisui were no longer dressed like palace women, but instead in simple clothes like any village girl might wear. Suirei had preempted any questions from the sailors on the ship by explaining that the two young women were to be sold. Posing as a procurer was certainly the most natural cover for her. A good excuse to lock them in the hold and keep anyone from asking questions.

They were on a ship. That meant they weren’t at the rear palace. They were outside.

Back at the clinic, Maomao had decided to accept Suirei’s conditions. She’d been alone and defenseless, and if she’d chosen to resist, the other woman would probably have silenced her permanently. (In other words, she was certainly not merely drawn in by the thought of the resurrection drug, thank you very much.)

Thus, Maomao had allowed Suirei to lead her away. The eunuchs had been too busy with work to notice her—and anyway, a palace woman walking around was hardly anything unusual. Suirei had brought her to a place not far from where they’d first found Maomao the kitten, close behind a wall. Maomao finally started to breathe a little easier. Shenlü kept watch while Suirei jimmied something on the shrine. It was during that brief moment that Maomao had scrawled her message in alcohol on the paper. She’d concealed the items in her robe as they left.

Shisui had asked “Maomao?” causing her to mess up the second character and leaving it hard to read. She was just daubing more alcohol on her finger, hoping to rewrite the message, when Suirei turned around. Maomao quickly stuffed the paper in the knot of a nearby tree, pressing the catnip on top of it to keep it there.

I really hope my old man notices that, she thought. If anything she had done got his attention in the slightest, then he wouldn’t stop until he had teased out the rest. That was simply how he was. Unfortunately, the only person who had seen Maomao take the catnip had been the quack doctor, so she was less than confident about how things would work out. It wasn’t the quack’s fault; he was what he was. But that didn’t bring her any comfort.

Beneath the shrine was a hole big enough for a person to fit into. If nothing else, she finally knew now how the kitten had gotten into the rear palace. It looked like a gloomy, uncared-for water passage, but it seemed a little large for that. Maomao speculated that whoever had built the underground water system had made some emergency escape paths while they were at it.

They passed through the tunnel to the outside of the rear palace, where a horse and carriage was already waiting for them; they took it directly to the port. Then they cast off onto the sea, and now Maomao was rocking on her way to who knew where.

No idea what’s going to happen to us... Maomao, wondering what if anything she ought to do, glanced at Shisui. Could she figure out some way for the two of them to escape together? Doubt it, she thought, tugging at some sailcloth lying nearby. It was dusty and stiff, but she could ball it up to make a passable pillow. It looked likely to have ticks, though, so she gave it a decent pounding, partly just to make herself feel better. When they’d given her her new clothes, they’d confiscated all her alcohol. The only thing she’d been left was her hair stick, which was still in her hair.

“Sleepy?” Shisui asked.

“Yeah.”

“Me too...” She laid her head on the edge of the sailcloth, and then for once that notorious chatterbox didn’t make a sound.

The boat seemed to have left the sea and entered a river. The smell of spray had lessened, replaced by an ever more noticeable aroma of earth. They changed vessels twice as the river became narrower and narrower, and when they finally made landfall, it turned out they were in the middle of a forest. The river ran right into it, and someone had built a dock in the woods.

“Time to walk,” Suirei announced, and Maomao and Shisui followed her. The girls’ hands had been tied with rope, too thick to get through without a knife. Along with Suirei, they were accompanied by two men who looked distinctly like guards. Rope or no rope, Maomao doubted they could have escaped.

This doesn’t make any sense. From the position of the sun and the way the temperature had dropped, the boat had clearly been traveling north. But as they worked their way through the woods, she thought she felt herself getting warmer, and unaccountable clamminess entered the air.

“This way.” Suirei, still in disguise, looked like a prince who’d walked off the scroll of some fairy tale; she could have made a perfect couple with the pretty young Shisui, at least if the latter could have managed to act more demure. Shisui, for her part, was looking this way and that at all the bugs that darted by as they walked along. Maomao liked to think that she wasn’t as far gone as Shisui, but she wasn’t above keeping an eye out for any interesting herbs and grasses as they went.

Her ruminations were interrupted when Suirei flinched back and then edged to the left. What’s with her? Maomao wondered. Shisui immediately shifted to the right. Maomao eyed them both, perplexed. Then a snake slithered out from among the trees, big and fat and ready for the approaching winter. Is she afraid of snakes?

That would make sense enough. No matter how cool someone might act, there were bound to be one or two things that got under their skin. It was the way Shisui had reacted, though, that really got Maomao’s attention. It might have been simple coincidence, but Maomao was starting to form a very firm hunch.

Almost before she knew what she was doing, Maomao had slipped off the path and grabbed the squirming reptile. Before the guards could make a move, she threw it at Suirei. It dropped right at her feet. The woman began to sink down, her face deathly pale.

“Maomao!” Shisui exclaimed, immediately grabbing the snake and flinging it away again. She stroked Suirei’s back; the disguised woman looked strange, her pupils dilated and her breath coming in short gasps.

