The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 7 - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Child of a Foreign Land

“Rather lively today, isn’t it?” Luomen said, although he seemed perfectly relaxed. He wasn’t wearing his white doctor’s outfit today; he was in men’s clothing, although his pudgy silhouette and warm expression still gave him the appearance of an old lady. He made his way slowly but steadily along the thoroughfare, leaning on his cane.

“Careful not to trip,” Maomao said, keeping a watchful eye out as she walked at his side. Roads weren’t normally a problem for him, but this one was particularly busy, made even more so by the festival atmosphere. For an old man missing a kneecap, a stray bump from a passerby could be enough to send him sprawling.

“Oh, I’m fine.”

“I’m sure you are. Just humor me.”

Normally Maomao might have spoken more bluntly to her father, but today she tried to mind her manners. There were other people present. Namely Yao and En’en, along with the doctor who was forever getting angry at Maomao. A soldier was with them too, as a bodyguard.

What brought them outside the palace confines? A shopping trip. Only Yao had gone last time, but today all three of the girls were along. That was partly because there wasn’t too much to carry, and partly because the medical office was too busy to spare all its doctors. The last shopping trip had demonstrated how tricky things could get with no physicians present.

There was arguably one more reason as well: the person they would be purchasing medicine from was a foreigner. Maomao’s father was the most accomplished in the foreign tongue among the medical staff, while Maomao, En’en, and the other doctor each knew at least a little. On this trip, Yao was just along for the ride.

“We should have taken a carriage,” Maomao grumbled.

“A carriage? With all these people around? We would only have been a nuisance,” Luomen said. He sounded cheerful, but Maomao thought it was cruel to make an injured old man walk all this way.

Other than that, she was very happy with the situation. She got to be with her father and see some uncommon medicine. Exciting!

“Don’t do anything unless we tell you to,” said the other doctor—call him Scary Doctor—glaring at Maomao. (Hey, she knew how to behave herself in public.) She’d long had the feeling that he was keeping an eye on her, and since the incident with the frog-based salve the other day, his surveillance had only become more intense. Incidentally, she had finally started to remember his name just recently. It was Dr. Liu.

“Sorry about this,” Luomen said, but he didn’t contradict the other man. He was going to defer to Dr. Liu.

Yao seemed to have a little more respect for Maomao’s father than before. As ever, En’en was doing whatever she could to help Yao, and the young mistress had recently been quite personable.

She was just sheltered.

Yao was trying to look nonchalant, but Maomao saw her eyes dart to the storefronts from time to time. She looked antsy, ready to run; she didn’t seem used to the volume of people. En’en was watching just as closely as Maomao, and although her face remained impassive, there was something hidden behind that deliberately blank expression. Her eyes sparkled like she’d spotted a baby squirrel and was enjoying the sight. Maybe Yao had been brought along this time because the doctors figured she hadn’t gotten used to going shopping the first time.

Think she’s really cut out for this? Maomao wondered. En’en was diligently minding Yao. If I had to guess, I would say she’s enjoying it. Well, that was better than having to force her kicking and screaming.

While Yao was busy being distracted as they passed a candy crafter, the group arrived at their destination. It was a luxurious restaurant—one Maomao had made use of before. It was amply supplied with private rooms where its typically rich clientele could have private conversations.

Awfully convenient, those rooms...

Foreign products, even just medicine, were valuable. If you weren’t careful when you went to pick them up, you could find yourself robbed on the way home. That explained the bodyguard too.

It being the middle of the day, there were quite a few female customers. At lunchtime, the restaurant sold light snacks, and the fresh steamed buns looked enticing.

“This way, please.” A server showed them to their room, where a foreign man with light hair waited. He was very hairy, except for his chin; he wore a thick mustache but no beard.

Luomen entered the room, but when Maomao and the others started to follow, the foreigner held up a hand. He and Luomen conferred. The group was too far away to hear what they were saying, but Maomao saw her father shake his head and look back at them. “He says only three people may enter.”

