She, Sazen, and Yo were all packed into the Verdigris House’s cramped apothecary shop. As to what they were doing, they were comparing their inventory to a list.
They’d done what they had come here to do—namely, to let Yo meet Kokuyou—and Maomao had decided to bring Yo to the apothecary shop for some practical experience.
“Is it just me, or have herb prices ballooned recently?” Maomao asked, squinting at what they had paid for their herbs.
“I know, right? Highway robbery!” Sazen griped. “But Kokuyou says this is what we have to pay or he won’t sell to us. He’s our only purveyor of wetland herbs.”
Speaking of Kokuyou, the shop was too small for everyone, so he and Chue were outside, playing with the kids. Chou-u was among them. The moment he’d seen Maomao he’d pointedly ignored her, which annoyed her despite the fact that he was simply at that age.
“Ugh, this one’s expensive too. Look at him, squeezing us just because this thing only grows in bogs...”
There was a limit to what herbs they could cultivate in their little field. And with only so many ways to procure herbs otherwise, they weren’t in any position to make demands.
It probably doesn’t help that the palace is buying up supplies.
They were going through more and more medicine these days, and not just because the soldiers needed so much of it. Vast quantities of food and medical supplies had been sent to the western capital the previous year. The elevated prices were probably a ripple effect.
“One of these days, Yo, you’re going to have to start shopping for herbs, so now is a good time to start learning what things should cost.” Maomao showed Yo the list. It was not something she would reveal to just anyone, but she didn’t think Yo would abuse the knowledge. “Usually, you’ll be able to go shopping with another physician, but some shady sellers will wait until the doctor is busy with something else before approaching you to try to hawk something. ‘I only have a few left,’ they’ll say, or ‘I don’t know when I’ll get more in stock.’ You have to be especially careful then—they might try to foist bad product on you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Heaven knows it’s happened to me a few times,” Sazen said with a sigh.
“That’s because you’re a terrible businessman,” said Maomao.
“Oh, hush. I was just a farmer before this, you know.”
“A former farmer...”
Now that she thought about it, maybe she should talk to their current farmer, namely, Lahan’s Brother—sound him out on whether he could grow medicinal herbs in addition to potatoes and wheat.
He wouldn’t try to tell me he couldn’t do it because he’s busy growing spices to give En’en, would he?
Most of those spices could also be used medicinally. Maomao formulated a plan to ask him for any extras.
Once they had gone over the entire list, Maomao inspected their stocks and looked at the medicines Sazen had already compounded.
“Wh-What do you think?” he asked, studying her expression.
“Not bad. Not good. Passing marks.”
“Oh, come on! I did it just the way you taught me!”
“You need to do more than just learn. Think about how you can make the medicine easier to take.”
Sazen stuck out his lip but took out a notepad. It was full of medicinal recipes. Sazen was not a man of greater than ordinary intelligence, but he studied hard; that was his virtue.
Maybe I should work on compounding while we’re here, Maomao thought. “Yo. Can you make a medicine you know of using the components we have here?”
“If all you need is fever medication or salve for a cut, then yes.”
“All right. Go ahead and do it.”
While Yo was working on that, Maomao continued to study the inventory.
Yo’s movements were uncertain, but she was doing the right things.
“Did Kokuyou teach you to do that?” Maomao asked.
“Yes. The doctor taught many of the village children to read, write, and make medicine. Living in a frontier outpost, we had no end of injuries.”
Maomao had always thought of Yo as reticent, but she turned out to be surprisingly talkative.
“Did he treat anyone besides your family for smallpox?”
“No. My father knew how terrible the disease could be, but no one else really did, and they wouldn’t listen to him. The headman, in particular—he was also the village shaman, so he probably saw Kokuyou as horning in on his territory. I believe he did treat several of the children on the sly, though. They’re the ones who are now here with us in the capital.”
He just did that on his own initiative, huh?
Yet his choice had saved those kids’ lives.
“Some guys just aren’t very lucky, and Kokuyou is one of them,” Sazen piped up from where he was inspecting the inventory list himself. “Looks to me like he didn’t do anything wrong, yeah?”
I don’t know why you hit him, he said with his eyes. Yo looked down uncomfortably and focused on grinding the herbs.
Maomao glanced out of the shop, toward the lobby of the Verdigris House.
There are more menservants around here that I don’t recognize.
Bodyguards that Jinshi had assigned here, presumably. Maomao hadn’t used Joka’s name in association with the jade tablet, but of course he would have investigated on his own.
So, no problems here, I guess.
At just that moment, Joka came into the lobby.
“J—” Maomao was about to call out to her, but she started talking with the old madam, who showed her a list.
“Our sis Joka’s going to take things over after the old lady,” said a sour voice from above her. She looked up to see Chou-u.
“That old bag of bones is finally wearing out, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
That was all Chou-u said before he went back to Chue and Kokuyou. Chue was spinning a top, her performance earning applause not only from the apprentices, but even passersby. It was mystifying how she could do all that almost entirely with her left hand.
A few kittens scuffled at her feet. Nearby, Maomao—the calico cat—watched them with a newfound dignity. They must be her offspring.
So she really is retiring, Maomao thought. Joka was going to give up being a courtesan. The madam dealt with a great many different tasks, so the changeover wouldn’t happen quickly, but Joka would probably take less and less courtesan’s work.
After that, only Pairin would be left of the Verdigris House’s Three Princesses—and she, too, would be gone once Lihaku bought out her contract.
Maomao summoned memories of her earliest years. She remembered the princesses looking beautiful, with white on their cheeks and rouge on their lips, their hair festooned with hair sticks and clad in sumptuous outfits and pibo shawls.
How often had she chased their long sleeves as they slid across a red carpet?
There was Pairin, almost seeming to leave an afterimage as she danced in the warm glow of a red lantern.
Meimei, leaving customers speechless as she made the perfect move, speaking with her kind voice and placing a piece with her slim fingers.
Joka, producing poems that could leave her patrons gasping even as she affected to be too good for it all.
I won’t be seeing any of those things again.
It wasn’t precisely nostalgia—that would have been bad form—but Maomao nonetheless grieved the sense that the era of these ladies was coming to an end.