The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 8 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Jinshi’s Idea

Question: What do you do when you have too much work and it’s becoming a problem?

Answer: You get other people to do it.

Obvious. Simple. But difficult to implement. Nonetheless, Maamei had been industrious on Jinshi’s behalf, and when he got back from his trip, he found much less work piled up than he had feared. Maamei’s solution had been quite elegant: as Jinshi’s title was always supposed to be chiefly honorary, she’d simply sent all the various jobs, chores, and sundry tasks back to the departments that had foisted them on him in the first place.

Including the issue of the bugs.

“Let the Director of Waters or the Master of Agriculture deal with it” was her assessment. The former was in charge of flood control, while the latter oversaw both currency and cereals. Jinshi had tried passing the matter off to them before, but they’d each rebuffed him with a “It’s not our job. We’re busy people, sorry.”

He tried to explain as much to Maamei, but she was having none of it. “They said what? Just push right back! You outrank them, Master Jinshi, even if it is only honorary. What—you’re young, so you’re going to see what they think or something? Are you worried about hurting their feelings? Let them use one of those good old boys, the ones who wander in at noon, sip some tea, and go home again. If they say they’re busy, that they don’t have a free hand? I guarantee it’s only because their hands are too full grabbing the women in the pleasure district all night long. Go find them in their brothels and give the work to them right there. I guarantee the departments are full of those people.”

There was no besting Maamei in a verbal exchange. Basen and Baryou both looked like they wanted to interject, but they dared not contradict their sister.

Maamei was a highly capable woman, but she was just that—a woman. Thanks to her gender, no one was willing to give her any official jobs. But if Basen was a one on the getting-work-done scale, and Baryou was a five, Maamei ranked a solid three. People didn’t know what they were missing. She didn’t get as much done as Baryou, but when she was present to act as his assistant, she served as a force multiplier, making him two or three times more effective. If she’d been a man, she would almost certainly have been Jinshi’s aide. But given what an able talker she was, it was perhaps for the best that she was a woman.

“I also have a warning for you, Master Jinshi, considering that you’re getting tunnel vision,” she added.

“Y-Yes? What’s that?” He trembled a little in spite of himself.

“Ordinary people would consider a delivery of a mountain of dead bugs to be nothing short of harassment. Especially when that delivery goes to a young woman.”

That left Jinshi speechless. He could only slump his shoulders and slap himself on the forehead.

“Parcel out the work,” Maamei said. “Make use of anyone you can. And anyone you can’t, give them something indifferent to do, just to keep them out of the way.” With that, she chased Jinshi out of his office, with orders to use his influence—or his charms, if necessary—to get the papers off his desk.

She insisted that people would sing a different tune if he came in person, but he wasn’t thrilled about the idea. People were apt to impute a great deal of meaning to his appearing at their door. Back when he’d been a “eunuch” at the rear palace, he would have been more than happy to make use of Maamei’s strategy, but as the Imperial younger brother, he hesitated. Still, it was better than having no way to get anywhere, so he went.

“My charms, indeed,” he grumbled.

“I must apologize for my sister,” said Basen, who was accompanying him as his guard. (Jinshi wasn’t the only one who found he could hardly look Maamei in the eye.) Then, looking around, he added, “I must say, though, there’s some truth to what she says. Look at all the people who don’t even bother to do their work.”

Many of them hurried to hide something as Jinshi approached.

People leaned against railings reading the Go book. They played games of Go on their breaks, surrounded by other bureaucrats watching them. Some of them scurried to at least pretend they weren’t playing when they saw Jinshi, and others averted their eyes, but there were some who were so absorbed in their games that they didn’t even notice him. He found himself agreeing with Maamei: they needed to do their blasted work. He was starting to feel silly for having worked himself sleepless all this time. “I knew it was popular, but I think this might be getting out of hand,” he said.

“Master Jinshi, I’m not so sure about allowing this sort of thing here,” Basen said. He was looking at a notice board that was normally reserved for imperial edicts.

“Well, we did change the location,” Jinshi said. Basen was looking at the newly reprinted leaflet about the Go tournament. Jinshi’s personal involvement had been taken as an excellent opportunity to advertise the competition far and wide. “Tournament or no, though, these people all seem a bit...too eager about this game, don’t you think?” Jinshi said.

The answer to his question could be found right on the leaflet. “It appears there’s a price of ten silver pieces to challenge Grand Commandant Kan,” Basen said, puzzled. He let his fingers brush the words.

