by Natsu Hyuuga
“Yes, there’s been word that the barbarian tribe has been successfully subdued.”
“Has it? And what’s to come of it?” Gyokuyou’s eyes glowed with curiosity; this subject was more than enough to excite the interest of a bird trapped in the cage that was the rear palace. Though she was the Emperor’s favorite, Gyokuyou was also still young, not more than a couple or three years older than Maomao herself, as Maomao understood it.
“I’m not certain it’s appropriate to discuss in front of a lady such as yourself...”
“I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t endure both the beautiful and the terrible in this world,” Gyokuyou said boldly.
Jinshi glanced at Maomao, an appraising look that swiftly vanished. He insisted there was nothing interesting about the subject, but proceeded to speak of the world outside the birdcage.
⭘⬤⭘
Some days before, a band of warriors had been sent out, on information that a tribe was once again plotting ill. This country was largely a peaceful one, but issues such as this did sometimes mar its tranquility.
The warriors successfully drove back the barbarian scouts who had ventured into the territory, with hardly a casualty to speak of. The trouble started on the way home. The food in the encampment was compromised, and almost a dozen men came down with food poisoning. Many more were deeply demoralized. They had obtained the provisions at a nearby village just prior to coming into contact with the barbarians. The villages in this area were technically part of Maomao’s nation, but historically they were not without their ties to the barbarian tribes.
One of the soldiers, armed, arrested the village chieftain. Several villagers who attempted to resist were killed on the spot for conspiring with the barbarians. The rest of the villagers would learn their fate after it was determined what would happen to their chief.
⭘⬤⭘
When Jinshi had delivered this précis of events, he took a sip of tea.
That’s outrageous. Maomao wanted to grab her head in her hands. She wished she had never heard the story. There were so many things in the world one would be happier not knowing. The eunuch saw the furrow in her brow and turned his fine countenance on her.
Don’t look at me.
Ah, if only wishes made things so.
Jinshi’s lips formed a gentle arch as he took in Maomao’s expression. He almost seemed to be testing her with his smile. “Something on your mind?”
It was as good as an order to say something, so she had to find something to say.
Will it even matter? she asked herself. But one thing was for certain: if she said nothing, then at least one village would disappear off the map of the frontier.
“I offer you only my personal opinion,” Maomao said, and picked a branch out of a nearby vase in which some flowers had been arranged. This branch, which had no blossoms itself, was from a rhododendron. The same kind of branch upon which Maomao had left her message. She plucked off a leaf and put it in her mouth.
“Is it flavorful?” Consort Gyokuyou asked, but Maomao shook her head.
“No, ma’am. Touching it can induce nausea and difficulty breathing.”
“And yet you’ve just had it in your mouth,” Jinshi said with a probing look.
“You needn’t fret,” Maomao said to the eunuch, setting the branch on the table. “But you see, even here on the grounds of the rear palace, there are poisonous plants. The rhododendron’s poison is in the leaves, but others contain their toxins in the branches or roots. Some release poison if you so much as burn them up.” These hints, Maomao suspected, would be enough to lead the eunuchs and the clever Gyokuyou where she wanted them to go. Despite doubting it was necessary to continue, she did so: “When encamped, soldiers make their chopsticks and campfires from local materials, do they not?”
“Ah,” Jinshi said.
“But that—” Gyokuyou added.
It would mean the villagers had been punished unjustly.
Maomao watched as Jinshi rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
I don’t know how important this Jinshi is...
But she hoped that he might be able to help in some way, however minor. Hongniang came back with Princess Lingli, and Maomao left the room.
Chapter 8: Love Potion
There was the young man with his inhuman beauty and his perpetual, divine smile. Even the way he sat on the cloth-draped sofa in the sitting room was elegant.
What’s he want today? Maomao thought. Her cold detachment was not shared by the three ladies-in-waiting who blushed and bustled off to make tea for the guest. Maomao could hear them arguing in the next room over who would have the honor of preparing it. Finally, an exasperated Hongniang made the drink herself, sending the other three ladies back to their rooms. They went with their shoulders slumped, the very picture of dejection.
Maomao, the food taster, picked up the silver teacup and gave it a delicate sniff before taking a mouthful of tea. Jinshi had been watching her this entire time, and it made her fidgety. She squinted so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. Most young women would have been quite satisfied to have the attention of such a fine man, even if he was a eunuch. But not Maomao. She didn’t much share the interests of the common run of people, so even if she acknowledged intellectually that Jinshi was intensely beautiful, she still watched him at a remove.
“Someone gave me some treats. Would you be so kind as to taste them, too?”
Jinshi indicated a basket filled with baozi. Maomao took one of the buns and pulled it open, discovering a filling of minced meat and vegetables. She took a sniff; it had a faintly medicinal odor she recognized. It was the same as the stamina booster from the other day.
“An aphrodisiac,” she said.
“You can tell without tasting it?”
“It’s not harmful to speak of. Go ahead and take them home with you. Enjoy them.”
“I don’t think I could, knowing who they came from.”
