The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 9 - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Anan’s Banquet

Even when you spoke the same language, cultural differences could still be massive. Ananese banquets turned out to look very different from Linese ones.

Being situated to the south of Li, it was quite warm in Anan—hot, in fact. The sound of drums and flutes filled the air, a lighter and more cheerful noise than the music of Li. Carpets were laid out outdoors, and people sat on them—there were no chairs, but instead shiny cushions were supplied on which to sit. The food, likewise, was served not on a table, but atop a carpet, and instead of each person being served individually, everyone ate from large communal plates. The alcohol came in uniquely shaped jars, and was distinctive for its bright color.

The food was prepared by women, all of them scantily clad. They wore skirts that were hardly more than gaudily colored cloth wrapped around their waists, while their tops were short-sleeved. The sinuous alcohol jars almost seemed designed to complement the women’s shapely bodies.

There was a lot of black hair around, but not much of it was straight. Skin tones ranged from ivory to honey colored, and many of the people had rugged faces. Maomao recalled that Fuyou, the former middle consort, had had facial features very much like those of someone from Li. Perhaps she’d been sent to the rear palace exactly for that reason.

The soldiers who had been summoned to attend the banquet couldn’t stop ogling the alluring dancers and servers.

“They just walk different, don’t they!” Chue said to Maomao, swinging her hips demonstratively. No one saw her—the food tasters worked behind a curtain. “I think I’ll buy one of those outfits tomorrow and give my husband a little temptation.”

“Does he like that sort of thing?” Maomao asked, picturing Baryou, who looked like a pale, scrawny version of Basen. She had to admit, she couldn’t help but wonder what their married life was like.

“Not at all,” Chue said bluntly. She just wanted to wear it, it seemed.

Events like this in Anan were evidently less highly formal dinner than friendly banquet; still, the people important enough to need food tasters sat on a raised dais with a lovely low table and footed trays. Maomao’s job was to take food off a tray one piece at a time and taste it to make sure there it wasn’t poisoned. The curtain seemed intended to conceal the fact that she was doing this, but it also conveniently concealed that the food tasters were chatting together.

“There’s a lot of undistinguished faces in the royal family here,” Chue remarked impertinently. “I guess it’s only natural. All those political marriages were bound to introduce a lot of foreign blood.”

That answered Maomao’s question—Fuyou looked relatively Linese, it seemed, because she had a fair amount of Li heritage. Such matches were a common way for two countries to forge a stronger bond, by making themselves family. Alternatively, a ruling country might seek to thin out the bloodline of a vassal state with such a tactic.

Everything looks peaceful here, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe Anan doesn’t like Li very much.

She couldn’t stop the thought. After all, the people of Anan knew that the very name Li had given their country was meant to mock them.

Maomao peeked out from a gap in the curtain at the person who seemed overwhelmingly the most likely target of any such resentment. Jinshi sat holding a cup of alcohol and smiling. From behind, she could only see his face in profile, but the scar in his right cheek looked redder and more prominent than usual, maybe because of the heat.

Jinshi had his diplomatic smile on. He had been poured a hefty serving of alcohol, but there was scant sign that he had drunk any of it. Maomao could see servers at the edge of her vision, hovering and keeping a sharp eye for any empty cups.

It wouldn’t be easy to get close to him, huh?

They kept stealing glances at Jinshi, but he seemed to have an assigned server, and not just anyone could wander up to bring him something.

“Here you are,” said a mild voice—it was Gaoshun, passing some food through the gap in the curtain. It would eventually make its way to Jinshi, but only after Maomao had taken a taste.

This dish was glistening pork spareribs. Carefully, Maomao ran a silver chopstick along the surface. She checked that it didn’t cloud over, then began taking out the bone and dividing the meat into several slices of roughly equal size that she then put on a small plate.

She sampled the food. It was a bit sweet, maybe stewed in fruit. It had the crisp, cool taste of tangerine.

