The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 9 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Message

At his villa, Jinshi received a letter. It was written not on wood strips nor on paper, but on parchment, rolled up and tied, and sealed with wax. Different lands had their different ways of sending letters; this was characteristic of the west.

Gaoshun bore out Jinshi’s suspicion: “It’s from the western capital,” he said.

“Yes, from Sir Gyoku-ou. I know perfectly well they have paper over there these days...”

Even in the west, where trees to make paper were scarce, it was still cheaper than parchment. Jinshi took another look at the seal, confirming it was the one he expected. It had become quite familiar to him recently—it looked very much like the one now burned into his flank.

He tugged at the tie, trying to break the seal, but it resisted him. The material looked delicate enough. It could be cut, surely. “You have scissors, Gaoshun?” Jinshi asked.

“Here, sir.”

Jinshi broke the seal—and sighed. If Basen were here, he would have immediately begun questioning Jinshi about what could inspire such a reaction, but Gaoshun knew better. He waited for Jinshi to speak.

“You want to read it?” Jinshi asked. Gaoshun glanced at the parchment but shook his head.

“What does it say, sir?”

“His daughter will enter the rear palace just about the time we’re leaving court—as planned. Awfully imperious letter for a man who’s simply confirming a schedule.” Did Gyoku-ou think Jinshi was still in charge of running the rear palace?

“Practically speaking, her admission to the rear palace will have to be postponed until you get back,” Gaoshun observed. Jinshi felt bad for the princess who would have come all this way, but she would have to stay in a separate villa somewhere and wait. Given Empress Gyokuyou’s objections, she couldn’t enter the rear palace.

There was an obvious compromise: make her the consort of the Imperial younger brother. The catch being that Jinshi, of course, had no intention of marrying her.

Jinshi, for his part, knew exactly how close the matter had come, and it made the hair on his neck stand on end. If he hadn’t branded that crest on his flank, even the Emperor would probably have ordered him to suck it up and marry the girl.

Jinshi didn’t say anything, but he tapped his temple. He went back over the matter in his mind—something still felt wrong. Empress Gyokuyou knew about Jinshi’s brand. The secret was a weapon in the Empress’s hand, but it was a double-edged sword. It must not become public knowledge that Jinshi bore the Empress’s own crest on his body. The Emperor and Empress had seen him do it and knew what it meant, but anyone else would assume it was proof of adultery. Adultery involving some very strange predilections, no less.

As potential marriage partners went, even the Empress’s own niece was too dangerous.

From Gyokuyou’s perspective, it would have seemed less detrimental simply to take the high road and accept the girl’s entry into the rear palace. So what if the Emperor visited her a few times? The Empress would never be so petty as to be jealous over such a thing, not now. Was there, then, something about the girl herself to which the Empress objected?

“Gaoshun... Is Empress Gyokuyou close to Sir Gyoku-ou and his daughter?”

“I should think Lady Suiren would be better placed to answer that question than I am, sir.”

Jinshi looked at the old lady-in-waiting. She said, “I doubt it. Master Gyoku-ou didn’t have this daughter when Empress Gyokuyou was still in the western capital. I suspect they’ve never even seen each other.”

Suiren placed some rice crackers in front of Jinshi. They weren’t his favorite; she was getting ready for Maomao, who would be here soon. The young woman wouldn’t eat anything while she was at the villa, but Jinshi knew she would be happy to be able to take some snacks home.

“This is as good as an order to go to the west, eh?” Jinshi said. Yes, the suggestion could only have been intended to chase him out. He’d known the Empress since she had been only a consort in the rear palace, and she had always been a shrewd woman. “I’d like to believe she has good intentions at heart,” Jinshi muttered to himself. Good intentions could of course be defined in many ways, but the point was that he hoped she had some sort of plan.

Simply as a matter of politics, however, he couldn’t trust her uncritically.

Jinshi skimmed the letter again. The seal was authentic, but it appeared to have been written by an amanuensis. The wording was forthright, impetuous—but really what it came down to was only that Gyoku-ou wanted to make sure everything was in order. It was somewhat baffling, this mismatch between form and content. Whatever; Jinshi would have to retain it in his files. He passed it to Gaoshun to put in his letter box.

He was just about to throw the severed tie away when he stopped. The string, he noticed, was made of twisted paper. That was why it had felt so delicate. He was surprised: a paper tie seemed like a strange thing to use to tie a parchment roll.

He began to inspect the paper string, gently working it loose. It turned out to be a letter on a single sheet of paper. When unfurled, it revealed a lengthy series of numbers.

“Moon Prince,” Gaoshun said. He no longer used the name Jinshi, and never would again.

“It seems there’s something going on in the western capital that I need to investigate,” Jinshi said. He didn’t know what the numbers meant, but something was obviously fishy. To reiterate, the seal was authentic; at the very least, the letter itself was real. As for the tie, had it covertly been changed? Or had someone other than Gyoku-ou sealed the letter? It was, of course, theoretically possible that Gyoku-ou himself had done this, but Jinshi doubted it very much. “But why?” he wondered aloud. “Is this some sort of coded message to me?”

