What could that possibly mean?
Maomao
tilted her head as she strolled through the village. To put it simply, it was a quiet, unremarkable village. There were no shops to speak of, and everything was pretty much self-sufficient. Apparently a traveling merchant came by about once every ten days.
The villagers were kind. They didn't seem to be doing anything wrong.
(Maybe it was just a child's misunderstanding, or we were reading too much into things.)
But there was one man here who looked even more on edge than Maomao.
"
Big brother,
you look so stern—smile, smile!"
Suzume
was
badgering
Brother Rahan.
Brother Rahan narrowed his eyes as he looked over the village fields. He had a single cloth bag in hand, filled with seed potatoes.
Though he called it reconnaissance, the real reason Brother Rahan had come was to promote new crops if the chance arose. He would want farmers who showed at least some willingness to try growing them.
He was an ordinary man who embodied the contradiction of rejecting his peasant background while remaining serious about agriculture.
Well, ordinary enough, I suppose.
(There are plenty of eldest sons who don't want to take over the family business.)
Still, if she pointed that out, he would probably get angry.
Honestly, it would have been more efficient for Maomao to split off from Brother Rahan and do her own rounds of questioning, but she couldn't just go wandering about on her own. The spirit of male superiority was strong in this western province too, and a foreign woman striding around by herself acting important wasn't going to go over well. Even with guards in tow, having Maomao take the lead wouldn't be acceptable.
(That said, Suzume went off and did as she pleased well enough.)
That free spirit had gone off somewhere else when she had other business to attend to. Her personality was a handful, but
Suiran
had given her stamp of approval, so Maomao figured she wouldn't make any serious blunders.
It would be better for Maomao to skillfully guide Raban and Basen so they could draw information out during their inquiries.
In truth, even without Maomao steering things, Raban would go ahead and do whatever he figured she wanted done on his own.
"No pest trouble, huh."
"Yeah. Wasn't it bad last year?"
"Well, there are pest problems every year. Last year was no exception and the damage was pretty bad, but we managed to get by in the end. The fact that we can eat without going hungry — that's all thanks to the lord."
The lord —
Gyoen —
could that be who they meant?
The pest damage had been significant, but the locust plague hadn't gotten truly devastating.
"I see. One more thing I want to ask. That field over there — who's farming it?"
"That one? Oh, that's
Nenshin's
field. He's an old man who lives in a house at the edge of the village over there. There's a temple right next door, so you'll spot it easily enough."
"Thanks, got it."
"Sure, I'll tell you, but are you really planning to go see Nenshin?"
"That's the idea."
"Hmm, well, alright then. Just a heads up — that old man might catch you off guard a bit. He's not a bad person though, so if you don't mind, it's fine."
There was something oddly evasive about the way he'd said that.
Maomao and the others headed toward the location they'd been told about.
"Excuse me."
Maomao tugged at Raban's sleeve.
"What is it?"
"Why does that field interest you?"
"Can't you see for yourself? That field over there is the only clean one."
"Clean, you say?"
Perhaps something other than "field" would better describe it, but Raiban's expression was dead serious.
"Everything else looks half-hearted, but that field over there is neatly sectioned off. The wheat's been trodden down properly, too, and the seedlings look strong."
"Is that so?"
Hearing it put that way, it did look that way—but unfortunately, Maomao had little interest in wheat.
(
Ophiopogon
doesn't grow around here, does it?)
The mention of wheat reminded her of medicinal herbs. Not that they had anything to do with wheat—
it was the roots of a plant known as
snake's
beard
that she was thinking of.
There didn't seem to be a single decent plant growing around here.
Maomao felt herself slipping into chronic herb deprivation. Having served as a court lady attached to the imperial physicians and seen enormous quantities of medicine, the rebound was severe.
(Medicine... I need to see medicine...)
As she brooded, a sudden fit came over her. Her breathing grew ragged—heavy, gasping.
"H-Hey, are you okay? You don't look so good!"
Raiban showed concern for Maomao.
"S-Sorry, it's nothing serious—"
But she wanted to see medicine. To smell it. At this point, even poison would do.
If there were any medicinal herbs nearby, it would have to be those sheep wandering about so carelessly.
(Could the horns be used as medicine?)
She was pretty sure
antelope horn
was one. But the species of sheep might have been different, because the horns didn't look the same as the medicinal ones Maomao had seen before.
(Same kind of sheep — it should have similar medicinal effects...)
With spectral movements, she reached her hand toward the sheep on the other side of the fence.
"Hey, something's definitely wrong. She's—"
Rahan grabbed Maomao in a half-nelson.
