They didn’t know where word of the surgery had leaked from.
Actually...
In Maomao’s opinion, it was a miracle that the Emperor’s condition had stayed hidden for so long. He’d been suppressing chronic pain and not taking proper meals, yet supposedly doing his work as if everything were normal. He even occasionally went to the rear palace to spend nights with his consorts.
It was very frustrating for the physicians, then, to face interference when the discussions had all been had and essentially all that was left was to pick up the knife.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.
The relatives of a patient always seemed to want a say in their care. At the apothecary shop in the city, it had even happened that one regular customer’s relatives had shown up to complain that the medicine was too expensive and not doing anything, to the point that they were sent away with orders to find their own treatment, then. They hadn’t seen that customer since.
I sure hope they’re still alive, Maomao thought.
When they were dealing with the man who stood at the apex of his country’s entire political hierarchy, then, they probably should have expected that people would stick their noses in about the treatment plan.
They would never do surgery unless it were absolutely necessary. Sometimes, when someone had a grievous external injury, emergency demanded surgical treatment, but when it came to illness, treatment with drugs was the typical course.
But this isn’t responding to drugs, which is why we’re doing this! Maomao ground the herbs in her mortar with more vigor than usual.
“You’ll just tire yourself out doing that,” came the voice of a somewhat elderly woman from beside her. If one wondered why Maomao didn’t look entirely thrilled despite the fact that she had been included among the physicians, this woman’s presence probably explained it. “Your old auntie has to shepherd her strength in these latter years of her life,” the woman went on. “Now, just because you’re young doesn’t mean you should waste your energy. You’ll only end up exhausted.”
The woman described herself as an “auntie,” and indeed, she looked like one. She was evasive about her exact age, saying only that she was somewhere in her fifties, but she had the wrinkles to match. A certain plumpness showed that she led a rich dietary life, but her fingers had dark stains that never seemed to wash away—evidence, Maomao knew, of someone who had been compounding medicines for many, many years.
People called her Auntie Liu. It was a perfectly common family name, but among the physicians it referred to one man, Dr. Liu—and Auntie Liu, as it happened, was his younger sister.
“I realize it looks like there’s a lot of nepotism going on, but please don’t hold it against us,” Dr. Liu had said. If anything went wrong with the Emperor’s treatment, all the physicians involved as well as their families would be summarily executed. In order to minimize the number of people caught in the purge, Dr. Liu had decided to hire family members of the physicians already involved. And of course, although he might talk about nepotism, Dr. Liu would never bring in mere amateurs. Auntie Liu had passed the selection examination, which implied that she knew at least as much if not more than the actual doctors here.
“Hee hee hee! This is my first time doing work outside the home, and I must say I’m nervous. Do take it easy on me, Senior.”
Auntie Liu had spent many years in Dr. Liu’s family home being involved with the practice of medicine; her medical knowledge was extensive and she was accustomed to the work.
However, she was evidently unmarried and had no children. The smudges on her fingers told the story: There were many who viewed medicine as low-class work. Maomao could only guess how many people had seen those darkened fingers and immediately decided this woman was unfit to be their bride.
In a way, Auntie Liu represented one possible life that might await Maomao.
If Maomao was annoyed, so were the other physicians.
“And here we’ve got everything ready!” one complained.
“His condition will only get worse if we hold off,” said another.
If Dr. Liu was right that this was appendicitis, then they were in a battle with time. If the appendix burst and sent filth throughout the Emperor’s abdomen, the chances of his demise skyrocketed.
“All right, all right, getting upset won’t solve anything. We just have to do whatever we can,” Auntie Liu said, defusing the charged atmosphere. In terms of age, she reminded Maomao of Jinshi’s elderly assistant Suiren, but she was less calculating.
She doesn’t seem like Dr. Liu at all.
Then again, maybe it was exactly because they were so different that they worked well together. And they must have worked well together, or Dr. Liu would never have called her here. She was certainly a boon to the general atmosphere; if that was why Dr. Liu had involved her, it was a brilliant stroke.
The upper physician who had been leading the surgical team had been reassigned to anesthetic needling, and Auntie Liu had effectively taken charge. The fact that no one complained was probably down to her personality.
As such, she promptly became the subject of discussion at break time.
“An auntie like her? I don’t know...”
“I hear you. I mean, we’re risking our lives too, sure, but...”
At mealtimes even the physicians, who normally spoke to each other with careful formality, could be heard to relax a bit.
Maomao was preparing tea, and, along with the auntie, was among the listeners. From what she gathered, there was more than one person raising objections to the surgery. Moreover, they were coming from both the Empress Dowager’s family and from within Gyokuen’s faction. In other words, both of the major powers at court were opposed.
“Not like I can’t understand what they’re saying,” one of the physicians said.
If the surgery were to fail, the Crown Prince would become emperor at not even five years old. In that case, the Empress’s father, Gyokuen, would likely become regent. The Empress Dowager’s people were not amused by the possibility.
By the same token, it had to be obvious to the Empress’s partisans that having such a young ruler take the throne when their own power base was not yet firmly established would open them up to a counterattack. One major factor was that Jinshi, the Emperor’s younger brother, was just the right age for the job. Should the Emperor not survive, there would no doubt be loud voices calling for Jinshi’s appointment.
There’s a lot of downsides to that scenario for both of them.
They wanted the current Emperor rather than a young sovereign precisely because this was an era with no significant upheaval. If this had been a world at war, the bloodlines of the earlier era would no doubt come bubbling up, and the throne would be soaked in blood.
I guess what we have is better than that...
The question was how to explain to people that doing nothing was the surest way to make the illness worse.
Maomao sipped her tea and listened to the doctors do what amounted to griping.
That day, there were men Maomao didn’t recognize at her dormitory. They rode in a magnificent carriage, and the dormitory chief was giving them a baleful look.
“What do you suppose this is about?” Maomao’s junior, Changsha, asked with a mystified look. They no longer saw each other at work, but at the dorm they took turns making dinner. Today it had been Maomao’s turn to buy ingredients on the way home.
It’s definitely not Miss Chue.
When Chue came to summon Maomao on Jinshi-related business, she was more discreet. She would bring a less flashy carriage, or park somewhere a bit farther away.
“We’d like to ask you to come with us,” one of the men said, showing her a peony crest. It was the very same one that was burned into Jinshi’s flank.
Empress Gyokuyou’s symbol...
Maomao studied the men’s faces. It would have been reassuring to recognize at least one of them, but unfortunately there was no one she knew. Considering Maomao’s singular inability to remember even those people she had actually met, maybe she couldn’t complain.
If these were messengers from Empress Gyokuyou, then she had no choice but to go with them. If they were simply posing as Gyokuyou’s men, however, she would prefer to refuse.
As she dithered, someone she did recognize finally emerged from the carriage.
“Maomao,” the woman said.
“Lady Hongniang,” Maomao answered.
It was Empress Gyokuyou’s chief lady-in-waiting.
“You will come with us, won’t you?” Hongniang asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
If the chief lady-in-waiting had come in person, then Maomao definitely couldn’t say no.