Very good, she thought. She swallowed her sample and resisted the urge to take another bite. She was on the job now: it wouldn’t look good to eat any more.

“Very good!” pronounced Chue, who was munching away. She was well beyond the point of tasting for poison.

“Miss Chue, what about your job?” Maomao asked.

“I checked, and there’s nothing wrong with it! It’s quite delicious.” She put a hand to her cheek, but it was obvious that she was just eating at this point.

If only Hongniang or Sazen or Lahan’s brother were here now, Maomao thought, thinking of the three best quippers she knew. It was too much work to come up with sarcastic responses for everything Chue did all by herself. She would have appreciated some help.

Maomao passed the tasted plate on, indicating it had met with her approval. It was Gaoshun who actually took the plate and gave it to Jinshi.

By contrast, it was the freak strategist’s aide who had to take Chue’s plate, with next to nothing left on it, and give it to his superior. It was the same man who had been with the strategist when he’d poisoned himself with his own juice.

For a long, silent moment, the aide looked at the plate. Then he looked pleadingly at Chue.

“Go right ahead,” she said. “There’s no poison!” Some fat still glistened around her mouth.

The man was left with no choice but to take the beleaguered dish to the strategist. When the next course arrived, it was more spareribs.

“A girl would like a little variety!” Chue said with a sigh, polishing up a new pair of silver chopsticks.

Something different came to Maomao—three things at once, in fact. “Seems like a lot,” she said to Gaoshun, who had brought the plate. She hadn’t quite meant to let the thought out of her mouth, but it managed anyway.

Gaoshun’s brow furrowed. “It’s from the honored guest over there,” he said, sounding like he wasn’t quite speaking of his own free will. From the other side of the curtain, the freak strategist waved.

“Help yourself, Miss Chue,” Maomao said.

“Well! Don’t mind if I do.” Chue dug in—er, started tasting it for poison—without a second invitation.

The freak strategist might be let down, but Maomao’s job was to taste food to see if there was poison in it, not to eat other things until she got full.

This might be a fancy dinner, but Jinshi was really here to conduct diplomacy. He had on his smoothest smile and was talking and laughing. He ate only a modest excuse for a meal, so Maomao didn’t have that much to do.

If Jinshi had been a woman, his looks might have brought a country to its knees—and when it came to diplomacy, they were a weapon he could wield to his advantage.

If nothing else, he knows how to handle people. Even if the shine did come off pretty quickly when you got into his inner circle.

The other VIP was doing substantially less work. The freak strategist picked at Chue’s leftovers, swigging down not alcohol, but juice. Someone appeared to be trying to talk to him, but he didn’t look interested. He kept taking little glances back to try to catch a glimpse of Maomao.

“Maybe it’s not my place, but don’t you think you could try to be a little nicer to him?” Chue asked around a mouthful of chicken.

“Do you know what will happen if I give him an inch?” Maomao veritably spat.

Chue tilted her head back and closed her eyes as if she was trying to imagine. “Something very interesting, I suspect.” She sounded like she enjoyed the prospect—well, she wouldn’t be the one in the middle of it.

I wish this dinner would hurry up and end. Maomao sighed and picked up the next bit of food.

For all its trials and tribulations, the dinner did eventually conclude.

I’m pretty sure there was nothing funny in any of that, Maomao thought. As the food taster, it was also part of her job to keep an eye on the state of her health after the meal. A slow-acting toxin could take anywhere from several hours to several days to show up. She still had room in her stomach, but she wanted to wait and see how she felt for a while before she had anything else to eat.

“Phew! I couldn’t eat another bite!” Chue said, rubbing her bulging belly. To the bitter end, she’d more enjoyed than sampled the strategist’s food.

Now all they had to do was go back to their rooms for the night. They had permission to go shopping the next day, and Maomao was actually sort of looking forward to it.

So the evening of the banquet ended without incident. Yes, that night was quiet...