Jinshi had thought the entry fee of ten copper pieces was a reasonable and decent thing to do—but here was where the enterprising impulse came out. Jinshi was sure he could sense the presence of the eccentric strategist’s nephew somewhere behind the scenes. Lakan could never have orchestrated an event like this all by himself; it had to be largely Lahan’s doing.

“He’s got another book coming out too,” Basen observed. “A collection of Go problems, limited to five hundred copies. You think it’ll sell?”

“They clearly believe it will.”

How far did they plan to push this? Then again, Jinshi reflected, Lahan might have considered this the minimum necessary to make the whole project viable. A year ago, the “fox strategist” had bought out a courtesan’s contract at a price high enough to build a decent villa—and he still hadn’t paid for the wall of the rear palace that he’d damaged either.

“Ten silver pieces for a single game of Go, though. Doesn’t that seem a little expensive?” Basen asked. A commoner could live comfortably for a month on that sum. Jinshi, who had been learning to sharpen his money sense at Maomao’s and Gaoshun’s insistence, understood that it was not a small amount.

Nonetheless, he replied, “I dare say it’s something of a bargain.”

“A bargain, sir? I can’t imagine that.”

Basen was right—if the game were merely about learning at the Commandant’s hands. “What if you beat Grand Commandant Kan? You’d practically be making money,” Jinshi said. Basen caught his breath. What a way to gild your reputation! “This says the challenger takes the black stones, and the game will be played with no komi.”

In Go, the player with the black stones went first, giving them an advantage. To make things more fair, the white player was typically given a number of points, known as komi, to compensate.

“You know, I do feel like the Grand Commandant is relatively more respectful toward people who are good at Go,” Basen said.

“I suspect because if he were too dismissive of them, he’d soon run out of people to play with.” In any event, relatively was the operative term.

“If you were to beat him, Master Jinshi, maybe he’d stop coming to your office just to make a scene. Don’t you worry he’ll go back to his usual ‘workload’ once the tournament is over?”

Jinshi had induced Lakan to do some of his actual work in exchange for a place to hold the tournament, and Basen feared that when everything was done, Lakan might do something to retaliate. Yet against the strategist, Jinshi suspected that even the black stones wouldn’t help him much. That fox was a far better player than even your average professional.

Still... It might be worth a try.

“Ten silver pieces,” Jinshi mused. That wasn’t so expensive at all.

Jinshi still savored the simple feeling of being able to go home before sunset. He would have to make sure to thank Maamei.

“If you’ll excuse me, then, sir,” Basen said. He was going back to his own home. Someone else would take night guard duty. Basen had pushed to be allowed to stay at Jinshi’s residence and be on call, but to be quite frank, Jinshi thought it would be draining to be attended by Basen all day, every day, and politely declined.

Suiren greeted him as he reached his pavilion. “You’ll be wanting a meal,” she said with a smile.

“No, I’d prefer to bathe first,” Jinshi said, but then he stopped. Something in the air seemed different. His favorite incense was burning, but it smelled sweeter than normal. And the guards inside weren’t ones he recognized. “A visitor?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

There were only so many people who might drop in at Jinshi’s residence. Jinshi went to the living area, the guards in the hallway bowing as he passed by. There, he found exactly who he expected lounging and waiting for him.

“Are you not needed at the rear palace tonight, sire?” Jinshi asked as he bowed to the Emperor.

“These days, the overseer keeps trying to foist all these new consorts on me,” His Majesty replied. He had a drink (which he was sipping) in one hand, a book (which he was reading) in the other, and extraordinary facial hair. A Go board sat before him. So—another one on the bandwagon. “It’s all about which girls he thinks will meet my tastes.”

Meaning well-endowed ones, no doubt. But the leader of the entire country wasn’t choosing his bedfellows based purely on bust size. A particular consort might match his preferences, but she could still turn out to be politically disastrous—that seemed to be the gist of His Majesty’s complaint. But it wasn’t the only thing on his mind. There was his newly chosen Empress, Gyokuyou, as well. Her father Gyokuen was currently in the capital. It remained unclear whether he would go back to the west from whence he’d come, or if he would remain as a prominent citizen of this city, but the latter seemed more likely.

“Uneasy with your father-in-law around?” Jinshi asked. This was his residence; he could get away with being a touch flippant.

“Throughout history, the one who wears the crown has always had to be alert to the feelings of those around him.” The Emperor placed a stone on the board with a click, then gestured at the empty chair across from him, urging Jinshi to sit.

