She whirled about and perused the assembled plants, seeds, herbs, and powders. Finally she settled on a gnarled yellowish-brown root. It looked like a deformed carrot with pigmentation issues. She picked it up and sniffed it.
“Angelica root,” said Arsenic. “Different from the Nordic kind but still smelling like celery. Perhaps this is a local variant?” She seemed to be asking herself, so Percy did not translate.
She made a gesture at the apothecary, directing the root to her mouth. He nodded. She smiled. “Tell him it is used to stimulate appetite and improve digestion, for stomach complaints and colic in babies.”
Percy was finding his mastery of Japanese insufficient to meet this conversation, but he did his best, and the wizened shopkeep inclined his head in approval.
Arsenic picked up a seedpod, and made a gesture with it towards her ear.
The shopkeep tilted his head again.
Arsenic dipped her chin and smiled at him.
He said to Percy, “Your wife, she is not so ill trained, only a stranger to some of our plants.”
Percy could not help but admire both Arsenic’s knowledge and her charm.
“I have medicine she does not recognize,” the man continued.
“No doubt she has the same,” said Percy with confidence, pointing to Arsenic’s kit.
The man’s eyes became calculating.
Percy looked around nervously. They were under close observation from the handmaidens and anyone else walking by. Three Edo natives had stopped to watch the English doctor and the Japanese apothecary. There were likely other eyeballs on them as well. There were buildings all around them with vellum windows, slid aside to peek through.
Percy felt exposed. “Arsenic, I believe it would be best… That is to say, wife, we should perhaps move on to your patient?”
“Dear me, of course! I was distracted. Perhaps we could stop by again on our return?” Her eyes were intrigued and hopeful. Percy wanted to buy her every herb in the shop.
Instead he made such intentions known to the proprietor and bowed.
The apothecary bowed back and murmured an eagerness to renew the acquaintance.
Percy led Arsenic away and gestured for the handmaidens to proceed. “Please excuse our distraction.”
One of them gave him a grave look. “Your wife has a passion for healing, such should never be stifled.”
Percy murmured politely, “But your lady awaits.”
“Our lady does nothing but wait.”
They continued down the slatted street.
As they got deeper into the city, the walkway became less firm and supportive, and more like a suspension bridge. The handmaidens appeared to not notice the difference, their steps small and light. But the street swayed as Arsenic and Percy walked on it. Percy caught his breath. He did not mind heights. He was, after all, the navigator of a dirigible, but there was something about swaying and heights that did him in.
Arsenic firmed up her arm in support and smiled shyly up at him.
He was grateful when they diverted onto one of the solid arched bridge-ways again. This one was so steep that it formed the top half of a circle and required tiny steps for them to climb up. A big golden lantern was above them now, the house hanging from it, directly in front of them. It was impressive in an airy way. Its walls were made of paper or fabric, opaque and colourful, but flimsy.
He wondered about crime in the Paper City.
The handmaidens approached the door and at some unseen signal it slid smoothly to one side. A servant knelt near the opening. The handmaidens moved swiftly in and past her. Percy and Arsenic followed.
They all paused while the servant slid the door closed behind them and the handmaidens removed their sandals. They waited expectantly.
Arsenic and Percy exchanged looks. With a shrug, Percy toed off his shoes. Virgil would have his ear for the smudges this left on the heels but there didn’t seem to be a shoehorn about.
Arsenic looked desperate. “I’m wearing bicycle boots. They lace all the way up. I need to sit to take them off and there’s no chairs. What do I do?”
Percy figured he’d better do valet duties and dropped to one knee before her. He looked up at her expectantly.
Of all things, the doctor blushed. “What are you doing?”
He patted his knee. “Give it here.”
“Oh dear.” She raised one dainty foot to his thigh. A slim hand pressed on his shoulder for balance.
