(What am I going to do about those house calls?)
The court physicians were divided among three locations.
The government office, and Gyokuyou's main residence and side residence.
Maomao and the others were at the side residence. She had expected Jinshi to be at the government office or the main residence, but— "I'll be counting on you again today, Lady Physician."
Greeting her with a warm smile was Jinshi.
He was in the most luxurious guest room of the side residence. The plush carpet, woven with an abundance of wool, bore intricate patterns unlike anything she had ever seen.
The curtains were perhaps made of silk, for they gave off a cool luster every time they swayed.
The large grapes were adorned with beads of condensation, clearly well-chilled. If she bit into one of those taut fruits, sweet juice would surely spread throughout her mouth.
(Could I maybe do the taste-testing?)
Unfortunately, Maomao's current job was not that of a poison taster. As the lady-in-waiting assigned to Jinshi, the role was being handled by Tomei.
It seemed the noisy Suzume was not around today. Furthermore, Baryou could not be found, and he might not show his face for a while until he grew accustomed to the new place. Baseki, for once, was in his room.
"Hyah!"
The quack doctor, just as before, was going through the motions of a consultation while trembling all over.
Tenyuu was not there.
There was no need for multiple court physicians, and having them around would only cause problems. The quack doctor's incompetence would only be thrown into sharper relief.
There was no way Tenyuu, who was uncannily perceptive, hadn't noticed, but for the time being he hadn't said anything. Was he picking up on something and keeping quiet by tacit understanding, or had Jinshi's side already arranged a convincing explanation?
(Well, either way, it doesn't matter.)
Maomao had things to do. The question of why Jinshi was at the separate residence could wait. As long as that eccentric strategist wasn't in the same estate, that was more than good enough.
"Well then, little lady, I'll be heading back first."
"Understood."
The quack doctor left without a single question. His guard, Rihaku, accompanied him back.
Jinshi loosened his faintly radiant air just slightly.
"Prepare some tea."
"At once."
Toumi went off to get things ready.
"Please, have a seat."
Suiren thoughtfully brought over a chair, so Maomao sat down obediently. She wasn't quite brazen enough to help herself to the grapes, so she tried sending Suiren a mental message asking if she might have some as a souvenir.
"Are you getting used to your new workplace?"
"The people haven't changed, so it's only a matter of getting accustomed to the environment."
Maomao answered honestly. Besides, she wanted to check what medicines were available in the western capital. For the medicines they were short on, she had already enlisted the quack doctor, Tenyuu, Rihaku, and even Raban's older brother to help investigate. Since they were traveling by ship, they had stocked up on plenty of motion sickness medicine, but what had run out surprisingly fast were the antipyretics.
Because they had taken the southern sea route, the heat was midsummer-like. Inside the ship, with ventilation barely adequate, the number of patients suffering from heat exhaustion had increased. The condition was close to heatstroke, and rehydration was better than medicine. However, Maomao suspected the cause was the quack doctor diagnosing it as a common cold and handing out antipyretics in her absence.
Incidentally, the antipyretics the quack doctor had prescribed tasted terrible, so patients had been forced to take them with large amounts of water, which apparently made them seem effective in the end.
(As always, incredible luck.)
As for the medicines, she had heard that Physician Yang was purchasing the shortfalls.
(I'd really like to go along, but) Maomao had other things to attend to.
"Through Raban's connections, the potato farmer has come, hasn't he?"
If potato cultivation succeeds in Jusseishuu, they'd probably export to Shaou, or somewhere similar. It'd be best to keep transportation costs down.
"The potato farmer... I've heard he's Maomao's cousin."
"He's no relation to me."
Maomao denied it flatly.
"He's certainly here. I was expecting someone more distinctive, but how should I put it..."
"He's pretty ordinary, right?"
"He sure is ordinary."
It seemed Jinshi shared the same impression of Raban's older brother.
But if they already knew Raban's older brother existed, that would speed things along.
"I'd like to accompany you to the village as well. Would you grant me permission?"
"A village? I'd appreciate the help, but what about your duties assisting the medical officers?"
