There. I knew it. Balancing a laundry basket in one arm,
Maomao smiled. Those were red pines growing in a grove near
the eastern gate.
The gardens of the rear palace were deftly manicured. Once
each year the dead leaves and withered branches were cleared
out of the pine forest, as well. And Maomao knew that a welltended pine forest encouraged a certain kind of mushroom to
grow.
Right now, she held a small-capped matsutake mushroom in
her hand. Some people didn't like the way they smelled, but
Maomao loved them. Quartered matsutake mushrooms, grilled on
a grate with a dash of salt and a squeeze of citrus over them, was
her idea of heaven.
It was a modest copse, but as she'd found a convenient cluster
of the mushrooms, she put five of them in her basket.
Should I eat them at the old fogey's place, or in the kitchen?
She couldn't do it at the Jade Pavilion; there would be too
many questions about where she'd gotten the ingredients. They
might not smile upon a serving woman admitting she had
gathered the mushrooms herself from the grove. So Maomao
went instead to see the doctor, the man who was so good with
people and so bad at his job. If he liked matsutake mushrooms,
too, then all was well; and if not, she figured he would still be
kind enough to look the other way. Maomao had by now
completely ingratiated herself with the loach-mustached man.
She couldn't forget to go by Xiaolan's place on the way. Xiaolan
was an important source of information for Maomao, who
otherwise had few friends.
When Maomao had come back from Lihua's residence, looking
thinner than ever from the effort of helping the consort, the other
ladies-in-waiting had undertaken to plumpen her up. On the onehand, Maomao was happy about this—it showed she hadn't fallen
out of the ladies' good graces despite having been with a rival
consort almost two months—but on the other, it was nearly as
frustrating as it was gratifying. She had a little basket that began
to bulge with the extra treats she received every time tea was
served.
Xiaolan, however, would never turn down something sweet;
her eyes would light up at the sight of whatever Maomao had
brought her, and she would be more than happy to take a short
break, munching on sweets and chatting Maomao's ear off in
equal measure.
Now they sat behind the laundry area on a couple of barrels,
talking about this and that. Stories of strange happenings made
up the bulk of it, as usual, but among other things, Xiaolan told
Maomao: "I heard one of the palace women used a potion to get
some hard-hearted soldier type to fall in love with her, and it
worked!"
Maomao broke into a cold sweat at that. Probably nothing to
do with me, right? Probably.
Looking back on it, she realized she never had thought to ask
who that love potion was for. But did it really matter? "The
palace" meant the actual palace, not the rear palace, which meant
it had happened safely outside. The palace proper had actual,
functioning men, so appointment there was a popular prospect for
which competition was fierce. Unlike the women who served in
the rear palace, these were elites who had passed serious tests to
gain their positions.
Let it be said that, insofar as actual, functioning men were
absent, the rear palace could seem a rather more lonely
assignment. Not that it mattered to Maomao.
When Maomao arrived at the medical office, she found the
loach-mustached old man in the company of a pale-faced eunuch
whom she didn't recognize. He was continually rubbing his hand.
"Ah, just the young woman I wanted to see," the doctor said
with his most welcoming smile.
"Yes, what is it?"
"This man has developed a rash on his hand. Do you think youcould whip up a salve for him?"
Not very becoming words for the man who was ostensibly the
palace's doctor, Maomao thought. One would expect him to do it
himself. But this was nothing new, and Maomao was content to go
into the room full of medicine cabinets and get her ingredients.
First, though, she set the basket down and produced the
matsutake. "Do you have any charcoal?" she asked.
"Oh ho, what fine specimens you've found!" the quack said
jovially. "We'll be wanting some soy paste and salt as well."
She seemed to have found a winner. That would make things
easy. The doctor all but danced out of the room on his way to the
dining hall to find suitable seasonings. Perhaps if he put this much
passion into his work...
Sadly for the patient, he was left quite by himself.
Maybe I'll give him a consolation mushroom, if he likes them,
Maomao thought, watching the disconsolate eunuch as she mixed
the ingredients. By the time the quack returned with spices, a
small charcoal grill, and a grate, she had a good, thick ointment
going. She took the eunuch's right hand, gently spreading the
stuff on the angry red rash. The salve wasn't the most pleasantsmelling thing in the world, but he would just have to bear with it.
When she had finished, his previously pale face seemed to
have regained some of its luster. "My, but she's a very kind young
woman." There were some among the serving women who looked
down on the eunuchs. They saw them as uncanny things, neither
women nor really men, and they didn't hide it in their faces.
"Isn't she, though? She's forever helping me with little things
like this," the doctor said with a hint of pride.
There had been times in history when the eunuchs had been
treated as villains who lusted after power, but in fact only a few of
them had ever been like that. The majority were calm and
pleasant, like these two.
Maybe not all of them, though... An unwelcome face flashed
through Maomao's mind, and she deliberately chased it away.
They lit the charcoal, set the grate in place, then tore the
mushrooms into pieces by hand and left them to cook. Maomao
had helped herself to a small sudachi citrus from the orchard, and
now they cut it into slices. When they started to smell that uniquefragrance of cooking matsutake mushrooms, the fungus delicately
blackened, they put it on dishes and seasoned it with salt and
citrus juice.
