The Apothecay Diaries Book 2

How to Buy Out a Contract

"So, how much does it cost to buy out a courtesan's contract?" Lihaku asked. He and Maomao were sitting in the room that connected the rear palace to the outside world. When Maomao heard Lihaku's question, her mouth dropped open. Since he'd summoned her personally rather than sending a letter, she'd assumed he had some new information to give her about the incident. But this was what he wanted to know?

I just knew he was a big, dumb mutt.

Lihaku clutched his head until finally, unable to take it anymore, he pounded the desk between them and exclaimed, "You've got to tell me, young lady!" The eunuchs guarding the entrances on either end of the room observed the commotion but clearly considered the entire thing a headache.

Evidently, on a recent visit to the Verdigris House, Lihaku had heard some talk of someone buying out one of the ladies' contracts. One of the three princesses, no less. Lihaku, who was very passionate indeed about Pairin, one of said princesses, couldn't let the subject go.

"There are any number of answers to that question," Maomao said.

"For one of the very best courtesans, then."

"I hear you," Maomao said, studying him from under lidded eyes. She requested a brush and an inkstone from one of the guards, and Lihaku provided some paper. "Market price can change in a heartbeat, of course, so consider this to be merely a guesstimate," she said. Then she wrote the number 200 on the paper. This was roughly the amount of silver your average farmer could expect to earn in a year. A nice, cheap courtesan could be had for about twice that amount. Lihaku nodded along.

"That excludes celebration money, though," Maomao informed him. A courtesan's actual buyout price could be influenced by factors like how long was left on her contract and how much money she might be expected to earn during that time, but one could also find oneself paying almost double that amount again on top of the buyout. For it was the custom of the pleasure district to see its ladies off with the grandest of celebrations.

"Give it to me straight. How much can I expect to pay in all?"

Maomao was somewhat stymied by Lihaku's soulful look. It's not an easy question to answer, she thought. Pairin had earned herself many customers, and a commensurate amount of money, since making her debut at the establishment. She didn't owe the brothel anything for clothes or hair ornaments, and in fact her term of service as such had been up long ago. She remained at the Verdigris House—and kept earning—because her sexual preferences happened to make her perfect for courtesans' work. If a woman's buyout price were purely about offsetting her debts, well, then Pairin's would have been virtually nil.

How old is she this year, again? Maomao wondered. Pairin was the oldest of the three princesses, to which she had belonged since before Maomao was born. Yet her skin was still lustrous and she had honed her specialty, dancing, over many years. Her youthful looks even sometimes prompted rumors that she stayed young by sucking the essence out of men. There were practices—the so-called fangzhongshu, or "arts of the bedchamber"—that supposedly allowed both men and women to maintain their vital essence by making love, and Maomao had occasionally wondered idly if Pairin had learned those abilities.

Judging strictly by age, Pairin's value should have been naught, but her beauty remained undiminished, as did her energies. At the same time, the old madam wouldn't want her three princesses to stagnate; she would be looking to move the oldest of them—Pairin—along one of these days. Maomao had heard her muttering about it on her last visit home.

Pairin had been a model courtesan, supporting the Verdigris House when it had teetered on the brink, but she couldn't rest on these laurels forever, nor could the Verdigris House rest on her. It would have to foster a new generation of famous faces while it was in the ascendant, lest its current crop suddenly turn out one day to be old and dusty.