Jinshi sat down, smiling at His Majesty. The Go bowl beside him was full of white stones.

“Gyokuyou has it no easier than I do, though. If I have to watch out for my father-in-law, she’s got to think about her mother-in-law each and every day.” Gyokuyou had left the rear palace and was now situated near the Empress Dowager’s residence. For the new Empress, it was probably an even more tedious existence than life in the rear palace had been. “Speaking of which. When I went to visit her the other day, she asked a favor of me.”

“What’s that?”

“Considering the...vulnerability of her new position, she wants a food taster. She mentioned how pleased she would be if it were someone she already knew.”

Jinshi resisted the impulse to frown. “And what will you do about the girl?”

“Heavens. Which girl?”

Jinshi didn’t rise to the bait. The Emperor shook his book at Jinshi, patently enjoying himself. Jinshi was sure His Majesty was teasing him. Like Gyokuyou, he had a playful side.

The Emperor said, “I would have considered her, if she’d been of less distinguished stock.” He set down his book—which, needless to say, was the one by the freak strategist.

Lakan aligned himself with no faction within the court, yet neither did he form some group of his own. It was considered common sense in the palace that one left him alone unless absolutely necessary. He’d always been single and had even taken an adopted son, so no one had imagined he had a child of his own. Lakan, for his part, said that he hadn’t been trying to hide her; people had simply, and quite on their own, misunderstood his behavior.

Even before Maomao had entered the rear palace, Jinshi was given to understand, the madam of the brothel would meet Lakan with a bucket of cold water when he raced up exclaiming, “Daddy’s here!” Most people thought he went there to see a favored courtesan and was just an abrasive old fart who wasn’t allowed inside anymore.

On some level, it was sort of incredible. Only when he smashed through the walls of the rear palace, and later when he started dropping in on (and disrupting work at) the medical office on a regular basis, did people begin to consider: Oh, he has a daughter? Though Maomao resolutely refused to acknowledge it, what she chose to do in the palace could impact the very power structures of the court. Gyokuen was already letting the situation run away with him. If Lakan’s daughter became the Empress’s handmaiden, it would not make matters better.

“I’m going to give Gyokuen a clan name. His position will rise. I would hate to throw any more fuel on the fire.” Even as he claimed to be cowed by his father-in-law, the Emperor was planning ahead. These were not thoughts he would voice to anyone else; he could almost have been talking to himself.

Suiren brought Jinshi a drink in a vessel of clear glass. The bloodred liquid looked lovely in the translucent drinkware.

“This wine is quite acidic,” said the Emperor, who already had a glass beside him.

“It’s how I prefer my wine,” Jinshi replied.

“I’m not saying I don’t like it. But I’m told sweeter wines have been all the rage lately.”

At the words “sweeter wines,” an image of Maomao scowling drifted through Jinshi’s mind.

“Something the matter?” the Emperor asked.

“No, nothing.” Jinshi realized he was in serious danger of smiling and quickly quashed the expression.

The Emperor gave him a curious look, but simply swirled his glass. “The sudden passion for Go has a way of making us forget, but there are quite a few foreign goods making their way through the markets.”

“Yes, sir.” Jinshi was aware of that. A wide variety of imported products had arrived from the west along with the shrine maiden. It probably helped that they had temporarily relaxed taxes again.

“Do you know what the most popular of them is?”

“I’m afraid I don’t, sir.”

The Emperor grinned. He could never act so relaxed while performing his official duties, and he seemed to make up for it whenever he was alone with Jinshi. “Grape wine.”

“Grape wine?” Jinshi cocked his head. “You don’t mean the stuff from the western capital?” The area around Gyokuyou’s hometown was a rich land for grapes—in fact, the wine they were drinking at that moment came from the region.

“The wine from the western capital has that unique astringency. But this new stuff is sweeter. Quite good, I’ve heard.”

“Is it really of such high quality?” Jinshi took a sip of his drink. The wine from the western capital was bitter, yes, but that wasn’t a sign of low quality. He also knew that it should have been sweeter: the wine he’d had in the western capital itself had almost tasted like it had honey in it.

The subject of the wine brought something back to him, a memory. When had it been? Around the time Maomao had entered his personal service after leaving the rear palace. He swirled his drink. “Do you believe it’s really foreign-made?” he asked.

“I haven’t drunk it yet myself, but my advisors tell me it’s divine.”

