The Apothecary Diaries Book 11

The Weeping Wind (Part One)

It was all right. All was well, Gyoku-ou kept telling himself. Soon, all would be over. Soon, it would all be taken care of.

He felt as if a thread that had been wound around his feet were soon to be cut. Meanwhile, he was moving to slash the countless threads wound around his neck.

The nightmare that had plagued him for nearly thirty years would be dispelled.

Soon. All very soon.

He picked up a flight feather that sat on the shelf. It came from a hawk his mother had especially adored. When she died, the bird passed soon after, as if following her into the next life. He remembered his distress when she had asked him to take care of the hawk for her. He didn't know how to care for a bird and had never expected to.

"You'll protect this town, won't you?" he remembered his mother saying. She was such a kind woman; she had never resented anyone in her life. His father, Gyokuen, had called her Seibo, the Western Mother, because he had wished to make her the most venerated mother in all of I-sei Province.

She had told Gyoku-ou that his name, which meant Jade Nightingale, came from a bird that lived in the lands far to the east. He wished, though, that she had named him after the eagle instead. A strong name.

"Daddy saves Mommy. Like the hero in a play!"

He wished, then, that he hadn't been named after a weak bird like the nightingale. He wished he had a stronger name.

Just as Gyoku-ou set the feather down, there came a knock at the door.

"Enter," he said.

"Master Gyoku-ou, there's someone who would like an audience with you. Will you receive them?" asked his aide, coming into the room.

Gyoku-ou was in his office in the administrative building, getting changed. The discussion with his siblings had gone long, and he wanted to hurry to the ceremony. He had no time to entertain visitors.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"A man named Takubatsu, from a village to the northwest. What will you do, sir?"

The question meant: Did he want a guard in the room? Gyoku-ou was in a hurry; whatever this was, he wanted it to be over quickly. "Don't bother with a guard. And I want you out of here too."

Takubatsu was Gyoku-ou's milk brother. Takubatsu's mother had been an enslaved former Windreader. Seibo, out of compassion for a fellow tribe member, had freed the woman from slavery and brought her to her own residence. Takubatsu's mother had been close to Seibo, and this had led to her becoming Gyoku-ou's nursemaid. Gyoku-ou remembered his mother and his nurse looking after the bird together.

Gyoku-ou finished changing as the aide showed Takubatsu into the room. "Pardon me," Takubatsu said and came to stand before Gyoku-ou. He was an unimposing figure, with unruly black hair and pale eyes that betrayed foreign blood in his veins. Gyoku-ou's nursemaid had had her son before she was freed from slavery—his father had been her owner.

Takubatsu had worked at the main house along with his mother, but when his mother fell ill, he had quit his job. Gyokuen had told the nursemaid she had done well and given her some money, and she and her son had moved to a quiet farming village.

Gyoku-ou and Takubatsu hadn't had any contact to speak of after that. Takubatsu had probably been occupied acclimating himself to his new surroundings. Gyoku-ou, for his part, was just as happy to have Takubatsu out of the picture—he'd seemed rather too much like an older brother.

According to Seibo, however, after going to the village, Gyoku-ou's former nursemaid had grown sedentary and senile. After working herself to the bone as a slave, old age seemed to catch up with her quickly.