Well, this isn’t good, Maomao thought. She went over and touched Suirei’s back. She didn’t rub it, but tapped on it slowly, silently encouraging her to breathe in time with the rhythm. Suirei’s breath gradually slowed down. The guards made a move toward the three of them, but Shisui held up a hand to stop them.

That was when Maomao was sure.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Suirei asked when she had finally calmed down.

“Just a little prank.”

“Sure seemed like more than that.” Suirei stood up and looked around, letting out a breath of relief when she was sure there were no more snakes nearby.

“So you and Shisui know each other,” Maomao said.

Suirei managed not to react openly to this accusation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It seems to me Shisui received a higher-class education than she lets on. And she occasionally betrays signs of good breeding.” Someone like her would never do minion work like laundry. She would just hang around the baths, giving massages and liking bugs, and giving no hint that she was who she was.

“There’s any number of maids like that. Just like you,” Suirei said.

“Just like me,” huh? Evidently she’d done her homework about who Maomao was.

“I guess you must have been pretty surprised when a kitten appeared from your secret tunnel,” Maomao said to Shisui. “So surprised that in your haste to catch it, you let yourself be discovered by another palace woman.”

“Ha ha! You’re a sharp one, Maomao,” Shisui laughed. “So you were trying to be sure. But look, please don’t throw any more snakes around. My older sister really hates them.” Shisui scratched her cheek with one of her bound hands.

For the first time, Maomao thought she saw Suirei’s expression soften. “I told you your name was too simple,” she said as if admonishing the younger woman. There was no sense of alarm in her tone; rather, she seemed unbothered that Maomao now knew their secret.

“Aw, none of the other girls noticed it,” Shisui said. Many of the lowest serving women were illiterate and wouldn’t give another person’s name much thought. Even if they could read, they came from all over, and might not even all read a particular name the same way. Shisui had probably leaned on those assumptions when picking it. A bold move.

Maomao was about to say something else, but then thought better of it. She still wasn’t sure. She decided to skip it for now.

Maomao had first met Shisui near where they’d found the kitten. In the end, they’d never figured out how Maomao (the cat) had gotten into the rear palace, but if she’d come via a secret tunnel, that would explain a good deal. When they’d exited the old underground waterway, Maomao had noticed a cat living nearby. Maomao (the cat again) must have gotten lost and wandered into the tunnel once when Shisui had been looking for the passageway.

Then there was the fact that her upbringing seemed too refined for a mere maid. Shisui had presumably been trying to be careful to act her part, but she hadn’t been careful enough. Then again, she probably hadn’t expected anyone to watch her as closely as Maomao had.

And when Shisui had started bringing Maomao and Xiaolan to the bathhouse? An excellent excuse to make contact with Suirei, who was disguised as one of the eunuchs who brought the bathwater. She’d played them all for fools.

“Guess I’m not much of a spy,” Shisui said.

“Just have to be more careful next time,” Maomao assured her, but the light banter didn’t change the position she was in. She still had no idea what the other two planned to do with her.

Do they want to use me as a bargaining chip against...him? She thought of the monocled strategist and immediately frowned. Talk about wandering right into a snake pit. Nothing good could come of it. Didn’t they realize that?

“Why did you come with us, if you knew all that?” Suirei asked.

“Why did you bring me?” Maomao replied. Surely she could be allowed this small, flippant remark. She was emboldened by the realization that they weren’t going to kill her here and now.

Suirei said nothing, merely resumed walking. Maomao followed her. It seemed the matter was to be shelved for the moment. They did at least cut the rope binding Maomao’s hands—not because she was now welcome to try to escape, but because any attempt at escape was obviously futile.

They trooped through the woods, crunching twigs and dry leaves underfoot, until something resembling a house came into view, flanked by what appeared to be fields. The trees began to thin out, and then they could see a clearing surrounded by a wooden palisade.

A hidden village? That was what it seemed like, anyway. She would never have expected to find a human settlement out here in the woods, but there it was. Complete with a barrier to keep out wild animals. The palisade stretched around the perimeter of the village, making it look rather like the rear palace, even if on a different scale.

Suirei produced a red cloth from the folds of her robe and waved it three times at someone standing on a watchtower. A moment later, the gate opened and a bridge came down. Suirei led Shisui and Maomao into the village.

Maomao was immediately hit by steamy air. Huh. No wonder it’s warm. She saw steam everywhere, rising from water channels that crisscrossed the village.

“A hot-springs town?”

“Uh-huh. Why else would we build a village way out here?” Shisui said. Well, there you had it.

Other than the somewhat unusual location, the village looked like any other hot-springs town. It was dotted with unremarkable buildings, and people wearing light robes and carrying towels walked this way and that. One in particular stood out.

A foreigner?

This person wore a veil over their head, but the build of their body and the look of their hair made it obvious that they weren’t from around here, an impression confirmed by the western-style accessories they wore. What really got Maomao’s attention, though, was the tie in the hair that flowed out from under the veil. It was a red band that made her think of the emissaries who’d come to this land.

