Shifting Ground (Part 5)
“Today's juice has quite a different bouquet.”
Subject Number One, the very first convict dragged into our clutches, picked up the glass I offered with the practiced, elegant flourish of a connoisseur. After mulling it over, I had decided that serving it in a battered tin mug would eventually arouse suspicion, so I had bought a proper vessel out of my own pocket. It was a wine glass, and when filled with fresh urine, it looked surprisingly... plausible.
“Does it now?”
Perhaps it was the glassware, but the bastard had immersed himself entirely too deeply in the role. And how did I feel about that? Thrilled, frankly. The fact that he appraised every vintage with absolute sincerity made his palate genuinely reliable. I hadn't kept him around as the sole survivor for nothing.
“It possesses a modest sweetness, yet the finish carries a faint, pleasing bitterness. It isn't merely cloying; it has character. Men of your renown truly brew juice unlike any other. How you manage to produce a distinct profile every single time is simply marvelous...”
“Pfft.”
The guard stationed by the wall turned beet-red, choked on his own breath, and bolted out the door. Foolish brute. If he gave the game away, what did he think was going to happen to us? Regardless, thanks to our resident sommelier, I had gleaned one crucial fact: compared to the run-of-the-mill diabetic, Lord Jamie's condition wasn't nearly as catastrophic.
There had been a sample, after all, that the convict had dismissed as pure sugar, complaining that he couldn't detect a shred of artistic philosophy in the blend. The wretch who produced that particular batch wasn't long for this world. In fact, his feet were already rotting away with gangrene. Liston had agonized over whether to amputate before finally hacking the limb off, but the stump had grown festered and inflamed. When a diabetic patient progresses to the point of diabetic foot ulcers, surgical intervention rarely ends well. It wasn't a problem of antisepsis, mind you. In our hospital, at least, carbolic hygiene was beyond reproach. The wound had been thoroughly sterilized; the real issue was that the man was a prisoner. There was simply no aftercare in the hulks.
“And what of this one?”
Liston and I presented him with a fresh glass, harvested from Lord Jamie after administering a strictly conservative test dose. Swirling inside the crystal stemware, it bore an uncanny resemblance to a crisp white wine, complete with a delicate crown of foam that lent it an air of refinement.
“Hmm.”
Taking the glass, the prisoner brought it beneath his nose and inhaled deeply. One might expect him to recoil from the ammoniac stench, but in truth, when had a man ever had cause to bury his nose in another's piss? Moreover, when yellow liquid was presented in a fine crystal goblet, the mind stubbornly resisted associating it with the bladder.
“The aroma is markedly different from the earlier pour. Allow me to taste it.”
Puffing out his chest with insufferable pomposity, the fellow took a delicate sip of the vintage—or rather, the Duke's piss. Well, a Duke's bodily effluence had to count as a luxury good, didn't it? My conscience had long since ceased to trouble me. Look at him: by all appearances, the bastard was thoroughly enjoying the finest hour of his miserable life.
“Hmm... the sweetness has dialed back considerably. In its place, there is a lively acidity dancing on the tongue. My word, this is exquisite. Of all the vintages I have tasted, this is by far the finest. I could drink this in place of water.”
“Bwahaha—ptff!”
The guard outside the doorway turned crimson once more and sprinted down the hall. I would have to order him to wait at the end of the corridor during tastings from now on. At this rate, the idiot was going to blow our cover.
“Is that so? How much fainter is the sweetness?”
“Well, compared to the first draught, I'd say roughly half as sweet.”
“Understood.”
I nodded and dutifully penned his evaluation into my notebook. Ten days ago, I might have suspected the rogue of spouting pure nonsense, seeing as I had never sampled the product myself. I knew full well it was an indispensable sacrifice for the advancement of clinical medicine, and rationally, I knew fresh urine was essentially sterile. The revulsion was purely psychological prejudice. It wasn't like feces. Why, royal physicians during the Joseon Dynasty had famously tasted the king's stool to assess his health, hadn't they?
Even so... no. Absolutely bloody not.
Unable to stomach such barbarism myself, I had outsourced the labor, and over the past several dozen trials, the prisoner's sensory reports had aligned with the clinical observations down to the decimal. That meant he had consumed human urine well over thirty times. Perhaps the sheer volume had scrambled his wits, because the man had developed a genuine passion for the craft. Of course, giving him nothing else to drink in place of water certainly helped focus his mind. The salient point was that he had become an instrument of absolute reliability.
