The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 7 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Harassment

Sazen looked intensely relieved when Maomao told him she’d found another apothecary.

“I’m so glad I won’t have to tend the shop all by myself again,” he said. Frankly, Maomao would have preferred to hear an indignant “I can handle this on my own!” But very well.

The days after the exam were an all too brief interlude of peace. She’d done what she’d been told to do, but the two solid weeks of being allowed nothing but studying had brought her only pain. She was very pleased to be able to get back to working in the field and making some medicine.

A few days later, a letter arrived—her acceptance, she presumed, and as it happened, she was right.

“It would be a wonder if anybody failed that test,” the madam had said when Maomao had told her about the contents of the exam. To get a perfect score was a real challenge, but a passing grade was only sixty percent. Even Maomao, who had relied mostly on cramming, figured she had gotten at least an eighty, and the women who had studied properly for the examination could hardly have done worse than her. Even when it came to the actual medical-knowledge portion, there were few specialized questions; most of the items would be easy enough to answer if you took your time and thought them through.

“Only a really smart person could think that. ’lo Grams, Maomao.” Pairin slid into the room, looking particularly slovenly. This princess of the Verdigris House, one of three, must have had a customer the night before, for her skin was glowing. The customer, for his part, had probably been sucked so dry of his essence that he’d gone home looking like a withered fruit. Some people claimed that it was mastery of fangzhongshu, the arts of the bedchamber, that left Pairin’s beauty undiminished despite the fact that, at well past thirty, she was the oldest courtesan at the establishment. “Just thinking about that stuff makes my head hurt. I tried to learn it, but it just won’t go in my brain!” she said.

Well, everyone had different strengths. By and large you could achieve most things, more or less, if you worked hard enough, but there were some things that effort alone couldn’t help with. Maomao’s “older sister,” Pairin, couldn’t write very well; when she tried, the characters often came out backwards, as if in a mirror. The old lady had made several attempts to improve Pairin’s handwriting, but the quirk remained, and she always had to have someone check her writing or simply write for her. However, almost as if to compensate, she was an unparalleled dancer; there was none better in the whole pleasure district.

“That’s great that you passed and all, but so what? Do you even own clothes you can go to work in?”

“I assume that’s their problem,” said Maomao, perfectly happy to let someone else do the work and not feeling the least bit obliged to make any special preparations herself. Even the day before the test, a messenger had arrived from Gaoshun bearing clothing and writing utensils. She got the impression the messenger had also been intended to accompany her to and from the testing center, but having a babysitter like that had sounded like a headache, so she’d ignored him. For better or for worse, it had left her free to end up having lunch with the cross-dressing Kokuyou.

The acceptance letter said that everyone who had passed the test was to assemble at court the day after next before each heading to their assigned departments. It was accompanied by a wooden token scorched with a symbol of a flower. Her ticket into the palace grounds, she figured.

Maomao hmmed and put the letter on top of the medicine cabinet, then set about grinding some herbs.

Come the day after next, Maomao went to the place indicated by the letter; it was near a building bustling with civil officials, and not far from the medical office. She judged that she saw about eighty percent of the test-takers among the acceptees, and knowing that eight out of ten applicants had passed the test made her doubly glad she hadn’t washed out. On the other hand, she also found herself with a little more sympathy for how exasperated Jinshi and Gaoshun had seemed when she’d failed the last time.

The ages of the assembled women ranged from fourteen or fifteen to about twenty years old. A handful were older than that, but Maomao couldn’t shake the sense that she detected a gleam in their eyes. (She preferred not to think too hard about the reason, namely that they were probably joining the palace service in hopes of finding a husband. It was a matter that came to feel ever more pressing as one got older.)

Actually, I think it’s ideal to be at least twenty before you become a mother. It was common for girls to get married at fourteen or fifteen and start having children, but the body wasn’t fully developed at that point. Some women hadn’t even had their first period by then. A few years after the “monthly visitor” had arrived and was coming reliably, then you could be sure the body was mature enough to bear children. Marrying too young was, in Maomao’s opinion, not a good idea.

The pelvis has to be firm, or it’s tough to deliver the child, she thought, her hand brushing her hip. She didn’t expect her own body to do much more growing, but if she ever somehow found herself pregnant, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little more meat on her bones. Birth was considered kissing cousins with death.

Maomao was keen to try giving birth at least once, but that wasn’t something you could just go around saying. People might think you were simply being crass if you claimed you wanted to give birth as an experiment. Besides, if they knew the other thing Maomao thought on the subject, they would probably get upset. Namely: I wouldn’t be able to get a decent placenta out of it.