Maomao waited to take her first bite until she was sure the
other two had started eating: the moment the older men took
bites of the stuff, they became Maomao's accomplices. She
munched away while the quack doctor chatted contentedly. "This
young lady has been all kinds of help to me. She can do just
about anything, you know. She mixes up every type of medicine
under the sun, not just ointments."
"Huh! Most impressive."
The old man sounded like he was bragging about his own
daughter. Maomao wasn't sure she thought that was ideal. She
suddenly found herself thinking about her father, whom she
hadn't seen in more than six months now. She wondered if he
was eating properly. She hoped the expense of keeping his
medicines stocked wasn't snowing him under.
It was just when Maomao was feeling this emotional pitch that
the quack had to go and say something especially tone-deaf.
"Why, I do believe she can make any kind of medicine at all."
Guh?
But before Maomao could tell the old man to keep his
hyperbole to himself, the eunuch sitting across from them said,
"Any kind?"
"Yes, anything you need." The doctor gave a triumphant little
snort, which in Maomao's mind only confirmed his quackery. The
other eunuch looked at Maomao with new interest. He had
something on his mind, she was sure.
"In that case, might you be able to make something to cure a
curse?"
He was rubbing his inflamed hand pathetically. His face was
once again pale.
⭘⬤⭘
It had happened the night before last.
The last thing he did was always to pick up garbage. He would
gather all the litter and trash around the rear palace in a cart,
then wheel it over to the western quarter, where there was agreat pit where it would be burned. Typically, fires were not
allowed after sunset, but as the air was damp and there was no
wind, it was deemed safe and he was granted permission.
His subordinates pitched the trash into the pit. He lent a hand
himself, eager as he was to be done with the chore. Bit by bit
they flung the stuff from the cart into the hole.
Then something in the pile on the cart caught his eye. It was a
woman's outfit. Not silk, but certainly of high quality. A waste to
get rid of. When he held it up to inspect it, a collection of wood
writing slips tumbled out. There was a noticeable burn mark on
the sleeve of the outfit that had been cradling them.
What could this mean?
But he knew his job wouldn't be done any sooner for puzzling
over it. He grabbed the wooden slips one by one and tossed them
into the pit.
⭘⬤⭘
"And then you say the fire blazed up in unnatural colors?"
"That's right!" The old man's shoulders shook as if he found
the very memory horrible.
"And you say the colors were red, purple, and blue?" Maomao
asked.
"Yes, that's what they were!"
Maomao nodded. So this was the source of the rumors Xiaolan
had reported to her that morning.
Who knew something from the western quarter would make it
all the way here? Apparently it was true what they said, that
rumors among women traveled faster than a swift-footed
skandha.
"It's got to be the curse of the concubine who died in a fire
here many, many years ago. It was wrong of me to set a fire at
night, I know that now! That's why my hand got this way!" The
rash on the eunuch's hand had appeared after the incident with
the fire. He was pale and trembling as he said, "Please, miss.
Make me a medicine that can cure a curse." The man looked at
her beseechingly. She thought he might fling himself face-first
onto the reed mat.
"There is no such medicine. How could there be?" Maomaosaid coldly. She got up and started rifling through the drawers of
the medicine cabinets, quite ignoring the old man and the doctor,
who both looked thoroughly out of sorts. Finally she set
something down on the table. Several varieties of powder, and
bits of wood.
"Is this the color you saw in that fire of yours?" Maomao
asked. She placed the bits of wood among the charcoal embers,
and when they were burning, she took a teaspoon and scattered
some of the white powder into the flames. The fire took on a red
hue.
"Or perhaps this?" She added a diferent powder, and a bluegreen color resulted. "I can even do this." She took a pinch of the
salt they'd put on the mushrooms and tossed it into the flames,
which turned yellow.
The two eunuchs watched her, astonished. "Miss, what is this?"
the flabbergasted doctor asked.
"It's the same principle as colored fireworks. The colors change
depending on what you burn."
One of the visitors to their brothel had been a fireworks maker.
He was supposedly sworn never to share the secrets of his craft,
but in the bedroom, trade secrets became simple pillow talk. And
if a restless child happened to be listening from the next room,
well, no one was the wiser.
"What about my hand, then? Are you saying it's not cursed?"
the old eunuch asked, still rubbing the afflicted appendage.
Maomao held out some of the white powder. "If this stuff gets
on bare skin, a rash can result. Or perhaps there was lacquer on
the wooden strips. Who knows? Do you happen to be prone to
rashes to begin with?"
"Now that you mention it..." The eunuch went as limp as if the
bones had left his body. Relief was written on his face. There
must have been some substance like these on the wooden strips
he had handled the previous day. That was what had caused the
colored fire. That was all—not some curse or devilment.
Where are all these mysterious substances coming from,
though?
Maomao's ruminations were interrupted by the sound of
clapping. She turned to discover a slim figure resting in thedoorway.
"Superb."
When had this most unwelcome guest arrived? It was Jinshi,
standing there with the same nymph-like smile as always.