"They're rearranging assignments, and someone named Tenyuu has come to take over, so I think it should work out, one way or another."
Tenyuu's work was reasonably trustworthy. The problem was his personality.
"That would be a relief, then... We've been running into various problems in that area."
"Problems?"
Maomao tilted her head.
Jinshi looked at Basen. Basen spread a map of Jusseishuu across the desk. Ink circles had been marked at various locations.
"What's this?"
"The locations of the villages."
"...For the scale of the Western Capital, there really aren't many, are there?"
Due to the climate, much of the land was barren. It was no surprise farmland was scarce.
"And--"
Basen quietly passed the brush to Jinshi. Jinshi drew large circles on the map.
"This is the pastureland."
"...Pastureland."
Pasturing, which meant letting livestock roam free. In the western capital, it would likely be goats or sheep instead of cattle.
"They don't have a settlement, but people engaged in pasturing have moved in."
"That's right."
Maomao listened as Jinshi spoke, not so much because she didn't know, but more as if he were sorting out his own thoughts.
"Do you remember when we issued that notice regarding the extermination of the migratory locusts?"
"Yes. It was about prohibiting the killing of predatory birds, promoting insect-eating, and distributing instructions on how to make insect-killing medicine in rural areas."
Maomao had also racked her brain when it came to pesticides. She had created several varieties using ingredients that could be obtained locally as much as possible.
"Right. That was being done within the Li Kingdom, and of course in Xixi Prefecture as well... but—"
Jinshi hesitated.
Maomao had a vague sense of what had gone wrong in Jinshi's calculations.
"Farmers, even if they were to use pesticides to kill insects, would only do so for their own fields."
"Precisely."
And while Xixi Prefecture had neatly cultivated farmland, it also had vast grasslands. Farmers would never go all the way out to the grasslands to exterminate insects. Furthermore, it was highly likely that such a notice hadn't reached the pastoralists.
(Even if it had...)
They wouldn't sprinkle pesticide on grass that their livestock might eat, nor would they go around killing locusts one by one.
'...' The locusts they failed to exterminate would multiply several times over.
However, Maomao tilted her head.
"Excuse me. You said a small-scale locust plague occurred in western Li last year. Did that include the area around the western capital as well?"
"That's just it—no such report came in."
Jinshi also had a puzzled look on his face.
"Certainly, the area around the western capital is centered on trade, with less crop cultivation, so the impact of crop damage is minimal, but—"
"It wouldn't be strange if there was some," Maomao added.
I recalled what happened last autumn. Jinshi had sent locusts my way as though to harass me, and I measured hundreds of them. At the time, Raban had hinted that the locusts might have ridden the monsoon winds— —from the Northern Alliance— —that they had perhaps come from there.
And the land closest to the Northern Alliance was this Ussei Province.
(Was it merely a coincidence that the locusts hadn't come here?)
Or perhaps— (Were they hiding something?)
Maomao glanced at Jinshi's face. His expression was calm, showing no particular signs of alarm. He looked as though he were simply reconfirming information he already knew.
Maomao wanted to groan inwardly.
(Consort Gyokuyou's brother, was it?)
The man governing the Western Capital in his father's stead. He seemed to have some sort of grudge involving Consort Gyokuyou, but she had let it go, figuring it had nothing to do with a mere apothecary.
—Rikuson— had also visited those rural villages looking disheveled. Could that have been connected too?
Maomao felt an itch she couldn't scratch. The more she thought about it, the more tangled her thoughts became, but leaving it unresolved left her unsettled.
"If I may, would it be all right for me to head out to the farming villages starting tomorrow?"
"That would help, but what excuse will you use?"
"Would it work if I said I was purchasing and gathering medicinal ingredients?"
"I'll arrange things with that excuse. But when you say farming villages, where exactly will you go?"
Looking at the map, she figured it would make sense to start with the nearest locations, but she had another idea.
"Rikuson is here with us, isn't he? I'd like to visit the places he went to."
"...Understood. I'll make the arrangements."
"Thank you very much."
Maomao bowed her head. It didn't look like she'd have any time to rest for a while.