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 well-tended 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 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 one hand, 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 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 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 you could whip up a salve for him?"
Not very becoming words for the man who was ostensibly the palace's was nothing new, and Maomao was content to go into it himsel 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 pleasant-smelling 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 theunuchs. They saw them as uncanny things, neither women nor really men, ssed 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 unique fragrance 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 doctorn chatted contentedly. "This young lady has been all kinds of help to me. She can do just about anything, you know. She mixed 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 herselt thinking about her father, whom she hadn't seen in more than six monthsel 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 a great 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?" Maomao said 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 different powder, and a blue-green 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 fabbergasted 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, se 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 sumed to discover a slim figure resting in the doorway. "Superb."
when had this most unwelcome guest arrived? It was Jinshi, standing them with the same nymph-like smile as always.