When a child was born, the placenta was expelled. There were certain regions where the mother would then eat the discarded placenta as a way of strengthening herself. It was said to be quite tasty—like liver sashimi. Of course, animal liver might have parasites in it if you tried to eat it raw, but a placenta should be safe. It would have been part of her own body, after all.

Maomao’s father had always sternly warned her not to use any part of a human as an ingredient in her medicines, and likewise not to have any contact with dead bodies, lest terrible curiosity boil up within her. But her own placenta—what about that? It wasn’t a dead body, and it wouldn’t be like she was using someone else for her ingredients. It was a part of herself! What would be wrong with taking it back in? In short, it would be a way for Maomao to explore an aspect of medicine with which she’d heretofore been unacquainted, while still respecting her father’s rules. Of course she wanted to do it.

“Everyone, over here please,” an older court lady said. Her gaze was sharp. They’d all been given a standard uniform to wear, but some people had embellished theirs with special modifications. Among peacocks, males had the ostentatious plumage, but with humans the females of the species were the more lavishly attired.

Maomao had simply worn the uniform as it was given to her. She didn’t think she should be at all conspicuous, so why did she feel like people were stealing little glances at her? Am I wearing it wrong? she wondered. It was the same plain, sleeved dress everyone else was wearing. For her, the top was a light pink, the bottom red, but the colors varied by each person’s assigned department. There couldn’t have been five people wearing the same colors as Maomao. Assistant to the medical office was still a new post, so maybe there just weren’t very many of them yet.

If there was anything that really stood out, maybe it was the band in Maomao’s hair. She felt like hers was a slightly darker color than everyone else’s. Deciding there was no need to give it too much thought, she went over to where the older court lady had indicated and stood in line with some other women—when she bumped into something.

No, no; that wasn’t what had happened. Before she could even stick her hands out, she was on the ground. Perhaps she was lucky her nose didn’t stick out too far, for she went face first and ended up covered in dirt from forehead to chin.

She got back up, wiping her face with her palm, not saying a word. At least her nose wasn’t bleeding.

“Oh my goodness, I’m sorry!” said a woman with an elegant smile on her face. She was wearing the same colors as Maomao, as was everyone walking by with her.

“Are you all right?” the older court lady asked, hurrying over.

“It’s nothing,” Maomao said, her face impassive. But she thought, This brings back memories. She was in a workplace full of women again, and the inevitable consequences of that nearly brought a warm glow to her heart.

The first day of their employment was to be spent being indoctrinated with the principles of court service. Thus the new court ladies, who numbered fewer than a hundred, were escorted into a large hall where they were lectured by their more experienced counterparts. Maomao herself had once given a lecture in a similar hall in the rear palace, which was all well and good, but frankly, listening to other people talk made her sleepy.

There were more than enough chairs and desks for all the attendees, so the newly minted court ladies sat in clusters according to their assignments. Except no one sat near Maomao; the woman who had bumped into her earlier sat in a group somewhere in front of her.

Most women who became court ladies were the daughters of officials, or sometimes of prosperous merchant households, and it seemed that just as in the rear palace, squabbling amongst the ladies was not uncommon. In the rear palace, however, there had been a certain hunger in the air, a sense that the low could overcome the high. Not so here, where it seemed more important to figure out where best to position yourself in the existing hierarchy, a fact that was obvious from the way small cliques had already formed. You could tell who ruled each one just by the way they walked.

I guess having an important daddy makes you an important little girl. A no one from nowhere like Maomao would obviously be excluded from such a system, or at least made to understand her place. It gave their behavior earlier a certain logic. Nonetheless, Maomao thought it was childish.

After almost an hour’s lecture, the women were split off by department, Maomao heading to the medical office with the other ladies who had received that assignment. There were actually several medical offices around the palace grounds; for example, the one Maomao had often gone to while working for Jinshi was in the western quarter. That was where her old man, Luomen, was assigned. There was another office on the eastern side, which was where they seemed to be headed.

Maomao scowled: the western side of the palace grounds was home to many civil officials, while the east was the province of the soldiers. Her father had been assigned to the western office as an act of consideration, to allow him to avoid the soldiers as much as possible, although it hadn’t done him too much good in the long run.

And why had he wanted to avoid the soldiers? For the same reason Maomao did.

How did he find me already?

She’d been trying to follow the other women as quietly and inconspicuously as possible. Their group garnered glances from the brawny military men as they went by; Maomao excepted, the new court ladies were all young and lovely. Of course the men would want a quick look.

It was well and truly summer now, the sticky season. Just walking around was enough to make you start to smell of sweat. The men were working out with their shirts off, drawing interested gazes from the court ladies as they went by.