Percy unlaced her boots carefully. They were the tall kind, going most of the way up her calf, and he, who had never cared for gentlemen’s shoes, let alone ladies’, found them quite fascinating in their meticulous construction. Or perhaps it was simply that the leg beneath was shapely and silken. His stomach went slightly queasy.
He pulled one boot off and set it aside.
“This is so embarrassing, as if I were a child.” Arsenic gave him her other foot.
“I know you’re not a child,” he replied, gravel in his voice.
He made quick work of the other boot, knowing he was red about the ears.
The three handmaidens watched this exchange with interest, but no censure.
“You are a good husband,” observed one.
Percy stood and bowed in reply and tried hard not to think about the delicacy of the ankle so recently in his hands.
At first, Arsenic was tempted to believe this was a household of women, but there were two large men stationed at the entrance to her patient’s room. Guards. Whoever she was, the ill woman was important.
The door slid aside to reveal a room of consummate style and essential barrenness. There was no furniture beyond a low bed in one corner, sumptuous and beautiful, and walls made up of the most stunning tapestries Arsenic had ever seen. The landscapes they depicted were flowing and entirely alien. There were sharp red mountains, high white clouds, and trees made of flowers weeping into the wind and becoming butterflies. The Paper City was depicted too, seen from below and far away, a cluster of colourful bubbles. Arsenic moved to look closer and realized that they were not tapestry at all, but shimmery painted and embroidered silk. Silver was threaded throughout, wefted into the fabric, and embroidered around the images as if forming a window frame. She wondered if it were a special kind of thread, or actually metal. From the way they hung, heavy and still, she suspected true silver. She wanted to linger, they were so stunning, but her patient waited.
The lady was almost as beautiful as the walls surrounding her. She was tiny as a child, frail under a mound of blankets. Her face was not a painted white like her handmaidens’, but her black hair was equally elaborate, woven through with coloured ribbons. Her eyes were wide and black, sparkling with humour.
She was awake and alert, her gaze focused and interested, clearly neither her mind nor her vision were afflicted. Arsenic approached, turning at the last to ask a question of her escort, only to find that the door had been slid shut behind her. The handmaidens hadn’t followed. They stayed with Percy and the guards.
Arsenic thought she was alone with her patient and was startled by such trust. But then from behind her, in the corner, a man stepped forward. He was fierce looking, tall as Percy but a great deal bulkier, and wore a long vest made of blue and purple lacquered scales, as if he were a fish. His expression was stern, but if Arsenic had to guess from the shifting of his eyes, she would say that he was more frightened. He carried in his hand a long curved metal sword, naked and gleaming. Its hilt was elaborately bound in gold and ended in a gold tassel.
“I do apologize,” said Arsenic, “but I dinna speak your language. If you’re na fluent in English, French, or Latin, then we’ll need someone to interpret.”
“I speak your mother tongue,” said her tiny patient from the low bed. “I make it a practice to study the newer languages.”
Arsenic nodded and stepped towards her.
The man moved quickly to intercept. The room shook about him as he walked, for he had a heavy tread.
The lady
spoke to him in lyrical flowing sentences that did not sound at all familiar.
“’Tis na Japanese?”
“No.” The patient offered no further explanation.
“Does he speak English?” Arsenic was concerned as to the privacy of her examination.
The woman didn’t answer and Arsenic interpreted that as an urge for caution.
Lacking any tables or chairs, Arsenic set her kit down on the corner of the bed. There was more than enough room, the tiny woman took up so little. Arsenic clicked it to telescope open. Both the lady in the bed and the man in the scales gasped, impressed by the fluid beauty of the technology.
“I’ll need to ask a number of questions,” said Arsenic.
“Ask away, young one. I am at your disposal. I am going nowhere.”
Arsenic took hold of one thin wrist to check for a pulse – it was slow, thready, and weak. The man shifted uncomfortably as if he did not like them touching. Arsenic gave him a side-eyed look.
“Do not mind my Lord Ryuunosuke. He worries, always, for my safety. I am important to him. You might say… necessary.”
