The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 5 - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Let Them Eat Cake

“Apothecary! Apothecary! Come quickly!” A haggard man was pounding furiously on the door of the shack. Maomao, not looking pleased, rolled out of bed and opened the little window at the entrance in a way that made it clear she found this a nuisance.

A filthy, middle-aged man stood outside—not someone who looked like he had any money. She was about to close the window and pretend she hadn’t seen anything.

“I know you can hear me!”

Dammit.

She didn’t want to deal with this. Why would he come to her shop, anyway? He’d probably come to her old man once, tugged at his heartstrings until some charity had been forthcoming. This was why her father never had any money.

“What happened to the old guy who used to be here?”

“He’s gone. Went to find his fortune.”

“What? Don’t bullshit me!”

The man pounded angrily on the door of the tumbledown house, but Maomao only gave him a cold stare. She even found herself grunting “Pfah,” somewhat in spite of herself.

“You’re supposed to be running an apothecary shop! Don’t you even have any medicine?”

“Yeah, I’m running an apothecary shop, all right. As a business. That means money talks.” Maomao would hardly be averse to seeing the man, if he had cash—but he didn’t seem to be here in that kind of good faith.

“You’d take money from the poor and needy?!”

“If you can’t pay, then stay away. It’s because the likes of you come rooting around that I have to live in this shack.” Maomao gave the door a good rap herself to scare the man away. Chou-u hid behind her, holding a soup pot and a ladle. If anything happened, he would smack them together to make as much noise as possible. He might be impudent, but he had a decent head on his shoulders. It would be loud enough to bring someone from the Verdigris House.

The visitor, though, had gone silent. Maomao hated this sort. If people thought you’d hand out donations to them, they wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of you.

The man’s grimy face broke into a scowl when he saw Maomao wasn’t going to give in. He leaned weakly against the door. “If it’s money you want, I’ll pay you. Not right away, but I swear I will. So please, come look... My child...”

The old collapse-in-a-crying-heap routine. Nice. Still, the man sat there with his head down, showing no sign of moving. Now we can’t get out the door, Maomao thought.

“Hey, Freckles...” Chou-u, still holding the cooking utensils, was glancing at her.

This is ridiculous, Maomao thought, but despite her frustration, she grabbed a brush off the table and plunged it into some ink. She opened a beat-up old cupboard, revealing a sheaf of paper and some wood strips. She took out one of the strips and jotted something on it, then flung it at the man.

“Can you at least write your name?”

After a beat, the man said, “No... I can’t.”

“Thought not.” Next she tossed a knife to him. “Use that to make your mark. Just your thumb’s plenty.”

The man squinted at the wood strip, but he couldn’t possibly read what was on it. “What does it say?” he asked.

“That you’ll pay for the treatment. It’s an IOU.”

Reluctantly, the man pressed the knife into the pad of his thumb, then made a mark in blood on the strip.

“Seems like a lotta trouble,” Chou-u muttered from behind her, but she nudged him with her toe to shut him up.

“This all right?” the man asked, looking at his thumb and handing the wood strip back to Maomao.

“Guess it’ll have to be.” Maomao smiled—a bit villainously, but smiled all the same—and undid the door bar.

The man eventually led her to an alleyway not far from the pleasure district. Men with haggard bodies and dirty clothes watched them; the man who had brought her gave the others a threatening look.

Maybe we should have brought another bodyguard or two. Maomao wasn’t stupid enough to just run off after the guy; she’d asked Ukyou to come along. He might be a bit excitable, but as the head of the menservants he knew his way around rough company.

“What’d we come all the way out here for?” Ukyou asked.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but what else was I supposed to do?”

“Huh! So you take after your old man, after all,” he said, mussing her hair fondly. She pushed his hand away.

“This is it,” the man said, leading them into a shack that had a piece of cloth instead of a door. A rancid smell filled the air, along with the odors of sweat and grime, not to mention old trash and even human waste. A child, not so different in age from Chou-u, lay on top of something dirty—it might have been a reed mat, or maybe rushes; Maomao couldn’t tell. Beside her, a rather older child looked at the man with empty eyes. She was a girl, several years younger than Maomao, but she had none of the vitality her youth deserved.