“What?”

Three people? That meant Maomao and the other two assistants would have to wait outside. Obviously the two doctors would be essential, and they would want the bodyguard with them just in case.

“In fact, he thinks we shouldn’t have brought women at all,” Dr. Liu said. “I guess we should have had you accompany us when we were dealing with someone else.” Maomao’s shoulders slumped. Was she going to be condemned to wait in the hallway the entire time? Then Dr. Liu handed her a piece of paper. “I’m sure you know how to handle a shopping trip. Could you pick up some other items for us while we’re doing this?”

The paper contained a detailed list—of the preferred sweets and treats of the doctors who hadn’t been able to join them. The list was quite extensive, and Dr. Liu accompanied it with a substantial amount of change.

“If there’s money left over, you can buy what you like with it. Craft candies, say. Be back here in a couple of hours.”

“Yes, sir,” Maomao said. Dr. Liu did nothing but get angry at her, yet he didn’t neglect to provide for candy for them. He hadn’t failed to notice Yao taking in the street stalls.

“You do know how to handle money, don’t you?” Yao asked Maomao, perhaps annoyed that she had been entrusted with the cash.

Does she realize what she’s saying? Yao was as good as announcing that she herself hadn’t known how to use money until recently. She seemed quite proud of her newly acquired knowledge. Maybe they were hoping to teach her a thing or two about shopping by bringing her along, Maomao thought. Behind her, En’en’s eyes were shining, as if to say Isn’t my mistress the cutest?

Maomao knew that hanging on to the money would only earn her more grumbling, but she wasn’t entirely comfortable giving it to Yao. By process of elimination, she handed the list and the cash to En’en. Yao still seemed less than pleased, but she wasn’t going to fight En’en having the purse strings.

“How about we start with the steamed buns?” En’en suggested. She had the money, so it was only natural that she dictate the agenda. When Maomao stole a peek and saw the name of the shop, though, she frowned. “Something the matter?” En’en asked.

“That place is always sold out by lunchtime,” she said, pointing in the direction of the store.

“You heard her, Lady Yao.” Ah, En’en really was quick on the uptake.

“What? Heard what?” Yao was still clueless as Maomao grabbed one of her hands and En’en grabbed the other. They both started to pull.

“If they sell out, we’re the ones who’ll get in trouble!” En’en said.

Yao flinched. “Let’s hurry, then!”

Hand in hand in hand, the three of them sprinted for the buns for all they were worth.

If they’d pictured a pleasant afternoon wandering the main street together, they were much mistaken. At last they stood in the shade of a willow tree, Maomao and Yao and En’en, their breath heaving.

“Doctors must earn a pretty nice salary,” Maomao said, her tone more than a little bitter as she looked at the mountain of treats in pretty packages. “There’s a lot of fresh-made stuff here. Think they’ll be able to eat it all before it goes stale?” They’d been to what felt like every place in town. Dr. Liu had said they could spend whatever was left over—but was there anything left over?

Yao wheezed; she wasn’t used to running and was so spent she couldn’t speak. En’en, ever attentive, bought her some juice from a nearby shop.

All the snacks they had been instructed to purchase had come from well-known establishments; Maomao recognized a number of the treats served at the Verdigris House as well. Dr. Liu had probably given Maomao the money because he knew she would be acquainted with many of the stores.

“I really think this should be enough,” En’en said, scanning the piece of paper. There was one more name on the list.

“Oh, that place.” Maomao’s shoulders slumped. It wasn’t exactly close, and she didn’t feel like walking that far. “They’ve probably still got stock, and we’ve got an hour yet...”

She glanced at Yao, who appeared rejuvenated by the juice. “I’m good to go,” she said.

Maomao and En’en looked at each other, both cocking their heads, wondering what to do.

“May I ask what you’re doing, En’en? You two seem to...signal each other a lot these days,” Yao said.

“I simply wouldn’t want you to overexert yourself, Lady Yao,” En’en said.

