"Matsuko, oh Matsuko, my poor Matsuko..."
Matsuko had just taken her medicine and fallen asleep when another thirty-something woman from the Yayoi household, dusty-faced and disheveled, rushed in, flung herself at Matsuko's side, and clutched her little hand, sobbing so hard she could barely speak, as if the moment she let go Matsuko would slip away from this world.
You really can't blame her for being so timid; after all, in the Middle Ages of Japan, the child mortality rate was so high it would scare modern people to death. In most common families, out of six or seven children, if two or three survived it was already considered a blessing from the gods—the mortality rate usually exceeded 50%. Even in a warrior clan, where nutrition was comparatively better, the mortality rate typically remained above 30%.