“Daddy.” She must have cried all her tears long ago, for her cheeks were dry as she looked at the man.

“Here she is. I’m begging you, examine her!”

Wordlessly, Maomao looked at the girl lying on the mat. The color of her arms and legs was dull. Her body spasmed occasionally, and the smell of waste was probably due to whatever was coming out of her. Her hair was such a mess that it was hard to tell whether she was a boy or a girl, and she was terribly filthy.

“How long has she been like this?”

“Since a few days ago. But even before that, her hands seemed to be bothering her,” the older girl answered.

Maomao wrapped a cloth around each of her own hands, as well as around her mouth, and then she approached the child.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” the father demanded angrily.

“What do you mean, what? She’s sick, isn’t she? I won’t do anyone any good if I catch whatever she has. But if it bothers you that much, I don’t have to look at her.” Maomao glared at the man, and he lowered the hand he had raised—prompting Ukyou, who had come up behind him, to cross his arms as well. He’d probably been preparing to put the man’s arm out of joint if he’d turned violent.

Overprotective, Maomao thought. She touched the child’s hand. Circulation was poor; the blood wasn’t reaching the fingertips, which were turning necrotic as if with frostbite. The place was drafty, to be sure, but not cold enough for that. Besides, the child almost looked paralyzed. Her eyes were open and she made strange sounds occasionally, as if in a waking dream.

“She’s worse than this morning. What do we do, Daddy? She’ll end up like Mommy...”

The father looked at his daughter, who looked about to cry, and seemed at a loss. He scratched his head and crouched down. “Please. You’ve gotta help her. I don’t want to lose another family member!” The older girl also fell to her knees, and both of them pressed their foreheads into the dirt floor.

Well, this is a tough one.

“Her mother died the same way?” Maomao asked.

“No. She succumbed to a miscarriage...”

“A miscarriage?” Maomao looked at the spittle dribbling down the immobile child’s cheek. There was a layer of thick stuff around her mouth. “Have you been able to get her to eat anything?”

“We gave her some congee, just a little...”

At that, Maomao looked over at the filthy stove, where she saw an ash-covered clay pot containing gruel the consistency of glue. It was hard to see much that looked like rice in it; it seemed to contain whatever they’d been able to scare up.

“What exactly is in that?” she asked. Aside from the scarce rice, she saw what she took to be potatoes and various herbs. Did it also contain other grains?

The older girl stumbled out of the house and returned with a handful of herbs. Nothing poisonous, but nothing nutritious either. The sort of grasses one ate to stave off starvation during times of famine.

“I know this isn’t it. What else?” Maomao asked, but the girl averted her eyes. “Nothing?” she pressed, and finally the girl gave in and opened a cupboard, from which she produced some small cakes. Several of them, each carefully wrapped. Not of a quality that would have passed muster among the consorts of the rear palace, but still, they had a distinctly sweet smell. If they seemed a little damp, it was probably because they were being conserved, eaten bit by precious bit.

“What are those?” the father asked, his eyes widening in surprise. Apparently this was the first time he was learning of them.

“Someone gave them to us. We decided to have them a little bit at a time when there was nothing to eat. We showed them to Mommy, but she said not to tell you about them, Daddy.”

Shocked by the deception, the man’s face twisted into a grimace. “How dare you hide those from me! I run this house!”

The older girl’s lifeless eyes suddenly took on a spark. “But you don’t ever work, Daddy. You only gamble. You make us beg by the roadside and then you take what we earn!”

Her words were harsh, but judging by the way the man’s head drooped, evidently true. Here Maomao had been thinking he only wanted the best for his daughter—but maybe he’d just been afraid to lose a source of income.