Maomao herself knew she was behaving abnormally, but she simply couldn't stop her hands. She wanted — she needed some kind of medicine so badly it was unbearable.
"Ggh... medicine..."
"Medicine? Are you sick?"
Maomao pleaded with Rahan to bring her anything — any kind of medicine at all.
"Medicine, you say? Come to think of it, there was something Lady Suirei entrusted to me."
Basen pulled a cloth bundle from inside his robe.
"If
Cat
starts acting strange, I'm supposed to show her this."
What was gently placed before her was a peculiar dried thing shaped like the character "乙."
"Se-seahorse!"
Also known as the dragon's spawn — perhaps that makes it more recognizable? A strange sea creature that is neither fish nor insect.
Basen swiftly hid the cloth bundle from Maomao's reach.
"Ah!"
"W-wait, what is it?"
Basen was reading a slip of paper that had been packed together with the bundle.
"If Maomao is acting strangely, show her the contents of the bundle. Do not give them to her immediately — hand over only one piece after each task has been completed."
It should have been Basen speaking, but the words came in Suirei's voice.
(As expected of a shrewd old woman.)
She knew how to handle Maomao differently from the old woman at Rokushōkan. That said, if Suirei had seen how Maomao had been repeatedly led around by Jinshi's bait, she would probably understand.
The fact that Suirei rather than Jinshi had handed it over meant that, in the old woman's eyes, Basen was still being treated as a greenhorn.
"That said, did the fits or whatever settle down?"
"Yes! I'm feeling great."
"No you're not, you don't look great at all! Is there really a medicine that cures just by looking at it?"
Rahan didn't let the chance to interject slip by.
"As they say, illness starts in the mind, so please don't worry about it. More importantly, let's finish up quickly."
(For the sake of the sea horse.)
Besides, it was mostly just herbal ingredients you'd find in a tonic or something.
"No, I'm really not buying it. Isn't this weird? Isn't this weird?"
"The way you keep repeating the same thing twice reminds me of someone, Rahan."
Even the master wore thick-rimmed glasses.
"Well, that's because Rahan is the—"
"Let's just get going. We don't exactly have all the time in the world."
True to form, his name got cut off, but it was starting to feel like a tired old bit.
The farmer had called it a temple, but it wasn't quite the kind of temple Maomao was used to. It was made of brick and had no windows. Inside, cloths hung fluttering about, and instead of statues, wall hangings depicting gods and Buddhas were pasted to the walls.
"Alright, let's go in."
Still looking thoroughly unconvinced, Rahan knocked on the door of the house next to the temple.
"..."
No response.
"No one home?"
"Maybe they're out looking after the sheep or the fields?"
Based on the time of day, they should be heading back for lunch soon enough.
"Something you want?"
A low, hoarse voice came from behind.
Turning around, there stood an old man with tanned skin. In his hand was
a hoe.
With a hoe in hand and a towel draped around his neck, he was unmistakably a farmer. His clothes were stained with black soil and patched in countless places. A farmer, without a doubt — and yet—
"⁉"
Basen's hand shot toward his sword, stopping just short. Maomao understood the reason for his reflexive combat stance.
"What are you doing, squaring up against a farmer?"
His dark skin was covered in
lentigines —
a testament to years under the sun with each passing year. But that wasn't what Basen had reacted to.
The old man's left eye was gone. The socket was sunken and hollow, suggesting the eyeball itself was missing. His right hand, the one gripping the hoe, was missing its index finger, and the exposed parts of his body bore numerous scars — from blades and arrows alike.
She now understood why the farmer had said he was caught off guard.
"Have you served in the military?"
Basen asked in a tone that carried genuine respect.
"Nothing so grand. I was just a
locust
that trampled the grasslands."
(A locust…)
An interesting choice of words. And Maomao had something on her mind as well.
"Were you working in the fields?"
The question slipped out of Maomao before she could stop herself. The man was holding a hoe and caked in mud. The pattern of dirt on his clothes looked oddly familiar.
"What else would you think I was doing?"
The old man replied, seemingly unperturbed.
It was an admittedly obvious question to ask. But Maomao had noticed something while observing the village's fields.
"I thought that if you were simply doing farmwork, you wouldn't get this dirty."
At this time of year, tending to wheat shouldn't leave someone this filthy. The field soil was dry, and unless one was tilling damp earth, there was no way to get caked in mud like that.
"Could it be that someone named Rikuson has been here before?"
"…Hm."
The old man blinked his solitary eye, then opened the door to a dwelling barely worthy of the name hut.
"Come on in, you lot. I can at least offer you some goat's milk."
The old man leaned his hoe against the wall and ushered Maomao and the others inside.