“Very good.”
“Shall we administer another dose today?” Liston asked.
“No. You recall what happened when we rushed it.”
“Aye, true enough.”
In the beginning, haste had gotten the better of us. Did anyone truly believe I wanted to spend weeks on end bottling and serving piss? Perish the thought. But impatience had led directly to catastrophe. We had failed to calculate the half-life of insulin, plunging a higher dose into a subject while the previous injection was still coursing through his veins.
—Wait... what's wrong with this one?
Had anyone in this era ever witnessed hypoglycemic shock? They were intimately acquainted with death by starvation, but a sudden crash into profound hypoglycemia had been a terrifying novelty that afternoon.
—What's his game?
—Is the dog putting on an act?
Naturally, the wardens had dismissed his convulsions as malingering. To be fair, the prisoner was partly to blame; when a man lands in chains for cold-blooded murder, he rarely earns the benefit of the doubt. By the time his condition was finally reported to me, his eyes had rolled back into his skull and he was drowning in cold sweats. I managed to stabilize him by pushing glucose straight into his veins, but the following morning, he vanished from the cells. A few days later, I met him again on a slab in the dissection theater.
According to the warden, after displaying such pathetic weakness before his peers, the other inmates had beaten him to death in the exercise yard. Men who shared the miserable fate of being injected like pincushions had turned around and slaughtered the frailest among them without a second thought.
“We cannot afford to put the Duke through that,” I muttered.
“Indeed not...”
Hypoglycemic shock was a nightmare. Profuse cold sweats, violent palpitations, dizziness, and sudden loss of consciousness—often accompanied by the complete loss of bowel and bladder control. A condemned convict could soil himself without shifting the balance of the universe, but if a peer of the realm, a Duke of the British Empire, suffered such a public humiliation, he would likely prefer death. Then again, considering the man strutted through polite society without a care in the world after having his testicles sliced off, his mental fortitude was anything but ordinary.
“Ah, very well. I have a meeting shortly in any case.”
When informed that we had not yet established his maintenance dose, Lord Jamie waved his hand with majestic condescension. For the past several days, his temporary quarters had been Liston's private study. Since a nobleman could hardly be expected to lounge among bone saws and amputation knives, a swarm of liveried servants had descended upon the room earlier that morning to refurnish it. Though the study was too compact to be truly imposing, it now boasted an unmistakable air of patrician opulence. Clad in an impeccably tailored frock coat, the Duke cut such an aristocratic figure that, had I not known his wretched personal quirks, I might have been tempted to admire him.
“They have arrived, Your Grace.”
“Splendid. Show them in.”
A valet—or perhaps a butler—stepped in to announce the guests, and upon Jamie's nod, a procession of high-ranking gentlemen filed inside.
“From Parliament...?” I whispered.
“Aye. Precisely,” Liston murmured back.
There were a few faces I recognized from newspapers and broadsheets, and the moment Liston confirmed my suspicions, my head felt as heavy as lead. I bowed mechanically, repeating hushed greetings, when a broad hand clapped down upon my shoulder. Assuming I was obstructing the doorway, I scrambled out of the way, only for a voice to boom from high above.
“Are you Dr. Py-young, from the kingdom of Joseon?”
“Ah, yes, Your Lordship.”
I answered on instinct before daring to look up. It was a face known to every breathing soul in London—a face one was forbidden not to recognize in the capital.
The Prime Minister.
The pinnacle of political power. Even with the Crown's lingering authority and the entrenched clout of the aristocracy, he was the helmsman of the Empire.
“Hmm, yes... I understand your sentiments toward the Qing Empire are none too favorable?”
“Ah... yes, quite.”
Favorable? Why on earth would they be? In the first place, I knew little about them beyond historical trivia. I had enjoyed the historical novel The Kangxi Emperor in my past life, but Kangxi had been rotting in his tomb for over a century. Yongzheng and Qianlong were long gone as well. The throne belonged to Daoguang now, or whoever had succeeded him. And as a Joseon man, between memories of the Manchu invasions and centuries of tributary humiliation, harboring fond feelings toward the Qing would have been downright perverse.