“Did you give your sister any of this?” Maomao asked, and the girl nodded. Maomao tore off a bit of the cake, sniffed it, and licked a few crumbs from her fingers. Her eyes narrowed. “You said someone gave this to you.” It was sweet—sweet enough to tell it contained sugar. An awfully rich donation to give a waif on the street. “Who gave it to you?” Maomao asked. “When?”

“Don’t know. My little sister was the one who got it, and she can’t talk. It was before Mommy died, so I guess maybe a month ago.”

A cake with proper sugar was a real luxury for a commoner. Surely anyone who found themselves in possession of such a thing would simply eat it before it was taken from them.

“You know anyone else who got anything like this?” Maomao asked, but the girl shook her head. “All right. Was anyone showing symptoms like this girl’s about a month ago?”

“Now that you mention it...” Ukyou said. He always was a sharp one. When Maomao saw him leave, she turned back to the child. She removed the cloth from around her hands and mouth and picked the girl up.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m taking her back with me. She’ll never get better in a cesspit like this. And take my advice—get rid of those treats.”

More than anything, it didn’t look like the girl had any hope of getting a decent meal in this place. And there was something else that bugged Maomao too.

“Let me take her,” Ukyou said, coming back.

“Thank you.” Maomao handed the child to him, and together they left the shack behind.

“The old man next door—his fingers were rotted off,” Ukyou said as he trotted along carrying the girl. He said he’d spoken to the old man as the elder was begging by the roadside. His recollections had been hazy at first, but a few small coins in his palm had soon jogged his memory. “He said a woman was giving them out. Claims he didn’t see her face.”

“Hmm,” Maomao said. This story was starting to sound fishy.

Ukyou saw Maomao back to her home, then headed straight for the Verdigris House. She tried to give him a few coins, but he said, “I’m used to protecting kids,” and refused. It was how he’d always been.

Maomao brought the grimy child into her shack. Chou-u, who’d been left effectively to watch the house, gave a pointed sniff. “What’s with her? She’s filthy.”

“A good reason for you to go heat some water. And here, take this and go ask Grams for some white rice.” She gave him a handful of coins, and he dutifully went over to the Verdigris House. The thought of white rice to eat must have motivated him.

It seemed likely the girl’s condition had taken a sudden turn for the worse because of the cakes she’d been fed. The older girl had said she hadn’t eaten any herself, but had saved them all for her sister. If Mom was pregnant, maybe she’d found herself snacking on some too.

Maomao looked on the shelf. Given that she ran an apothecary shop in the pleasure district, she kept a supply of various abortifacients on hand, many of which would be deadly in the wrong dosage. One of them produced symptoms much like this. It was a toxin found in bad grain, and even small amounts could cause poisoning. The toxin restricted blood flow to the limbs and could quickly induce necrosis. The body became paralyzed, and people sometimes had hallucinations.

The treatment was simple: stop ingesting the poison. That, and some exercise would work it out of the body. Sadly for this girl, if she’d been left in her house, she would have likely wasted away before she got better. Hence, Maomao had transferred her.

I wonder if I really needed to do that, she thought. It wasn’t as if she believed the father would ever actually pay her. And if he did, she had to suspect the money would come from the older sister’s begging. Even as she reflected that she’d really stepped in it this time, she was already getting some clean rags together.

A few days later, they had a visitor, but it wasn’t the middle-aged man again. Rather, his daughter. She had fresh bruises—and Maomao doubted she’d gotten them from falling down.

The girl’s little sister had recovered to the point where she could walk, albeit not very steadily. Malnutrition was a far bigger concern for her than the toxin had been. Her fingers still didn’t move very well, but that would probably heal in time. Maomao was relieved to have at last gotten her into the bath the day before. At the moment, the girl was out for a walk with Chou-u, who’d started to act like a big brother to her.

“Did you bring my money?” Maomao asked the grubby young girl, her gaze hard.

“Where’s my little sister?”

“See for yourself.” Chou-u could be seen outside the crude window, helping the child as she stumbled along. With her hair washed and tied up, she was actually starting to look like a little girl again.