“It might be best you not try it.” Jinshi glanced at Suiren, and when she came over to him, he whispered something to her. She was a very talented lady-in-waiting and understood what he wanted right away. She left the room and came back with a package.

“What’s this?” the Emperor asked, stroking his beard.

Jinshi showed him what was inside: a metal cup. “I received it as a gift. Sometime last year.” His thoughts took him back to the previous spring.

○●○

“I think perhaps you’d better not drink the wine, sir,” the taciturn young apothecary said as she cleaned up the servingware. Jinshi had just poured himself an after-dinner drink.

“Why’s that? I saw you check it for poison.” He swirled the liquid in the cup.

The apothecary had recently left the rear palace to return to the pleasure district—though Jinshi had subsequently hired her on as his lady-in-waiting and food tester, sealing the deal with the offer of an excellent salary.

“Yes, sir, I did. There was no poison in it, as far as I could tell. But if you want my opinion, I think it’s rather acidic.”

“That’s perfect, then.” Jinshi, in fact, liked wines that were somewhat sour or acidic over those that were simply sweet. Suiren must have prepared a drink in accordance with his preferences—and this wine had come all the way from the western capital.

“The problem is with your cup, sir.”

“My cup?” He looked at the metal vessel he was holding. “You think it might be poisoned?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

The apothecary plucked the drink from his hand. “If you’ll pardon me.” She dipped a chopstick in the wine and put just a drop of the stuff in her mouth. She spent a long moment tasting it, then she left the room. To spit out the wine and wash out her mouth, Jinshi assumed.

She returned shortly with the bottle of wine. “Now it’s poisonous,” she said.

“What do you mean, now it is?”

“It’s noticeably sweeter than it was when I sampled it,” she replied. “If you let it sit a little longer, it would probably get sweeter still.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that, but may I take a guess at what’s going on?”

“Please do,” the apothecary said with a nod. Her expression remained impassive.

“I assume the wine isn’t toxic by itself—but combine it with something else and it becomes so.”

The slightest of smiles came over the apothecary’s face. It seemed he was right. “Metal tends to dissolve when exposed to highly acidic things. I suspect this cup is made of lead—and when you mix lead into sour wine, it makes it sweeter, or so I’ve heard. They even say that in the west, lead is sometimes mixed into wine deliberately as a sweetener.” And people who drank it frequently got very sick. “Ultimately, I can only offer you my father’s opinion, but he felt strongly that the lead was likely to be behind the cases of poisoning.” Her father being the former medical officer of the rear palace and a gifted physician. He’d even studied in the west at one point.

Jinshi set down the lead cup without a word.

“I’m not certain you would develop acute poisoning symptoms by drinking from that cup once or twice, but if you used it consistently it could be dangerous.” The apothecary was hedging her bets; she didn’t like to speak out of speculation.

“If the poison were to have an effect, what kind of symptoms would I see?” Jinshi asked.

The apothecary thought for a second. “Do you remember the toxic whitening powder from the rear palace?”

“Of course. How could I forget?”

“I’ve heard tell that it contained a mixture of lead and vinegar.”

In other words, Jinshi would develop symptoms much like those who had been poisoned by the toxic powder. He nodded his understanding.

“You might wish to investigate the drinking habits of whoever taught you how to drink wine,” she said. If they used a lead cup themselves, then they had most likely given the same thing to Jinshi in good faith. Otherwise, however, there was the possibility of foul play.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone had made an attempt on Jinshi’s life. He would need to look into the person behind this cup, and what they had been thinking when they gave it to him.

“May I add something else, sir?”

“Yes?”

The apothecary regarded the wine still in the bottle. “You seem to think this wine is bitter on purpose, because the land made it so.” She gave the bottle a gentle shake. “But I think it’s begun to turn to vinegar because of the long journey to get here.”

He was quiet. She was saying that the wine he’d been drinking so fondly was actually stuff that had gone bad.

“I think with more careful consideration of transport methods, it’s possible the wine could get here without its character changing so drastically.” After all, the western capital was far away, and the journey was long and hot.

“Strange, then, that it tastes good to me,” Jinshi said, puzzled.

Maomao’s expression hardened. “Fatigue dulls the sense of taste, making you less sensitive to bitterness...”

Jinshi didn’t say anything.

“Also, I prefer drier alcohols, myself.”

Nothing like having your food taster make implicit demands. Unfortunately for her, Jinshi had always preferred sour flavors. Or at least, so he told himself.