“I detest them, sir.”
“Is that so? Capital. Splendid news.”
The Prime Minister gave my shoulder two hearty pats before marching into Liston's study. Remembering that the walls had originally been slated for Scheele's green wallpaper laced with arsenic, a cold shiver ran down my spine. The British Empire had narrowly dodged a decapitation strike today. I had just altered the course of world history. Of course, had it not been for my medical meddling, Lord Jamie would never have brought the cabinet to an Edinburgh surgeon's den in the first place.
“What now?”
“What do you mean, what now? We take our leave, of course.”
“Come now, man... They are holding a council of state in my personal quarters. Aren't you the least bit curious? They keep muttering about the Qing... doesn't that strike a chord?”
“Perhaps, but—”
“Besides, your name keeps coming up!”
“Even so, we cannot simply eavesdrop on cabinet affairs!”
Left stranded in the corridor, I had intended to pack my bag and head home, having run out of urine to administer for the day. But Liston was practically buzzing with mischievous temptation. State secrets were being traded behind that oak paneling; if caught, would our heads remain attached to our shoulders?
“We can listen quite easily.”
“Pardon?”
“It is my room, lad. Follow me.”
“Wait, Liston—”
“Modeled after the mechanism of a stethoscope, I had a hollow iron pipe mounted through the ceiling.”
“You mean that wasn't an architectural ornament?”
“Of course not! Now, if we step up to the second floor...”
There was a gaping hole smashed directly through the floorboards above the study. This wasn't even his hospital building!
“How did you manage this?”
“Punched it through with my bare fist, naturally.”
“Is the structural integrity of this building entirely sound?!”
“Give me permission, and I'd punch a hole clean through Buckingham Palace.”
The terrifying part was that he wasn't boasting. The man wasn't right in the head. In moments like this, he barely seemed human at all.
“Ah, I hear them clearly,” Liston whispered, pressing his ear to the opening.
“Oh... well, it isn't perfectly distinct,” I muttered, leaning down beside him.
“Distinct enough, isn't it?”
“I suppose it is.”
Pressing my ear against the aperture, the muffled voices below drifted up with surprising fidelity.
—...You say Dr. Py-young is fond of opium?
—Indeed. I know the Orientals intimately; even the sharpest among them possess an irresistible craving for the poppy. Though, truth be told, who among our own kind harbors any real distaste for it? But tell us, Commander, what is the situation on the ground?
Following the distinct baritones of the Prime Minister and Lord Jamie, an unfamiliar, martial voice answered.
—How is it? They are utterly consumed by it, Your Grace. The decay is spreading far swifter than anticipated.
—And should this provoke an open conflict?
—In my estimation... the Qing Empire is vastly weaker than we feared.
—Surely you exaggerate.
—I stake my career on it, my Lord.
—Hmm... Is that so? Well, if the commander on the front lines judges it thus...
I snapped my head toward Liston. Was my face as ghostly pale as his? It had to be.
“Are we... truly permitted to listen to this?”
“Shall we withdraw? This is talk of war,” Liston murmured, the blood draining from his cheeks.
“Precisely! Why in God's name did you drag me up here to spy on this?!”
“How was I to know they would discuss an imperial campaign?!”
We were ruined. Knowledge of state secrets like this had a habit of ending at the gallows. I braced my palms against the floorboards to haul myself upright, but the very next utterance froze me where I knelt.
—Ah, by the by, word has spread that Dr. Py-young has succeeded in curing the sugar sickness.
—Mmm. It appears so. Damian is hardly the sort of fellow to bandy about idle rumors, is he? And the Chief Magistrate spoke to the very same effect.
—Oh... So his presence here in Edinburgh is part of the treatment?
—Precisely.
—Once your course is concluded, Your Grace, I must beg an introduction. My father has been ailing terribly of late.
—Ah, has he? But did you not express reservations regarding the man's Oriental heritage?
—If he can vanquish the sugar sickness, what does his lineage matter? Mark my words, if his cure proves true, the Crown may well bestow a title upon him.
—Indeed... A peerage. Hmm...
A title? A peer of the British Empire?
An Oriental nobleman of the British realm?
I stared wide-eyed at Liston, wondering whether my face was burning as violently red as his.