“Indeed. I think you might have a visitor this evening.” Maomao made sure to sound downright nonchalant. Jinshi, who had clearly not expected this reaction, looked at a loss. He was just lucky she didn’t give him her staring-at-a-worm look. Giving her a bun to taste when he knew there was an aphrodisiac in it!
There remained the question of who had given him the baozi. Consort Gyokuyou laughed to overhear their conversation, her voice like the tinkling of a bell. Princess Lingli slept peacefully at her feet.
Maomao bowed and made to leave the room.
“Just a moment, if you please.”
“Do you need something further, sir?”
Jinshi and Gyokuyou shared a look, then nodded at each other. It seemed they had already discussed whatever was going on—and it involved Maomao.
“Perhaps you could make a love potion.”
For just an instant, Maomao’s eyes lit up with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. What’s that supposed to mean?
She couldn’t imagine what they wanted with such a thing, but the subject was one she would be more than happy to entertain. Forcing herself not to smile, she replied, “I need three things: tools, materials, and time.”
Could she make a love potion? Oh, yes. Yes, she could.
⭘⬤⭘
Jinshi wondered what was the matter. His eyebrows furrowed like drooping willow branches, and he crossed his arms. Jinshi was a person of such beauty that some said if he had only been born a woman, he could have had the country under his thumb; indeed, it was held that had he wished to, he could have convinced the very Emperor to affirm that gender meant nothing. But such “praise” brought him no pleasure.
Today as he went about the rear palace, he had once again found himself the object of something like catcalls, by one of the middle-ranked consorts and two of the lower-ranked ones, and even by two separate male officials in the palace, one military and one bureaucratic. The military official had even given him dim sum laced with a stamina tonic, so Jinshi decided to forgo his rounds tonight and retire to his rooms in the p
alace instead. He wasn’t slacking off; it was for his own protection.
He quickly noted some names on the scroll lying open on his desk—the names of the consorts who had called out to him today. Even if she had scant visits from the Emperor, it was awfully audacious of a woman to try to invite another man into her bedchamber. Jinshi’s list was not an official report, but he suspected they would be even less likely to receive an Imperial visit after this.
He wondered how many of the little birds trapped in this cage understood that his own beauty was a testing stone for the women of the rear palace. Women were chosen to be consorts based first and foremost on family background, but beauty and intelligence played their part, too. Compared to the first two qualities, intelligence was trickier to measure. They also needed an upbringing befitting a mother to the nation, and of course they must be of chaste outlook.
The Emperor, in a nasty little tweak, had made Jinshi the standard for selecting his consorts. It was in fact Jinshi who had recommended both Gyokuyou and Lihua. Gyokuyou was thoughtful and perceptive. Lihua was more emotional, but possessed unimpeachable manners. And both had unquestioned loyalty to His Majesty, without a shadow of untoward feelings.
Consort Lihua, though, now seemed to have no place in His Majesty’s adoration.
The Emperor might have been Jinshi’s master, but he was also, in Jinshi’s estimation, terrible. He set up concubines purely based on their usefulness to him and the country, got them pregnant, and then when the children showed no aptitudes, he would cut them loose.
In the future, Jinshi surmised, the Imperial affection would continue to incline ever more toward Gyokuyou. The death of the young prince had marked the Emperor’s final visit to Lihua, who now seemed as insubstantial as a ghost. Lihua was not the only consort for whom it seemed His Majesty no longer had any need. Those women would be quietly returned to their homes at an opportune moment, or else gifted as wives to various officials.
Jinshi pulled a particular paper out of his pile. It referred to a middle consort of the Upper Fourth rank, Fuyou by name. She had just been promised in marriage to the leader of the assault on the barbarian tribe in recognition of his military valor. Truth be told, they were less appreciative of the man’s energetic destruction of the enemy than of his restraining certain short-tempered elements among his own troops. That a certain small village had been blamed and punished for something it hadn’t done was not a fact that had been made public. Such was politics.
“Now then, I wonder if it will all go well.”
If everything went just as he had calculated in his head, there would be no problems. He might have to lean on the chilly apothecary to help him out with a few things, though. She had turned out to be even more useful than he’d expected.
She wasn’t the only one who showed no special desire for him, but she was the first to regard him as though she were looking at a worm. She seemed to think she hid the feeling well, but the disdain was clear on her face.
Jinshi smiled in spite of himself. That smile, like nectar from heaven, some said, contained just a hint of something mean in it. He wasn’t a masochist as such, but he found the girl’s reaction intriguing. He felt like a child with a brand-new toy.
“Yes, where will this all lead?”
Jinshi placed the papers under a weight and decided to go to sleep. He made sure to lock his door in case he should have any uninvited visitors during the night.
⭘⬤⭘
People spoke of “cure-alls,” but in fact there was no medicine that would cure all. Her father had always insisted as much, but Maomao had admittedly gone through a phase in which she had rejected his claim. She had wanted to create a medicine that could work on anyone, for any condition. That was what had led her to inflict those ugly wounds on herself, and had indeed resulted in the creation of some new medicines, but a true panacea remained nothing more than a dream.