She was just thinking Couldn’t be... when, distracted by her thoughts, she bumped into someone.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doin’?!” Her antagonist was a child, much smaller than her. An obnoxious child, probably just on the cusp of his teens, to judge by his attitude. “What did you think was gonna happen, standing there spaced out like that?”

Maomao was angry—who wouldn’t be? If this had been the pleasure district, she would already have given him a good knock on the head, but somehow she managed to restrain herself. She was going to be the adult here. Interestingly, though, the little shit received a knock on the head anyway, without Maomao’s having to do anything.

“Ow!” the kid yelped.

“It’s your fault for not watching where you were going,” Shisui informed him.

“Sis!”

So the little shit knew her! In an instant, he’d forgotten all about the bop on the noggin, running circles around her like an excited puppy.

“Hey, and that’s Suirei! What’s with that outfit? It looks way hot on you!”

“Shut up,” Suirei snapped, but the little shit acted as if he hadn’t heard her.

“Granny said I wasn’t gonna see you two anymore, but I guess she was just pulling my leg. I shoulda known!”

The little shit might have a bad attitude, but he looked like he came from a good family: he was wearing decent clothes, and his hair was done properly. A couple of missing front teeth made him look a little ridiculous, though.

“Ooh, I know! Is this about the festival? That’s why you came home, isn’t it? The festival starts tomorrow!”

“You’re right—our timing was perfect,” Shisui said, looking around the village with that innocent smile of hers. Now that they mentioned it, Maomao realized that paper streamers and celebratory paper lanterns hung from the eaves of the buildings all around them, and other than the people in light robes, obviously guests of the baths, everyone seemed to be busy getting ready for something.

“Do you have your lantern yet?” the little shit asked.

“We only just got back. Any good ones left?” Shisui said.

“You just follow me,” he replied, and led her by the hand further into the village, leaving Maomao to trail after them. He brought them to a building that was incongruously beautiful among the plain constructs of the rest of the village. Maomao thought it might belong to the village chief, but apparently it was an inn, as an elaborate signboard outside proclaimed. The reason the place was made to look so impressive, Maomao guessed, must have been because it served as a bathhouse for important visitors.

This was evidently where Suirei had meant to bring them anyway, for she greeted the master of the house, who answered politely, indeed cringingly.

So maybe that really was one of the emissaries. Just outside the inn, Maomao saw a palanquin of unusual construction, and thought she recognized one of the men tending to it. He’d been one of the emissaries’ guards. But what would she be doing here?

“You’re wondering what that emissary is doing here, aren’t you?” Suirei said as she collected a key from the innkeeper and came back to them.

Maomao looked at her, fighting a shiver of surprise. “Funny you should even know about that,” she said, choosing a sarcastic swipe over a simple “Yes.”

“Just because I was dead doesn’t mean I didn’t have work to do,” Suirei replied. Was that a joke? Most unusual for her. Suirei seemed somehow different from the callous woman Maomao had known before. Perhaps dying had changed her. She was still pondering it as they entered the inn.

She was led to a room so sumptuous that one wondered how it had found its way out into the middle of the woods like this. It was divided into three areas: two bedrooms and a living space. One of the bedrooms contained one bed, the other, two. The one in the single-bed room was canopied—which seemed to imply that that room was for the master, the other for the servants.

Shisui headed for the little shit’s room. “Coming, Maomao?”

In point of fact, Maomao would have liked nothing better than to throw herself down on one of the beds and stay there, but she didn’t think she could exactly turn down this request. Suirei apparently had something else to deal with, but naturally she didn’t want to leave Maomao alone.

When they emerged into the courtyard, they found the little shit ordering around a group of maids, evidently preparing for something.

“Will this be enough, Young Master?”

“Hmmm... Yeah, I guess so.”

Maomao looked over and saw a panoply of masks and bundles of flowering plants. The masks were all in the shape of fox faces, and while some were larger and some smaller, they were all pure white. The grasses included pampas, ears of rice, and buckwheat, along with lantern plant, which wasn’t in season. This last was long since withered, yet it hadn’t lost its color; it remained vivid. Shisui smiled and picked it up. The little shit gave a shy chuckle and rubbed the spot under his nose.

“I know you love that, Sis,” he said. “I worked hard to find one.”

Yeah, right. You mean the women did. Maomao peered at a white fox mask. It was carved from wood, the surface carefully polished. There was a brush and pigments nearby; it seemed you were supposed to paint the mask however you liked.

Shisui said, “Thank you, I do. But you weren’t the one who found it, were you, Kyou-u?” She’d taken the words right out of Maomao’s mouth. The little shit named Kyou-u, looking even more embarrassed, turned toward the maids and mumbled, “Thank you.”

Hoh. So he had a halfway decent side after all. Maomao thought she might promote him from “little shit” to just “brat.”

“Very nice.” Shisui grabbed the kid and rubbed his head vigorously.

“Ow! Ow! Sis, that hurts!” The kid didn’t sound all that upset, though—maybe because he was crammed up against Shisui’s chest. He might have been a kid, but he was also, most definitely, a male of the species.

Maomao turned away from the playful scene and began painting one of the fox masks.