When she spotted her sister, the older girl almost went running over to her, but Maomao caught her hand. “My money.”

“Money... Your money...”

She didn’t have it. Of course she didn’t. Maomao had known from the moment the old man had failed to come himself. That was why she’d had him sign what she had. She flashed the wooden slip at the girl.

“You don’t have it? That’s fine. You can just sell her.” She jerked her thumb toward the toddling child. “It’s probably not too late, if we start training her now.”

The older girl went silent for a beat, then her eyes slowly met Maomao’s.

Hm? Maomao had been sure she would break down crying. But those dim, near-dead eyes had that spark in them again.

“I would bring more than a mute little girl,” the older sister said, smacking herself demonstratively on the chest. (A chest, Maomao noted, even less impressive than her own abysmal example.)

Maomao looked at the girl. “You’re saying you’ll take your sister’s place? Do you know what you’re volunteering for?” She leaned against the wall and scratched her shin with her toes.

“I know full well! But it’s either that, or keep begging for the rest of my life! I’m sure he’ll have me turning tricks before long, anyway! Daddy takes away whatever little money I earn every day, so what’s the difference?” She stamped her feet on the floor: better to just go ahead and be a prostitute.

Sometimes, young women came knocking on Maomao’s door, young women under the mistaken impression that the courtesans of the Verdigris House enjoyed a far better life than those on the lowest level of society. Knowing that Maomao was somehow connected to the place, they wanted her to put in a good word for them. This girl seemed to have come here with something similar in mind.

Maomao gave her an appraising look, then sighed pointedly. “And you think you’re worth that much? In your state, a farm girl fresh from the fields would fetch more than you.”

“But my little sister’s in the same condition! And she can’t even talk!”

“But she’s younger than you are. That means quicker to learn discipline. Besides, you’d be surprised how many men out there prefer the silent types.” She was being deliberately cruel, but the young woman’s eyes remained fixed on her. The girl never averted her gaze; the light in her eyes only burned stronger.

“I have to get out of there. It’s that, or spend the rest of my life as the mud under his feet. And I’ll take anything, anything, before that!”

Maomao put her pinky in her ear and started scratching industriously. It was a perfectly common story. When you were trapped in the mud, the harder you struggled to get free, the deeper you got sucked in. But maybe fighting was still better than not doing anything at all, just waiting to sink to your doom. Maomao liked the ones who tried to take matters into their own hands, even if it was futile, instead of waiting and hoping someone would miraculously show up to pull them out.

Even so, she had no special reason to help this girl—but also no special reason to stop her.

“The lady who runs that brothel is the most miserly old hag in the entire capital,” Maomao said. “If she doesn’t think you’ll make her money, she won’t give you the time of day—and even if she does purchase you, she’ll lowball you as hard as she can.”

The young woman still didn’t flinch.

“If you come to her with nothing to offer but your own haggard body, she’ll probably slap a collar on you so you don’t run away. And if you manage to escape anyway—or at least try to—well, get ready to pay for it with a rib or two.”

“Is that all? That would be nothing next to...next to having my own father break my arm! I’m through living like a rat in a hole!”

“So what do we do with your little sister?”

“I’m sure the old lady will take her in once she sees that I’ll work hard enough to cover both of us!”

The Verdigris House was a practical place. If the girl could generate that sort of money, the madam would probably indulge her.

“If she can’t make any use of you, neither of you will be any better than rats.” Still looking less than pleased, Maomao went over to a chest of clothes and rifled through it, pulling out an outfit almost at random. One of the things she’d gotten at the used-clothes shop. It bordered on the ostentatious, but she tossed it at the filthy young girl. “Use the well to wash up. Everything, including your hair. It’ll be cold. Too bad. If you have one solitary flea on you when you show up, she’ll chase you away with a broom before you get in the door.”

The girl clutched the clothing and made for the well. What would happen to her after this was none of Maomao’s concern. She’d chosen this path for herself. If she was going to regret it, then she could stay in the mud until she sank out of sight.