As much as she hated to admit it, the story Jinshi brought her was enough to pique Maomao’s interest. Since arriving in the rear palace, she’d been unable to make much more than sweet amacha tea. To her surprise, a variety of medicinal herbs did grow on the grounds of the rear palace, but she lacked the implements necessary to make proper use of them, and trying to do anything with them would have attracted undesirable attention in her crowded quarters anyway, so she forced herself to leave the plants alone.
This was what she liked best about having her own room. Now she just needed excuses to go gather ingredients—laundry was a convenient one. She suspected Hongniang would soon see to it that Maomao was entrusted with all the washing.
Now she arrived at the room she had been told was the doctor’s, ostensibly to deliver clean laundry. She entered the room to discover the lamentable quack himself along with the eunuch who so frequently accompanied Jinshi. The doctor had a mustache that made him look like a loach fish, which he stroked as he gave Maomao an appraising glance. He seemed to be wondering what this petite young woman was doing on his turf.
I’ll thank you not to stare so hard at a young lady, Maomao thought.
The eunuch, by comparison, was as polite as if Maomao were his own master, ushering her gracefully into the room. When Maomao saw the space, surrounded by medicine cabinets on three sides, she was overcome by the biggest smile she’d smiled since coming to the rear palace. Her cheeks flushed, her eyes brimmed, and her lips went from a thin, implacable line to a gentle arch.
The eunuch looked at her in surprise, but what did she care? She gazed at the labels on the drawers, doing a sort of little dance when she spotted an especially unusual pharmaceutical. The joy was simply too much to keep inside.
“Is she under some sort of spell?” Maomao had been indulging this rapture for a good half an hour, unaware that Jinshi had appeared in the room. He watched her with a mixture of curiosity and sheer bewilderment.
Maomao went row by row, collecting any ingredients she might be able to use. Each one went into a separate baggie, the name written carefully on the package. In an era when most writing was still done on rolls of wood strips, such extensive use of paper was a luxury. The loach-mustached doctor came peeking into the room, wondering who or what was in there, but the eunuch closed the door on him. The eunuch’s name, Maomao learned, was Gaoshun. He had a steady countenance and a well-built body, and if he hadn’t been here in the rear palace, she would certainly have taken him for some sort of military official. He appeared to be Jinshi’s aide, and was often seen in his company.
Gaoshun politely fetched any medicines that were in drawers too high for Maomao to reach. His superior, meanwhile, did nothing. Maomao maintained a neutral expression but privately wished that if he wasn’t going to make himself useful, he would go away.
Maomao spotted a familiar name on one of the topmost drawers and craned her neck for a better look. Gaoshun passed the stuff to her, and she looked at it in wonder. Several small seeds rested in the palm of her hand. They were exactly what she needed, but there weren’t enough of them.
“I need more of these.”
“Then we shall simply get them,” the indolent eunuch said with an indulgent smile. As if it were so easy.
“They’re from all the way in the west, then farther west, then south.”
“Trade’s the thing. We’ll check the goods that come in, and I suspect we’ll find some.” Jinshi took one of the seeds between his fingers. It resembled the seed of an apricot, but had a unique aroma. “What is it called?”
“Cacao,” Maomao replied.
Chapter 9: Cacao
“At least I grasp its effectiveness now,” Jinshi said with an annoyed glance at Maomao.
“As do I,” Maomao said.
Jinshi looked almost overcome by the catastrophic scene in front of him. “Ugh,” he said, and there was no hint of his usual detached smile. There was only fatigue on his face. “How did this happen?”
To answer that question, we’ll have to go back in time a few hours.
The cacao they were s
ent was no longer in seed form, but had been powdered. All the other ingredients Maomao had requested had already arrived at the kitchen of the Jade Pavilion. Three of the ladies-in-waiting were busy trying to look on, but a word from Hongniang sent them scurrying back to their work.
Milk, butter, sugar, honey, distilled spirits and dried fruits, and some oils derived from aromatic herbs to give everything a pleasant odor. All nutritious—and expensive—ingredients, and all useful in a stamina concoction.
Maomao had tasted cacao only once. It had been in a hardened, sweetened form called chocolate, and she had received it from one of the prostitutes. It had been a piece hardly the size of the tip of her finger, but on eating it, she felt she had drunk an entire cup of some especially sharp liquor. It made her oddly giddy.
The chocolate was, the woman had explained, a gift from an especially nasty customer who had hoped to buy the affections of a girl who had been sold into prostitution, by offering her a rare treat. When the girl noticed Maomao’s altered state, however, she was deeply angry, and the madam of the brothel forbade the customer from coming back. It came to light later that a trading concern had started to sell the stuff as an aphrodisiac. Maomao had managed to obtain a handful of seeds since then, but she had never used them as medicine. No one in the red-light district came to the apothecary seeking something so extravagant for a simple medicament.
Even now, Maomao remembered the chocolate for the way it had been hardened with oil and fat. Her wide experience with an eclectic collection of medicines and poisons in all their various flavors and aromas naturally also gave her an excellent memory for ingredients.
