It was the question the lady was waiting for. Also, the sad attitude. “I want to know if your medicines work.”
Yihui huffed out a breath. “They work for some, sometimes very well.” She didn’t like answering things twice.
“And if I told you that your life depended on good medicine working well?”
“I would tell you that I will do my best. I cannot promise how your body will answer to my efforts.” She lifted her gaze, searching the lady for signs of illness and not finding any. “What is your complaint?”
The woman laughed. “I have so many, but I am not ill if that’s what you mean.”
“Then why—”
“Because I am owner here. Because the women here need medicines. Can you stop a pregnancy?”
“Most times, yes.”
“Can you prevent one?”
“Many times, yes.” She winced. “If I have the right plants. I do not know if thunder god root is grown here.” She spoke the English translation for the Chinese words. All her plant knowledge was from China. She did not know if there were English equivalents.
The woman nodded as if she had expected that. Then, before she could speak, a polite knock sounded on the door.
“Enter.”
The door opened as two very large footmen carried in a table and set it down. A moment later, chairs followed, linens and a lovely tea service. Yihui’s stomach grumbled as the lid was pulled off of a very nice roasted duck. The duke’s men had grabbed her before she’d received her evening tray, so she had not eaten yet this night. Odd how quickly she had become used to regular meals.
“Excellent timing, Madame Florina. Please, will you join us?”
The madame nodded even as a footman held out a seat for Madame Sabate. Meanwhile, Yihui noted the distance between the table and her cot. How was she to hobble over there to eat?
She wasn’t. She didn’t even have to say a word as Madame Florina spoke for the first time.
“Shall we bring the table to you, Miss Wong? Or would you prefer to be carried to a chair?”
The less she moved, the better. “If I could eat from the bed?”
It was no sooner mentioned than done. She was even given a cushion to lift her higher on the bed so that she sat at a better height to the table.
There was a great business of serving the food, pouring the tea, and generally making the meal a very elegant one. Yihui’s mouth watered at the abundance of food, and she wondered if she were about to be poisoned. She also wondered if she cared. Whatever was to come would happen whether or not she was well fed. They had no need to go to such elaborate measures to drug her. Tainted water would be enough.
Still, she waited until the others had drunk and eaten at least a bite. If there was poison in the food, then they would be dosed as well. She tried to eat daintily, as they did. Emmaline and Millie had taught her the use English cutlery, and she felt her skills adequate to that. So, too, was she able to answer the questions that came with the food.
“What is thunder root? How does it prevent pregnancy?”
“How did you survive your fever? Did you brew the tea yourself?”
“Will you ever be able to walk again?”
She answered them honestly, trying to learn as much from their reactions as they were learning from her. She was not disappointed. These two women were of uncommon intelligence. Indeed, with them, she found a matching fury at the domination of men. Both of them had been cut, beaten, andridiculed. Both had found a way to band together to take money and power from the men.
Or perhaps notfromthe men butforthemselves. To her shock, they did not wish to destroy the men who had hurt them. They wished to use them, milk them for money, and then turn all their gold into something else.
“Medicine for women. Treatment for us. No men, no interference.”
Yihui lifted her chin, intrigued. “How can you do this without men?”
Madame Sabate smiled. “I own property, Miss Wong. Several buildings, in fact, with a garden in the middle.” She shrugged. “Or rather, an overrun pile of dirt in the middle, but it can become a garden. You can grow plants there. You can grow this thunder root.”
Madame Florina spoke up. “You will physic us and the women we send you.”