There was something in her tone that made Arsenic look around, and wonder if the sumptuousness of the room did not belie its purpose.
“You’re his wife?”
The woman’s lips twitched infinitesimally, which Arsenic suspected was her version of a wide grin. “No. I am geisha. I do not marry.”
“Geisha?”
“An entertainer of wealthy men.”
“Oh, I see,” Arsenic said, although she wasn’t entirely sure she did. The woman acted like royalty, not like an actress or a courtesan. Although some opera singers Arsenic had met could out-snob the queen. “You sing?”
“Among other things. I have never met a woman doctor before. Are you unable to bear children?”
“That is an interesting assumption. Why would one presuppose the other?”
While they spoke, Arsenic checked the clarity of her patient’s eyes, the pinkness of her tongue, the cleanliness of her ear canals. Nothing was amiss. If anything, the woman was too healthy. Almost ageless. Except for the state of her pulse. Also her breath was slow and shallow, her skin nearly transparent.
“What’s your name, madam?”
“You may call me Lady Sakura.”
“Fair enough. You may call me Dr Ruthven.” If they were going to be formal about it.
The graceful head inclined towards her.
Arsenic began asking questions, delving into the nature of any discomfort. Any tenderness, difficulty with food or waste? Any digestive or respiratory complaints? Any mysterious bumps or rashes?
All such enquiries received negative answers.
“I feel as if I am fading. Stretched. We all do.”
Arsenic started. “All? Who all?”
“Well, there is me up here, and then all the rest of us down below.”
“’Tis spreading, this lethargy? ’Tis catching?”
“Only to my cousins. Not to you.”
“To me?” Suddenly, and for some reason, Arsenic thought of Tasherit, crumbling under the unseen weight of the Paper City. Then she thought of the tapestry walls around them, threaded with silver.
“Your cousins? This is a familial complaint?”
“We are not related by blood but by state of being.” The geisha looked from under her lashes at the man nearby.
“Are they being helped?”
“No, hindered. I am hoping, if you save me, that I may convey to them the cure.”
More than one life, apparently, hung on Arsenic’s ability to treat this lady’s ailment.
Arsenic was getting frustrated. How could she cure anything without all the necessary information? Was this woman even human?
“Say ahhh.” Arsenic checked Lady Sakura’s soft palate, her gag reflex, and her teeth. Those teeth were small and sharp, but not fanged. So if she was anything inhuman, it was meat eating, not bloodsucking.
The beautiful room began to feel sinister. Silver in the walls. Arsenic was grateful to know Percy stood just the other side of the tapestry and that the silver could not harm either of them.
“I need to take you back to my ship, for a proper examination.”
“They will not let me go.”
“They may surround you with guards, if they wish. How could you possibly escape, anyway? Quite apart from your weakened state, you are leagues up in the air. Where would you go? Can you fly?”
“Perhaps I am tired enough of this condition to walk to the edge and jump?”
At that statement Arsenic wondered if this were a mental complaint, like hysteria. “Are you so inclined?”
“I am not suicidal, if that is what you are asking.”
“What do you think is wrong with you?” It was a question so few doctors remembered to ask their patients. To give them agency in their own illness.
“If I knew, I would not be so upset. If there were not others of us afflicted, I would not be so eager to see a strange Western doctor who smells of foreign flowers.”
“I smell, do I?” Surrounded by silver, obsessed with scent. Before meeting the werecat and reading about her kind, Arsenic would not have thought it possible. But if there was one that could travel by dirigible, might not others float in a Paper City? If there was one shifter species where bite survivors were mostly female, then there might be others. Simply because one grew up surrounded by werewolves, and knowing that they were predominantly large men, did not mean it translated to a place like Japan. Perhaps here shifters came pint-sized and female.
“Are your cousins all women?”
“Mostly.”
“Are your handmaidens also your cousins?”
“I am the only one of my blood kept in the City of Paper.”