“Well, that’s too bad, because I’m going. I’m going, and that’s final!”

“Very well.” En’en’s remained unfazed, but inside she was no doubt marveling at how adorable her mistress was when she was trying to put on a brave face. From behind, Maomao could see that En’en’s shapely tush was quivering with delight.

Maomao guided them along. “The shop’s on a side street a little off the main road...” It was a nuisance having her arms full of packages. Then again, Yao, still trying to prove she was up to these kinds of things, had insisted on carrying more of the baggage than anyone. At least Maomao had it better than her.

I do admire her refusal to be beaten, she thought. There were plenty of people out there who were content to lord it over others simply because they happened to have been born well. At least Yao wasn’t like that. Maomao suspected it was the same facet of her personality that had driven her to apply to become a medical assistant when she took the court ladies’ exam.

Strictly speaking, the shop for which they were heading was not a snack place. It was more a supplier of exotic ingredients. Any physician who mixed up medicines could also do a little cooking, and this place specialized in unusual condiments and flavorings.

The town felt very different once they got off the main road. They saw more commoners’ dwellings as they wove their way between shops. A cat yawned in the shade of a tree, while small children in bibs tried to get its attention with a bobbing foxtail. There were women doing laundry in the canal, and a dog tied up watching a chicken in a cage who seemed likely to be that evening’s dinner.

“Th-This is where the shop is?” Yao asked, uneasy. In answer, Maomao pointed at a small sign. It bore the name of the last place on their list. Yao was visibly relieved. “They should set up shop somewhere more, you know...reputable.”

“The closer you are to the main street, the higher the taxes,” Maomao said. The better your location, the more people went by your shop—and the more money the tax man figured he could squeeze out of you. “Come on, let’s wrap up this list,” she said. She started for the store, but suddenly En’en stopped. “What’s wrong?” Maomao asked.

En’en pointed to the far side of the canal, where they saw a gaggle of children surrounding a little girl. Maomao wondered if they were playing a game, but no, it didn’t quite seem like it. What was going on here? While she was still trying to figure it out, she saw someone go running across the small bridge over the canal—it was Yao.

“What are you doing?” she yelled, startling the children. “You’re bullying that poor girl!” Her shouting sent the kids scattering.

She’s so...how do I put this? Young, Maomao thought, but trotted after her just the same. There was only one child standing in front of Yao now: the girl who’d been surrounded by the others. The victim of the bullying, if Yao was right.

“Huh?” Yao said, puzzled. “Do you see this girl?”

Maomao looked the child in the face, and she was puzzled too.

“It looks like she’s from a foreign land,” En’en said. The girl’s clothes were in typical Li style, but her facial features weren’t the typical Li look. Maomao took her to be somewhat less than ten years old. Her hair and eyes were dark, but her skin was fairer and ruddier than their own. She had a lovely face, with perfectly positioned eyes and pronounced eyebrows.

Her skin reminds me of Empress Gyokuyou’s.

She might be of mixed parentage, then, but Maomao could see why En’en had assumed she was foreign-born: there were markings around her eyes. That was extremely unusual in Li, since here tattoos were normally imposed on criminals. Few people would voluntarily get them (making Maomao and her freckles a notable exception to the rule). This wasn’t the mark of any crime, however. It looked more like a ward or charm. A red, vine-like pattern.

“Are you all right?” Yao asked, but the girl only looked at her with a confused expression. Yao was dismayed. “I guess you don’t understand me,” she said. If only they could get a word out of her—but the child didn’t say a thing.

“I don’t think she can talk!” said one of the kids Yao had sent running. “She looked like she was lost, so we asked her where she was from, but she wouldn’t say a word! We all tried asking her together, but I don’t think she has a voice.” With that, the child ran off again.

“Um...” Yao had been so willing to jump right in, but now she seemed at a loss for what to do.

Don’t look at me, Maomao thought. They were confronted with a mute child who was from another country, so they couldn’t have communicated even if she could speak.

