But one of his university professors had recommended him to someone on the retired Emperor’s staff, and here he was: physician to the Emperor’s cook.

Obediently, he changed into a silk robe and put on his court hat.  His full trousers were dark about the bottom from the dew-covered garden, but they would dry, and the old water stains were hardly noticeable among the pattern of small blossoms.  Taking up his case, he left the house.

He did not get very far.  A small boy was lying in wait for him and rushed up to seize the doctor’s free hand with his small, grimy one.  “Come,” he cried, pulling him toward a malodorous tenement.

The doctor resisted.  The child barely reached his waist.

“Please, Doctor,” the boy cried, “please take a look at her.  Just a little look.  She’s not eating anything and she throws up all the time.”

No use pointing out that people don’t vomit what they haven’t swallowed.  Doctor Yamada held his breath as he ducked into the small, dark hole where a woman was lying on a straw pallet, covered with a ragged piece of cloth.  She looked up at him from dull eyes in a worn, middle-aged face.  But poverty and illness add years, and he was not surprised when she told him that she was only twenty years old.  There was no one else except her son.  Yamada did not ask, but the boy’s father had probably left, if he had ever shared a roof with them.  Three other children had died, she said.  Now there were only the two of them.  She told him these things pleadingly, with a glance at her son.  Yamada thought: only twenty, and four children already?  The poor started young and burned out quickly.  The “vomiting” was not from food.  She was bringing up blood and would die soon.  But he left her medicine and some money for nourishing soup and wine to give her strength.  And he told the child where to find him.

Their smiles were full of hope and relief.  He bit his lip, tousled the boy’s hair, and left.

The sunny autumn morning seemed dimmed when he emerged from the tenement. He took the bridge over the Kamo River and walked into the leafy eastern suburbs without taking the customary pleasure in the lush trees and the gilded roofs and spires of pagodas and palaces.

The Retired Emperor’s palace was large.  His cook lived in better quarters than many an impoverished nobleman who huddled with family and servants in some ruined mansion in the old part of the city.  Doctor Yamada was shown to the ailing man’s room which overlooked a garden full of thriving cabbages and onions.  The fat cook was sitting up in his comfortable bedding, his shaven head polished to a shine, and his huge belly decorously covered by a flowered robe.  A tray with a number of empty dishes stood beside him.  He was clearly feeling better and had a visitor who sat on a cushion beside him.

Doctor Yamada glanced at the stranger, who was older than he and not particularly handsome with his square face and incipient jowls.  He wore silk but no hat, which meant that he had walked here from his private quarters in the palace.  No doubt he was some minor functionary in one of the Retired Emperor’s bureaus.  Since the visitor regarded him with a cheerful smile, Yamada made him a small bow, then turned to his patient.  “And how much food have you consumed this morning,  Kosugi?” he asked, frowning at the tray.  “Are you bound and determined to disobey my instructions?”

Kosugi gulped and rubbed his shiny scalp.  “I’m much better, Doctor.  An empty belly undermines a man’s strength, and I must get back to work today.”  He shot a glance at his visitor.

Yamada snorted his disbelief.  Kosugi, like most fat men, enjoyed his rest, and this time he had been sick enough to claim at least two more days of leisure.  The doctor lifted one of the empty dishes and smelled it.  “What is this?  Surely not fried fish?  Are you mad?  What else did you devour, you great gobble-guts?”

The visitor chuckled at this.

The cook blushed.  “Just a little rice, that’s all.  And a very small egg.  A few vegetables.  And a pickle or two.”

“A pickle or two?  I told you to stay away from raw things and from salt and vinegar, and you eat pickles?”  Yamada looked at him in disgust.  “I trust at least you avoided mental activity and sexual intercourse.”

Kosugi brightened.  “Of course, Doctor.  I was most particular about those.”

The visitor laughed softly.

Yamada set down his case and bent to prod Kosugi’s fat belly.  “Does this hurt?” he asked when his patient grimaced.

“No, but . . .” muttered the cook, “. . . can’t it wait till later?”

“Why?  I’m a busy man.  People are dying while you waste my time.”

Kosugi rolled his eyes toward the visitor who said, “You should have introduced us, Kosugi.  Your manners are abominable.”

Kosugi flushed.  “It’s only Doctor Yamada, Sire.”

Sire?  Yamada swung around, shocked.  The stranger looked delighted by his confusion.  Panicked by his mistake, the doctor knelt, touching his head to the boards.  “I beg your pardon, Your Majesty.”

A soft laugh.  “Of course, of course.  How could you know, Doctor?  Please get up and continue.  Your examination is most instructive.”

Yamada sat up.  So this was the retired emperor?  This unassuming man in the gray silk robe, sitting on the floor beside his cook?  He looked at him nervously.  The Emperor smiled.  He has bad teeth, Yamada thought and felt a little better.

“I suffer occasionally from an excess of wind,” the emperor told him affably.  “Naturally I blame it on Kosugi’s terrible cooking, but I don’t have the heart to throw out the fat slug.  What do you recommend, Doctor?”

Before he could stop himself, Yamada said, “Throwing out the fat slug would solve two problems, Sire, yours and his.  He eats too much of his own rich cooking.”

The emperor laughed heartily.  “You hear him, Kosugi?  He is a learned man.  Who are we to question his wisdom?”

Kosugi looked shaken.  He scrambled to his knees and clasped his hands beseechingly. “Sire, please don’t listen to him.  He’s only a quack.  What does he know about fine cooking?  Lord Kiyomori praises my dishes, and Her Majesty always asks for my sweet dumplings when she visits.”

The Emperor waved a hand.  “Don’t worry.  I like your dumplings, too.  But the doctor is quite right.  Rich food does not agree with a man’s constitution.  A beggar’s life is hard, but at least he will not die from overeating.  Is that not so, Doctor?”

Yamada was angry with both of them.  He was normally mild-mannered and did not stand on his dignity, but when a mere cook, who only yesterday had been weeping and begging for relief, called him a quack, he drew the line.  And having just visited a young woman who was dying, not from excess but from abject poverty, he said harshly, “Men die as easily from hunger, sire.  But since Kosugi thinks so little of my skills, I shall leave him to his fate.  I have more deserving patients waiting.”  He bowed very deeply to the emperor, then snatched up his case and left the room.

No doubt, they were too astonished to stop him.

Yamada strode off, still fuming, past the elegant halls and out through the palace gates.  Halfway home, it occurred to him that he had just lost his only respectable patient and that Otori would blame him.  And next he realized that he no longer had any excuse to see Toshiko again.

That he might also have offended the emperor did not bother him at all.

The Dragon King

The Retired Emperor sat on his dais, his feet crossed at the ankles, and his stiff black silk robe spread neatly around him.  A step below him kneeled the men who ruled the nation under his direction.  Though the meeting was formal and of great significance, most of them had just realized it was a token affair.