Arsenic bent, in the guise of pressing her ear to the woman’s silk-covered chest. “Are you a hostage?”
The lovely head inclined a fraction.
Arsenic stood and turned to face the man in the scales. “I must get her to my ship.”
Not a flicker from the man. He did not even acknowledge that she’d spoken.
“You brought your husband with you?” Lady Sakura asked.
Arsenic nodded.
“Use him to convince my lord. Do this outside my room, please, and send in my handmaidens. If I am to go out, I must be properly dressed.”
Arsenic resealed her kit and marched to the door, gesturing for the lord to follow. He gave Lady Sakura a look of mixed gentleness and exasperation. It was all in his eyes, his face remained unmoving.
Arsenic flapped at him with her hands, shooing him out.
He side-eyed her in surprise. Or annoyance. Or approval.
In the vestibule, Percy was sitting cross-legged on the floor. The three handmaidens were kneeling to face him. The guards stood to either side of the door, unmoving and unmoved.
“Percy, would you persuade this gentleman, Lord Ryuunosuke, that I must take his Lady Sakura back to The Spotted Custard? I require my swoon room to make a proper diagnosis.”
Lord Ryuunosuke barked an order at the three handmaidens. They all stood and glided into the sickroom, bowing before closing the door behind them.
Percy stood to face the lord and began garbling at him in Japanese.
The lord crossed his arms and glared at Arsenic’s ginger boffin. The two guards stepped forward and began to argue with Percy. It made her feel protective.
This went on for a while.
Eventually the sickroom door slid open and one of the handmaidens re-emerged and approached. She said something too quickly for Arsenic to follow.
Percy interrupted his rapidly escalating one-sided argument with the lord, to tell Arsenic that she, and she alone, without her kit, was required back in the chamber.
Lord Ryuunosuke whirled and made a gesture with his hand to the guards, indicating that the door be left open. Then he returned to listening to Percy, glowering and granite, unmoved.
Lady Sakura was sitting on the ed
ge of the bed when Arsenic re-entered. She was wearing two elaborate embroidered kimonos. Her face was now painted – skin white, lips red. Her hair had added decoration, trailing gold leaves and pink silk flowers.
One of those massive bow belts was around her waist and the puff was a thing of beauty at the small of her back.
“Should you be walking?” worried Arsenic.
“I will be carried, if they permit me to leave at all.” She gestured with one tiny frail hand. “Come. You, too, must wear an obi.”
The handmaidens approached Arsenic. One of them held a large pillow-like thing. Another held a length of that wide stiff highly decorated belt-cloth. The last held some kind of tool presumably designed to fasten everything in place.
Arsenic looked down at her sensible bicycling uniform of brown tweed – it had nice green buttons down the front, and green braid coiled at the hem, but it was nothing compared to even the simplest outfit she’d seen in Edo.
“It willna match.”
The geisha laughed. “It will be fine, child. Put it on.”
Arsenic assumed this was an important local custom, or great honour, and so stood obediently while they pressed the pillow to her lower back, binding it there with straps over her shoulders. It was a little like the hiking packs army foot soldiers used, not uncomfortable, but heavier than expected.
“What’s it stuffed with?”
“Safety,” replied Lady Sakura. “Be still, child.”
The three handmaidens wrapped Arsenic with the belt and arranged it artfully over the pillow in what was likely a big bow. It was behind her back, so she couldn’t see, and there were no mirrors to be had.
Arsenic was amused to think it rather like a version of the cravat. “Must I wear the high sandals, too? I have no practice walking in such things.”
“The obi is enough. See here?” Lady Sakura pointed to her own belt. It was embroidered with trees in full bloom.
“A fruit tree of some kind?”
“Cherry blossoms. Look closer, Doctor.”
Arsenic squinted. The blossoms were all falling as if scattered on the wind, but as they fell they turned into white birds and flew away.
“I dinna understand.”
Reticence Page 18