And somewhere in the middle of it all was a most unsettling shadow, following the group from behind. Maomao tried to ignore it, but she kept seeing it out of the corner of her eye. Maybe the person thought they were being sneaky, but they were terrible at it. Who was this strange figure? He had no facial hair, eyes like a fox, and a pointless monocle (maybe he thought it made him look fashionable). By now you ought to know who we’re talking about. One wouldn’t wish to say his name.

“Who’s that?” some of the ladies began to whisper.

He’s more important than you might think around here...

There were higher-ranking military officials out there, but most of them were to be found at desks in the central part of the palace complex. This man had the title to make him important, but seemed to have a lot of free time to waste hanging around.

When they realized the eccentric strategist was on the scene, the other soldiers stopped trying to steal glances at the passing ladies and became hilariously serious about their exercise. There was an ironclad rule among the soldiery: don’t get involved with him. He always meant trouble, and lots of it.

Obnoxious, Maomao thought. She wanted to hurry up and get out of there, but the older court lady went ever so slowly, and there was nothing she could do. Although the woman’s skirt hid her feet, Maomao suspected from the movement of her hips that they were bound. Can’t be easy to walk like that.

The new court ladies, five of them including Maomao, all walked with a spring in their step. With this many officials’ daughters in one place, Maomao might have expected at least one of them to have bound feet, but by coincidence, all their feet appeared to be good and healthy.

“That is the medical office,” the lady leading them said, pointing to a stern, sturdy building near the training grounds. It was certainly less pretty than the western office.

It was then that Maomao heard shouting from behind them. Everyone turned to see a man being borne on a stretcher. He was limp, and there were bruises all over his body.

“Make way! We’re taking this man to the medical office!” shouted some well-built soldiers, hustling the stretcher along in a way that suggested this was nothing new to them.

“Let’s follow them,” someone said, and Maomao and the others went after them.

They arrived at the medical office to find the soldiers looking worried. “What’s the matter?” Maomao asked.

“Well, normally there’d be a doctor here,” one of the men said. But there was no one inside, not even a note saying that the doctors were out or when they would be back.

The injured man had been laid on one of the cots, still limp. Maomao couldn’t help looking at him: along with his bruised skin, she saw he was still young enough that he had no beard, while his tanned skin showed that he trained hard outside every day.

“What caused him to collapse?” Maomao asked, looking into the young man’s face.

“Now just a second, you!” one of the other new medical assistants said, but the older court lady stopped her. She gave Maomao a look that said, Take care of him, if you know how.

“We were training, and he suddenly dropped. We didn’t hit him anywhere too bad...I think,” one of the soldiers said. He didn’t sound very happy about it—maybe because it was obvious to see that they had been working this man to the breaking point. Then again, maybe it was the freak, half-visible peering through the window, that was making him uncomfortable.

The injured man was sweating, and his body temperature was normal. The only thing Maomao noticed was that his pulse seemed somewhat slow. “I’m not so concerned about where you hit him,” she said. She took several washcloths from the office’s supply and put them in a water jug, then laid them over the young man’s body to cool him down.

“May I use supplies from the medicine cabinet?” Maomao asked. She was directing the question at the older court lady, but the response was strange. Instead of the woman answering immediately, the person outside the window raised his thumb. When she saw that, the woman replied, “Yes, you may.” So the freak was an eyesore, but he could be a useful eyesore.

Maomao put some water in a bowl, then added salt and sugar, just like she had when Jinshi had collapsed in the heat during the hunt. The young man here had succumbed to heat-induced dehydration. She gently lifted his head, wetting his lips with the water in the bowl. As he started to come to, she let him drink on his own.

The soldiers who had been working the young man looked relieved, although Maomao had half a mind to glare at them as hard as she could. As she was resoaking the lukewarm washcloths to continue to cool the young man, there came a sound of applause.

Several men in white overgarments, showing that they were doctors, appeared. One of them was elderly, the other two of middle age.

“You pass,” one of them said.

“Wh-Who passes? Passes what?” asked one of the newly minted court ladies.

“Passes what? Did you really think we would consider you qualified to be our assistant on the basis of a simple written exam? We just wanted to get a look at you all.”

In other words, they had been hidden somewhere, watching what Maomao and the others did. Not very nice of them.

“If you didn’t look like someone we could use, we could have cut you loose right here and now,” said the elderly physician. He was taking a drink from the water jug and looking at Maomao with what might have been regret.

This guy is going to be trouble. I can smell it. Maomao had to be careful her private assessment didn’t come out her mouth. Incidentally, the eccentric strategist was still peering in from outside, but for the moment, she figured she could safely ignore him.