“What do we do?” Yao asked.

That’s what I’d like to know!

Human beings are creatures that communicate using language. Being deprived of that ability is inconvenient to say the least, as Maomao and the others were discovering.

Yao crouched in front of the little girl. “Okay, uh... Your name! What’s your name?” she ventured. The girl continued to stare back, sweet but uncomprehending. She said nothing, but she appeared to be listening to Yao, trying to understand her—so apparently she could hear.

If she could say something, we might at least be able to figure out what country she’s from... But no such luck; the child made not a peep.

Having gotten herself into this, Yao was bent on at least figuring out where the child was from, but she was looking less and less hopeful. She stole the occasional glance back at Maomao and En’en, but En’en only watched, making no move to help her mistress. She could stand to lend a hand, Maomao thought. Early on, she’d taken En’en to be Yao’s faithful servant, but over time she had come to see it was more complex than that. Yes, Yao was very important to En’en, and yes, En’en served her impeccably, but...

There’s something a little...twisted about it. Such was Maomao’s conclusion. Sometimes when someone was just too adorable, it left you wanting to tease them a bit—but it wasn’t quite that either. However you described it, it left En’en watching with distinct gratification as Yao flailed.

They were going to run out of time if this went on much longer, so Maomao was about to step in and try to help—but she was preempted by En’en. “Lady Yao, I don’t think she speaks our language. Let me try instead,” she said.

“Yes, please!” Yao said, relieved. She was obviously grateful for the help. Maybe she wouldn’t have felt quite so glad if she’d realized En’en had been savoring the sight of her struggle until that moment.

Ignorance is what, again? Maomao thought, watching the two of them from under lidded eyes.

En’en asked the child her name in a foreign language. Of course, there were a lot of foreign languages. Maomao spoke a smattering of Shaohnese, and could read and write a few simple words in the tongues of places farther west, but she was self-taught and had no confidence in her pronunciation. En’en, by her own admission, didn’t speak much more than Maomao, so it was slow work talking to the girl. Her efforts, however, made the child’s eyes widen; she started to bounce up and down. Something, whatever it was, had gotten through.

“She must be from Shaoh,” En’en said. Aylin had golden hair and blue eyes, but that wasn’t true of everyone from the region. Dark hair and eye colors were more likely to be passed down from parents to children, making it only natural that black and brown be the most common.

“I guess she understood you...but we still don’t know her name,” Yao said. The little girl still hadn’t spoken a word. She did, however, touch her throat and proceed to make an x shape with her hands in front of her neck.

“I think she means she can’t speak,” Maomao said. Then she ventured a few words in Shaohnese: <You can’t talk?> The girl made a circle with her hands this time, a sign of approval.

Maomao picked up a branch that was lying on the ground and scratched a few characters in the dust to demonstrate what she had in mind. Then she gave the branch to the girl. <Can you write your name?> she asked.

The girl shook her head. Instead she drew a picture—some kind of flower, although exactly what kind was hard to tell.

“Doesn’t look like she knows how to write either,” Maomao remarked.

“So what do we do?” Yao asked.

“You tell me,” Maomao said. Yao was the one who’d gone barreling into the situation. Now she looked like she felt awkward indeed.

The girl continued drawing busily. “What’s this?” Maomao said. The picture seemed to depict some sort of patterned vessel.

“Do you think it’s food?” Yao volunteered.

“I wonder what it’s supposed to signify,” En’en said. The girl tapped the picture with her stick.

“Maybe she’s looking for whatever it is,” Yao said. When En’en communicated the question to the child in her stilted Shaohnese, she was rewarded with a big circle. The girl held out her hand to them. In her palm was a single small piece of gold.

“Whoa, whoa!” Maomao said. There wasn’t much of it, but it was gold. Not the sort of thing to go around showing to just anybody. She pressed the girl’s hand closed again. “I guess she’s got money and wants to go shopping.”

“Sounds right to me,” En’en said.

“Yeah,” Yao agreed.