“I think I’m going to stick to grape wine for a while,” he said.

“Very good, young master,” Suiren said obligingly, earning a scowl from the apothecary.

○●○

“Well! I hadn’t heard that story before,” the Emperor said, draining his cup. Some baked treats Suiren had prepared sat beside him. “So you’re saying the wine that’s been so popular recently is...”

“Technically ruined, or perhaps fake.”

This alcohol came from a foreign country—the journey would certainly be longer than that from the western capital. It would be hard to preserve the wine completely unchanged, and given that enough of it had been imported to flood the city markets, some of the bottles were almost certainly bad. It needed to be made sweet in order to sell—which implied that the wine making the rounds of the city was poisonous.

Alternatively, someone could have been making wine locally and passing it off as imported stuff, in which case they were committing fraud. Imports involved substantial taxes, and even with the customs burden light, there were still transport costs to consider—and scarcity value. Imported wine commanded much higher prices than that made in the western capital.

There was always a chance that a few decent, untainted bottles had made it all this way, but it wasn’t the most likely scenario.

“The same poison as the face powder,” His Majesty said thoughtfully, swishing his drink and stroking his beard. “Speaking of which, I understand that after banning the stuff in the rear palace, you went on to prohibit it from sale in the marketplaces, yes?”

“Yes, sir. It seemed the most appropriate course of action.”

“Supposing the former ingredients of that powder became the sweeteners for this wine?”

Jinshi caught his breath, his eyes going wide. How could he not have realized? It made so much sense. “I’ll launch a thorough investigation,” he said. He put down his cup and took a bite of one of the baked treats to calm himself. These treats were distinguished by their soft dough; inside, they contained dried fruit. They smelled faintly of alcohol. Each bite was comfortingly warm and sweet. Suiren must have known the Emperor was coming. She’d been his nursemaid as well as Jinshi’s, and she must have wanted to give him some special treats to enjoy.

“Suiren’s baking is always wonderful, no matter how often I eat it,” the Emperor said, clearly pleased. He was stuffing one of the treats into his face; no sooner was it in his mouth than he was washing it down with his (freshly filled) cup of wine. He brushed a hand through his beard to get the crumbs out, then picked up a black Go stone with his free hand. “I don’t think we’ve played Go since before you entered the rear palace,” he said, fondly returning the stone to its bowl.

The former emperor had passed away when Jinshi was thirteen, and Jinshi had become crown prince. That same year, he challenged the Emperor to a game of Go, and when he won, he earned the right to enter the rear palace as the “eunuch,” Jinshi. All so that he could abandon his position as crown prince.

“Ever since then, I’ve held that a man shouldn’t bet on a game of Go,” the Emperor said.

“I’m afraid you can’t take it back now.”

“I told you, if you wish to be Emperor, I’ll happily give you the title when the time comes.” He still hadn’t fulfilled his end of the bargain with Jinshi.

“I don’t wish it.” He hadn’t even wanted to be crown prince. But at the time, His Majesty had had no children, and the former emperor’s other offspring had perished long before. He’d been forced to make his own new substitute.

“I’ve never regretted losing a game so much as I did that day,” the Emperor said.

“Oh, I doubt that’s true.”

Empress Gyokuyou had a son, the Crown Prince, and she’d also given His Majesty a daughter whom he doted on. Consort Lihua had a son as well. What would be the point of restoring Jinshi to the princehood now? Even if there were some reason to do so, it would certainly cause sparks to fly.

The autumn garden party was approaching, when it was expected that Gyokuen would finally be introduced with his new name. If it hadn’t been for the trouble with the Shaohnese shrine maiden, the Emperor would have done it already. He couldn’t afford to anger his father-in-law any further—and Jinshi couldn’t afford to upset the grandfather of the next emperor.

He didn’t want to become the reason for a civil war; yet he also needed to avoid the sparks that were already flying. As it stood, Jinshi had so much to do, and not enough means by which to do it. He needed more power.

“Perhaps I might make one request of Your Majesty?”

“You’re not dreaming up another harebrained scheme, are you? I’m warning you, no more wagers.”

“It’s a small thing,” he replied, taking the bowl of black stones. Or trying to—the Emperor seemed to wish to play black as well, and wouldn’t let it go. “If I win, I’d like you to lend me your Go tutor, the Sage, for a little while.”

Giving Jinshi a questioning look, the Emperor let go of the bowl.