The Apothecary Diaries Book 8

The Go Contest (Part One)

Maomao gave the bandages a mighty thwack. The autumn breeze caught the drying white strips of cloth and they fluttered against the cloudless blue sky. The weather seemed the exact opposite of the clouds that darkened Maomao's heart.

She'd felt she couldn't simply walk away from Empress Gyokuyou's palace on a note like that. She'd been saved by a message from Dr. Liu. He could be hard on his subordinates, but he also looked out for them.

Maomao hadn't realized the Empress was so cornered—and not by some obvious political enemy, but by a member of her own family.

Her older brother...

She'd heard that the Empress was the daughter of a concubine. Gyokuen was an old man, so Gyokuyou's half-brother Gyoku-ou must have been considerably older than she was. Complicated family relations were hardly unusual among the nobility, and it seemed Gyokuyou was no exception.

I wonder what happens after this. From what Haku-u had said, Gyokuen had his own games he was playing. He would be Empress Gyokuyou's ally only so long as there was something in it for him—so what would happen if she lost the Emperor's affections? Or for that matter, what if something should happen to the Crown Prince?

Even if you're not interested in power, there are times when you need it to survive, Maomao thought. She sighed as she plunged her hands into the freezing water. It was so cold, it felt like her fingertips were going to fall off. And the weather would only get colder, so working with water would become more unpleasant still. En'en, with her intense devotion to her young mistress, had been plying Yao with balm to keep her skin from chapping.

As she peered at the blue sky, Maomao had a thought. I wonder what that picture was about. The eerie image drawn by the little girl, Jazgul.

That reminded her that the shrine maiden from the west was still living in Li. How was she doing? Well enough, no doubt, with the former consort Ah-Duo to look after her. Yet though she had indeed once been one of the Emperor's ladies, Ah-Duo, Maomao reflected, seemed destined to take all the country's dark secrets upon herself. Her home was a haven for the surviving Shi clan children, as well as Suirei, who, though unrecognized, was the granddaughter of the former emperor and the niece of the current one. And now the shrine maiden of Shaoh, who was supposed to be dead, was there too.

Ah-Duo, the beauty in men's clothing, took all of this in her stride, but how must it appear to those around her? Well, in one sense, it didn't. All these things were done in complete secrecy, and wouldn't be discovered so easily. But there were plenty of people with sharp noses in the court. I hope none of them catch her scent.

With that thought in her mind, Maomao poured the last of the water from the bucket into a canal.

"There isn't a full day's work to do here," Dr. Liu groaned. It was an hour when the medical office would normally have been crawling with injured soldiers, but today it was deserted.

"What can we do? Everyone's playing hooky—starting with the head honcho himself," said the young doctor, Tianyu. He wore a sarcastic smile, but he looked disappointed. In his hand he held a Go book. "But even more of the civil officials are cutting work today. I hear there were some real brawls about who would get to take today off. At least the soldiers can pretend they're going over to keep an eye on things."

Maomao knew Tianyu himself had been desperate to get the day off, but he'd ended up here at work. A minimum staff was always needed in the medical offices, so physicians found it harder than most to take vacations.

"Seeing as there's pretty much nothing to do, I could probably just go home, couldn't I?" Tianyu asked, but that sort of wheedling wouldn't fly with Dr. Liu.