“But so far we have no idea what she wants to go shopping for,” Maomao said. She looked at the picture and asked, <You want a vessel like this?>

The girl shook her head. This would have been easier if she was a better artist. Maybe at least as good as Chou-u, Maomao thought. She dismissed the idea. That sort of thinking wasn’t going to get them anywhere. The girl’s picture was actually pretty good, considering how young she was.

“I think it looks like food of some kind. Any clues as to what?” Maomao said. But they weren’t making any headway.

The little girl looked toward the canal, where the children Yao had scattered had started playing down by the water. They were fishing something up—crayfish, Maomao realized. They could be quite tasty if you cleaned the mud off and cooked them. The girl, however, was shaking her head as if to say that crayfish were not her objective.

“I don’t think we can do any more good here. Why don’t we take her back with us? The medical officers speak better Shaohnese than we do,” Maomao said.

“That’s true,” agreed Yao, who was all out of ideas. “Come on, let’s go together,” she said and took the girl’s hand.

The child looked confused, so Maomao explained, <We’ll take you to people who can talk better than us.>

The girl shook her head again. She was obviously eager to communicate something, but with her unable to speak, it just wasn’t getting across. She could only scratch pictures in the dirt.

“Does that look like a steamed bun to you?” En’en said.

“Now that you mention it, it sort of does.”

It was hard to tell; the picture was just kind of a circle. Maomao and the others cocked their heads and peered at it. The girl cocked her head, too, as if she was saying, You still don’t understand?

“Maybe it’s a fruit,” Maomao said.

“Yeah, like an apple?” said Yao. It was true that the circle had what looked like a stem and leaf attached to it. The other items sort of looked like fruits and snacks if you thought of them that way.

“Wait...” En’en said. <Do you want a snack?>

The girl waved her arms vigorously. This appeared to be the right answer.

Maomao spread out the cloth bundles, showing the girl the various treats they’d purchased that afternoon. But the child shook her head at each one.

“I think we’ve got pretty much everything you can buy,” Maomao said. Baked treats, steamed treats, sweet things, savory things—it had been a long list. “About the only thing in town we haven’t gotten yet is from that last place on the list.”

She pointed at the shop and the girl began to bounce.

“Huh?” They couldn’t be sure they were on the right track, but they managed to communicate that they were going to go to a shop selling treats. The girl started bouncing even faster. “Does she want us to take her with us?” That seemed to be the message. There was something she wanted at that shop.

Maomao and the rest of the little troop crossed the bridge and headed for the place in question, a folk-house-style building with a sign outside. It was shut up tight, and looked dark and somehow sad. The little girl must not have known that this was the place; she couldn’t read the sign, after all.

“This place sells snacks?” asked a deeply skeptical Yao.

“Strictly speaking, it’s not a snack shop. It’s a pretty...interesting place,” Maomao said.

She opened the door with a clatter. They discovered there was another customer there, along with the pudgy shop owner. The customer seemed to be a woman—but a very tall one, with noticeably tanned skin. Maomao wasn’t good at guessing foreigners’ ages, but she took the woman to be at least in her midthirties.

Is she a foreigner? Maomao wondered.

“Jazgul!” the woman said.

Jazgul? Maomao didn’t know what the word meant. The little girl, however, went rushing over to the woman.

<My goodness! Wherever did you go?> the woman asked in Shaohnese. Jazgul, it appeared, was the girl’s name. It seemed much harder to pronounce than a name like Aylin, even though both were from the same language.

“So is that her guardian? Maybe her mother or something?” Maomao said.

“Seems like a safe guess... Even though they don’t look much alike,” En’en said. All three of them felt spent. Is this what all that stress had been for?

Jazgul was communicating something to the woman, pointing at Maomao and the others.

“Perhaps it is you who saw Jazgul safely here?” the woman asked them. She had an accent, but she was perfectly understandable.

“She was by the canal over there. She seemed to want snacks,” Yao said.

