Seyran

Chapter 15: Potent Poison

The six scared women knew better than to test the captain's patience, and with trembling hands and feet almost turned jelly from fright, they hung their heads low and followed.

Huang too, gently flapping its wings, silently following after them. It debated a little with itself before timidly perching itself on Seyran's left shoulder. Its heart beat heavily for a time and when a minute passed with neither the woman flipping her hand to chase it away nor water coming out of nowhere to fling it aside; it let its whole weight on her shoulder, quite at ease. Ah, less movement was good, how tired its poor body was! Now what would be even more wonderful was if the outside would be less chilly. The sun was already high but it was still too cold for the bird. Ever since meeting that giant wolf it was like cold installed itself on its body, following everywhere it went. Why? why! Shouldn't that thing went away with such agonizing temperature? At that time it had tsked loudly in a dissatisfied manner when Seyran had fainted before disappearing only it knew where. It should really spare other people its discontentment! So many hours had passed yet it still had to cool down... wait, no... it still had to heat up!

***

Where they were now was actually the imperial's health area. It was a grand yard that sheltered the sick members of the royal family. As such, the place was richly decorated and the right medicine and tools were almost never missing. The physicians there were the best of the country, carefully picked and selected by the head imperial physician herself. For the promising younger ones that she liked best and those that still needed learning, the lessons were almost always given by her –the head. Their talent, of course, was only for the imperial family to use, it could, however, be extended to those that said royal family bestowed its grace upon.

The area was divided into four departments. The flesh's department treated those without a core; it was specialized in treating flesh mostly but not only. Members of that department wore white and pink. The darker the shade, the higher the grade. The bones' department treated those with cores and without alike, specialized in bones injury. They wore white and red. The qi's department treated those with a core, specialized in ailment related to qi, their colors were white and blue. And finally, the poison's department treated mostly poison and had white and yellow colors. Each department had from six to eight members with at its head a chief department, and her second.

There was also one who ordered all the four departments, the imperial head physician, the elder chief Yahui, clothed with white and black and her second, the chief in second Hua, .clothed with white and deep purple

The place was, indeed big yes, but almost never did the royal family come here to get treat. It was, most of the time, physicians that treated them in their royal courtyard. Exceptionally, if the patient was sick to the point where he needed to be isolated, or for whatever reason an imperial person decided to particularly make use of rooms here, were the usual circumstances that this health area welcomed its sick people. Mostly, it was a place where the physicians were further nurturing their knowledge, where they had the advanced tools and elements to practice, and experimented and where they brainstormed about difficult pathologies that they were handling at the moments, discussing different possible treatments for different sicknesses.

Even as rarely used as the beddings were, that didn't change the fact that they were of the best qualities. Seyran, when she fainted the previous night, had been placed to the room at the Far East. The best of the best actually. It was a quiet place, isolated from others and under no specific department. That was the place where the imperial head physician herself treated her patients.

As they made their way over where everyone was supposedly assembled, they were greeted by the servants, who silently bowed their heads and made way.