Gaoshun said, “It seems awfully roundabout for that, but perhaps if the sender had no other options...” He stopped short of saying anything definitive.

It had been a gamble. Jinshi might find the message, and he might not. If he didn’t, what then? Another message, perhaps. Several more, perhaps, until Jinshi finally noticed.

“I have no idea what these numbers are supposed to mean. I think we had better call in an expert,” Jinshi said. Luckily, he knew just the person.

Gaoshun furrowed his brow. It was a familiar gesture, but the furrows seemed deeper than usual.

“You look like you have some idea what’s going on,” Jinshi said.

“No, sir,” Gaoshun replied. “However, I recall something like this happening before.”

“When was that?” Jinshi asked, looking at the parchment.

“Seventeen years ago. A secret message precipitated the extinction of the Yi clan.”

The Yi clan. They had ruled the western capital before Gyokuen had come to power. Indeed, the area had formerly been known as I-sei Province, or the “Yi Western Province,” after them. But they no longer existed, since the empress regnant had had them destroyed. Supposedly they had been plotting rebellion. Jinshi had been just four years old at the time and had no memory of the events.

“Wiping out the Yi clan was one of the empress regnant’s most notable acts, along with her work on the rear palace,” Jinshi said.

The empress regnant: that is to say, the former empress dowager. She was never able to occupy the throne herself, but had conducted politics on behalf of the former emperor in a capacity much like a prime minister.

“Her Majesty the former empress dowager managed to involve herself in politics despite being a woman, and she was anything but a fool,” Gaoshun said.

“I’m aware. I know who the fool was in those days.”

The former emperor—Jinshi’s father—had had no interest in politics. As far back as Jinshi could remember, the man had been weak with illness; the closest he came to being involved in government was when he would totter about the palace from time to time. In his last years, he hardly ever left his room, but stayed shut up with his paintings.

The empress regnant had made some forceful moves, but almost all of them had been for the people’s benefit. She raised up those who were capable—but at the same time, she earned the antipathy and even hatred of high officials who prized bloodline above merit.

Even the empress regnant’s most seemingly inscrutable moves had turned out to have a logic behind them. So it had been for the expansion of the rear palace—perhaps it was so for the destruction of the Yi clan as well.

The story was simple: the Yi clan had plotted rebellion, and had been punished with extermination. Yet exactly what manner of rebellion they had been plotting had not been handed down—and more troublingly, this was the first Jinshi had heard of any secret messages.

So he asked: “What kind of rebellion was the Yi clan planning?”

The Yi were not the last clan to be destroyed; the fate of the Shi clan was fresher in his mind. Jinshi brushed the scar on his right cheek as he relived the memory.

“If that were known, I’m sure you would have been told, Moon Prince,” Gaoshun replied. A euphemistic way of saying that the Yi clan had been annihilated before it was known what they were scheming.

“And you approved of this?” Jinshi asked.

“No,” Gaoshun replied with unexpected honesty. Jinshi realized his question had been unfair. Gaoshun would already have been Jinshi’s minder by that time; he would have had no hand in politics. “The empress dowager was only human. That would have been around the time that the former emperor lost his mind.”

That was the only former emperor Jinshi remembered, haunted and incoherent.

“I’m sure you’d like to learn more, but Xiaomao will be here soon.”

“Are you still calling her that?” Jinshi narrowed his eyes.

“If I stopped now, I’m sure she would have questions.”

He was right, of course, but it still stung.

“Why not call Maamei Xiaomei, then? To match.” Maamei was Gaoshun’s daughter, and Jinshi was well aware of how forceful she could be with her father.

Gaoshun looked tired. “I used to. But I’ve been forbidden from doing so—so my apologies, sir, but I cannot.”

“Forbidden? What, did you slip up and call her that in public?”

“No... I developed the unfortunate habit of calling the other one Damei.”

“Damei...” In other words, “Big Mei” as opposed to “Little Mei.” Gaoshun’s daughter was Maamei, and his wife was named Taomei. It might not ordinarily have been such a big deal, but Gaoshun’s wife could be as fearsome as his daughter.

“Remind me, how far apart are you?”

“Six years,” Gaoshun said, crooking his fingers for emphasis. A marriage in which the man was six years older than the woman would hardly have seemed unusual, but the other way around, that wasn’t common. Even if Gaoshun hadn’t meant anything by it, it was easy to imagine how it might have gotten awkward.

“Hm, I see. Yes, I believe we should leave Maamei’s name alone.”

“Of course, sir. Thank you.” Gaoshun bowed deeply.

Jinshi put the letter in a locked drawer. They heard a bell ring in the hall, the signal that there was a visitor.

“The cat has come,” said Jinshi. Maomao was still checking on his injury every few days. Since she was coming straight from the medical office, he expected to get an earful about whatever problems she’d had at work that day.

The letter still bothered Jinshi, but he would deal with it later. For now, he let his face relax into a smile and waited as Maomao’s footsteps approached.