“Ah. So that’s what happened.” In short, Jazgul’s companion had been here, but they’d gotten separated, and the girl hadn’t known which shop was which. Ironic, that it was so close. “I must apologize. This child was adamant on going out there.”

While the woman chatted, the shopkeeper rifled through the shelves, looking for whatever she had ordered.

“Oh, I know this place,” En’en said when she saw the logo on some wrapping paper. The paper wasn’t very high quality, but it was good enough for its purpose.

“What’s the story?” Maomao said.

“Nothing, really. I just realized this place has dealings with the mansion.” Presumably meaning Yao’s home.

“Here we are. This’s all we’ve got in stock at the moment. That all right?” the shopkeeper said.

“Hngh?!” Yao exclaimed when she saw what he was holding: a bundle of frogs, stretched, dried, and packed together like a little bouquet. Maybe the girl had seen the kids catching crayfish and gotten excited, thinking they were after frogs. Hence her disappointment.

There are so many different kinds of frogs, though, Maomao thought. If these were being used for some fancy person’s snack, they wouldn’t be like a frog you could just pick up off the street. Frogs... The word teased at something in a corner of Maomao’s memory, a decent-sized thing that one might call a frog. She shook her head. It had been such a shock that it still came unbidden into her mind at times.

“Wh-What are those for?” Yao asked.

Probably a nice, cool summer snack, Maomao thought. The fat on the reproductive organs in certain female frogs that lived out in the countryside was gooey and delicious—as Yao should have known very well. I guess she’s better off being in the dark.

And there you had it.

“So outlanders really do eat snakes and frogs,” Yao whispered to En’en.

“Yes, so it would seem,” En’en replied, innocent as a dove.

As far as Maomao was concerned, though, there was a problem with what the “outlanders” were buying at that moment. “Um...” she started. The frogs were one thing, but they’d also bought up the store’s supply of pomegranates (candied with rock sugar) and dried figs. “Is it possible we could ask you to leave just a few figs for us?” That was one of the items on their list.

“Oh, I am sorry. How many do you need?” the woman said. Maomao named a quantity, and the woman gladly agreed.

“Figs are in season now. We can get ’em for you whenever you want. Pomegranates... Well, maybe it’s a little early yet,” the shopkeeper said.

“Thank you very much,” the woman said. Jazgul bowed her head politely as well.

Maomao squinted at the woman’s purchases. Kind of wish I could ask about them. She didn’t, though—both because it would be sticking her nose where it might not be welcome, and because she wasn’t sure they shared enough language to make the conversation possible.

The woman bundled up her items, then stood in front of Maomao and the others. “Please accept this small token,” she said, and held out white pieces of cloth, one for each of them. “For taking such care of Jazgul.”

Then the foreign customers left the shop. Maomao touched the fabric—and exclaimed, “Excuse me!”

Before she could pursue the woman, though, the shopkeeper said, “Your items are ready.” By the time they had collected their purchases and left the shop, the two foreigners were nowhere to be seen.

“What’s got you so worked up?” Yao asked.

“This cloth,” Maomao said, giving it a gentle flap. It looked plain and white, but the corners were worked with elaborate embroidery of grass and trees. “It’s cool to the touch. I would assume it’s silk.”

“Yes, it is. What about it?” Easy for the girl from the lap of luxury to say.

Maomao spread her hands and shook her head in a gesture of exasperation. “Lady Yao. A piece of silk is a very generous reward for something as simple as helping a lost child. At least to us ordinary people.”

“Y-Yes, of course! I knew that.”

All right, Yao was pretty cute. En’en was flashing Maomao a thumbs-up from where Yao couldn’t see.

So these outlanders could buy up a store’s stock and handed out silk like candy. We’re dealing with some rich folk here. Maomao sighed, thinking maybe she should have sucked up to them a little more.

At that moment, a bell rang signaling the hour.

“Th-The time!” all three of them exclaimed. It was long past when they were supposed to be back. They ended up running as fast as they could...again.