Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(42)

We nodded again.

“Well,” he continued, “each o’ these plants here has the power to move that balance.” He looked back up at his herbs, and pointing at one we knew well—his huge clump of dried basil leaves. “Basil—that’s sweet and green and pungent; it has the power of building up the warm energy in the bits of yeh that are made up of earth. And if yeh’re feelin’ rheumy and sniffly—if yeh’re runnin’ cold and wet—that’s important. But if yeh already got too much heat and too much earth, well, then, too much basil’s gonna be bad for yeh, see?”

Once more we nodded; even Toumi seemed interested.

“There’s different bits of yehr bodies that need more or less of different elements, or more yin, or more yang. Well, each o’ these herbs affects different parts o’ yehr body. And people are what they eat, yeh know. So a good cook is like a healer; gotta make sure folks get all as they need.” He crossed his arms again, scowling in a manner that I had come to recognize was his way of letting us know what he was about to say was important. “Thing is, each of these herbs can help keep a body healthy, if they’re used one way—or they can make a body sick if they’re used another. Sick. Or worse.”

Toumi snorted. When Kee Sun scowled at her even more deeply, she snapped, “Well, come on! You’re trying to tell us that basil can be a poison?”

The cook chuckled, but his eyes were still serious. “It’d take a powerful lot of basil to make a body sick. But sure—it’d work well enough. Give enough basil to a woman who’s newly pregnant and she’ll lose her child—and whether she wants the babe or not’ll decide whether she thinks it’s poison or healing.”

Now Toumi scowled back, her arms folded as his were. But she remained silent.

“So,” said Kee Sun. “Herbs. Now, Smiley-girlie, do yeh recognize this one here?” He pointed up to a clump of dried flowers that reminded me of the sea urchin shells my sister Usako had tried to collect once at the beach. The paper-thin grey shells had disintegrated in her fingers no matter how careful she was, and so she had disintegrated into tears. Thinking of her tears, looking at the dried flowers made me think....

Mouth turned down even further than usual, Emi shook her head.

“Any of yeh?”

I cocked my head. “Are those... poppies?”

Kee Sun raised a scarred brow. “And how’d yeh know that, Squirrel-girlie?”

I remembered the sound of my sister’s arm cracking like a dry twig when she’d fallen, trying just the one time to follow me up into the trees, and I shivered. The sound of her cries. “They grow on the hill below the castle, in our village. We’d pick a couple of plants every spring. My mother used to get the seeds for baking, and the juice for brewing tea when we were hurt.”

He grinned. “There yeh go. I keep it around for bad pain, just the same. And for when some of the girlies go nights without sleepin’.”

Emi cleared her throat. “Isn’t poppy juice... dangerous?”

Kee Sun gave a brisk nod. “Ayup. I told yeh—the difference ‘twixt a healin’ herb and a poison is how much yeh use, and when yeh use it. The lieutenant, he hates poppy juice; thinks it feeds the demons. But this here is the best medicine there is for pain, and also for not sleepin’, ‘specially for young ladies at... certain times. Slows the heart. Slows the bowels. Slows everythin’. Gives a body dreams....” He shuddered dramatically. “Well. We got the dried pods, here, for the seeds and for making tea, but I also squeeze the juice when they’re green, which is even stronger; I’ve got it all ready.” He pointed to one of the line of small clay bottles he occasionally used to cook from. “Make a tea with a bit o’ mint, and a drop or maybe two o’ that poppy juice—just a drop or two, no more—and I promise yeh’ll be off in dreamland. Yeh’ll sleep as sound as a bear in winter. And yeh’ll wake less grumpy.”

Even Emi smiled at that. “What’s the mint for?”

“Good for the bowels. But mostly? Makes it taste better,” said Kee Sun with a wink, and Emi laughed for the first time in what felt like days. “Now, takin’ too much of this stuff can make a body terrible sick. Can kill. And takin’ it too often is a good way to get yehrself possessed by a demon, and no doubt: it’ll take yehr soul till there’s nothin’ left in yehr body and yeh wither away like last autumn’s rice stalks. It’ll kill yeh with dreams. It’ll kill yeh slow, and it’s not a nice death—that’s a fact.”

We all stood there listening, eyes open wide.

“So, I’ll brew yeh a bit if it gets real bad, Smiley, but ‘till then...” He pointed up to a net hanging beside the poppies. “Know what these are, Bright-eyes?” When I didn’t respond, he raised an eyebrow to the others, but they shook their heads. He took down the net and showed us the fingernail-sized bits it contained: they were button-shaped and golden brown, like flattened rabbit pellets, and I felt sure that I’d seen our mother buying them off of the herbalist who came through every summer. “Well, this one yeh’ll all get to know better. Corydalis root. Puts a body t’sleep and takes away aches—not as good as poppy juice, mind, but good enough, and the sleep yeh fall into ain’t as like to last a lifetime. It’s a favorite of some of the older girlies, if yeh catch my drift. And to help the lady sleep sometimes when she can’t.”